Jackboots on Whitehall - Animated Nazis invade England

This sounds fantastic - England defeated by Nazi Germany during World War II and now occupied and only Scotland can save everyone.

It is an animated film featuring stop-motion, puppets and animatronics and has started filming today.

It stars Timothy Spall as Churchill, Alan Cumming as Hitler, Tom Wilkinson as Goebbels and Richard O'Brien as Himmler, along with Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Grant, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Ewan McGregor and Richard Griffiths. That is one hell of a cast.

Edward and Rory McHenry are writing and directing the film that will feature stop motion, puppeteering, and animatronics.

I can't wait to see some photos of the puppets.

Source: Empire


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I Love You Phillip Morris - Poster

This is the film starring Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor as gay prison lovers. It's based on a true story and that's all you really need to know.

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Amelia - Trailer for biopic starring Hilary Swank

Here is the trailer for Mira Nair's Amelia. Hilary Swank stars as Amelia Earhart along side Ewan McGregor, Richard Gere, Virginia Madsen, Joe Anderson, Christopher Eccleston, and Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland).

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Ewan McGregor says no to Porno

Trainspotting was a huge success. It made stars of Danny Boyle, Ewan McGregor and Robert Carlysle. There have long been rumours that they would all get together after a suitable number of years had passed to film the Irvine Welsh sequel, Porno.

However, Filmstalker have this little quote from Ewan McGregor which puts a bit of a spanner in the works.

I didn't think the book was very good. The novel of Trainspotting was quite fantastic ... and then I find that the sequel ... it didn't move me as much.

Renton walks away with all the money at the end again. And I thought I don't
want to make the same story again. And, also, I think just the idea of getting
the cast together again 10 to 15 years later isn't good enough, you need more
than that.

Looks like Ewan won't be up for Porno then.

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Ewan McGregor talks about The Men Who Stare At Goats

Jon Ronson is a great journalist who has written some great books. Them: Adventures with Extremists is one of my faves.

One of his other books, The Men Who Stare At Goats, is getting turned into a film starring George Clooney and Ewan McGregor. I posted a photo of Clooney in the film a while back and the one above is also from the film.

In 1979 a secret unit was established by the most gifted minds within the US Army. Defying all known accepted military practice - and indeed, the laws of physics - they believed that a soldier could adopt the cloak of invisibility, pass cleanly through walls and, perhaps most chillingly, kill goats just by staring at them. Entrusted with defending America from all known adversaries, they were the First Earth Battalion. And they really weren't joking. What's more, they're back and fighting the War on Terror. 'The men who stare at goats' reveals extraordinary - and very nutty - national secrets at the core of George W Bush's War on Terror

Dark Horizons have a great interview with Ewan McGregor. He chats about his work on Angels & Demons, then moves on to saying an awful lot about his character in the Goats film.

I play a journalist, at the beginning of the film whose wife, who’s also a journalist in this small newspaper in Ann Arbor – The Ann Arbor Daily Telegram—cheats on him with her one-armed editor, Dave. And I see her flirting with him. But then she comes clean, and she’s going to leave me for this one-armed man, Dave.

I, in my misery, take myself to Iraq. It’s the beginning of the Iraq War. And I go to become embedded, but all I do is end up in a swanky hotel in Kuwait, and can’t get into Iraq. I’m not embedded with any troops, so I’m stuck in this four-star hotel, having wanted to prove my manhood by going to war, you know? Where I meet George Clooney’s character, and we embark on a kind of road trip through Iraq, looking for his buddies in this strange and secret section of the American Army.

It’s a very funny film, and I had such a lovely time working with George, and with Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey. And it was the four of us, and it was just hilarious. It was great fun...We filmed it in – we filmed a lot of it in Puerto Rico. [LAUGHTER] Because it looks so much like Iraq..."

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Angels & Demons TV Spot #13

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Angels & Demons - Hypertrailer

The team behind the global phenomenon The Da Vinci Code returns for the highly anticipated Angels & Demons, based upon the bestselling novel by Dan Brown. Tom Hanks reprises his role as Harvard religious expert Robert Langdon, who once again finds that forces with ancient roots are willing to stop at nothing, even murder, to advance their goals. Ron Howard again directs the film, which is produced by Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, and John Calley. The screenplay is by David Koepp and Akiva Goldsman.

When Langdon discovers evidence of the resurgence of an ancient secret brotherhood known as the Illuminati - the most powerful underground organization in history - he also faces a deadly threat to the existence of the secret organization's most despised enemy: the Catholic Church. When Langdon learns that the clock is ticking on an unstoppable Illuminati time bomb, he jets to Rome, where he joins forces with Vittoria Vetra, a beautiful and enigmatic Italian scientist. Embarking on a nonstop, action-packed hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, deserted cathedrals, and even to the heart of the most secretive vault on earth, Langdon and Vetra will follow a 400-year-old trail of ancient symbols that mark the Vatican's only hope for survival.

Angels & Demons is due on 15th May.

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Angels & Demons - Photos from the Rome Premiere

Angels & Demons premiered in Rome last night and here are a few photos from the night.

Actors wishing they were somewhere else

Ron Howard

Richie Cunningham, Potsie and Ralph Malph (Dan Brown)

Tom Hanks, Vittoria Vetra, Ewan McGregor, Ron Howard

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Taken / Star Wars Episode 1 Mashup

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Angels & Demons - Interviews with Ron Howard, Tom Hanks, Ewan McGregor and Ayelet Zurer

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Angels & Demons - TV Spot

Angels & Demons is due out on 15th May 2009

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Angels & Demons Featurette - Science and Religion

A second featurette for Angels & Demons entitled "Science and Religion" courtesy of Yahoo. Director Ron Howard discusses the conflict between science and religion that's at the heart of this movie.

Starring Tom Hanks, Ayelet Zurer and Ewan McGregor. Due out on 15th May 2009.

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The Ghost - Roman Polanski has cast Tom Wilkinson, Pierce Brosnan, Ewan McGregor and...James Belushi?

/film have the news that Roman Polanski’s The Ghost has added Tom Wilkinson and James Belushi to its cast. That's right, James Belushi. Looks like he's made it to the big leagues.

They join Pierce Brosnan, Ewan McGregor, Kim Cattrall and Olivia Williams. The film will start shooting in Berlin on 4th February.

It is an adaption from the Robert Harris novel and tells the story of a Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), a former British Prime Minister who’s in the process of writing his memoirs. When the death of a colleague disrupts his life, a ghostwriter (Ewan McGregor) is called in to assist him in completing the book. But when the ghostwriter digs a little deeper into his subject’s life, he finds disturbing secrets that have far-reaching consequences.

Sounds pretty intriguing and I may pick up the book to have a read. Anyone read it? Is it a good tale?

As for Polanski and his constant battle with the US legal people it looks as if the court case has been delayed.

An appeals court has halted a planned hearing on the legal travails of the
director Roman Polanski. On Wednesday Judge Peter Espinoza of the Los Angeles
County Superior Court was supposed to consider Mr. Polanski’s request that a
longstanding case against him, in which he was found guilty of having sex with a
13-year-old girl in 1977, be dismissed. Mr. Polanski claimed, among other
things, that there had been misconduct by a judge and a deputy district attorney
on the eve of his sentencing. Judge Espinoza had already thrown out a request by
Mr. Polanski’s lawyers to move the case from Los Angeles, where they said he
couldn’t get a fair hearing. Responding to a late request by Mr. Polanski’s
lawyers, the appeals court issued a stay of Wednesday’s planned proceedings and
gave the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office until Jan. 30 to file
opposition to the request.

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Star Wars Attack of the Clones in 5 Seconds

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

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Who could play Gay Prison Lovers? Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor of course - I Love You Philip Morris

I can honestly say I had heard nothing about this movie until reading about it over on Filmstalker. I can also honestly say that I never in a million years would have put Ewan McGregor and Jim Carrey together in that kind of true life story. Live and learn I guess.

The film is based on a novel by Steve McVicker - Here is Filmstalker's synopsis:
Jim Carrey is a father, husband and all round good guy, except he's a conman, and after a bad fall he's also gay. Then, to compound the matter, he gets caught for fraud and put in prison where he meets an awfully nice man Ewan McGregor whom he falls in love with.

After he gets transferred his lover gets released and so Morris decides to escape and head after him, something he managed four times in all using some amazing ruses. He faked suffering from AIDS for one, and in two other attempts broke out of prison and walked right into CEO roles earning huge salaries.

I Love You Phillip Morris is being directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa.

Here is the trailer.

How do you like them apples? What are your thoughts on this?

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First photo of George Clooney in Men Who Stare At Goats

Here is a first look at George Clooney in uniform shooting a film called Men Who Stare at Goats. In it, Clooney plays a soldier who claims to be part of the Army's First Earth Battalion, a unit that employs paranormal powers in their missions.

It is currently filming in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The film is being directed by actor-turned-filmmaker Grant Heslov. In addition to Clooney, the extensive cast features Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Spacey, and Stephen Lang.

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Best Fight Scene Ever Part 4 - Darth Maul v Obi-Wan Kenobi & Qui-Gonn Jinn

Possibly the only decent bit of Star Wars Episode 1.

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Men Who Stare at Goats - George Clooney developing movie based on Jon Ronson book.

George Clooney has started putting a cast together for Men Who Stare At Goats. It's based on the details uncovered by Jon Ronson (author of the same titled book, along with the excellent Them: Adventures with Extremists).

According to HR he’s got Kevin Spacey, Ewan McGregor, and Jeff Bridges in negotiations to be tethered to it. It’s based on a book about an army unit with paranormal powers.

The title refers to the idea that they can kill a goat simply by staring at it. McGregor will play a reporter named Bob Wilton who stumbles onto the secret when he meets a man (Clooney) who claims to be a psychic soldier.

Bridges will play Clooney’s mentor and the founder of the psychic program, while Spacey will play a former psychic soldier now running a prison camp in Iraq. A great idea and what appears to be a great cast.

Try and catch the documentary Crazy Rulers of the World which featured the episode about the Men who Stare at Goats. Chisholm's friend, The Russian, will dig it.

The three-part series begins with The Men Who Stare at Goats, which charts the history of a secret US Army unit founded in 1979 - the First Earth Battalion.

The programme uncovers the startling truth about this unit's involvement with paranormal activities that defy all known accepted military practice, including mind reading, out of body experiences and 'thought-death' experiments carried out on goats at Fort Bragg.

In programme two, Jon Ronson reveals how the New Age movement of the 1980s has influenced interrogation at Guantanamo Bay and in post-war Iraq.

The final episode looks into the military's involvement with remote viewing and mind control experiments.

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Terminator Salvation at Comic Con

As I am stuck in good old Blighty I am not able to make it to the Comic Con. Hence the second hand info, but it's all good info. I had big doubts about this one, but they all seem to want to make the movie as good as they can, plus the Bale effect may make it even bigger.

AICN have some info about the movie.

"The Director, McG comes out to a stage already dominated by the above T-600 and paraded out names to appease the audience. He talked about speaking with James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger and the writer is Jonathan Nolan who co-wrote The Dark Knight. Then he said Stan Winston’s designs are all over the movie."

Slash Film where also at the conference.

"At both the panel and the press conference, McG removed any doubts that he was under pressure to deliver a PG-13 rating for the film. Referring to the studio executives for this film, McG explained “I’ve been given their blessing to make the picture…and if it’s a rated R picture, then that’s that.” He elaborated that he’s not against the idea of a PG-13 rating, but that the ultimate rating will depend completely upon what the final vision for the film is."

Some more snippets:

- Takes place 10 years before the t-800 model, seeing the state of the war before what we’ve seen in the T2 future war sequence.

- “We’re making a gritty and real terminator. It’s not for pansies. We’re making the terminator, you know?” Sam Worthington

- Skynet robots we will see are called Harvesters, transporters, hydrobots. Supposedly designed like Scott’s and Cameron’s Aliens universe.

- Will Schwarzenegger be back? McG dances around it, saying that the T-800 definitely is part of the mythology, but won’t say any more.

- They’re approaching it like Nolan approached BATMAN BEGINS.

- T-600 is the robot on the stage in the photo above

- Do we get to see what Skynet looks like? Yep. Studied Chernobyl for post-apocalyptic world.

- Film will be dedicated to Stan Winston.

- John Rosengrant was brought up, from Stan Winston Studios to talk about the machinery. McG’s analogy was the first Mac you bought was huge and had 2 megs of memory and today Macbook Air can control the world. The T-600s are bulky, huge, weathered… 7 feet tall. Soviet tank is the inspiration.

- Moon’s a pilot, Sam is Marcus and Moon takes Sam to an outpost led by John Connor. Moon and Sam are romantic interests.

- Bryce is Kate Connor. “What attracted you to this picture other than you get to make out with Bale?”- McG

- Common: “I’m just glad to be here, honestly. Every time I see the trailer and the clips I’m like, ‘I’m in the Terminator! I can’t believe it!’ We rollin’, man. ” – Common

-Film Treatment Will Be Silver to the Extreme - The movie was filmed with color stock but will be treated with as much silver as a typical black and white film, about 3x as much as normal. This gives the film an ethereal quality that suggests something is visually “off.” McG explained that he took some inspiration for the film from Children of Men, and based on what I’ve seen so far (which is extremely limited), this sounds quite plausible.

- The film will end on a cliffhanger - McG confirmed that the film will end on a cliffhanger at the Salvation press conference.

-2018, and the Kyle Reese Backstory Explained - The film will take place in 2018, the first Terminator movie set exclusively post-Judgment Day. It will have aspects of war films, as the humans unite to battle Skynet (which will also be featured). A lot of attention will be given to the T-600s, less advanced versions of the T-800 (the terminator model that Arnold played in the first three films). Given the complex, interweaving, and conflicting timelines in the collective Terminator films and The Sarah Connor Chronicles, McG has opted not to adhere too strictly to the mythology established in these works, but has worked on maintaining the vision of the first films, Cameron’s in particular.
Furthermore, we’ll see how Kyle Reese developed as a young man. We will find out the genesis of some of Reese’s best lines, and also find out that “some of the best moves that Kyle Reese has learned, he’s learned from machines.”

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Star Wars: Episode 2 - Attack of the Clones, 2002 - DVD Review

Director: George "Wamprat" Lucas

Starring: Hayden Christensen, Natalie Portman, Ewan McGregor, Samuel L Jackson, Ian McDairmid, Christopher Lee & Frank Oz
Running Time: 142 Minutes

Score:6/10

Here's part two of Alan S's review of the Star Wars universe.

After yesterday’s attempt at committing, what felt like, suicide by saying that The Phantom Menace was actually not a bad film, from a certain point of view, I now seem to have a death wish that compelled me to watch the second episode in the prequel Star Wars trilogy; namely Attack of the Clones.

Here, we are now 10 years after the Battle of Naboo and young Anakin Skywalker is coming towards the end of his tutelage under Obi-Wan (or so he feels). Another failed attempt on the life of the now Senator Amidala throws their lives back together again.

The feel of the film is quite lush at the beginning. Full sweeping sets with velvet and leathers in cool creams and deep reds and purples really live up to the pomp and ceremony of Coruscant. Lucas also expands on the city/planet with a great speeder chase and even onto the never before seen planet surface with its gaudy neon lights and clubs (You wanna but some deathsticks?)

And it is at this point in the film that Lucas takes the film in a direction that has not been taken before. The film then gives a big nod to film noir with Obi-Wan going on a Sam Spade style investigation, complete with greasy spoon cafés (his meeting with Dex) and terse conversations with Jango Fett about his recent movements. You could almost imagine the dialogue was directly lifted from a 1940’s serial film starring Humphrey Bogart.

While Kenobi does his best to smoke Gauloises, keep whiskey in his filing cabinet and produce inner soliloquies, Anakin and Padmé embark on the ultimately disastrous love affair that spawns Luke and Leia. One thing for sure is his persistence. On no fewer that four occasions does he crash and burn after his post-teenage attempts at pick-up lines. Most mere mortals would have bailed after the first or second attempt.

What Lucas does, to not too bad a level, is have two parts of one story arc off in different directions to be brought back together again on the insect planet of Geonosis (Starship Troopers anyone?) However, it’s at this point that the two parts start to unravel.

The sudden arrival of all the clones in Storm Trooper outfits beggar’s belief. The god awful puns uttered by C-3PO when his head and body become detached are straight out of a child’s joke book. But what I want to focus on here is the crow-barred attempt to keep the fan-boys drooling.

At the finale, when Dooku (which means “poison” in Japanese, for those in the know) and Yoda face off, Dooku comments, without so much as a nod or a wink to camera, that thier knowledge of the Force can’t be separated, so let’s duel with Lightsabers….Oh. Dear. God! Don’t force it upon us! If you are going to let it happen, let it happen naturally!

But I digress. The fore-shadowing of events yet to come arrive thick and fast enough to keep the fans interested enough to chuckle at their own knowledge. Anakin starting on the slippery slope to the Dark side is all too apparent and is the clear nexus of the film.

And this is where I will make my final point. One of the best things that Lucas, in his infinite wisdom, did was to keep the story going throughout the Clone Wars with the animated series (which I shall watch tonight) as Episode II and Episode III are merely the same story split into two. The same feelings, emotions and all round feel to it suggest this.

So, my dear Live-for-Films colleagues, I am really just in hiatus on this review. I shall keep you posted on my continuing mission in a galaxy far, far away.

I’ll give this 6/10. A slightly disappointing addition, but wonderful to watch…bit like a train wreck.