the most anticipated...

[Tex Murphy]

Cool! Taj čovjek mi je simpatičan, prvenstveno zbog filma Anđelovo jaje.

[crippled_avenger]

NEW YORK -- The award-winning Romanian drama "The Way I Spent The End of the World" from exec producers Martin Scorsese and Wim Wenders has been acquired for North American distribution by Film Movement.

Director Catalin Mitulescu's film won the 2005 Sundance/NHK International Filmmakers Award and Un Certain Regard best actress award for star Doroteea Petre at the 2006 Festival de Cannes.

Petre plays Eva, a teenager who accidentally breaks a statue of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu with her 7-year-old brother during the last year of the leader's rule. After being prosecuted for the incident, she escapes the country, and her brother hatches a plan to assassinate the leader with his school friends.

Film Movement will distribute "World" exclusively to its DVD club members in July, followed by a first-quarter 2008 limited theatrical platform release and a home video release to retail and online outlets several months later.

The deal was negotiated by Film Movement president Adley Gartenstein with Valentina Merli from Pyramide International.

[crippled_avenger]

Kate Hudson is set to star opposite Dane Cook in Lionsgate Films' "Bachelor No. 2" reports the trades.

Jordan Cahan's screenplay centers on Tank, man who is hired by men who have been dumped to take their ex-girlfriends out on nightmare dates, thereby convincing the women to return to their boyfriends.

Rrouble arises when Cook's character is hired to take out Alexis (Hudson), the ex-girlfriend of his best pal.

Howard Deutch directs and production is slated to begin in August in Boston for an early Fall 2008 release.

[crippled_avenger]

Paramount Pictures has picked up up Adam Cozad's spec "Dubai" which Lorenzo di Bonaventura and actor Eric Bana will produce.

The story centers on a young economist who is set up by Iranian operatives in Dubai. They use him in a plot to instigate the collapse of the U.S. economy; he's forced to go on the run to prove his innocence.

A passion project of Bana's, who helped shop the script around last week, there's no word as to whether he'll actually star in it.

[crippled_avenger]

Kremen
Lee Marshall in Taormina
27 Jun 2007 17:16

 

Dir: Aleksei Mizgiryov. Russ. 2007. 83mins.
Perhaps the Taormina festival catalogue errs a little on the side of enthusiasm in comparing Aleksei Mizgiryov's debut feature Kremen to Taxi Driver. But there is something in the claim: like Scorsese's classic, this is a tale of a disturbed, asocial innocent with a rigid moral code who takes on a corrupt metropolis and, in his own way, wins. Though over-stylised at times, Kremen sticks in the mind thanks to the edgy weirdness of the central character and the darkly resonant quality of the story, which feels like a contemporary take on a traditional Russian folk tale – complete with odd logical leaps and gaps in the flow of the narrative.

Made on a tight budget, Kremen occupies an uneasy niche somewhere between the action-avenger genre and the arthouse, and this may limit its box-office appeal at home, where it has just opened. Elsewhere it will benefit from being seen in a few other festivals after its two launchpads (the other was Sochi, the main Russian indie fest, where Kremen picked up a prize for Best Debut). Abroad, audiences who enjoy the mix of revenge themes and skewed social observation offered by Korean directors like Park Chan-wook may take to it.

Newly arrived in Moscow from the struggling oil town of Almetevsk, solemn young Anton (Antropov) heads for the house of an uncle long established in the big city, who seems a little bemused to see him. Fresh out of the army, Anton plays the cool hard guy, breaking bottles and walnuts on his head and telling anyone who will listen that "my word is like flint" (The film's Russian title translates literally as "flint"). But this tough act is belied by his appearance: gawky, crew-cut Anton looks more like a 16-year-old boy scout with delusions than a hardened Red Army recruit.

It's difficult to work out whether there's much going on beneath the surface of Anton's serious, deapan face; but Antropov's slightly stiff, unemotional performance suits the character well. Only in his unrequited passion for his pretty blonde cousin Zina (Bezborodova) does he show any signs of weakness; but his reaction to rejection is never (or only for a split-second) self-doubt. He simply clocks the setback and doggedly renews the assault.

We would feel sorry for Anton if he wasn't such a neo-Dostoyevskian psychopath – and the tension between these two impulses of sympathy and repulsion is maintained throughout. Even the music helps in this respect: the film's soundtrack consists mainly of an obsessively repeated string and woodwind piece by Philip Glass (commissioned for but cut from Godfrey Reggio's film Koyaanisqatsi) based on a series of wavering, queasy minor chords that mirror the audience's ambivalence towards the hero.

When Anton joins the Moscow police, his lack of humour and strict (though rather homemade) sense of justice seem sure to be stream-rollered by his easy-going corrupt colleagues, who run a prostitution racket, let off a murderer in return for a huge bribe and frame a penniless immigrant in his stead, and knock back the vodka like there's no tomorrow.

But he's so impervious to threats and blandishments that it's his fellow officers, led by likeable bad guy Sergeant Chakhlov (Kulichkov), who end up fazed by the implacable moral code of a man who exacts payback for every single injustice he suffers, or sees inflicted on others.

The script reveals Anton's credit-and-debit worldview gradually and laconically, giving just enough information at just the right time. Colours stay dark throughout, with yellow-lit night scenes suggesting the moral sickness Anton discovers in the city.

The stylised feel of the exercise – at its most extreme in the final shoot-out – is emphasised by halting editing, slowed down by fades to black. Mostly this works, though certain Pinter-style passages of dialogue are less easy to take.

Production companies/backers
CTB
Nasha Kino

International sales
InterCinema XXI Century

Producer
Sergei Selyanov

Screenplay
Yuri Klavdiyev
Aleksei Mizgiryov

Cinematography
Vadim Deyev

Production design
Denis Chibanov

Main cast
Yevgeni Antropov
Dmitri Kulichkov
Anastasiya Bezborodova
Sergei Shekhovstov
Tatyana Nastashevskaya
Aleksandr Golubyov

[crippled_avenger]

Russell Crowe is in negotiations to reteam with his "The Quick and the Dead" co-star Leonardo DiCaprio in Ridley Scott's spy thriller "Body of Lies" for Warner Bros. Pictures.

An adaptation of Washington Post columnist David Ignatius' novel, it centers on idealistic CIA agent Roger Ferris (DiCaprio), newly stationed in Jordan, who develops an intricate scheme to sow seeds of suspicion among the terrorists he is hunting.

However, the plan puts his life in turmoil and threatens his relationship with the head of Jordanian intelligence. Crowe will play DiCaprio's manipulative boss Ed Hoffman if he approves of a new script polish being done by Steve Zaillian.

William Monahan wrote the adaptation, previously known as "Penetration," and a late-summer start date is being targeted.

[crippled_avenger]

New Line Cinema has optioned the Aran Shetterly book "The Americano: Fighting for Freedom in Castro's Cuba, an Untold Story" reports Variety.

Robert Schwentke ("Flightplan") is attached to direct the pic centering on William Morgan, an American who became a key figure in the Cuban revolution in the late 1950s.

Commanding the legendary Cuban fighting column known as the Tigers of the Jungle. The blond, gold-plated pistol packing fighter became caught up in the conflicting agendas of guerrilla leader Castro, U.S. mobsters and the FBI.

When he turned against Castro after the Cuban leader embraced communism, Morgan was executed in 1961. The script for this film adaptation will be written by Mark Bailey.

Schwentke is currently readying "The Time Traveler's Wife" with Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams starring.

[crippled_avenger]

Elisha Cuthbert has confirmed to Cinematical that she's just signed for the Tim Allen family comedy "The Six Wives of Henry Lefay."

The story follows a girl who must organize her father's funeral in the midst of dealing with six ex-wives.

Cuthbert says "It's so funny. It's so much fun, and it's gonna be great to work with six different actresses. It's gonna be a great time, so I'm looking forward to that."

Shooting begins in mid-August.

[crippled_avenger]

Millar je sreo Timba:

Hey you,

I think I may have to rethink my position on foreigners. Normally, they annoy me as you know because they eat strange food and can't speak English, often waving their hands and shouting when they needn't. I hate travelling in general, but especially travelling to countries that aren't called America or Australia. Even Canada's a bit shit, a big chunk of the population speaking French for no good reason except to irritate. And so the trip to Prague didn't seem so alluring. My only experience of Eastern Europe was a solo trip to Bulgaria (which was shit) and the movie Hostel (which was terrifying). I feared this report might never be written and I'd end up tied to a chair, raped and murdered for the amusement of a Spanish IT specialist at the cost of 30 thousand US dollars. Comic writers don't come cheap.

But you know what? It was brilliant. Despite a five hour delay in Amsterdam, I had a great time and there is nothing-- I mean NOTHING-- more surreal than wandering around enormous, high school-sized sets of something that lived only in your head just a few years before. I wandered around Wesley's apartment, touched the bedframe you saw on the splash page of issue two, sat on the chair where he was being toughened up just a few pages later and watched, in awe, the final edit of the scene from the end of the first issue. I promised Universal's white-hot PR chick I wouldn't get more specific, but trust me when I say I'm still grinning from how good this looks. In a country where you can get a Big Mac for the equivalent of 50 cents you can imagine what 100 million dollars looks like on-screen. I saw the first 25 minutes of the movie itself and it's jaw-dropping. As we all know, the super-villains are quite different kinds of villains now, but this first act is almost scene for scene the first two issues of the comic, right down to the dialogue and the captions. I couldn't be more happy with it. Timur is amazing. The west doesn't know what they're getting next March or how great he is yet. I instantly clicked with him as a guy and we're talking about another project together. I genuinely think he's the next big thing, perhaps the best action director around at the moment.

McAvoy in particular is just brilliant. He's a nice wee guy and grew up just a few miles from me, having gone to all the same pubs and football matches I did as well as the big water complex (The Time Capsule) just a few hundred yards from where I lived through the nineties. He brings Wesley to life like nobody else I could imagine, that weird combo of cool and geeky, terrified and remorseless as he makes the jump from a guy who can't break up with his bird to a guy blowing hundreds of people away without even blinking. He's a TRIUMPH, darlings, as is Angelina and Morgan Freeman. Angelina was shooting the main day I was on the set and could not have been more friendly. It was weird meeting here after seeing her face on the cover of almost every magazine in the airport, but she's very easy-going, super-smart and pretty hot too. She can engage about everything from Henry Kissinger to British comedies and has a huge DVD collection, her impression of Little Britain's chav teenager being a jaw-dropper as it's the last thing I expected to come out of her mouth. Got on very well with her and she seemed into the material so all looking good.

My only complaint, really, was the food. I arrived first day and found that these huge marquees had been built for the 500 people on the set where top chefs put together top nosh for the crew and extras. But it was all a bit rich for this lowly Scot and I asked where the nearest McDonalds was. One of the producers was aghast, saying these were some of the best chefs in the world and I just shook my head and explained that if they were as good as McDonalds THEY would have restaurants dotted all across the globe. We had drivers for the visit and I disappeared with one of them, buying TWO Big Macs (one for lunch and one for heating up later for dinner). I can report that the Czech Big Macs are every bit as good as the American ones so a big thumbs up. My wife asked me what Prague itself was like, but in truth I didn't really look around. As soon as shooting and dinners were over I parked myself in an Irish bar called Caffrey's (on the old Square) and stayed in there all night watching English TV and getting rat-arsed with the team. But their Guinness was excellent. So it's a country worth checking out if you're into a) McDonalds and b) Guinness. I heartily recommend it.

Home with a ton of photos, but sadly can't share them until Summer's out the way and PR campaign begins. Spidey and his amazing friends are still dominating the box office here so they asked me to hold off on posting these pics until they give the green light (cameras generally banned during the shooting of any movie). But these pics are so friggin' cool I can barely contain myself. I sent a pic of me and Angelina to an old school friend I hadn't been in touch with for a few years under the headline "Have you met my new bird?" and his reply was a near-instant "You lucky c*nt!". So it's worth its weight in gold already. It's true, though, I AM a lucky c*nt.

It's good to be back.

Your boy,
MM

[crippled_avenger]

Angelina Jolie has been apparently been offered the chance to co-star with Pierce Brosnan in his sequel to 1999's "The Thomas Crown Affair" reports Moviehole.

Based on the classic 1964 Peter Ustinov heist flick "Topkapi", the original follows a small time crook living in Greece who ends up playing both sides as he works for both the Turkish authorities and a gentleman thief determined to steal a jewel-encrusted dagger from the famed palace in Istanbul.

Brosnan told the site a few months back that "(Topkapi) is much loved by people who love that genre of film, and it has a sentimental resonance to it. So we just took 'Thomas Crown' off the shelf, kind of dusted it off, and took 'Topkapi,' which is much loved, and is also in the canon of the MGM library, so it didn't cost us anything. This version of 'Topkapi' will have a different part, different woman, and different affair... and we're using wonderful locations."

[crippled_avenger]

Ovo sam čitao kada je bilo nuđeno Srđanu i prilično je bezveze...

Warner Independent has hooked Jonathan Jakubowicz ("Secuestro Express") to direct its Spanish-set drama "Queen of the South" reports Variety.

Based on Arturo Perez-Reverte's bestselling novel, and described as an Iberian-set female version of 'Scarface,' the story revolves around a Mexican woman who escapes to Spain after her drug mule boyfriend is killed.

She then becomes a drug kingpin and seeks revenge for her boyfriend's murderers. Albert Torres ("Henry Poole Is Here") recently did a rewrite of Hanna Weg's script.

Eva Mendes, Penelope Cruz and Jennifer Lopez are eyeing the project, but casting has not yet begun. Production is scheduled to begin in the Fall.

[crippled_avenger]

Universal Pictures has set Jim Carrey to star in and produce the comedy "Sober Buddies" reports Variety.

The story follows a hard-partying software exec assigned a court-appointed Sober Buddy to keep him under control during a critical business trip to Las Vegas.

A perfect plan falls apart when the Sober Buddy (Carrey) falls off the wagon. Andrew Kurtzman, currently penning a film adaptation of the cartoon characters "Mr. Peabody and Sherman," is writing the script.

Carrey hasn't chosen his next film but is deciding between two or three roles he'll take on before next June's potential strike - the title character in Tim Burton's "Ripley's Believe It or Not!," as a gay prison escapee in the dark indie comedy "I Love You Phillip Morris," and as a reluctant nursemaid to his ailing wife in the Fox comedy "Me Time."

[crippled_avenger]

"Transformers" hottie Megan Fox, no doubt the subject of many 'hands on a hard body' jokes that'll be flying next week, has joined the cast of "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People" says Reuters.

Simon Pegg, Kirsten Dunst, Jeff Bridges and Danny Huston star in the story about the disastrous stint of a contributing editor (Pegg) at a magazine. Fox will play a young Hollywood starlet getting her first taste of fame.

Robert B. Weide directs Film 4's adaptation of the Toby Young memoir which told of his time working in the pseudo-glitzy world of Vanity Fair.

[crippled_avenger]

Tobin Bell tells MTV News that he will reteam with "Saw" franchise director Darren Lynn Bousman for "Repo! The Genetic Opera."

The near future set, hyper-violent rock opera follows a group of legalized human organ repossession men. The project is unique in that there is no dialogue per se, rather seventy seven hard rock songs right from the beginning to the very end.

Bousman describes the setup - "Murder becomes sanctioned by law. So, if you buy a heart and can't afford it, someone can burst through the door and take your heart out...and they don't get in trouble for it. The very first scene sees [some repo men] singing while they are ripping the spinal cord out of someone."

Bell says that "Yes, I can sing. I'm a guitar player and a singer...I did hear some of the music, and it's great. I think this movie is going to be remarkable."

[crippled_avenger]

Jason O'Mara (TV's "In Justice," "Men in Trees," "The Agency") is set to star in the lead role of the US remake of "Life on Mars" reports Variety.

O'Mara will play Sam Tyler, a detective who is suddenly transported to the 1970s - where he encounters a serial killer who may have something to do with the present-day abduction of his girlfriend.

Canadian actress Rachelle Lefevre (TV's "What About Brian," "Life on a Stick") has been cast in the female lead role of Det. Annie Cartwright.

The original British series ran on the BBC for sixteen episodes across two seasons in 2006 and earlier this year. It starred John Simm ("Sex Traffic," TV's "State of Play" & "Doctor Who") and has become an award-winning international hit.

Edited versions of the original series still air on BBC America. The remake, being produced by David E. Kelley ("Boston Legal," "Ally McBeal"), begins production mid-August and if picked up will air sometime mid-season.

[crippled_avenger]

Spanish helmer Alex de la Iglesia ("The Oxford Murders") will write and direct a live-action version of Belgian Edgar Pierre Jacobs' comic book "La Marque Jaune" (The Yellow Mark), part of Jacobs' long-running "Blake and Mortimer" cartoon series says Variety.

The story follows Captain Francis Blake and science professor Philip Mortimer as they attempt to solve the crimes of a mysterious character known as The Yellow Mark.

The $34 million, English-language international co-production for La Fabrique de Films is being penned by Jorge Guerricaechevarria with an October 2008 date targeted for shooting.

[Tex Murphy]

Wooohooo! A baš danas pričam s bratom o tom sjajnom stripu!

[crippled_avenger]

Director Joe Carnahan ("Narc," "Smokin' Aces") has confirmed on his blog that he's finished the last draft of the script for his adaptation of James Ellroy's "White Jazz".

Fans though should expect changes since he's not legally allowed to use the Ed Exley character which Guy Pearce played in "L.A. Confidential".

Carnahan says "My brohter and I were forced to basically construct a doppelganger, giving him all of Exley's traits and speech patterns. We're hoping it works. On paper. It's fantastic."

He also revealed the first pre-production artwork showing off the 1958 Los Angeles-era in which the story is set.

[crippled_avenger]

Fox Searchlight Pictures announced today that principal photography began in Los Angeles on "The Night Watchman." Keanu Reeves stars as Tom Ludlow, a veteran LAPD cop who finds life difficult to navigate after the death of his wife.

When evidence implicates him in the execution of a fellow officer, he is forced to go up against the cop culture he's been a part of his entire career, ultimately leading him to question the loyalties of everyone around him.

Academy Award® Winner Forest Whitaker will play Captain Jack Wander, Ludlow's mentor and superior. The stellar cast also features Hugh Laurie, Chris Evans, Jay Mohr, John Corbett, Cedric the Entertainer, Amaury Nolasco, Terry Crews, Naomie Harris, Martha Higareda, Kirstin Pierce, Common and The Game. The screenplay is based on an original script by James Ellroy, with current revisions by David Ayer. Ayer, known for bringing gritty realism to films such as Training Day and Harsh Times, is directing.

"The Night Watchman," a Fox Searchlight and New Regency financed project, will be released by Fox Searchlight. Claudia Lewis, President of Production is overseeing the project with Kara Francis, EVP of Production, New Regency. The film is being produced by Erwin Stoff, Alexandra Milchan and Lucas Foster.

[crippled_avenger]

Although it had been expected that Bryan Singer would do "Superman: The Man of Steel" sequel once he wrapped up work on the WW2 Tom Cruise flick "Valkyrie", that may no longer be the case.

Producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan tell Rotten Tomatoes that they have Singer lined up to direct "The Mayor of Castro Street," a story of gay rights activist Harvey Milk, within the next year.

Meron says "The next Superman, that's a ways off" and Zadan adds "Don't worry about it. Trust me. We may even start preproduction on Harvey Milk while he's on post production on the Tom Cruise movie."

Original plans had a "Superman" sequel aiming for a Summer 2009 release which means production would have to begin by mid-2008 at the latest. With both "Valkyrie" and "Castro" on his plate, it could be done but would be a rush job in all three cases - something that no-one wants.

[crippled_avenger]

He may have been able to sit down and talk at length with Cuba's Fidel Castro, but the Iranian Government isn't as amenable for filmmaker Oliver Stone.

The Los Angeles Times reports that officials have denied a request by Stone seeking permission to do an extensive interview for a documentary on Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Iranian filmmakers were said to be actually lobbying the President to accept the request, but Iranian media advisor Mehdi Kalhor came back with this response - "It is true that [Stone] is known as a dissident in the U.S., but he is still part of the Great Satan...We believe that U.S. cinema is devoid of culture and that their art is only a stratagem."

Stone himself, who has yet to receive an official denial on the request, says "I have been called a lot of things, but never a great satan...I wish the Iranian people well, and only hope their experience with an inept, rigid ideologue president goes better than ours."

A compromise may be possible however, as an unnamed advisor went on to say that they would allow him to make a documentary if an Iranian filmmaker was allowed to make one of President George Bush.

[crippled_avenger]

Wrong Turn" director Rob Schmidt is set to the helm an adaptation of Stephen King's "Insomnia" reports Dread Central.

The story follows the recently widowed Ralph Roberts who develops acute insomnia. His sleepless nights wandering the town soon become stranger when he starts noticing not only varied color auras streaming out of people's heads, but two odd like men dressed like surgeons and up to no good.

The story marks an odd choice for adaptation as it ties in countless references to King's "Dark Tower" series and a few other King books like "It", along with featuring both visions of a giant catfish and an act of domestic terrorism (an explosives-packed bi-plane aiming to kamikaze an anti-abortion rally).

Schmidt confirms that due to the varying ages of the main characters (they get younger as the film progresses), the plan is to hire actors in their thirties in age make-up (courtesy of Stan Winston) that will be removed progressively.

[crippled_avenger]

Friday, July 06, 2007
Eye To Eye With Beowulf
You might recall the big heap of Beowulf images I posted here at film ick. They originally appeared online at Aint it Cool and, after they were quickly pushed into pulling them down, I hosted them for a week or so, until the legal quagmire got too deep. Until now, they were probably the best idea I had of how the film was shaping up. The billboard images from last week added a little too - including our first look at Grendel.

Just now, though, I've been reading Roger Avary and Neil Gaiman's script (excitingly, the script bears the name of the cast member it belonged to, but I won't reveal who in case they get into trouble) and I'm even more excited for the film than I already had been. And you probably already know I'm absolutely nuts for Zemeckis and Gaiman, not to mention 3D cinema.

Simply put, this script exceeded my every expectation. Not only is it a lean, vicious retelling of the story, but as it whips along it drips evocative images from every paragraph.

Be wary of spoilers as you read on...

So, here's a little from the opening to whet your appetite. We begin in Herot, the greatest mead hall in all the land as a rowdy crowd of thanes celebrate their victories. Hrothgar, "as fat a King as you are ever likely to see", is carried in on his portable throne, "draped in nothing more than haphazardly wrapped bed linen as if he just came from f*cking". He beats on his chest to be put down, and then proceeds to hand out treasures.

His first award is for Unferth his "wisest advisor, violator of virgins and boldest of brave brawlers" - but Unferth is busy at the 'p*ss pit' asking "So, if Christ Jesus and Odin got into a fight, who do you think would win?"

This raucous party, half drunken orgy, half celebratory ceremony is quickly cut short:

Suddenly THE GREAT DOOR EXPLODES as if something of tremendous force rammed into it, splintering the wooden frame and buckling the great iron hinges... but the door holds.

HROTHGAR'S eyes go from sleepily closed to wide as saucers. PEOPLE start sitting up, worried. Warriors reach for their swords and kinves and spears.

There is a pause. A BEAT OF SILENCE which goes on almost longer than we can bear and then...

There is a second EXPLOSIVE RAM to the frame of the massive door, breaking it free from its hinges and causing the wood to splinter.

For a brief moment, we see the SHADOW OF A MONSTER from behind the broken door.

Then it enters. Candles snuff out with the cold wind that accompanies it. HROTHGAR rises in his seat, terrified.

HROTHGAR
My sword! My sword!

Unferth and Aesher draw thier weapons. The horror on their faces hints to us the nature of the monster which has erupted into the mead hall. They stand frozen in astonishment.

THE GREAT FIREPIT suddenly ROARS larger and wilder than before, consuming the spit and pig in its flame. What was once a warm source of heat suddenly becomes dangerous and ominous.

We see the MONSTERS SHADOWS cast onto the heavy stone wall of the hall by the golden light of the firepit. It isn't just one shadow, it's many shadows overlapping eachother, dancing wildly together to composite a figure of massive size. The interloping shadows overtake the SHADOW OF A THANE... it lunges forward and lifts him up above it's head... there's a HORRIFYING RIPPING SOUND and the shadow thane is suddenly two shadows, a pair of legs and an upper torso.

And the destruction continues, until Hrothgar confronts the monster. It flees, still semmingly unafraid, just somehow done here. Hrothgar identifies the monster as Grendel.

Next:

GRENDEL, silhouetted by the cool light of the full moon, shambles into his lair - a cave mouth inside of which there
is a placid pool of clear water. He is dragging the bodies of TWO DEAD WARRIORS into the cavern.

Grendel drops the bodies of the dead warriors into a corner f the cave where the bones of mean, both bleached and fleshy, litter the floor. It is a strange and unnverving place.

A mask is dropped onto the floor. A mask constructed from the skulls of two baby whales and decorated with bits of human hair and bones... painted with mud. From its size we can imagine that Grendel likes to wear it.

Someone else is there...

GRENDEL'S MOTHER is sitting a little way away, in the shadows near the cave pool and swathed in a dark cloth. What we can see of her skin glitters, like gold.

Grendel's mother's VOICE is melodious and young.

GRENDEL'S MOTHER
Grendel? What have you done?

Grendel turns suddenly, surprised by her voice - like a boy who has been caught masturbating.

GRENDEL
Moth-er? Where are you?

GRENDEL'S MOTHER
Men? Grendel, we had an agreement. Fish and wolves and bear and sometimes a sheep or two. but not men.

GRENDEL
You like men.

GRENDEL'S MOTHER
These men are too fragile, Grendel. They do me little good. And you must be more crafty. Bring them to me alive, at least... with their seed intact. You see, they will hurt us if they can. They have killed so many of us, the Giant-breed, the Dragon-kind.

As you can see, Gaiman's up to his usual tricks with folklore in the greater context - Dragons alongside Giants alongside Grendel.

Months later, Grendel attacks again. Hrothgar despairs:

HROTHGAR
When I was young, I killed a dragon, in the Northern Moors. But I'm too old for dragon-slaying now. We need a hero, a Siegfried, to rid us of this curse upon our hall.

UNFERTH
I say we trap the beast. Brute strength fails against such a brute. Let us use cunning.

HROTHGAR
These creatures know cunnng, Unferth. They are cunning.

UNFERTH
Our people wait for deliverance, my King. Some of them pray to the Christ Jesus to lift this affliction. Other sacrifice goats or sheep to Odin or Heimdall.

They need a hero and, of course, that's where Beowulf comes in. He journeys across a tempestuous sea to find Hrothgar, and to pledge to kill Grendel.

After his first meeting with the King, they immediately spark up a banquet in Herot, knowing it will lure the monster in...

This first confrontation occurs around the fourty five minutes mark - so you know it won't be the last. But it is fought as though it is. Bloody, relentless and absolutely without restraint they set about each other with everything they have, and anything they can grab. Smashing, punching, headbutting, kicking, biting, slashing, throttling... the repeating, resounding slam of viscera on viscera again and again and again.

There is no out-and-out victor this time, but one side does far more than draw first blood and the stakes are set even higher for their future confrontations.

What we have, in essence, is a bloody, sweaty dragonslaying story but at full scale, visually and narratively. The mythology is suitably epic, the images make the saga resonate at every turn, the ideas are teased out subtly, exposing the depth of the story in ways that, perhaps, we care about far more than most of the poem's original audiences would ever have even dreamt of. This is the Beowulf that makes sense for a 21st Century audience without perverting or denying the truth of the original tale.

A few years back, Zemeckis had recruited Gaiman to write another screenplay for him, adapted from Nicholson Baker's The Fermata. Like the original book, that script full of upfront sexuality and featured a protagonist of dubious morality, to say the least. Zemeckis was looking to make a resolutely adult film, away from the all-ages fare he was best known for. He just has: Beowulf will satisfy that desire also, without a doubt.

As such, I think Beowulf might be quite a hard sell to casual audiences - a motion capture film, released widely in 3D is something we might assume to be family fare, not a lusty, grimy epic. Another marketing problem might be that the characters' outlooks are also a little alien, in some respects, though truly universal in most. I don't the numerous references to incest will help much either.

Where I have no doubt it wil succeed, however, is with critics and movie lovers. This is the bareknuckle version of The Lord of the Rings and I think people will honestly be knocked onto their behinds. On the page, it is hard, fast and perfectly under control and with Zemeckis in charge, I think we can expect a bullseye that splits the target.

On page 110 of the script, Gaiman and Avery have noted 'We are utterly convinced of it: this is where our budget is going'. They've certainly got a point - though I won't tell you just what incredible, but hellish, spectacle they have invented. But I might note on every page 'this bit won't be cheap either' - and that, I suppose, is one of the amazing assets of the performance capture technique. Fashinoning an epic battle between man and winged beast above the moors (just for example - hint hint) would take, relatively speaking, little more resource than creating a small, intimate scene in the King's chamber. In making Beowulf in this fashion, Gaiman, Avary and Zemeckis have been able to imagine whatever it was they wanted, knowing that their only limitation was the vision of Zemeckis, the cast and crew - and if you ask me, that's no kind of limitation at all.

Bewoulf opens in the US in November. Go see it.

[crippled_avenger]

Seattle
Sex and Death 101
By KEN EISNER


An Arclight Films presentation of an Avenue Pictures Prods., Sandbar Pictures production, in association with S and D Prods. (International sales: Arclight Films, Los Angeles.) Produced by Cary Brokaw, Lizzie Friedman, Greg Little. Executive producer, Aaron Craig Geller. Co-producer, Jerry P. Jacobs. Directed, written by Daniel Waters.

Roderick Blank - Simon Baker
Gilian/Nell - Winona Ryder
Miranda - Leslie Bibb
Trixie - Mindy Cohn
Fiona - Julie Bowen
Hope Hartwell - Frances Fisher

A promising concept is gradually run into the ground in "Sex and Death 101," a would-be black comedy that lacks both laughs and gravity. Racy subject matter, the marquee appeal of the rarely seen Winona Ryder, and the occasional protrusion of plastic breasts guarantee some aud interest, but bet-hedging blandness and weak production values make this anodyne sex romp best suited to cable and vidstore crypts.
Aussie up-and-comer Simon Baker has almost enough charm to carry the day, but even that wears thin when he's asked to provide the emotional center of a tale that is more silly than sinful.

Baker plays fast-food potentate Roderick Blank --handsome, successful (although we never see him working) and a killer with the ladies. Yet he's initially ready to give up the bachelor life to wed one of many interchangeable blonds the pic presents as the face of standard-issue desire. Trouble comes when he receives an odd email containing the names of all the women he has ever slept with -- or will ever sleep with.

One can see how such knowledge might add confusion to already chilled feet, and Rod soon ankles the wedding in favor of easy pickings. Against the advice of a trusted assistant (Mindy Cohn, doing well with her feisty-lesbian shtick), he rushes headlong into his prefab pornucopia. As presented by writer-director Daniel Waters, who scripted the influential "Heathers," the sexual situations are utterly lacking in heat or suspense -- which may be the point for a guy knowing exactly who will next butter his buns, but it makes chilly viewing for the rest of us.

Pic is routine in all other aspects. Surprisingly, respected lenser Daryn Okada's images are barely above tube level, with sleek sitcom the dominant design mode here. Only contrast comes from white-on-white segs repping some kind of sci-fi purgatory where Rod goes to figure out what's happening to him. These are arresting, but use of a single set and similar jokes quickly becomes repetitive.

More enervating is the monotonous dialogue, which has the same brand of writerly locutions spilling from almost every mouth. Since Roderick and his pals are simply stock guy characters, and most of the women -- including Leslie Bibb as a veterinarian (with no practice) whom Roddy falls in love with -- are more like models than people, the satire feels both sour and unrooted. Pic is also riddled with implausibilities, such as the notion that our horny hero would hang onto the email list for dear life but never look at the last name on it.

That handle, as viewers will guess, has to be Death Nell, a goth-clad gal notoriously knocking men unconscious across the country. Fortunately, this is Ryder's part, and the former Heather -- despite a nonsensical explanation about what turned her into an avenging angel -- manages to invest it with some needed humanity. In their climactic scene together, the leads evidence a chemistry elsewhere missing from the proceedings.

Playing it safe throughout, Waters ensures the conventional music, staging, and phallo-centric humor can all add up to a happy ending that congratulates viewers for skirting the margins of sex and death while never even getting close to the abyss.

Camera (color), Daryn Okada; editor, Trudy Ship; music, Rolfe Kent; production designer, John Larena; art director, Helen Harwell; set decorator, Peggy Paola; costume designer, Julia Caston; sound (Dolby) Richard Taylor; assistant director, Eric A. Pot; casting, Andrea Stone. Reviewed at Seattle Film Festival (Contemporary World Cinema), June 17, 2007. Running time: 100 MIN.



With: Tanc Sade, Patton Oswalt, Cindy Picket, Dash Mihok, Neil Flynn, Thom Bishops, Sophie Monk, Corinne Reilly, Marshall Bell, Rob Benedict, Natassia Malthe, Polyanna McIntosh.

[crippled_avenger]

ScreenDaily Home > Production Listings > Story  



Jar City (Myrin)
Dan Fainaru in Cannes
04 Jul 2007 15:50

 

Dir. Baltasar Kormakur. Ice-Ger. 2007. 93mins.
It starts with the death of a little girl and it ends in a cemetery. In between these grim bookends, Jar City, Baltasar Kormakur's remarkable new whodunit, forges pitilessly ahead, through a maze of facts systematically unearthed one after the other, to reveal not only the culprit of a seemingly pointless crime, but also the suffocating pressure of an in-breeding nation suffering from genetic complications.

To all intents, Jar City looks just like any other thriller, in which the police tries to find out who killed a sleazy old man with a shady past. Though it never deviates from this avowed purpose, the prevailing heavy mood established by the opening sequence already announces something terribly wrong going on between parents and children, which cannot always be blamed on genes.

Deeply ingrained in Icelandic soil, which comes up as a constant reminder all through the picture, richly textured with everything from a crime story to heart-breaking personal tragedies and past sins that refuse to stay buried, this is possibly Kormakur's best effort to date, strongly confirming his position as one of Iceland's leading filmmakers.

Despite impressive performances and great technical credits, the film has mysteriously managed to stay out of international festivals for the first nine months of its existence (it enjoyed a strong theatrical release in Iceland late last year). It now however looks more than ready for solid play beyond home, not only at film events but also, if Trust Films Sales treats it right, in a wide arthouse release.

Working from a best selling novel by Arlandur Indridasson, Kormakur's script thrusts forward in two separate directions and timespans which finally converge into one. The first concerns the death of a little girl from a genetic brain defect, and her father's obsession to discover the roots of the disease. The second, given a larger exposure, focuses on the investigation into the murder of an old pervert, Holberg, found dead in a cellar infected by unbearable stench.

The bereaved father, Orm (Atli Rafn Sigurdarson) breaks into the data bank holding the genetic information for all the Icelandic population, to find similarities between his daughter's case and others that might have happened before, then apply his findings to his own personal history.

Meanwhile Erlendur (Ingvar Sigurdsson), a world-weary police inspector, and his assistants, try to collect information that would explain why anyone would bother to kill the derelict Holberg. While digging into his past they uncover rape cases that have never been brought to justice, a trio of rednecks who terrorised a small town and a corrupt policeman covering it all up.

Erlendur also has to cope at the same time with his daughter, Eva (Agusta Eva Erlendsdottir), a rebellious drug addict looking for money to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.

Once it all comes together, and it does, Jar City packs quite a wallop. Kormakur's sombre mood is prevalent throughout, moving from moments of infinite sadness (the little girl's death) to gruesome realism (the rat infested subterranean den under Holberg's floor).

He certainly has a point when he protests against the scandalous monopoly held by one private company which holds all the genetic records of all Icelanders, which can then be used for both commendable and nefarious purposes.

Yet despite his evident anger, he refuses to take sides and invites the audience instead to reach its own conclusions.

Then there is Kormakur's fiendish sense of humour. It may find best display in his depiction of food, like the police pathologist munching his lunch while dealing with the more scabrous causes of death of the cadavers on his table; or the inspector delightedly dissecting the head of a sheep he has bought for dinner.

But it can also refer to the embarrassment of Erlendur's assistant (Bjorn Hlynur Haraldsson) who has to go from one sweet old lady to another and enquire whether they had been raped in their youth; or the dismay of the same assistant when the burly criminal he chases through the marshes, stops, turns around and instead of being the prey, is about to turn into the hunter.

The perfectly controlled performance by Sigurdsson in the lead is solidly seconded by a cast that never falls behind. Elisabet Ronaldsdottir's cutting keeps the pace alert at all times, while Bergsteinn Bjorglufsson's camera alternates between forbidding dusky images and 16 mm footage underlining the rough edges.

Frequent musical interventions from the mournful choir in the background may be a bit too insistent at times, but they certainly contribute to the dense atmosphere of the entire picture.

Production companies/backers
Blueeyes Productions
Bavaria Entertainment

International sales
Trust Film Sales

Producers
Agnes Johansen
Lilja Palamdottir
Baltasar Kormakur

Screenplay
Baltasar Kormakur, based on novel by Arnaldur Indridason

Cinematography
Bergsteinn Bjorgulfsson

Editor
Elisabet Ronaldsdottir

Music
Mugison

Main cast
Ingvar Sigurdsson
Agusta Eva Erlendsdottir
Bjorn Hlynur Haraldsson
Atli Rafn Sigurdason

[crippled_avenger]

Don Cheadle and Guy Pearce till headline Overture Films espionage thriller "Traitor" says The Hollywood Reporter.

The story centers on a CIA operative working undercover with a terrorist group who becomes a terrorist suspect. Cheadle is the undercover agent, while Pearce is an FBI agent investigating terrorist activities.

"The Day After Tomorrow" scribe Jeffrey Nachmanoff will direct from his own script, which is based on an original idea from comedian Steve Martin. Cheadle will also produce the film that was previously set up at Disney but dropped when Nina Jacobson left the Mouse House.

The film is set to shoot in early September in Toronto and Morocco.

[crippled_avenger]

Alex Proyas ("The Crow," "I, Robot") will direct "Dracula Year Zero," Universal's origins tale about Vlad the Impaler and one of several films about the Romanian royal who inspired Bram Stoker's vampire tale.

Scribes Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless tell Variety that the goal was to show Vlad when he was still vital and to explore the fact that he's considered a hero in Romania for fending off the Turks.

The aim was too play off the horror and the sympathy you have for a character that "sells his soul to the Devil to save his kingdom and family." Michael De Luca produces.

Amongst other historical "Dracula" projects under consideration right now are a script by former "Queer as Folk" star Charlie Hunnam, Brad Caleb Kane's adaptation of "The Historian," and the Sylvian White-directed "Castlevania" adaptation.

[crippled_avenger]

Studios are hunting the next big propertyBy Stephen Galloway

July 10, 2007

At some point within the next two weeks, producer Laura Ziskin and the top brass of Sony Pictures Entertainment will sit down together for the first time since "Spider-Man 3" opened May 4 to discuss the franchise's future.

It's a crucial meeting, all the more so because director Sam Raimi will be there. And Raimi, who has sent contradictory messages about his future plans, might at last indicate whether he'll helm the next installment.

"It would be great to have everybody back," Ziskin says. "But no one is going to sign on the dotted line until we have a script. These are the questions being discussed now. The one thing we have answered definitively is: There will be more 'Spider-Man' movies. We just haven't answered what shape they will come in and (Sony) hasn't given us a release date."

The upcoming meeting "will be the first step in a process," Ziskin adds. "'Spider-Man' will continue; I can't tell you every person who will be involved."

It goes without saying just how critical the "Spider-Man" franchise is to the studio's bottom line; at press time, the franchise had netted upwards of $2 billion in boxoffice receipts, not to mention home video revenue and other income from ancillary ventures. But it is hardly unique in today's Hollywood.
 

As the fifth film in Warner Bros. Pictures' "Harry Potter" series, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," opens tomorrow in an estimated 4,100 theaters across the country -- the series will conclude after two additional features -- the major studios are more than aware that the franchises on which they have rested their fortunes are at a turning point. Many of the series are financially top-heavy or their stars haven't committed to another installment or there's an expiration date written on them.

After May's wildly successful "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" -- which had grossed upwards of $300 million in domestic boxoffice at press time -- the Walt Disney Co. is uncertain whether Johnny Depp will agree to star in a fourth "Pirates" adventure. However, Depp has indicated that he might be open to the idea if the right factors are in place.

At Warner Bros. Pictures, "Ocean's Thirteen" appears to be the last in the Vegas-based caper series. While studio president and CEO Alan Horn says of the most recent film, which had grossed roughly $109 million at press time, "The (financial) performance is comparable to 'Twelve' and may exceed it," there are "no plans" for an "Ocean's Fourteen."

At Universal, the third installment in the studio's spy-fi franchise, "The Bourne Ultimatum," opens Aug. 3. The movie was meant to cost $130 million, but sources say there were considerable reshoots and the budget may have topped out far higher than that. So far, star Matt Damon has made no commitment to any future features. Meanwhile, Universal is in preproduction on the planned 2008 release "The Mummy 3," with the film set to follow young star Luke Ford -- who could become the lead character in future "Mummy" adventures -- and a new iteration of "The Incredible Hulk," also set for a 2008 release, starring Edward Norton.

At Fox, 2006's "X-Men: The Last Stand" appears to have concluded the franchise -- at least in its present form. Instead, the studio is developing two possible spin-offs: "Wolverine," starring Hugh Jackman, and "Magneto," which would follow the character portrayed by Ian McKellen as a much younger man.

Also at Fox, the future of "Fantastic Four" is unclear after the second installment, "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer," dropped 66% in its second weekend, following an exceptional $58.1 million opening. Fox is developing a "Silver Surfer" follow-up and is considering another "Fantastic Four" sequel, but no script is in development, sources say. (Fox's surprise success "Live Free or Die Hard," showed the long-term value of the best franchises.)

At this point, most studios are adopting one of two strategies: either trying to keep their popular franchises alive or looking to launch new series. DreamWorks Animation is under way with a fourth film in its "Shrek" series for distributor Paramount, and Paramount is reaching even further back with a new installment in its landmark "Indiana Jones" franchise set for release next year. The studio also is embarking on a new "Star Trek" film with J.J. Abrams directing, and there is plenty of speculation that "Transformers" might become a vibrant new franchise for the studio based on its boxoffice take this past week.

Meanwhile, Universal is optimistic about its planned 2008 Benicio del Toro-starrer, "The Wolf Man," and that year's "Hellboy 2: The Golden Army," and Disney currently is shooting "National Treasure: Book of Secrets," a sequel to 2004's Nicolas Cage-starrer, "National Treasure," with an eye toward that becoming an ongoing franchise.

Replacing the existing franchises, though, is a herculean task.

"(Franchises) are critically important, more so now than ever," says Hutch Parker, vice chairman of 20th Century Fox Film Group. "In a market that is getting increasingly cluttered with third-party productions -- often financed by hedge funds and other sources of financing -- franchise pictures cut through the clutter, courtesy of their unique relationship to the audience, and have a currency around the world that very few other kinds of pictures do."    

That currency means much more than just boxoffice. According to a recent report from the MPA, theatrical boxoffice now accounts for only 19% of a movie's total revenue stream. In other words, for every $100 million that a movie makes at the boxoffice, it makes almost $400 million more from other media. With big franchises like "Spider-Man" and "Harry Potter," that can mean billions in revenue.

"Even if you have to spend a lot of money, the return on your investment, if you hit, is huge," Ziskin says. "You don't get that anywhere else."

Part of the challenge, executives say, is finding material that will connect with the broadest possible audience in a meaningful way. "You need to define how you are going to seek out the underlying material," explains David Linde, co-chairman of Universal Pictures. "You have to look everywhere, but with a strong perspective on your own business strengths."

That hunger for potential franchise material is something London-based literary agent Michelle Kass experienced firsthand when she came to Los Angeles in May with her client Derek Landy's novel "Skulduggery Pleasant," a fantastic tale of a young female detective who teams up with a wisecracking ghost. Kass and Landy were wooed by several major studios, even meeting with Steven Spielberg, before executive Kevin McCormick persuaded them that Warners was the right home for the project with a deal that gave Landy around $1 million, along with the right to script the film and be involved with creating his own video game.

Most franchises do not come cheap, and the more successful the franchise, the more each episode tends to cost. "Shrek" is a case in point. Insiders say Cameron Diaz earned 3% of first-dollar gross on 2004's "Shrek 2," which made upwards of $436 million during its theatrical run.

Similarly, insiders say star Tobey Maguire's pay for the "Spider-Man" films has increased dramatically. He was paid $4 million for 2002's "Spider-Man," but sources report he received $17.5 million for 2004's "Spider-Man 2," with 5% of the back-end -- 5% of Sony's receipts after exhibitors get their share. (The film grossed more than $373 million domestically.)

Maguire earned $15 million for "Spider-Man 3," with an even higher back-end of 7.5%; the film has brought in more than $333 million domestically to date.

To avoid the whopping bite of back-end deals, Sony instituted a mandatory cap of 25% on gross participation on all its films -- meaning, it will not give away more than a quarter of its receipts, no matter what.

Disney reportedly managed to protect itself on "Pirates" by making an arrangement wherein there would be no first-dollar gross participants, enabling the studio to recoup all its costs before making any payments to director Gore Verbinksi, producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Depp. "They get a share of the profits at 'cash break zero,'" says one insider, "which means when the studio has recouped both the cost of the picture, plus (prints and advertising) -- only then do they start paying."

Bruckheimer and Depp's agent, Tracey Jacobs at UTA, declined to comment.

Expense has been a prohibitive factor in maintaining many franchises. New Line's deal for its upcoming Aug. 10 release "Rush Hour 3" involved paying Chris Tucker $20 million against 20% of the back-end. Fox also had to add several million dollars to its above-the-line costs for "X-Men: The Last Stand" because Jackman only had signed on for the first two films, and he received $20 million for "Wolverine," though Parker declined to comment on Jackman's salary.

But the stars are not the biggest factor in making franchises so expensive. "One of the cost categories that has grown exponentially is the visual effects component," Parker says. "Even as recently as five years ago, it would represent a much smaller piece of the budgetary pie. Today you could find yourself spending significantly more on visual effects than on the cast."

The studio has been so eager to get "Wolverine" out next year that it has committed to go into production the instant Jackman finishes Baz Luhrmann's epic romance "Australia," which Fox is tentatively set to release next year. "The idea is, they can finish him out in September or October and put this one on the fast track so they can get it out next summer," says one source.

For the time being anyway, it seems that "Wolverine" is the best hope for continuing the "X-Men" movie franchise. "There is no script for an 'X-Men 4,' and there is none in the works," avers producer Lauren Shuler Donner.

Meanwhile, Sony, which released 2006's "Casino Royale" to roughly $167 million at the boxoffice, would love the rights to the James Bond franchise, though MGM is unlikely ever to let them go. As it stands, Sony has the right to distribute the upcoming Bond film theatrically, with MGM set to handle the film's release on cable and home entertainment.

"On the next Bond film, Sony is a 50-50 financier with MGM," says one source familiar with the arrangement. "But, according to their deal, in five years, MGM can buy Sony's 50% back. That was true on 'Casino Royale,' too: They can buy Sony's half back in five years, and there's plenty of TV and DVD money in those movies."

Indeed, MGM holds the rights to all future outings, and the resurrected studio is equally determined to make the most of Bond. Executives recently renegotiated the company's deal with star Daniel Craig to continue as 007, significantly upping his salary though declining to give him a share of back-end.

But perhaps the most controversial project MGM is involved with is the potential "Lord of the Rings" prequel, "The Hobbit." New Line has said that the project is in development and has the rights to produce the project, though MGM has the rights to distribute the finished film. Studio chairman Bob Shaye has insisted that Peter Jackson -- who is suing New Line for additional monies he alleges are owed him from the "Rings" franchise -- will not direct the J.R.R. Tolkein adaptation and is said to be searching for another helmer to take over the project, a decision that is not sitting well with Jackson's legions of vocal fans.

The company has high hopes that its planned December release "The Golden Compass" could spawn another major fantasy series, but there are risks associated with the production. "I hear it cost $180 million," one insider says. "That means it has to do $360 million worldwide, plus 20% to show a return on investment. This will have to do $400 million or $450 million worldwide to justify a second film."

New Line declined to comment on the film's budget.

"Everybody is throwing money to try and find the next big franchise," observes veteran attorney Peter Dekom.

Some studios have been more successful than others. Disney enjoyed rousing success with 2005's "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," which brought in more than $291 million during its domestic theatrical run, and a follow-up, the planned 2008 release "Prince Caspian," is filming in New Zealand. Additionally, Michael Apted has signed on to direct a third installment in the franchise, "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader," which is set to begin production early next year for planned release in 2009.

Fox also had terrific success with 2002's "Ice Age" and 2006's "Ice Age: The Meltdown," which together earned more than $371 million at the boxoffice. Perhaps not surprisingly, a third installment is in the works.

Warners, too, is proceeding with a second installment in its latest "Batman" series. "The Dark Knight," which is set for a summer 2008 release, reteams Christian Bale as the angsty superhero with director Christopher Nolan after the pair scored an estimated $205 million domestic boxoffice take with 2005's "Batman Begins."

The future of the studio's recent comic book adaptation, 2006's "Superman Returns," is somewhat more dubious. That film cost $209 million (even after various tax rebates) and marketing costs sent

expenses upward of $300 million, but director Bryan Singer's Man of Steel picture made only $201 million domestically. While insiders say the movie was profitable, the studio mandated major cost cuts before proceeding with a sequel.

"If we do a sequel to 'Superman,' we want it to be less expensive," Horn acknowledges. "I have to see a screenplay before I say yes to anything. But the studio would be willing to spend as much as $175 million if the screenplay and other factors warranted it."

Still, Singer has announced that he plans to direct a second "Superman" project.

Universal is taking what Linde describes as a multipronged strategy, with a goal to "promote and invigorate good, established tentpoles -- 'Mummy,' 'The Hulk' and 'Hellboy' -- and consistently create new potential franchises like (the planned 2008 releases) 'Wanted,' 'Wolf Man' and 'Death Race.'"

Ultimately, Linde's regime, and those of his peers at the other major studios, will sink or swim based on their ability to deliver these franchises.

[Ghoul]

ne zaboravite na soavija večeras u 21h na II programu rts-a!

nadam se da će neko da ga snimi, jer ja neću moći da gledam!!!!

[crippled_avenger]

Naomi Watts has signed on to star opposite Clive Owen in the action thriller "The International" for Sony Pictures says The Hollywood Reporter.

The plot centers on an obsessive Interpol agent (Owen) who spearheads an investigation into one of the world's most high-profile and powerful banking institutions in an attempt to expose them for worldwide arms brokering, corruption and murder.

Watts will play a Manhattan assistant district attorney who partners with the agent to take down the bank. Eric Singer wrote the screenplay and Tom Tykwer is directing. Shooting will take place in Berlin.

[crippled_avenger]

Lionsgate has acquired domestic distribution rights to an untitled documentary about religion directed by Larry Charles ("Borat") and featuring Bill Maher reports Variety.

Charles followed Maher all over the world as the irreverent host interviewed people about God and religion - determined to find a way to make the subject funny.

They filmed in Israel and other Middle East hot spots in shoots that made "Borat" seem like a cakewalk. Lionsgate expects a several hundred to perhaps 1,000 screen release next Spring.

[crippled_avenger]

Tim Robbins, Martin Landau, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Harry Treadaway have joined 20th Century Fox's fantasy "City of Ember" reports the trades.

The Gil Kenan-directed, Walden Media/Playtone project has Robbins playing an inventor holding a secret to the magical, glitteringly lit city whose power generator is failing.

Landau will play the boss of Robbins' character's teen son (Treadaway), who works at the city's mysterious Pipeworks as the son seeks to save the city with a fellow teen.

Jean-Baptiste will play a tough greenhouse worker. Bill Murray, Toby Jones and Saoirse Ronan are already set to co-star.

An October 2008 theatrical release is already planned through Fox. Shooting is presently under way in Belfast, Ireland.

[crippled_avenger]

Jim Carrey will star in and Peyton Reed will helm Warner Bros. Pictures comedy "Yes Man" reports MTV News.

Based on a memoir by British author Danny Wallace, the story centers on a man who decides to change his life by saying yes to everything that comes his way.

Along the way he wins $45,000, meets a hypnotic dog, obtains a nursing degree, travels the globe and finds romance. David Heyman and Richard Zanuck will produce with shooting aiming to begin as early as this Fall.

[crippled_avenger]

Shoreline Entertainment has optioned the film rights to adult indie comicbook "The Living Corpse," created by Ken Haeser and Buz Hasson.
Shoreline CEO Morris Ruskin will produce the project as a live-action feature written and helmed by Justin Ritter.

"The Living Corpse" -- initially self-published by Haeser and Hasson -- weaves the tale of a zombie who has vague memories of his past life. His mission is to keep the rest of the walking dead in their graves.

Comicbook was recently picked up by publisher Zenescope Entertainment.

[crippled_avenger]

He's done corporate downsizing, guns, Bush and health care, now Michael Moore has targeted the subject of his next doco - homophobia.

Moore has revealed that the anti-gay Christian right movement might be the topic of his next documentary. According to SlashFilm, he told magazine The Advocate that "I think it's a very ripe subject for someone like me to make a movie about. Simply because we are not there yet and it remains one of the last open wounds on our soul that we are not willing to fix yet."

He goes on to say "There is nowhere in the four Gospels where Jesus uses the word homosexual. The right wing has appropriated this guy ... and they have used him to attack gays and lesbians, when he never said a single word against people who are homosexual. Anyone who professes to be a Christian and does that is certainly not following the teachings of Jesus Christ."

[crippled_avenger]

Don't expect big changes from HBO without Chris Albrecht at the helm, his replacements pledged Thursday at the network's Television Critics Assn. presentation.

Co-president Richard Plepler and Michael Lombardo, president of the programming group and West Coast operations, are staying the course set by Albrecht, who was ousted in May.

"I consider Chris a friend, and it's been a very difficult transition with him not being with the company," Lombardo said. "The genius of Chris was he assembled an unbelievable group of programmers who all remain. It feels like we are just continuing to do the work we have been doing."

But Plepler acknowledged that HBO isn't likely to outdo "The Sopranos."

"The issue with 'The Sopranos' is, it's such a transcendent thing, an iconic piece of work, (that) everyone asks the question, 'What's next?' " he said. "Truthfully, nothing will ever top 'The Sopranos.' "
 

Still, HBO is putting its best foot forward on the series front. The network said it has teamed with "American Idol" creator/executive producer Simon Fuller for an American version of the hit BBC comedy "Little Britain."

The much anticipated 10-episode sixth season of Larry David's comedy "Curb Your Enthusiasm" will launch Sept. 9 and will run in the Sunday 10 p.m. time slot. During the "Curb" TCA session, David indicated that he hasn't decided whether the series will continue beyond the coming season and that the season finale leaves that door open.

Preceding the "Curb" season premiere is the debut of HBO's new racy drama "Tell Me You Love Me," which will run in the signature 9-10 p.m. time period.

Much of the discussion in the session devoted to "Love Me" centered on its graphic sex scenes, which HBO entertainment president Carolyn Strauss defended as key to a series that strives to capture the reality of relationships.

"I know the sex is getting enormous amounts of attention, but you really can't tell the story of intimacy without sex as an important part of your took kit," she said. "If you're not doing that honestly, you're not telling the story."

Just in time for the 2008 presidential elections, HBO has renewed "Real Time With Bill Maher" for a sixth season. The show returns for the second half of its fifth season Aug. 24; Season 6 is slated to kick off in 2008.

One deviation from the Albrecht playbook that spurred questions from TCA critics: The execs waffled on plans set by their predecessor to produce a pair of movies that would wrap up the story line of the canceled series "Deadwood." Plepler put the odds for greenlighting a film at "50-50," citing the fact that members of the cast are committed to other projects and the willingness of the series' creator, David Milch, to pursue it.

"If David is game for this and we can figure it out, we'll figure it out," Lombardo said.

Another factor that will play a part in resuming production in "Deadwood" will be the fate of Milch's new series, "John From Cincinnati," which Plepler spoke supportively of but stopped short of a renewal announcement.

"The show is really finding an audience, and the audience is staying consistent," he said. "I think it's important to see where it goes, where David takes us, and we'll make that decision at the end of the season."

As for other returning favorites, Plepler noted that "The Wire" will come back for its final season in the first quarter of next year.

Ricky Gervais' comedy "Extras" will end its run with a one-hour special, written by Gervais and Stephen Merchant, that will be filmed in August. Gervais is also in discussions with the network for a one-hour stand-up special that could air next year.

Plepler and Lombardo also touched on the upcoming big-screen treatment for "Sex and the City," which is being financed and distributed by New Line Cinema. But when the subject turned to a "Sopranos" movie, Lombardo made it clear that no such plans are in the works, "Nobody has had any conversations with David (Chase) about feature films (regarding 'Sopranos')," she said.

"I don't think David has had a conversation with himself about it," Plepler joked.

The execs also discussed at length reactions to the "Sopranos" finale, particular the debate over its final blacked-out moment. Asked about its meaning, Plepler spoke eloquently of how to interpret those final seconds, but Lombardo begged off.

"I don't know, my TV went out," he joked.

James Gandolfini also was on hand for TCA but in a different capacity, as host and executive producer of the documentary "Alive Day Memories: Home From Iraq." Although he made sure that the focus was kept on the injured soldiers featured in the program, he offered his motivation for participating in the program.

"I was playing this tough guy on TV and I wanted to meet a few real ones," he said.

HBO has handed out a six-episode order to "Britain" stars Matt Lucas and David Walliams. In the original series, the two play a variety of recurring characters in sketches that spoof contemporary life in the U.K.

"The new series will be a sketch show set in contemporary America," Walliams said. "We are taking some existing characters and writing new material for them, as well as introducing new characters and ideas."

The HBO series, which will be filmed in the fall for a 2008 debut, will be produced by HBO Entertainment in association with 19 Entertainment and MBST and Little Britain. Fuller is executive producing with Larry Brezner, David Steinberg, Lucas and Walliams.

On the longform front, HBO Films has added another screen adaptation of a small British play, Antony Sher's one-man show "Primo."

Meanwhile, "The Pacific," the long-gestating World War II miniseries set in the Pacific theater, likely will bow in third-quarter 2009.

[crippled_avenger]

Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal are set to make a film about the rise of Mao Zedong and communism in China reports reports Variety.

Their Tribeca Films has optioned the Roy Rowan memoir "Chasing the Dragon: A Veteran Journalist's Firsthand Account of the 1949 Chinese Revolution."

As a correspondent for the Shanghai bureau of Time and Life, Rowan covered China's civil war and observed close up the rise of Mao and his army. Along the way, Rowan fell for a Chinese interpreter who may have been a spy.

Jon Marans and Yuri Sivo will write the screenplay and Rowan will be a consultant. The plan is to weave the story into a love story meets epic drama.

The project has no connection with Stephen North's film biopic on Mao entitled "Challenging Heaven."

[crippled_avenger]

"Fight Club" & "Dancing at the Blue Iguana" actress Christina Cabot has joined the cast of Marvel Studios and Universal's "The Incredible Hulk" reports the trades.

Cabot will play an aide of General Ross (William Hurt) who pursues Bruce Banner (Edward Norton). Liv Tyler and Tim Roth also star.

Shooting begins, under the helm of Louis Leterrier, this summer in Toronto for release next June.

[crippled_avenger]

The mystery of 'Mandy Lane' has been solved.

Senator Entertainment has picked up the US distribution rights to Occupant Films' horror feature "All the Boys Love Mandy Lane" which was originally scheduled for a limited release this coming Friday.

The Weinstein Co. picked up worldwide rights at last year's Toronto International Film Festival, but in recent weeks it became clear the studio was essentially dumping it as no marketing material became available.

Inside sources claim there were big differences of opinion as to both the scale of the release and to its marketing. The recent failures of Weinstein's "Grindhouse" feature, and the downturn in horror flicks in general, only exacerbated the problem.

Now, Senator plans to release "Mandy Lane" on 1,000-plus screens in early 2008. Directed by Jonathan Levine and written by Jacob Forman, "Mandy Lane" stars Amber Heard as an idolized high school student who accompanies five friends on a weekend trip to a ranch, where each is eliminated by a mysterious killer.

[crippled_avenger]

Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty will headline the Kathryn Bigelow-directed Iraq War drama "The Hurt Locker" says The Hollywood Reporter.

Written by former journalist Mark Boal and inspired by true events, "Locker" follows an elite Army Explosive Ordinance Disposal team in present-day Baghdad that fights an onslaught of bombs and snipers.

Renner will play the leader of the team, while Mackie and Geraghty are members of it. Ralph Fiennes and Guy Pearce both cameo, the former as a mercenary, the later as another team member.

Filming is scheduled to begin next week in Jordan and Kuwait.

[crippled_avenger]

'Locker' lands 3 in Iraq storyBy Borys Kit

July 17, 2007

Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty are toplining "The Hurt Locker," an Iraq War drama from director Kathryn Bigelow. Ralph Fiennes and Guy Pearce also have cameos in the film.

Written by Mark Boal and inspired by true events and recently declassified information, "Locker" follows an elite Army Explosive Ordinance Disposal team in present-day Baghdad that fights an onslaught of bombs and snipers.

Renner will play the leader of the team, while Mackie and Geraghty are members of it. Fiennes is a mercenary; Pearce is another member.

Bigelow, Boal, Nicolas Chartier and Greg Shapiro are producing.

The film is a Voltage Pictures/First Light/Kingsgate Films production. Voltage Pictures will handle sales on the film and financed it with Grosvenor Park.
 

Filming is scheduled to begin next week in Jordan and Kuwait.

Boal is a journalist, previously a writer-at-large at Playboy, and was embedded with a bomb squad several years ago. He extrapolated his experiences into a fictional story grounded in real events.

"The idea is that it's the first movie about the Iraq War that purports to show the experience of the soldiers," Boal said from Jordan. "We wanted to show the kinds of things that soldiers go through that you can't see on CNN, and I don't mean that in a censorship-conspiracy way. I just mean the news doesn't actually put photographers in with units that are this elite."

Boal said the idea of doing a topical movie is one factor that led him to jump into the movie business.

"If you look at the history of war movies, with the exception of a couple of movies during World War II that were more like propaganda, swashbuckling jingoistic stuff, most war movies don't come out until the war was over," he said. "It's really exciting for me, coming out of the world of journalism, to have a movie come out about a conflict while the conflict is still going on.

"The medium of film can be revelatory about a topic," he added. "It's not commenting on something that is history, it's showing something that is real, in today's life."

Renner most recently starred in Fox Atomic's "28 Weeks Later" and will next be seen in "The Assassination of Jesse James" opposite Brad Pitt. He is repped by CAA, Untitled Entertainment and Nelson Felker Toczek Davis.

Mackie, repped by Endeavor, Inspire Entertainment and Loeb & Loeb, recently wrapped shooting Kimberly Peirce's Iraq War drama "Stop Loss," which is set stateside.

Geraghty, repped by Endeavor and Roklin Management, appeared with Mackie in "We Are Marshall." His credits include "Jarhead," Sam Mendes' drama about the first Gulf War, as well as "Bobby."

Fiennes worked with Bigelow in "Strange Days." He is repped by CAA, Dalzell & Beresford in the U.K. and Lichter, Grossman, Nichols and Adler.

Pearce is repped by CAA, Shanahan Management in Australia and attorney David Webber.

[crippled_avenger]

After teasing us the other day with the idea of helming another "28 Days Later" sequel, "Sunshine" Director Danny Boyle talked with Slashfilm about what story possibility would he explore:

"It's to do with Russia actually. It's to do with that part of the world. NOT FRANCE. The second film hints that it gets to France eventually, and wipes out the French. But this third idea is actually more to do with Russia, but that's actually all I can say."

Don't expect this baby too soon however - "I don't know whether it will happen" admits Boyle.

[milan]

GAVIN HOOD TO DIRECT WOLVERINE FEATURE FILM
Despite the mixed results of strong box office and lukewarm reviews of X-Men 3, Marvel and Twentieth Century Fox are moving ahead with the film franchise based on Marvel's mutants, as Variety has announced that Gavin (Rendition) Hood will direct the Wolverine feature film. Hugh Jackman is slated to reprise his role as the character.

The film is scheduled to begin production in November for a 2008 release. Lauren Shuler-Donner, Hugh Jackman (through his Seed Productions) and Jackman's production partner John Palermo will produce. The film was written by David (Troy) Benioff.

From the trade:

Hood is the South African director whose 2005 film "Tsotsi" won the foreign film Oscar. He was among several hot young directors vying for "Wolverine" and sources said Fox brass was swayed after viewing his latest film, "Rendition," the politically charged New Line drama starring Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal, Meryl Streep and Peter Sarsgaard. It opens Oct. 19 and premieres at Toronto.

Using several resources that include the Marvel Comics lore, along with the more recent Weapon X graphic novels by Frank Miller, "Wolverine" mixes action with an origin story about how Logan emerged from a barbaric experiment as an indestructible mutant with retractable razor-sharp claws.

According to Variety 20th Century Fox has made the production of Wolverine a "top priority" thanks to the X-Men film franchise's $1 billion box office gross worldwide.

Newsarama Note: Frank Miller has never written any "Weapon X graphic novels." He did, however, illustrate the 1982 Wolverine miniseries, which was written by Chris Claremont. The Weapon X graphic novel most likely implied in the Variety story would be the collected storyline from 1990-1991's Marvel Comics Presents which was written and drawn by Barry Windsor-Smith. We assume the trade mistook the 17 year old Weapon X for the 25 year old Wolverine when it was mentioning "recent Weapon X graphic novels by Frank Miller."

[crippled_avenger]

"Knocked Up" star Seth Rogen and writing partner Evan Goldberg are in final negotiations to co-write and produce "The Green Hornet" for Sony Pictures.

"Hornet" follows the adventures of Britt Reid, a bored playboy who inherits his father's crusading newspaper, the Daily Sentinel. By night he is a masked hero, fighting crime with his sidekick Kato, who has incredible martial-arts skills.

Rogen is also surprisingly attached to star as the classic crime-fighting hero - a role that Hollywood hunks George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg and Jake Gyllenhaal have previously been linked with.

The character is best remembered for the 1966 ABC series that starred Van Williams as the Green Hornet and Bruce Lee as Kato.

[crippled_avenger]

Fox 2000 has won a fierce bidding war for the film rights to "The Passage," a partial manuscript intended as a trilogy for Ridley Scott to produce and possibly direct.

The 2016-set dark tale revolves around the government conducting secret tests with human subjects to see if a South American bat virus can cure cancer. Instead, it unleashes a swarm of bloodthirsty vampires out of the test subjects, which include death row inmates.

Meanwhile, an orphan named Amy discovers that she has unusual powers, seemingly related to the crisis that quickly overtakes civilized society.

Justin Cronin ("Mary and O'Neil") penned the postapocalyptic vampire story under the alias Jordan Ainsley, and the book will be published Summer 2009. Scott is presently working on "Nottingham," a reworking of the Robin Hood tale.

[crippled_avenger]

Rodar y Rodar has teamed with Becker Intl. to produce an $8.3 million English-language remake of Guillem Morales' 2005 psychological thriller "El habitante incierto" (The Uncertain Guest).

The producers aim to work with some of the original's crew, shoot mostly in Spain, but set the film in London. Morales will supervise the screenplay, written by U.K. scribe William Davies, and helm the remake.

The original "Habitante" follows an increasingly delirious architect's obsession with a man who's taken up residence in his house, just as the architect is separating from his girlfriend.

Plans are for the remake to be "more open, bigger, less abstract, more realist and take in lots of London detail" said Rodar producer Mar Targarona to trade paper Variety.

Plans are also to include some top-level US & UK talent. Shooting will take place next year.

[Ghoul]

The original "Habitante" ...

mda, ovom filmu malo doterivanja ne bi falilo, jer original ne isporučuje mnogo više od beskrajne dosade.

[Ghoul]

evo jednog filma koji zvuči nadasve zanimljivo (barem meni!), mogao bi neko da proveri ima li ga za skinuti od braće pirata...

THE NEW GOD

"Tora, Tora, Tora! Pearl Harbour was our only choice. Our race was corrupted from the day we lost the war..." Karin Amamiya, lead singer of ultra-nationalist hardcore punk band The Revolutionary Truth looms centre stage, barking out aggressive but heartfelt anti-American sentiments to a dwindling audience.
Troubled music for troubled times, one might think, though on the surface at least, there seems to be little immediate to worry about for the citizens of modern day Japan, currently one of the safest places on the planet. However, in recent times, and especially since the death of Emperor Hirohito marked the end of the Showa Period in 1989, the Heisei Period has seen a marked revival in the nationalist movement.
Nationalism, with its indelible associations of racism and the military right wing is a fairly dirty word to most people, and a subject which most would prefer to waft aside without giving a second thought. But for documentary maker Tsuchiya, who stood amongst the cowed observers at the gig with which the film opens and viewing the proceedings firmly from the other side of the political fence, there's something more heartfelt about Amamiya's plea. "I shivered. I don't know why. I felt her pain, somehow, like a reflected light beam stabbing the heart."
The New God documents Tsuchiya's attempts to delve beyond the political rhetoric and intimidating facade of the fascinatingly complex figures of Amamiya and guitarist/band-leader Hidehito Itoh of The Revolutionary Truth, in the process discovering that all three of them have a lot more in common than their seemingly diametrically opposed standpoints might first lead one to believe. Handing Amamiya a DV-camera in which to film herself in a series of talking head shots, over the course of little over a month, he manages to get a whole lot more than he initially bargained for...
At the beginning of the film, Amamiya is beginning to question her own beliefs in Right Wing Nationalism after a trip to Pyongyang in North Korea at the invitation of The Japanese Red Army to see the effect of communism on the daily lives of its citizens. At first she is welcomed with open arms by her compatriots, seemingly unworried by their opposing political beliefs. As someone points out, "Left or right is just a label for someone caring about their race. Anti-imperial America is what we agree on."
However, once the drinking stops and the politicising begins, she confides to her camera in the privacy of her hotel room that her own views might be causing some problem with the older activists. "I'm not sure you really understand Japan", one of the communists tells her after being shown a video of one of The Revolutionary Truth's concerts, to which Amamiya concurs with a rather meek "hai".
Nevertheless, she is markedly struck by the way that the North Koreans are bound together by a common value system "Words such as solidarity touched my heart as a nationalist". In contrast, she sees the only shared values the Japanese possess is via consumerism and value systems imposed from outside. "The Japanese can't make friends. Only cut their wrists and call sex lines."
It is statements such as these that throw light on where Amamiya is coming from in her politics. At numerous points in the film she confesses that a troubled upbringing and 9 years of bullying at the hands of her school classmates left her feeling an outsider. Nationalism provided a channel for her feelings of ostracism and self-loathing. Similarly, in an unguarded moment, Itoh confesses he embraced nationalism to stop being a nerd. "When did you force these two ideas, 'to stop being a nerd', and 'anti-America' together?", asks Tsuchiya. "Well, after joining the Nationalists, actually", Itoh capitulates.
With such moments of honesty, both Amamiya and Itoh cease to become threatening political extremists and start really developing as fully rounded and sympathetic characters, plagued by self-doubt and fully aware of their irreconcilable idealism. It's an angle which Tsuchiya pursues admirably as he becomes closer to the two band members, turning the film into a three way dialogue between the film maker and his subjects. "I know what she means. Something has created an emptiness covering Japan. To her it's America, to me it's the emperor system", he muses between scenes.
Both Itoh and Amamiya's viewpoint is that the modern Japanese, dulled by the "suffocating peace" of the Heisei Period (literally meaning 'attainment of peace') have forgotten their roots and are content to remains as "America's fat dog", and that as a result Japan has lost any significance in world politics. They argue that the deaths of Japanese soldiers during the Pacific War should not be forgotten as they were acting in the interests of the emperor at a time when every man and woman worked their life for the country. In a nutshell, to deny your nation's history is to deny your national identity, especially in such a culturally and racially heterogeneous society "where it's easy to fake national and racial identity".
Whilst Itoh and Amimaya's desire for a return to the 'Nation as Family' rather than America's hollow individualism might merely be seen as wilful nostalgia, the underlying desire for a shared value system and common identity is perhaps not so outrageous: "The emperor is the moral, not the system", as Itoh says. Translating these wishes into a political agenda is however slightly more problematic. As Tsuchiya points out, his problem with nationalist politics is that it excludes non-nationals, a factor which Amamiya admits had always bothered her about the right wing Nationalist Party of which the two musicians are active members.
It is really after her return from North Korea that sees Amamiya's growing disillusionment with political process, sparked off by the lacklustre reception of her talk on her pilgrimage at a meeting of a neo-right wing group, who'd rather revel in drunken rhetoric and "jabber in their cups to feel their camaraderie". Itoh's street-level activism, yelling "You fuckers are all just lifestock!" down a megaphone to indifferent passers-by doesn't seem to be much more effective either.
In true Spinal Tap form, Tsuchiya's presence seems to act as a catalyst for problems already latent within the band, and so a new "liberal" guitarist is drafted in to ease the tension. Umitaro Tanaka is the 'Lukewarm Water' role between Amamiya's 'Fire' and Itoh's 'Ice'. "Singing the national anthem before the gig just isn't my thing" he mumbles during a band practice session. After meeting hostile receptions from audiences and being kicked out of a series of venues, one begins to wonder whether it is perhaps the medium rather than the message that is the problem.
Of course, it is Amamiya's presence that fuels the whole endeavour, invoking a fair degree of sexual tension between the two males as we see her being drawn away from Itoh's radical polemic to the film-maker's more liberal suave. We see Itoh yawning and nodding off when excluded from a heated drunken political discussion between Amamiya and her new hero figure in a bar. Later Amamiya bounces up and down appreciatively gushing "Kakkoii!" ("Cool!") as Tsuchiya nonchalantly sums up his political stance; "All I know is that my work says it all". When Itoh tries to get in on the act shouting "Yes, it's great to be creative, isn't it!", he is silenced by a condescending "Go and bake a cake then!" from Amamiya.
Both entertaining and thought-provoking, not to mention frequently incredibly funny, the transformation of The Revolutionary Truth's stance via its rejection of both hard line right-wing and left-wing politics to a more comfortable form of nationalism is absolutely riveting from start to finish. At a time when the old political arguments are ceasing to have any relevance, Tsuchiya introduces us to two absolutely remarkable characters whom we might otherwise dismiss completely out of hand, as he reminds us that, whether left or right, politics at the end of the day is about people. All hail The New God!

[crippled_avenger]

Latino Review reports that "Happy Feet" director George Miller is tipped to direct Warner Bros. Pictures' "Justice League of America."

Superman, Batman, The Flash, Wonder Woman and the Green Lantern are all tipped to be teaming up for the big-budget action spectacle.

According to Collider, the "Justice League" film is more of a priority for WB than the sequel to "Superman".

Kiernan and Michele Mulroney were hired to pen the script back in February.

[crippled_avenger]

Guillermo del Toro is involved in a remake of Peter Medak's 1980 horror flick "The Changeling" for Rogue Pictures says Dread Central.

Details are still scarce about the project or if it will follow the original's story about a grief stricken man aiding a young boy's ghost in unraveling the dark secrets of his home.

Del Toro is expected to only produce, not direct the remake.