THE BFG - news

Alright all you Roald Dahl fans, here's a piece of news that might excite you! According to The Wrap Dreamworks has purchased the rights to Roald Dahl's children's classic THE BFG for Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall to produce.

Kennedy and Marshall have produced THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM and THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, and they also have some animation titles under their belt, but there has been no mention of Dreamworks Animation so I'm assuming it's going to be a live action. Melissa Mathison, writer of E.T. and THE INDIAN IN THE CUPBOARD is set to adapt THE BFG for the screen.

Pretty cool right. I loved Dahl's stories as a kid and recently purchased a box set of his works to relive my childhood and to share the joy of Dahl with my nephew and god-children. For those of you who might not remember what happens in THE BFG I found a little synopsis online from the 1989 animated film adaptation on IMDB;

Sophie is snatched from her orphanage early one morning by the BFG (Big Friendly Giant), whom she witnesses engaged in mysterious activities, and whisked away to Giant Country. She is soon put at ease, as she learns that BFG's job is to collect, catalogue and deliver pleasant dreams to children. She joins him that night, but the mean giants follow them, planning to eat the children. Sophie enlists the help of the Queen, by making up a dream for her, and with the backing of the armed forces, they defeat the mean giants.

Anyway that's about all the news on it for now, but I will keep you posted if I hear anything else!

DARK KNIGHT - set photos

Here are some on set pics of Anne Hathaway in her full Catwoman garb. What are your thoughts?

ONE FOR THE MONEY - trailer

Katherine Heigl and Jason O'Mara have anew flick coming up, which will be the first feature of a possible 16 starring Janet Evanovich's character Stephanie Plum. Evanovich has a 16-book best-selling mystery series starring Stephanie Plum, but no word as to whether others from the series will be made. I'd say they're going to go on GBO (gross box office) of the first one before making any decisions.

I'm not a fan of Heigl and I'm not really a fan of the trailer, it looks trashy and a bit ridiculous, but I don't mind the look of Daniel Sunjata the man who "trains" Plum in the ways of being a bad ass recovery agent. Check out the trailer and see what you think.

WARRIOR - Review

When I posted my top 10 films left for 2011 I didn't count WARRIOR in with a chance. Although its got a good cast, I dismissed it as yet another fighting movie where everyone is searching for glory. That coupled with a blood and guts trailer that looked a bit too violent for my liking and the film didn't even cross my mind as a "must see" for the remainder of the year.

I stand corrected. I've seen somewhere around 80 films this year and WARRIOR is by far the best one of the lot. So I'm going to make it the top 11 of 2011 and include WARRIOR in the count.

This film follows the story of estranged brothers Tommy (Tom Hardy) and Brendan (Joel Edgerton) who are both in training for the same mixed martial arts championship with a 5 million dollar purse. Tommy, an ex-marine is fighting for the money so he can help the family of a fallen comrade, and Brendan is about to lose his house and still has to pay off his little girl's medical bills.

Tommy seeks the tutelage of their estranged ex-alcoholic father who he hasn't seen nor spoken to since he and his mother left when he was still a kid. Brendan asks an old friend who is training another fighter for the bout to help him out. Both boys are underdogs of sorts and both boys have a aptitude for beating the crap out of other guys. Tommy is unorthodox, landing one or two heavy blows, then pounding on the opponent to make sure he doesn't get up then he just up and leaves the cage. Brendan knows he's the underdog, takes quite a hammering and when the other guy is tired out and unsuspecting comes out on top by any means possible.

You'll know the outcome of the tournament if you watch the trailer, so that will come as no surprise, and you will also know from the trailer that this is no-holds-barred fighting so it's going to be vicious, but what this film lacks in tact it makes up for in heart.

The last hour of the film is visually nothing more than big sweaty mean beating each other up, but if you can stand the violence (and I highly recommend that you find a way to) you will get to the bottom of a very heartfelt and complicated family drama.


Hardy and Edgerton give magical performances, making you love and hate them, and really hoping that they will find a way to forgive each other and themselves. These boys really show what they are made of in this film and I am looking forward to wha the future holds for the pair of them. Special mention must be give to Nolte as his was a standout performance, which I have no doubt will land him a nomination for supporting actor in the 2012 Academy Awards.

Now the film opened quite softly in the States, but is continuing to draw crowds and I believe it will continue to do so as word spreads on how good it really is. This film is opening next month in Australia and I seriously urge you to go out and pay the $17 to go and see it. It is definitely worth it.

I'm giving WARRIOR 4.5 out of 5.

THE BIG YEAR - trailer

3 comedy greats - Steve Martin, Jack Black, Owen Wilson - plus a cameo from one of TVs fave comedians - Jim Parsons, plus a whole bunch of other big names and a story about spending a year doing all the things you wanted to do, but never did and then turning it into a big competition, what could possibly go wrong right?

Well the first trailer doesn't instill in me a great deal of confidence, but it is highly possible that the film is better than the trailer and I'm sure I'm not the target audience, so maybe it's not meant to appeal to me so much.

anyway, take a look and see what you think. Hits US theatres October 13th with a 2012 release here.

BEETLEJUICE, BEETLEJUICE, BEETLEJUICE!!

I could be tempted to get a little bit excited about this project...I just found out about it and wasn't completely disgusted so that's a win right there!

David Katzenberg and Seth Grahame-Smith and their production company KatzSmith have just signed a two year first-look deal with Warner Bros Studios. Under that deal, one of their first projects is a reboot of BEETLEJUICE. If you haven't seen this Tim Burton pic then you should. It's another cult classic from the 80s (1988 to be exact) and is definitely worth a look. Deadline reports that the deal grew from screenwriting that Grahame-Smith is doing for Burton. Grahame-Smith is contracted to write two scripts under the Warner Bros deal and BEETLEJUICE could be one of them.

Other projects under the first-look deal include:

• Bryantology, “in which a loser on the verge of losing his house exploits a tax loophole, invents a religion and names his home a tax exempt place of worship.  When the religion goes viral, followers show up on his doorstep and the hapless guy is suddenly a cult leader.”  [Note: this sounds very similar to the Family Guy episode "If I'm Dyin', I'm Lyin'"]
• Night of the Living, “a stop motion animated film about a town of peaceful monsters must learn how to fight when it is invaded by humans.”  Grahame-Smith might write the script with Tim Burton producing.
• An adaptation of Stuart Kaminsky’s novel series about 40s Hollywood private eye Toby Peters (there have been 24 novels in the series since it was first published in 1977; the most recent one came out in 2004.  Kaminsky died in 2009).
• Fire Teddy, which is about “an underachieving nice guy is hired as a low level employee at a corporate office. Ordered by his Machiavellian boss to fire Teddy, the newcomer can’t do it and becomes fast friends with Teddy through his futile attempts.”  

They might churn out some OK stuff, but what I'm most interested in is a BEETLEJUICE reboot if it comes about. I will keep you posted, but in the mean time if you haven't seen it, do. It's awesome and you won't regret it!

84th Academy Blunder

I had heard rumors that the Academy had approached Eddie Murphy to host the 84th Academy Awards and I was quietly thinking to myself that there was no way the upper echelons at the Academy would allow that to happen.

It appears I was sadly mistaken. Today Deadline has confirmed that Eddie Murphy has agreed to host the 2012 Oscars, which also confirms that there must be a few people within the Academy that have more than a few screws loose! Either that or they're having a competition to see who can come up with the worst ideas ever and make them happen!

2012 might be the first year that I don't bother watching the telecast and just google the results. Firstly Murphy hasn't starred in anything decent since BOWFINGER in 99. He doesn't bother to give quality comic performances anymore and they might as well use a cardboard cut out of him in the trashy "family" comedies he does do. Pretty much the only upside to this bogus decision is that we get to see whether Murphy can still do stand-up in front of a big crowd close on 24 years since he did RAW.

Good work Academy. You might get a record for the lowest viewer rating next year as I know I'm not the only one who's boycotting the telecast!

Top 10 Left for 2011

This is the top 10 films left to keep your eye out for in 2011:

THE EYE OF THE STORM - drama

CRAZY STUPID LOVE - rom-com

THE CUP - true story

OUR IDIOT BROTHER - comedy

IN TIME - sci-fi thriller

THE DEBT - suspense drama

ANONYMOUS - drama

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY - crime thriller

WE BOUGHT A ZOO - true story

THE IRON LADY - true story

and for those of you with little ones;

THE LION KING in 3D (also screening in 2D at select cinemas)

PUSS IN BOOTS

HAPPY FEET TWO

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY - clip

Here's a little clip from the upcoming release TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY which hits Australian cinemas on the 17th of November. This film is screening at the Venice Film Festival this weekend and I'm looking forward to the reviews to se if it's all it's cracked up to be! The film has a killer cast including Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Tom Hardy and John Hurt.

Based on the John le Carre novel of the same name, the international thriller is set at the height og the Cold War where retired espionage specialist George Smiley (Gary Oldman), is rehired in secret to find a double agent working for the Soviets. The clip shows "Control" (John Hurt) instructing agen Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) in the unt for the mole. He assigns code-names to each of the suspectes - Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Poor Man and ten the final suspect George Smiley.

THE AVENGERS - set photos

Here are some set photos of THE AVENGERS crew courtesy of Celebrity Gossip...

Cameron Crowe on a roll!

It's been a good five years since we've seen anything from Crowe and not only does he have one film coming out, he's got three and another one in the works! Talk about on a roll!!

This year he's got WE BOUGHT A ZOO (releasing in Australia Boxing Day), THE UNION and PEARLY JAM TWENTY (both documentaries) coming out, and he's already working on his next film. He says this new film is inspired by the children he saw audition for WE BOUGHT A ZOO and has been working on the script in between working on WE BOUGHT A ZOO and PEARL JAME TWENTY.

Here's a little a quote from the interview in which he revealed this little nugget;

"This woman that I work with, Gail Levin, is a great casting director. She's always finding new faces. The kids she found for WE BOUGHT A ZOO are so exciting. We met with all these actors, and they would leave the room and it was a situation where I would turn to Gail and say 'They're not right for this one, but I want to write something where we can work with that person." That was the genisis for writing a whole new script which I've been working on while we're doing WE BOUGHT A ZOO and finishing this Pearl Jam movie".

Crowe is the man behind one of my favourite films (ALMOST FAMOUS) it's good to see him coming back with a vengance after the more than disappointing ELIZABETHTOWN in 2005. Hopefully all of the films that he's working on are back to his old awesomeness and this huge workload doesn't result in poor productions.

FOOTLOOSE - review

In an earlier rant about the remake of DIRTY DANCING I called this remake a "giant cluster%$#@". Well...I take that back now that I've seen it as cluster$^#@ is probably a little too strong to describe how sucky it is.

I didn't hate it, but I didn't really like it either. It's practically the original script - I was quoting lines before they happened - with a few minor changes to the story. Ren's mother didn't move to Bomont with him, she died and they raced school buses instead of tractors. Everything else was the same down to the soundtrack, costumes and final freeze frame before the end credits! There were a few more contemporary songs used, but the main songs were all the same.

The dance sequences had hip modern moves instead of daggy 80s ones and the film as a whole had more of a country vibe than the original which was a little more rednecky. The performances were pretty average, which was not surprising seeing as the two main characters are dancers by profession not actors. Kenny Wormald has a few screen credits as a "dancer" and Julianne Hough is basically the same although she had a named character in BURLESQUE. Dennis Quaid was ok, he seemed to have a pretty good grasp on his character, but I'm not sure what happened to Andie MacDowell, but the few lines she did have were poorly delivered and she might as well not have been there!

Best performance was Willard who was played by Miles Teller. Willard was my favourite in the original with his quirky lines and the scenes where he learns to dance and it was my favourite in this version. Teller's only film credit was from earlier in the year where he starred in RABBIT HOLE with Nicole Kidman, so he's not an experienced screen actor, but he had the best character portrayal by far!

Whoever was in charge of continuity did a terrible job, so keep an eye out for editing mistakes - some subtle and others not so much. For example Ren speeds off from school in his beetle that doesn't have an engine cover and by the time he gets to point b in the same scene he miraculously has an engine cover!! FAIL!

I think they're hoping that the film is going to bring in a whole new audience rather than the devotees of the original, but I'm not sure that's going to happen seeing as I told someone I'd just come back from a screening for it and they were like "what's that?". I explained it was a remake of the original and the response was "they're remaking that?". I think it's going to be a bit too daggy for the kids - let's face it, it was daggy in the 80s -  and I think most devotees are the same as me: skeptical and feeling like the whole thing is a bit sacrilegious.  

1 out of 5

BLACKBIRD - Charlie Hunnam, Olivia Wilde, Eric Bana

I just got word that Hopscotch Films have picked up Charlie Hunnam's new pic BLACKBIRD which also stars Olivia Wilde and Eric Bana. OMG!! So I've been putting the hard word on them to get a star tour happening for that film mostly for selfish reasons (I want to kidnap Charlie Hunnam), but also because I think it will be a great way to generate some buzz for it as he is still fairly unknown.

Some of you might gasp that I say he's still fairly unknown, but the girls for Hopscotch didn't even really know who he is! Let's face it SOA is a fairly niche market still and having only hit Australian screens a few months ago it hasn't really built a huge following in Australia yet, and most people don't even know that he was in GREEN STREET HOOLIGANS.

Anyway, I don't really are about anyone else, I just want to have him to myself! I've totally bagsed a ticket to the premiere if there is a star tour and then after stalking him just a little and getting a photo with him I could die a happy woman!

There's no trailer for BLACKBIRD as yet and no release date, but I'll definitely be keeping you posted on this one!

JANIE JONES - trailer

Starring Abigail Breslin and Alessandro Nivola this film looks like a cross between SOMEWHERE and CRAZY HEART, but with a not quite as interesting story line.

It looks like it's going to have some good performances though especially from Breslin, so the story might not matter so much. She's definitely on the watch list as a superb A-lister to be! Hopefully she doesn't turn into a rebellious, drunken, drug-addled teenager before she gets there!!

 

In theatres and available on VOD in the States on October 28. 

THE DOUBLE - trailer

Here's an example of everything a trailer shouldn't be. THE DOUBLE starring Richard Gere and Topher Grace.

They've just saved you $17 because the only thing you don't know is what happens to Gere in the end and let's face it I'm pretty sure he dies. The only reason they'd keep him alive (either captured or on the run) is if they thought they could get a sequel out of it.

Way to go kids. You just hurt your bottom line more than any bad performance or terrible crit ever could!

THE WOLVERINE - update

Another update on THE WOLVERINE...apparently screenwriter Mark Bomback is set to re-write the already written script for THE WOLVERINE.

According to Variety, the story still revolves around Wolverine heading to Japan, falling in love and fighting the country's criminal underworld. Word on the street is that the entire cast is set to be Japanese and Japanese-American actors with the exception of "Viper" who is the white secretary for Japan's Minister of Justice. As I previously mentioned the bulk of the filming is still set for Vancouver, but Variety reports that the film will still shoot some scenes in Tokyo and filming is scheduled for next year when Hugh wraps on LES MIS.

For those of you unfamiliar with Bomback's work check out LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD, UNSTOPPABLE, GODSEND, DECEPTION and the remake of RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN. Unfortunately that filmography does not inspire great confidence in me for the re-write of this particular film and I'd like to know what's wrong with the original script anyway?? Unfortunately for THE WOLVERINE it's becoming more and more like the recent flop GREEN LANTERN, which changed release dates about 16 times and was rushed at the end because producers wanted it done! If it ever makes it to the screen I'll give it a go, but I don't have high hopes for it unfortunately, especially after the did such a good job with X-MEN FIRST CLASS.

I will keep you posted as there are sure to be more updates on this one along the way.

MARGARET - trailer

Here's the new trailer for Kenneth Lonergan's MARGARET. It's the long awaited follow-up to Lonergan's YOU CAN COUNT ON ME.

Here's the official synopsis;

MARGARET centers on a 17-year-old New York City high school student who feels certain that she inadvertently played a role in a traffic accident that claimed a woman's life. In her attempts to set things right she meets opposition at every step. Torn apart with frustration, she begins emotionally brutalising her family, her friends, her teachers, and most of all, herself. She has been confronted quite unexpectedly with a basic truth: that her youthful ideas are on a collision course against the realities and compromises of the adult world.


Starring Anna Paquin, Matt Damon, Mark Ruffalo and Allison Janney, MARGARET hits silver screens in the States on September 30. No Australian release date as yet.

THE AVENGERS - sneak peak

This is not footage from the film, but a one-shot with a hint of what might go on behind the scenes at S.H.I.E.L.D.

For some reason the video uploader won't work right now, so click the link below to check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgUjlH4vywM

CLOUD ATLAS - updates

I told you that the cast of the upcoming CLOUD ATLAS would each be playing multiple characters and in a recent interview with Vulture Ben Whishaw spilled the beans on just how intense it's going to get.

Whishaw told Vulture, "Everyone in the case is playing at least three parts, some big and some small...Everybody's swapping race and gender, so it's very ambitious and quite fun." Whishaw gives a little hint on his parts as well..."Forbisher in the thirties; a female American in the seventies, in the Luisa Rey section; and a smallish role, where I'm basically an extra, in a modern-day nursing home, in the Timothy Cavendish section."

As I said in my last post about CLOUD ATLAS, I've yet to read it, but those who have say it's going to be a tough adaptation, especially taking this multi-character approach. However it turns out, I'm looking forward to getting stuck into the book this weekend, and then seeing the film when it comes out.