Hanna

[student99]

Is there a article about the film Hanna stunt work coming out in the magazine? I understand Jeff Imada trained the girl who plays Hanna.


http://www.hannathemovie.com/

[GeneChing]

Imada has been doing a lot of work in the industry, so if we did every film by him, that would just be too much. But Hanna looks particularly interesting and the promo coincides with Wondercon next week in S.F., and we always send a few people there to sniff out what's hot and fresh.

We'll report on the e-zine. We do the bulk of our film reports on the e-zine now as it can be updated more quickly than print. Our upcoming issue is an exception.

[student99]

I've read the actress was schooled in Wing Chun. Small people art?

[GeneChing]

I did a little websearch and confirmed the WC. I'm slated to see a screener tomorrow. Unfortunately, all reviews are embargoed until next week, but we'll have something for you then. Stay tuned.

[student99]

Thanks for checking the film out. I read it has been floating around Hollywood for some years but not produced till now.

Attachment 6077

[GeneChing]

Thoroughly enjoyable.

Stay tuned.

More to come...

[TaichiMantis]

She was on Ellen this week. Ellen asked her if she got bruised and beat up in training for the film. She said not so much, more that she hurt other people.

...everyone knows newbies lack control

[Jimbo]

This is one of the movies I've been looking forward to seeing for a while now.

[student99]

She was on Ellen this week. Ellen asked her if she got bruised and beat up in training for the film. She said not so much, more that she hurt other people.

...everyone knows newbies lack control

I know of teachers who lack control and hurt people too.

[CFT]

I did a little websearch and confirmed the WC.

Wow, WCK, the choice of the media assassin. Must have been Red and Black Checkered Flag Wing Chun

[GeneChing]

I'll ask her in person.

[student99]

I keep finding preview material, acting craft and action scenes shown.

After the ads:

http://www.screenslam.com/cinema.php...HqGPHlBNYyXb3n


http://www.screenslam.com/cinema.php...9hYtNhsW8zEZ8H

[GeneChing]

We'll have our review up shortly.

'Hanna' review: Bogus premise, but Ronan great
Mick LaSalle, Chronicle Movie Critic
San Francisco Chronicle April 7, 2011 04:00 AM
Friday, April 8, 2011
Focus Features

ALERT VIEWER Action drama. Starring Saoirse Ronan, Cate Blanchett and Eric Bana. Directed by Joe Wright. (PG-13. 114 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)

Saoirse Ronan is a pretty young actress whose gaze is just disquieting enough to make sense of "Hanna," about a teenage killing machine. Like a Nordic Madonna in a late 15th century painting, she has an open-eyed stillness that can suggest either internal peace or an absence of human feeling. Both suggestions fit nicely in "Hanna."

The movie gets off to an unsettling start, though it may be the wrong kind of unsettling. The opening sequence shows young Hanna, traversing the snowy woods, hunting a caribou. Because the movie lacks a seal from the American Humane Society, I can't report on whether the animal was harmed or not. But certainly one of two things is true: Either a fine animal was sacrificed in order to make a colossally unimportant movie. Or Creative Artists Agency needs to sign the caribou, because that animal can act.

Joe Wright directs "Hanna" with all the vigorousness and psychological astuteness that he brought to "Atonement," but he might as well have spent two years polishing a rock. The rock is shiny, but no one will ever mistake it for a diamond or even a garnet. Ronan plays a girl raised in the woods by her father (Eric Bana) to be a killer, knowing that as soon as she re-enters the world, elements within the American intelligence community will be coming after her. He trains her in weapons and tests her reflexes by putting a gun to her head when she is asleep.

The movie's premise is essentially bogus, in that Hanna and Dad have been off the grid for 16 years and no one is looking for them. They could easily just slip back into society under assumed names. Instead, they announce themselves, in order to provoke a direct confrontation with an evil intelligence officer played by Cate Blanchett, who, for this role, assumes precisely the kind of Southern accent that, in movies, always means trouble.

Aspiring to intelligence, "Hanna" eschews the jolly and appealing heartlessness of an action thriller like "Salt" and invites us, instead, to respond as though these horrors were really happening. So the killings are personal, and the world is gloomy and claustrophobic, and yet all that bad feeling is inspired by a movie that, in the end, is no smarter than any other run-of-the-mill cinematic death fest, just grimmer, bleaker and sadder.

Still, those who meet the movie on its own terms and don't expect a masterpiece may appreciate the commitment of Wright and the actors. Blanchett goes out of her way, for example, to be repellent here. Thin as a cartoon villain and with her hair dyed red and arranged in some round cut that announces her vanity and cluelessness, she is the incarnation of smug, protected evil. Waiting to see her get what's coming to her becomes the second most compelling reason to keep watching.

The first is Ronan, who at only 16 has remarkable thinking eyes and a serious actor's intelligence. In one scene, she rides on the back of a motorcycle, and the driver asks, "Are you scared?" She answers, "Of what?" with innocence and faint confusion, and yet without hitting it too hard. She just tosses off the question knowing it will land, and in that moment, she gives us the character.

-- Advisory: Lots of violence, and most of it isn't fun.

I must beg to differ with Mick (who's reviews I always enjoy). I found the violence to be a lot of fun.

[JamesC]

I have to admit that i'm not excited to see this one. It just doesn't seem like there will be enough solid action to keep me interested since we already know what the movie is about and how it will likely end.

And the review is right about the ridiculous southern accents. Why are they always portrayed as the evil monsters in movies? If I ever visit some of you guys up north, I better not get shunned for my accent.

[GeneChing]

HANNA: The Girl Who Kicked Ass by me with Patrick Lugo

@JamesC - if you think having a southern accent makes you villainous, try being Asian.