20 December 2005

Fire Up That Owl Ship!! Watchmen Ain't Dead Yet!!

Hey guys, it's Donnie...So, we've got good news and we've got bad news:

The good news is that producers Lloyd Levin and Larry Gordon have breathed life back into the chronically defunct Watchmen film. After Paramount ditched their property last year, the two have been shopping it around and it's now being widely reported that a production deal has been made with Warner Brothers, the studio that seems to have made a miraculous recovery from the days of Schumacher nipple hell. If they can handle this property as well as they seem to be handling the Batman and Superman franchises, well, that thought honestly instills alot of confidence in me.

The bad news, however, is that it appears that they're set on starting from scratch. When the film was at Paramount, Paul Greengrass was ready to direct from David Hayter's script, a script that is widely believed to be the only truly effective translation of the comic in terms of both maintaining the tone and the content while keeping the story and the film itself within manageable production bounds. Paramount does not seem interested in retaining either Hayter's script or Greengrass's direction talents, which is a real shame. I was really convinced that these were the guys who were gonna be able to get it done right. As much as I want to see a Watchmen movie, I would rather see no movie at all then a crappy or even mediocre film.

Like I said, Warners really seems to have dug themselves out of the hole when it comes to comic films. Hopefully they will have the good sense to treat this property the way they seem to be treating their other premiere comic properties, with intelligence and respect. So long as they're willing to be patient and get it done right, I'm ready to give them the benefit of the doubt and believe that they can find another great writer and director for this film.

It still makes me sad though.

Get Punched By Crappy Flaming Skull

Hey guys, it's Donnie...At this point I'm just starting to feel really bad for Nic Cage. Seriously, the guy just cannot win this year. He had two seemingly quality flicks that each lasted about two weeks in theaters. It was just announced last week that Ghost Rider has been pushed back from June 2006 to February 2007, and today Sony has given us our first glimpse of the big fiery skull in motion and (surprise!) it pretty much blows.

Granted we're really only getting two quick glimpses here, and it is in craparific flash, but to say that the effect fails to impress is putting it lightly. The flames are mediocre, there's nothing going on in his eyes, and his head seems completely disconnected from his body. Does the man have a neck? I can't quite tell.

Here's the real puzzler: Why bother showing us this at all? The movie's not coming out for almost 14 months, so one would hope that they're going to use that time to improve upon the special effects. And so why give us an early look at one of your principal effects this early in the game unless it's really going to knock us on our coal mining asses? My real fear is that this is the best it's gonna get, they've already settled on essentially this effect design and, perhaps most tragically, they're so proud of themselves that they want to show off what they've got. So sad.

Click it here to see the biker ghost of Richard Pryor. (Too soon?)....

19 December 2005

RIP John Spencer, aka Leo McGarry

Hey guys, it's Donnie...Friday night I was out drinking with a group of friends when someone announced that John Spencer had died of a heart attack. The news pretty much silenced the table. Suffice it to say that we spent the remainder of the evening drinking to his memory.

John Spencer was an absolutely amazing actor, best known for his Emmy winning portrayal of Leo McGarry on The West Wing, one of the greatest television shows conceived by man. McGarry was President Bartlett's Cheif of Staff for much of the show, until (ironically enough) his character, a recovering alcoholic, suffered a massive heart attack that forced him to leave the White House. McGarry later returned as the Vice Presidential candidate and runningmate to Jimmy Smits's character Matthew Santos. No word yet on how Spencer's death will affect the show, now in its' final season.

Spencer had a number of very memorable roles over the years, most notably in The Rock, The Negotiator, Cop Land, Sea of Love, Presumed Innocent, and the television series LA Law and The Patty Duke Show (when he was a child). Personally, I'll always remember him as the missile silo commander (along with a very young Michael Madsen) who refuses to turn his key at the beginning of Wargames.

John Spencer was 58.

He went WELL before his time.

16 December 2005

Trailertown: Codename V Dreamz Of A Hedge

Hey guys, it's Donnie...Welcome back to Trailertown!

V For Vendetta: I'm totally psyched for this movie to come out, however I did not watch this trailer, no do I plan on watching it. Why you ask? Well, according to AICN's Quint, who saw the movie last weekend at Butt-Numb-A-Thon, it's a really well made trailer except for the fact that it essentially shows the entire movie in two and a half minutes. I have no interest in spoiling the movie for myself (even if it is almost three months before it hits theaters) and, to be honest, the teaser was more than enough put my ass in the theater come March. And thus I will be left to handle this trailer much like the Matrix Revolutions trailer, i.e. closing my eyes and blocking my ears and talking to myself whenever it pops up on TV or in a theater.
Click it here at your own risk...

American Dreamz: I've really enjoyed watching Paul Weitz grow as a filmmaker over the last seven years or so. If you had told me in 1999 that the guy who directed American Pie was going to quickly transition into serious dramatic filmmaker capable of biting social commentary...well, I may not have believed you. Nonetheless, here we are and here is the much touted American Dreamz, which looks to live up to its reputation so far. Weitz has certainly gathered a hell of a cast and Dennis Quaid, Hugh Grant and Mandy Moore in particular look like they've put in really fine work. At the same time, I'm sure we can expect similar greatness from always reliable folks like Willem Dafoe, John Cho, Judy Greer, and Boston's own Seth Myers. My absolute favorite moment of the whole trailer is the very last one.
Click it here for the proper pronunciation of Chester Cheetah's favorite snack food...

Over The Hedge: Here we've got the theatrical trailer for the latest from Dreamworks Animation (now property of Paramount) and I have to say that I'm astounded at how much better this looks than Pixar's Cars. And that's really a shame because this doesn't even look all that amazing. I mean, the animation is really solid and the animals all have a very nice style about them, but I'm certainly not blown away by anything I see here. The Incredibles it is not. In fact, in the wide spectrum of CG animated features I'd say this probably falls somewhere between Chicken Little and Finding Nemo. (And for the record, both of those movies as well as the interminable Shrek movies rank well below Incredibles, both Toy Story films, and A Bug's Life/Antz.) But it's got some nice gags and if I'm really bored on a Sunday afternoon I could probably be convinced to hit this one up for a matinee.
Click it here to see a Jesus racoon...

Singer Wants Twice The Superman

Hey guys, it's Donnie...Variety is reporting this morning that Bryan Singer isn't getting enough Kal-El of Krypton in his diet. Over the next few months he'll serve as executive producer for Look Up In The Sky: The Amazing Story Of Superman, a documentary by Kevin Burns. Burns has already conducted over 40 interviews with various members of the Superman legacy, including former writers, directors and cast members from previous incarnations of Metropolis.

According to Singer, the plan is to create a feature length documentary which would really lay out the story of the character and the evolution of Superman's history over the course of the last 68 years. Hopefully the film will be completed in April and will then get a limited theatrical release as well as re-edited television broadcast which would feature a scene from Singer's new film. The documentary would then find its way to DVD, most likely as a stand alone film, although I suspect it would also end up being incorporated into the eventual Superman Returns DVD.

Personally, I'm pretty stoked about this. The recent re-release of Tim Burton's Batman had a phenomenal documentary laying out the entire history of the Batman character, from when he was created by Bob Kane, all the way through Burton's film, including all the failed attempts to bring him to the big screen before that. Hell, you could probably make a pretty damn interesting two hour documentary just on the last 10 years and $50 million dollars spent trying to dig the Superman franchise out of the grave and get another movie made. If this documentary doesn't include Kevin Smith's gay robot, JJ Abrams's Kryptonian CIA Agent Lex Luthor and McG's refusal to get on a plane, I'll be mighty disappointed.

Play The Demise Of A Franchise!

Hey guys, it's Donnie...My guess is that come next Memorial Day, a good number of people are going to find themselves walking out of a movie theater as the credits are rolling on X3, and they will scratch their heads with a look of disappointment and puzzlement plastered all over their faces. They will then find themselves saying something along the lines of, "I don't understand. X2 was so good and that...that was not. What the hell happened?"

Well hypothetical movie-goer, funny you should ask. XMenFilms.net is reporting that January's Game Informer magazine features an article on a new X-Men video game that will pick up in the Oval Office at the end of X2 and will end mere moments before X3 starts. Think of it like The Animatrix, but longer, more detailed, and in video game form. No word on who's creating the game itself or what platforms it'll be released on, but it is being written by Zak Penn (who co-wrote X2 and X3) and Chris Claremount (X-Men comics). Apparantly it'll feature Wolverine, Iceman and Nightcrawler (bizarre combination) as well as a number of the newer characters that will be appearing in X3. Word is that the game will also explain why Nightcrawler isn't in the next movie. I've got a twenty that says they kill him off at the end of the game because they can't think of anything better to do with him.

Oh yeah, that picture is a compilation of publicity photos for all the mutants that have appeared (or will appear) in all three movies. So you've got some older guys who are dead and gone and some that we've yet to really see. That awful picture of Colossus is hidden somewhere on the official X3 website, although Dark Horizons also snagged the complete set of publicity photos for X3 which features Colossus in a human flesh form that doesn't look he was attacked by a nine year old with Photoshop.

Click the pic for hi-res.

15 December 2005

Ghost Rider's Engine Stalls

Hey guys, it's Donnie... Here with a special message to one Nic Cage

Dear Mr. Cage,

Look out! Your superhero movie is in trouble!

Hope you had fun at this year's Comic Con. Looks like you'll be back again next year.

Sincere condolences,

-DonnieDarker

Yes, that's right folks, Ghost Rider has been pushed back a whopping seven months from July 14 2006 to February 16 2007. Yikes. Despite Sony's protestations, that cannot possibly be a good sign for this movie. Sony claims that they had great success when Daredevil opened during that time slot (Really? Success? Are you sure you wanna call that success?) and the powers that be are also concerned that summer 2006 is looking a bit crowded. Next summer Sony will also be releasing The DaVinci Code, Click, Monster House, the Will Ferrell Nascar movie (formerly Talladega Nights), Zoom and the Wayan's comedy Little Man (which just started filming yesterday). Personally, I think of they were really worried about their own docket being crowded, Ghost Rider would not be the movie I would bump back from that list.

More likely Sony is worried about all the other huge blockbusters that will be invading theaters next summer. X3 and Superman Returns have already declared next summer as the grounds for their battle royale, and that's not counting other big draws like Mission Impossible 3, Posiedon and Pirates Of The Caribbean 2. Somehow I think that Ghost Rider will probably have a bit more breathing room two Februaries from now.

Watery One Sheet

Hey guys, it's Donnie...I made no secret of my love for the Lady In The Water teaser. I can't make any claims about the movie itself other than it having two great leads in the form of Paul Giamatti and Bryce Dallas Howard. But that teaser...man that's pretty much a textbook perfect teaser trailer. Now we've got the official one sheet and I have to say that it looks like more of the same. Simple, well designed imagery that not only inspires interest in the movie, but also inspires the imagination.

The smartest thing that the folks at Warners could possibly do when it comes to marketing this film is to withhold any and all images of Bryce Dallas Howard in character for as long as humanly possible. In fact, if it was me, I might even try and get away with never showing her in any promo material, including a full trailer, so that people HAVE to go see the movie to get the money shot. I don't think a studio can really get away with that these days, but how cool would it be?

Click the image to see it all big and hi-ressy

14 December 2005

You Got Fuzz On You

Hey guys, it's Donnie... Yesterday I was sad that, despite repeated viewings, Simon Pegg was nowhere to be found in the M:I3 teaser. But I'm absolutely giddy today to learn that Working Title Films has officially given Pegg and his Shaun Of The Dead co-writer and director Edgar Wright the greenlight to begin Hot Fuzz, a British cop action movie that Pegg describes as a "British Shane Black movie." Pegg and his Shaun co-star/comedic genius Nick Frost will star as mismatched partners in a backwater British police precinct.

Do you really need to hear any more than that? Alright, fine, here's more Pegg:
“It sounds as if it’s going to be March, which is exciting. We’ve actually been writing it for most of the year! We’ve been working so hard on it. It’s such a complex script. I think the first draft was 235 pages long because we thought ‘oh fuck it, let’s just go for it, let’s just vomit it onto the page and see what happens’. And we’ve shaved off a hundred-odd pages, but it’s one of those things where if you remove one thing, there’s a pay-off later on that needs to be addressed. It’s been a far more intensive process than writing Shaun.”
I absolutely cannot wait for this. Pegg and Frost have the potential to become absolute gods of comedy, and Edgar Wright has some REALLY interesting projects on the horizon that will almost certainly benefit from his experience here, including a possible Ant-Man comedy. This makes me wanna go home and watch Shaun right now...

Trailertown: Bubbly Blockbusters

Hey guys, it's Donnie...Welcome back to Trailertown.

The onslaught continues unabated. BIG trailers released today. We're really starting to get an idea of what next summer is gonna look like and I have to say that on the whole I like what I've seen so far. It's also worth noting that along with all these little gems, Apple will be launching the new V For Vendetta trailer at some point on Thursday, December 14, i.e. tomorrow. The movie just closed Harry Knowles's Butt-Numb-A-Thon down in Austin and we've heard nothing but good things from those who saw it. Anyway, here's what's on tap for today...

Posiedon - At first I was not very excited about this movie at all. But over the course of The Posiedon Journals I admit becoming more and more interested. The last one with Wolfgang Peterson is really what put me over the edge. To hear him talk about his love for this project really made me excited to see it happen. Now we've got this teaser and all I've got to say is...damn. Talk about a goddamn money shot. This thing has got some real potential to be a great time at the movies next summer. What do you say?
Click it here to ride an old man's back...uh, I mean, never mind...

The DaVinci Code - Haven't read the book, probably never will read the book. While I'm always up for some good speculative history, there's just something about that book that puts me off. Maybe it's all the people who say that it's a poorly written book with a clever idea. I don't know. I do know this: Opie has been doin some serious work here and the badassery of Paul Bettany's albino bad guy probably counterbalances the outright silliness of Tom Hanks's academic mullet. This thing is going make some serious bank for Sony next summer and I have to admit that it looks terribly interesting.
Click it here to see an albino re-enactment of The Passion Of The Christ...

Bubble - Okay, so this bizarre little entry is the latest from Stephen Soderbergh, who recently announced that his next film will be Guerrilla, the story of Che Guevara starring Benjamin Bratt. This on the other hand...this is just weird. None of the characters are played by professional actors, the running time is just a little over an hour and this teaser...just strange. For me, the most important part is at the very end when it says "Available January 27th In Theaters, On DVD, And On HDNet Movies." That's F-ing HUGE. Studios have been talking about simultaneous multi-platform releases for a while now. Word is that Disney was even trying to convince theaters to sell Chicken Little DVDs in the lobby when the movie was released last month. No one's been able to pull it off yet, so I suppose it makes sense that it should be someone like Soderbergh. And a one hour quasi-experimental little filmlet seems to make sense as a good test drive for this type of release. The real test will come when they try to do the same thing with a widely released film like an Ocean's 11.
Click it here if you really like dolls...

Rocky Has A Diary

Hey guys, it's Donnie...I just got my big ole boxed set of Peter Jackson's King Kong Production Diaries in the mail yesterday and gee wiz did it make me excited. Sadly I won't get to see the film itself until tomorrow or Friday (stupid job...) but I will be making the pilgrimage to Skull Island soon enough. Tonight I'll be watching 1933 King Kong instead, and once I've seen Jackson's epic, I plan on sloshing through both disks of production funtime.

So, what with King Kong hitting theaters, and KongIsKing losing it's usefulness, who will rise to carry the mantle of online Production Diary goodness?

Rocky Balboa, that's who.

Yes, that's right, today Sly launched rockybalboablog.com, a repository for all things Rocky related. There's not too much there now, just a clip of Stallone talking about fight choreography and a few minutes of him and Antonio Tarver dancing around the ring and swinging their massive meathooks at each other. I did like seeing Stallone in those costume screentests though. Hopefully this blog will be as interesting/entertaining as the likes of BlueTights, Posiedon Journals, and Trainwreck (Clerks 2). They certainly need to get better quality video.

Spidey Gets Another Playmate...

Hey guys, it's Donnie... Adrian Lester is probably best recognized as one of Ian Holm's co-workers in The Day After Tomorrow and from the UK show Hustle. Well, he's about to become a whole lot more recognized. He's just been officially added to the cast of Spider-Man 3. What role will he be playing? Good question. Let's ask Lester:
"I haven't even had a script yet. All I know is that I'm playing a research scientist who tries to cure the baddie of whatever badness he's got. I don't even know who the new baddie is!"
Okay, well that wasn't much help. I suppose he could just be playing "Research Assistant #1" but somehow I doubt that. Speculation has begun to snowball that he may be playing Ben Reilly, one of the least loved characters in Spidey lore. Originally Ben Reilly was a clone of Peter Parker who, at various times, envied Parker, hated Parker, fought Parker in Shea Stadium, and then later took over as Spider-Man for a while. However, the newer "Ultimate" comic series has reimagined Reilly as an African American lab assistant who starts screwing around with the Venom symbiote. Despite Sony's continued silence, it's generally accepted at this point that Venom will be featured in this movie in the form of Topher Grace.

Anyway, I liked Lester in The Day After Tomorrow. I was sad to see his character go, although he probably had one of the more dignified deaths in the movie, as it did not involve CGI wolves or death by shopping mall.

Shatner Gets A Goatee?? The Return Of Mirror Kirk??

Hey guys, it's Donnie...We are currently living in a world without Star Trek. Ever since The Next Generation went on the air in 1987, there has been some form of Trek in active production. Right now, the franchise has temporarily stalled out. There are no shows actively running and the powers that be at Paramount can't seem to get started on a new film. The talk up till now has been that producers Rick Berman and Brannon Braga have worn out their welcome among fandom and that the best way to really get the franchise going again is by essentially starting over. There's been much discussion of a "Starfleet Academy" prequel movie, in which we would follow a new crew of recruits as they struggle through the Kobayashi Maru and midterms and whatnot.

Well, CanMag.com has a scooper reporting that according to Linda Park (Hoshi on Enterprise) the Academy idea has been scrapped in favor of a story set in the infamous Mirror Universe. I've ALWAYS loved the Mirror Universe, and I've been impressed with the way it's been used in the franchise to date, i.e. a way to expand upon characters and plotlines, instead of a crutch to use when you run out of ideas. Personally, I'm not convinced that such a movie wouldn't be exactly that: a way to keep the franchise hobbling along until they can figure out something else to do with it.

HOWEVER, I haven't even gotten to the best part yet. Check this out:
The current script – I ASSUME ‘ONE’ OF MANY - apparently has events set in what is called a “Mirror” Universe. It will enable Trek actors past and present to play roles, including William Shatner. Apparently Shatner was in talks to do a guest role on Enterprise, but it didn’t work out. Why? Apparently he wanted a) more money b) would rather do Trek films. Solution? The ideas for the episode of the Enterprise episode he was going to do will now be incorporated into a movie. Yep, Captain Kirk’s back - SOMEHOW. [Linda Park] wasn’t unsure of her involvement or her show’s cast’s involvement but said she “thinks” it’ll be Shatner, Captain Picard and maybe Archer.
Yeah. Shatner. Did anyone see him singing and dancing as the devil in the Comedy Central Last Laughs '05 special? Amazing. Last night I watched Boston Legal for the first time in a while, and it merely reminded me that Shatner is a goddamn genius. There's a part of me that would love to see Mirror Kirk, Picard and Archer. Although I'm not really sure if there's really any elegant sort of way to span all those timelines without turning it into a giant clusterfuck. And am I the only one that wants to see the rest of the DS9 storyline play out? The show ended with Sisco and Gul Dukat not quite dying and getting pulled into the Celestial Temple in the Bajoran Wormhole with the promise that The Emissary was gonna return and a big ruckus was gonna go down.

I'm such a nerd.

13 December 2005

Golden Globes Love Gay Cowboys

Hey guys, it's Donnie...So the notoriously silly Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced the nominations for this year's Golden Globe Awards. This coming a day after most local film critics' associations (LA, Boston, NY) as well as the AFI named their top films for the year. I have to say that I'm fairly pleased with what I've seen this year. While I may not necessarily agree with some choices, I don't think that any of the films or actors who have been getting attention are undeserving.

Most of the love seems to going to Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Capote as we'll as Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain, which leads the Golden Globes with seven nominations. Personally, I'm sad that Jake Gyllenhaal isn't getting more recognition, as the guy has had an absolutely monster year. I find it odd that Walk The Line is listed as a Musical or Comedy, because it's really not either of those things. I guess they realized that it couldn't stand up in the Drama category and decided that, since there's music, they could sneak it into the Musical category. Lame.

Anyway, here is the complete list of nominations. The Awards Show will be Sunday, January 16th on NBC, 8pm EST.

Best Picture - Drama
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
THE CONSTANT GARDENER
GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK.
A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
MATCH POINT

Best Picture - Musical or Comedy
THE SQUID AND THE WHALE
THE PRODUCERS
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
WALK THE LINE
MRS. HENDERSON PRESENTS

Actor in a Leading Role - Drama
Philip Seymour Hoffman, CAPOTE
Heath Ledger, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
Russell Crowe, CINDERELLA MAN
Terrence Howard, HUSTLE AND FLOW
David Strathairn, GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK.

Actor in a Leading Role - Musical or Comedy
Johnny Depp, CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY
Nathan Lane, THE PRODUCERS
Pierce Brosnan, THE MATADOR
Cillian Murphy, BREAKFAST ON PLUTO
Joaquin Phoenix, WALK THE LINE

Actress in a Leading Role - Drama
Gwyneth Paltrow, PROOF
Maria Bello, A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
Felicity Huffman, TRANSAMERICA
Charlize Theron, NORTH COUNTRY
Zhang Ziyi, MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA

Actress in a Leading Role - Musical or Comedy
Reese Witherspoon, WALK THE LINE
Keira Knightley, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
Laura Linney, THE SQUID AND THE WHALE
Judi Dench, MRS. HENDERSON PRESENTS
Sarah Jessica Parker, THE FAMILY STONE

Best Director
Steven Spielberg, MUNICH
Ang Lee, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
Fernando Meirelles, THE CONSTANT GARDENER
George Clooney, GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK.
Peter Jackson, KING KONG
Woody Allen, MATCH POINT

Actor in a Supporting Role
Paul Giamatti, CINDERELLA MAN
George Clooney, SYRIANA
Will Ferrell, THE PRODUCERS
Matt Dillon, CRASH
Bob Hoskins, MRS. HENDERSON PRESENTS

Actress in a Supporting Role
Rachel Weisz, THE CONSTANT GARDENER
Shirley MacLaine, IN HER SHOES
Frances McDormand, NORTH COUNTRY
Michelle Williams, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
Scarlett Johansson, MATCH POINT

Best Screenplay
Woody Allen, MATCH POINT
George Clooney & Grant Heslov, GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK
Paul Haggis & Bobby MOresco, CRASH
Tony Kushner & Eric Roth, MUNICH
Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN

Best Original Score
Alexandre Desplat, SYRIANA
James Newton Howard, KING KONG
Gustavo Santaolalla, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
Harry Gregson-Williams, THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE
John Williams, MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA

Best Original Song
“A Love That Will Never Grow Old” - BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, Music by: Gustavo Santaolalla, Lyrics by: Bernie Taupin
“Christmas In Love” — CHRISTMAS IN LOVE, Music by: Tony Renis, Lyrics by: Marva Jan Marrow
“There’s Nothing Like A Show On Broadway” — THE PRODUCERS, Music & Lyrics by: Mel Brooks
“Travelin’ Thru” — TRANSAMERICA, Music & Lyrics by: Dolly Parton
“Wunderkind” — THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE, Music & Lyrics by: Alanis Morissette

Best Foreign Film
KUNG FU HUSTLE
MASTER OF THE CRIMSON ARMOR aka THE PROMISE
MERRY CHRISTMAS (JOYEUX NOEL)
PARADISE NOW
TSOTSI

Trailertown: The Other Side Of Marie's Impossible Miami

Hey guys, it's Donnie...Welcome back to Trailertown!
Holy crapola have we got a whole bunch of good stuff. With the AFI and most local critics' associations having just announced all their awards and with this morning's announcement of the Golden Globe nominations, we are now officially in the full swing of awards' season. And with all the big contenders getting released in the the next two weeks or so, studios are desperate to attach trailers for all their big hopefuls for next year, particularly for next summer. We benefit in the form of about six trailers a day getting released online, although not all of them are so choice.

Mission: Impossible 3 - I have to give credit where credit is due. Paramount and/or Tom Cruise realized that the franchise was in trouble. The first film (which I really liked) aimed for uber-complex and fell a little short while the second film pretty much went for the lowest common denominator and was about as intellectually engaging as a turnip. They didn't rush into production on the third film, they got their man with J.J. Abrams and this first teaser really looks as if it may have captured the elusive middle ground between M:I and M:I2, i.e. impressive action along with what I'm hoping will be an engaging plot. At the very least, Phillip Seymour Hoffman easily looks to be the best villain of the franchise to date. Sadly the trailer has a marked lack of Simon Pegg.
Click it here for much jumping off buildings and flailing about...

Miami Vice - Michael Mann's got balls. Huge, digital balls. The guy is doing a big screen adaptation of Miami Vice starring Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx, and rather than either going the Starsky & Hutch route or making a movie that's semi-serious but kinda campy like the show was, he instead makes a dark, gritty, serious crime drama with nary a pastel in sight. Huge balls. Farrell looks as if he hasn't showered in weeks and Foxx looks like a badass mothafucka and I'm pleasantly surprised. I was fairly ambivalent about this film, probably because I was expecting something more akin to Bad Boys. But after the teaser I'm actually pretty excited for this thing to hit theaters next summer, if for no other reason than to see what kinda crazy shit Mann pulled off here.
Click it here for the Colin Farrell Vocab Word Of The Day...

Marie Antoinette - Sofia Coppola you are a strange one. I thought that the Tristan and Isolde trailer set primarily to the Evanescence song was just about as awkward as it could get. But nope, I was way wrong. The only things stranger than the music choice here is the title design at the end of the teaser. I mean, it looks kind of interesting, and it'’s certainly from the director of Lost In Translation, but I don'’t know if this is just a trailer thing or if she'’s going for a sort of A Knight'’s Tale vibe where there'’s modern music in a period movie and no one seems to notice or find it strange. I will say this: that song is impossibly catchy and there is a naked Dunst on display. So it'’s got THAT goin for it.
Click it here for indie rock & royalty...

The Other Side - Call it my indie discovery of the week. I've never heard of any of the people involved in this film, I literally just stumbled upon the trailer, but I kind of like it. Talk about a great premise. Sure there's definitely amateurish moments here and there, particularly the last one with the street sign, the obviously breakable glass car window and the diminutive car explosion, but I don't really care. It feels a little bit like Undead, the Australian zombie movie from this past summer, a movie I rather enjoyed. I'm most definitely gonna try to track this puppy down because I feel like it has the potential to be great fun.
Click it here to help that poor SOB. We insist...

Van Wilder Likes Beer

Hey guys, it's Donnie...Ryan Reynolds has been making one good career move after another. Some of you might question that statement as you glance upon one of the countless Just Friends posters featuring Reynolds in a fat suit, but pay it no heed. That's a paycheck movie, pure and simple. And for every paycheck movie the guy makes, he does another movie that just flat out rocks, or at least he rocks in it. (Blade Trinity much?)

He's currently filming Smokin' Aces for Joe Carnahan and as of this morning he's also signed on to the next Broken Lizard movie, Beerfest. The self-described "Fight Club with beer" is the story of two brothers who discover underground German beer Olympics. After getting their bony American asses handed to them by the Germans, they return to America and assemble the ultimate team of beer atheletes to take those dirty Krauts downtown to Chinatown.

It's still unclear exactly what role Reynolds will play, and while I'm sure it would be funny to see him as a German, he's probably more likely to be a member of the American superteam. Broken Lizard has been able to secure some great talent in their last two projects, including Brian Cox and Bill Paxton. Reynolds seems like a natural fit for these guys and seems like a great addition for this project, which I'm convinced is going to be a return to Super Troopers form.

Incidentally, their first movie Puddle Cruiser, which they financed and produced themselves but was never distributed, is now available on DVD. I haven't seen it yet, but it's at the top of my Netflix queue...

Linklater's Radio Scanner

Hey guys, it's Donnie...Phillip K. Dick novels have been tragically and consistently mis-handled by Hollywood over the years. Most will tell you that the reason is that most studios don't have the balls to make a real, trippy, in-your-face, mind-altering Dick movie (don't dwell on that sentence too long...) and instead distill some small, basic idea, rewrite the whole story, and then throw in Ben Affleck.

Enter Richard Linklater, who will soon bring us what most are expecting to be the first great Phillip K. Dick movie in the roto-scoping form of A Scanner Darkly. The teaser has been floating around for a while, (We should be seeing a new trailer soon) but word is that the film has been screening for test audiences recently and that audiences are absolutely loving it. They're also absolutely hating the music. I don't know if that means they've got a crappy temp score on it or if audiences are reacting to the finished score. Either way, the powers at Warners are apparantly taking these criticisms rather seriously and sent the film's producers out to secure a new score.

Now comes the awesome: They're apparantly very close to signing Radiohead to the deal. That's right, Radiohead would score the entire film. I don't even remember the last time a band actually scored an entire film, but they seem like the absolute perfect choice to give the film that final kick into greatness. This isn't quite confirmed yet, but hopefully we should hear a confirmation (and hopefully not a denial) in the coming weeks.

A Scanner Darkly will hit theaters in Spring 2006.

RIP Richard Pryor

Hey guys, it's Donnie...Richard Pryor passed away early this past Saturday morning due to a heart attack complicated by his long bought with MS. Nine days earlier he had celebrated his 65th birthday.

He was also a goddamn comedy genius the likes of which we may never see again. Pryor is widely regarded as the greatest stand up comedian of all time, and rightly so. His onscreen work was also more than enviable. The guy has an amazing list of credits, and worked with alot of the greats. His pairing with Gene Wilder in films like Stir Crazy and See No Evil, Hear No Evil was one of the greatest onscreen comedy pairs I've ever seen. He also co-wrote Blazing Saddles.

His last film role was Arnie in David Lynch's Lost Highway back in 1997.

He will be missed.

11 December 2005

Halo del Toro Part 2

Hey guys, it's Donnie... Earlier this week rumors began to circulate that Guillermo del Tor, director of The Devil’s Backbone, Hellboy, and the upcoming Pan’s Labyrinth (which is gonna knock some people on their asses) had all but signed on the dotted line to direct the big screen adaptation of Halo. This got lots of folks (i.e. me) mucho excited.

del Toro recently set the record straight: Jackson and co. have approached him about directing Halo and he is very interested in doing it, but his main focus right now is completing Pan’s Labyrinth and getting Hellboy 2 off the ground. If the powers-that-be are willing to wait on it, he’d like to do Halo after HB2. Unfortunately, I don’t think that they’ll be willing to wait on such a major franchise for another 3-4 years, so my guess is that we’re gonna start hearing more names in connection with the project pretty soon.

That’s really kind of a shame, because I think that del Toro could very well be the guy for the job.

Seth Rogen Gets Knocked Up

Hey guys, it's Donnie... In the wake of The 40 Year Old Virgin’s success, (it was easily the funniest comedy of the year and hits DVD shelves next week) director Judd Apatow found himself with the opportunity to do all sorts of stuff. It was announced early on that his next project was going to be another Virgin-esque low budget comedy, but that Seth Rogen (Cal from Virgin and Ken from Freaks and Geeks) would be playing the lead role.

Some interviews for the DVD release this week finally got us some more info on the project: it’s currently titled Knocked Up and in it Rogen will play a guy who has a one night stand with a girl who’s incredibly out of his league, but then gets her pregnant. Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann, (the chick who tasted like shellfish and vomited strawberry daiquiri all over Carrell) will co-star. This sounds like comedy gold. I think Rogen was one of the best parts of Virgin and I can’t wait to see him get his own movie.

Everyone Wants To Be Prestigious

Hey guys, it's Donnie... Last week it was David Bowie. This week, director Chris Nolan has brought Scarlet Johansson and her marvelous sweater puppets onboard his next flick, The Prestige.

Johansson, who is currently attached to more films than she can ever possibly hope to actually complete, will play an assistant to one of the magicians who is then sent to spy on the other, thus probably causing all sorts of jealousy and paranoia. This project gets better and better every day.

Next week it’ll probably be announced that Laurence Olivier has come back from the dead just so he can be in this movie.

Ratings Board Shits All Over Clever Title

Hey guys, it's Donnie... Documentarian Kirby Dick’s next project is titled This Film Is Not Yet Rated. It’s an investigative piece concerning the MPAA’s mysterious “ratings board”, a.k.a. the guys who watch movies from the perspective of “the average American parent” and then decide what the movie should be rated. The film looks into how certain movies are rated, like how violence is generally okay, but sexuality is frowned upon, and whether or not hetero- and homosexuality is judged on the same basis. (My guess is probably not.) Not only that, but Dick decides to try and discover just who is actually on this secretive ratings board.

Well, the ratings board screened the film last week and, unsurprisingly, gave the film a rating of NC-17 (for sexual content), thus ensuring that the film will never see the inside of most theaters. Fortunately IFC, who produced the film, is holding tough, and will premier the film at Sundance next year and then air it on IFC in the fall. Kudos to Kirby Dick and kudos to IFC. I’m looking forward to checking this flick out.

06 December 2005

About That Blasted X3 Trailer...

Hey guys, it's Donnie... X3: Last Stand. Okay, they may not flash it up there on the screen, but Xavier says it quite clearly in the voiceover at the end, so I'm taking that as a sign that it's the full title. Then again, I also have a feeling that it's gonna be given all the weight that the second movie's full title was given. Fox may have called it X2: X-Men United, but in reality everyone just refers to it as X2.

So what's the verdict? The verdict is...eh.

Click it here to swing by Apple and check this sucker out, then come back for my more in-depth commenatry.

Back? Alright. First of all, what is this "Announcement Teaser" bullshit? How pretentious can Fox be? It's not like it was a big secret that there was gonna be another X-Men film. Secondly, I'm greatly bothered by how hard they seem to be trying to make it look "cool" and yet still kind of fail to do so. That music seems very out of place, and I'd say that the teaser gives too much away, but half the time I have no idea what the hell is going on. I had to pause it and go through frame by frame just to be able to look at some of the shots and see who it is that's standing there and what they're doing. Here are a few things I picked up though:

Angel does look much better in motion, although we don't see much of him other than those stills from yesterday. I'm not sold on the look of Juggernaut yet, nor on Beast, but then again we rarely get a shot of them doing anything active that lasts more than 4/5ths of a second. Besides, there's alot more to beast than just how he looks. I wanna hear him talking. Then we can really talk about Beast.

We get a few good looks at Shadowcat and Iceman, which is a bit confusing, especially since Rogue is still around and Daniel Cudmore's Colossus seems to have been promoted to full fledged X-Man. We also get intimations of the much discussed Wolverine/Storm sexfest, leading me to believe that they're just gonna pick up like 6 months after X2 left off and suddenly everyone's relationships have changed and we're just gonna have to accept it.

We catch a brief glimpse of Olivia Williams during the scene in the trailer which infuriates me most of all, although for some bizarre reason I didn't recognize her at first.

If my intuition is correct, I think there's also a bit of the danger room on display. That's the only explanation I can come up with for Wolverine standing around smoking a cigar amidst lazer beams and massive explosions.

If you freeze frame the scene with Magento rallying mutants in the woods, you can see Stacy X, a.k.a. The Mutant Whore. And yes, she still looks like a 16 year old boy.

All told, here's what I think about the trailer. I think that they basically just got footage of all the most exciting, most emotional, and "coolest" moments that they have finished so far, found some "cool" music and a little bit of Patrick Stewart voiceover, and threw it all in a blender and this is what came out. It's a total mish mash of moments that don't tell any kind of a story, don't have any sort of emotional resonance, and don't do anything to get me really excited for this movie.

My real fear is that the movie is going to take a similar approach. Fox seems intent on killing the franchise with this picture, and so it seems to me that they basically decided to throw in every mutant character they could think of while they still had the chance. Then they made a movie that is spectacularly huge and probably more than a little confusing and full of "big emotional moments". My fear is that it's going to be missing out on the simple plot and character foundations in between the big set pieces that give those "big moments" the clarity and emotional punch they need. Otherwise it's just mutant porn. It's just, "Look at this guy's powers! Look at these mutants fight! Watch all these buildings and stuff blow up!"

I PRAY TO GOD that I'm wrong, because if by some miracle I am, then this movie might, JUST MIGHT, be a hell of an end to the franchise. Unfortunately, I still have my doubts, and those doubts are rather sizeable.

Jack Black Libres My Nachos

Hey guys, it's Donnie...This makes way more sense than that John Woo wet dream we posted two weeks ago.
Now that's a hero if I've ever seen one. I love how diversely Jack Black is picking his projects. Goes from School Of Rock to King Kong, to The Tenacious D Movie to this? Genius.

I'm startin to get real excited for this one. Click the pic to make it wicked big!

When Steves Collide...Again

Hey guys, it's Donnie...Once upon a time, Stephen Sommers was going to be directing a remake of the 1951 sci-fi film When Worlds Collide, the story of a "rogue planet" that is going to smash into the earth and an astronomer's desperate attempt to get some members of humanity off the planet before humanity goes bye-bye.

Then he left to go do A Night At The Museum, in which Ben Stiller would play a museum security guard who awakens a curse that brings all the display animals and insects to life.

Then he left that project a few weeks ago and allowed Cheaper By The Dozen director a.k.a. talentless hack Shawn Levy to take over that picture.

As of this morning Sommers is back to When World Collide, now for producer Steven Spielberg.

So what am I saying?

I'm saying we've got two more crappy movies on the way.

Hurrah.

Leo Wants To Save The World For Real

Hey guys, it's Donnie...I don't really understand why celebrities get so much shit for trying to get involved in world issues. Most movie stars and pop singers tend to have tremendous (if not undue) influence over the public consciousness, particularly when it comes to the youth of America. So why is it such a terribly awful thing when celebrities try to raise awareness of a particular issue or conflict in this country, or indeed, the world. Granted their actual personal opinions are not always the most intellectual, (see Brittany Spears in Fahrenheit 9/11) but shouldn't it be up to us to be able to discern an intelligent argument from a nonsensical one? Maybe that's just too much to ask from the American public.

Well, Leo DiCaprio is getting into the game. Seems Leo will be producing, narrating and co-writing 11th Hour, an environmental documentary that will seek to lay out possible solutions for resuscitating the world's various ecosystems. A number of different parties have stepped on board to help produce and finance the film, including former World Poker Champ Doyle Brunson, who probably just won Cleveland in a card game.

Hey, I just thought of something. Angelina Jolie is a full fledged UN Ambassador. Does that mean she has diplomatic immunity here? How badass would that be?

05 December 2005

Photomat: I'm Getting X-Nervous

Hey guys, it's Donnie...USA Today has got the first official pictures of X3, and while they don't spell outright doom, they certainly don't allay the fears that have been gnawing at the back of my head since early June.

I don't think that's a very good publicity still of Kelsey Grammar's Beast. I'm hoping that the full body shot will do him better justice and that seeing that character in motion will to make all the difference.

The teaser should be popping up over here on the Apple site sometime in the next few hours, and then we should get a much better idea of what we're looking at here. Until then you can click it here to go to USA Today and check out the rest of the pictures. You can see production stills of Ben Foster's Angel in different states of winged-ness. Personally, I prefer the one with the wings strapped down. There are publicity shots of Wolverine and Storm, who once again seems to have found a new hair stylist. There's even a picture of Brett Ratner, perfect for printing out and taping to your dart board.

Fox has also snatched up the domain rights to a number of different permutations of X3TheLastStand.com, so it seems a pretty good bet that the full title will be something along those lines. Guess that answers the question as to whether or not this will be the last X-Men film. The trailer might be awesome and I may end up eating my hat, but as of right now, I'm still far from sold.

Halo del Toro??

Hey guys, it's Donnie...So we all know that the Halo movie is in the works. We all know that Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh are producing it, which virtually guarantees a high caliber of filmmaking at work. We all know that Alex Garland, of 28 Days Later fame, has written the script, which implies a lack of sucking. But what we're all waiting for is a director. Who's gonna pick up the bullhorn and guide this puppy home?

Popular opinion at this point leads to Guillermo del Toro, one of the most underappreciated filmmakers working today. Most will know him has responsible for Hellboy or Blade II, but he's also got a wicked horror streak. In the wake of this news, I'm officially bumping The Devil's Backbone up to the top of my Netflix queue, which I was going to do anyway in preperation for the imminent release of the sort of sequel Pan's Labyrinth.

One of the biggest unknowns at this point is Hellboy 2, which, up until now, was supposed to be del Toro's next project. There's still the possiblity that he might forego Halo to make Hellboy 2 or Big Red might just get pushed back a bit so Guillermo can take a crack at one of the most highly anticipated videogame films of all time. We'll keep you posted, but suffice it to say that right now, I'm all kinds of excited. I LOVE del Toro and would really like to see him get the respect he deserves.

Photomat: Sly Could Still Kick Your Ass

Hey guys, it's Donnie...Here we've gotten our first round of pictures from the set of Rocky Balboa, and I have to say that I really kind of like what I see. When Antonio Tarver was announced back at the beginning of the November, I though he seemed kind of scrawny, but now we've got a nice image of Tarver and Stallone side by side, even if it is at a bit of a skewed angle.
I take it back. Tarver most definitely towers over Stallone, although Tarver is still kind of wiry compared to Stallone, who looks like a cinder block of pure muscle. I think that poster in the background sort of sums it all up nicely: Will vs. Skill.

Anyway, there are quite a few pictures here, including one with Rocky Junior and a few of Paulie hisself. Click it through below to check out the rest:

Stallion and Stallion Jr.

Directing In Costume

Don't I Look Special?

Here are a bunch of shots, including a few of Rocky's bestest buddy.

Segal Gets Smart

Hey guys, it's Donnie...While Steve Carrell is off filming his ill-advised quasi-sequel to Bruce Almighty, forward progress has finally been made on my most anticipated of his future projects: Get Smart.

Warners has officially found itself a director in the form of Peter Segal, a guy who, up until now, is best known for helming Adam Sandler movies (Anger Management, The Longest Yard, and 50 First Dates) as well as the comedy classic (in my book at least) Tommy Boy. I think he could very well be a great fit for this project, although I'm kind of curious what he'll do with a movie that doesn't involve Sandler and his usual band of misfits. I could certainly think of a lot of worse choices.

Apparantly we'll be getting a contemporized version of Get Smart, with CONTROL (Smart's agency) struggling though underfunding and whatnot. Still no word on who'll be filling the sexiness of Agent 99, but the last rumor I heard was Kristen Kruek, who seems a bit young for Carrell. Then again, if Cruise can bang Katie Holmes, I guess Produce Pete can nail him some Lana Lang.

Fantastic Four's Future Looks Storied and Frosty

Hey guys, it's Donnie...What struck me most after the first X-Men film wasn't necessarily how GOOD it was, but how much potential it had. The actual plotline was better than average but still left something to be desired. What it did very well, on the other hand, was establish the characters and create the world in which they lived. Even if you walked out of the theater disappointed, you had this feeling that when the X-Men returned, it was gonna be big.

I tried to keep that in mind as I walked out of Fantastic Four this past summer. While the film feel infinitely short of where it could have been, I tried to focus on the positive. "Well," I thought, "The Thing was all kinds of awesome, and the Human Torch was a lot of fun. Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman and Dr. Doom...well, they were kind of disasterous. But Julian McMahon and Ioan Gruffudd can act. So perhaps with a better writer next time around they won't come off seeming so utterly retarded. Also there might be an actual conflict between the heroes and the villain. As far as the character's world, it seemed kind of like a less interesting version of Raimi's New York. What was interesting about it was the different character's reactions to being super-powered. The idea of superheroes as kind of celebrities I thought was very interesting. Again, with a better director at the helm, the sequel could possibly utilize the groundwork here to create a very different sort of super-hero world then that of Gotham, Metropolis, or the X-Men universe. Especially if they start going into the stranger, alternate-dimensional characters and stories that the Fantastic Four used so frequently.

Alas, it is not to be.

Director Tim Story and screenwriter Mark Frost have just signed on to return for the sequel, along with all the major cast members but Julian McMahon. Hopefully that means that Dr. Doom will be sitting this one out and we might get a plot with some more...activity. Then again, I wouldn't hold my breath. They might be just dumb enough to try re-casting the role, which I suppose wouldn't be too big of a deal since Dr. Doom is trapped behind a tinfoil mask that hides any semblence of human emotion. I could go into all of the rest of the things that were wrong with that movie, but I don't have 3 hours to kill.

02 December 2005

X3: A Glimpse Of Disaster Incoming

Hey guys, it's Donnie...So Fox has given us the official word that the X3 teaser trailer will in fact be playing in front of King Kong in just a few short weeks. (Not that you really needed another reason to go, did you?) However, for the more impatient of us out here, Fox will be premiering the teaser over at Apple (in HD no less!) this coming Monday, December 5. Security has actually been surprisingly tight around the film since it went into production. We've gotten a few stills of Hugh Jackman and his stunt double as well as Shawn Ashmore and Ellen Paige standing around Xavier's School, but that's about it.

Fortunately, I have my own special sources. My inside man SK recently gave me the heads up that not only is the film a full MONTH behind schedule, but they are also on the THIRD director of photography. Good Lord man, will the tragedies with this movie never end? How is it that a movie like Poseidon, with an 80 some-odd day shooting schedule finished less than a day over schedule and yet X-Men seems to be collapsing at every turn? Oh, that's right, I forgot. Fox is intent on bashing this franchise into the ground. How silly of me.

Ratner and the folks at Fox are still racing to meet their Memorial Day 2006 release date, determined to beat Superman Returns (June 30, 2006) to the theaters. I will say this: aside from a few comments that it didn't show enough new footage (which I wholeheartedly disagree with), the recent Superman teaser has been pretty much universally regarded as fantastic. With all the early problems and the bad blood already out on the interweb and throughout much of fandom, Fox really needs this trailer to knock people's socks off, or else the negative word of mouth on X3 is just gonna get worse.

There's a written description of the teaser HERE if you're into that sort of thing. Personally, I'd rather just wait till Monday.

01 December 2005

Liberty Relives The Past

Hey guys, it's Donnie...I always find it kind of weird that in post-apocolyptic future movies, the world is covered in artifacts of our present but no one knows what any of it means. Like in Waterworld, there's that guy who lives in the room full of everyday items that he thinks are of extreme importance. Like he thinks phonebooks are some sort of great repository of knowledge...and yet they figured out how to filter piss into Poland Springs. How does that work?

Anyway, director Ericson Core and writer Sean Bailey are getting a project off the ground with Chris Moore and Touchstone that has a similar sort of premise, except that it's way more practical. The film, Liberty, takes place in the wake of an attack on America by way of electromagnetic pulse, rendering anything with an electronic circuit completely useless and messing up the American infrastructure somethin fierce. However, before they can get around to rebuilding the internet, word comes of an invading force heading for American shores. Therefore, the American survivors are forced to defend their country using technology from the 1940s and '50s, the only stuff that survived the attack.

I REALLY like this idea, mostly because it kinda makes sense. Here we have survivors who are forced to use technology that they're completely unfamiliar with not because they don't know what a radio is, but because they're used to having a cell phone. Seriously, I'm totally stoked about this concept. Core is a very accomplished cinematographer who's currently making his directorial debut with the Mark Wahlberg football movie Invincible. Bailey doesn't have a lot of screenwriting on his resume, but he's been producing for a few years now. Hopefully these two newbies will be able to take their great idea and run with it. You can rest assured that I'm gonna be following it pretty closely from now on, and if they drop the ball, I'll be here...crying.

Trailertown: Remakes, Sequels and Subtitles

Hey guys, it's Donnie...Welcome back to Trailertown!
Zinda - So I'm still dreading the impending American remake of Park Chanwook's amazing film Oldboy. I'll be shocked if they don't totally cut the balls off the movie in an attempt to make it easier for American audiences to swallow, which is absolute bullcrap. However, when I heard that there was a Bollywood remake in the works, I got kind of excited, mostly cuz I figured it would be absolutely nuts. I was expecting bright colors, big song and dance numbers...just absolutely ridiculous. Yeah, I'd probably hate it, but I figured I could trust Bollywood to do something different with the material. Nope. There are two trailers here for Zinda, the remake by Sanjay Gupta, and it looks exactly like the original but with Indians instead of Koreans. Maybe there's more that they're not showing me but right now...I watch the trailers and think, "Why would I want to watch the same movie with different actors? I'd rather just watch the real Oldboy." Ah well, what are you gonna do?
Click it here for a hammer weilding Indian...

Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest - I know, I just put this trailer up like two days ago, but that was in super crappy Windows Media, and Disney finally released the thing in glorious Yahoo Quicktime. Any you know what? It makes all the difference in the world. I can actually see what the hell is going on in some shots now and Davey Jones looks even cooler now that he's not just a series of moving boxes.
Click it here for clearly distinguishable pirates...

The Tiger And The Snow - Now is the time for movies critique the U.S. presence in Iraq. There's just been sufficient turnaround time that we're getting a whole bunch of movies getting released around the same time reacting to our more than dubious foreign policy. Jarhead, Syriana, and now Roberto Benigni's getting into the act. Here we've got the French trailer for The Tiger And The Snow, a film in which Benigni plays an Italian poet finds out that the woman he loves was injured in an attack in Baghdad. He therefore travels to Iraq to take care of her and get her the proper medical attention. But, ya know, it's funny. Actually, I thought this trailer was very charming, especially since I could only understand half of what was going on. Plus it's got Jean Reno! I guess this makes up for his involvement in The Pink Panther.
Click it here to wonder where the tiger and the snow come into play...

Will Smith Is Not A Porn Star

Hey guys, it's Donnie...Will Smith and director Jonathan Mostow have officially signed on to bring us Tonight, He Comes, the sketchiest titled movie of all time. Despite the various ejaculatory implications of the title, the film is actually about "a disaffected and underappreciated superhero in a mid-life crisis." Last I heard, the plot involved him getting really drunk and crash landing in a small town, where he falls in love with a local housewife or something.

News of this project first broke way back in June, right around the time it was announced that Ivan Reitman would be directing Uma Thurman and Luke Wilson in Super Ex, which has since been re-titled Super Ex-Girlfriend and gained new cast members in the form of Rainn Wilson and Eddie Izzard as the villain. I'm really looking forward to both of these projects, as I think they have tremendous potential do something new with the hugely successful superhero genre. Although it's possible that my excitement for these movies might just be displaced longing for the still stalled Watchmen film. Probably a little of both.

Anyway, Columbia is putting up the dough and looking to start production next summer in LA. That means that Mostow will be temporarily shelving Swiss Family Robinson as well as the proposed fourth Terminator film. Smith just finished The Pursuit Of Happyness with his young son Jaden and the only other thing currently on his plate (aside from some lingering Nick Fury rumors) is Time Share with Nic Cage, which sounds like a mean spirited version of The Great Outdoors.
Little Giant Ladder