REMINISCENCE : Promotion and Release (SPOILER ALERT)

[jo]

[jo]

[jo]

Wow -- what a marketing idea!

I clicked on the LINK for MEMORY LANE --

and this is what I got

www.memorylaneservices.com/#/


These are the services offered --

WHY MEMORY LANE?
Compare Us

*Short and long term memory revisitation
*Neural path plotting
*Predictive emotional analytics
*8k-HDR POV capture
*Cloud based storage
*128bit moment encryption
*2FA Security
*24hr technical support

And click on --

TESTIMONIALS!

"Real" testimonials included!



I wonder if it was Lisa Joy who brainstormed this whole concept with WarnerBros


Jo

[jo]

Here it is --

Somehow I am getting tragic notes from the many scenes.

How will this all end ??


Jo

[jo]

On YouTube --




I posted the trailer on a BWW Music Man thread

Just to show Jackman's range -- this is a role that is a far cry from Prof Harold Hill

[jo]

Since when has a trailer not part of an IP ( blockbuster franchises) been reviewed like this

EDITORS' PICK|Jun 3, 2021,09:45am EDT|1 views

‘Reminiscence’ Trailer: Hugh Jackman Stars In Warner Bros.’ Latest Big-Swing Fantasy
Scott Mendelson

Hollywood & Entertainment
I cover the film industry.

The trailer for Lisa Joy's 'Reminiscence,' starring Hugh Jackman and Rebecca Ferguson, will make you nostalgic for when movies like this had a commercial chance in hell of theatrical success.


Following a brief Q&A with the cast (Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Ferguson, Thandiwe Newton and Daniel Wu) and the writer/director (Lisa Joy, co-creator of HBO’s Westworld), Warner Bros. has now made the first teaser trailer for Reminiscence available for all to enjoy. It looks like a banger, an old-school, seemingly big-budget (and big-scaled) big stars + high concept fantasy which goes the Strange Days/Dark City route of blending hardboiled detective melodrama with newfangled “What if?” sci-fi. It’s also the kind of “no IP” flick that arguably risked being sold to a streamer absent the controversial theaters/HBO Max scheme of 2021.

In this case, as climate change has turned the world to ruin, a flooded Miami, the population has retreated into a process which allows folks to re-experience their own memories. After all, when the present-tense leaves little to look forward to, nothing is more addictive than the past. The combo of a post-climate change hellscape, complete with the well-off walling themselves off from the worst of it, and a specific nostalgic distraction of the mind, is not unlike Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Ernest Cline’s 80’s pop culture sci-fi nostalgia fest Ready Player One.

I can’t speak to the book, but the movie seemed like a meta-commentary on its own pop culture nostalgia. Specifically, it ended with the man who essentially created modern pop culture (personified by Mark Rylance’s mournful future-tech Willy Wonka figure James Halliday) looking on at the culture that grew up on his art and weeping at its moral and practical failures. I don’t expect any such deconstructive self-criticism here, if only because Joy is “just” a talented professional with an interesting idea for an original sci-fi action thriller.

The trailer, which is pretty long without being aggressively spoiler-y, involves a mysterious femme fatale (Ferguson) with whom our rugged veteran of the most recent cataclysmic wars gets ensnared. The trailer is cryptic in terms of their past relationship, or whether there even was a past relationship, but you get plenty of ridiculously good-looking movie stars looking good and actually engaging in something beyond PG-rated flirtations. For those justly complaining that modern Hollywood movies never get hot and/or heavy anymore, well...

In terms of “what we get,” it’s an old-school studio biggie, with a budget of around (give or take rebates and the like) $65 million. That’s cheaper than the disastrous 2014 Johnny Depp/Rebecca Hall sci-fi flick Transcendence, which to be fair basically jumped the shark as soon as Depp’s scientist had his consciousness inserted into a machine. Moreover, by 2021 standards, especially with the whole “in theaters and on HBO Max” variable still in play, I’m sure Warner Bros. would be pretty happy with Transcendence’s $100 million global gross.


As much as I might use the occasion to whine about audiences not flocking to theaters to see the kind of sprawling, star-driven, original Hollywood films they all claim Hollywood doesn’t make anymore, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that neither Strange Days nor Dark City (nor the new-to-you likes of Surrogates) were big commercial hits in their day, gaining cult fandoms based on select critical raves and post-theatrical discovery. There’s something to be said for Warner Bros. still releasing a movie like this despite the long odds of success.

That’s something to consider when you hold up Warner Bros. as “the worst studio ever” because you still want Justice League 2. Anyway, Reminiscence premieres on HBO Max and in theaters on August 20, where it will hopefully remind audiences more of Inception than Transcendence.


Rebecca Ferguson and Hugh Jackman in Lisa Joy's 'Reminiscence' BEN ROTHSTEIN, COURTESY OF WARNER BROS

Hugh Jackman in Lisa Joy's 'Reminiscence' BEN ROTHSTEIN

Thandiwe Newton and Hugh Jackman in Lisa Joy's 'Reminiscence' BEN ROTHSTEIN

There's some fear that movies like this might not be commercial successes -- but there is also a continued longing for original, well-made movies!

JO

[jo]

Everything You Need to Know About ‘Reminiscence’: Hugh Jackman, Director Lisa Joy, and More Pull Back the Curtain on Their Sci-fi Noir
Posted on Thursday, June 3rd, 2021 by Ben Pearson

Reminiscence details

Since its premiere, HBO’s Westworld inspired its audience to become internet detectives, lighting up Reddit boards and social media with theories as they tried to solve the mysteries co-creator Lisa Joy helped concoct. Joy knows that viewers will want to get ahead of a mystery any time one is at the heart of a story. In her first feature film, the science fiction mystery film Reminiscence, hints about the plot can be found in the movie’s score, which is composed by Westworld‘s Ramin Djawadi.

The music is “incredibly important,” Joy explained during a press event yesterday ahead of the debut of the film’s first trailer. Each of the film’s main characters has a theme, and if you listen closely, there are clues in the score to help guide you to what’s really going on in this obsessive mystery tale.

We learned a lot more about Reminiscence from Joy and stars Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Ferguson, Thandiwe Newton, and Daniel Wu. Here’s what you need to know.



A House and a Name
Reminiscence came about at an “interesting crossroads” in Joy’s life. At her grandparents’ home in the English countryside, there was a plaque on the stone house “announcing the name of the home, as if it were some kind of grand manor,” which she had been curious about since her childhood. In the wake of her grandfather’s death, she visited his home and among his belongings she stumbled across a photo of a beautiful woman with a name inscribed on the back – the same name that was on the plaque. The realization that her grandfather had this relationship that meant so much to him that he named his house after this woman but never spoke of her to the rest of his family made Joy “start to think about memory and our lives in general, and the moments that pass by and maybe disappear,” and “how nice it would be to be able to go back to those memories fully for a moment.”

A Wholly New Sci-fi World
Wrapping that core idea in trappings of action, thriller, noir, and science fiction, Joy came up with the idea for Reminiscence, which is set in the near future in a half-flooded Miami. The water has risen and there are walls in place to block more from encroaching onto what’s left. The story takes place in the aftermath of a war, and there’s an international community of people left within the city’s borders, disassociated from their past. Because it’s so hot during the day, all of the daylight hours have turned into siestas, and the city is now nocturnal.

During the war, technology was developed to interrogate enemies – technology that allowed people to fully relive their memories. Nick Bannister (Jackman) was an interrogator during the conflict, but now uses that technology to help people access lost memories or relive their favorites in a world that relies on nostalgia to help them get through the misery of each day. Bannister, whom Jackman refers to as “a fairly broken man” when we first meet him, runs a struggling business with his pal Watts (Thandiwe Newton), described by Joy as “the toughest lady there was” and a soulful, stoic friend to the protagonist.

Future Noir
One day, a mysterious woman named Mae (Rebecca Ferguson) walks into their office looking for a set of keys, and a torrid love affair sparks between Nick and Mae. “He’s not expecting anyone to rock him” the way Mae does, Jackman said, pointing out that his character falls for her – hard. But soon into this whirlwind romance, Mae disappears and Nick becomes obsessed with finding her. Joy said Nick goes into “a very dark world where he tries to investigate what happened to her, who she really was, and what she really wanted.”

That aspect sounds like – well, it sounds like a lot of movies, but the first recent film that came to mind was David Robert Mitchell’s Under the Silver Lake, which starred Andrew Garfield as a loser who becomes obsessed with a missing girl. “As [Nick] goes down into this dark path of the underworld,” Jackman said, “he’s constantly getting fed information that should make him doubt, but he’s so sure in his gut that their love was real.”

A Mysterious Cast
As for the Mae character, she’s something of a cypher in the movie. “One of the first things we talked about was questioning your persona: the whole idea of who we really are,” Ferguson explained of her early meetings with Joy about the role. Notions of perception and identity were paramount to unlocking her depiction of Mae. “We are seeing this character build through the eyes of really every other character but herself, and I found that really challenging.”

On Nick’s quest to find Mae, he encounters St. Joe (Daniel Wu), a Chinese-American kingpin living in New Orleans. Wu says it will probably be the first time you see a Chinese guy with a Southern accent on screen, and after he was hired, Joy tweaked the character specifically for Wu’s strengths. “I wanted to use his physicality and soulfulness,” she said, describing him as a “formidable force, while also allowing us to see that the portrait of good and evil is never so black and white.” Wu filled in some of his character’s backstory: while Nick Bannister was interrogating people during the war, St. Joe was a victim. He was interned, escaped internment, and “out of survival, built up this world in New Orleans where he could be the boss and be the king of that world.” His character offers poor people an escape through the crime that he sells.

The Future is Real
Oh, and that hologram technology seen in the trailer? Apparently that’s real. Newton said it’s a “new piece of technology that was innovated for this project,” and she described it as almost an “art installation” – but one where the actors “could literally use the technology as they were acting.” Jackman expressed his own wonder at seeing that tech in action, saying that when he first saw it, “it broke my heart that audiences might not believe that this is real.”

And again, be sure to keep an ear out for Djawadi’s score. “We play with noir tropes in it, but I want it to be really updated – I wanted it to reflect the kind of swagger that Nick Bannister has,” Joy explained, mentioning that clues are seeded within the music.

As to exactly how far into the future this movie is supposed to take place, Joy wouldn’t go on the record. “I don’t actually say explicitly what year in the future it is, and that was really intentional for me because the future is catching up to us so quickly, she said. “I didn’t want it to feel like sci-fi set indefinitely far away. I wanted this to be really relatable and really present…I wanted the colors to be warm-hued instead of those cool lights.” She wrote this script in 2018, but themes like rising waters and the wealth disparity in America have only become more relevant since then. But filtering the story through a sci-fi lens was very important to her.

“Science fiction is metaphor on a grand scale for the things that we are experiencing in this world – for the tremors we feel underneath our feet that we know are going to become quakes at any moment.”

Reminiscence arrives in theaters and will be available on HBO Max on August 20, 2021.

[jo]

A YouTube review, usually from film buffs --

[jo]

This is very interesting and informative --

the trailer was uploaded by one of the more prominent film blogs with a large following among fanboys. So far close to 400 reactions have been submitted and I have not really found anything negative. Does this mean the superhero & Nolan fanboys will be supportive of the movie ( many references to Wolverine that they had observed from the trailer) --


The trailer is easier to watch -- it is not as physically dark as usual film noirs

[jo]

A trailer gets People.com's attention??

LOL! Great publicity

See Hugh Jackman Play a Private Investigator in the Near Future in Reminiscence Trailer

Hugh Jackman stars as a private investigator who helps people delve into their long-forgotten memories

By Ale RussianJune 03, 2021 11:23 AM



Hugh Jackman has to use the past to solve a mystery in the present in the first trailer for Reminiscence.

The Warner Bros. thriller stars Jackman as Nick Bannister, a private investigator who developed a way for people to relive their long-forgotten memories. The movie takes place in the near future when the sea level rises and the Miami coastline is partly under water.

"You're going on a journey, a journey through memory. All you have to do is follow my voice," Bannister says at the beginning of the trailer before Rebecca Ferguson's Mae shows up hoping to relive her memories.

But when she suddenly goes missing, and other client's memories implicate her in violent crimes, Bannister risks losing himself in the past to find her again.

Reminiscence also stars Thandiwe Newton, Daniel Wu, Cliff Curtis, Nico Parker, Roma's Marina de Tavira and more.


Hugh jackman in reminiscence

CREDIT: WARNER BROS.
Hugh jackman in reminiscence

CREDIT: WARNER BROS.

"We wrapped filming a month before the pandemic. I know this film will resonate everywhere. The themes in it are universal. I am super excited and having travelled the world, I have that gut feeling it will connect in all different places," Jackman said about the movie in a statement.

When Westworld co-creator and director Lisa Joy said she wrote the lead part for him, Jackman joked he "thought that mean that Brad Pitt said no."

Reminiscence debuts in theaters and HBO Max on August 20.

[jo]

Coverage from Deadline.com --

HOME
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‘Reminiscence’ Trailer: Hugh Jackman Goes On “A Journey Through Memory” In Lisa Joy’s Action Thriller
By Matt Grobar

Matt Grobar
Associate Editor/Nights & Weekends



“You’re going on a journey, a journey through memory,” Hugh Jackman says in the first official trailer for Reminiscence, which Warner Bros. released on Thursday. “All you have to do is follow my voice.”

The first feature written and directed by Westworld co-creator Lisa Joy centers on Nick Bannister (Jackman), a private investigator of the mind. While living on the fringes of the sunken Miami coast, Bannister navigates the darkly alluring world of the past by helping his clients access lost memories, via futuristic tech. His life is changed forever when he takes on a new client, Mae (Rebecca Ferguson), and a simple matter of lost and found becomes a dangerous obsession. After Mae disappears, Bannister fights to find the truth of what happened to her, uncovering a violent conspiracy. Ultimately, he must answer the question, How far would you go to hold on to the ones you love?


In the Reminiscence trailer, we see Joy’s vision of a dystopian Miami, the coast of which is underwater, also taking in some background on what has gone wrong in Bannister’s world, via voiceover from Jackman. “When the waters began to rise and war broke out, nostalgia became a way of life,” he says. “There wasn’t a lot to look forward to, so people began looking back. Nothing is more addictive than the past.”

We also see Nick’s first encounter with Mae, a number of action sequences and stunning practical technology created for the film (for scenes in which Bannister brings peoples’ memories to life).

At a virtual trailer premiere event yesterday, the film’s writer and director appeared alongside stars Jackman and Ferguson, as well as co-stars Thandiwe Newton and Daniel Wu, noting that she fleshed out the script for her “labor of love” while pregnant.

Jackman praised the film as “something new and original,” with universal themes that should resonate everywhere. “This is not just sci-fi—this is humanity,” he said. “It’s a heart ripping open; it’s life and death.

“I would [still] like to be in Westworld, just to be clear,” the actor joked. “But I have a gut feeling [Reminiscence] will connect in all different places.”

As entertaining as it looks, the film also will grapple with weighty real-world subjects including climate change and disparity of wealth in America. This, Joy says, is a reflection of the stories she wants to tell, and how she views the sci-fi genre as a whole. “For me, science fiction is metaphor on a grand scale,” she said. “It’s a way of examining the world around us.”


Reminiscence debuts in theaters on August 20, and will also be available on HBO Max for 31 days following its release. Cliff Curtis, Marina de Tavira, Daniel Wu, Mojean Aria, Brett Cullen, Natalie Martinez, Angela Sarafyan and Nico Parker also star in the film, which Joy produces with Westworldco-creator Jonathan Nolan, Michael De Luca and Aaron Ryder.

Check out the film’s first full trailer above.

[jo]

From The Hollywood Reporter--

‘Reminiscence’ Trailer Sends Hugh Jackman Into a Mysterious Past
Filmmaker Lisa Joy, also known for 'Westworld,' reveals the origins of her directorial debut.


BY AARON COUCH

Plus Icon

JUNE 3, 2021 6:37AM
REMINSCENCE
WARNER BROS.


For writer-director Lisa Joy, Reminscience draws upon her own family’s past and its future. The film stars Hugh Jackman as Nick Bannister, a private investigator who along with his business partner (Thandiwe Newton) helps clients retrieve lost memories.

The film, which debuted its first trailer Thursday, takes place in a near-future version of Miami, where rising sea levels are staved off by a giant wall. The heat is so unbearable that people in Miami sleep during the day and come out only at night, when it’s cooler. Jackman’s Nick served in a war, working as an interrogator who used special technology to retrieve memories from people.


Ahead of the trailer drop, Joy sharing her inspirations during an online press event.


The idea for Reminiscence came to Joy during a crossroads in her life, when following the death of her grandfather, she returned to their small town of Slaithwaite in England to help with the arrangements. The home featured a plaque that displayed the name of the house, which happened to be a woman’s name.

“As a kid, that always was such a great fascination for me. What does this name mean and where did it come from?” Joy recalled.

Her grandfather always said it was just a nice name. But after his death amongst all the papers, Joy found an old photograph of a beautiful woman. On the back was the name of the grandparents’ home. Joy was struck by what a strong impression this woman must have made on her late grandfather, who never mentioned her.

“It made me start thinking about memory and our lives in general and the moments that pass by and disappear … that meant something, that changed us,” said Joy. And how nice it would be to be able to go back to those memories, fully, for a moment. To live that life and feel the way he felt when you experienced them.”

That thought came while she was pregnant with her first child with husband and fellow Westworld creator Jonathan Nolan. Joy finished penning the script soon after giving birth, and recognized despite her being tired from late nights taking care of her daughter, these were moments that she’d treasure.

“I thought, ‘I wish I could bottle this,'” she said recalled. “I would know as exhausted as I was, this was a magical moment. More meaningful than college graduation or awards or fancy dates people memorialize. It’s those small moments that mean everything. That gave me an idea of how much of life that we value is in those small moments.”


Years after conceiving of the idea, the film will hit theaters and HBO Max Aug. 20.

Jackman noted that serving in the war has left his character “quite broken and disengaged.”

His life is upended when meets Mae (Rebecca Ferguson), a woman who asks him to retrieve a memory of where she put her keys. It’s a job that ends up sending him in directions he never expected after she disappears.

Said Jackman: “He goes on this great odyssey through the darkest places of the world in Miami.”

Watch the full trailer below.

[jo]

[jo]

[jo]

[jo]

From Den of Geek --

www.denofgeek.com/movies/reminiscence-hugh-jackman-sci-fi-danger-of-nostalgia/



From Bleeding Cool ( which thinks the movie might make Christopher Nolan jealous)


bleedingcool.com/movies/reminiscence-trailer-jackman-joy-hbo-max-august-20th/


From another popular film blog --

www.firstshowing.net/2021/hugh-jackman-rebecca-ferguson-in-sci-fi-reminiscence-trailer/
(From veteran film blogger Alex Billington :"I've been waiting to see some footage from this and it looks just ravishing. I'm always down for mixing sci-fi and love. Enjoy.")

[jo]

Fan art --

[jo]

More support from the film blog community --

[jo]

And from fans --

[jo]

I forgot to post Hugh's own upload of the trailer

http://instagram.com/p/CPqJiudDDZD

[jo]

It looks like the fanboys are happy

And so are the...er fanwomen

[jo]

Check out the full review from the link --

[njr]

I can’t wait to see this! Will watch on HBO MAX!

[jo]

Grace Randolph's reaction is MEH --

but almost all disagree with her. Most saying this is a movie for the theaters, and some say even for IMAX viewing. And most of the many favorable comments seem to be coming from guys/fanboys/male film buffs.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovk0JSs1dss

[jo]

It's amusing how many think this is going to be a complex sci-fi movie. Part of it is because many think this is very much inspired by Chris Nolan's filmmaking.

If you have read the script --

*there is less emphasis on sci-fi than you have expected
*the obsession part is the heart of the romantic story
*the action/thriller element makes it more conventional ( and enjoyable) than typical sci-fi

Hugh excels in roles where he descends into the dark side (Prisoners, maybe a bit of Steady Rain, some elements of The Fountain, definitely The Prestige) and maybe because he will always be linked to the complex and inscrutable Wolverine character - this is right up his alley.

I am amused at how many long for his Wolverine persona to emerge. And even more amused to think that this is simply an excuse for an epilog of The Greatest Showman.

We'll see how the movie emerges in people's minds!


Jo