ZNAK SAGITE — više od fantastike — edicija, časopis, knjižara...

Director Alexandre Aja ("Haute Tension", "The Hills Have Eyes") is attached to direct an English-language bigscreen adaptation of French satirical bestseller "The Gospel According to Jimmy". Set in the near future, "Jimmy" tells the story of a pool cleaner in L.A. who finds out he's a clone of Jesus, made from DNA taken from the Shroud of Turin. Aja will first direct "Mirrors," a loose adaptation of the Korean film "Into the Mirror"..."

Trapped Ashes

 
  Patrick Z McGavin in Toronto 06 October 2006
 


Dirs: Joe Dante, Monte Hellman, Ken Russell, Sean Cunningham, John Gaeta. US/Canada/Japan. 2006. 105mins.

Monte Hellman's superlative, evocative and genuinely moving Stanley's Girlfriend is the standout contribution of Trapped Ashes, the horror anthology of four macabre vignettes also directed by Ken Russell, Sean Cunningham and John Gaeta.

Financed by Japanese broadcast concerns and shot in Vancouver, Los Angeles and Tokyo, Trapped Ashes is an intriguing title that stands outside recent horror releases. It represents a difficult sell and is probably best marketed as a curiosity that should find an appreciate audience in ancillary markets particularly DVD.

Joe Dante directed the framing material but not one of the four stories that constitutes the finished work. It is a peculiar omission and squandered opportunity considering the other three film-makers never achieve the richness and emotional precision of Hellman.

Dante summons his talent for off-kilter detail and spooky edge, creating a set up where six people are trapped inside a decrepit horror house atop a terrifying movie studio lot. The development yields a strange form of confession as the frightened participants are encouraged by the mysterious tour guide (Gibson) to reveal their most unsettling personal stories.

In the first episode, Russell's The Girl With Golden Breasts, a failed actress (Veltri) undergoes a radical breast enhancement procedure that carries horrifying repercussions for her sexual partners.

In Cunningham's Jibaku, an American couple desperate to enliven their marriage, travel to Japan, where exploring an ancient temple, they uncover the body of a Buddhist monk who has killed himself. The wife Julia (Harris) is thrown into a weird sexual vortex of death and decay, dreaming of surrendering to the dead man's ghost, her ecstasy giving way to an act of violation and entrapment.

With the fourth segment, Gaeta's My Twin, The Worm, Natalie recounts her French parents' combative relationship strained by the unusual conditions of her mother's pregnancy, the discovery that a six-foot tapeworm developed in utero.

Hellman's Stanley's Girlfriend is not only the strongest piece, it is the most atypical, graced by memory and guilt, involving a man (Saxon) recalling a charged episode as a young screenwriter from 1957 and his developing friendship with Stanley Kubrick and the beautiful, intoxicating woman (Cooke) that passed between them. Hellman debuted his work in a separate collection of shorts at Cannes, and the layered, fascinating portrait of male friendship and sexual competition is poetic and vibrant deepened by the authenticity of the period details, the intuitive use of jazz and a revelation that brings surprise and wonder.

In the other vignettes, the imagery tends toward the reactionary and it is marked by recurrent themes of castration and violation (special effects are fairly rudimentary throughout). The revulsion of the female form is the connecting thread. Though Kubrick was often thought of as misogynist and restrictive in his emotional depiction of women, Stanley's Girlfriend is playful, generous and imaginative.

The Hellman is too much of a good thing, a tantalizing work that deserves a deeper and fuller investigation. It also points out the limitations of the complementary works. To its credit it lifts Trapped Ashes into a higher realm.


Production companies
Independent Film Fund/CINV
Tokyo Broadcasting System International
Asmik Ace Entertainment Inc

International sales
Arclight Films
(61) 2 8353 2440

Executive producers
Akira Ishii
Norihiko Tani
Michael Frislev

Producers
Yoshifumi Hosoya
Yuko Yoshikawa
Dennis Bartok

Screenplay
Dennis Bartok

Production design
Robb Wilson King

Editor
Marcus Manton

Music
Kenji Kawai

Main cast
Henry Gibson
John Saxon
Rachel Veltri
Tahmoh Penikett
Tygh Runyan
Amelia Cooke
Jayce Bartok
Lara Harris
Scott Lowell
Ryo Ishibashi

Dark Castle's Next Three Films
Source: Variety October 16, 2006


Variety says that Joel Silver's Dark Castle Productions has raised $240 million from half a dozen investment firms to make 15 films over the next six years, with Warner Bros. aboard to distribute the entire slate.

Silver's deal gives him sole approval to greenlight pics and full creative control. He will own the pics outright after his investors -- who are putting up 100% of the financing in both equity and debt -- get paid back.

The first Dark Castle film under the deal is expected to be action thriller Whiteout, based on Greg Rucka's book about a lone U.S. marshal in Antarctica tracking the continent's first serial killer. The film is expected to start production this winter for release in the first quarter of 2008.

The next two are psychological horror pic The Summoner, written by Matthew Sand and to be directed by Victor Salva; and urban action movie Gangland, written by Alex Tse.

Silver launched Dark Castle in 1999 with Robert Zemeckis, churning out House on Haunted Hill, Ghost Ship, Gothika, House of Wax and upcoming supernatural thriller The Reaping with Hilary Swank.

The Stone Council (Le Concille De Pierre)

 
Lee Marshall in Rome 18 October 2006
 


Dir: Guillaume Nicloux. Fr-Ger-It. 2006. 100mins.

A French Da Vinci Code in which Catholic mystical hokum is replaced by Mongololian shamanistic hokum, Jean-Christophe Grange's Le Concille De Pierre was a literary bestseller when it came out in France in 2000. With its high-profile Bellucci-Deneuve pairing and lush production values, this $28m adaptation of the book is clearly hoping to repeat the act at the box office. It may well do so: weak characters, excessive exposition and a large dose of supernatural absurdity did no harm to Sony's summer blockbuster, and there's no reason why they should damage Nicloux's overwrought spiritual thriller either.

But The Stone Council is going to have a much more limited territorial reach. Guaranteed to run for a least a few weeks in France, Germany and Italy, its three co-production countries (not least because each have contributed acting talent), the film is on shakier ground elsewhere. Outside of Luc Besson franchises and Jean-Pierre Jeunet commercial arthouse fare, big-budget French cinema (ie French in language, director, producer and, for the most part, setting) does not work as comparatively well away from home, as seen with previous Grange adaptation Empire Of The Wolves (although The Crimson Rivers did somewhat better). There is little in this fantasy thriller that is likely to persuade distributors further afield to make an exception to the rule after its premiere at Rome.

Single mother Laura Siprien (Bellucci), who manages somehow to fund an ever-changing designer wardrobe out of her interpreting job, has a seven-year-old adopted child, Liu-San (Thau) of mysterious Asian origin. She and Liu-San are troubled by the same dreams, which involve wild beasts and dark forests.

One day a strange mark appears on Liu-San's chest; his doctor says it's normal – but then he may know more than he pretends. So may Laura's foster mother Sybille Weber (Deneuve), a woman who heads up a charitable foundation, but who tenebrous music and lighting mark out as one to watch.

Though young Thau is too much of a Benetton kid to make much dramatic impact, the gamine, crop-haired Bellucci's own performance is always committed and occasionally compelling. However, even she can do little with a script that employs the "one woman alone against a hostile world" cliche with such plodding obviousness, and which forces its characters (it feels like a particular indignity in Deneuve's case) to spout ethno-mystic drivel at every opportunity.

There is a tension in the exercise that keeps the audience watching, especially after Liu-San is kidnapped and Laura sets off for Mongolia (where even humble minicab drivers conveniently speak French) in desperate pursuit.

But things gradually degenerate into a welter of sub-Bond espionage, mixed in with shape-changing bears and snakes and yurt-dwelling healers. When one of the latter starts waving a stoat (or possibly a pine marten) over Bellucci's naked pudendum, audiences with low pretension threshholds will no longer be able to hold in their mirth.

Limpid widescreen photography, efficient thriller editing and Bellucci's dogged belief in her own character are all reasons to keep on watching as the thing gets more and more far-fetched. But they do little to make this corny shaman yarn a satisfying cinematic experience.

Production companies/backers
UGC YM
Integral Film
Rai Cinema
TF1 Films Production

International sales
UGC

French distribution
UGC Distribution

Executive producer
Olivier Thaon

Producer
Yves Marmion

Screenplay
Guillaume Nicloux
Stephane Cabel
from the book by Jean-Christophe Grange

Cinematography
Peter Suschitzky

Editor
Guy Lecome

Production design
Olivier Radot

Music
Eric Demarsan

Main cast
Monica Bellucci
Catherine Deneuve
Moritz Bleibtreu
Sami Bouajila
Elsa Zylberstein
Nicolas Thau
Lorenzo Balducci

Gangster High (Pokryok Sekkeul)

 
  Dan Fainaru in Pusan 18 October 2006
 


Dir/scr: Park Kihyung. Korea, 2006. 102mins.

An exceedingly violent high-school rumpus that deteriorates into warfare, with dead and wounded left on the battlefield, Park Kihyung's Gangster High is the kind of picture no young teen will be allowed to see, should censors have any say in the matter.

Park Ki-hyung, whose disappointing family horror film Acacia closed Pusan three years ago, has here dropped his previous psychological mumbo-jumbo for full-frontal and raw brutality.

Judging by early response in Pusan, it is more than likely to appeal to local audiences, although among wide multiplex crowds the reaction is less certain. Attempts to lend it some kind of universal connotation by repeatedly reminding the audience of the Iraq war, covered by TV broadcasts in the background, may point at the general contemporary climate in the world but say little. Specialised niche distribution is a distinct possibility beyond home, festivals less so.

Told entirely in flashback, a device close to the heart of Korean cinema, the picture starts with bruised teen Sang-ho (Jeong Gyeong-ho) at a police station, trying to tell interrogating detectives that it all started with an innocent game of football at school.

Or rather it was innocent to start with - because less than two minutes in, a contested goal sees fists fly and the reticent Sang-ho, son of an army colonel, forced to stand up for a friend. He roundly beats the school bully; later the two warring teams join forces and set up a gang called The Tigers to play football and nothing more.

But once there's a gang there's a mutual commitment to each other. When one of the group's members is slapped around by rivals East High, the inevitable street skirmish drags in clubs and bats among others.

Events thereafter escalate, growing in size and fury. To complicate life even more, pretty girl Su-huei (Jang Heui-jin), who caused the clash with East High and who happens to be the ex-girlfriend of Jong-Seok (Yeon Je-wook), a sadistic street thug, takes a liking to Sang-ho. He tentatively responds, thus treading on what the psychotic Jong-seok considers his private property.

The warfare now notches up beyond rough scuffles between high school students into fighting among and against certified criminals in a game that has no rules. Beatings and counter-beatings follow each other with increasing and fierce brutality. Constantly the question is asked: should the students keep engaging in what is essentially a war of attrition - in which they are out of their depth - or simply let matters lie?

In one vicious instance, one of the students has his leg broken in a manner that will make even the toughest audiences cringes. But his gang's response is to perpetuate something similar on their rivals.

The climax, set in a pool bar, unleashes an orgy of fearsome fury and anger, as each participant takes more than enough punishment. By the end of it, several are dead, others seriously maimed and Sang-ho is in jail.

Though there are a few moments of respite between all this nastiness, through which the script reflects on the nature of friendship between Sang-ho and the less socially privileged Jae-gu (Lee Tae-song), Gangster High is first and foremost a sombre, angry and action-packed film, grim and ferocious throughout.

Any attempt to read any more into the narrative can only lead to uncomfortable conclusions like it being better to give in to bullies and save lives (although doing the opposite doesn't seem very effective either).

The narrative rarely has time to linger on any performance, unless it is the speed of flying fists. Still, Jeong has the makings of a future heartthrob and Yeon's villainous grimaces will certainly get him more of these parts in future.

Photography is darkly forbidding, and editing ensures a frenetic pace. Music from Mozart, Chopin and Beethoven – also to be found on A Clockwork Orange - counterpoint the unchained violence.

Production companies/backers
Dada Pictures
Taewon Entertainment

International sales
Taewon Entertainment

Producers
Jong Tae-won

Cinematography
Kim Eung-taek

Editor
Kim Seon-min

Production design
Jong Seong-gyun

Music
Lee Seung-il

Main cast
Jeong Gyeong-ho
Lee Tae-seong
Jang Heui-jin
Yeon Je-wook
Kim Hye-seong
Lee Heng-seok
Jo Jin-woong

valjda ovoga puta neće ostati samo na najavi...

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/30440

Radio sam uncredited na ovom scenariju, Srdjan je trebalo da ga rezira i dao je otkaz pocetkom meseca...

John Cusack will join Hilary Duff, Joan Cusack and Marisa Tomei in the dark political satire "Brand Hauser: Stuff Happens" reports Variety.

Cusack plays an assassin assigned to kill a Middle East oil minister. His cover is that he's producing a big trade show that includes a wedding between a local pop star and a politico, but complications ensue.

Josh Seftel directs the pic, which shoots late this month in Bulgaria. Cusack will produce and co-wrote the film with Jeremy Pikser ("Bulworth").

Walt Disney Pictures has bought a comedy project from screenwriter Larry Doyle titled "Me2," with Mark Waters attached to direct. The plot for "Me2" is being kept under wraps, though it is understood to be a time-travel comedy. Doyle will begin writing immediately.

James McAvoy spoke with Empire Online about one of his next projects, "Wanted" - Timor Bekmanbetov's big-screen adaptation of super-villain-centric comic mini-series.

McAvoy, who will play dejected anti-hero Wesley Gibson, says "He's [Gibson] an arsehole. A complete geek [at this moment the velvet rope topples over]. There you go! He does things like that! He's a complete and utter failure, but he begins a mission to avenge his father's death".

"Wanted" is due to begin filming next year and is set for release in 2008.

Stuart Gordon ("Re-Animator", "Fortress", "Dagon", "Edmond") will direct the thriller "Stuck" about a young woman who commits a hit-and-run, then finds her fate tied to her victim. Gordon and John Strysik ("Tales From the Darkside") wrote the script. Five weeks of principal photography begins next week in locations around New Brunswick, Canada...

VEST GODINE

Ja se ponadao da je Maja Deren oživela... Ali neka, i ovo je lepo, tema deluje malo ozbiljno, ali da vidimo...

Children Of Glory (Szabadsag, Szerelem)

 
  Mike Goodridge in Los Angeles 24 October 2006
 


Dir: Krisztina Goda. Hung-UK. 2006. 123mins.

Produced to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, the first time that the people of an Eastern Bloc country took up arms against the Soviet Regime, Children Of Glory is a rousing and highly effective tribute to the men and women who fought in the battle.

Highbrow film critics and foreign-language film snobs might scoff at the melodrama employed to tell the story, but most audiences will be swept up in the saga and there won't be a dry eye in the house at its climax.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that the lavishly produced film hits all the right emotional beats since it's crafted by Hungarian ex-pats Andy Vajna and Joe Eszterhas as an earnest homage to their homeland and displays the spectacle and slick storytelling techniques they learned in Hollywood.

As such, the film is about the most commercially accessible a Hungarian-language production could be to audiences outside Hungary - which is to say, it is a stirring epic with a real chance of making an impression in international arthouses and perhaps beyond.

It's surprising that Hungary chose not to submit Children Of Glory as the country's choice for the foreign-language Academy Award. Although the final selection, White Palms, is a finely crafted film, its chances of scoring a nomination are slim, whereas Children Of Glory possesses the strong emotions and historical significance which the Academy foreign language committee traditionally favours.

The film depicts the revolution in parallel with the story of the water polo competition at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia, where Hungary defeated the USSR in the finals on Dec 6 – already the subject of documentary Freedom's Fury, which Vajna executive produced.

The story begins in 1955 with an earlier water polo match in the USSR where the Hungarian team is unfairly penalised so the Soviet team can claim victory. We meet team star Karcsi (Fenyo) and his best friend and team-mate Tibi (Csanyi, from Kontroll) as they pick a fight with the arrogant Soviet players in the locker room. When they return to Budapest, Karcsi is taken in for questioning by the Secret Police and instructed never to provoke Soviet sportsmen again.

The following October, Karcsi and Tibi get caught up in the revolution on the streets of Budapest, not for reasons of political conviction but because Karcsi is attracted to a bold young student from the university called Viki (Dobo). He and Viki play a central part in the uprising which gets violent at the National Radio Station.

Karcsi gets more involved with the fight for freedom than his family or water polo coach would like and he is prepared to abandon the Olympics so he can remain in the armed struggle. At the same time, he and Viki engage in a passionate love affair.

By the end of October, the revolutionaries believe they have succeeded in ousting the regime and an independent government is formed. Although he is reluctant to do so, Karcsi is persuaded by Viki to represent Hungary at the Games. After he has set off for Australia, however, the Russian tanks roll into Budapest and smash the resistance, killing 5,000 Hungarians and imprisoning 12,000, of who 300 are subsequently executed.

Karcsi and the team fight and defeat the Soviet water polo team, but Viki finds herself captured, imprisoned and doomed.

Vajna hired local film-maker Goda, whose previous feature was entertaining romantic comedy Just Sex And Nothing Else (2005), to direct Children Of Glory and she has a confident handle on the political drama and the sporting action as well as the love story. Vajna also scored a coup in securing Vic Armstrong as action unit director. The English veteran, who has coordinated action scenes for James Bond, Terminator and Mission: Impossible movies brings an in-your-face authenticity to the street battles of the revolution, most of which were shot on the original sites where they took place in Budapest. Again, it's unusual to see such high production values in a Hungarian-language film, and they serve to heighten the emotional charge of the film.

The water polo conceit, while entirely true, is less successful a dramatic device than the highs and lows of the battles themselves. Although the Olympic final serves to give some sense of victory to the revolutionaries, the lasting image of the film is one of tragedy.

For that reason, the film has strong contemporary resonances. Not only is it a timely look at the meaning of "freedom", but it is a stunning reminder of how the rest of the world, and the US in particular, abandoned the Hungarian people in their hour of need.

Fenyo, a local star who acted in English in Sam Mendes' Jarhead last year, is a likeable and charismatic romantic lead in the film. Dobo throws herself into the part of Viki with enthusiasm, although she is too ethereally beautiful to be entirely convincing as the film's angry voice of rebellion.

Production companies/backers
GIBS
Flashback
General Business Affairs
Film And General Productions

International sales
Fortissimo Films

Hungarian distribution
Intercom

Executive producer
Sandor Demjan
Producer
Andrew G Vajna

Screenplay
Joe Eszterhas
Eva Gardos
Geza Beremenyi
Reka Divinyi

Cinematography
Buda Gulyas

Production design
Janos Szabolcs

Editors
Eva Gardos
Annamaria Komlossy

Music
Nick Glennie-Smith

Main cast
Ivan Fenyo
Kata Dobo
Sandor Csanyi
Karoly Gesztesi

The Unknown (La Sconosciuta)

 
  Lee Marshall in Rome 19 October 2006
 


Dir/scr: Giuseppe Tornatore. It-Fr. 2006. 121mins.

Giuseppe Tornatore has hardly set world cinema alight in the 18 years since the Oscar-winning Cinema Paradiso. But although it's far from perfect, The Unknown, the Sicilian director's first film in six years at least has the dramatic substance that lacked in style exercises like Malena (2000) and The Legend Of The Pianist On The Ocean (1998).

A contemporary emotional thriller with Hitchcockian overtones, it is marred by a rather crass vein of melodrama that tips over into moral dishonesty at some points (as when it tries both to shock and titillate in its depiction of the treatment of Eastern European sex slaves). But as a thriller it presses most of the right buttons, and it's a technically lavish product, with a lush orchestral soundtrack that must stand as one of the late-period highlights of Ennio Morricone's long career.

Opening in Italy on October 20 on a healthy but not huge 300 copies, this energetically-marketed film should win back some of the consensus that Tornatore has lost among local audiences over the last decade.

Foreign buyers are already biting, with sales to six territories added to an already inked Japanese deal during the Rome Fest's three-day Business Street event. Commercially smart despite its lack of big-name acting talent, this could turn out to be Tornatore's most successful export since Paradiso.

The film opens unpromisingly in soft-porn, Tinto-Brass mode with a garish scene in which three leggy girls pose in their undies in what looks like an abandoned station. Then we cut to present-day Trieste, the rather grey port city on Italy's north- eastern border. Troubled young Ukrainian immigrant Irina (Russian actress Ksenia Rappoport) is looking for work. She asks the porter of a bourgeois condo in a smart area of town if he can help her out – and in exchange for a cut of her salary, he finds her a job cleaning the stairs.

Soon Irina has befriended the nanny and home help of the Adachers (Claudia Gerini and Pierfrancesco Favino), a well-off but disunited couple of goldsmiths with a flat in the apartment block.

When the nanny meets with a not very accidental accident on the stairs, Irina replaces her, learning to drive over a weekend so that she can take the Adacher's young daughter, Tea, to school. She turns out to be a perfect cook, seamstress, cleaner and child-minder, and soon becomes indispensable to Tea's highly-strung mother Valeria.

It's clear that Irina has an agenda in inveigling herself into the Adachers' lives: this much is made clear by anxious orchestral chords, tenebrous lighting and by a number of visual hints. It's obvious too that Irina – severe, unmade up and nun-like in appearance here - is the blonde hooker who appeared in that first scene, and who appears in a number of subsequent flashbacks that juxtapose brutal but lecherously-lit S&M sex (the fact that these are mostly subliminal does not make them any less offensive) with schmaltzy scenes featuring Irina's innocent love affair with a tough but tender market stallholder.

The denoument, when it comes, is stark as Vertigo or Chinatown – and should have been left that way, without the feelgood coda which the director tacks on.

Tornatore has none of Almodovar's skill of giving even the most sentimental scene dramatic muscle; but thankfully, the slush is sparingly dosed out in The Unknown, which is more interested in the dark, obsessive side of the human psyche. This dark side is at its most edgy in a couple of disturbing but compelling scenes in which Irina ties Tea up and pushes her over repeatedly to teach her how to fall properly (Tea conveniently suffers from an illness that suppresses the usual instinctive defence mechanisms): for shame that the parallel with Irina's own bondage, beatings and growing resilience in her former life as a hooker are so unsubtly pushed home.

Though the effort of getting her lines out in decent Italian sometimes appears to distract Ksenia Rappoport, she turns in an emotionally honest performance as a woman haunted by the ghosts of her past, while also somehow cursed in her dealings with others.

The casting of veteran actor-director Michele Placido as Muffa, her former pimp, is less successful: there's something irrepressibly good-natured in Placido's manner that makes it difficult to accept him as the embodiment of pure evil.

Cinematographer Fabio Zamarion uses slow zooms (a tad too many) and chiaroscuro lighting to rack up the tension. But the most impressive technical credit is Morricone's score, a fine example of moody thriller music in the best classical tradition.

Production companies/backers
Medusa Film
Manigolda Film

International sales
Adriana Chiesa Enterprises

Italian distribution
Medusa

Executive producer
Laura Fattori

Cinematography
Fabio Zamarion

Editor
Massimo Quaglia

Production design
Tonino Zera

Music
Ennio Morricone

Main cast
Ksenia Rappoport
Michele Placido
Claudia Gerini
Alessandro Haber
Pierfrancesco Favino
Clara Dossena

Ben Kingsley will join Ewan McGregor, Emily Mortimer and Dan Fogler in the indie thriller "Number Thirteen" which Chase Palmer wrote and will direct reports Production Weekly.

The film is a fictional mystery surrounding Alfred Hitchcock's lost and unfinished first film, "Number Thirteen." Fogler will play the young director, who gets caught up in a Hitchcockian dilemma when he ends up in a love triangle with two crew members while making the film.

When the lead actor turns up dead, the editor suspects the director and tries to uncover the truth. Shooting begins in February.

Gallowwalker (2007)

Plot Outline: A cursed gunman (Snipes) whose victims come back from the dead recruits a young warrior to help in the fight against a gang of zombies.

Plot Summary for
Gallowwalker (2007)
A gunman knows too well the ways of vengeance. Fast and furious, he has killed every man who crossed him. But his gift with a gun comes with a curse. All those who die by his hand will return. Enter the world of GALLOWWALKER, where vengeance lives forever.

Credited cast:  

Wesley Snipes ....  Kaos

Riley Smith ....  Fabulos

Kevin Howarth ....  Kansa

Darabont comments The Mist

Posted: October 19, 2006, 15:37:45

Moriarty from Ain't It Cool News have some really cool news about the upcoming movie version of The Mist. Yesterday he got the following message from Frank Darabont himself.

Quote from Frank Darabont

"Doing THE MIST is a delight for me on a number of levels. For starters, I've always loved horror as a genre. Not so much the slasher thing, that got tired very quickly in my view, but from my earliest recollection I grew up loving movies that sought to scare the crap out of me, starting with the classic Universal monsters. Well, of course, that love of the genre is what led me to Stephen King's works in the first place, isn't it? So it's time to repay that debt and try to scare the crap out of an audience myself. With Steve's great story, and a little luck, I'm hoping to do just that.

"Another reason is, it's a project Stephen King and I have been talking about doing for almost twenty years now, since I first got to know and become friends with the man. In fact, it almost was my first directing project many years ago, but I went classy and did THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION instead. But THE MIST never went away; it's been lurking out there calling my name for a long, long time...and it's time to answer the call; it's time to get down and dirty and make a nasty little character-driven gut-punch horror movie. It's one of Stephen King's most legendary shorter works, very well known by his fans. Marsha in King�s office tells me it's the number one question asked by his fans when they write to his website (which she runs): when's THE MIST going to be made as a film? Well, I've always wanted to make my low-budget horror movie, so here we go. In a very real sense, I have to thank Danny Boyle, a man I've never met, but whose example in making 28 DAYS LATER really encouraged me. I saw that film, loved it, and thought: Well, why the hell not? Why not go make your scary little movie, shoot it fast, have some fun?

"That segues to the final reason I'm so looking forward to doing this. In a sense, doing a film like THE MIST is like putting myself into film school and learning a whole new approach to what I do. I had a foretaste of that earlier this year when I had the privilege of directing an episode of THE SHIELD for my friend Shawn Ryan. It was a seven-day shoot, fast-fast-fast, and I have to say there was something wildly liberating about shooting that way...it was an opportunity to put aside my reverence for Kubrickian elegance for a moment (and the painstaking approach it entails) and shoot fast and loose instead, do a real seat-of-the-pants style that embraces the ragged edges as virtues instead of avoiding them as sins. I'd say that if directing something like THE GREEN MILE is the equivalent of conducting a huge symphony orchestra playing Beethoven's Ninth in perfect tune, then directing something like THE SHIELD is the equivalent of jumping up on a small stage and playing with a small jazz combo and not caring if you miss a few notes -- in fact, missing some notes is kind of the point, isn't it? I want to take what I learned doing THE SHIELD and apply it to a feature film, and THE MIST is the perfect venue for that kind of in-your-face, in-the-moment energy. So one might say that if I've been going to film school this year, and if THE SHIELD was my mid-term, then THE MIST will be my class thesis. I can always go back to being the elegant guy later."

________________________________________

Robert McCammon's website (www.robertmccammon.com) reports today that they have heard from Frank Darabont on two of his upcoming projects, adaptations of McCammon's MINE and King's The Mist:

"I came close to getting MINE into production this year, but it was a near-miss. For those who may not know, getting a movie greenlit for production is like having the planets align---countless factors all have to come together at the right moment for anything to happen. I remain committed to making MINE, and am currently in a search for the actresses to play the lead roles of Laura and Mary. I'm hoping to get the movie before the cameras at some point in 2006, although it might be later that year rather than earlier. That's because circumstance and opportunity (the planets aligning) might dictate that I direct my adaptation of Stephen King's great horror novella, The Mist, first. If so, I will likely start shooting The Mist this coming December, '05."
--Frank Darabont, 08/03/05

Ryuhel Kitamura, the director of VERSUS, has been tapped to direct THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN, which was just fast tracked into pre-production!


Grand Illusions Entertainment along with financing partner David Steiner will be producing ERIC RED's (Stopping Power) next feature, a supernatural horror/thriller called 100 FEET, one that he wrote and will be directing.

Here's the first look at the Synopsis: A young woman, Marnie Watson, is granted early release from her prison sentence for manslaughter (killing her husband – a violent NYC cop – in self defense) on condition she wear an electronic ankle bracelet and remain within her home, effectively under house arrest, for the remainder of her sentence.

Her late husband's partner keeps tabs on her from a patrol car parked across the street, hoping she'll violate probation and he can send her back to prison. But the 100-foot radius her ankle bracelet allows isn't the worst of her problems. Her dead husband --now a malevolent ghost--is still in the house, where he died -- intent on savage revenge.

Finally Eric Red had this to say about the project and its status: "This is an elevated, old school and classical supernatural thriller that relies on suspense, character and suggestion. But it will also have also horrific scenes of visceral horror. We are in pre production, currently completing casting and scheduled to begin filming in Hungary in early 2007."

KOJE LUDILO!!!!

Christopher Walken is to play Ozzy Osbourne in a new Hollywood movie. The Oscar winner will make a cameo role as the shock rocker in a new movie based on Motley Crue's 2001 autobiography The Dirt, Crue frontman Vince Neil has revealed.

   

Ghost Rider (2007) trailer:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/ghostrider/

According to The Hollywood Reporter, writer/director Neil Marshall has cast the lead in his upcoming futuristic sci-fi thriller DOOMSDAY, and in keeping with the strong female roles showcased in his hit THE DESCENT, the new movie's hero is a woman. Rhona Mitra, whose credits include HIGHWAYMEN, BEOWULF, HOLLOW MAN and the upcoming SKINWALKERS will play the leader of an elite group of people sent to find the cure for a deadly virus called the Reaper. The search takes them into a walled-off country where the plague ravaged the populace three decades before, and where the team confronts a series of horrific situations. Filming begins early next year for Rogue Pictures release.


ZVUČI GENERIČKI, ALI, FUCK, TO JE NIL MARŠAL, MUST BE GOOD!

još ako tu zazidanu zemlju bude igrala srbija...

Quote from: "Ghoul"

ZVUČI GENERIČKI, ALI, FUCK, TO JE NIL MARŠAL, MUST BE GOOD!

još ako tu zazidanu zemlju bude igrala srbija...

...još ako tu bude bilo nilovskih PEĆINA!!!      

Quote from: "marduk"...još ako tu bude bilo nilovskih PEĆINA!!!      

...le te one!      

Quote from: "Ghoul"

Quote from: "marduk"...još ako tu bude bilo nilovskih PEĆINA!!!      

...le te one!      

... ako ne one, bar onda the female cast  

Quote from: "marduk"

Quote from: "Ghoul"

Quote from: "marduk"...još ako tu bude bilo nilovskih PEĆINA!!!      

...le te one!      

... ako ne one, bar onda the female cast  

ne, no stalaktiti i stalagmiti!  

CAUGHT IN THE ACT!!!    

Directors Allen and Albert Hughes will square off in "Kung Fu," the bigscreen adaptation of the 1970s classic TV series for Warner Bros.-based Legendary Pictures.
Cory Goodman ("Priest") is rewriting the script. Legendary's Thomas Tull, Scott Mednick and Jon Jashni are producing; series creator Ed Spielman exec produces.

The Hughes brothers, who blazed onto the scene with "Menace 2 Society," haven't helmed a feature since the 2002 Johnny Depp drama "From Hell."

Since then, they've become prolific blurb directors, doing spots with the likes of Kobe Bryant and Vince Carter for such brands as Pepsi, Coke, Reebok, Heineken, Adidas, Nike and Sprite. They also directed videos for such bands as Korn.

The brothers were among several hip directors who coveted the "Kung Fu" job, and it was an assignment they sought for two years. WB production prexy Jeff Robinov, who gave them the job, agented them before he became a studio exec.

Goodman will rewrite a script by Howard Friedlander -- a writer on the original series -- and Spielman. The Zen spirit of that David Carradine skein will be preserved in the film, which is on course for a production start next year.

Legendary and WB will co-finance. Goal is a 2008 release that will help foster WB's expansion into China and wrap nicely into promotion at the Beijing Olympics.

The producers have already reached out to the Shaolin Temple outside Beijing, where nonviolent monks train in martial arts and were the inspiration for the series protag, Caine.

Goodman's repped by CAA and Industry, the Hughes brothers by WMA.

Miike starts shooting English-language spaghetti western  
Quentin Tarantino set to appear in Sukiyaki Western: Django, which is cult director Takashi Miike's first English-language film.

Quote from: "crippled_avenger"Miike starts shooting English-language spaghetti western  
Quentin Tarantino set to appear in Sukiyaki Western: Django, which is cult director Takashi Miike's first English-language film.

ko je bre taj Goran Dukic?

vidim zanimljiv opis filma koji je napravio:
Wristcutters: A Love Story

The tone is set immediately. Patrick Fugit compulsively cleans his apartment, and then slices his wrists. As blood pools on the tiles, he sees dustbunnies in the corner and croaks before sweeping them. He enters a desaturated limbo where other suicidees spend eternity. He soon hits the road looking for his old girlfriend. Black humor works and characters are cool to hang with. My favorite character is a sardonic Russian musician (Shea Whigham) who memorably offs himself in concert. Writer-director Goran Dukic has spun a fairly unique movie that has "Cult Following" written all over it. Shannyn Sossamon is sexy and hip as a fellow traveler. Tom Waits fits perfectly in a small role. Random supernatural events nicely pepper this afterworld. The plot is slightly predictable near the end, but this flick goes down smooth. It's a guaranteed Midnight Movie.

Quote from: "Ghoul"ko je bre taj Goran Dukic?

vidim zanimljiv opis filma koji je napravio:
Wristcutters: A Love Story

Stvarno zanimljivo!
based on the novella by Etgar Keret  (check)

Goran Dukic earned his BA in film directing at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb, Croatia, and his MFA at AFI. He has been honored with more than 20 awards in Europe and the United States for his short films and screenplays. His short, Mirta Learns Statistics, winner of the Octavian (Croatian Oscar), was voted by Croatian film critics as one of the five best Croatian films ever. Wristcutters: A Love Story is his feature directorial debut.

Oscar-nominated Armin Mueller-Stahl and Sinead Cusack will co-star opposite Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts in David Cronenberg's crime drama "Eastern Promises" says The Hollywood Reporter.

Mueller-Stahl will play Semyon, the patriarch of a London-based organized crime family with ties to the mysterious Nikolai (Mortensen).

When Nikolai meets Anna (Watts), a midwife who stumbles upon incriminating evidence against the family, all hell breaks loose.

Cusack ("V for Vendetta") will play Anna's mother. Donald Sumpter ("The Constant Gardener") will portray Anna's uncle, and Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski ("Moonlighting") will play a police officer involved with the case.

Principal photography begins this week in London, with Focus Features distributing.

Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a bizarre rumor that started over at Screendaily and I found at filmick regarding a Takashi Miike English-language project called Suikiyaki Western: Django and if that wasn't weird enough, they have Quentin Tarantino taking an acting role in the flick. I can only assume that DJANGO is a continuation or reimagining of the popular DJANGO series of Spaghetti Westerns, the first starring Franco Nero and directed by the great Sergio Corbucci. It kind of became a brand name spawning a ton of DJANGO movies that have little to nothing to do with the original film.

If it is indeed a DJANGO Western from Miike, count me super excited. And I'm sure Tarantino will give some knowledgable tips to Miike about the Spaghetti Western genre. I, for one, would love to see Westerns come back... if this happens and that great sounding remake of 3:10 TO YUMA hit well, then we could be in for some great film.

Last month came news that "XXX" and "Fast & the Furious" director Rob Cohen was to create another Bruce Lee film, his second after biopic "Dragon", entitled "Rage and Fury".

Talking with Latino Review, he revealed his plans for recreating the legend - "I am NOT using clips from the film; I am creating an entirely photo-realistic Bruce Lee with new, advanced digital technlogy. Digital Domain who did "XXX" and "Stealth" with me are on it big time" he says.

He added "We are in the vfx development stage". This will be the first digital actor and I am very excited about the challenge. We do have the rights to Bruce's films but the lines are all I am going to use"

Japanese director Takashi Miike is making the first "sushi western" entitled "Sukiyaki Western Django" for Sony Pictures says The Hollywood Reporter.

The director has talked close friend of Quentin Tarantino into appearing as a 'mystery man' in the $6.8 million English-language movie, a homage to the spaghetti westerns of the 1960's.

The story follows the clashes between two rival gangs in a 19th century setting that will blend US and Japanese archetypes. Hideaki Itoh, Kaori Momoi, Koji Sato and Yoshino Kimura star.

Filming began this weekend at the Syonai Movie Studio in Yamagata Prefecture, northern Japan. Tarantino is scheduled to visit Japan later this month to film his scenes. The film will get released late 2007.

Richard Curtis is set to write and direct "The Boat That Rocked ", a new comedy about a pirate radio station based on a boat reports Filmstalker.

In the past in the UK, old pirate radio stations were situated on boats just sitting in international waters with enough juice to broadcast to mainland UK.

Curtis, the director of such films as "Love Actually" and "Four Weddings and a Funeral" has described it as "Animal House" meets "Titanic".

French filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier is set to direct an adaptation of James Lee Burke's "In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead" reports Production Weekly.

The story follows New Orleans Lt. Dave Robicheaux who is trying to link two slayings, four decades apart to Louisiana mobster Julie 'Baby Feet' Balboni.

Balboni is a crime boss who's currently making everyone in New Iberia rich thanks to his backing of a big Hollywood movie in production.

Things get stranger when Robicheaux begins seeing the ghost of a Confederate general.

Pre-production begins next month in Louisiana for shooting in March. Alec Baldwin previously played the role in "Heaven's Prisoners".

Nicolas Cage will make his next film the action-thriller "Crazy Dog" which is currently in pre-production, with Joe Ruben set to direct reports Production Weekly.

Henry Bean and Nick Kazan penned the script which revolves around a New York City cop (Cage) who causes the death of a friend in a moment of cowardice.

Consumed by guilt, he goes on a self-destructive spree but then seeks redemption. Cage is expected to then reprise his role as treasure hunter Benjamin Franklin Gates, in the sequel "National Treasure II: The Book of Secrets" which begins shooting this Spring.

Helmer Todd Phillips will produce and possibly direct buddy comedy "The Fix Up" for Warner Bros. Pictures reports Variety.

Story revolves around an average Joe whose life is turned upside down after being falsely accused of a crime.

A government agent mixed up in the case resolves to make things right, with the duo setting off on a road adventure.

Scribes Michael Colton and John Aboud have been hired by the studio to pen Phillips' take on the original script by CBS's "How I Met Your Mother" creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas.

Director Tony Scott, happy with the success of his thriller "Deja Vu" in theatres this week, has revealed some surprising plans for his proposed remake of the Walter Hill-directed 1979 classic "The Warriors".

Speaking exclusively to Empire Online, Scott confirmed his version on the tale of a group of teenage hoods battling their way home across enemy turf will move its location from New York to Los Angeles.

"New York is visually vertical and L.A. is more horizontal so that'll be a big visual difference... what I'm doing is kind of reinventing it. And rather than a gang it's going to be 30 guys who take on 3,000. It's Kingdom Of Heaven meets The Warriors. We're going to use the L.A. River bed as a major location" says Scott.

In fact the director has gone to great lengths for the film's biggest sequence - "I've been meeting all the [real] gang leaders, they're saying they'll sign this treaty for the duration of the shoot. I want this shot of 50,000 real gang members all on Long Beach - The Crips, The Bloods, the Vietnamese, the Cambodians, the 18th Street gang, all there. It's going to be cool".

Edward Neumeier ("RoboCop") is set to make his feature directorial debut on a third "Starship Troopers" film reports Production Weekly.

Neumeier has penned all three scripts of the franchise, basing the work on the novel by Robert A. Heinlein.

Casper Van Dien is in talks to reprise his role as Johnny Rico, now a General in the Terran Mobile Infantry embroiled in a vast interplanetary war with the "Bugs".

The project will be shot in hi-def on location in South Africa, with principle photography scheduled to begin in March.

When will someone stop the madness! The infamous Uwe Boll is currently prepping his next "project". "FAR CRY" is based on the 2004 video game. The plot follows a retired Special Forces Officer, Jack Carver who is now a gun for hire. A  photographer contracts Jack to escort him to a group of remote islands. After arriving on the island the photographer disappears and Jack's boat is attacked and  destroyed.

Jack must now find who attacked him and his missing employer. Rumor is this  production will shoot in early 2007. Cast attached to the project is Michael Pare.

Ovo za FC je sasvim po meri s obzirom da mi je plot, skript i dijaloški deo te igre smanjio IQ za barem pedesetak jedinica. Da nije imala onako dobar AI i dizajn ostrva, ne bih se mučio s njom do kraja.

Cult indie filmmaker Abel Ferrara began principal photography today on the screwball comedy "Go Go Tales" starring Willem Dafoe, Bob Hoskins and Matthew Modine reports Production Weekly.

Set around a night at the classy Manhattan cabaret venue named Ray Ruby's Paradise, Dafoe plays the charismatic Ray who exhibits and seeks talented girls whom he agrees to represent and help into stardom.

In the meantime though they work as lap dancers and performers at the club. Various long time groupies and agency personnel make up the rest of the colorful cast of characters.

Asia Argento and Lou Doillon also star in the film. Ferrara will spend four weeks of shooting at Rome's Cinecitta Studios and then move to New York in January 2007 for exterior shots.

Quote"It's Kingdom Of Heaven meets The Warriors. (...) I want this shot of 50,000 real gang members all on Long Beach - The Crips, The Bloods, the Vietnamese, the Cambodians, the 18th Street gang, all there. It's going to be cool".

too much cocaine, tony. it's just too intense.

The first is "White Jazz," an adaptation of a novel by James Ellroy ("L.A. Confidential," "The Black Dahlia") which Joe Carnahan ("Narc") will direct. Matthew Carnahan ("The Kingdom") penned the adaptation of the story about a corrupt police lieutenant assigned to a potentially explosive case for the L.A.P.D. during a time when the department is under investigation for corruption.

Shooting would begin early 2008 and will be released through Warner Independent Pictures.

Premier cable broadcaster HBO is developing a one-hour series based on the popular Vertigo comics series "Preacher" reports TV.com.

The comic, which ran from 1995-2000, told the story of a down-and-out Texas preacher possessed by Genesis, a supernatural entity conceived by the unnatural coupling of an angel and a demon.

Given immense powers, the preacher teamed with an old girlfriend and a hard-drinking Irish vampire and set out on a journey across America to find God - who apparently had abandoned his duties in heaven - and hold him accountable for his negligence.

The series was known for tackling religious and political issues, along with utilising a dark and violent sense of humor, and its observations of American culture.

At one time a $25 million film with James Marsden attached to star in was in the works, but the project fell through.

This version is being done by "Daredevil" and "Ghost Rider" director Mark Steven Johnson who will pen the pilot, whilst Howard Deutch will direct.

QuoteThis version is being done by "Daredevil" and "Ghost Rider" director Mark Steven Johnson who will pen the pilot, whilst Howard Deutch will direct.

Da li je uopšte potrebno da kažem kako ova rečenica najavljuje koliko će sranje ovaj film biti? Siroti Gart Enis...

Woody Harrelson has joined the international cast of "The Machinist" director Brad Anderson's contemporary crime thriller "Trans-Siberian" for Filmax.

The story focuses on an American couple that travels on the famous Trans-Siberian train from Vladivostok to Moscow and encounters another couple.

What seems to be a simple train journey soon turns into a thrilling chase full of deception and murder as it becomes clear that not everybody is who they seem.

According to the trades, Samantha Morton ("In America", "Minority Report") will play Harrelson's wife, with Kate Mara ("Zoom", "Brokeback Mountain") and Spanish hunk Eduardo Noriega ("The Devil's Backbone", "Open Your Eyes") are playing the couple opposite them.

Ben Kingsley and Thomas Kretschmann will play Russian police officers hot on the trail of the two couples. Filming on the $15-$20 million project begins next Monday in Beijing, Russia and Lithuania.

God gave this world the cinematic genius of director Paul Verhoeven, and now the man wants to give some back to the maker.

The man who helmed such sex-driven, violence-fuelled, satire-laced action thrillers as "Robocop", "Total Recall", "Starship Troopers", "Showgirls" and "Basic Instinct" wants to do a Jesus movie it seems.

WENN via Cinema Blend reports that Verhoeven is rumoured to be developing "Christ, the Man" which explores the idea that Jesus Christ was merely a mortal.

Much of the story will be based on Verhoeven's work as a member of the Jesus Seminar, a research team of several hundred academic New Testament scholars whose purpose is to use historical methods to determine what Jesus, as a historical figure, may or may not have said or done.

Their findings portrayed him as a wandering sage who did not found a religion or rise from the dead, but preached in startling parables and aphorisms, often turning common ideas upside down and confounding the expectations of his audience.

Of course some extreme Christian fundamentalist groups might get upset with the project, something Verhoeven himself is keenly aware of - "My scriptwriter told me not to do the movie in the United States because they (Christians) might shoot me. It's not a joke at all. I took that very seriously. So I took his advice and decided to write a book about it first".

Verhoeven, no stranger to controversy, expects some fall out - "I think he's going to be getting a lot of focus and heat over this, if it's true, and there will be groups who will be protesting quite heavily against this".