Category: External Movies (Page 220 of 336)

Today in casting news

September 23, 2009 /

There are times when I really think I shouldn’t mention another single casting related story. There are so many, and the news so often changes several times before the first day of shooting, that it seems kind of pointless. Nevertheless, today brings us a few such items that sort of demand a little attention.

* I don’t think I’ve mentioned the word that’s been floating around for a while now that Brad Pitt will apparently be opposite Robert Downey, Jr. playing the role of Sherlock Holmes’ archnemisis, Prof. James Moriarity, aka “the Napoleon of Crime.” Though it appears he’ll only be in a cameo role, if at all, in the upcoming “Sherlock Holmes” film directed by Guy Ritchie, he’ll apparently be handling head villain duties in the already-planned for sequel — assuming, of course, that the first film is reasonably profitable.

If you can’t get enough of excessively early speculation, Spout’s Christopher Campbell was way ahead of me and rounded that all up as of yesterday. Pitt seems an unusual choice, but he’s always seemed to do better in character roles than leading man parts, and Downey is a genius at bringing a bit of character to leading man roles, so there’s a nice bit of symmetry here.

* If one or even two well known leads can’t guarantee box office success, why not try four and add a cult-comedy kicker? That seems to be thinking behind the latest collaboration of comedy writer-director Adam McKay and post “Land of the Lost“-still-megastar Will Ferrell.

As described by MTV’s Mike Wigler and THR‘s Mike Fleming, “The Other Guys” is a post “Hot Fuzz” spin on the buddy-cop genre in which Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne “No Longer the Rock” Johnson will attempt to allow a day in the sun for presumably bumbling, non-supercop ne’er do wells Ferrell and Mark “It’s been Decades Since I’ve Been ‘Marky Mark!” Wahlberg.  Only time will tell if this funky bunch — which also includes English comic Steve Coogan of “Tropic Thunder” and “24 Hour Party People” — delivers at the box office, but all five of these guys have proven they can be varying degrees of funny.

For some reason Jackson  hasn’t had much luck with out-and-out comedies. (He once remarked wryly that, “They were all funny while we were making them.”) Personally, I’d like to see him break that particular curse. I’m sure he would too.

Action Movies, Actors, External Entertainment, External Movies, Movie Comedies, Movies, News

Disney, Diablo, and the King Kirby clan’s Spidey claim

September 23, 2009 /

Just  a few interesting items in recent movieworld news.

* Nikki Finke selects a possible future “toldja” candidate for the next Disney chairman. Toothy, bespectacled Rich Ross is not a name that’s likely to excite movie fans, as his background is pretty much Disney Channel material. Interesting comments on this one.

* Fresh on the heels of the bad box office of  the graphic comedy horror flick, “Jennifer’s Body,” “Juno” authoress Diablo Cody’s next outing will be a major dialing down of the “edgy” factor, as she will be adopting the Sweet Valley High book series for the movies. I had only heard of the television series until I saw this item, but according to the Heat Vision blog, a humongous 150 of the books were published between 1983 and 2003 and 60 million copies are in print. That’s not small and reminds me of a female-skewing variant on classic pulp series based on characters like the Shadow and Doc Savage.

Attaching Cody to this project strikes me as a canny move. Not only is she apparently a fan, but giving it to a writer with a known “edge” might broaden the appeal to cynics and, possibly, males. I’m far from Cody’s biggest fan, but I’m still a lot more likely to check out the movie than I would have been otherwise.

* Also courtesy of Heat Vision, the Jack Kirby estate law suit against the Disney owned Marvel continues to play out. The THR blog’s Borys Kits and Matthew Belloni say that they’ve seen some of the legal “termination notices” and that this might be a more sweeping suit that was thought. To me, the really interesting portion of this is that one of the notices was for Spiderman, a character Kirby never drew that’s usually credited largely to the eccentric and brilliant Steve Ditko. However…

According to several accounts, Kirby, with his Captain America co-creator Joe Simon, did create a character called the Silver Spider, whose alter ego was an orphaned boy living with two elderly people, and that character was morphed into Spider-Man. Other accounts have the Silver Spider becoming the Fly for another comic company.

It gets a lot broader than that, with the Kirby claiming some possession of several Spidey supporting characters, but that may be just so much legal jockeying. We’ll see.

Action Movies, External Entertainment, External Movies, Movies, News, Sci-Fi Movies, TV

Ann Miller saves the day

September 23, 2009 /

I’ve had a real keister-kicker of a day today — mostly in a good way. Nevertheless, I basically have no energy left and not a brain cell to spare for any wondrous words of filmic wisdom for you tonight. So, instead I present the cure for what ails me, energy wise. The leggy, chubby-cheeked dancer extraordinaire of the classic era, Ms. Ann Miller, here ably assisted by Betty Garrett, Jules Munshin, Gene Kelly, and Frank Sinatra.

This clip, by the way, is from “On the Town” which will be included in an upcoming Bullz-Eye feature. Stay tuned.

Actors, Actresses, External Entertainment, External Movies, Movies

Two trailers: A Seriously Single Man

September 22, 2009 /

This year’s edition of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF to its friends) might have been a “bloodbath” business wise, but that’s doesn’t mean it was a total loss. Anyhow, it seems like a good time to show trailers for two of its most acclaimed films that really may be coming to a theater fairly near you, at least if you live in a reasonably large city. The coincidental part is these similarly named films each deal with a minority group very frequently found on films sets, but who appear openly on camera as characters only from time to time, though more and more often of late.

Anyhow, we’ll start with the Jews and proof that we, too, enjoy a natural sense of rhythm.

The trailer for Tom Ford’s likely Oscar contender might not be as flat-out mold-breaking as the trailer for the Coens’ latest, but this trailer for Ford’s adaptation of a novel by the openly gay British-American Angeleno, Christopher Isherwood, is definitely classy and stylish. That’s fitting for one of the few films made by someone with a background as a clothes designer.

External Entertainment, External Movies, Movie Dramas, Movies

Director Richard Lester invents the rock video

September 21, 2009 /

Figuring out a more natural way to present the playing of music with an assist from the French New Wave directors in “A Hard Day’s Night.”

Moving from enormous charm to more visual sophistication and a new color palette in “Help!”

It’s important, of course, to acknowledge the contribution to these scenes of two great cinematographers, Gilbert Taylor and David Watkin. The Beatles were also kind of helpful.

External Entertainment, External Movies, Movie Comedies, Movies

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