Last month it was reported that Dan Fogelman’s long-gestating script Last Vegas was finally going to be put into production. After several stops and starts, the story of four aged friends going to Vegas for one last crazy bachelor’s party was said to be going forward with Jon Turteltaub set to direct and Michael Douglas signed on to star. That was what we knew for sure – who would be signed to fill out the rest of the film’s wrinkly but still rocking quartet was up in the air.

Early reports had Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken rumored as being likely candidates for two of the characters, and since that time De Niro has indeed become confirmed, but nothing further has been said about Walken’s involvement. Today Deadline Greenwood has some new info regarding the film’s casting process, and how their scouring of Tinsel Town’s old folks homes is going. Apparently veteran actor and all around suave fellow Morgan Freeman is currently in negotiations to join the cast. This can only be seen as a terrific choice, because not only is Freeman a recognizable name who can pull off anything that’s asked of him, but he’s also already got experience being in an old-guys-doing-stuff movie because of his work in The Bucket List.

If those early rumors were true and Walken is still a strong contender to take on the role of the fourth reveler, then that would make Last Vegas a project with enough star power to have some real box office potential; even if it isn’t necessarily aimed toward the demographic studio execs most covet. Could Last Vegas be the movie that does for old dudes what Bridesmaids did for women? Only time will tell, but it seems like they’re really making a go of it over there in the casting room.

Despite a dud for a title, John Carney‘s Can A Song Save Your Life? sounds intriguing, particularly when you consider that Carney is the man who brought us the incredibly charming Once and that he had lined up a somewhat unexpected pair to top-line his production. Back in February, the project was announced with Scarlett Johansson on board to play a young singer looking to break into the music biz after a bad break-up, alongside Mark Ruffalo as a record producer who turns her life around (professionally and personally) . It was set to be a fun little reunion for the Avengers pair, something more romantic and pleasing to the ears.

But now Johansson is out and Ruffalo’s name is nowhere to be seen in the latest dispatch regarding the film. ScreenDaily reports (via Cinema Blend), that Johansson has stepped away from the project for “personal reasons,” and that her role will now be played by Keira Knightley (not an entirely bad swap, really). The news reports that Exclusive Media will financing and producing the film, in addition to selling it at Cannes, and as far as other stars, it only mentions Hailee Steinfeld (who is set to play the producer’s daughter), there’s nothing about Ruffalo. With the ‘Ruff (go with it) making such a big splash in The Avengers, it seems unlikely that an upcoming production wouldn’t be trading on his name any way they can. Is he out, too?

David Gordon Green has been talking about helming a remake of Dario Argento’s warped ballet-academy-turned-witch-coven horror movie classic Suspiria for so long that it started to sound like a project that was never really going to happen. But then, a little over a month ago, a press release came out officially naming it as the director’s next project. Suddenly the idea that there was actually going to be a new take on Suspiria coming our way looked a lot more likely. And now that the first round of casting on the film has been completed, cold hard reality has set in.

Variety reports that the film’s lead role, that of a young student from America who travels to a well-respected, European ballet academy, has gone to Isabelle Fuhrman. At only the age of 15, Fuhrman is an actress still at the very beginning of her career, but many people might already know her as the creepy little girl in Orphan, or for playing the side character of Clove in this year’s smash hit The Hunger Games.

You need more than just one young girl to remake Suspiria, however, you need a whole crew of evil, European freaks as well – and Screen Daily brings us an update on how Green’s work is going on that front. According to the site, Fuhrman will be joined by a supporting cast that includes names like The Piano Teacher’s Isabelle Huppert, Albert Nobbs’ Janet McTeer, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’s Michael Nyqvist, and Pandorum’s Antje Traue. That’s a talented group of multi-cultural evil people if I’ve ever seen one.

Add all of this acting talent to the fact that Green is re-teaming with his always impressive production designer Richard A. Wright and cinematographer Tim Orr, as well as bringing on Oscar-winning costume designer Milena Canonero, and Suspiria is starting to look more and more like a project worth watching. You know…even though we’ve already seen it all before. Shooting is scheduled to start in September.

Despite being trapped in the constricted 1880′s, Dr. Joseph Mortimer Granville (Hugh Dancy) is a forward-thinker, a believer in germ theory (can you imagine a time when doctors chalked the existence of germs up to a theory?), meaning that he doesn’t fit in with his counterparts at London’s many hospitals, which is why he’s been fired from just about all of them. Desperate for a position – any kind of position – the good doctor lands an assistant job at Dr. Robert Dalrymple’s (Jonathan Pryce) clinic, working for the rich and popular doctor who specializes in something very, very unique: the treatment of female hysteria. Traditionally speaking, “hysteria” was used as a blanket term of any kind of lady trouble for centuries, with the term originating in 4th century BCE. Hysteria was seen as a particular scourge on ladies in the Victorian era – “the plague of our time” – and was believed to effect half of the female population. Dalrymple eases his patients by way of a procedure referred to as “pelvic massage.”

You can guess what “pelvic massage” really was. No, really, you can. There’s a picture up top and everything.

Mortimer snaps up the job and begins training, approaching his subjects in a very clinical manner – both he and Dalrymple act as if their “treatments” are purely medicinal, no more personal than yanking a tooth or setting a bone. Of course, it’s not just the two doctors who look at their “pelvic massages” in such a way, just about everyone in Tanya Wexler‘s Hysteria refuses to acknowledge just what it is that’s going on below the waist. The only person who seems hip to what a “hysterical paroxysm” really is (hint: it’s an orgasm) happens to be the brash, out-spoken, headstrong Charlotte Dalyrmple (Maggie Gyllenhaal). Gyllenhaal’s character understands the nature of hysteria, pelvic massages, and hysterical paroxysms in a no-nonsense manner, just as mystified as the audience that no one has bothered to figure the damn thing out. Unlike her father and her mild-mannered sister (Felicity Jones in a totally throwaway role), Charlotte not only understands what’s going on in the world (beyond rich women getting off under the guise of a medical issue), she’s out to change it – like Mortimer, she’s a modern person in a backward time. Of course she charms him. As unexpected as their abbreviated courtship is, both Dancy and Gyllenhaal are marvelously fun to watch, consistently charming and amusing, even when the rest of the film falls flat.

While Granville did indeed help invent the world’s first electric vibrator, the film’s screenwriters, Stephen Dyer and Jonah Lisa Dyer, have taken significant liberties with his story. Granville didn’t work for a Dr. Dalrymple (or even another doctor with Dalrymple’s precise focus), he wasn’t entangled in a love triangle with two sisters, he didn’t even invent his “Granville’s Hammer” for the purpose of relieving hysteria. In fact, Granville was mortified when he discovered what his device was being used for (and, apparently, even tried to stop it being used in that fashion). What the Dyers and Wexler have done with Hysteria is to take a small kernel of fact, popping it up into one great, big puffy bit. It’s a forgivable cinematic take on things, as Granville’s true life story reads as pretty dry, and it’s an admirable way to convey what boils down to historical trivia.

Hysteria does have a tremendous amount of fun with its subject matter, playing it for all manner of laughs, sight gags, and slips of tongue. The film is relentlessly light-hearted and fluffy, making even its toughest moments feel airy as a souffle. It’s an exceedingly convenient way to present the story, as the history of hysteria as diagnosis is a complicated one, a “medical condition” that hinges on such heavy topics as sexism, equality between the sexes, and a lack of understanding regarding not just sex as an act but sex as a means to bond relationships. Basically, calling a woman “hysterical” was a quick way to declare her to be nutty, unstable, insane, and inconsequential. While the more dramatic effects of declaring a woman to be truly hysterical come into play late in the film, Wexler keeps the entire enterprise humming right along, lighter than air, and even more transparent and utterly weightless.

The film clocks in at a swift 95 minutes – a too swift 95 minutes, really, as the film packs in plot point after plot point, skipping and skimming merrily over all sorts of crucial bits, important pieces of character development, which means Hysteria delivers some real clunkers of development. There’s a lot of “wait, how did we get here?” in the film, particularly in its final third, and Hysteria could have quite easily stretched on for another half an hour. As is, it’s a bit of a fast and loose take on history that’s never nearly as pleasing or complex as it should be. There’s plenty of paroxysm here, but not nearly enough massage to make it really pop.

The Upside: Elevated by pleasing performances and a frequently amusing and fluffy tone, Hysteria is the sex-themed movie you can take your parents to see.

The Downside: Wexler and the Dyers’ attempts to turn the history of the vibrator indeed a fun film is admirable, but the film presents a way too clean and compact view of both history and Dr. Granville himself; creative takes on history (i.e. making up the good doctor’s romantic travails) are fine enough, but not when their service cuts away at anything truly interesting and meaningful.

On the Side: The vibrator was the fifth domestic appliance to be electrified, after the sewing machine, fan, tea kettle, and toaster, and about a decade before the vacuum cleaner and electric iron.

This is actually sort of brilliant. Variety reports that Sony and Scott Rudin Productions are in “early talks” with filmmaker Greg Mottola to pen their adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides’s “The Marriage Plot.” As of now, word is that Mottola would both write and produce, though he’d be a surprisingly great pick to direct the film. Why, you may ask? Why would the dude who directed Superbad be a good bet to craft a big screen adaptation of a Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s latest work?

It’s simple. Mottola knows how to make audiences care about assholes. And, good God almighty, are the characters in “The Marriage Plot” assholes.

I’ll lay it out here – I am a huge fan of Eugenides’s work. “The Virgin Suicides” is a masterful slice of deep, dark Americana and feminine longing. “Middlesex,” though it did win the Pulitzer Prize, is still not nearly as lauded as it should be – it’s truly “a great American novel.” In those books, Eugenides crafted memorable, multi-faceted characters that engage readers and stick with them long after the books are finished. It pains me to say that the characters of Eugenides’ latest, a book I anticipated for years, are not like those characters that populate “Suicides” or “Middlesex.

The book centers on three characters, routinely switching between their perspectives as narrators, though it all unquestionably swirls around recent college grad Madeleine Hanna. Madeleine makes the Lisbon sisters look like wise old sages, wizened voices of reason and maturity – but that’s not to say that Madeleine doesn’t feel real. She does. But you would never want to be her friend. English major Madeleine has old-school interests, and while her peers are reading modern authors, she’s stuck in an obsession with classics by Austen and Eliot, particularly interested in “the marriage plot” that was so popular when they were writing.

Madeleine develops strong and unexpected feelings for the sexy (and dangerous?) Leonard Bankhead, a loner, a loser, a loose cannon who has a lot to hide. Meanwhile, Christian scholar Mitchell Grammaticus, one of Madeleine’s first friends at college, is fixated on her, his feelings going far past just a common crush. The three intersect and interact throughout the novel, and though the trio all play at grown-up things and grown-up feelings, they are stunningly immature. They’re hard to read. They’re hard to take. And Mottola could make them lovable.

He’s done it in Superbad and Adventureland and Paul, and he could do it now. Moreover, despite my distaste for Eugenides’s characters, he’s built something inherently cinematic into his book and in the way the three view themselves and each other. Each chapter told by a different character reveals unexpected bits about all of them, and these insights unfold gracefully throughout the entire book. It could be a joy to watch in a film, and it could even change my mind about how much I dislike Madeleine, Leonard, and Marcus.

Aussie multi-hyphenate Joel Edgerton has a full plate (we will next see him in The Odd Life of Timothy Green, The Great Gatsby, and Zero Dark Thirty orwhateveritiswerecallingitnow), but that’s not stopping him from expanding his resume to continue to include writing and directing ventures. News from Cannes reveals that Edgerton will next star in Felony, a film to be directed by Matthew Saville from Edgerton’s own script. Edgerton previously co-wrote The Square, a nasty little film noir with a big bite, and he’s also penned a number of shorts for Blue-Tongue Films (the Aussie conglomerate that also includes his brother Nash Edgerton, Kieran Darcy-Smith, David Michod, Spencer Susser, and more).

Felony will center on Edgerton’s character, a lauded police officer who makes the critical mistake of driving home after imbibing “a celebration drink with his team after the long waited bust of a major gang, [he] runs a young cyclist off the road. As he gives CPR to the child, fellow officers arrive to take his statement. In a split second decision he tells them a lie about the accident which will change all their lives in this edge of your seat thriller.” If you’re familiar with The Square, you’ll know just how adept Edgerton is at crafting thrillers that spin wildly (yet believably) out of control. Felony sounds like a perfect fit.

Saville, while not well-known in the States, is a big talent in Australia. Most notably, his feature film Noise (2007) was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. He has directed a number of episodes of popular Aussie televisions series, including We Can Be Heroes. The Slap, Tangle, and Please Like Me. He also directed the mini-series Cloudstreet, which helped earn him a 2012 Australian Directors Guild Award.

The film will be financed by The Solution, who are handling international distribution rights for it, which they plan on selling at Cannes. The Solution are also handling Pierce Brosnan’s November Man, Grand Piano, and Writers.

Felony is set to start filming in October.

You know James Badge Dale, you just might not know that you know him. The actor has popped up in key supporting roles in films like The Departed, The Conspirator, and Shame, while also appearing in shows like 24, Rescue Me, Rubicon, and The Pacific mini-series, but it looks like Dale is about to rocket into the superhero stratosphere. Deadline Malibu reports that Dale is in talks to play a villain named Savin in Shane Black‘s upcoming Iron Man 3. While Ben Kingsley has been set as the film’s principle villain (though many are still arguing over whether or not he will be The Mandarin), it looks like the film needs another baddie to make Robert Downey Jr.‘s life harder.

The outlet provides only the barest of details regarding the character, but over at /Film, Russ Fischer is guessing that he “is likely a version of Lieutenant-Colonel Eric Savin, an Army officer who debuted in Marvel comics pages in the late ’80s and was quickly transformed into a cybernetic mercenary called Coldblood-7. Think of him as something like the Marvel Comics version of RoboCop, at least from the perspective of appearance and physical makeup.” While Savin is a “relatively minor” character, Fischer also note that “he did show up in the Civil War storyline from a few years back…And the idea of an officer turned into a cybernetic killer by defense technology would fit into the rumors that Iron Man 3 features the Extremis/nanotech storyline.” Sounds like Savin just might get juiced up by whatever Rebecca Hall’s character is cooking.

The film is set to start shooting later this month, so this might be are very last bit of Iron Man 3 casting news. It’s truly the end of a (long, long) era.

Dale will next be seen in The Lone Ranger, World War Z, and Flight. 

Why Watch? What does nine months of animation work look like? What does it look like when it focuses on an elderly man raging out after not being offered a subway seat?

These are the questions of our time. Fortunately, Sean Soong has answers. Just check out that frame above. This short is epic in its detail and scope, not shying away from spilling a little red ink. Truly gorgeous work with an adorably deadly old dude. For more information, check out the feature on the film over at The Creators Project.

What will it cost? Only 2 minutes.

Skip Work. You’ve Got Time For More Short Films

With a giant pile of movies to his name, Steven Spielberg has the considerable honor of being the only filmmaker who makes entertainment that’s massively popular, critically acclaimed and decade-enduring. It’s an illusive triumvirate. His fundamental success is owed to a lot of things, but principle among them is his childhood sense of wonder and magic – a sense he’s never let go of.

His childhood was also spent with a camera in hand.

From Jaws to Close Encounters of the Third Kind to Indiana Jones to The Color Purple and Empire of the Sun and Jurassic Park and Amistad and Schindler’s List and Munich and, and, and…he’s been a prolific, skilled presence in the filmmaking world for going on 5 decades, and he’s done so by spanning genres, tones, and subjects.

So here’s a bit of free film school (for fans and filmmakers alike) from a little kid who hid under his bed after watching Bambi.

Your Assumptions About Your Own Film Will Be Wrong

An excellent place to start. Perhaps the best singular piece of advice this column has looked at because it throws out a vile mindset that can corrode the filmmaking process. It’s easy to assume that as director (or producer) that you’ll have complete control over what you’re making. That assumption would be wrong.

“Well, for one thing, I don’t know what I’m in for. Most of my presumptions about a production are usually wrong. For instance, with Schindler’s List, I was pretty certain that whatever came my way in Poland I could tolerate, and just put my camera between myself and the subject, and protect myself, you know, by creating my own aesthetic distance. And immediately, on the first day of shooting, that broke down. I didn’t have that as a safety net, and immediately I realized that this was about to become the most personal professional experience of my life. It was a devastatingly insightful experience, but it’s something I still haven’t gotten over.

I think back on the production of Schindler’s List with very sad memories, because of the subject matter, not because of the working experience. The working experience was nearly perfect, because everybody held on to each other in that production. We formed a circle. It was very therapeutic, and for a lot of people, it changed their lives. A lot of the actors, a lot of the crew, it changed their lives. It changed my life, for sure. But then other productions that I’ve gone into with a blithe spirit, thinking, This film’s a pushover. It’s often when I take that attitude, the movie turns around and runs me over as if it were a tank. And so I’ve tried my best to stop second-guessing what the working experience is going to be like. Because I’m usually wrong.”

It might be the experience that can’t be predicted, but for anyone who’s ever tried to make a creature feature starring a shark only to make a Hitchcockian thriller about a shark that features almost no shark, it’s clear that the process can shift out from underneath you for reasons beyond your control. How you respond is what will define you and the movie.

The Right Kind of Collaboration is Key

“When I was a kid, there was no collaboration, it’s you with a camera bossing your friends around. But as an adult, filmmaking is all about appreciating the talents of the people you surround yourself with and knowing you could never have made any of these films by yourself.”

Movies are a team sport.

Be Your Perfect Audience (and Hold Onto Your Childhood)

A Little Scamming Never Hurt

“I was fifteen, or sixteen. I was in high school. I was spending a summer in California with my second cousins. And I wanted to be a director really bad. I was making a lot of 8mm home movies, since I was twelve, making little dramas and comedies with the neighborhood kids.

One day I decided to get on the Universal lot. I dressed up in a coat and tie. I actually had taken the tour the day before at Universal, and actually jumped off the tour bus. (It was a bus in those days.) I spent the whole day on the lot. Met a nice man named Chuck Silvers. Told him I was a filmmaker from Arizona.

He said, “Kid, come back tomorrow. I’ll write you a pass and you can show me some of your 8mm films.”

I had a little film festival for him.

He said, “You’re great. I hope you make it. But, because I’m just a librarian I can’t write you anymore passes.” (He laughs.)

So the next day, having observed how people dressed in those days, I dressed like them, carried a briefcase, and walked past the same guard, Scotty – who had been there for like a long time, because he the oldest. He waved me in.

For three months, that whole summer vacation, I came on the lot every single day. Found an office. Went to a little store that sold cameras and also plastic title letters to title your films. Got the letters. Found an abandoned office, and put my name and the number of my office on this directory. Opened up the glass directory and stuck these stick-on letters on the directory. And basically went into business for myself. But it never amounted to anything. I learned a lot about editing and dubbing by watching all the professionals do it, but I never got a job out of my imposition.”

Spielberg has spoken quite a few times about his Universal Studios scam as a young man, but it’s even more fascinating in the context of Catch Me If You Can.

Of course, you might not be able to pull off quite the same scam today.

More Isn’t Always More

“Bloated budgets are ruining Hollywood – these pictures are squeezing all the other types of movies out of Hollywood. It’s disastrous. When I made The Lost World I limited the amount of special-effects shots because they were incredibly expensive. If a dinosaur walks around, it costs $80,000 for eight seconds. If four dinosaurs are in the background, it’s $150,000. More doesn’t always make things better.”

Amen.

The Stress and Madness Might Be Worth It

“It was worth it because, for number one, Close Encounters, which was a film I had written and a film nobody seemed to want to make, everybody seemed to want it right after Jaws was a hit. So, the first thing Jaws did for me was it allowed a studio, namely Columbia, to greenlight Close Encounters. For number two, it gave me final cut for the rest of my career. But what I really owe to Jaws was creating in me a great deal of humility, about tempering my imagination with just sort of the facts of life.”

In the best interview Spielberg’s done, Quint from Aint It Cool spoke to him in considerable depth about his career and the crappy shark that changed it forever. He speaks on giving personality to special effects, his personal drive, and a dozen other topics. It’s a revealing talk, but one of the clear indications is that going through hell is sometimes necessary, but the rewards are also worth it.

What Have We Learned

Spielberg is a unique filmmaker in his ability to tell uncynical stories. As Richard Dreyfuss points out, there’s a positivity surrounding much of his work. A “niceness” that encompasses the tone and the aesthetic. There’s also a grand sense of adventure, and doesn’t that always stand in for a theme of human achievement? Of human possibility?

That’s what many of his films represent (even when the morality or pragmatism of that advancement is questioned), but on a simpler note, Spielberg succeeds because he’s able to make jaws drop. Sometimes it’s because of human cruelty/kindness, a terrifying nightmare, or because a huge valley is filled with living dinosaurs.

Dropped jaws are at the heart of his filmmaking, and at the heart of that sensation is a spark of wonder that the younger versions of us understand better than we do. Spielberg stands hand in hand with his younger self, making magic.

To suggest a director, email me.

6 Filmmaking Tips From Billy Wilder

6 Filmmaking Tips From Stanley Kubrick

6 Filmmaking Tips from David Fincher

6 Filmmaking Tips from Alfred Hitchcock

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“Why just watch when you can feel?” That was the question ABC Entertainment Group President Paul Lee put to advertisers while pitching next year’s lineup at the network’s upfront presentation. Those are awfully grandiose words for someone affiliated with The Bachelor and Dancing with the Stars (both returning next year), don’t you think?

The shows that apparently weren’t living up to this lofty guiding principle: GCB, Missing, The River, Cougar Town, and Pan Am. Cougar Town is moving to TBS where they don’t care about feelings, and there’s been an outpouring of support from GCB fans, with people signing petitions to save the show, so there were some feelings, but I guess it was too late. No one seems too worked up about the other cancellations, though, so Lee got it right.

The emotion stirring returning shows include Last Man Standing, Happy Endings, Modern Family, Scandal, Once Upon a Time, Revenge, and America’s Funniest Home Videos. ABC recently released trailers for its new series and here are a few of the more interesting ones. But how well they fit with the network’s new philosophy is a little confusing.

The Neighbors

Marty and his family move from the city to a new suburban neighborhood filled with aliens disguised as humans who go by names culled from ESPN Classic— Larry Bird, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Dick Butkus. The odd names give the father alien the opportunity to say, “oh dear, I fear our little Dick may have exposed himself again” when the alien kid reveals his true nature to Marty’s son and daughter (I think the whole show was built around this one joke).

Just looking at the trailer, I wouldn’t have given this one the go-ahead and I’m actually an alien show proponent. The concept seems very similar to 3^rd Rock from the Sun but if I wanted to watch something similar to 3^rd Rock from the Sun, I’d just watch 3^rd Rock from the Sun, not whatever this is.

Zero Hour

Anthony Edwards is a writer who debunks conspiracy theories and coincidentally gets tied up in one of the biggest conspiracies of all time—it spans continents and time—when his wife is kidnapped by an international terrorist. This Da Vinci Code-styled mystery revolves around clocks (that’s what the title is hinting at, I’d imagine).

The trailer has baddies pointing guns at pretty ladies, an old man discussing the overarching mystery in that way that only old men can do, priests, clandestine ancient societies, and Nazis. Honestly, it seems like it’s trying too hard to be interesting and the scope feels way too big for TV (it’s executively produced by Transformers and G.I. Joe’s Lorenzo Di Bonaventura), but maybe that’s just me being narrow-minded.

Mistresses

GCB failed to be the network’s new Desperate Housewives, so it looks like they’re trying again with the Alyssa Milano-led Mistresses. Based on the British series of the same name and Americanized by former Gossip Girl scribe K.J. Steinberg, the premise isn’t even apparent through the trailer. All I could glean was that some of the women are mistresses of wealthy men and there is sexy stuff happening.

According to ABC’s website, it’s a “salacious new drama about a group of friends caught in storms of excitement and self-discovery, secrecy and betrayal, and bound by complex relationships they’ve created.” So…no help there. But I will admit to enjoying Gossip Girl more than I probably should and if this is anything like that show then this could be ABCs new guilty pleasure.

666 Park Avenue

This supernatural series stars ABC staples Terry O’ Quinn and Vanessa Williams. It’s set in a fancy high-rise where it looks as though all of the ambitious residents have found success through shady dealings with the building’s manager played by O’Quinn, who could be the devil or some other devil-like being.

I like a good fantasy show but ABC doesn’t have the greatest track record when it comes to sticking it out with the genre—V is the show that immediately comes to mind. Once Upon a Time did well, though, so there might be some hope for this one.

Red Widow

Red Widow is their strongest new show. Based on a Dutch series called Penzoa, it has Radha Mitchell playing a woman named Marta who takes over her husband’s shady, criminal dealings after he’s murdered right outside of their beautiful home (in broad daylight).

It promises a lot of action tempered by emotion—Marta has children and how she manages to care for them while she’s doing her nefarious work should be interesting. This may be the one new ABC show that I’ll feel and watch.

Continue Reading Channel Guide

Or Enjoy a Different Feature

There was never much doubt that Man of Steel would have a comic book feel. It was only slightly less guaranteed than it looking like a Zack Snyder movie. The Warners mulligan on Clark Kent is set for theaters in June of 2013, but apparently WETA just showed two scenes as part of a sizzle reel that played at a fancy gathering with smoked salmon and a bunch of visual effects artists.

Allegedly, one of those effects wizards, Jonathan Rothbart (Avatar, Priest, Iron Man), posted a description of the scenes on the film’s IMDB message board. He was pretty excited.

Here’s what he (spoilerifically) had to say:

“I’m a visual effects supervisor for the upcoming film After.Earth, the M. Night picture. I’ve also done work on Avatar, Iron Man, and Sin City. I’m on IMDb. I’ll admit I check my own page from time to time. It feels good.

I frequent this board often, I’m a huge comic book fan (as shown by the movies I’ve worked on). Last night at a VFX conference there was a sizzle reel shown by Weta. In this sizzle reel there were two beta level(most likely from a trailer) clips shown. One only about 6 seconds long, the other much longer.

The former was Clark Kent grabbing a truck with a crying man inside of it while flying through the middle of a tornado. It looked incredible. Henry Cavill can fly, and he can hold a truck in one arm. Zack Snyder brings his usual visual flair, but somehow is still unlike anything he has made before. It felt like a Superman comic. Real heroism.

The longer clip was even more stunning, but the more I think about it, slightly concerning. The clip consisted of Superman in full costume in a verbal argument with Zod in the center of Smallville with Christopher Meloni yells at them through a megaphone next to a tank. Meloni warns them he will fire if they do not surrender. While he says this Zod sizes Superman up. Shannon looks evil as he can be. Bone chilling even. And is DEFINITELY sporting enhanced muscle. Cavill’s Superman is a wonderful sight to behold in motion. Cavill’s pure size makes him the most believable Superman to date. Zod speaks in Kryptonian “Do you know your native tongue, Kal-el?” Superman looks stunned, and responds in English, “Who are you?” (there isn’t enough Superman dialogue to judge Cavill’s performance fairly, but I’d say he did well. Nothing spectacular from this clip.) Meloni curses, then into a walkie talkie orders the tank to fire. Superman hears this and turns to the tank. Zod takes this opportunity to sucker punch Superman(in Zack Snyder slow-then-fast-mo) then when the tank fires Superman rushes in front of Zod, despite the punch and catches the exploding missile near his stomach. The flames ripple around him, hit his face, his cape, his eyes. The shrapnel hits him and bounces off. The same happens to Zod to a lesser extent. Meloni’s shocked expression when they remain standing, silhouettes in a cloud of smoke, ends the clip.

It was incredible, it really was. And absolutely visually stunning, but my qualm is its typical Zack Snyder. It doesn’t look glossy like his films do. It instead has a more clean cut, colorful look. Like Thor, or Iron Man. But it is the same slow-mo styling that people expect from him. Maybe it just happens in this one scene, but it happens twice. Makes me a bit hesitant, despite the fact it looks phenomenal”

Calls to his representative went unanswered (because it’s, like, 5am in LA at the time of this writing), so take it with at least a single grain of salt.

However, there’s nothing crazy here. Was there any doubt it would bear Snyder’s signature? Or that WETA would craft some spectacular visuals? Or that Michael Shannon would look insanely villainous?

Still, it sounds like two cool scenes, and it’s always impressive to see a VFX pro impressed by the work of another company, so there’s definite reason to be hopeful here. Of course, the movie also has to make sense and have a story to it. That, and not the visuals, might be the real hurdle of making this character compelling again amidst a sea of superheroes.

What say you?

Source: IMDB via Collider’s eagle eyes

According to Deadline Tokyo, John Woo will director his first non-Red Cliff movie since 2003′s Paycheck. Fortunately, he’s chosen something that will definitely facilitate the use of slow motion doves.

He’ll be tackling the world of the Yakuza for a remake of the 1963 Seijun Suzuki film Youth of the Beast, which will aptly be titled Day of the Beast. Production will be handled by Lion Rock and Nikkatsu – Japan’s oldest major movie studio which celebrates a full century in business this year.

According to the release, the movie “follows a western outsider with a grim past as he becomes embroiled in a global turf war between a vicious new breed of Yakuza and old school Cold War Russian mobsters. It’s an action-packed saga of loyalty, revenge and redemption which erupts in the heart of Tokyo.”

Yes, yes, and yes. The original was a 60s-trippy, frantic crime story with a lot of ins and outs (and whathaveyous), so it’ll be fertile ground for Woo to get as weird as he wants to be.

In October of last year, Sony picked up the rights to Walter Isaacson‘s biography of Steve Jobs. This was shortly after the Apple CEO’s death and shortly before announcing that their shortlist of screenwriters included Aaron Sorkin – a writer who was once offered a Pixar gig by Jobs and who had previously helped adapt Isaacson’s “Moneyball.”

Now, according to a Sony press release, Sorkin is officially on board for what’s being creatively called Steve Jobs.

This is stellar news, placing incredible talent next to incredible talent to write about an incredible mind. Isaacson’s biography was thorough (and authorized), and the relative familiarity that Sorkin and Isaacson have (alongside the screenwriter’s past dealings with Jobs) make this team uniquely qualified to deliver a compelling telling worthy of the modern icon. One thing they don’t have? Ashton Kutcher. Which raises the question: with all the talent in the room, what actor deserves a shot at bringing Jobs back to life on the big screen?

The teaser trailer for Anchorman 2 is in front of The Dictator, which means it should be swimming its way onto the internet any second now. Wait for it. Wait. For it.

But while you’re waiting, scope out this new poster for the forthcoming film which seems to have taken forever to greenlight and yet no time at all to film. It’s nowhere near being done, but doesn’t it feel that way? With Will Ferrell announcing the project on Conan, a trailer that’s already ready to roll and now one sheet work, it almost seems like we should be seeing Ron Burgundy in theaters next week or something.

Nevertheless, by great Odin’s raven, here’s the poster:

Apparently the Channel Four News Team will be working out of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

Source: The Lebanese Cinema Movie Guide, yes seriously.

Moonrise Kingdom appears to be a delicate fancy of a film – an assessment you suspect might entertain Wes Anderson – offering no more ground-breaking a story than young love, with the director’s traditional preoccupation with whimsy, and creating such artfully created landscapes and characters that they flirt outrageously with magic realism, though without explicit realisation of that concept. But there are weightier issues at hand, of parental neglect, of revolution (not just sexual but also anti-establishment), and it seems completely appropriate that Anderson chose to set it in as provocatively important a time as 1965.

The film follows two young lovers – Sam (Jared Gilman) and Suzy (Kara Hayward) – who escape their lives to run away together, and the ensuing chaos of their parents and the local authorities’ attempts to find them: no more than a gentle plot that suggests nothing of the drama and comedy that subsequently unfolds.

It is a film about two storms: one a very real monsoon book-ending the main narrative and playing an increasingly important role in how the story develops into the final act and the other the storm in a teacup of the young leads’ burgeoning and forbidden relationship. Anderson is never dull enough to insist on the parallel we could draw between the occasionally wretched way love feels and his atmospheric storm, but it is a parallel that defies ignorance, even if it is far more rewarding to consider the monsoon as something of a fulfilled prophecy of the supposed dangers of rampant, naive hedonism. Because irresistibly Moonrise Kingdom is about answering some pertinent questions: what would happen if young hearts were allowed to run free, and what if the only issues that carried any weight were those dreamed up by the minds of children?

To answer them, Anderson builds a world governed by children or at least childishness to such a degree that every house looks like a dolls’ house, violence has only cartoon-like effect and every adult character is either villain or fool (at least before some are offered the chance of redemption). None of those characters appear either responsible or particularly happy, and without exception they all shirk their responsibilities to each other and to their young charges, either existing in a fabricated world of order that they think confirms their important status, whether by wearing a Scout Master’s uniform or needlessly bellowing instructions to their children through a megaphone. In that context, childish concerns and ideas are allowed to run rampant, to usually devastating effect: young love is encouraged (including an uncomfortable “sex-scene” of sorts which might raise a few eyebrows), an adolescent Scout troupe carries weapons and enacts grand Great Escape-style capers and children are afforded an odd, grotesquely adult-like gravitas.

The result is that things that could and should be nipped in the bud end up being blown completely out of proportion – another parallel with how the young lovers experience the new feelings they experience together – as the film entertains its huge What If notion with great fun, and a touching resolution that confirms that maybe the escalating events of the story did leave a lasting positive effect on its community. Indeed, as the story develops, the script offers most of the tragically foolish adult characters ways to resolve their own issues that wouldn’t have happened without Sam and Suzy running away together.

There is certainly an idea that Moonrise Kingdom is a kind of grown-up, or at least grown-out children’s book, which definitely helps explain the subtle magic-realist feel – like the most timeless of successful children’s books (and those which can be read by anyone) the story perfectly conveys how children see the world, while still retaining a sort of universally appealing dramatic element that appeals to the more adult of viewers. There is however a lot more humor, with Anderson playing on audience perceptions of young characters, and how relationships should work between children and adults.

Like Fargo – a film comparison I couldn’t resist even as I watched – in order to really enjoy the comedy, we have to realize that every line in Moonrise Kingdom is designed for comic effect, even when delivered with stony-faced seriousness, which is wonderfully effective for the laugh counter. To hear 12 year olds talking with absolute authority about adult issues like marriage, sex, violence, community, despite their usual naivety is so grotesque it is hilarious and the sight of Harvey Keitel and Edward Norton in adult Scout Uniforms has much the same effect. That isn’t where the comedy ends though, with more conventional jokes, including a stand-out and very generous moment for a raging Bill Murray peppered throughout, and a hearty amount of laughs packed into the film.

The art design of the film is typically strong, and typically recognizable as from the mind of the director: every landscape looks like it was painted, so intricate and visually textural are they and the environments feel like a character in their own right. It helps that the film is shot brilliantly well, with some bold but extremely effective compositional and transitional choices that add to the idiosyncratic identity of the film. Linked inherently to their quality is the soundtrack, which is ingenius, and which will undoubtedly be cannibalized in future by opportunist advertisers to add whimsy and magic to their adverts, but which before then will become part of my CD collection. Two confirmations of quality, I’m sure you will agree.

Being a Wes Anderson project, the cast is of course large and swollen with talent. Chief responsibilities lie with youngsters Hayward and Gilman who are both very good, and who crucially clearly understand the responsibilities of comedy without mugging or over-acting. Anderson usually gets strong performances out of his casts, no matter who they include – some say because of the theater troupe dynamic his film-making approach encourages – and Norton, Murray and Frances McDormand all offer fine but completely subtle performances. This is particularly impressive given Anderson’s ability to so heavily characterize that the mere sight of someone brings a laugh, as in the case of Bob Balaban‘s narrator and Anderson vet Jason Schwartzman here – something which requires the actor to leave more of a mark than the character.

A word must also be offered about Bruce Willis – lambasted recently for some lazy film choices that have seen him far from challenged and even further from actual engagement, Willis is good here, offering an understated, tragicomic turn as Captain Sharp, the sheriff charged with leading the search party, who could quite easily be the geographically removed twin of Willis’ other fine comic character Ernest Menville. Like that Death Becomes Her performance, Willis plays down the star quality and paints Sharp as a slightly bumbling, completely charming fool and hopefully the sometimes Die Hard actor will explore the possibility of taking on more roles like this.

At the final evaluation, Moonrise Kingdom finds Wes Anderson in top form, playing to his strengths and trading on every characteristic of his film career to date with great success: it looks wonderful, the cast is almost universally excellent and the story is both humorous and utterly engaging on a number of levels. The ending might feel a little muddy, but it is still one of the best films the director has yet made, and certainly the most technically impressive in terms of his shot choices. The opening sequence in particular confirms that this is a shot-maker of serious quality.

Who says all he can do is whimsy?

The Upside: Hugely charming, and featuring both typically excellent cast performances, and some wonderful technical flourishes.

The Downside: The sexual awakening scene might be a little too graphic for some tastes, though it does serve a wider purpose.

Complete Cannes 2012 Coverage

Nacho Vigalondo‘s Timecrimes was a different kind of time travel movie, and his second feature, Extraterrestrial, is definitely a different kind of alien invasion.

The new trailer has a creepy sort of vibe, both from the miles-wide ship that lands and from the young man who wakes up in a gorgeous woman’s apartment. Apparently he’s got incredible beer goggles and a desire to video tape her while she sleeps.

It’s a great trailer for a great movie, but it’s not telling the whole story. Check it out for yourself:

Feel free to read my spoiler-free review of the film, but keep in mind that the movie itself is very different than what might be expected simply from this trailer. It’s a science fiction story with a focus on interpersonal relationship drama (and comedy) as, once again, Vigalondo twists the standard tropes for his own creative purposes.

What do you think?

First he caused a worldwide viral epidemic, and now he’s aiding and abetting the threatening dominance of a bunch of super smart apes. This has got to be treason right?

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Scott Z. Burns (Contagion, The Informant!, The Bourne Ultimatum, not pictured above) will be writing the script for the Rise of the Planet of the Apes sequel for Fox.

It’s a solid choice, not just for his abilities, but because the sequel is set to see humanity struggling with the now-sentient beasts and with a virus that threatens the end of the species. It’s just like what happened to the native Americans before the European settlers got here. It looks like the apes will let tiny infections do their mass dirty work for them.

Storywise, this is a great solution for a difficult problem. After all, even if they’re incredibly smart, there’s no way that a few dozen apes could take over the planet from 7 billion humans. We’d be hunting them for sport in a matter of months. But if we’re obliterated by illness? It’s a different story. And won’t it be ironic when the apes are immune to the strain because of years of lab testing? Oh, cruel fate. Still, we should figure out whose side Burns is on here.

What is Movie News After Dark? This week, it is like the idiotic parents’ suburban Pasadena home in Project X. The responsible party is taking some time off, so he has handed the keys to some of us on staff, and we are having the Movie News After Dark House Party of the century. We’re doing our best to remain somewhat respectable and deliver some entertainment news you may have missed this week, but at some point we all know we’ll put a dwarf in the oven.

On with the show. The first story is one you’ve likely seen already this weekend, but it’s worth repeating for the sheer joy it brings. This weekend, Movies.com published the story of George Lucas doing something we can all get behind. After decades of trying to develop land in Marin County to make the biggest movie studio in the galaxy, and with his snooty neighbors blocking the $300m a year initiative for fear of causing problems, he has decided to develop low-income housing. Finally, people can pat him on the back and forget about Jar Jar, Han shooting first and a certain crystal skull.

If you were a fan of the found footage film Chronicle earlier this year, you can rejoice that the DVD and Blu-ray are now available. Check out this clip from the special features, courtesy of MTV.

If classic films are more your style, but you don’t care about 35mm projection or leaving your home to see a movie, you can still experience Casablanca with all of your digital frineds. Tomorrow, May 16 at 7PM ET and 7PM PT, Facebook will be streaming the film. Here’s looking at you, Rejects!

Do you want the latest on the production of Ant-Man? Edgar Wright sat down with the folks at the Empire Podcast to talk about the film and how it fits in with shooting Nick Frost and Simon Pegg in The World’s End. There’s also some talk of more Scott Pilgrim.

Want more Marvel-related news? Check out Slashfilm’s rundown of the latest superhero sequels and such.

Even though the millennium ended more than a decade ago, Lance Henricksen tells ComingSoon that he’s pretty sure there’s still a Millennium feature film in the works.

The Hollywood Reporter let us know that Osama bin Laden will come back from the dead to be killed again internationally, courtesy of Kathryn Bigelow and Universal Pictures. Sony Pictures is handling the U.S. release.

GQ published an interview with Michael Fassbender about his recent project and his and upcoming work with Prometheus. However, it was the good folks at Vulture.com who zeroed in on the fact that Fassbender believes is was his urination scene in Shame that cost him the Oscar. He has to be pissed about that.

Are women treated equally in Hollywood? Of course they aren’t. And that was the conclusion of a study at San Diego State University, as reported by the AV Club.

Sadly, there’s no more parkour news for Taylor Lautner fans. However, let’s round out tonight’s Movie News After Dark with a nod to Joss Whedon fans. Here’s Marvel’s thank you to the folks who have supported the film.

And finally, one last Marvel tidbit. Slashfilm reports that a Hulk TV series might, in fact, be happening at ABC. Let’s hope it’s incredible.

The action-comedy is theoretically one of the best movie genres ever, because it lets you laugh and watch stuff explode at the same time. The danger with them is, if the comedy gets too silly, the action scenarios don’t hit with any weight, and if the action sequences get too intense, it’s hard to find any humor in the life and death stuff happening on the screen. You have to skirt the line just right and maintain the perfect tone in order to make an action-comedy successful, and I’ll be a monkey’s uncle, but the new trailer for Hit and Run makes it look like writer/co-director Dax Shepard has hit the nail on the head.

Hit and Run is the story of an ex-wheelman in the witness protection program (played by Shepard) who has left his wicked ways behind him and found himself in the incredibly fortunate situation of shacking up with Kristen Bell. Everything in his new life is just peachy – until his former cohorts find out where he is and start hitting people in the noses with golf clubs and demanding untold sums of money. Lots of chase scenes and yelling ensue.

The best part of the Hit and Run trailer is probably seeing Bradley Cooper dressed like Brad Pitt in True Romance. Or maybe it’s that lingering shot over Kristen Bell’s tiny body as she’s pulling on a pair of jeans. Or perhaps it’s seeing Tom Arnold get the chance to play a role that produces True Lies flashbacks. Heck, who knows what the best part of the Hit and Run trailer is. It’s just good fun throughout.

The film is set for a late summer release of August 24, and the trailer is available to watch right here right now. [Yahoo! Movies]

Alexander Payne probably achieved his greatest level of success and recognition after casting a huge movie star, George Clooney, in his most recent film, The Descendants. Given the taste of mainstream acceptance that this director of pitch-black dramatic comedies got by working with a well-known name, you might think that he would be tempted to go back to the well and snag more big stars to play the father/son duo in his upcoming road movie, Nebraska. It seems like we should have been hearing rumors over the past few months that he was courting Leonardo DiCaprio and Michael Douglas, or something of the like.

Not Payne though, who seems to be wholly concerned with finding the right actors to fit the parts, and if a report from Deadline Benkelman is to be believed, he’s found an off-the-beaten-path duo that look on paper like they could make for a delightful pair. The report says that Payne has been meaning to make Nebraska his next film for quite some time, but he didn’t want to move things forward until he could find the right actor for the father role. For the longest time he was fixated on Gene Hackman, but that screen legend’s continued retirement made his casting an impossibility. Payne feels like he’s found his man now though, in Bruce Dern, and he also wants Saturday Night Live alum Will Forte to play the son.

For the new fans that Payne made with The Descendants, those who were hoping to see him do another project with a name on the level of Clooney’s, this choice might look like a disappointment at first. But, in Dern and Forte, Payne has found a couple of actors who either haven’t had their talents fully utilized in a long time, or perhaps ever – which is an even more intriguing situation than if he would have come up with a couple of the usual names.

It will be a new experience seeing what Dern and Forte are able to offer up when given meaty roles and the opportunity to work with a filmmaker the calibre of Payne, and I would challenge anyone to go watch Dern’s work in The ‘burbs and Forte’s work in MacGruber and say that watching them team up with the guy who made Election won’t be hilarious. Because it will be. Hopefully they both officially sign soon.