Posts

The Poster For ‘Straw Dogs’ Is Also A Remake By Russ Fischer/June 15, 2011 9:53 am EST Last night, director Rod Lurie debuted the poster for his remake of Straw Dogs via Twitter. Or he debuted a poster; this may not be the final promo image, but it is the latest representation of the movie to come from an official source. And it is striking as hell, because the poster recreates the poster to Sam Peckinpah’s 1971 original in minute detail, with a little added photoshoppery....

VOTD: The Making Of ‘Portal: No Escape’ By Russ Fischer/Sept. 12, 2011 1:30 pm EST Dan Trachtenberg’s short film Portal: No Escape made quite a splash when it hit the internet a couple weeks back. The short is set in the world of Valve’s Portal video games — a world noted for not quite ethical corporate experimentation on human subjects and advanced technology such as the ‘gun’ that can open two physically disconnected portals in space....

Why Does The Poster For ‘Unknown’ Hate Liam Neeson’s Face? By Russ Fischer/Nov. 24, 2010 11:01 am EST We may receive a commission on purchases made from links. Time to crown a new champ in the ‘awful Photoshop’ category of movie poster design. The previous winner was Takers, which took the title thanks to the unnaturally large heads of T.I. and Hayden Christiansen. But now, thanks to the melting face of Liam Neeson, the poster for Unknown is the latest big loser....

‘1911 Revolution’ Trailer: Jackie Chan Goes To War By Germain Lussier/Sept. 21, 2011 1:00 pm EST Jackie Chan is both in front and behind the camera for 1911 Revolution, which was formerly just called 1911, an action-packed retelling of one of the most important battles in Chinese history. The film centers on the Xinhai Revolution, otherwise known as the Chinese Revolution, in which nationalist forces rose up to take down the Qing Dynasty and established the Republic of China....

‘Machine Gun Preacher’ Trailer: God, Or Guns, Will Save Your Soul By Russ Fischer/Aug. 19, 2011 12:30 pm EST The story behind Machine Gun Preacher is inspiring: Sam Childers traded criminal activity for a life attempting to rescue children in Sudan who would otherwise be co-opted into warfare by the Lord’s Resistance Army. But the movie that dramatises Sam Childers’ story — Gerard Butler stands in for Childers, with a seemingly unstable accent — looks like total by the numbers superficial claptrap....

‘Neighborhood Watch’ Promos Pulled From Florida In Wake Of Trayvon Martin Killing By Russ Fischer/March 27, 2012 4:30 pm EST Studio reps tell the trade there are no plans to change the film’s July 27 release date, and it sounds like plans are to keep the title, which in truth was set long before the terrible shooting took place. A studio rep is quoted saying, We are very sensitive to the Trayvon Martin case, but our film is a broad alien-invasion comedy and bears absolutely no relation to the tragic events in Florida....

By Angie Han/Aug. 30, 2012 11:00 am EST Sparkle proved something of a disappointment with lukewarm reviews and an even more lackluster box office performance, but happily there’s another, more promising ’60s girl group movie coming up on the horizon. Based on a true story, The Sapphires centers around a quartet of Australian Aboriginal girls (Deborah Mailman, Jessica Mauboy, Shari Sebbens, and Miranda Tapsell) discovered one night by an oft-drunk but well-meaning talent scout (Bridesmaids’ Chris O’Dowd)....

‘Your Highness’ Trailer By Peter Sciretta/Dec. 21, 2010 1:30 pm EST In November, Universal Pictures has released a restricted NSFW Red Band Movie Trailer for Pineapple Express helmer David Gordon Green’s fantasy comedy Your Highness, which stars Danny McBride, James Franco, Natalie Portman, Zooey Deschanel, Justin Theroux, and Toby Jones. Today they have finally released a green band trailer (you will notice some digital enhancements…) Ben Best wrote the script with McBride, which tells the story of “an arrogant, lazy prince (McBride) who must complete a quest to save his father’s kingdom....

A Cast Of Kings S2E03 - What Is Dead May Never Die By David Chen/April 16, 2012 7:00 pm EST A Cast of Kings is a podcast featuring recaps and reviews of each week’s episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones. This week, Joanna and Dave discuss the second season’s third episode, “What Is Dead May Never Die.” E-mail us and let us know what you thought of the episode, as well as of the podcast, at acastofkings@gmail....

Alexander Skarsgård Joins Brit Marling In ‘The East’ By Russ Fischer/Aug. 23, 2011 11:00 am EST What’s up with the pedigree? This new film is a smaller one, but those who’ve been following the post-Sundance boom for Brit Marling’s two starring films Another Earth and Sound of My Voice will recognize The East as the film she’s working on with Zal Batmanglij, her co-writer and director on Sound of My Voice....

Ben Affleck To Direct Stephen King’s ‘The Stand’ By Germain Lussier/Oct. 21, 2011 5:05 pm EST Who saw this one coming? Maybe only the Walkin’ Dude. Warner Bros. has moved away from Harry Potter director David Yates to direct their big screen version of Stephen King’s The Stand and onto Ben Affleck. The screenwriter/ actor turned acclaimed director is currently making Argo but is now reportedly the studio’s top choice to helm King’s massive tome about a virus that annihilates the entire world save for a few choice survivors who begin to share the same apocalyptic dreams....

Ben Affleck Will Force ‘Argo’ Cast To Live Like Hostages By Germain Lussier/June 15, 2011 7:00 am EST And with his third film, director Ben Affleck channeled Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock famously said that actors should be “treated like cattle” and Affleck, who previously directed Gone Baby Gone and The Town, will be herding six actors from his upcoming film Argo into a house and forcing them to live like hostages for two weeks....

Casting Bits: Colin Firth In ‘The Railway Man’, Thomas Haden Church In ‘Nothing To Fear’, Shirley Maclaine, Alan Arkin, And Vera Farmiga In ‘The Locals’ By Angie Han/Sept. 13, 2011 10:00 am EST Oscar winner Colin Firth has just added another project to his slate: the epic drama The Railway Man. The film will be directed by Jonathan Teplitzky (Better Than Sex, Burning Man) from Andy Paterson and Frank Cottrell Boyce, adapted from Eric Lomax’s memoir of the same title....

Casting Bits: Julia Stiles In ‘Silver Linings Playbook’, Chris Tucker Enters Final Talks; Aubrey Plaza In ‘Charlie Swan’; Paul Walker In ‘Hours’ By Angie Han/Oct. 6, 2011 10:00 am EST Julia Stiles is set to co-star in David O. Russell’s The Silver Linings Playbook, based on Matthew Quick’s novel. The story centers around a former high school teacher (Bradley Cooper) who’s just been released from a four-year stint at a mental hospital into the care of his mother (Jacki Weaver)....

Check Out Concept Art And Info For Weta’s ‘Panzer 88’ By Russ Fischer/Aug. 25, 2010 3:00 pm EST Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back producer Gary Kurtz is going back to big effects films with Panzer 88. We first heard about the film very briefly last year, when Hellboy co-writer Peter Briggs was said to be directing “a supernatural horror film set in a German tank during WW2.” At the time, Briggs said he’d been having meetings with Kurtz, and the producer is now completely on board, along with the effects gurus at WETA, who will bring the $20m indie to life....

Comic Con Staying In San Diego Through 2015 By Russ Fischer/Sept. 30, 2010 11:32 pm EST There’s not too much more to this than what’s in the headline; after a great deal of back and forth about possibly moving the San Diego Comic Con to another city, such as Anaheim, the con has decided to stay put. The organization had previously been contracted to do business in San Diego through 2012, and the imminent end of that period kickstarted speculation about moving....

Don Cheadle’s Miles Davis Movie Will Be A Cubist Gangster Pic, Whatever That Means By Angie Han/Jan. 3, 2012 3:00 pm EST When we first reported on the impending Miles Davis biopic from Notorious director George Tillman Jr. this past fall, we wondered how that news might affect the other Davis picture, which actor Don Cheadle has been developing for the past several years. As it turns out, Cheadle’s not too worried — because his story won’t be a straightforward biopic so much as a “cubist” “gangster pic” set in 1979, when the iconic American musician wasn’t even active in the music world....

Infographic: The Future According To Film By Russ Fischer/Sept. 2, 2011 1:00 pm EST Movies have a spectacularly bad track record when it comes to predicting the future; if we believe in RoboCop, for example, we’ll have giant watchdog robots going crazy in executive boardrooms within three years. But that doesn’t make films that cast an eye to the future any less entertaining. Michael Hobson, aka @tremulantdesign, has created a nice infographic that collates possible futures from dozens of films and graphs them on a handy timeline....

Iron Man 2 / Tron Legacy Viral Updates: Leaked Footage From Stark Industries Presentation And Space Paranoids Teaser Trailer By Peter Sciretta/April 14, 2010 11:52 pm EST A couple viral updates for Iron Man 2 and Tron Legacy. First up, a new video has turned up on YouTube which appears to be a bootleg clip from a presentation of technology from Stark Industries. I’m not sure if there are any clues in this short 33 second clip, or if more will be coming in the following days, but check it out after the jump....

Jake Scott To Direct Biopic Of Musician Jeff Buckley By Angie Han/April 11, 2011 8:00 am EST Jake Scott (Welcome to the Rileys) has just signed on to direct a biopic about Jeff Buckley, from a script by Ryan Jaffe (The Rocker). Buckley, if you’re not familiar, was an influential musician from the ’90s who died in a tragic accident at the age of 30. You may recognize his biggest hit song, a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah....