Sigourney Weaver talks Avatar

During a telephone interview over in Germany, Sigourney Weaver got onto the subject that many sci-fi geeks, movie fans and Cameron disciples have been waiting patiently for. That's right, the mysterious movie that is Avatar. Weaver plays Dr. Grace Augustine. Follow the link to have a listen to the snippet in question - just scroll down on the page to find the audio.

HOME / FORUM.

Dr Who Christmas Special -Cybermen News

The latest issue of SFX has news of Steven Moffat and his time at the Comic Con. He mentions the footage for the Dr Who Christmas Special that was shown and it featured "feral, furry-bodied mutant Cybermen" which sounds interesting.

HOME / FORUM.

Hellboy 3 news - Ron Perlman talks about it and maybe The Hobbit

Author: Guy Davis - Moviehole

"Hellboy II" shot to the top of the American box office in its opening week and is approaching the $US100 million mark, which gives some indication that a third movie would be welcomed by audiences. We had the chance to ask Ron Perlman what he thinks.

"This ride we're on, opening number one at the box office, that's just icing on what was already the most delicious cake I'd ever bitten into," Perlman tells Moviehole's Guy Davis. "Nothing's been announced but I wouldn't be surprised if there's a third, particularly on the heels of Hellboy II's success. And I know Guillermo has an incredibly well-articulated idea about what the third movie needs to be. It'll answer a lot of questions. It almost needs to happen because with the ideas that he has about closing the trilogy, it would be a shame for it go unfinished."

Even if there's no "Hellboy III" a reunion may still be in the offing. "When I found out he was going to be in New Zealand for four years, I said to him ‘I'm really gonna miss you, pal'," says Perlman. "And he said to me ‘Oh no, you're not!' I don't know what he means by that - he didn't get any more specific - but if he needs me there I'm there. Anytime I can be on a film set or even just sitting around a dinner table from Guillermo Del Toro, I'm there."

HOME / FORUM.

The Random

The Movie Blog Uncut confirms that Thomas Jane isn't the one they wanted. Directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor were on the latest episode and mentioned that: "He's a great guy… But we don't see the guy as Jonah Hex, to be quite honest with you. But we like him."

Inglorious Bastards casting news. Instead of DiCaprio, German TV actor Christoph Waltz will be taking on that role. And instead of the previously announced Nastassja Kinski, actress Diane Kruger (who we know most from the National Treasure movies) will be taking on the role of Bridget Von Hammersmark.

Slap Shot, the classic 1977 politically incorrect hockey comedy starring Paul Newman is being remade. The update comes from YourMovieMaven

In production this year is a biopic on Beatles singer John Lennon titled Nowhere Boy. The script details "the story of Lennon as a lonely teenager growing up as his aunt and the mother who gave him up fight for his love. His only escape is music, art and his fateful friendship with Paul McCartney."

Edgar Wright has chimed in with an update on Scott Pilgrim vs the World via Wizard. For those who are unfamiliar, Scott Pilgrim is an adaptation of a comic book that's currently in the middle of its run.

HOME / FORUM.

Passengers - Horror Starring Anne Hathaway

This horror flick is about a grief counselor assigned to work with a group of plane crash survivors who starts to uncover a horrific mystery when the survivors start to disappear. It stars Anne Hathway (Get Smart, The Princess Diaries) and Patrick Wilson (Watchmen)

HOME / FORUM.

The Burrowers - Tremors in the Wild West?

The first trailer for The Burrowers has just arrived online courtesy of Bloody Disgusting. The film is somewhat of a western horror film about settlers back in the 1800s that encounter a creatures like Tremors that come up from the ground and attack them. It stars Clancy Brown, Doug Hutchison, Sean Patrick Thomas, Laura Leighton, and an assortment of other unknown actors.

The trailer can be seen here.

HOME / FORUM.

New Saw V poster

Only seen the first Saw and enjoyed it. I'm liking the posters for this one.

HOME / FORUM.

Never Apologise - Documentary

I love the art work on this poster. Looks like Scarfe did it. Anyone know who did do it?

This is a film of a one-man-show in which Malcolm McDowell talks about Lindsey Anderson. He's backed up by a few props (a lectern, a chair and a table, a reading lamp) and clips from some of Lindsay Anderson's films including (extensively) "If" and "O Lucky Man". McDowell, of course, was the star of both these, which were Anderson's second and third feature films. "If" was also McDowell's first film and "O Lucky Man" (according to McDowell here) was his original idea. McDowell says he enjoyed making "If" so much, and enjoyed so much working with Anderson, that he suggested they make another film together.

HOME / FORUM.

Preacher still searching for the Lord

The adaptation of Garth Ennis' "Preacher" won't be happening at HBO according to Comics Continuum. Preacher is a great comic but looks as if the likes of Cassidy, Jesse Custer, John Wayne, The Saint of Killers, Arse-Face, Starr, and the inbred descendant of Jesus Christ will have to hold their horses a little longer.

Director Mark Steven Johnson ("Ghost Rider," "Daredevil") is serving as showrunner on the project blames the dissolution squarely on new management.

"We were budgeting and everything and it was getting really close to going. But the new head of HBO felt it was just too dark and too violent and too controversial. Which, of course, is kind of the point!" says Johnson.

Johnson says it was a "nearly word for word" very faithful adaptation of the first few books and that they offered him the chance to redevelop it but he refused. Thus "I'm afraid it's dead at HBO" says Johnson.

HOME / FORUM.

I'm Back

Holiday was great. Hope you are all well.

On with the neverending show.

HOME / FORUM.

Batman 3

From the Hollywood Reporter

...and Warners and Legendary are both interested in doing a third in the series, but all involved say it will be up to Nolan to come to them with a story and a plan.

"There are a lot of us who emotionally would love to do it," Roven says. "But it's really Chris' call. Chris is the kind of filmmaker who just doesn't think about the next movie before he has completely finished the movie he is working on."For now, Nolan is taking a well-earned vacation.

Says Roven, "When he comes back, we will see how he feels."

HOME / FORUM.

Alien V Predator 3

Now I love the thriller/suspense of Alien, the army-barmy marine gung-ho of Aliens, the dog/alien in Alien 3....and what they were trying to do with Alien: Resurrection. The same can go for Predator and the brilliant Predator 2. But the later Alien films and Predators had problems (Newt, Baby Alien, no Hicks or Hudson, etc) which also seemed to over take the AVP movies.

Both AVPs had some great elements but the main points of problem were the lack of space. Not open space, but space up there. If anyone has ever read the Dark Horse graphic novels or comics of the AVP series they are (as I remember) all set in space with Colonial Marines getting in the way, not earth civilians or scientists in current day.

But, we could be up for a change which could, and I emphasise the could, save the series (Andy I didn't use the term franchise just for you!). Greg and Colin Strause have recently mentioned - AVP-R definitely leads into another film. While AVP-R takes place in an American Midwestern town, for the next film, they want to take the action back into space. As a matter of fact, they said that 20th Century Fox has no choice other than to agree to take it back into space following AVP-R.

Fingers crossed they can pull it off this time!

HOME / FORUM.

Dragonball

I have to admit I have never been a fan of the cartoon, but Dragonball Z is huge. And, to be honest, i'm amazed it has taken so long for this thing to made into a movie.

Recent updates on the flick are a trailer release due with the cinema release of Max Payne - now this means to me that Max Payne is going to be aimed a at much younger audience than it needs to be, or vice versa, Dragonball is going to have a much more grown up feel....

"The story begins with a young humanoid boy named Goku, who discovers that he was sent to Earth to blend in and destroy our population but instead elects to protect it from an oncoming alien onslaught bent on dominating the universe and controlling the mystical objects. He seeks out upon his adoptive grandfather Grandpa Gohan's dying request to find the great Master Roshi and gather all seven Dragon Balls. Of which he has one, in order to prevent the evil Lord Piccolo from succeeding in his desire to use the Dragon Balls to take over the world. And Goku's quest is to obtain the mystical Dragonballs before Piccolo does." from IMDB

UK Release: 10/04/09

HOME / FORUM.

We've gone on holiday by mistake

As the blurb above says I am headed off for a family holiday next week. We've booked a cottage in the South of Wales. It's a bank holiday weekend so rain is more than likely.

I will be back up and running a week tomorrow if all goes well, but in the meantime I've asked Jinja to try and do a few updates here and there. I will do a huge Random when I return.

In the meantime have a great week and enjoy the James Bond film they will no doubt show on the Bank Holiday Monday.

HOME / FORUM.

JCVD - Van Damme in good movie shock?

JCVD, the apparantly acclaimed Cannes sensation featuring washed-up action star Jean-Claude Van Damme as himself. It's currently got 7.4 / 10 on IMDB. Plus the cinematographer is called Pierre-Yves Bastard. Now that's a name you don't mess with!

Chisholm, where is your movie in response?!

Here is a snippet from Variety's review:

Ho-hum hostage crisis mayhem serves to buttress co-scripting helmer Mabrouk El Mechri's more experimental stunts, including a tonally opposite pair of longish takes -- one a wonderfully absurd ode to star's martial-arts moves, the other a tear- and prayer-filled Van Damme monologue that must be seen to be believed. An adventurous U.S. minimajor could reap modest B.O. following a June 4 French release.

Incalculably superior in tone, attitude, intent, and intellect to bulk of bodybuilder vehicles, shrewdly produced pic limits limber star's acrobatics to first and last scenes without great detriment to whole. Gast Waltzing's horn-heavy score is pleasingly old-school and subtly parodic; Philippe Kohn's sound mix is crisply immersive; Pierre-Yves Bastard's widescreen lensing does the job despite de rigueur color-bleaching and scant closeups with which to flaunt Van Damme's near-Buster Keatonesque deadpan. Exception to that to is aforementioned long take wherein weeping JCVD flexes existential about his status as global-screen limb-snapper with backend points.

No kidding.

HOME / FORUM.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas - Trailer

HOME / FORUM.

Superman will be rebooted

Comingsoon.net have news on this.

Warner Bros. Pictures Group President Jeff Robinov has told The Wall Street Journal that the studio is going to be reintroducing Superman. We assume this will be similar to how Louis Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk was a reboot of Ang Lee's Hulk. Here is what the article says:

Warner Bros. also put on hold plans for another movie starring multiple superheroes -- known as "Batman vs. Superman" -- after the $215 million "Superman Returns," which had disappointing box-office returns, didn't please executives. "'Superman' didn't quite work as a film in the way that we wanted it to," says Mr. Robinov. "It didn't position the character the way he needed to be positioned." "Had 'Superman' worked in 2006, we would have had a movie for Christmas of this year or 2009," he adds. "But now the plan is just to reintroduce Superman without regard to a Batman and Superman movie at all."

The article also talks about Warner Bros. adapting other DC properties over the new few years. "By 2011, Mr. Robinov plans for DC Comics to supply the material for up to two of the six to eight tent-pole films he hopes Warner Bros. will have in the pipeline by then," it says. Those projects will likely be about single characters at first, and will be darker much like The Dark Knight:

With "Batman vs. Superman" and "Justice League" stalled, Warner Bros. has quietly adopted Marvel's model of releasing a single film for each character, and then using those movies and their sequels to build up to a multicharacter film. "Along those lines, we have been developing every DC character that we own," Mr. Robinov says.

Like the recent Batman sequel -- which has become the highest-grossing film of the year thus far -- Mr. Robinov wants his next pack of superhero movies to be bathed in the same brooding tone as "The Dark Knight." Creatively, he sees exploring the evil side to characters as the key to unlocking some of Warner Bros.' DC properties. "We're going to try to go dark to the extent that the characters allow it," he says. That goes for the company's Superman franchise as well.

The studio is set to announce its plans for future DC movies in the next month. For now, though, it is focused on releasing four comic-book films in the next three years, including a third Batman film, a new film reintroducing Superman, and two movies focusing on other DC Comics characters. Movies featuring Green Lantern, Flash, Green Arrow, and Wonder Woman are all in active development.

HOME / FORUM.

Wizard of Gore - Trailer

In the darkly phantasmagorical world of the carnival magician and sideshow hypnotist, the gruesome "illusions" of Montag the Magnificent are unique in that they seem to become retroactive reality long after the the tricks are done. Is it coincidence, or circumstantial evidence of the world's most diabolically ingenious murders? When an underground journalist begins to investigate the strange deaths, the truth proves to be far more bizarre and disturbing than anything he or his readers might have imagined.

The Wizard if Gore is directed by Jeremy Kastan and starring Kip Pardue, Bijou Phillips, Crispin Glover, Brad Dourif, Jeffrey Combs and The Suicide Girls.

HOME / FORUM.

We're The Sweeney son, and we haven't had any dinner, so unless you want a kickin'...

Fox Searchlight has halted production on "The Sweeney", a film adaptation of the classic British series, fearing the film will disentergare upon release everywhere but the U.K due to the lack of an A-list star.

Though the studio were circling Ray Winstone ("The Departed") and the up-and-coming Michael Fassbender ("Inglorious Bastards") for the lead roles, they quickly came to the realization that a bigger name was going to be needed if they wanted the film to actually last more than a week in theaters.

Rather than continue with pre-production in the hopes of nabbing a big name at the last minute, the powers-that-be mutually agreed to step back and wait. They are still hoping to go into production next year. Cult writer-director Nick Love remains attached to direct.
Variety has more

From Moviehole.

HOME / FORUM.

K.I.T.T.'s Cave from Knight Rider

I know it is not a movie (there was a feature pilot though), but I was a fan of the original Knight Rider. Here is a photo of K.I.T.T.s lab / cave from the forthcoming series. SCI FI have news on the series.

In the center of the set, on a rotating metal platform, sits the $75,000 2008 Ford Mustang GT500KR itself. When K.I.T.T.'s ready to go, it revs up and speeds down a tunnel inside a soundstage. "They don't let me drive it very much, but I get to sit in it, and it's pretty comfortable," admitted star Justin Bruening, who plays Mike Tracer, the ex-soldier who is the human companion to the super-intelligent talking car voiced by Val Kilmer. (Tracer acquires the codename "Michael Knight" in the show's first episode.)

The computers in the K.I.T.T. Cave are inspired in part by futurists at Microsoft, executive producer Gary Scott Thompson said. "We met with their technology people to see what they have coming up, and we were surprised that we were actually coming up with ideas that they weren't going to be doing for another 10 or 20 years or so. But we used some of their ideas." Among the high-tech gadgetry: tables that that can download information from a telephone or computer set on top of them and computers that can manipulate images at the flick of a finger.

On the day of SCI FI Wire's visit, the "attack car" version of K.I.T.T. sat outside the studio. It's the armored, battle-ready version of the Mustang into which the regular K.I.T.T. morphs.

HOME / FORUM.

Cast of Kick-Ass - What do they look like?

This from Slashfilm.


18-year-old British actor Aaron Johnson has been cast as the title character, Dave Lizewski, a 15-year-old boy named Dave Lizewski who attempts to become a real-life superhero. The catch is that he has no powers or any of the stereotypical reasons for choosing to fight crime. Johnson most recently starred in Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, but also had small roles in The Illusionist and Shanghai Knight. He sure looks like perfect casting.

21-year-old Lyndsy Fonseca will play high school hottie and Dave’s crush Katie Deauxma, who thinks he is gay. You might remember Fonseca as Dyan on Desperate Housewives or as Daughter on How I Met Your Mother.

Chloe Moretz is Hit Girl, the ferocious, potty-mouthed 11-year-old daughter of Big Daddy (Cage). She is described as a “four foot killing machine” with “a ninja sword”.

HOME / FORUM.

Fan Art - Star Trek Poster

HOME / FORUM.

Slipstream, 2007 - Movie Review

Director: Anthony Hopkins
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Christian Slater, Monica Garcia
Running Time: 96 minutes
Score: 7 / 10

This review by Andy D.

This movie will no doubt draw a line in the sand for movie watchers. Many will not cross that line and claim it is a jumbled mess, a confusing brew of hectically edited scenes in a deliberately confusing screen play, lacking direction, clear story line or conclusion. These people might be lacking in empathy for the older generations and will probably prefer “movies on a plate “ ™ with hand-holding narratives in nice step-by step chewable plastic scripts. Others will take this film to heart and immerse themselves in what Anthony Hopkins wants us to experience which is to go along with Felix for the ride into dementia and experience with him the gradual loss of his mental faculties in a colourful and sometimes explosive storm in a mental tea cup.

Beware of the spoilers lurking within this review. If you’re interested in giving this movie a chance on the back of my opening paragraph, then just do it! And do it with open arms for this is a very brave debut by Hopkins as writer/director. I would guess that he is tackling a topic that is probably very important to him. If you’ve read poor reviews of this movie and you’re not totally sold on it and yet, you are still curious, then please have a read of my take on this film. I will try and describe what I liked about it.

Slipstream explores the lucid dream like state of a mind gripped by the effects of early dementia which I suspect is probably Alzheimer’s Disease. Our protagonist, Felix struggles in the last days of his career to make sense of the script he is working on. He struggles to comprehend the events of reality around him as his dementia blurs his fictional world with his real world. Anthony Hopkins drags us into Felix’s mind as he struggles with many of the classic dementia problems including the break down of attentiveness, the break down of abstract thinking, an onset of total apathy, the loss of recognition of perceptions, and finally, delusional symptoms. Near the end we experience the start of the breakdown of motor skills and coordination as Felix stumbles around in the hard shoulder of a busy highway.

Hopkins demonstrates the confusion experienced by Felix from a mainly internal point of view but now and again we see it from an external point of view too. The most memorable example of this is probably the traffic shooting incident… Felix is impassive and watches numbly as though he is experiencing a scene from a movie being played out in front of him as a road rage incident degenerates into a shooting tragedy. He is numb to its reality even when a shot is fired directly towards him by the road rage psycho. The shot narrowly misses Felix and leaves a bullet hole in the windscreen. At the time we wonder whether the fracas actually happened or was it in Felix’s mind, yet the persistence of the bullet hole throughout the rest of the movie tells us it was real. A later scene showing the shooting event on TV reinforces this to us, that it really did happen and that Felix had almost been killed that day. Felix’s dementia it seems almost cost him his life early on in this movie. It is almost certainly a deliberate direct repeat of the theme of this shooting scene that is used at the conclusion of the movie where Felix meets his final fate. Indeed it’s almost the exact same location on the highway and once again it is his dementia which places him in harms way.

There are constant ripples of reoccurring elements in the movie reminiscent of the ripples on the surface of a pond reflecting back on themselves from the edges. The SUV driven by the bar tender in which he gets shot by the fictional Christian Slater Villain is the same SUV that hits Felix at the very end of the movie. In this scene the bar tender is no longer the driver of the SUV but he is the highway cop along with Christian Slater as his side kick who had pulled Felix over just before Felix staggers onto the busy highway lane in front of the SUV. The first meeting of this SUV, in which the bar tender is shot in the head by Christian Slater, appears to be part of Felix’s film and we get then a familiar vibe to the shooting incident on the highway, which might go to explain Felix’s inaction at that time.

The deliberately confused blurring of fiction-dream with reality are smoothly transitioned and the two states are not delineated in any way. We aren’t given any clues like David Lynches red curtains or ‘zoom through holes’ to when we’re moving from reality into dream world or back again. This is the reality of dementia, there are no signals or boundaries and yes, it must be very confusing…. confusing to the point of mental breakdown as the disease takes more of the mind. We are constantly asking who is real and who isn’t in the film and what roles do people really play. This is what Felix is mainly struggling with. We get hints during a scene where Felix is dreaming of his fictional characters as though they live inside his computer, staring out at him. But alongside his fictional characters in this dream he places his very real Producer. His producer is ‘real’ in Felix’s reality that is, but he acts in quite a surreal way. He is barely in touch with reality himself. This, I take it, is a jab at some real producers that Anthony Hopkins has had to deal with over the years but also the surrealness of the character works to dislodge Felix’s mental state even further.

This film moved me. I knew what to expect with its style so I didn’t try and follow it like I tried very hard to follow Inland Empire (somewhat unsuccessfully I might add!). I let it wash over me in a very passive way and I think this is the approach that Anthony Hopkins would want us to watch it. He wants us to experience ourselves what it is like to suffer from senile dementia. In a way he is preparing us for what is very likely to happen to many of us as we age into our twilight years. How many of us have suffered the pain of watching loved ones lose their minds due to Alzheimer’s Disease? Certainly, at least, all of us have seen or will see our parents age into frail OAPs, and, eventually they will be gone forever. Slipstream offers us a glimpse of what it is like on the other side of the degenerating mind. It offers us an idea of what we will likely become ourselves and helps us to understand those of us in our society who are already living in a world of senile dementia.

7/10 A brave debut

HOME / FORUM.

Cineworld thrives on the urge to escape uncertainty Business

Source: The Independent (UK)

Inflation IS soaring, house prices stagnating and sterling losing out against the rising dollar - but at least the Great British Public is still going to the cinema.

Bucking the trend for gloomy results, Cineworld, the second-largest UK chain, reported revenue and profit rises in the first six months of 2008, on the back of a 1 per cent rise in box office receipts to £89.6m.

Mamma Mia! and Batman: The Dark Knight are doing a roaring trade, the company says, and the summer blockbusters Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Sex and the City brought in £40m and £26m respectively.

"The enduring appeal of film continues to be even more pronounced in times of economic uncertainty," Stephen Wiener, the Cineworld chief executive, said. "We feel confident that the strong line-up of films in the second half will drive admissions, particularly in the fourth quarter, when James Bond: Quantum of Solace, Madagascar 2 and High School Musical 3 hit our screens."
Revenue for the first half was up 0.9 per cent to £137m and operating profit was up 19.5 per cent to £14.1m. Average ticket price per admission rose to £4.34 from £4.09. Despite rising costs for extras like confectionery, ice-cream and popcorn, average retail spend was also up, from £1.64 to £1.73, thanks to a change of coffee and alcohol suppliers, more Ben & Jerry's kiosks and upgraded sales areas. Cineworld has 74 cinemas, with 770 screens. It is planning a five-screen facility in Haverhill, Suffolk, in the fourth quarter, and another seven branches nationwide over the coming three years. A joint venture with Odeon, Digital Cinema Media, recently acquired Carlton Screen Advertising to become market leader in cinema advertising.

HOME / FORUM.

Posters - How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, A Secret, Walking on Dead Fish

HOME / FORUM.

Posters - Stealing America, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Stone of Destiny

HOME / FORUM.

Nicholas Cage in Kick-Ass - He loves his comic books

The Hollywood Reporter have news that Nick Cage is going to star in the adaption of Mark Millar's Kick-Ass.

Nicolas Cage, Aaron Johnson and Lyndsy Fonseca are set to star in "Kick-Ass," Matthew Vaughn's adaptation of the violent Mark Millar comic book.

Written by Millar and drawn by John Romita Jr., the Marvel Comics' Icon imprint book centers on a high school dweeb named Dave Lizewski who decides to become a superhero even though he has no athletic ability or coordination. Things change when he eventually runs into real bad guys with real weapons.

Johnson plays the dweeb and title character, while Fonseca plays the object of the teen's infatuation who believes Dave is gay. Cage is a former cop who wants to bring down a druglord and has trained his daughter (Chloe Moretz) to be a lethal weapon.

HOME / FORUM.

It's Alive - Trailer for killer baby movie

This is a trailer for a remake of a 1974 movie about an evil baby that eats people. What's not to like!! Hold on the baby is called Daniel...my son is called Daniel....what are you doing Daniel....no...no....nooooooooooooooooooooo......Phew. Managed to save my Bioshock game before he had a go of Civ: Revolutions.

It's Alive stars James Murray (Primeval), Bijou Phillips (Wizard of Gore, Hostel 2, Choke) and a mutant baby. Josef Rusnak (The Thirteenth Floor) directs.

Discuss in the forum.

Non-Story of the Day - Leon ate some spicy food!

French actor Jean Reno's 'heart attack' was actually a bout of heartburn and gastroenteritis, according to his publicist.

Reports suggested the Leon star had been rushed to the Fort-de-France hospital on Martinique on Wednesday night after suffering a "serious" cardiac arrest on the Caribbean island of St. Barts.

But his publicist, Christina Papadopoulos, the fuss was nothing more than the result of "too much spicy Caribbean food".

She says, "Reports that actor Jean Reno is in the hospital due to a heart attack are false. He is vacationing in the Caribbean and went to a local hospital as a
precaution for some discomfort he was feeling due to heartburn and gastroenteritis.

"It was definitely not a heart attack. He is fine and healthy and enjoying the rest of his vacation travelling in the Caribbean.

"I think he was just enjoying vacation and probably ate a little too much spicy Caribbean food!"
Hospital director Bernard Cavignaux confirms the 60 year old underwent tests and was expected to be discharged on Thursday.

French singer Johnny Hallyday and his wife Laetitia are expected to pick the actor up from the hospital. The trio and Reno's wife Sofia are expected to continue with their vacation in nearby St. Barts.

The Pink Panther star was at Hallyday's retreat when he fell ill.

I can't believe out of all the cool movies Jean Reno has been in they say he is The Pink Panther Star!!! What the hell is that about. He's Leon for monkey's sake. One of the coolest killer's to hit the screen.

Discuss in the forum.

Death Race in Court

There has been a lot of whoo-hah over Watchmen possibly being delayed due to disagreements between studios. Now it looks as if Paul W.S. Anderson's latest may be hitting the brakes (see what I did there?)

That's right. Death Race may be going to court.

Filmstalker have the story:

Adam Stone is a writer who is claiming that he pitched his script for a film called Joust to Paul W.S. Anderson and the producer Jeremy Bolt, after which they made a copy of it, returned it with a no thank you, and then made Death Race from it.

Stone claims, according to The Hollywood Reporter through Bloody Disgusting, that Death Race has been copied from his script and that he can prove it with at least thirty nine elements which mirror his screenplay.

Interesting news, especially due to the fact that the movie appears to be getting the best reviews of any Paul W.S. Anderson movie.

Discuss in the forum.

Iron Man 2 news

Jon Favreau spoke to the LA Times and has said, "We're working on it now, which hasn't been officially announced. It will be released in 2010."

Justin Therous who wrote Tropic Thunder is down to script this sequel.

Discuss in the forum.

Me and Orson Welles starring Zac Effron

Seventeen-year-old Richard Samuels (Zac Efron) spends his days dreaming of the bright lights of Broadway. He gets his big break when he happens upon Orson Welles (Christian McKay) and his fledgling Mercury Theatre company. Richard impresses Welles with an impromptu audition and lands a bit part in the Mercury's forthcoming run of Julius Caesar. With Welles's womanizing taking priority over rehearsals, chaos and calamity mark the production from the start. Before long, opening night has arrived and Richard will discover the terrible secrets of show business.

Me and Orson Welles is directed by Richard Linklater, of Dazed and Confused, Waking Life, Before Sunset, and A Scanner Darkly previously. The screenplay was adapted by first-time writers Holly Gent Palmo and Vincent Palmo Jr., who was a second unit director on nearly all of Linklater's films. The film is based on a novel of the same name written by Robert Kaplow.

From Firstshowing.net

Discuss in the forum.

You Don't Mess With the Zohan, 2008 - Movie Review

Director: Dennis Dugan

Starring: Adam Sandler, John Turturro, Emmanuelle Chriqui

Score: 7 / 10

This review by Dick Steel.

Comedies go up against each other at the local box office, with Adam Sandler squaring off against Steve Carell, and incidentally, both lead characters in their movies are of the spy / special forces kind, with Sandler's Zohan Dvir being the top Israeli counter-terrorist operative, and Carell's Maxwell Smart thinking he's the best, working for the CONTROL organization to bring down KAOS. Just which agent will outdo the other remains to be seen, but I thought Zohan had opportunity before throwing it away when it goes back to the usual sacharrine sweet ending with a nicely inserted moral message of peace and harmony.

Directed by Dennis Dugan who helmed comedies like The Benchwarmers and the recent Adam Sandler movie I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, You Don't Mess With The Zohan has its title come across as a warning to those who cross the Zohan's path. In every sense of the word, Zohan is Israel's #1 superhero for his superhuman strength, speed, agility, and just about being as indestructible as Superman, without that heat ray bursting through his eyes. Having killed many in his lifetime, he seeks a life away from the glitz, glamour and hero worship in his homeland, and harbours a secret desire to style hair, with the ambition to make the world Silky Smooth!

Going up against his arch-enemy The Phantom (John Turturro), he fakes his own death, and finds his way to New York, where under a pseudonym Scrappy Coco, he exhibits the much stereotyped mannerisms that all male hairdressers have broken wrists. Yes people, Zohan would be quite offensive to some, as the jokes come hard and fast when it comes to race (there are tons of Arab jokes here, mostly putting them in bad light), politics (even wives of prominent politicians are unspared) and plenty of sexual inneundoes, perhaps no thanks to the writing input from Judd Apatow, who gave us flicks like Superbad (super-sized dong anyone?), 40-Year Old Virgin, and the likes. If you don't mind politically incorrect flicks, then Zohan would be right up your alley, where no orifice is sacred.

So has Sandler sunk to a new low? Perhaps not, but I think he's in need of a boost to his career, which seemed to have stagnated with fairly plain comedic flicks such as Longest Yard and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, and even Click, perhaps being loaded with a tad bit of drama and feel good messages. And it doesn't really help when personally I still think that Spanglish was his best non-comedic work which stuck to me, for some reason. He tries to reinvent himself, but I feel he's still quite a distance away from peers like Mike Myers who comes up with crazy characters every now and then (am looking forward to the troubled and controversial Love Guru), and even Sacha Baron Cohen (whom I'm looking forward to his Bruno).

Here, Sandler's Zohan relies on both his amazing prowess to bring down the bad guys, as well as his over-sized crotch to seduce plus sized and elderly women who come visit him for a haircut, and extra special services he dishes out. Granted they bring on the laughs, and there were some really genuine funny moments to compensate for some expected laughs on the horizon. But aside from that, the story's pretty much lost its direction after the mid-way point, where it couldn't decide whether to be an all out romance flick, with Zohan getting stiff for his salon owner Dalia (Emmanuelle Chriqui), or to focus on the aged old dispute between the two cultures where fellow immigrants and enemies find out his true identity, and revive their aged old feud in a foreign land. There were some bewildering scenes that seemed to have, like the mentioned threads, been abandoned halfway, for example, with the rallying of troops to the game of Hacky Sack.

Nonetheless, what's an Adam Sandler movie without the list of cameo appearances to spice things up? Here you get Rob Schneider who makes regular cameo or supporting character appearances in a Sandler movie, together with Chris Rock, Mariah Carey who hams up her Diva status, Kevin James his co-star from Chuck and Larry, and even George Takei, whom I thought was a strange cameo given that he just came out of the closet recently, and gets himself involved in a somewhat homophobic scene.

You Don't Mess With The Zohan doesn't always hit the mark, but it surely has enough moments in its close to 2 hour runtime to make it worthwhile to sit through and enjoy. Only if you prefer your comedy to be politically incorrect, of course.

P.S. Am just wondering how many will emulate that crazy accented "Nononono".

Discuss in the forum.

Tokyo Gore Police - Just looks mad!

Don't let the kids watch this one!

Discuss in the forum.

Footage of Bill Murray's Sky Dive

I mentioned this a few days ago, but here is some footage of the jump.

Discuss in the forum.

The Random

Alex Proyas (Dark City) is to adapt Heinlein's “The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag”, which sounds a bit Dark Cityish to me. All about a bloke who cannot remember what he gets up to during the day.

Firefly is coming to Blu-Ray.

Firstshowing.net's Alex Billington has posted the European (i.e., German subtitled) trailer for Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon.

Those Robert Harris-supervised restorations of The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II will be shown theatrically starting on 9.12 at New York's Film Forum, with concurrent bookings in Los Angeles and San Francisco. It's all a plug for the 9.23 DVD/Blu-ray release of these two.

Filming has commenced in L.A. on His Name Was Jason, a new documentary about the Friday the 13th franchise. It will air on Starz the first week of February 2009 (just in time for Platinum Dunes' new film). A DVD release through Anchor Bay Entertainment will follow.

Discuss in the forum.

Dark Knight Fan Art - David Tennant as The Riddler

JoshWMC over on DeviantArt has been busy on Photoshop making some quality what if posters and pictures for the next Batman movie. David Tennant (Dr. Who) as The Riddler, Kristen Bell as Harley Quinn. Check out his site for more cool pictures.

Discuss in the forum.

New Max Payne Posters

Discuss in the forum.

Billy Zane as Hong Kong Phooey?

Could be!

Discuss in the forum.

Night in the Museum 2 - Amy Adams as Amelia Earhart

Thebadandugly.com have got lots of photos of Ben Stiller, Amy Adams (Enchanted, Drop Dead Gorgeous) and the rest from Night in the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian. The first one was great for kids, but surprised a sequel got the go ahead.

Have a look at them here.

Dick Van Dyke, Owen Wilson, Ricky Gervais, Robin Williams and Steve Coogan are also returning for Museum 2, with veteran Hank Azaria as a villainous Pharaoh.

Discuss in the forum.

Billy Zane one of Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards?

No...at least not yet.

You heard it hear first though.

Discuss in the forum.

Boushh - Bounty Hunter down time. Cool Photo

Cheers to Del for sending me this.

Discuss in the forum.

Cthulhu, 2007 - Movie Review

Director: Dan Gildark
Starring: Jason Cottle, Scott Green, Dennis Kleinsmith, Tori Spelling

This review by D.W. Bostaph over on Dread Central.

Everything I thought that was going to make Cthulhu not work actually ended up making it a stronger, more horrifying experience. The experience of watching this film was as perfect a translation of modern times through the lens of Lovecraft as I have ever seen attempted. Director Dan Gildark and writer/director Grant Cogswell have pulled of the near impossible: They have created a monster that is not only provocative and challenging, but beautiful all at the same time.

I don’t even know where to begin.

The story centers on Russell Marsh, who returns to Rivermouth because his mother has just died. In returning, Russell (played with an awesome quiet cool by Jason Cottle) comes to face the small town he left behind for one of a more accepting size, an odd distant zealot of a father, and a mystery brought about by a “from beyond the grave” message from his mother. The plot is simple, but they way it plays out is anything but.

The town is very off to Russell. They do not accept him and they even shun him a bit. Townsfolk empathic to Russell’s cause are chided and when they offer help, they are terrified to do so. Is this all due to Russell’s lifestyle? Or is there something more sinister at hand? Cthulhu expertly blurs the lines of what the real reason is; I never got a feel that it was really one over the other.
Russell is, for the most part, left to deal with things on his own. There's a passing love interest, a childhood friend now all grown up; Mike (Green). Russ and Mike were once friends (and more), but Mike grew up and got a family and a kid. The family is gone and now Mike may be open to Russ’s advances. This is a complex and tender relationship that is more deep and real than almost any other film I have ever seen on the subject matter. This in itself says volumes about the performances turned in by Cottle and Scott Green. They effortlessly convey the delicate relationship, which makes the rest of the film all the more powerful.

As Russ struggles with the confusing relationship between him and Mike, he also has to face the family he left behind. His father, the head of a weird cult call the “Esoteric Order of Dagon”, is brought to life by the unyielding performance of Dennis Kleinsmith. Reverend Marsh and crew worship the Old Ones and are not about to hide their glee at the prospect of their deities immanent return. Russell feels guilty for leaving and now, estranged from his father, he struggles to make sense of his place within the family now that his one anchor to it (his mother) is gone. It's this type of atavistic guilt that permeates so much of Lovecraft’s work and never before have I seen it fleshed out so well. Cthulhu uses its framework to create, via Russell, a layer of guilt that almost seems suffocating. Again, questions are raised: Is Russell’s father more upset that his son is gay, or that he has not yet joined the fold?

Tori Spelling makes an appearance as a sultry housewife with an ulterior motive. She plays the part with a weird mix of slight camp and sex. She does nothing to really detract from the film, which is what I had feared. She's a strange antithesis to the character of Mike in every way imaginable.

Swirling around all of this is a world that is coming apart at the seams. Global warming, specie extinctions, human apathy, global economics and politics are just a few things that we get a feeling for in the film. It's fed to us by passing news on the television or radio and it serves to paint a bleak world for all of this to take place within.

Painting a picture of this crumbling dystopia is the sweeping landscapes and worn, established buildings that make up the Rivermouth town and surrounding area. Director Dan Gildark and cinematographer Sean Kirby choose to insert wide helicopter shots of landscapes that appear to float beside the ocean. Their vast greens and blues give us the feeling of insignificance that is key to these tales. The art direction team of Liz Cawthon and Etta Lilienthal weave together nightmarish images of unreal rooms, tight terror tunnels and boxes of live human limbs. Whether it dreamt or awake, the images served up by this crew deserve more affirmatory adjectives than my thesaurus has at the moment.

Cthulhu is not a movie for everyone. It doesn't need to be. It's paced and deliberate and doesn't try to be anything it's not. It's the simple story of a man, trying to understand who he is, where he is, and why the world is the way it is. These are questions we all can ask, but a lot of us choose to ignore. Cthulhu is not about squid-headed monsters or formless beasts from the void. It's about the sad fact that humans are not the center of the universe, that in the real game of life all of the big issue we face don't amount to much when the real end comes. Dan Gildark and Grant Cogswell have sculpted an enigmatic look at the reality of humanity, and the persistence of fate. For even when we do come to understand that we are just small insects dancing on the head of a pin, the horror comes when we then understand that even insects have a destiny.

One that there is no escape from...

Discuss in the forum.

Posters - Transporter 3, Burn After Reading, W., Local Color

Discuss in the forum.

Austraila - Baz Luhrman's latest

"Set in northern Australia before World War II, an English aristocrat who inherits a sprawling ranch reluctantly pacts with a stock-man in order to protect her new property from a takeover plot. As the pair drive 2,000 head of cattle over unforgiving landscape, they experience the bombing of Darwin, Australia, by Japanese forces firsthand."

Discuss in the forum.

Humboldt County - Poster

"A disillusioned medical student is stranded for a summer in a remote community of counterculture pot farmers, the last place in the world he imagined he would discover himself."

Written and directed by Darren Grodsky & Danny Jacobs. Starring Fairuza Balk, Peter Bogdanovich, and Brad Dourif amongst others.

Looks like it could be good.



Discuss in the forum.

Problems on the Wolverine movie set

Jeffrey Wells over on Hollywood Elsewhere has some interesting news on the state of play on the Wolverine movie. Looks as if the studio people are trying to make it kiddy friendly which beggars belief after the success of The Dark Knight and the whole character if Logan. Apparantly there is some conflict with Gavin Hood (director) and Fox Studios. Here's some snippets:

"There was/is a huge Wolverine set being recently used. I'm not even sure which lot it was built on, but the look or mood of the set is, according to a source who was told Hood's view of things, supposed to be on the dark, dinghy and somber side. I only know what I was told, but the basics are that Hood was away from the set for whatever reason (shooting something else, taking a day or two off), and when he returned to the big somber set he was shocked to find that it had been repainted top to bottom on Tom Rothman's (Fox CEO) orders. The murky-scuzzy vibe was gone, and a brighter and less downish look had taken its place."

Discuss in the forum.

Billy Zane to Play Every Male Comic Book Hero and Villain Ever

Billy Zane, he had Zoolander's back, was the only reason the Wife watches Titanic, looks cool with or without a beard, goes hunting with Chisholm, okay he was a bit foolish to let Kelly Brook go, but nobody is perfect.

He is the guy the studios should go to when they need someone for the latest comic book movie. Think about....go on think....now think some more....take your favourite superhero and imagine the Zanester playing them in a movie. It works doesn't it....If it doesn't then think some more until it does.

The man who should have been Bruce Wayne, the perfect Lex Luthor, the best Reed Richards, the swashbuckling Green Arrow, the death dealing Deathstroke, the strong jawed Captain America, the brooding Namor, the incredible shrinking Atom, the immortal Iron Fist, the perfect Zeidt, the cackling Creeper, the infinite Beyonder, well you get the idea.

Plus he is bald so can portray any hairstyle through the judicious application of hairpieces, or stay au natural to play Lex Luthor or other bald characters such as a young Charles Xavier.

In closing keep thinking about it, but don't think about The Phantom too much. Slam evil...of all the crappy taglines!

What are your thoughts?

Discuss in the forum.