"Hot Pursuit" teaser trailer stars Academy Award Winner Reese Witherspoon

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and New Line Cinema have just released the teaser trailer of its upcoming comedy “Hot Pursuit,” starring Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara. The trailer may be viewed at http://youtu.be/G7oyLLeI6tE.




In “Hot Pursuit,” an uptight and by-the-book cop (Witherspoon) tries to protect the sexy and outgoing widow (Vergara) of a drug boss as they race through Texas, pursued by crooked cops and murderous gunmen.

Anne Fletcher (“The Proposal”) directs from a screenplay written by David Feeney (TV’s “New Girl”) & John Quaintance (TV’s “Ben & Kate”) and Dana Fox (“What Happens in Vegas”) & Katherine Silberman (TV’s “Ben & Kate”). John Carroll Lynch (“Crazy, Stupid, Love.”) and Rob Kazinsky (“Pacific Rim”) also star.

Set for release across the Philippines on May 7, “Hot Pursuit” is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

Pacific Crest Trail, America's wildest trail in "Wild"

                Pacific Crest Trail, America’s wildest through-rail, with its infamous harsh passages, has recently rose to further prominence in the latest Reese Witherspoon starrer – “Wild,” based upon the personal accounts of Cheryl Strayed’s  journey to bring her life back together after losing everything that deeply meant to her.
             
                Wilderness epics have been around since the beginning of cinema. But from the 1912 silent film “The Conquest of the Pole” to “Jeremiah Johnson” to “Into The Wild” to “127 HouRs,” nearly all have traced the paths of men far from civilization.  But the fact that WILD takes a different, less expected direction drew a devoted group of filmmakers.
             
                Says Witherspoon, who produced the film with her partner Bruna Papandrea:  “Wild” is about so many things that touch people.  It's about life, love, loss and family. It’s about how a woman who thought she was completely broken, but found a way to reconstitute herself.”

                Recalls Strayed:  “It was a huge physical undertaking for me to hike the PCT for 94 days, but it was also very much a spiritual journey. I turned to the trail as many people turn to the wilderness -- at a time when I felt lost and desperate, when I was in a place where I didn’t know how to move forward.  In many ways the trail taught me to literally just put one foot in front of the other again.”

                  “If I would have been a person who didn’t love the outdoors, this role would have been impossible,”  laughs Reese.  “As it was, it was extremely challenging on every level, and far more physically challenging than I ever anticipated.  There was climbing up the side of a mountain and balancing in river crossings and marching through chest-deep snow and falling into a freezing river.  I had no idea it was going to be as hard as it truly was.  But it was also very, very rewarding.” 

                The heart-stirring vistas rife throughout the shoot were a constant inspiration for Witherspoon, and a reminder of why the untouched spaces of wilderness called so strongly to Cheryl, even at rock bottom.  “It fills you up,” the actress says.  “To see the incredible beauty of our world makes you believe everything might really be OK.  I think that’s how Cheryl came to feel.” 

                The PCT became a character in and of itself –embodying the rough-hewn allure of the American West.  Winding through some 25 National Forests and 7 National Parks, it rises to 13,000 feet in the Sierra and dips to sea level at the Columbia River, passing through such diverse and inimitable territory as the Mojave Desert, Sequoia National Park, Tuolumne Meadows, the volcanic terrain of Mt. Hood and Mt. Rainier, the forests of Crater Lake – all the way to the Bridge of the Gods, the cantilever bridge that crosses the Columbia River from Oregon into Washington state.

                Ultimately, as she entwined deeper and deeper with the character, Witherspoon found that Cheryl’s infamously weighty backpack and ramshackle boots became a part of her own soul.  While the backpack is often a source a comedy in the film, it also became a metaphor for Cheryl learning to shoulder the weight of the past and keep walking on.

                “There is something about being in the wilderness,” sums up Jean-Marc Vallée,

                Hike along with friends and family when “Wild” opens February 4 in cinemas nationwide from 20th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.

Reese Witherspoon should bag an Oscar Nomination for the "Wild"

Everyone is expecting Reese Witherspoon to bag an Oscar Best Actress nomination for this film for her fine performance, directed by Jean-Marc Vallee from a screenplay by my favorite novelist Nick Hornby. 

                A messed-up woman’s coming of age unfolds in cinemas in “Wild,” produced and starred in by Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon based on Cheryl Strayed’s memoir “Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail.”

                Thinking she’d lost everything, Cheryl Strayed walked out of her broken-down life and into the deep wilderness on a 1,100-mile solo hike that would take her to the edge. “Wild” began with Cheryl Strayed’s own personal story – that of a woman still reeling from the sudden loss of her inspiring mother, a wrecked marriage and a headlong dive into unabashed self-destruction who decides to put a halt to it all and takes a seemingly preposterous adventure.  With zero outdoors experience, a monstrously heavy backpack and fueled by little but her own ragged will, Strayed set out to hike the PCT, the longest, toughest and wildest through-trail in America, completely alone.  Barely a few minutes into her trek, she considered quitting.  But she persevered and during those few months, she found reminders of joy, courage and beauty amid the fear, exhaustion and peril.  It was an adventure that helped her put her life back together again and emerge with a raw but remarkable story.

                Strayed’s experiences became the beating heart of an inspirational, best-selling memoir that was about more than just an inexperienced hiker’s crazy, grueling experience walking from the Mojave Desert to the Pacific Northwest via the rugged Pacific Crest Trail (PCT).  With its mix of punk spirit and vibrant honesty, it also became something rarely seen:  a portrait of a modern, messed-up woman coming-of-age by embracing the call of the wild in her own way.  On the trail, Strayed faced down thirst, heat, cold, feral animals and all of  her worst fears, but even more so, she faced up to change:  pushing through to carve her own path out of grief and a haunted past.

                Witherspoon notes that while Cheryl took a lot from the solitude she found, she took just as much from the people she met along the way, encounters that become key to the film.  “I love how all kinds of different people come into her life on this solo trek,” she says.  “It reminds me a little of Bergman’s “Wild Strawberries,” where she’s on this journey and she keeps meeting people who bring up something she needs to address in her life.”

                Director Vallée adds:  “WILD is the story of a woman who wants to change her life and decides to do it in a very drastic way by going on this hike on the PCT.  It becomes quite a journey, a journey of discovering herself and facing life and asking herself all the hard questions.  But it’s also a journey of redemption – that’s the thing.”

                “Wild” opens February 4 in cinemas from 20th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.