Eddie Murphy to play Richard Pryor. Who'll play Gene Wilder?

Some news from Entertainment Weekly.

Writer/director Bill Condon, who just completed his debut run as producer of the 2009 Academy Awards, is shopping his script Richard Pryor: Is It Something I Said? to the studio subsidiaries and independent distributors around town. Eddie Murphy is attached to star. Sources tell EW.com that Fox Searchlight, the studio behind this year's big Oscar winner Slumdog Millionaire, is interested in the film. The studio, which declined comment, has a relationship with Condon, having partnered with the director on his 2004 feature Kinsey. Condon, who most recently wrote and directed Dreamgirls, had the Pryor biopic set up at The Weinstein Company but was able to pull it out when the indie outfit put it into turnaround. He initially was hoping to secure $30 million to produce the film, but that number, sources say, has dropped down to $25 million. Murphy, who has featured Pryor impersonations in his act as far back as the 1987 concert movie Raw, seems a likely choice for this role.

Is Eddie Murphy the right choice to play Pryor? Murphy was great in Dreamgirls, but his track record recently hasn't been so good.

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Oscars 2009 Acceptance Speech - Jerry Lewis - Jean Hersholt Award

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Discuss: Films set at Christmas that are not Christmas films?

Over the weekend I attended a Christmas meal laid on by the might Colin Bermingham for the few true heroes who put up the Christmas lights in Bebington Village. I was one of those heroes. Jinja was not, he was in Australia for a few weeks, but was invited anyway as he has helped out in previous years and is going to take them down in the new year.

Before the meal (which was lovely by the way), Jinja put forward a movie themed question for us to ponder and I now put it to you.

He asked, "What films can you think of that are set at Christmas but are not Christmas movie?"

At first you could be thinking, what is he talking about? Is that man insane and why are we wearing the same jumper (it wasn't quite the same jumper, the label was slightly different. I put it down to great minds and all that).

Nonplussed I responded with a "Huh?!" and then Jinja continued, "Go on you know like Trading Places." I had it and understood, I reached for my beer and supped deeply (Live for Films does not condone drinking alcohol kids and if you do have a drink this Christmas drink responsibly and don't drink and drive).

Trading Places - the great comedy starring Eddie Murphy (back when he was funny) and Dan Aykroyd (back when he was thin and not selling crystal skull bottles of vodka) who play a tramp and a rich Wall Street dude respectively. Then through a bet by Dan's mean bosses have to swap places to see if they will cope. Dan meets up with Jamie Lee Curtis' breasts so he's fine and Eddie Murphy laughs and shows a flare for stocks and shares. An excellent movie that is often shown on cable channels throughout the land. It also brought us the phrase "Beef Jerky Time!" which can be used for a multitude of meanings. The main point of it though is that the film is set at Christmas - there are trees and lights dotted around and Dan Aykroyd dresses as Father Christmas (Santa Claus to the American visitors to this site!) and eats a salmon through the beard (does that actually cut into his lip?), but you don't think of it as a Christmas movie.

You're getting the idea.

Die Hard - There's another (as is Die Hard 2). Set at Christmas, Bruce Willis (with hair and a vest) attends his wife's Christmas party at Nakatomi Towers. While he's there Professor Snape / Hans Gruber and his crew of european bad guys break in, hold the partygoers hostage, and break into the safe. Snape / Gruber gives us the FBI, they send in the car, the quaterback is toast and Bruce Willis runs around the conveniently large ventilation system with no shoes on and says "Yippee Ki-Aye Muddy Funster!" while pulling glass out of his feet. Set at Christmas but not a Christmas movie.

Last one that was mentioned on the night (by my Dad no less) was It's a Wonderful Life. Think about it. The film shows the life of George Bailey as he gets more and more ground down by Bedford Falls and his good intentions. Then when it all comes to a head he decides to kill himself to help his family. Clarence intervenes and shows George what his life has done while all around the townsfolk do a big collection for Georgie boy and all is well. Think about it. It's not really a Christmas film, only the fact it has the huge downer and then uplifting moment with goodwill all around that has made it the seasons favourite.

There you go then. I've set it up now lets see what the rest of you can come up with in the comments below. Feel free to disagree with any of the above (make sure you explain why though) and put forward any other films you can think of that fall into the criteria. Something to discuss with your family as well on Christmas Day while you digest the turkey.

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Beverley Hills Cop 2009 Script Review

Latino Review have got the script for the next Beverley Hills Cop movie (4 or IV or 2009) and, as expected it doesn't sound too good. Written by Michael Brandt and Derek Haas, to be directed by Brett Ratner. Eddie Murphy apparantly doesn't like it too much. Here is the review. Let me know what you think? Should this be made into the next Beverley Hills Cop movie or should they actually write something decent? Judge Reinhold must be gutted that his chance for a big comeback has gone splat!

It's been 15 years since Axel Foley was last in Beverly Hills, and screenwriters Michael Brandt and Derek Haas needed a good reason to bring him back. That reason comes just a couple of pages into the latest script for Beverly Hills Cop IV (which calls itself Beverly Hills Cop 2009) - Judge Reinhold's Billy Rosewood takes a leap out the 20th story of the Los Angeles Police HQ. When Axel hears that his former partner and best buddy became sidewalk salad he knows it wasn't a suicide and he flies to Beverly Hills to get all the facts for himself.

I thought that Beverly Hills Cop 2009 would be a Bad Boys II style movie with all endless car chases and explosions. Brandt and Haas keep it all old school for the most part though, with a small shoot out and chase in the opening and then no more action for like 50 pages until Axel gets into a small fistfight with some East LA gangbangers. Unfortunately, a lot of the shit in the middle is way boring. The whole problem with another Beverly Hills Cop movie is that the basic idea that Axel Foley is this rough and tumble Detroit cop who is a fish out water in upscale Beverly Hills is played out. He's done a lot of time in Beverly Hills. In this movie they mention that they teach his cases at the police academy and that a restaurant had an Axel Foley sandwich on the menu! (It's been renamed the Timbaland) Axel Foley knows his way around LA better than his new partner on the case who was born there.

That new partner is Goodwin, a fat rookie with low self-esteem who has a crush on a lady cop in the facial recognition department. When he's not solving the mystery of who tossed Billy out the window, Axel is playing matchmaker with these two. He's also teaching Goodwin how to be a better cop. It's like the Axel Foley Finishing School.

Along with Goodwin, Axel teams up with a limo driver named Elliot, who is the wise cracking comic relief. You wouldn't think you would need comic relief in an Eddie Murphy movie, but Axel Foley has no funny lines. I don't know if Brandt and Haas wrote the character unfunny to give Eddie room to ad lib or if they just think having him drop f-bombs every third line is the height of laughs, but Axel Foley is pretty much a Terminator in this movie. He just keeps moving forward no matter what like a shark in the water trying to find out who killed Billy.

It turns out that Billy was learning about a group of corrupt LAPD officers who were involved with gun running with a Beverly Hills rich kid who has ties to the military. The mystery isn't that big a deal, and Axel mostly gets from place to place by half-assedly conning people. He makes up a fake story about who he is and then doesn't follow through on it. It's like Brandt and Haas saw the first BHC and just didn't have the energy to write anything that matched up to it.

The really weird thing is that Axel Foley just isn't a character in this movie. In the opening he's followed a suspect into Canada and is illegally extraditing him, and from there he never takes a breather to be anything but a supercop. It's almost like the writers took an Arnold Schwarzenneger script they had lying around and changed the details to make it a Beverly Hills Cop movie. There's no fun in it.

The basic story of Beverly Hills Cop 2009 isn't terrible. It's a pretty standard police corruption story that has a personal edge for Axel Foley, and Brandt and Haas make it feel like an 80s action film by keeping the action more grounded, even though the final fight does include RPGs. But there's no fun in the movie and it feels like it needs another draft to make the film an Axel Foley adventure and not a generic cop getting revenge picture.

Below is a mashup of the Axel Foley them with the Beastie Boys

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