What is Movie News After Dark DRINKING? It’s the end result of a long work day, a half dozen mini doughnuts, a glass of cheap Canadian whisky, Robert Fure, and a keyboard. Suck on it, suckers! This week’s movie news after Drinking is brought to you by Revel Stoke spiced whisky (We should not get paid for this because I’m not drinking this again. Or no we should still get paid, but I’m not drinking this again). But basically the deal is I get kind of drunk and then try to type up a whole bunch of movie news before my arms stop working. If you’re wondering why I’m typing all this nonsense, it’s because we need a certain amount of buffer before we move into the news to put a proper text break in here. But totally keep reading because Will Smith NO JOKE SLAPS A RUSSIAN IN THE FACE IN THE FIRST STORY. (OH LOOK AT ME I’M FRILMCRIT HULK BECAUSE THIS IS ALL CAPITALS)

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.

Along with Cole Abaius, I was quite taken with pure popcorn joy of The Avengers. Walking out of the theater one cannot imagine any blockbuster delivering a level of fun at that caliber. Plenty of moviegoers will come away this weekend thinking that exact sentiment, but then they’ll recall this fantastic final trailer for The Dark Knight Rises that will play before Joss Whedon‘s Marvel pic, and they’ll realize we still have one more superhero epic coming our way. If this eerie and evocative trailer is any indication, it’ll be the epic finale this series and the summer deserves. Take a look at Bruce Wayne “rising” with a far less laughable voice this time around:

Remember a time before 1995 when movies were loaded with rainbows and puppies? Strawberry ice cream poured out of every frame. Then Se7en came along. Then things got really interesting. David Fincher‘s second effort at feature filmmaking caught a storm, and it was one filled with melancholic grime and depressing endings. Also there was something about a box and what was in it. The state of thrillers changed forever, and, while many copycats tried to pick up the scraps Se7en left in its wake, none would recapture that initial sense of dread when John Doe screamed at Detective David Mills, the killers hands covered in blood. Paints a pretty picture, doesn’t it? Well, with this week’s Commentary Commentary, we’re hoping the track we’ve selected paints a couple of dozen more. David Fincher, Brad Pitt, and Morgan Freeman lend their voices and insight into this commentary track for Se7en. If for no other reason, this track should already be looked into for including Freeman, who has one of the greatest voices this side of a certain Sith. So, without any further ado, here are all 25 items we learned from listening to the Se7en commentary. Now to find out what’s in that box.

I was only eight  in 1989, but from what I remember it was pretty much the year of Batman and Driving Miss Daisy; two movies that my 8-year-old self was less than impressed by. Perhaps we’ll talk about Batman at a later date, but today I want to talk about Miss Daisy, a movie that won so many awards and got so much critical praise that it made even those of us who had yet to sprout pubes aware of who Jessica Tandy was. The hype on this thing must have been huge to get me to tear my attention away from G.I. Joe and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles long enough to watch a film about a couple of old people driving around, but it did. The other movie I want to look at is from 2008. It’s Clint Eastwood’s acting swan song, Gran Torino. This one was well-liked, from what I can tell, but it didn’t get the hype or attention that I imagined it would once awards season rolled around, and consequently I don’t think as many people saw it as should have. I mean, with this one’s racial themes and its focus on old people you’d think it was a shoo-in for baiting the Oscars into giving it recognition. Perhaps it had too many racial slurs and too much gunplay to get embraced by the intellectual bourgeoisie that make up the Academy though. Give something a little color and suddenly it can’t be viewed as “serious

Tron: Legacy director Joseph Kosinski’s upcoming sci-fi project Oblivion has grown in hype quite a bit since it was first announced. Mostly that’s due to the fact that Tom Cruise signed on to be its headliner, and whenever that happens a movie suddenly goes from being a project of the director to being a “Tom Cruise movie” in the hearts and minds of the public. But, spotlight-hogging by Cruise aside, Oblivion is a movie that’s been quietly developing into quite the little ensemble piece over the past few weeks. The film is about a man on a post-apocalyptic world who discovers a crash-landed space ship containing a mysterious woman. Cruise is playing the lead, of course, but Olga Kurlyenko has already signed on to play his wife back home, Andrea Riseborough has signed on to play the crash-landed woman, and according to Deadline Nashoba, not only has Morgan Freeman signed on for a critical role, but Game of Thrones’ Jamie Lannister, Nicolaj Coster-Waldau, has also agreed to come on playing the role of Sykes, who is said to be a badass weapons expert. After seeing what he has to offer playing a smug warrior in Game of Thrones, this is a role that I’m confident Coster-Waldau can pull off.

Amidst the pinky-out prestige of awards season sits the manic pixie of The People’s Choice Awards. Perhaps they can easily be dismissed by the cinephile crowd for not being nearly well-rounded or interesting enough, but looking at the nominees and the winners can provide a bird’s eye view into the abyss of mass-entertainment. With over 200 million votes cast, according to a press release, the winners included Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds as The Green Lantern, Adam Sandler‘s comedy and Bridesmaids. To put that into perspective, that’s a ridiculous amount of people. To really put it into perspective, it’s 7.6 million more people than the entire population of Brazil, and it’s 2/3rds the population of the United States. The giant, faceless wad of “the people” have made these their movie champions of 2011:

Heist movies are usually about that one big score. That one massive job that’s too risky to take on, but too enticing to pass up. In order to motivate heist movie characters to step out of their comfort zones and take big risks, whatever they’re breaking into has to have a pretty big booty. But with each passing announcement, it becomes clearer and clearer that in Louis Leterrier’s upcoming heist film Now You See Me, the most valuable thing on screen won’t be the stockpiles of cash the illusionist characters steal from the world’s banks, but the amazing cast that he has assembled to bring these characters to life. It seems like almost on a bi-weekly basis some new casting announcement is made about this film that tops the last, and the latest comes from Movie Hole, who reports that Michael Caine has become the latest actor to join an already bursting at the seams ensemble. This puts him in a group of actors including Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Morgan Freeman, Melanie Laurent, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco, and Woody Harrelson. Admittedly, Movie Hole’s accuracy rate at breaking news stories has been a little bit dubious, but The Playlist, a publication with a better batting record, has confirmed the story as well, so there must be some legitimacy to what Movie Hole’s secret source is saying. And if Movie Hole’s source knows what it’s talking about, then it raises another question about the film. Their source mentions the fact that Woody

I’m not going to go on too long here. I’ve already written pages about how excited I am about the casting process for Louis Leterrier’s Now You See Me. Leterrier and company started out strong by casting Jesse Eisenberg in the lead role, then in rapid succession they added names like Mark Ruffalo, Melanie Laurent, Morgan Freeman, and Isla Fisher. This movie about bank robbing magicians has a next level cast, and it just keeps getting better. Variety is reporting that Woody Harrelson is the latest name to join the ensemble. Harrelson, one of the most delightful to watch and underrated actors in Hollywood, will be playing the role of Merritt Osbourne, a hypnotist and mentalist who can pull Jedi mind tricks on people. He used to perform for the Queen of England, but some sort of vaguely violent incident has forced him to relocate to Las Vegas where he becomes a member of the Four Horsemen, Eisenberg’s group of bank robbing magicians. Well, that about takes care of that; best movie ever.

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr decides he’s going to learn history from Hollywood. After all, why not when three out of the four major releases are based on or inspired by a true story. He learns about the true history of baseball with Moneyball (and was sorely disappointed it wasn’t called Monkeyball because a movie about monkeys playing baseball would have been awesome). Then he learns all he needs to know about marine mammals and depressed children in Dolphin Tale. Finally, he faces the cadres of screaming tweenage girls to see Taylor Lautner in ABduction. That’s based on a true story, right?

The casting process for Louis Leterrier’s upcoming heist film Now You See Me has played like a magician’s stage show up to this point. One after another, Leterrier has pulled actors I love out of his hat to fill the roles of the bank robber magicians and the government agents who will be tracking them down. But recently that process has hit something of a snag. The genie has been taken out of the bottle, because Variety is reporting that Amanda Seyfried has passed on playing the role of Henley, the master technician of the magician crew. For her sake, I hope that she isn’t passing up on this interesting sounding film to do yet another terrible movie like Red Riding Hood, but I guess we both need to just move on. Breaking up is hard. Moving on might be kind of easy though, as that same Variety article is also reporting that now that Seyfried is done sniffing around the role, the next step to finding a gadget gal for Jesse Eisenberg and his crew of bank robbing illusionists is to negotiate with Isla Fisher for the role. Fisher is charming, funny, and nice to look at, plus she doesn’t do nearly enough live action stuff, so I approve of this decision. That loss of Seyfried is going to hurt, I’m not gonna lie, but sticking a bubbly redhead in her place is a damn good way to make up for it. And more good news is that Mark

I’m starting to feel a pretty strange connection to Louis Leterrier‘s upcoming heist movie Now You See Me. First he seemed to be practically reading my mind by casting all of my favorite actors in prominent roles. And now, just days after I randomly and nonsensically mentioned Morgan Freeman in an article reporting on Mark Ruffalo and Amanda Seyfried joining the cast, comes word that Leterrier is negotiating with Freeman to join the film as well. Hello? Louis? Are you in there? Can you hear my thoughts? Let’s run down the cast once more, and see where Freeman fits in. Jesse Eisenberg is set to play the leader of a group of magicians (now being referred to as “the Four Horsemen” in the Variety article) who use their powers of illusion to rob banks and then shower the audience at their magic shows with money. Mark Ruffalo will play the head F.B.I. dude intent on shutting their little crime ring down. Amanda Seyfried will be playing the technician that builds all of the magicians’ equipment. And Melanie Laurent is set to play a lead character who sits on the right side of the law.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s out of options — it must do the news. We lead tonight with the first image of Brad Pitt in the crime-drama Cogan’s Trade. He plays Jackie Cogan, a pro enforcer hired to investigate the robbery of a mob-protected poker game. He will star alongside the likes of Scoot McNairy (Monsters) and Ben Mendelsohn (Animal Kingdom), as well as Ray Liotta, James Gandolfini and Richard Jenkins. That’s a hell of a cast, folks.

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr spends a long day in the multiplex, checking out a variety of films from alcoholic romantic comedies to nature documentaries with elephants and orangutans. He drinks himself silly and hits on Greta Gerwig in Arthur, narrowly escapes being killed by ass-kicking teen assassin Hanna, narrowly escapes getting his arm bitten off by a tiger shark in Soul Surfer and peeps in on Natalie Portman undressing for a swim in Your Highness. Too bad she’s pregnant now, ‘cause Kevin just ain’t into that scene.

Every day, come rain or shine or internet tubes breaking, Film School Rejects showcases a trailer from the past. If a fresh new detective and a wizened black detective who’s getting too old for this shit get called into investigate an obese man stuffed full of spaghetti, you know things are about to turn for the worse. Today’s trailer drives us all the way out to a field and shows us our true nature. They don’t call them deadly sins for nothing. Think you know what it is? Check the trailer out for yourself:

Morgan Freeman was already a bit too old to play Alex Cross – the iconic James Patterson detective – in Kiss The Girls and Along Came a Spider, but he was still Morgan Freeman. You don’t turn that man down, and the job he did was more than capable. Now, QED wants to bring back the character to the big screen. At one point, Idris Elba was in the starring seat. Now, it’s Tyler Perry, who can’t even be described as the poor man’s Idris Elba. Perry will play the master psychologist for I, Alex Cross – based off the novel of the same name. According to Deadline Lincoln, distributors are currently being sought out, and Paramount (who released the other Cross flicks) might be interested. To say this is terrible casting is understatement. Cross is a terribly complex character – compassionate yet tough, an intellectual giant who self-imposes a life of solitude while also managing to volunteer in one of the poorest communities in DC. So far, Perry just hasn’t shown the depth to bring this character to life. There’s also always that tiny fraction of a possibility that it turns into Alex Cross-dress. Jokes aside, Tyler Perry is no Morgan Freeman. He’s also no Idris Elba, and it’s a damned shame that we won’t get to see the Elba version of Alex Cross. Perry will have to have a lot of surprises up his sleeve that he hasn’t tapped into yet in order to pull this off.

The Akira remake news train is going to keep plowing forward – so far speeding over Zac Efron, the potential audience and now veteran actor Morgan Freeman. Freeman is rumored to be circling around the role of the Colonel – a vital component in the story. He’s the closest thing to a father figure the plot has, and he does experiments on a young man that result in turning him into a giant globular monster. Warning: if you don’t like hearing negative things about Morgan Freeman, do not read on.

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr makes a complete and total jackass of himself by enjoying the hell out of Red and being more excited than he should about the prospects of Jackass 3D. He realizes that it may be the beginning of award season, but that won’t stop him from watching a movie about bodily fluids flying at the camera in 3D and getting mildly turned on by Helen Mirren firing a Gatling gun while wearing an evening gown.

It’s been a long time since a single film has featured the acting talent assembled in RED. But if there’s one thing this halfhearted action-comedy proves, it’s this: even Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren and John Malkovich (not to mention Mary-Louise Parker, Brian Cox and Ernest Borgnine) can’t enliven a story as deadly as that crafted by screenwriters Jon and Erich Hoeber, based on the Warren Ellis/Cully Hamner graphic novel. Co-opting the age old, out of retirement for one last fling blueprint, the film follows retired CIA agent Frank Moses (Willis) as he and his former colleagues are forced back into the game when government spooks try to rub them out. Heavily armed and dangerous geriatrics Joe Matheson (Freeman), the wiry and paranoid Marvin Boggs (Malkovich) and the distinguished Victoria (Mirren) assist Frank in some serious butt kicking, supplemented by quirky quips and knowing, wizened back and forth banter.

There’s a world out there where people get shot more than they get paper cuts. It’s a world where alliances change, people might be out to kill you, but nothing’s ever all that big a deal. It’s just a Tuesday, and the black ops have busted into your home to end your life. Red might just be the best romantic comedy of the year featuring Helen Mirren on a piece of heavy artillery. Frank (Bruce Willis) is a former CIA agent who’s attacked in his home just when he’s close to asking out Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker), a woman he calls the Federal Pension Program help line to speak with on a regular basis. The retired don’t know about Facebook yet. He draws her into a world of former spooks who are also being targeted, including a suave gentleman (played by Morgan Freeman), a paranoid stuffed pig enthusiast (John Malkovich) and a gorgeous lady with a penchant for wet work (Helen Mirren).