Antoine Fuqua

Antoine Fuqua at a Directors Guild Of America special screening of 'Inferno'. Los Angeles, California, United States - Tuesday 25th October 2016

Denzel Washington attending the New York premiere of 'The Magnificent Seven' held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, United States - Monday 19th September 2016

Denzel Washington, Antoine Fuqua and Peter Sarsgaard

The Magnificent Seven Trailer

After the murder of her husband, a widow and resident of the town of Rose Creek finds herself seeking revenge over the brutal methods of Bartholomew Bogue, the man responsible for the death of her partner. Bartholomew is a ruthless industrialist and has his sights set on the town of Rose Creek and will go to any lengths to take it from the residents.

The widow makes contact with a bounty hunter named Sam Chisolm who agrees to help her look for gun fighters to help protect the town. Though the money is little, Chisolm begins his search for skilled gun slingers who might be able to help lead the resistance against Bogue. Amongst the recruits are Josh Farraday, Goodnight Robicheaux, Jack Horne, Billy Rocks, Vasquez and Red Harvest. What begins as purely a monetary commitment for the men soon turns into something far more personal when they experience first-hand the lengths Bogue is willing to go to.

The Magnificent Seven is a remake of the 1960 movie which originally starred Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach and Steve McQueen. The new version of the movie follows a similar plot which has been adapted and written by True Detective writer Nic Pizzolatto and Richard Wenk. The score was composed by James Horner shortly before his death in 2015.

Southpaw Review

OK

Slick direction and meaty performances may be enough for some viewers, but this boxing drama's complete lack of originality keeps it from being something memorable. Centring on a committed performance from Jake Gyllenhaal, it's always watchable, but it's rather annoying that every time an interesting theme is raised the script sidesteps into yet another boxing-movie cliche.

Gyllenhaal plays Billy Hope, an orphan raised in the system who rose to become the world light heavyweight champion. He has savvy wife Maureen (Rachel McAdams) at his side, smart young daughter Leila (Oona Laurence) cheering him on and the fiercest manager (Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson) in the business. But personal failures, unexpected tragedies and financial crises suddenly bring an end to his millionaire lifestyle, leaving him alone and wandering the New York streets in search of a place to live. He seeks help from grizzled gym owner Tick (Forest Whitaker), who helps Billy rebuild himself so he can take on his nemesis (Miguel Gomez).

Billy is such a hot-head that he's not easy to like, continually blowing his top to make everything much worse for himself and his family. Gyllenhaal is an astonishing mass of muscles, scars and tattoos, with a burning inner rage that's startlingly believable. He also works hard to earn the audience's sympathies, despite the blunt superficiality of Kurt Sutter's script. Whitaker's role is even less nuanced; he's little more than the formulaic gruff trainer who's always played by an ageing Oscar winner. McAdams injects some snappy energy in her too-brief role, and it's actually Laurence who emerges as the film's most resonant character, effortlessly stealing her scenes right out from under Gyllenhaal's smashed-in nose.

Continue reading: Southpaw Review

Southpaw Trailer

The life of a boxer has never been easy, but for heavyweight champion, Billy Hope (Jake Gyllenhaal), he is able to make by. With the love of his wife Maureen (Rachel McAdams) and daughter Leila (Oona Laurence), Billy can take any beating and dish out worse. But when an altercation takes place that leads to his wife's murder, Billy loses himself, and is deemed to be unable to look after his daughter. Now, with no career, no friends, and almost no hope, Billy must do what he can to regain his title and win the chance to look after his daughter once again.

Continue: Southpaw Trailer

Jake Gyllenhaal Gets Ripped For Southpaw: Is There Anything He Can't Do?

By Holly Williams in Movies / TV / Theatre on 12 December 2014

Jake Gyllenhaal Rachel McAdams Naomie Harris Forest Whitaker 50 Cent Rita Ora Antoine Fuqua

And the winner of the most dedicated method actor award goes to... Jake Gyllenhaal!

Jake Gyllenhaal is a shape shifter. There is no other explanation. We barely recognised him whilst he was filming 'Nightcrawler', with his sunken cheeks and generally gaunt demeanour, but now he's transformed yet again into a sinewy muscle-man for his forthcoming boxing drama 'Southpaw'.

Gyllenhaal looks completely different to usual

He's never exactly been a typecast actor, but it seems Jake Gyllenhaal can literally perform in any role. He can be unnerving ('Donnie Darko'), not to mention dedicated ('Brokeback Mountain') and now it seems he can manipulate his body in a matter of months. He lost thirty pounds to play the creepy, morally corrupt crime journalist Lou Bloom in Dan Gilroy's latest movie 'Nightcrawler', and now he's picked up his calorie intake and bulked up immensely to play a middle weight boxer in Antoine Fuqua's 'Southpaw'. We only wish we had that much self-discipline!

Continue reading: Jake Gyllenhaal Gets Ripped For Southpaw: Is There Anything He Can't Do?

The Equalizer - Featurette and Clip

Director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, Olympus Has Fallen) talks about what makes The Equalizer (Denzel Washington) different from other action movie heroes. The name comes from how he spends his days as a "regular Joe", but uses hand-to-hand combat in order to fight his way through legions of bad guys "levelling the playing field". Producer Todd Black (A Knight's Tale, The Pursuit of Happiness) goes on to explain The Equalizer's skill set. He uses impeccable awareness of his surroundings to manipulate his environment into a weapon - this leads to stunt coordinator Keith Woulard discussing Washington's desire to make the fight scenes "dirty and gritty, but he want[ed] it smart".

Continue: The Equalizer - Featurette and Clip

The Equalizer Trailer

Robert McCall has a modest job at a hardware store in Boston where he longs for a peaceful life on his own to live out the rest of his days. He is a retired black ops commando and, unfortunately for him, that part of his life is not over - merely laying dormant. After meeting a young girl named Teri and seeing her trapped in a circle of abuse and danger within what appears to be a gang of pimps, he vows to help her. However, after taking them down with an extraordinary amount of grace and dexterity, he discovers that they are in fact part of the powerful Russian mafia who are hellbent on killing him. The odds aren't looking good for McCall, whose sense of justice and responsibility has been quickly reignited, but when it really comes down to it, it's difficult to tell who should be afraid of whom.

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The Most Undiscovered Movies On Netflix

By George Percival in Movies / TV / Theatre on 14 May 2014

Wes Anderson Alfonso Cuaron Jamie Uys Stephen Dorff Antoine Fuqua Chow Yun-Fat Macaulay Culkin Diego Luna Gael Garcia Bernal

People often complain about the selection of movies on Netflix- we pick out some undiscovered gems.

Most films on the lower rungs of Netflix occupy that position for a single reason: they’re downright terrible. The acting is at best laughable and at worst cringe-worthy, whilst the script seems to be the product of baboons who possess a slightly above average intelligence. Elsewhere, the special effects are seemingly artefacts from design software that became obsolete once Windows 98 was released and the goofs and continuity errors come thick and fast. But amongst the schlock, the horribly ill-conceived box office flops and throwaway Chuck Norris vehicles are a selection of films hardly deserving of their placement amongst the vast expanse of Hollywood detritus. We’ve all sifted through the lower echelons of the vast Netflix database, ambivalently scrolling past Beverly Hills Ninja and Death Wish 4 and laughing at the hilarity of shoe-string budget horror C-movies such as Return Of The Killer Tomatoes and Strippers Vs Werewolves. Hiding amongst the most forgettable and artistically hollow filmic endeavours are some criminally overlooked works of cinematic art. Here is a selection of filmic diamonds who have unfairly found themselves confined to the Netflix motion picture ghetto:

Rebellion

Rebellion (2011), Director: Matheiu Kossovitz

Continue reading: The Most Undiscovered Movies On Netflix

Olympus Has Fallen Trailer

President of the United States Benjamin Asher has had enough trauma while being in office, and things are about to get a whole lot worse. What with the current conflicts between the States and North Korea, there is a known danger that a war could erupt between the two countries; however, Asher had little to suspect when he welcomed a South Korean ministerial aide into the White House. In a terrifying turn of events, he is kidnapped by the aide who reveals himself to be Kang, a North Korean terrorist with little interest in negotiations. Trapped in the building as it becomes under siege by Kang's cohorts is Mike Banning; a former Secret Service agent who was discredited after making a mistake at the expense of a life while acting as a Presidential guard. Despite his being shunned from the government for his errors, with his insider knowledge he becomes the only hope they have of rescuing the President from a grisly fate.

Continue: Olympus Has Fallen Trailer

Django Unchained Controversy: Antoine Fuqua Calls Out Spike Lee For Calling Out Quentin Tarantino

By Hayley Avron in Movies / TV / Theatre on 02 January 2013

Quentin Tarantino Antoine Fuqua Spike Lee

The movie director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) has weighed into the Spike Lee vs Quentin Tarantino Django Unchained debate. Spike Lee called out Tarantino for using the word “n*gger” in the movie. Tarantino’s defence was that he was merely replicating the language that would have been used in the 1950s. Oh and Spike Lee hasn’t even watched the movie, but still felt the need to accuse Tarantino of being disrespectful.

Speaking at the Capri Hollywood Film Festival, Fuqua told the indiewire blog that Tarantino doesn’t have “a racist bone in his body” and called out Spike for dissing Quentin in public. “That's just not the way you do things," he said. "If you disagree with the way a colleague did something, call him up, invite him out for a coffee, talk about it. But don't do it publicly.” He also added that he felt the language used in the film was probably appropriate, in terms of historical accuracy: “[We're] supposed to find some truth in films, and if you set a film in the 1850s, you're going to hear the word 'n*gger,' because that's the way they spoke then, and you're going to discuss slavery because that was part of the reality. I want my kids to hear those kinds of words in the right context, so that they'll know that language is not OK."

So, to summarise Fuqua has publicly called out Spike Lee for publicly calling out Quentin Tarantino and neither one of them has actually watched Django Unchained.