On the eve of the Toronto International Film Festival, clips have now been unveiled for two of the premiering films hoping to make an impact: Derick Martini‘s adaptation of Andrea Portes’ coming-of-age novel “Hick” and Marc Forster‘s take on the real-life story of a criminal-turned-do-gooder “Machine Gun Preacher.”
Martini returns to the fest after 2008’s “Lymelife” with his star-studded film featuring Blake Lively, Chloe Moretz and Eddie Redmayne alongside Alec Baldwin, Juliette Lewis and Rory Culkin. The story follows a 13-year-old Nebraskan girl named Luli (Moretz), and her rough-going life on the road after she runs away from her neglectful parents to be taken under the wing of hard-living grifter Glenda (Lively). Accents abound in this clip from MTV, to the point where we’re not quite sure what the heck is going on, but we’ll say this: Redmayne looks good in a cowboy hat. Watch below:
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Next up is another look at “Quantum Of Solace” helmer Forster’s “Machine Gun Preacher,” which stars Gerard Butler, Michelle Monaghan, Michael Shannon, Kathy Baker and Souleymane Sy Savane. The first trailer made us feel like we were witnessing Forster and Butler’s attempt at Oscar bait for the adaptation of the Sam Childers story — a former drug-dealing Hell’s Angel who found God, set up an orphanage in Sudan in the 1990s, and then formed a militia to prevent the children from being turned into soldiers. We’ll try and stay optimistic, particularly with the supporting players involved, but this god-fearing scene — which seems borrowed from/influenced by “The Hurt Locker” — doesn’t give us much hope. The visual themes and symbolism here are a bit over the top.