Oscar Outlook 2012: People Like Us

In People Like Us, Chris Pine will play a man who after attending the funeral of his record-producer father in Los Angeles, must take a trip to deliver $150,000 to a sister (Elizabeth Banks) he has never met.  The 38-year-old Banks is playing a character that is supposed to be thirty, but considering my recent post on Nicole Kidman, this should be negligible.  It's apparently a plum role if you consider those who were turned down or dropped out: Amy Adams, Hilary Swank, and Rachel McAdams.  This will be somewhat of Pine's leading-man coming-out ceremony for Star Trek's new Captain James T. Kirk.  It has been almost three years since the reboot and he hasn't had the opportunity to show off his dramatic skills in a central role.  I imagine that had a lot to do with his recent parting of ways with longtime boutique agency SDB Partners.




The cast also includes Michelle Pfeiffer, Philip Baker Hall, Jon Favreau, and Olivia Wilde.

Director Alex Kurtzman has made a place for himself thanks to his association with JJ Abrams, working in the capacity as writer and/or producer as such TV shows as Alias, Hawaii Five-0, and Fringe, as well as the recent incarnations of Star Trek.  This will be his feature debut.  He has worked alongside writer/producer Roberto Orci for over a decade, who cowrote the script with him and Jody Lambert.  Both Kurtzman and Orci are coproducing the movie alongside Bobby Cohen, who gravitates towards Oscar bait (The Cider House Rules, Memoirs of a Geisha, and Revolutionary Road), and Clayton Townsend (The Skeleton Key, eight Oliver Stone films starting with Born on the Fourth of July and a handful of Judd Apatow movies including Bridesmaids, Knocked Up, and the upcoming This Is 40.)

Robert Leighton handled the editing.  His work on A Few Good Men was recognized by the AMPAS. He has had a long-running partnership with its director Rob Reiner.  He's also cut Bull Durham, most of the Christopher Guest mockumentaries and the upcoming Now You See Me.  Ron Howard's cinematographer Salvatore Totino stepped in behind camera.  Production designer Ida Random has collaborated with several directors over the period of his career like Lawrence Kasdan, Kevin Costner, and Danny Devito.  He also joined Curtis Hanson's team for this year's Of Men and Mavericks.  He has received one nomination to date for Rain Man in 1988.  The original Total Recall's art director James E. Tocci offered his services for this production.  The set decorator for The Sixth Sense, Inception, and Bridesmaids.  He'll also get credit on this year's One Shot.  Coen brother costume designer Mary Zophres scored a nomination for True Grit.  She also worked on The Gangster Squad that will come out later this year.  Composer AR Rahman collected five nominations (and two wins) from his Danny Boyle films Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours.  Rahman has a long list of credits in the Indian film industry.

Filmed primarily in January of 2011 in various portions of the LA-area,  Dreamworks will release People Like Us in the US on the 29th of June.

Also on the Radar:

Anna Karenina     Argo     Beasts of the Southern Wild     The Bourne Legacy     The Dark Knight Rises     Dark Shadows     Django Unchained     Gangster Squad     Great Expectations     The Great Gatsby     The Hobbit     Hope Springs     The Hunger Games     Hyde Park on the Hudson     Lawless     Lincoln     Lola Versus     Lovelace     Low Life     Magic Mike     The Master     Les Misérables     Life of Pi     Moonrise Kingdom     People Like Us     Prometheus     To Rome with Love     Ruby Sparks     Savages     Seeking a Friend for the End of the World     The Silver Linings Playbook     Smashed     The Surrogate     Trouble with the Curve     Won't Back Down 


The Avengers     The Amazing Spider-Man     Men in Black III