Posts

VOTD: ‘Raiders Of The Lost Archives’ Compares Raiders With Old Adventure Films By Russ Fischer/Jan. 2, 2012 1:00 pm EST Steven Spielberg and George Lucas famously created the first Indiana Jones film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, as a loving homage to the adventure films and serials that they loved in their youth. Elements of those movies are everywhere in Raiders, even as the Spielberg film is defined by a specific post-Jaws blockbuster sensibility....

VOTD: Paul Thomas Anderson And The Symmetry Of ‘There Will Be Blood’ By Peter Sciretta/Sept. 20, 2012 11:00 am EST Press Play created an interesting 8-minute video essay on The Symmetry of ‘There Will Be Blood’. The essay takes a look at how director Paul Thomas Anderson has used symmetry throughout his career, but most specifically how it is used in There Will Be Blood to explore “visual rhyme and balance”....

‘Battle: LA’ Director Jonathan Liebesman Signed For ‘Epic’ Julius Caesar Film By Russ Fischer/July 13, 2011 2:00 pm EST I’m not certain that I’d say Battle: Los Angeles director Jonathan Liebesman truly delivered with that ground-level aliens attack movie, but he certainly made an impression on Warner Bros. The studio already has the guy directing the Clash of the Titans sequel that is wrapping this week. As a follow-up to that picture, he is now signed to make an “epic-sized” account of Roman leader Gaius Julius Caesar....

‘Fast Five’ Trailer #2 By Germain Lussier/March 8, 2011 9:15 am EST Yahoo Movies has just premiered the brand new trailer for Fast Five, the fifth film in the Fast and the Furious franchise, scheduled for release on April 29. Stars Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, Jordana Brewster, Ludacirs, Tyrese and Sung Kang all return from the previous films and face off against a specialized law officer played by Dwayne Johnson. Directed by Justin Lin, who also did the third and fourth films, it will play in both regular and IMAX formats....

‘House At The End Of The Street’ Trailer - Katniss Everdeen As Standard-Issue Scream Queen By Angie Han/June 1, 2012 5:00 pm EST The Hunger Games launched Jennifer Lawrence into a whole new level career-wise, and she’s got no shortage of promising new projects due out over the next couple of years. She’s already finished shooting David O. Russell’s The Silver Linings Playbook and is currently tied up with Susanne Bier’s Serena, and beyond that she’s got sequels lined up for both The Hunger Games and X-Men: First Class....

‘Sesame Street’ Headed To Big Screen By Angie Han/June 21, 2012 10:00 am EST After Kermit and his gang (re)took Hollywood by storm last year, the town suddenly and predictably rediscovered a love for Jim Henson. A second Muppets movie quickly got underway, NBC picked up a new puppet sitcom, The Happytime Murders got a kickstart with the casting of Katherine Heigl, Fraggle Rock hired new writers, and earlier this week, the BBC announced the Muppet Show-esque No Strings Attached....

‘Shark Night 3D’ Director David Ellis To Remake Anime ‘Kite’ By Russ Fischer/Sept. 2, 2011 2:30 pm EST The latest film from Final Destination 2 and Snakes on a Plane director David R. Ellis is Shark Night 3D, which opens in theaters today. That makes this afternoon a good time to announce his next film, which will likely be a remake of the anime OVA Kite (aka A Kite), which was directed by Yasuomi Umetsu and released in 1998....

‘The Bourne Legacy’ Teaser Trailer: Jeremy Renner Is The New Bourne By Russ Fischer/Feb. 8, 2012 9:35 am EST Tony Gilroy, the writer who provided the script backbone for the three Matt Damon Bourne movies, has started a parallel Bourne series, which kicks off with the film The Bourne Legacy. This picture features Jeremy Renner as a Jason Bourne-like agent. A teaser trailer has just been released for the fim that will give you the first look at Renner in secret agent mode, as well as at Ed Norton and Rachel Weisz, and the returning Albert Finney and Joan Allen....

‘The Darkest Hour’ Trailer #2; Everything You’d Want From A Trailer In 60 Seconds By Germain Lussier/Dec. 6, 2011 4:49 pm EST Ask someone to list all the big movies coming out this holiday season and, odds are, they’d forget about The Darkest Hour. Summit’s Christmas Day sci-fi film starring Emile Hirsch and Olivia Thirlby as Americans stuck in Moscow who must fight an invisible, energy-sucking alien enemy, hasn’t gotten the kind of massive push Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol or Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows has....

‘The Hangover: Part III’ May Not Have The Exact Same Plot As The First Two Films By David Chen/June 8, 2011 8:30 am EST A significant amount of discussion about the quality of The Hangover: Part II revolved around the fact that it was basically a remake of the first film, both in its plot structure and in its story beats. In a column on the subject, Matt Singer writes the following:...

Albert Pyun’s 1990 ‘Captain America’ Is Getting A Director’s Cut By Russ Fischer/March 22, 2011 2:00 pm EST When is another studio’s movie a marketing dream? When you’re sitting on a twenty-year old stinker that can ride the coattails of another company’s marketing push to make a few extra bucks. Such is the case with the 1990 version of Captain America directed by Albert Pyun. Whether the movie might have ever been good is open to question....

Benjamin Walker Cast As ‘Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter’ By Russ Fischer/Jan. 27, 2011 6:40 pm EST Variety confirmed that the actor will show up as the sixteenth president — or the fantasy, vampire-killing version of him, at least — in the adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith’s novel. He took the role over four other actors (Adrien Brody, Josh Lucas, James D’Arcy and Oliver Jackson-Cohen) after all screen tested. Mr Bekmambetov will direct the 3D film from a script by Seth Grahame-Smith....

By Angie Han/Jan. 18, 2012 11:00 am EST After the jump, Tommy Lee Jones is a legendary American hero and Shirley MacLaine is Ben Stiller’s mom. Written by David Klass and Vera Blasi, Emperor centers around General Bonner Fellers (Matthew Fox), one of MacArthur’s staff and the man tasked with deciding whether Emperor Hirohito should be tried and hanged as a war criminal. Meanwhile, Fellers is also searching for Aya, a Japanese exchange student he fell in love with years before in the U....

Casting Bits: Will Forte In ‘Rock Of Ages’, Christopher Lloyd In ‘Dead Before Dawn’, Christa Campbell In ‘The Big Wedding’ By Angie Han/July 12, 2011 4:48 pm EST The star-studded cast of Rock of Ages is still continuing to expand, with the addition of Saturday Night Live vet Will Forte. Forte has won the role of news anchor Mitch Miley, a new character written especially for Adam Shankman’s film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical....

Casting Notes: Paul Dano And Clancy Brown In Cowboys & Aliens; Tucci And Gugino In Margin Call; Hopkins And Hoffman In The Song Of Names By Russ Fischer/May 16, 2010 5:13 pm EST The Cowboys & Aliens cast keeps getting better and better. Starting with Daniel Craig and Sam Rockwell, then there was the addition of Harrison Ford (I’m praying for a career revival here) with Olivia Wilde and Noah Ringer....

Dan Aykroyd Joins Political Comedy ‘Dog Fight’ By Russ Fischer/Dec. 23, 2011 12:30 pm EST Here’s something that will keep Dan Aykroyd from beating his giant Ghostbusters 3 drum for a minute: the comic actor and enthusiastic vodka pitchman has a small role in the political comedy Dog Fight, alongside Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis. The film, shooting now under the direction of Jay Roach (Austin Powers, Meet the Parents) is a political satire that features Ferrell and Galifianakis as rival South Carolina politicians with an eye on the White House....

David O. Russell Out Of Drake’s Fortune By Adam Quigley/Aug. 3, 2010 3:56 pm EST This was pretty much a given. Ever since the Three Kings and I Heart Huckabees director was announced as being in the running to direct the adaptation of the video game Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, the choice seemed too odd to ever manifest itself as anything more than a fun discussion piece. And as the fates would have it, that’s now the case....

Dreamworks Announces Plans For How To Train Your Dragon Sequel By David Chen/Oct. 11, 2010 6:09 am EST When we first learned a few months ago that How To Train Your Dragon would be getting a sequel (out in 2013), there were a lot of details still up in the air. Would the original cast return? What of the talented filmmakers of the original, Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois? Would they be coming back too?...

Emma Watson Joins The Cast Of ‘My Week With Marilyn’ By Russ Fischer/Sept. 24, 2010 1:03 pm EST Briefly: It’s almost difficult to believe that Emma Watson’s only live-action film role has been Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films. (She did voice a character in one animated film, The Tales of Desperaux, which is the break the Potter-only streak.) Now, with the Potter series all but wrapped and the core cast starting to move on, Ms....

First Look: ‘The Lorax’, Featuring The Voices Of Danny Devito, Ed Helms And Betty White By Russ Fischer/Oct. 25, 2010 8:30 am EST Looking only at live-action films such as The Cat in the Hat, you’d think the books of Dr. Seuss are better left to the page. But Chuck Jones has proved that animation, guided by a careful hand, is a fine way to bring the author’s stories to the screen....