This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr dresses up in his Jedi robes and grabs his lightsaber, heading to the theater to see the 3D re-release of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. While there, he faces a sea of estrogen as ladies of all type swarm into the multiplex to see Channing Tatum’s abs multiflex. After using his lightsaber to break through the wall of pre-Valentine’s Day ladies, he faces more obstacles with twentysomething dudes heading out to see Safe House and obnoxious families to see Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. Fortunately for Kevin, he is able to dispatch everyone with his Rock-inspired “pec pop of love.” It was an early Valentine’s Day massacre.

Leo (Channing Tatum) and Paige (Rachel McAdams), in many ways, have the ideal life. They are hopelessly in love, happily married, and living in an urban, pseudo-bohemian hipster paradise. She’s an artist, and he runs his own recording studio. One romantically snowy night, the two share a moment in a parked car…an ill-advised decision. A truck plows into them and sends Paige into a coma. When she awakes, she finds her anxiety-riddled husband sitting at her bedside. The trouble is that she can’t remember that they are married or even who he is at all. She is suffering from a severe form of retrograde amnesia in which she can only remember events up the point shortly before she moved to the big city and met Leo. Suddenly her parents, with whom she hadn’t spoken during the course of her relationship with Leo, show up, insisting to take her back home. Leo hopes against hope that his wife will regain her memory of him, their love, and their life together before it all disappears for good.

Following Steven Soderbergh’s career has been a winding road full of ups and downs as of late. First he was going to make The Man From U.N.C.L.E., then there was a long period of juggling actors on that film as he tried to nail down a cast, then that movie got cancelled completely. There has been talk of retirement, talk of pushing off retirement to do more things, and generally just a lot of confusion. Things seemed to have reached a moment of stability a week ago, though, when it was announced that he was going forward with his next film, a thriller called Side Effects, and that it had funding stemming from a partnership between Annapurna Pictures and Open Road Films. That’s all up in the air now though, and apparently it comes down to the all too familiar casting woes. Variety is now reporting that Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures has pulled out of the deal, leaving Soderbergh and Open Road to find additional funding on their own. Variety gave no reason as to why the deal fell through, but The Playlist is claiming to have sources close to the situation that say Ellison and her people don’t like the casting of Blake Lively in the lead role. She apparently is set to play a drug addict in the middle of a love triangle between her husband (Channing Tatum) and her doctor (Jude Law).

The absolute worst thing you could say about Steven Soderbergh’s latest film is that its lead, Gina Carano, is consistently out-acted by Channing Tatum. On its surface and for obvious reasons that’s a pretty damning statement. But when viewed as a whole performer instead of just an actress you quickly realize that Carano has a very particular set of other skills. Skills she has acquired over a very long career. Skills that make her a nightmare for people like Tatum, Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor and other male stars with recognizably pretty faces. A nightmare for them, but entertaining as hell for the rest of us.

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr dresses up in his favorite Jedi robe, grabs his lightsaber and heads out to see the latest George Lucas movie…and boy does he look stupid. After realizing that Red Tails has nothing to do with the color of creatures’ backsides in the Tattooine cantina, he then dresses in his favorite “Team Jacob” tee shirt to see the latest vampire/werewolf movie. Again, he looks ridiculous. Finally, he sulks into a movie theater showing the new Steven Soderbergh film, falls in love with new action star Gina Carano and is happy.

Audiences have been eagerly awaiting the release of soon-to-be retired (or so was once widely claimed) Steven Soderbergh’s latest film, Haywire, after advanced screenings confirmed what the trailer suggested – a literally kick-ass time at the movies. Starring a Hollywood unknown, Gina Carano is known more for her mixed martial arts skills and those skills are put to the test on the big screen as she goes up against a powerful boys club comprised of the likes of Channing Tatum, Ewan McGregor, Antonio Banderas, and Michael Fassbender. Playing a black ops solider betrayed by her company, Carano is forced to not only figure out why she was double crossed, but do so while trying to keep herself from being killed in the process (and leaving an impressive body count of her own in her wake.) Soderbergh turned to composer David Holmes to create the musical landscape for a film that is not only action-packed, but also dramatic, thrilling, emotional, even funny at times and overall – fun. But what made this film such a fun time at the movies? Many factors of course (the story, the actors, the direction), but the element that seemed to keep this idea of playfulness running throughout was provided by the score, and almost subconsciously so. Holmes is no stranger to scoring a film that flips the script every other scene and forces the audience to not only try and keep up with the action, but unravel the truth behind the story as well. He [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Color me shocked. After years of famously refusing to remove his clothing for films, Matthew McConaughey has finally given in and stripped down. Magic Mike must be a hell of a project to make him betray his own ethical stance against half-nudity in film. Either that, or Steven Soderberg must have convinced him that he had to get partially naked in order to co-star. Well, I hope it was worth it, Mr. McConaughey. I hope it was worth your dignity. As you can see, Warners has released the first official image from the movie (which is also the first image ever of McConaughey without any top cover) that stars Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, McConaughey and Olivia Munn. As we all know, it’s about male strippers. As we know because of this picture, it’s about patriotic strippers. And, as you can tell, we finally know why McConaughey refused to take his top off before now. Eesh.

Channing Tatum is back as Duke, Ray Park is in as Snake Eyes, and Lee Byung-hung is reprising his role as Storm Shadow, but that’s about all the true connective tissue you’ll find between G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and its sequel, G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Plus, from the looks of the trailer, its Dwayne Johnson as Roadblock that will really be leading the team. Behind the scenes, Joe is being led by a new director in Jon Chu and new screenwriters in Zombieland scribes Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese. It’s truly a brand new team. But the trailer speaks for itself with pyrotechnics. Check it out for yourself:

Considering that the casting process for Warner Bros. and Steven Soderbergh’s The Man From U.N.C.L.E. adaptation has given me, a completely uninvolved outsider, nothing but headaches, it’s not shocking that The Playlist is reporting that the filmmaker has dropped out of the project for that very same reason. The outlet reports that Soderbergh and the studio were unable to reach agreements regarding both casting and budget, and that the helmer has since left the project, which he has been developing with scribe Scott Z. Burns for nearly two years. The film was originally set to star George Clooney, who dropped out due to an injury, which only paved the way for WB to jump on younger casting options, the last two of which included Bradley Cooper (last month) and Channing Tatum (just this week). Other rumored names included Michael Fassbender, Matt Damon, Joel Edgerton, Ryan Gosling, and even Johnny Depp. Of course, none of these names have signed on for the film (with most of them never even getting an official offer), and most of them have moved on to other projects. Adding to those woes? The studio also reportedly offered up a $60m budget for the film, one that will need to have an A-list star, a slick sixties setting, and a globe-trotting sensibility. Ouch.

For some reason, Channing Tatum gets mentioned every time Bradley Cooper doesn’t do a project. It happened with The Crow, and now it’s happening with Steven Soderbergh’s The Man From U.N.C.L.E. According to Deadline Quantico, Tatum is the latest name to be paraded out in an unclear casting situation. The film, which sees an American spy and a Soviet spy teaming up to save the world, has also got Joel Edgerton rumored (as the человек From U.N.C.L.E.). If that’s a done deal, it’s up to what male lead they’ll get for the American spook. Tatum and Soderbergh are currently working on Magic Mike – a story which plumbs from Tatum’s previous experience as a male stripper. Notorious for working with the same actors, Soderbergh may very well like Tatum for the project, but this is a role that would require a bit more suaveness and class from an actor more known for wearing tank tops and looking gruff. On the other hand, even though he’s had some flat performances and made some bad career choices, Tatum is still absolutely capable of delivering a solid performance, and he might be the big name that gets this thing right off the ground. Or maybe another leading man will surface next week. Or maybe Soderbergh will retire before then.

Moving away from the feature-length hand sanitizer commercial that was this year’s Contagion, director Steven Soderbergh returns to the screen with another one of his trademark all-star cast outings, but one with significantly more ass-kicking delivered at the hands (and feet) of a particularly-picked leading lady. In Haywire, Soderbergh lets loose cinematic newcomer Gina Carano, a real-life MMA fighter who can more than hold her own with the boys club that rounds out the film’s cast (including Ewan McGregor, Channing Tatum, Michael Fassbender, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, and Bill Paxton). Packaged as a double-crossing spy thriller, Haywire is big on impressive and crowd-pleasing fight scenes, but the film fizzles when it comes to delivering a particularly clever story for all those flying fists to play out against. The meat of Haywire’s plot is just a standard double-cross story that’s pumped up with the sort of stylistic flash and flair that Soderbergh can deliver handily. Carano plays a highly skilled ex-Marine who now works in the “private sector” on black ops jobs that involves messy endeavors like extraction and assassination. Carano’s Mallory Kane is very good at her job, good enough that she’s often a special request (an “essential element”) for a number of her company’s various contracts, a fact that irks her boss and ex-flame Kenneth (McGregor). Mallory is dispatched for an extraction job in Barcelona that goes well enough, but her performance there directly leads into her next job, a gig that’s ostensibly presented as glorified babysitting, done in [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

If you’re interested in every major plot beat in the forthcoming 21 Jump Street movie, this trailer’s for you. Based on the non-comedy television show that launched Johnny Depp, the comedy film stars Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum as a mismatched pair of cops who join an undercover division that infiltrates a high school to crack down on a new drug. No word on whether Huggy Bear makes an appearance. The three-minute red band trailer definitely has its share of jokes. Here’s hoping they aren’t the only ones:

It’s easy to bemoan casting choices - romantic comedies that feature a male and a female star that seemed to have been picked just by virtue of the fact they’ve never appeared together in a rom-com before (Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore in Music & Lyrics, I am looking squarely at you), superhero flicks that cast leads that don’t meet rabid fan expectations, that insane Bradley Cooper/Crow thing, pretty much any film that involves anyone who has ever worked on One Tree Hill, the list goes on and on. But sometimes, just sometimes, casting is almost too perfect, too spot-on, so that we can only sit back and sigh, content and pleased and sated, as if we have just eaten a full Thanksgiving dinner. Matthew McConaughey is now set to play a former stripper turned strip club owner in Steven Soderbergh‘s Magic Mike, simply because it could be no other way.

There was more than a little confusion when Bradley Cooper was all but signed on to appear as the dark hero of The Crow. For one, the weariness of the remake onslaught is enough to make any recycled narrative raise eyebrows. For two, this was like hiring the high school quarterback to play Puck in the school’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It was either staunchly experimental or profoundly bad casting. Either way, none of that matters now because The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Cooper is not going to be involved in the project due to a scheduling conflict with Silver Linings Playbook and Paradise Lost. So now Relativity Media has a clean slate to work with, so of course the two names hovering over the carrion are Mark Wahlberg and Channing Tatum. Because when you think The Crow, that’s…who…you think…of. Apparently. Hopefully those names are part of the “Anytime We Make a Movie And Need a Male Lead Wish List” because if the counter-instinctual casting continues beyond Cooper, it’ll prove that someone involved in the production has a deep, deep misunderstanding of the character. Sadly, that might be the case because the role was once Wahlberg’s to turn down. It’s unbelievable to think it, but if those are really the frontrunners for the job, it’s a shame Bradley Cooper’s not still on board.

Steven Soderbergh is perhaps the most versatile director working today. He hates to be pinned down, he enjoys non-actors acting, and he revels in action as much as dialogue. With Haywire it seems he gets to combine a lot of his creative interests into one throat-crushing experience. The trailer has hit, and it feels like every story ever told about an agent that’s the best of the best of the best being taken out back by her government. Of course, when it all goes wrong, she wants to know why and seek revenge. Beat by beat, it’s been told a hundred times, but Soderbergh is also a storyteller with tricks up his sleeve, and as for pure action, Gina Carano looks like she’ll pull everyone’s kidneys out through the hole she rips in their shoulders. Check out the trailer for yourself:

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a movie news column that is content with entertaining you on a nightly basis with the best links and tidbits the web has to offer. But in reality, it wishes that it could be out there fighting for the side of humanity in the great world war against the zombie invasion. It has big dreams, this nightly feature. As you know, there are three things I can’t avoid writing about in this here column: Michael Bay movies, Doctor Who and World War Z. The third is perhaps one of the greatest texts ever written about the zombie apocalypse. What I did not know is that it was almost turned into an awesome video game, as this Kotaku investigative report suggests. As you can see from tonight’s headline image, it would have been very cool.

He originally wanted Nicolas Winding Refn to direct, but since that ship has sailed, Channing Tatum has teamed with Steven Soderbergh on a personal story that draws from Tatum’s past as a male stripper. I have the perfect screenwriter for it: Diablo Cody. Easy jokes aside, Soderbergh is a chameleon director with ups and downs like just about anyone, but if he can get a decent performance out of Tatum, it’ll be a win. According to The Playlist, Magic Mike will focus on Tatum as a mentor figure for a young male stripper learning the ropes and the pole. They have poles in male stripping, right? Soderbergh is insanely busy, so they’ll have to grease this one up and shove it into an alread-hectic schedule that acts as an explosive amount of output before Soderbergh’s retirement next summer. His final film is set to be Liberace, which seems like an obvious double feature with Magic Mike. There are a lot of jokes here, but in all honesty, it’s refreshing to see an actor draw on this sort of previous experience in order to make something. In a world where everything (including sordid pasts) are photoshopped, it’s daring for an actor on the rise to be this open about the fact that he used to swing a banana hammock for cash. If that isn’t self-awareness and acceptance, I don’t know what is, and that alone could set a strong base for a good drama.

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr spent the night in jail after trying to sneak in and see Justin Bieber: Never Say Never 3D. The cops didn’t believe him that he was trying to watch the latest remake of Thunderball. Sadly, they just saw a pervy looking fat guy squealing and crying with a group of thirteen year old girls. Fortunately, he had a chance to catch the other movies of the week, including Gnomeo and Juliet, Just Go With It and The Eagle. He also gives a little bit of love (what’s left of it anyway after spending the night in lock-up) to the Oscar-Nominated Shorts.

There are some historical stories so fascinating, mysterious, and incredible that audiences can never tire of seeing the tale played out on the silver screen again and again. This is purportedly one of them. At the height of Rome’s dominance over all things Earth-bound the legendary Ninth Legion was reportedly sent into Caledonia (modern day Scotland) to find, defeat, and subjugate the Picts. They never returned, and the mystery remains to this day. Two decades later a young Roman soldier named Marcus Aquila (Cardboard Tatum) volunteers for a command that puts him within shouting distance of the land that swallowed the legion… and his father who led them. He wants to solve the mystery and restore his family’s good name by recovering the legion’s lost Eagle emblem. Along for the journey is a Scottish slave named Esca (Jamie Bell) whose life was spared by Marcus in the Roman arena. Together they’ll face tests of their valor, loyalty, and heterosexuality.

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr dresses up in a trench coat and hat, wears a mask and runs around the streets of his fair city with his strong and agile Asian manservant. The plan: When arrested, tell the police he is trying to emulate the crime-fighting career of the Green Hornet. If he can get away with that, he plans on tracking down two doughy but funny guys who are having sexual relations with super-hot Hollywood type ladies and try to steal their girlfriends away. Or, he just might sit on the couch and watch movies after telling you what he thinks of The Green Hornet and The Dilemma.