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Joe Stillman ("Shrek 1 & 2," "Planet 51") is set to pen the high-concept family comedy "Alien Zoo" for Warner Bros. and Unique Features reports Variety.

Based on an original idea by Dylan Sellers, the concept is Jurassic Park with aliens. The film will be live-action with CGI.

Bob Shaye, Michael Lynne and Sellers will produce.

"Atonement" and "The Soloist" director Joe Wright will next helm "Indian Summer" for Working Title and Universal reports Variety.

Based on the book of the same name by Alex von Tunzelmann, the story follows the lead-p and aftermath of the famed 'Freedom at Midnight' events which saw the creation of modern day India and Pakistan, the resulting First Kashmir War, and the end of Britain's colonial rule in India.

Lord Mountbatten, the last appointed viceroy of British India, and his glamorous wife Edwina oversaw the handover of power in the summer of 1947 to Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister.

William Nicholson ("Gladiator") is penning the screenplay. Eric Fellner, Hilary Bevan Jones and Tim Bevan will produce. Shooting begins early next year on location in India.

Adam Marcus ("Jason Goes to Hell") is set to direct the remake of the Val Lewton RKO 1943 classic "I Walked With a Zombie" for Roseblood Movie Co. and Twisted Pictures reports Variety.

Marcus and Debra Sullivan ("Conspiracy") co-wrote the script which focuses on a private tutor who discovers a terrifying family secret while working at the ancient estate of a New Orleans businessman.

The original was a forerunner of the genre and is considered one of the most valuable films in the RKO library.

Ted Hartley, Mark Burg, Oren Koules, and Carl Mazzocone will produce. RKO is looking into remakes of 1939's "Five Came Back", 1945's "The Body Snatcher" and 1946's "Bedlam".

French music vid/commercial director Laurent Briet is in the running to direct a sequel to last year's sleeper hit "The Strangers" reports Bloody Disgusting.

Original film writer/director Bryan Bertino penned the script which apparently will take place in a trailer park.

Shooting begins this summer. Briet worked on special effects for "The Ring" remake and the short film "Little Minx Exquisite Corpse: Rope a Dope".

New Line is developing a feature film version of 80's TV series "MacGyver" says The Hollywood Reporter.

Richard Dean Anderson ("Stargate: SG-1") starred in the original as an incredibly resourceful secret agent for the Phoenix Foundation who frequently would escape from dangerous situations with ingenious and lightning-quick engineering trickery using everyday objects.

No writer is presently attached but one is being sought who can combine both a serious and fun adventure movie with the acknowledgment of the character's place in pop culture.

Raffaella and Martha De Laurentiis are producing along with series creator Lee Zlotoff.

Thomas Dekker ("Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles") will star and Ray Stevenson ("Rome") is in talks to join the werewolf thriller "Slaughter's Road" for Crystal Sky Productions reports Variety.

"Watchmen" co-scribe David Hayter will make his directorial debut on the project. Production begins in the summer.

Hayter and producer Benedict Carver just formed Dark Hero Studios, a company that will generate film, TV, Internet and video game projects in the action, sci-fi and horror genres.

Once he wraps work on 'Road', Hayter will pen and direct "Demonology" for Dark Hero about the bad experiences of an American kid who goes to high school in Belgium.

McGregor gay film too risque for cinema
I Love You Phillip Morris, which features a graphic homosexual romp, has failed to find a US distributor

Toby McDonald
A prison comedy starring Ewan McGregor and Jim Carrey as gay lovers may not be shown in American cinemas because it is considered too risqué.

I Love You Phillip Morris, in which the stars play inmates who find love behind bars, has failed to find a US distributor and is expected to go straight to DVD.

Film industry insiders said the movie, which features a graphic sex scene and frequent references to gay sex, had fallen foul of anti-gay prejudice in America.

Carrey plays Steven Russell, a married policeman from Texas, who comes out of the closet and then becomes a conman to fund his flamboyant gay lifestyle.

He is sent to prison, where he meets and falls in love with Morris, played by McGregor. Following Morris' release, Russell escapes from prison four times to be reunited with him.

The $13m (£9.3m) film is based on the true story of Russell, who was sentenced to more than 100 years behind bars because of his repeated escape attempts.

The independent movie, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, has attracted mixed reviews, with one critic for Variety, the movie bible, remarking that the "clingy physicality of Steven and Phillip" and "spectacular, ride 'em-cowboy sex scene" would give some fans of Carrey's mainstream movies a heart attack.

Lewis Tice, director of publicity and marketing, at distributors TLA Releasing, said he believed the graphic homosexual sex depicted in the film had turned off distributors.

"The depiction of the sexual activity was far more than I've ever seen in a mainstream film with a mainstream celebrity," he said. "There's a graphic sex scene in the first 10 minutes that I was surprised to see."

Tice added: "Lesbian gay bisexual and transvestite cinema is still seen as an underground, specific genre. When it comes to Hollywood mainstream, they want the widest audience possible for the amount of money they spend."

Scott Stiffler, author of Why Hollywood Avoids Gay Movies, added: "Mostly straight, multiplex-going audiences don't want to see a romantic comedy in which two dudes get it on; unless it is meant as a joke.

"Even Brokeback Mountain, which grossed $83m domestically, couldn't come close to the $120m gross that I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry [about two heterosexual men who enter into a civil partnership as part of a pension scam] made in the US."

Britain is one of only a handful of European countries where a deal has been secured to show the movie, which is due for cinema release this summer. The film is currently being re-edited in a last ditch attempt to find an American distributor. If it fails to do so, it will go straight to DVD.

The failure of the movie to secure a cinema deal in the US will be a blow for both Carrey and McGregor.

Carrey, who was paid more than £10m per film following the success of The Mask, has had a string of recent flops.

Meanwhile, McGregor's political thriller, Incendiary, in which he starred alongside with Michelle Williams, failed to set box offices alight.

Yesterday Andrew Lazar, the producer of I Love You Phillip Morris, insisted a deal will eventually be found.

Tony Gilroy on Duplicity's important complications  
Mike Goodridge in Los Angeles
13 Mar 2009 00:00

 

Tony Gilroy has been working in Hollywood since 1986 when he sold his first script as a vehicle for Chuck Norris. Although that film was never made, he fast became one of the biggest names in screenwriting, clocking up credits such as Dolores Claiborne, Armageddon and the three Bourne movies.

He directed his first film, Michael Clayton, in 2007 and scored Oscar nominations for script and direction, but even then he was nervous that another writer would catch on to the subject of corporate espionage before his pet project, Duplicity, could reach the screen.

"For the last three years I've been worried there'd be another corporate espionage picture out there," he says. "It seemed such a rich topic. I was sure we were going to miss it and once that happened, it would kill my script."

Duplicity was originally set up with Section Eight six years ago as a directing gig for Gilroy's friend Steven Soderbergh but eventually, after Michael Clayton, he opted to direct it himself.

He was introduced to Clive Owen by George Clooney at a party held by Clayton producer Jennifer Fox, midway through the shoot of that film. "Clive was in the neighbourhood and George introduced us. Out of the blue, George said Clive should do Duplicity. He'd been in the first Bourne film but I'd never met him, so we talked, and I fell in love with him immediately. He became my co-conspirator for the two years we were trying to get the movie made."

Having tweaked the script to make the male character British, Gilroy went straight to Owen's pal and Closer co-star Julia Roberts to take the female lead but she had just become pregnant. "I was so into doing the movie with Clive that we basically both went off and did other things and pledged to reconvene when we could put this back together."

When Gilroy and Owen did finally reconvene, they went back to Roberts and she was ready to commit. The movie was an easy greenlight for Universal, home of the Bourne franchise.

Gilroy says his fascination with dark corporate deeds arose on films such as The Devil's Advocate and Proof Of Life as well as Enemy Of The State on which he did a rewrite.

"When we did Proof Of Life, we got deeply involved with control risks out of London and got to know a lot of people in British intelligence. We watched these people go into the private sector and later I would call people who were my sources for the Bourne pictures and they were all going private.

"I can't imagine there's a major multi-national corporation that doesn't have some sort of competitive intelligence office, if nothing else to defend themselves against the other companies who may be attacking them. Everything in this movie is true. It's a pretty simple Google."

Meanwhile, with Duplicity, Gilroy once again challenges the audience with complicated plotting and time structure. "If you don't walk out in the first 45 minutes, everything is explained in this movie," he says. "Everything ties up and makes sense and hopefully there's some fun in not knowing exactly what's going to happen. I get so tired of going to movies where not only I know what's going to happen but my 12-year-old daughter knows what's going to happen."

Paramount Pictures and Brad Pitt's Plan B have acquired film rights to John Le Carre's 1993 espionage thriller "The Night Manager" reports Variety.

The story centers on the night manager of a European hotel who is recruited by intelligence agents to infiltrate the network of a dangerous international arms dealer.

The project is one of the longer and more critically lauded works of Le Carre ("The Constant Gardener," "The Tailor of Panama")

Robert Edwards ("Land of the Blind") will adapt the script.

The Weinstein Company have acquired U.S., Latin American and German rights to "Nowhere Boy," the story of John Lennon's tumultuous childhood reports the trades.

Aaron Johnson (pictured) plays the Beatle as a young man, with Kristin Scott Thomas playing his polarizing Aunt Mimi, who begins raising Lennon until his mother re-enters the picture. The pair soon fight for custody and affections of the young musician.

Sam Taylor-Wood is directing and Matt Greenhalgh ("Control") wrote the script, production got underway in Liverpool last week.

"The Sopranos" creator/exec producer David Chase and series exec producer Brad Grey are planning "A Ribbon of Dreams", a sprawling HBO miniseries about the evolution of the Hollywood film industry during the past century says The Hollywood Reporter.

The mini starts off in 1913 and will follow two men - a college-educated mechanical engineer and a cowboy with a violent past - who form an unlikely producing partnership.

The duo begin as employees of D.W. Griffith, then cross career paths with such Hollywood greats as John Ford, John Wayne, Raoul Walsh, Bette Davis and Billy Wilder.

Through the eyes of the two main characters, as well as their children and successors, the mini will chronicle the growth of the film industry from the age of rough-hewn silent Westerns to the golden era of talkies and the studio system to the auteur movement to television and finally to the present day.

Chase is writing the project and will executive produce with Paramount CEO Grey. Its length is not yet determined, though it'll likely be between seven and ten parts ala "John Adams" or "Band of Brothers".

Update: Moviehole.net adds that Jamison Newlander has also been cast! We've learned exclusively that veteran TV writer Evan Charnov (Fearless) has been tapped to pen the screenplay for The Lost Boys 3, Warner Premiere's next direct-to-disc sequel to the classic teen-vamp film from 1987. In addition, Corey Feldman has come on to executive produce and will also return once again as Edgar Frog. We're told this film will actually focus on Feldman's popular character (thank God). Corey Haim's return as Sam Emerson is highly, highly unlikely at this point in time.

"The Wire" actors Tristan Wilds and Rick Otto have joined the cast of the World War II drama "Red Tails" says The Hollywood Reporter.

John Ridley penned the film which follows the true story of the 332nd Fighter Group, an elite all-black unit of escort pilots known as the Red Tails.

Wilds will play Ray "Ray Gun" Knight, a flyboy nearly blinded over Nazi-occupied Italy who becomes the wingman of his friend and cohort, Marty.

The two face the prejudice of the U.S. military as much as the overseas enemy but end up establishing an unprecedented record.

Otto will play a white World War II piot who is sympathetic to the African-American squadron.

Anthony Hemingway will direct while George Lucas serves as executive producer. Regular "Star Wars" producer Rick McCallum is also onboard.

Otto has also been cast as a black ops Navy SEAL in "Point Break Indo", the Jan De Bont-directed sequel to 1991's "Point Break" which will shoot in Bali and Australia.

Universal Pictures has picked up Jonathan Herman's "Taken"-esque spec thriller "Rites of Men" reports the trades.

The story centers on a working-class single father whose world is shattered by the unsolved murder of his only son. He embarks on a quest to discover the truth and deliver justice.

No producer is attached yet. Former Canal Plus exec, Herman sold the bank heist thriller "Conviction" last month to Warner Bros. and Silver Pictures.

That film centers on a former bank robber who is forced to go to undercover to nab his former protege.

Jaume Collet-Serra ("Orphan," "House of Wax") will direct the thriller "Unknown White Male" for Dark Castle reports Variety.

Based on Didier Van Cauwelaert's novel "Out of My Head", the story follows a doctor and his wife who go to Berlin for a medical conference.

After a car accident, he awakes from a coma to discover that another man has assumed his identity.

Oliver Butcher and Stephen Cornwell adapted the script. Joel Silver and Leonard Goldberg are producing.

Bomback adapting 'Agent Zigzag'
Tom Hanks co-producing WWII spy drama
By MICHAEL FLEMING
Bomback


Hanks


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"Race to Witch Mountain" co-writer Mark Bomback has been set by New Line and Playtone to adapt "Agent Zigzag," a WWII spy drama.
Playtone's Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman are producing.

Pic is based on a Ben Macintyre book that tells the story of Edward Arnold Chapman, a career criminal who was trained by the Nazis to be a spy during WWII. On a mission to sabotage an airplane factory in England, he contacted the Brits and began a life as a double agent.

Playtone just completed the WWII miniseries "The Pacific" for HBO. Hanks and Goetzman exec produced the 10-part mini with Steven Spielberg.

Aside from sharing screen credit with Matt Lopez on "Race to Witch Mountain," Bomback's recent scripting efforts include "Live Free or Die Hard," "Deception" and the upcoming Fox drama "Unstoppable."

Sam Fell ("The Tale of Despereaux," "Flushed Away") is attached to direct the live-action adaptation of Royce Buckingham's novel "Demonkeeper" for Fox 2000 reports Variety.

Laeta Kalogridis ("Alexander," "Shutter Island") is adapting the story which follows a Seattle teen who inherits responsibility for a house filled with demons.

When the youth finally breaks free of his charges to go on a date, he returns to discover that kids have broken into the house, unleashing its most vicious demon, the Beast, Killer of Lost Children.

Ken Atchity and Chi-Li Wong are producing.

Catherine Hardwicke and distributor Summit Entertainment seem to have buried the hatchet with the "Twilight" director signing on to helm Summit's fantasy-drama "If I Stay" reports Variety.

Based on Gayle Forman's novel of the same name, the story centers on a gifted classical musician and her indie rockstar boyfriend who's forced to choose between life and death when she's in a car accident with her family.

Earlier this week Hardwicke was in talks to develop and direct a film adaptation of James Patterson's young-adult fantasy series "Maximum Ride" for Sony Pictures

The Damned United
Fionnuala Halligan in London
23 Mar 2009 07:00

 


Dir. Tom Hooper. UK. 2009. 97mins.

Offering just enough football to satisfy the fans in the stands, The Damned United is also a pleasingly high-quality British drama with some terrific performances which should easily entertain those who come to the game without knowing what a 50/50 challenge is. While it's set for healthy returns in the UK where it should fall between the Peter Morgan/Michael Sheen teaming on The Queen (2006; UK gross $18.3m of a $122.8m cume) and Frost/Nixon (2008; UK gross $2.6m from $26m), The Damned United may struggle to make an impact in overseas markets. Sony's marketing nous will be needed in all territories – including the UK – to keep footballers onside while persuading all other demographics that it's about more than men with accents in polyester tracksuits and sheepskin jackets. Good notices will help.

A deft re-telling of David Peace's fictionalised account of mercurial British football coach Brian Clough's brief, 44-day tenure as coach of Leeds United in 1974, The Damned United may appear to fall inside a tight brief but works best outside the field of play as a character study and portrait of male friendship and rivalry. There's no denying its period appeal, either. Highlights include an impressive turn from Sheen as Clough with Timothy Spall trustily solid as his lieutenant, Peter Taylor; Morgan's nimble reframing of the book; and evocative production design which deftly replicates 1968-74 Northern England (where ashtrays were handed out in the players' dressing rooms) without itself becoming the star of the show.

Morgan and Sheen's work together on The Deal, The Queen and Frost/Nixon is practically a brand at this point: the audience knows what to expect, and that's strong storytelling. In The Damned United Sheen in particular moves a step past impersonation to inhabit the unpredictable Clough. The film's episodic structure – Hooper starts out in 1974 and moves perhaps a little too often backwards and forwards to 1968, 89, etc – makes for a jerky beginning but once it settles down, The Damned United commands attention.

The two main thrusts of the drama are Clough's intense rivalry with former Leeds manager Don Revie (Meaney) and his friendship with right-hand-man Taylor (Spall), all playing into the drama of the beautiful game and Clough's bombastic, paranoid, insecure nature. It's a dream of a role for Sheen, portraying a man, who, on his first day as manager tells the League Champions to throw away their medals because they "won them all by cheating".

The Damned United could possibly have benefited from more scenes with the Leeds players to visually open it out more – Stephen Graham as the team's thuggish captain Billy Bremner gets some amusing play, but Peter McDonald as Johnny Giles barely registers (legal issues possibly came into play here; all the other principals are dead). A decision to stage a key match in the managers' office behind the stands works a treat dramatically, though, and it's a nice showcase for cinematographer Ben Smithard's visual flourishes, which register throughout.

Clough's hubris leads him to part ways with Taylor – the film doesn't get into the nub of why until late in the game. It's rare to see a film without any female presence and it would seem counter-intuitive for a female audience, but Morgan's clever emphasis on the nature of male relationships makes for a warm and human drama. Meaney and Jim Broadbent, as the chairman of Derby County where Clough, as the UK's youngest manager, first made his mark, work well in support.

Tech credits are impressive. It's hard to make a good footballing drama – the sidelines are littered with the fallen. But The Damned United should be a benchmark in the UK: the indisputable visual evidence says so.

Production companies

Left Bank Pictures

BBC Films

Screen Yorkshire

International distribution

Columbia Pictures/SPRI

Producer

Andy Harries

Screenplay

Peter Morgan, based on the novel by David Peace

Cinematography

Ben Smithard

Costumes

Mike O'Neill

Production designer

Eve Stewart

Main cast

Michael Sheen

Timothy Spall

Colm Meaney

Jim Broadbent

Stephen Graham

Peter McDonald

Giovanni Ribisi has joined the cast of Bruce Robinson's "The Rum Diary" for Warner Independent Pictures reports Empire Online.

Based on the classic novel by Hunter S. Thompson, the story follows the life and events of Paul Kemp, a freelance journalist who finds himself at a critical turning point in his life while writing for a run-down newspaper in the Caribbean.

Paul is challenged on many levels as he tries to carve out a more secure niche for himself amidst a group of lost souls all bent on self-destruction.

Johnny Depp, Amber Heard, Aaron Eckhart and Richard Jenkins star. Depp, Christi Dembrowski and Graham King are producing.

Filming kicks off March 30th in Puerto Rico.

Pogresan topik.

Brain Dead
By DENNIS HARVEYRead other reviews about this film

Powered By A Monogram release of a Prodigy Entertainment presentation, in association with Motor Pictures. Produced by Kevin S. Tenney, Daniel Duncan, Dennis Michael Tenney. Executive producer, Greg McKay. Directed by Kevin S. Tenney. Screenplay, Dale Gelineau.

With: Joshua Benton, Sarah Grant Brendecke, Michelle Tomlinson, David Crane, Andy Forrest, Cristina Tiberia, Tess McVicker, Chad Martin Guerrero, Jim Wynorski, Locky Lambert, Greg Lewolt.
 "Brain Dead" is an amiable zombie gore comedy from vet B-pic helmer Kevin S. Tenney, still best known for his initial late-'80s features "Witchboard" and "Night of the Demons." Rather than ratcheting up the outrageousness as it goes along like the classic "Evil Dead" franchise or recent Sundance-preemed Norwegian exercise "Dead Snow," however, Dale Gelineau's screenplay simply settles into more middling wisecracks and routine cabin-under-siege action. Launched on a dozen Midwest and Southern screens March 13, it will doubtless reach more genre loyalists via home formats.
Reduced to baseball size by the time it hits terra firma, an asteroid lands right on the noggin of a fisherman who promptly turns undead and chomps his buddy's brain. We're then introduced to various victims/survivors-to-be led by escaped jailbirds Clarence (Joshua Benton) and Bob (David Crane). They hole up at the requisite isolated cabin, as do others, including sorority sisters and born-agains. All are held hostage by trigger-happy Bob, until matters worsen considerably as non-human perils arrive. Competently packaged pic never takes itself seriously, but lack of sharper wit and any novel twists keep it watchably forgettable.


More than one option(Person) Andrew Forrest
(Person) Andy Forrest
More than one option(Person) David Crane
Teleplay, Creator, Executive Producer
(Person) David Crane
ActorMore than one option(Person) Chad Martin
Production
(Person) Chad Martin
More than one option(Film) Dead Alive
(Film) Brain Dead
Camera (color, HD-to-DV), Patrick MacGowan, Alex Simon; editor, William Daniels; music, Dennis Michael Tenney; production designer, Javiera Varas. Reviewed on DVD, San Francisco, March 23, 2009. Running time: 92 MIN.

Monsters From the Id
(Documentary)
By JOE LEYDONRead other reviews about this film

Powered By A Blue Room Prods. presentation of a Slings & Arrows Films production, in association with Core Fresh Reality. Produced by Chris Gargani. Directed, written, edited by David Gargani.

With: Homer Hickam, Dr. Patrick Lucanio, Dr. Leroy Dubeck, Gary Coville, Richard Scheib.
 Neatly mixing movie-buff nostalgia and food for thought, David Gargani's "Monsters From the Id" provides entertainment and insight with an enjoyable collage of clips from classic and campy sci-fi thrillers of the 1950s. Doc examines what those pics reveal about the '50s zeitgeist, and persuasively argues that the U.S. was able to win the space race -- and, perhaps, the Cold War -- because thousands of this country's students were inspired by Hollywood's heroic depiction of scientists as visionary outer-space explorers and/or monster-zapping good guys. After orbiting the fest circuit, this provocative pic should live long and prosper on cable and homevid.
Excerpting an impressive range of sci-fiers about mutated monsters and intergalactic journeys -- everything from "Forbidden Planet" (referenced in the doc's title) and "Rocketship X-M" to "Them!" and "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" -- "Monsters From the Id" invites talking-heads experts to recall an era when, as film historian Gary Coville pointedly notes, faith in institutions such as the military was at an all-time high, but even military leaders needed help from scientists to end assaults by irradiated insects or boldly go where no man had gone before.

Homer Hickam -- who became a NASA engineer partly because of his exposure to lab-coated role models on the bigscreen -- marvels that, in pics such as "When Worlds Collide" and "Conquest of Space," scientists weren't nerdy geeks, but rather "heroes who knew more stuff than the next guys." (Hickman's bestselling autobiography, "Rocket Boys," was itself turned into an inspirational movie, 1999's "October Sky.")

Better still, the science in much of the science fiction was surprisingly accurate -- so much so that Temple U. professor Leroy Dubeck says he has used the films to teach entry-level physics courses.

Gargani celebrates the exciting sense of infinite possibilities that suffuses key '50s sci-fiers, and cheekily suggests some of that same spirit may be influencing contemporary figures such as Virgin Airlines tycoon Richard Branson, whose program for commercial space flights is wittily juxtaposed with similar proposals by scientists in "Destination Moon" (1950).

Even so, "Monsters From the Id" ends on a slightly downbeat note, bemoaning the fact that, when it comes to measuring the percentage of college students earning degrees in science, the U.S. currently ranks low (No. 25) when compared to other industrialized nations. The answer to this pressing problem? According to Gargani and his interviewees, maybe what this country needs right now is another cycle of sci-fi pics featuring heroic scientists bent on repelling monsters and conquering space.

More than one option(Person) Richard Branson
(Person) Richard Neil
Camera (B&W/color), Peter Konczal; music, Brian Aumueller; sound, Marcel Schaal, John Sawa. Reviewed on DVD, Houston, March 11, 2009. (At SXSW Film Festival -- Spotlight Premieres.) Running time: 71 MIN.

The Damned United
(U.K.)
By LESLIE FELPERINRead other reviews about this film

Powered By
Michael Sheen stars in the '70s era sports drama, 'The Damned United.'

A Sony Pictures Entertainment release of a Columbia Pictures, BBC Films presentation, in association with Screen Yorkshire, of a Left Bank Pictures production. Produced by Andy Harries. Executive producers, Christine Langan, Hugo Heppell, Peter Morgan. Co-producers, Grainne Marmion, Lee Morris.
Directed by Tom Hooper. Screenplay, Peter Morgan, based on the 2006 novel "The Damned Utd" by David Peace.

Brian Clough - Michael Sheen
Peter Taylor - Timothy Spall
Don Revie - Colm Meaney
Manny Cussins - Henry Goodman
Jimmy Gordon - Maurice Roeves
Sam Longson - Jim Broadbent
Billy Bremner - Stephen Graham
Dave Mackay - Brian McCardie
Johnny Giles - Peter McDonald
Colin Todd - Giles Alderson
John O'Hare - Martin Compston
Duncan McKenzie - Joe Dempsie
Barbara Clough - Elizabeth Carling
Lillian Taylor - Gillian Waugh

 Telling with a light, surefooted touch a legendary tale from British soccer history, "The Damned United" reps the latest collaboration in factual fiction between chameleon thesp Michael Sheen, screenwriter Peter Morgan and producer Andy Harries ("Frost/Nixon," "The Queen"). This time, the subject isn't politics but "the beautiful game," with a bromance twist as the pic recounts the career highlights of '70s-era team manager Brian Clough. Stylish feature debut by Tom Hooper should do well in Blighty, especially among males and upscale auds, but faces a harder B.O. fight in territories where Clough's not known and Sheen's not a draw.
Based on a somewhat bleaker novel by David Peace, the pic deploys complex but never confusing flashbacks to unfold a story that essentially spans eight years, from 1968-74. During this time, working-class-boy-made-good Clough (Sheen) goes from overseeing a miraculous rise up the league table for English soccer team Derby County to managing Derby's archrival, Leeds United. At the time Clough takes over, Leeds is at the top of the tables, due to the stewardship of patriarchal manager Don Revie (Colm Meaney), who has left to take over England's World Cup squad.

However, Clough has long harbored resentment toward Revie, and he alienates the Leeds players before he even starts, publically dissing his predecessor and criticizing them personally for their dirty tactics on the pitch. What's more, Clough's longtime collaborator, assistant manager Peter Taylor (Timothy Spall), doesn't come with him to Leeds.

Without Taylor's wisdom and football savvy, Leeds quickly begins losing games. After just 44 days on the job, Clough is sacked.

Despite the ignominy, Clough's memory (he died in 2004) is still cherished by sport fans for his flamboyance, honesty and flair, both as a talkshow personality and as a manager. In the U.K., even those barely interested in the game know he's reckoned to be, as the pic's closing subtitles proclaim, "the greatest manager England (the World Cup team) never had."

There's hardly more than five minutes of actual ball-kicking onscreen, and what's there is mostly seamlessly stitched-in archival footage. Diehard fans may actually feel shortchanged by the strategy. But it makes for more accessible drama that emphasizes themes of friendship, rivalry, honor and loyalty by focusing on Clough's relationship with Taylor and, to a lesser extent, Revie.

Like all Morgan's work, the effect is slightly too didactic and redolent of legit-land's theater of ethics, but done with brio.

Sheen's typically scrupulous channeling of Clough gets the tics and mannerisms right, but also carves a moving portrait of a braggart suddenly out of his depth -- not unlike his David Frost in "Frost/Nixon" and Tony Blair in "The Queen," but on a more tragic trajectory. As Taylor, Spall matches him in skill, playing a quiet, principled man content to stand in Clough's shadow until a cross word too far tears them apart.

At base, the pic is a chaste love story between these two men, who are often seen hugging, kissing and even, at one point, dancing with each other to the strains of "Love and Marriage." Their relationship is sufficiently compelling that distaff auds shouldn't feel bored by all the sports talk. (There's not a single female character here who has more than 10 lines of dialogue.) Meaney, as Revie, and Jim Broadbent, as Derby County's gruff chairman Sam Longson, lend fine support.

Pic was originally developed as a Stephen Frears-helmed project in the wake of "The Queen," but helmer Hooper (who previously collaborated with producer Harries on the acclaimed TV drama "Longford") brings a distinctive style of his own. It's not just the flair he already displayed with docudrama in the magnificent HBO series "John Adams," but also his striking penchant for off-kilter camera setups, which place characters, especially in moments of anxiety, in odd corners of the frame or hunkered down on the edge. Kudos are also due lenser Ben Smithard, whose visuals replicate the grainy, sun-deprived look of British film of the era.

Period styling throughout is on the money, from Eve Stewart's understated but uncannily accurate production design to Mike O'Neill's costumes. Only the somewhat unconvincing wigs hit a jarring note.

(color, Panavision widescreen), Ben Smithard; editor, Melanie Oliver; music, Rob Lane; music supervisor, Liz Gallacher; production designer, Eve Stewart; supervising art director, Andrew Holden-Stokes; art director, Leon McCarthy; costume designer, Mike O'Neill; sound (Dolby Digital), Martin Beresford, Paul Hamblin; visual effects supervisor, David Bowman; visual effects, the Mill; special effects supervisor, Paul Kelly; assistant director, Martin Curry; casting, Dan Hubbard. Reviewed at Odeon Norwich, Norwich, U.K., Mar. 27, 2009. Running time: 97 MIN.

The Boat That Rocked
(U.K.-U.S.)
By DEREK ELLEYRead other reviews about this film

Powered By
'The Boat That Rocked'

A Universal release, presented in association with StudioCanal, of a Working Title (U.K.) production, in association with Medienproduktion Prometheus Filmgesellschaft. Produced by Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Hilary Bevan Jones. Executive producers, Richard Curtis, Debra Hayward, Liza Chasin. Directed, written by Richard Curtis.

The Count - Philip Seymour Hoffman
Quentin - Bill Nighy
Gavin - Rhys Ifans
Dave - Nick Frost
Minister Dormandy - Kenneth Branagh
Carl - Tom Sturridge
Simon - Chris O'Dowd
Thick Kevin - Tom Brooke
Angus - Rhys Darby
John - Will Adamsdale
Felicity - Katherine Parkinson
Charlotte - Emma Thompson
Marianne - Talulah Riley
Twatt - Jack Davenport
Desiree - Gemma Arterton
Eleonore - January Jones
Bob - Ralph Brown
Mark - Tom Wisdom
 Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, plus a heavy dose of Swinging '60s nostalgia, fuel "The Boat That Rocked," Richard Curtis' hymn to the wild days of U.K. pirate radio. More reminiscent of his eccentric TV comedies ("The Vicar of Dibley," "Mr. Bean") than his bigscreen romancers "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and "Notting Hill," Curtis' second outing as writer-director throws together a large cast of wackos on a boat off the east coast of Blighty. Pic generally stays afloat on the strength of its characters but sometimes threatens to sink under its overlong running time and vignettish structure.
Heavily promoted retro laffer, which launches April 1 in the U.K., and thereafter Down Under and across Europe, should do OK based on Curtis' name, though it lacks the universal appeal of his first helming outing, "Love Actually." Very Brit-specific item is likely to do more modest biz when it sails Stateside Aug. 28.

Though it had been around for a while, British pirate radio -- a direct result of pubcaster BBC's government-sanctioned monopoly on broadcasting -- mushroomed during the mid-'60s following the explosion of Britpop/rock, which the conservative BBC Radio hardly played. Operating from boats outside British territorial waters, pirates beamed a 24/7 diet of popular music to as many as 25 million listeners (half the U.K. population) before the government effectively crushed the pirates with legislation in August 1967. Many DJs migrated to BBC Radio, which gradually bowed to popular pressure, but only six years later was its broadcasting monopoly officially ended.

It's 1966 as the film opens, and the Beeb is still airing less than 45 minutes of pop each day. But on Radio Rock (based on the famous Radio Caroline), which operates from a rusty old fishing trawler in the North Sea, the party is in swing around the clock. On board, upper-class twit Quentin (Bill Nighy) rules a raggedy bunch of dope-smoking, sex-starved DJs who are national idols, in defiance of government minister Dormandy (Kenneth Branagh), who's bent on shutting down the "sewer of dirty commercialism and no morals."

Among the vinyl-spinners are the Count (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a grizzled Yank who wants to be the first person to broadcast the F-word on British radio; tubby Dave (Nick Frost, "Hot Fuzz"), who fancies himself a ladies' man; seriously spacey Thick Kevin (Tom Brooke); melancholy Irishman Simon (Chris O'Dowd); unloved Kiwi Angus (Rhys Darby, "The Flight of the Conchords"); silent lothario Mark (Tom Wisdom); and the boat's sole distaffer, Felicity (Katherine Parkinson), "a lesbian who cooks."

Standing in for the audience is Quentin's young, fresh-faced godson, Carl (Tom Sturridge), who arrives on Radio Rock one stormy night. Awed by the laddish atmosphere on board, Carl is gradually accepted by the team.

Pic shifts back and forth between the boat, where Dave is doing his best to relieve Carl of his virginity, and London, where the fanatical Dormandy bullies his assistant (Jack Davenport) into finding loopholes to sink the pirates. Curtis also cuts in dozens of tiny snapshots of '60s Britain -- teens, secretaries and the like listening to the outlawed radio -- expertly designed and garbed by production designer Mark Tildesley, costume designer Joanna Johnston and makeup/hair designer Christine Blundell.

Curtis' background as a sketch writer has never been clearer than here: The nearest thing to a throughline is Carl's sentimental education and the growing suspicion that one of the men on the boat may be the father he never knew. This strand is resolved near the end by a classy cameo from Emma Thompson as his airy mom, though by then, it's almost lost amid a number of smaller narratives, including the rivalry between the Count and star DJ Gavin (Rhys Ifans, in the pic's wackiest perf).

After a lively opening hour, the pic starts to lose its sparkle as Curtis tries to develop the subplots at the expense of the script's comic buoyancy; the film could easily lose a half-an-hour, to its benefit. Though the tempo picks up again in the final 40 minutes, the movie's fragile sketch structure almost breaks under the mini-"Titanic" setpiece of the final reels.

For a script that relies more on character-driven than situational comedy, it's the perfs that count, and these are thankfully strong. As the devil-may-care Count, Hoffman melds well with the Brit cast, though it's Nighy who predictably steals the show with his uniquely dry delivery. Branagh, every inch an old-style, stiff-upper-lip Brit, starts as a caricature ("We have their testicles in our hands, and it feels good!") but later adds a touch of genuinely menacing ballast. Amid a colorful cast, young Sturridge is excellent as Carl.

The soundtrack overdoes the Little England parody at times, but more successfully deploys a host of '60s pop/rock classics, laid over musical montages in which Emma E. Hickox's antsy editing cleverly makes the cast almost seem to dance. TV d.p. Danny Cohen's mobile widescreen lensing of the tiny, claustrophobic boat is far from the warm vistas of "Love Actually" but fits the edgier subject matter.

Though it positively reeks of the '60s, "The Boat That Rocked" lacks the sheer grit and darker underbelly of Michael Winterbottom's '70s equivalent, "24 Hour Party People." It also isn't quite the timely, anti-establishment comedy it promises to be at the start, but it's as close as any comedy by a middle-class entertainer like Curtis is likely to come.

Sonnenfeld takes 'Spellman Files'
Director boards Paramount's private eye movie
By MICHAEL FLEMING
Sonnenfeld


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More than one option(Co) Paramount Pictures
(Co) Paramount Pictures Scoring Stage M
(Co) Paramount Studio Facilities
Barry Sonnenfeld has become attached to direct "The Spellman Files," the Paramount Pictures adaptation of Lisa Lutz's novel.
Laura Ziskin is producing.

Story revolves around a single private eye who has to juggle the demands of running her family's business with her dating life.Simon and Schuster published the book. Bobby Florsheim and Josh Stolberg wrote the script.

Since signing recently with WMA, Sonnenfeld has landed on several potential directing assignments. They include "How to Guide" at MGM, "Bronwyn and Clyde" at Essential, "Dan Mintner: Badass for Hire" for New Line and "Gil's All Fright Diner," which Sonnenfeld may direct for DreamWorks Animation. Sonnenfeld's last feature was "RV."

Sonnenfeld also has an overall deal at Sony Television, where he's directing the Lauren Graham pilot for Sony and ABC and developing the Chelsea Handler book "Are You There Vodka, It's Me Chelsea" for a potential series.

WB gets tipsy with 'Hangover' sequel
Studio sets Todd Phillips to pen pic
By MICHAEL FLEMING

Warner Bros. laffer 'Hangover' doesn't hit theaters til Jun 5, but the studio has already committed to a sequel.


In a multimillion-dollar commitment, Warner Bros. has set "The Hangover" director Todd Phillips to write a sequel with Scot Armstrong.
The dealmaking comes two months before the first "Hangover" goes out through WB on June 5.

In the comedy, groomsmen take the betrothed for a last fling in Las Vegas, then become so caught up in the revelry that they lose the groom.

While studios often wait to see box office results before committing to a sequel, "The Hangover" has tested strongly, and a trailer brought down the house at ShoWest.

Sequel is the second in the past week to be put in motion before opening day of the first film. Though "Star Trek" doesn't open until May 8, Paramount Pictures already has started the countdown on a second installment, with Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof writing the script and helmer J.J. Abrams committing to at least produce with Bad Robot partner Bryan Burk.

Phillips will be back to direct and produce "The Hangover" sequel through his Green Hat Films banner. WB also has made deals to reunite Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis and Ed Helms, who star in the original.

The studio hopes to begin production late this year.

"The Hangover" was written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, with an uncredited rewrite by Phillips and Jeremy Garelick.

Phillips remains attached to direct the WB comedy "Man-Witch," producing with Neal Moritz.

CAA repped the filmmaker, writer and the returning cast.

New U.S. Release
Pig Hunt
By DENNIS HARVEYRead other reviews about this film

Powered By An Up Cal Entertainment, Epic Pictures presentation. Produced by Robert Mailer Anderson, Jim Isaac. Executive producers, Anderson, Nicola Miner, Chris James, Doug Stewart, Diana Stewart, Daniel Lurie, Rebecca Prowda.
Directed by Jim Isaac. Screenplay, Robert Mailer Anderson, Zach Anderson.

With: Travis Aaron Wade, Tina Huang, Howard Johnson Jr., Trevor Bullock, Rajiv Shah, Jason Foster, Nick Tagas, Bryonn Bain, Christina McKay, Charlie Musselwhite, Les Claypool, Marissa Igrasci, Lainie Grainger, Luis Saguar.

 A mashup of elements from "Razorback," "Deliverance" and other rural-peril faves, "Pig Hunt" proves an enjoyably offbeat hybrid horror exercise. Helmer Jim Isaac's first indie production, following several compromised studio efforts including sci-fi slasher "Jason X," amplifies the quirkiness of Robert and Zach Anderson's screenplay by unpredictably mixing disparate pacing, tones, humor and brute action. Sum isn't entirely satisfying, and the current marketplace preference for formulaic scare pics won't help B.O. But fans tired of rote remakes and ripoffs will appreciate the pic's idiosyncrasy. It's currently playing limited theatrical gigs while in search of a wider distribution deal.
Four twentysomething buds, led by John (Travis Aaron Wade), leave San Francisco for a weekend of game hunting in rural Mendocino County, though the guys-only plan goes south when John's g.f. Brooks (Tina Huang) -- who turns out to be the group's sharpest shooter -- insists on coming along.

After being warned about an improbable 3,000-lb. "Pigfoot" (aka "the Ripper") roaming wild, they acquire uninvited company in the form of two local yokels who have an apparent score to settle with John.

City-slicks-vs.-hicks tension soon gets ugly, resulting in full-on war waged by the large, inbred Tibbs clan against the panicked visitors. Meanwhile, carnivorous Hogzilla turns out to be no mythical beastie.

A local "hippie commune" consisting of one charismatic male (Bryonn Bain) and his sizable harem of Amazonian babes further adds to the eventual mayhem, which doesn't explode until halfway through the pic's runtime.

Slow start has its own rewards in atmosphere and slyly offbeat rhythms; when the porcine stool finally hits the fan, the action (especially that taking place chez Tibbs) is no-holds-barred muscular. Given the welcome sense that the story might lunge in any direction at any time, however, the final payoff (which involves some not-very-convincing creature effects) is a little less kicky than one might have hoped.

Perfs are enthusiastic, tech and design contribs above-average.

Score by Les Claypool of Primus adds to hipster cachet; he and blues mouth harpist Charlie Musselwhite contribute cameo roles.

More than one option(Person) Doug Stewart
Costumes, Costumer, Painter
(Person) Doug Stewart
Actor
(Person) Doug Stewart
Camera, Sound
(Person) Doug Stewart
Digital Effects Artist, Visual Effects
(Person) Doug Stewart
Driver
(Person) doug stewart
(Person) Doug Stewart
More than one option(Person) Chris James
Electrician
(Person) Chris James
Actor
(Person) Chris James
Property Master, Props
(Person) Chris James
Foley Artist, Foley Recordist, Rerecording Mixer
(Person) Chris James
GraphicsMore than one option(Co) Howard Johnson
(Person) Howard Johnson
More than one option(Person) Jason Foster
Actor, Assistant Camera, Assistant Director
(Person) Jason Foster
Actor
(Person) jason foster
More than one option(Film) Deliverance
(Film) Sadgati
Camera (Super 16-to-35mm), Adam Kane; editors, Graham Wilcox, Sean Barton; music, Les Claypool; production designer, Geoffrey Kirkland; art director, Garrett Lowe; set decorator, Kris Boxell; costume designer, Aggie Rodgers; sound, Fred Runner, Todd Beckett; sound designer, Andy Newell; special makeup/creature effects, Kerner Optical; assistant director, Greg Simmons; second unit director, Justin Sundquist; casting, Nancy Hayes. Reviewed on DVD, San Francisco, March 30, 2009. Running time: 100 MIN.

http://dobanevinosti.blogspot.com/2009/04/wright-stuff-1.html

Svaki put kad neko pomene film Skot Pilgrim, meni je prosto neprijatno.
A i peta knjiga nije dobra koliko je, recimo, četvrta.

Director Fights a Case by Making a New Movie
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LinkedinDiggFacebookMixxMy SpaceYahoo! BuzzPermalinkBy MICHAEL CIEPLY
Published: April 13, 2009
LOS ANGELES — John McTiernan, facing an expected new indictment for his role in the Anthony Pellicano Hollywood wiretapping case, is striking back — with a movie.

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Phil McCarten/Reuters
John McTiernan's documentary is due out soon on the Web.

Related
Times Topics: Anthony Pellicano
Filmography: John McTiernan
In an extraordinary and somewhat startling challenge to officials who have threatened him with jail time for lying to an F.B.I. agent, Mr. McTiernan, perhaps best known as the director of "Die Hard" and "The Hunt for Red October," has completed a documentary that accuses the Bush administration of having pursued the Pellicano case as part of a far-ranging conspiracy under the direction of Karl Rove to prosecute Democrats.

Mr. Pellicano, a former private investigator who served the rich and famous in Hollywood, was sentenced to 15 years in prison in December. Mr. McTiernan, who employed Mr. Pellicano in connection with a divorce, was earlier sentenced to four months in prison after pleading guilty to lying to a federal agent. But he withdrew his plea with a judge's permission in February and is awaiting what federal prosecutors at the time said would be a new indictment.

Meanwhile, Mr. McTiernan finished work last month on "The Political Prosecutions of Karl Rove," a documentary that describes what it argues is a relentless legal pursuit of Democratic political operatives under the Bush administration, with the Pellicano case in a central role.

Mr. McTiernan, 58, narrated and directed the film. In a concluding sequence he speaks directly to the camera about what he calls the "poison" of political prosecution.

In a telephone interview on Monday Mr. McTiernan said he began working on the documentary last year after learning about a study in which a pair of communications professors, Donald Shields of the University of Missouri, St. Louis, and John Cragan of Illinois State University, showed that a disproportionate number of Democratic officials were prosecuted under the Bush administration.

Mr. McTiernan said he mostly financed the documentary himself, and talked with hundreds of people in making it. He said that he did not expect to sell it commercially, but that he believed it would be posted shortly on a Web site, www.politicalprosecutions.org, that is soon to go live and that will be maintained by the group Victims of Karl Rove Prosecutions.

Mr. McTiernan said he expected to be reindicted within the next month. Asked whether he worried that the documentary's defiant stance might provoke a harsh response from prosecutors, he said, "Yes, it is a worry and concern."

In the documentary Mr. McTiernan describes the Pellicano prosecution as having stemmed from a pre-emptive strike against a Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential candidacy.

The film notes that the prosecution allowed federal officials to compel two of Mrs. Clinton's biggest contributors — the entrepreneurs Ron Burkle and Stephen Bing — to testify before a grand jury. Mrs. Clinton, the film says, was widely reported to have had help from Mr. Pellicano when her husband was accused in 1992 of having had an affair with Gennifer Flowers.

According to an elaborate turn of events asserted in the documentary, the Pellicano prosecution was intended to churn up dirt that was then folded into an anti-Clinton campaign video that was planned for use if she were nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate.

Sheena Tahilramani, a representative for Mr. Rove, said that he had not seen the documentary — but that he was not without an opinion about its claims.

"Accepting Mr. McTiernan's wild theory requires not only the suspension of willing disbelief, but of all mental activity," Ms. Tahilramani wrote in an e-mail message. "I suspect Secretary Clinton and Mr. Rove are in agreement that Mr. McTiernan is off his rocker."

Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the United States attorney in Los Angeles, said prosecutors remained committed to their plan, disclosed earlier in court, to re-indict Mr. McTiernan.

"Any claim that this is part of some grand conspiracy is utterly ludicrous," Mr. Mrozek said. "There was no influence, no momentum coming from Washington or any political consideration."

Mr. McTiernan said he had been unable to direct a film since becoming embroiled in the Pellicano case, largely because uncertainty about his future made it difficult to insure him.

In the documentary Mr. McTiernan — one of several people who say they have been abused by Rove-driven prosecutions — makes a dramatic plea for an airing of its claims.

"Americans afraid of their government — say that to yourself a couple of times," Mr. McTiernan said. "We could strip every tree off the Sierra, we could burn coal till the sky was black, and we would not so poison the world," he added, as much as if we left our children with that "ugly little phrase."

Eli Roth najavljuje THANKSGIVING (citiram: "The sickest, bloodiest, most violent slasher movie. I want to make the highest body count slasher film I can.") i neimenovani visokobudžetni destruktivni spektakl nalik na Transformerse i Kloverfild (?!)

http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/04/15/eli-roth-to-shoot-transformerscloverfield-scale-movie-this-fall/#more-25070

Quote from: "Harvester"Eli Roth najavljuje

da se duboko kaje zbog gluposti koje je do sada 'režirao' i pisao, obećava da neće nikad više, uz to najavljuje predstojeću operaciju promene pola (zvaće se elena)...

TEK NAKON SVEGA TOGA vest o bilo čemu što rotten najavljuje može da stvarno bude - vest.

Šta to pričaš??? Pa Eli Roth je ODLIČAN!!!!

Čak sam i njegov fan na Facebooku, što mi je omogućilo da dođem do ove vijesti prije ostalih. Zapravo, slučajno sam nabasao na nju jer sam tek danas prvi put iz čiste radoznalosti kliknuo na "new updates" i pri vrhu je bila ta vijest. Prst sudbine, šta li. U svakom slučaju, u ne tako dalekoj budućnosti čekaju nas tri nova Ilajeva remek-djela!  

HBO sets 2008 election film
'Game Change' to be published early next year
By MICHAEL FLEMING
HBO pic on the 2008 campaign will be adapted by Charles Leavitt from a book now being written by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann.

More than one option(Person) Charles Leavitt
Story By, Screenplay
(Person) Charles Leavitt


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HBO Films has optioned "Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime," an in-the-works Harper Collins book by political writers Mark Halperin and John Heilemann.
The pay network has hired "Blood Diamond" scribe Charles Leavitt to adapt the behind-the-scenes look at the 2008 presidential election from the perspective of the candidates and their respective camps.

Halperin is editor-at-large at Time magazine, and Heilemann is national political correspondent for New York magazine. They will be consultants for the film.

The book will be published early next year.

Heilemann and Halperin have covered other presidential campaigns, but while returning from a John McCain event, they began musing that the larger-than-life characters in the 2008 election would lend themselves to a movie more than past candidates such as John Kerry, Al Gore or Bob Dole.

They decided to do a book that focused more on the characters than the pollsters and campaign teams. Heilemann knew Barack Obama from their Harvard days, Halperin had become acquainted with Sarah Palin, and they both knew Joe Biden, McCain and the Clintons.

"Focusing on those characters went to the essence of why this was the campaign of a lifetime, not just for the candidates, but for the country," Halperin said.

Leavitt most recently adapted the Nathaniel Philbrick book "In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex," which Edward Zwick rewrote with Marshall Herskovitz and will direct for New Regency. Leavitt also adapted the Doug Stumpf novel "Confessions of a Wall Street Shoeshine Boy" for Warner Bros.

"It's funny to call Obama and Hillary characters, but that's how I have to look at them," Leavitt said. "To me, the primary was one of the greatest title fights of the century, and John and Mark have a treasure chest of anecdotes and inside stories. I think it will present itself almost like a stage play, like 'Frost/Nixon' or 'The Queen.' "

After the Jay Roach-directed "Recount," HBO has become increasingly focused on topical and political subject matter.

HBO made a deal for Peter Morgan to direct his script "The Special Relationship," setting Dennis Quaid to play Bill Clinton, Julianne Moore to play Hillary Clinton, Michael Sheen to play British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Helen McCrory to play Cherie Blair in a drama about the sometimes-turbulent relationship between the leaders of the two superpowers when they first took office.

Oscilloscope takes North American rights to Irish box office hit Kisses
Jeremy Kay
16 Apr 2009 19:38

 

New York-based Oscilloscope Laboratories has acquired North American rights to Lance Daly's Irish box office hit Kisses.

Newcomers Kelly O'Neill and Shane Curry star as two children who flee abusive homes and head for Dublin in search of a better life.

Kisses premiered at Telluride Film Festival last autumn and screened at the Toronto Film Festival, among many others. It won the audience prize at this year's Miami Film Festival and was named best film at the Galway Film Festival.  
     
Daly wrote the screenplay and produced with Macdara Kelleher of Dublin-based Fastnet films. Backing for the $2.3m production came from the Irish Film Board, Sweden's Film i Vast, the Broadcasting Commission Of Ireland, TV3 and Lasr Von Trier's Zentropa in Denmark. Focus Features International is handling overseas sales.

Oscilloscope Laboratories' slate includes So Yong Kim's Treeless Mountain, Scott Hamilton Kennedy's The Garden, Kelly Reichardt's Wendy And Lucy and Anders Ostergaard's Burma VJ.

OSS 117: Lost in Rio
OSS 117: Rio ne repond plus (France)
By JORDAN MINTZERRead other reviews about this film

Powered By A Gaumont release of a Mandarin Cinema, Gaumont, M6 Films production, with participation of M6, Canal Plus, Cinecinema. (International sales: Gaumont, Paris.) Produced by Eric Altmayer, Nicolas Altmayer. Directed by Michel Hazanavicius. Screenplay, Hazanavicius, Jean-Francois Halin, inspired by the "OSS 117" novels by Jean Bruce.

With: Jean Dujardin, Louise Monot, Alex Lutz, Rudiger Vogler, Ken Samuels, Reem Kherici, Pierre Bellemare, Serge Hazanavicius, Laurent Capelluto, Moon Dailly, Walter Shnorkell, Philippe Herrison.
 Serving up another cocktail of cheeseball pickup lines, hammy play-acting and self-ridiculing Frenchiness, "OSS 117: Lost in Rio" is a satisfying sequel to 2006's cultish sendup hit. Stuck in a time-warped Brazil that resembles a yellowing '60s postcard, Jean Dujardin pulls off a charming, Peter Sellers-esque performance as he bumbles his way through retro cloak-and-dagger intrigue, displaying his character's uncanny ability to insult anyone -- and, especially in this episode, women and Jews -- who's not 100% Gallic, male and a diehard Charles de Gaulle fanatic. Local B.O. should echo the previous film's 2.2 million admissions, with guaranteed homevid viewings.
Like "OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies," the pic is a full-blown parody of a series of widely popular postwar novels and films featuring secret agent OSS 117 (whose outlandish real name, Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath, has become a running joke in the new installments.) Similar to James Bond but 200 times cornier, OSS was the quintessential fictional hero of de Gaulle's decade-long reign, defending his patrie against its greatest threat: foreigners.

Returning team of scribe Jean-Francois Halin and writer-director Michel Hazanavicius once again turns the original character and timeframe upside down, presenting a hilariously straight-faced mockery of the Cold War era and its nationalist mindset.

Kicking off with a multi-screen credits sequence that has OSS (Dujardin) surrounded by a clan of dancing girls as he ever-so-casually twists to a Dean Martin song, the film constantly and adeptly mimics the themes and techniques of B-grade thrillers of the epoch. Sent to Brazil to retrieve a microfilm containing the names of Frenchmen who assisted the Nazi regime (although he's astounded that any such collaborators existed, he swears to protect their secrecy), he finds himself in a Bossa Nova dreamland of bikini-clad women, perma-tanned foreign agents and pesky, gun-wielding "Chinamen" (as he calls them).

Pic's greatest gags arrive when OSS joins forces with Dolores (Louise Monot), a sexy Mossad lieutenant tracking down an underground group of escaped Nazis. Troubled by the fact that she's both a woman and a Jew, he tries to turn on the charm but can't help his misogyny and anti-Semitism from screwing things up. "I just don't understand a religion that doesn't let you eat sausages," he says, before ordering her to set the table for dinner as they wander, lost, through the Amazon jungle.

The jokes become more physically lampoonish in the later reels, but Dujardin does wonders in a scene that has him half-paralyzed and chasing his nemesis down a hospital corridor. Between his hearty cornball laugh, his stoic delivery of shameful dialogue and the way he carries himself around in endless self-admiration, the actor invents a persona that, like Sellers' Inspector Clouseau, is a continual joy to watch.

Tech credits are superbly and purposely old-school, with Guillaume Schiffman's flattened-out widescreen lensing capturing the action in a muted blue-brown-maroon color palette. Location shooting in Rio and Brasilia features several examples of '40s and '50s modernist architecture, which look all the more ancient in the film's stylized passe universe.

More than one option(Co) Canal Plus
Filmography, Year, Role
(Co) Canal Plus
Filmography, Year, RoleMore than one option(Person) Peter Sellers
Actor, Director, Producer
(Person) Peter Sellers
ModelmakerMore than one option(Person) James Bond
(Person) james bond
More than one option(Person) Dean Martin
Actor, Music, Song
(Person) Dean Martin
Driver, Key Grip, ProductionCamera (color, widescreen), Guillaume Schiffman; editor, Reynald Bertrand; music, Ludovic Bource; production designer, Maamar Ech-Cheikh; sound (Dolby Digital), Didier Sain, Nadine Muse, Gerard Lamps; stunt coordinator, Philippe Guegan; assistant director, James Canal casting, Stephane Touitou. Reviewed at Gaumont Champs Elysees Marignan 3, Paris, April 15, 2009. (In City of Lights, City of Angels Film Festival, Los Angeles.) Running time: 101 MIN.

Horsemen
By JORDAN MINTZERRead other reviews about this film

Powered By
'Horsemen'

A Lionsgate (in U.S.)/Metropolitan Filmexport (in France) release of a Mandate Films, Michael Bay presentation of a Platinum Dunes, Radar Pictures production. Produced by Bay, Brad Fuller, Andrew Form. Executive producers, Ted Field, Joe Drake, Nathan Kahane, Joe Rosenberg. Co-producers, Nicole Brown, Kelly Konop, Jeremiah Samuels, Michael Weber. Directed by Jonas Akerlund. Screenplay, David Callaham.

Aidan Breslin - Dennis Quaid
Kristen - Ziyi Zhang
Alex Breslin - Lou Taylor Pucci
 Riding in on the four ponies currently plaguing the Hollywood horror-thriller -- overstylized torture, whiplash editing, compulsive script reversals and crude neon lighting -- "Horsemen" brings its herd home to pasture in strictly predictable fashion. Not nearly as gripping as "Seven" nor as gore-crazy as the "Saw" or "Hostel" series, musicvid vet Jonas Akerlund's sophomore effort will be remembered neither as a highlight of the waning genre, nor for Dennis Quaid's most memorable screen performance. Lionsgate quarantined the pic's U.S. release to just 75 theaters in early March, hoping, perhaps, that the apocalypse will come in ancillary.
A fairly harmless shock sequence, whereby a woodsman stumbles on a silver platter displaying a pile of torn-out teeth, sets the tone for the film's other "revelations." By the time forensic dentistry expert Aidan Breslin (Quaid) concludes that a series of corpses mutilated by artsy trapeze devices may have something to do with the famous Bible passage about the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," the audience is already several steps ahead of him.

Much of the initial action, as it shifts from blood-splattered crime scene to detailed autopsy and back, plays out in territory well trod by the latest and not-too-latest works of the torture-porn/Splat Pack school. A scene in which Breslin investigates a tattoo/S&M parlor connected to the murders typifies the approach of screenwriter David Callaham ("Doom"), as the script tries to immerse us in a faux-seedy world torn from a dozen other movies.

Thankfully, Breslin's shattered home life, where he remains estranged from his two young sons (Lou Taylor Pucci, Liam James) following the death of his wife from cancer, adds something vaguely human and original to the story. Quaid is best in these domestic sequences, in which he makes the tiresome pull between work and family seem believable -- much moreso than when he's on the beat and merely going through the motions.

When the adopted daughter (Ziyi Zhang, physically fierce yet unconvincing) of an early victim turns out to be linked to the killers, the diabolical prophecy heads so quickly for home that viewers may be shocked most by the film's slapdash ending.

Despite the abundance of red-green-white gels used for the biblical motifs, Akerlund's direction remains fairly restrained, and he actually seems to want to tell the father-son story in a straightforward way. Too bad about all those fish hooks suspending people in the air as they choke on their own blood.

Like the plot, the score by Jan A.P. Kaczmarek's ("The Visitor") leads us in mostly foreseeable directions.

More than one option(Person) Joseph Rosenberg
(Person) Joe Rosenberg
More than one option(Person) Brad Fuller
Executive Producer, Producer, Associate Producer
(Person) Brad Fuller
ADR Editor, Apprentice, Assistant Editor
(Person) Brad Fuller
Assistant DirectorMore than one option(Person) Joe Drake
Executive in Charge of Production, Executive Producer, Producer
(Person) Joe Drake
EditorMore than one option(Person) Nicole Brown
Actor, Associate Producer
(Person) Nicole Brown
Costumes
(Person) Nicole Brown
Assistant Editor
(Person) Nicole Brown
Post-Production Supervisor
(Person) Nicole Brown
Craft Service
(Person) nicole brown
Makeup
(Person) nicole brown
Production AssistantMore than one option(Person) Michael Weber
Producer, Co-Producer
(Person) Michael Weber
Sound, Executive Producer, Actor
(Person) Michael Weber
(Person) Michael Weber
Consultant, Technical Advisor, Visual EffectsMore than one option(Film) Seven
1995 - Morgan Freeman, David Fincher
(Film) Seven
William Smith, Andy SidarisMore than one option(Film) Planet of the Apes
(Film) Visitors
(Film) The Visitor
Mel Ferrer, Michael J Paradise
(Film) The Visitor
Pia Shandel, John Wright
(Film) Besokarna
(Film) Gost
(Film) The Visitor
(Film) The Visitor
(Film) The Visitor
Camera (color), Eric Broms; editors, Jim May, Todd E. Miller; music, Jan A.P. Kaczmarek; production designer, Sandy Cochrane; art director, Peter Emmink; set decorators, Stephen Amdt, Tanja Deshida; costume designer, B.; sound (Dolby Digital/SDDS/DTS), Leon Johnson; supervising sound editor, Paul N.J. Ottosson; visual effects supervisor, Des Carey; stunt coordinator, Kurt Bryant; associate producer, Vitaliy Versace; assistant director, Phil Hardage; casting, Lindsey Hayes Kroeger, David Rappaport. Reviewed at UGC Orient Express 1, Paris, April 14, 2009. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 88 MIN.

20th Century Boys: Chapter 2
20-seiki shonen: dai 2 sho saigo no kibo (Japan)
By RUSSELL EDWARDSRead other reviews about this film

Powered By A 20th Century Boys Film Partners, Cine Bazaar, Office Crescendo production. (International sales: Nippon Television Network Corp., Tokyo.) Produced by Nobuyuki Iinuma, Morio Amagi, Ryuji Ichiyama. Directed by Yukihiko Tsutsumi. Screenplay, Takashi Nagasaki, Yusuke Watanabe, based on the manga by Urasawa.

With: Etsushi Toyokawa, Takako Tokiwa, Airi Taira, Teruyuki Kagawa, Naohito Fujiki, Hidehiko Ishizuka, Fumiyo Kohinata, Kuranosuke Sasake, Koichi Yamadera, Yusuke Santamaria, Renji Ishibashi, Katsuo Nakamura, Hitomi Kuroki, Toshiaki Karasawa, Somat Sangsangium, Haruka Kinami.
(Japanese, Thai, Mandarin, English dialogue)
 A Japanese cultural equivalent of the "Matrix" and "Lord of the Rings" trilogies, and eagerly awaited by a loyal "Watchmen"-like fanbase, "20th Century Boys: Chapter 2" sees helmer Yukihiko Tsutsumi treading water as he continues his adaptation of the sci-fi manga about a religious cult dominating Japan. Having generated around $30 million since its January local release -- slightly less than the first episode's take -- the film has been slower to get offshore release but should eventually approach its forerunner's steady pan-Asian biz. Western cult ancillary beckons; the first film is skedded for DVD release in the U.K. in May.
While still juggling multiple time zones and story strands, the sequel concentrates on the activities of grown-up high schooler Kanna (Airi Taira), the niece of part one's central protag, Kenji (Toshiaki Karasawa, little seen here). Auds arriving only now in the cycle will quickly understand the gist of the film, if not the frequent digressions.

It is now 2015, and Japan is ruled by an iron-fisted, heavily censorious government that was originally a religious cult ruled by a masked leader called Friend. Said cult was inspired by a childhood manga ("The Book of Prophecies") drawn by Kanna's maligned and missing uncle back in 1969.

Kanna is a solemnly angry girl with ESP, martial-arts skills and enough street smarts to broker a deal between Tokyo's Thai and Chinese gangs (and in their own languages, no less). Along with wide-eyed classmate Kyoko (Haruka Kinami, overacting in an unsuccessful bid at comic relief), Kanna is selected to study the cult's advanced teachings.

At the cult's training ground, Kanna links up with a rebellious underground movement spearheaded by one of her uncle's childhood friends, Yoshitsune (Teruyuki Kagawa, "Tokyo Sonata"). Meanwhile, another of Kenji's friends, the bedraggled Otcho (Etsushi Toyokawa, "Hula Girls"), has escaped from jail and is singlehandedly leading his own assault on the cult.

The story's primary event is signaled early on by "The Book of Prophecies," which foretells an assassination by a savior. The expectation of "Who's gonna do it?" drags down the action, while the film swamps the viewer with subplots and background exposition. Final reel features a couple of extra twists, mostly to ramp up expectations for the trilogy's concluding seg.

Tsutsumi's direction is solid, admirably juggling the myriad strands even as it tries to compensate for a pace that's less frenetic than that of its predecessor, as well as the sense that the series is biding its time before the final installment. But in the helmer's steady hand, the pic still manages to entertain and intrigue.

Of the huge ensemble cast, Taira and Toyokawa are most successful in creating genuine personalities. All other thesps hit their marks and remain dutifully subservient to the script.

Project is a hugely ambitious undertaking, sometimes employing prominent Japanese thesps in subsidiary roles, and occasionally using international (particularly Thai) locations. Frustratingly, the VFX budget looks even thinner this time around, with some explosions recycled from the first film. Although some CGI establishing shots reveal "Blade Runner"-like sky-level highways, at ground level, Osaka and Tokyo don't look much different from how they do in the present day.

As in the first movie, the long end credits are punctuated by a teaser for the next episode, set to be released in Japan on Aug. 28.

Camera (color/B&W, widescreen), Satoru Karasawa; editor, Nobuyuki Ito; music, Ryomei Shirai; production designer, Naoki Soma; sound (Dolby Digital), Mitsuo Tokita. Reviewed on DVD, Sydney, April 11, 2009. Running time: 140 MIN.

Buenos Aires
Double Take
(Belgium)
By ROBERT KOEHLERRead other reviews about this film

Powered By A Zap-O-Matik presentation, in co-production with Nikovantastic Film, Volya Films. Produced by Emmy Oost. Co-producers, Hanneke van der Tas, Nicole Gerhards, Denis Vaslin. Directed, written by Johan Grimonprez. Story, Tom McCarthy, inspired by Jorge Luis Borges' story "25 August 1983."

With: Ron Burrage, Mark Perry.
(English dialogue)
 Belgian filmmaker and media artist Johan Grimonprez provocatively uses Alfred Hitchcock as a filter through which to examine the Cold War -- and its attendant media-generated paranoia -- in his galvanizing, elegant and wildly entertaining "Double Take." Part fiction, part nonfiction and thoroughly inventive in its experimentation with the line between myth and history, the pic is as gripping a suspense movie as one of Hitchcock's own, and shows remarkable breadth of vision. It could cross over from art-oriented fest sidebars to somewhat wider auds with proper handling, with tube sales being the best bet.
Indeed, watching "Double Take" on TV would be doubly amusing, since it delivers a caustic attack on the medium (frequently intoned by Hitchcock himself) while exploring its facets as delivery box of entertainment, news, advertising, fear and comfort. Connections to the current era's "war on terror" are not coincidental.

Three parallel story tracks, none of them kept in strictly chronological order, form the dazzling core of this suspenseful and witty presentation: author Tom McCarthy's fiction (voiced by actor Mark Perry, doing a spot-on Hitch impersonation) about the director encountering his double in the Universal Studios office building during lensing of "The Birds"; the rising Cold War tension between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. from Sputnik in 1957 to Soviet premiere Nikita Khrushchev's 1964 dethroning by Leonid Brezhnev; and Hitchcock's playful ways with TV during his first skein, "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," whose seasons roughly parallel the selected Cold War period.

CBS eminence grise Walter Cronkite appears at first, reporting on the notorious "kitchen debate" between a feisty Khrushchev and an obviously outsmarted Richard Nixon, whose best retort to the Soviet leader's critiques of U.S. capitalism is to point to the latest in TV sets. It's the perfect link to Hitch's own show, whose ironic intros are delightfully archived and edited here for brilliant impact. A bonus is a series of ads by the show's sponsor, Folgers Coffee, which reflect American social attitudes from the '50s and early 60s.

The story track about doubles meeting each other, inspired by a Jorge Luis Borges tale and supported by Christian Halten's Bernard Herrmann-like score, develops a haunting, hall-of-mirrors psychological intensity. The section features original color lensing (shot in Belgium, with no camera credit given), much of it framed in suggestive closeups and standing in visual high relief in a film dominated by black-and-white archival footage.

Grimonprez views "The Birds" (a film that has recently emerged as one of Hitchcock's key works, yielding a wide range of interpretations) as a metaphor for nuclear terror and fear-mongering. But the helmer, with ace editors Dieter Diependaele and Tyler Hubby, takes special pleasure in including several funny clips from the elaborate promo campaign for that film, often involving star Tippi Hedren and several actual birds.

Also certain to stir a smile is thesp Ron Burrage's resemblance to Hitchcock; while it isn't absolute, it's close enough for folks to do a, yes, double take -- and further resonates with the film's notion of Hitchcock doubles. Grimonprez's 2005 installation "Looking for Alfred" also concerned itself with this idea. But the current film adds to it a disturbing, apocalyptic insight by Hitchcock: "If you meet your double, you should kill him."

Technically, "Double Take" is elegantly assembled, with Ranko Paukovic's powerful sound design a standout.

More than one option(Person) Jorge Luis Borges
From Story, Screenplay
(Person) Jorge Luis Borges
Source MaterialMore than one option(Person) Tom McCarthy
Director, Actor, Screenplay
(Person) Thomas J McCarthy
(Person) Tom McCarthy
Carpenter
(Person) Tom McCarthy
Actor
(Person) Tom McCarthy
Actor
(Person) Tom McCarthy
Sound, Sound Editor, Sound Effects
(Person) Tom McCarthy
Lighting Technician, Rigging Electrician
(Person) Tom McCarthy
ModelmakerMore than one option(Person) Mark Perry
(Person) Marc Perry
More than one option(Person) Alfred Hitchcock
Voice, Director, Story By
(Person) Alfred Hitchcock
ActorMore than one option(Film) Double Take
2001 - Orlando Jones, George Gallo
(Film) Double Take
1997 - Craig Sheffer, Mark L. LesterMore than one option(Tv) Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Series Information, Seasons, Credits, Awards
(Tv) Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Ned Beatty, Joel OlianskyMore than one option(Co) Universal Studios Sound Facilities
(Co) NBC Universal Studios
More than one option(Film) The Birds
1963 - Rodney Turt Taylor, Alfred Hitchcock
(Film) The Birds
Camera (color/B&W); editors, Dieter Diependaele, Tyler Hubby; music, Christian Halten; sound designer (Dolby Digital), Ranko Paukovic; supervising producer, Doris Hepp. Reviewed at Buenos Aires Film Festival, March 26, 2009. (Also in Berlin Film Festival -- Forum Expanded.) Running time: 80 MIN.

Morgan Freeman did it with James Patterson's Alex Cross novels, now Angelina Jolie is giving it a go as Patricia Cornwell's Dr. Kay Scarpetta.

Fox 2000 has acquired screen rights to author Cornwell's best-selling murder thriller novel series featuring medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta reports Variety.

The novels deal with a large amount of forensic science and were said to be a big influence on the development of recent television procedurals such as the "CSI" franchise.

The aim is to turn the property into a franchise with Jolie in the lead. The opera-loving workaholic coroner has appeared in sixteen novels starting with 1990's "Post Mortem".

This film won't be a direct adaptation of any of the books though such as "The Body Farm" and "From Potter's Field", yet like the books it will be decidedly grizzly in a "Se7en"/"Silence of the Lambs" style vein.

Mark Gordon and Geyer Kosinski will produce. The pair and Jolie are meeting with writers and will set one shortly.

Simon West ("Tomb Raider") is in talks to direct a reinvention of the 1972 Charles Bronson action classic "The Mechanic" reports Production Weekly.

Jason Statham will take on the lead role in the Shane Salerno-scripted film which reimagines the property as a spy thriller in a post 9/11 world.

In the original, Bronson played an aging hitman befriends a young man (Jan-Michael Vincent) who wants to be a professional killer. Eventually it becomes clear that someone has betrayed them.

Chris Evans ("Fantastic Four," "Push") is in talks to join the film adaptation of DC Comics/Vertigo comic "The Losers" reports Mania.com.

The story focuses on a elite group of special forces operatives who are betrayed by their handlers and left for dead.

Surviving the setup, they embark on a series of wildcat ops designed to clear their own names and bring down the government agency that sold them out.

Evans would play Jensen, the fast-talking tech whiz of the team. He joins Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Clay, Idris Elba as Roque and Zoe Saldana as Aisha.

Sylvain White is directing and shooting kicks off later this year.

Jamie Chung and Jena Malone will replace Emma Stone and Evan Rachel Wood in Zack Snyder's "Sucker Punch!" says The Hollywood Reporter.

Set in the 1950s, the film centers on a girl confined to a mental institution by her evil stepfather, who intends to have her lobotomized in five days.

While there, she imagines an alternate reality to hide from the pain and in that world begins planning her escape, needing to steal five objects to help get her out.

Emily Browning, Vanessa Hudgens and Abbie Cornish also star. Chung plays Amber, a country girl with a big heart, while Malone plays Cornish's younger sister.

Snyder and his wife Deborah are producing.

Marlon Wayans will star in and produce "The Year of Living Biblically" for Paramount Pictures and Plan B says The Hollywood Reporter.

Based on A.J. Jacobs' 2005 nonfiction book, the author spent a year attempting to live by the rules of the Old and New Testaments, with comic and enlightening results.

Jay Reiss will adapt the book into a feature film narrative. Julian Farino (HBO's "Entourage") is attached to direct.

Jeviga, ja pomislio da je ovo film o Melu Gibsonu...

Script doctor's in for Tom Cruise
Studios custom-tailor projects for the star
By MICHAEL FLEMING
Cruise


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Tom Cruise is narrowing the prospects for his next film, but no matter which he chooses, he has single-handedly propped up the script doctoring biz: Studios have spent millions of dollars in rewrite fees to custom-tailor projects for the star.
The frontrunners for his next film appear to be the DreamWorks drama "Motorcade," to be directed by Len Wiseman, followed by Spyglass remake "The Tourist" (with Charlize Theron), to be helmed by Bharat Nalluri, and Fox action comedy "Wichita" (with Cameron Diaz), which James Mangold will direct. Also still in the mix is MGM's "The Matarese Circle," which potentially matches Cruise with Denzel Washington and helmer David Cronenberg.

No longer in the mix are Universal/Working Title romantic comedy "Lost for Words," to be directed by Susanne Bier, and "The 28th Amendment," the drama Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck will helm for Warner Bros.

While screenwriters all over town have been taking haircuts on every deal, the script doctors in the Cruise derby have been making as much as $250,000 a week, for two to six weeks, as they hone projects with notes from Cruise. Those writers include Scott Frank, who has been revising the action comedy "Wichita" for Cruise to play an action hero; Richard Curtis, who beefed up "Lost for Words"; and Paul Attanasio, who is now rewriting the rewrite that "Matarese Circle" director Cronenberg delivered.

Meanwhile, Billy Ray continues to hone "Motorcade" with notes from Cruise. Christopher McQuarrie is doing the same on "The Tourist," which the writer is also producing. (Ray and McQuarrie are not technically script doctors because they've been writing these projects for months.) And Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci also did some reworking of "28th Amendment," which they originally sold as a spec script in 1999.

New Int'l. Release
Hellsinki
Rooperi (Finland)
By ALISSA SIMONRead other reviews about this film

Powered By A Nordisk Film release of a Solar Films production, with the support of the Finnish Film Foundation, MTV3. (International sales: TrustNordisk, Hvidovre, Denmark.) Produced by Markus Selin, Jukka Helle. Directed by Aleksi Makela. Screenplay, Marko Leino, based on the book "Rooperi: The Years of Crime 1955-2005" by Harri Nykanen, Tom Sjoberg.

With: Samuli Edelmann, Peter Franzen, Pihla Viitala, Kari Hietalahti, Juha Veijonen, Jasper Paakkonen, Pekka Valkeejarvi, Hiski Gronstrand.
 The seamy side of the Finnish capital takes centerstage in the strongly crafted and performed gangster tale "Hellsinki," the second collaboration of helmer Aleksi Makela and scribe Marko Leino ("Matti: Hell Is For Heroes"). Based on a volume of oral histories drawn from old-time criminals in the city's notorious Rooperi neighborhood, the pic plays like a Finnish "Goodfellas." Still in local cinemas, the January release has already sold more than 250,000 ducats. Best options for export are via national film weeks and ancillary.
During the mid-20th century, impoverished Rooperi (aka Punavuori) was a latter-day Wild West with criminal gangs dominating the streets. Illegal booze was the quarter's most lucrative business until drugs arrived, changing all the rules.

Unfolding from 1966-79, the story tracks the rise and fall of three small-time bootleggers with more brawn than brains. After 10 years working the streets, hefty Tom (Samuli Edelmann), cocky Krisu (Peter Franzen) and dimwit Kari (Kari Hietalahti) decide the time is ripe to control Rooperi's black-market liquor sales.

When brute force sends their competition packing, the pals transition into the "catering business," but even as they make more money, they yearn for bigger things. Eventually, circumstances lead to a parting of ways: Tom marries curvy blonde Monika (Pihla Viitala), who demands that he go straight; Krisu decides to try his luck in Sweden; and Kari is arrested for a botched bank robbery.

Amusingly, Tom's idea of a decent job is to open a sex shop, but between cop raids and the locals' shyness, he barely gets by. However, as soon as he launches a mail-order side, business booms.

As time passes, Tom and Monika's marriage falls apart, Krisu returns to Finland a junkie, Kari prefers jail, and a new breed of criminal, epitomized by the ruthless Cracker (Jasper Paakkonen), rules the streets. Even Koistinen (Juha Veijonen), the friendly neighborhood cop, decides it's time to retire.

Infused with a wistful nostalgia for a time when crooks lived by a predictable code, the smartly nuanced screenplay by Leino (author of Renny Harlin's new Finnish project, "Mannerheim") follows genre rules while making the main characters more than mere types. However, the pic would play even more powerfully without its unconvincing coda.

No stranger to blockbusters, vet director Makela found his biggest successes in fact-based tales such as "Matti" and "Bad Boys." Like those earlier titles, "Hellsinki" boasts a masculine point of view, fast-paced action, a boyish sense of humor and thesps Frantzen and Paakonen.

Shadowy widescreen lensing by Pini Hellstedt and spot-on period settings and costumes lead the classy tech package.

More than one option(Co) Nordisk Film
(Co) Nordisk Film Biografer (Denmark)
More than one option(Film) Bad Boys
1995 - Martin Lawrence, Michael Bay
(Film) Bad Boys
1983 - Sean Penn, Richard L RosenthalCamera (color, widescreen), Pini Hellstedt; editor, Kimmo Taavila; music, Kalle Chydenius; art director, Pirjo Rossi; costume designer, Tiina Kaukanen; sound (Dolby Digital), Jyrki Rahkonen. Reviewed on DVD, Chicago, April 19, 2009. Running time: 133 MIN.

Kevin Macdonald has made a deal with New Regency to develop and direct "The End of Eternity," the 1955 Isaac Asimov novel the financier-producer acquired late in the fall.
Vince Gerardis is producing.

Futuristic tale concerns a ruling class called Eternity whose members can manipulate time and alter history.

The director is following up the newspaper drama "State of Play" with "Eagle of the Ninth," a second-century Roman military drama for Focus Features.

Endeavor and U.K.-based United rep Macdonald.

Eli Kirschner is executive producing.