Remember that time when Jack the Giant Killer was scheduled to hit theaters in the summer of 2012? It was a simpler, happier time when the internet wasn’t imploding, you could go out dancing safely with your best girl, and strangers offering bizarre beans on the side of the road were foodie hipsters wanting people to try organic lentils. Not anymore. Now chaos reigns as Warners has pushed Bryan Singer’s forthcoming flick from a coveted in mid-June all the way to March 22, 2013. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Rock of Ages has been shifted forward to fill the slot. In its original position, its only competition was the Adam Sandler/Andy Samberg movie Donny’s Kid. In its new slot, it faces the DreamWorks animated comedy The Croods, the Tom Hanks-starring Somali pirate movie Captain Phillips, and whatever else studios decide to toss there in the coming months. So what happened? Either confidence wasn’t high in the film in its current, crappy CGI form. Or, it’s a sideline casualty of the decision to pump the breaks on the David Dobkin project Arthur & Lancelot which was scheduled for March 15, 2013. Dobkin is also a producer on Jack. Removing it from the schedule left Warners with no movie to release in March at all. At any rate, it’s probably good that the film gets some more time to simmer because the trailer looked atrocious. Plus, if you don’t want to wait, you can always watch the original Jack the Giant Killer [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]

When the news recently broke that the Piranha 3D sequel Piranha 3DD was going straight to video in the UK, I speculated whether this meant that the movie wouldn’t get put into theaters anywhere at all. After all, it had already gone from an original November 2011 release date to a release of “sometime in 2012.” Doesn’t sound promising, right? Well according to Piranha 3DD co-writer Patrick Melton, it’s not yet time to panic. When talking to Daily Dead Melton said of the movie’s postponement, “To clarify, the Thanksgiving release was always overly optimistic. Marcus and I started writing the script around Thanksgiving a year prior. Making the film within that time period is plausible (we’ve done it on Saw, obviously), but it became clear very early on that our goals were not realistic because we needed sun, water slides, and bikini-clad coeds…three things not very prevalent in the United States during the months of January and February. We initially scouted Louisiana and realized that we wouldn’t be able to shoot until late March because of the cold weather. Now, with the additional FX worked needed to create/enhance the piranhas, the Thanksgiving release was out the window.” That’s certainly a reasonable excuse for why a movie would get pushed back. But what of that dreaded “sometime in 2012” release? Doesn’t that sound like a movie that is doomed to purgatory? Melton has some info on that as well.

The 3D reboot of Piranha from 2010 was one of my favorite movies of that year. And I don’t usually much like horror stuff, especially winky, self-aware horror parody: that means they did something very right. So word of a followup should have been great news. But as soon as Piranha 3DD was announced as re-teaming the creative team behind the Project Greenlight winning horror film Feast rather than re-teaming the creative team that already worked so well together on a Piranha movie, director Alexandre Aja and writers Pete Goldfinger & Josh Stolberg, I was dubious. The next hint that this movie wasn’t going to turn out so great came in October, when Piranha 3DD was scrapped from having its planned November 2011 release and was instead marked with the ominous “sometime in 2012” release date instead. It was starting to look like the writing was on the wall, that Dimension didn’t have much faith in the film and that it was now residing in limbo, probably until an eventual straight to home video release. Well, it looks like the next step toward making that doomed future a reality has happened. It’s looking like the UK has now become the first market to scrap a theatrical release plan for Piranha 3DD in favor of dumping it onto disc. According to the British Video Association website, March 19th is the day it will happen. Unless this is a mistake by the BVA site, this means that not very many people will [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]

Midnight in Paris is still out there making money and finding new audiences, so it’s less than surprising that Sony Pictures Classics has already picked up Woody Allen‘s follow-up film, Nero Fiddled, which was produced last year. According to Cinema Blend, the movie is described by Allen as a broad comedy with several overlapping stories. It stars Jesse “Woody Allen” Eisenberg, Ellen Page, Alec Baldwin, Greta Gerwig, Penelope Cruz, Roberto Benigni and Judy Davis. Woody Allen is also playing a role, but he lamented earlier in the year about not being able to play the romantic lead anymore. Which is ridiculous. Who wouldn’t want to see a hunky 76-year-old man embroil himself in the heart and loins of a gorgeous counterpart? Exactly. As long as it takes place in Rome, it’ll be romantic. I’m pretty sure that’s even where we get the word. So if you were at all worried that you’d go a year without hearing from the workhorse of filmmaking, fear not! More Allen is on the way. Just try not to loudly pontificate about the meaning of his work while waiting in line at the cinema.  

Despite the fact that they have a go-to wheelhouse of gags that include mostly low-fi special effects, shrill noises, absurdism, and repetition, I find that I never get used to the strange video creations of comedians Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim. Every time I sit down to watch an episode of Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job or take a look at a short that they’ve made for the Internet I have a general idea of what’s coming my way, but they always manage to get under my skin again nonetheless. Some people just find the stuff they do to be uncomfortable and weird, other people think that it’s fall down hilarious. Me? I fall somewhere in the middle. I laugh at how uncomfortable and weird they are always able to get, and then I move on. Which is why I was impressed at how much they were able to creep me out in just a few seconds in the teaser trailer for their upcoming film Tim & Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie, which ludicrously claims to be the most expensive movie ever made. A lot of people have been announced as appearing in the new Tim & Eric film, huge names in comedy like Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Zach Galifianakis, Will Forte, and Robert Loggia (he had that one orange juice commercial!). But you won’t see any of them appear in this teaser. No, what you’ll see is decidedly…different. You’ll just have to watch yourself.

The sequel to J.J. Abrams’ slick and successful Star Trek reboot was originally supposed to come out on June 29, 2012. That date didn’t really take into consideration that Abrams was a busy guy doing a lot of other things though. Because of his directorial and promotional duties on Super 8, there was no way he was going to hit that date and make it good. Thankfully, instead of forcing Abrams to rush the project out, or flat out firing Abrams and then hiring Brett Ratner to rush the project out, Paramount had the good sense to pull back on their expectations, give Abrams a reprieve, and actually try to make a good movie.

Last April, an amazing trailer hit the web that was subsequently taken down. While it lasted, it showed Will Ferrell playing a character named Armando Alvarez in a ridiculous Spanish-language film that looked a heck of a lot like one of those super-sexy and deadly dramatic Mexican telenovelas that you can catch on Telemundo during the day. It had comedic actors like Nick Offerman, dramatic actors like Gael Garcia Bernal, and a mocha-skinned (TM Ricky Martin) hottie named Genesis Rodriguez. It instantly became one of my most highly-anticipated films on the release date horizon, but after the trailer got jerked, I had not heard hide nor hair of it. That all changed today when I read a report from THR that Pantelion Films has announced that they have acquired the U.S. distribution rights to the film, and will be putting it out in theaters on March 16, 2012. Pantelion CEO Paul Presburger said of their acquisition, “We cannot imagine a better vehicle than Casa de mi Padre to demonstrate how a Spanish language film can appeal to a broad mainstream audience. We are enthusiastic about joining forces with NALA Films on this project and feel that Will, Matt and Andrew have proven that if it’s funny, we all laugh in the same language.” These are, truly, deeply poetic and moving words from Mr. Presburger. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go call my Mexican friend Eric.

The bad news for fans of horror just keeps piling up. Currently we’re dealing with an October that is painfully devoid of new horror releases in the theaters, and now a couple of movies that were supposed to be coming our way in the upcoming months are getting pushed back. Piranha 3DD was supposed to hit theaters on November 23rd and The Amityville Horror: The Lost Tapes was originally set to be released on January 27th, but they’re now both relegated to the vague release dates of  “sometime in 2012.” Both films are Dimension releases, so perhaps the reason for the pushback is some juggling on the corporate level, but I think we’ve all been following movies long enough to suss out what this probably means; it probably means they suck. The original Piranha 3D was great fun, but instead of bringing back the creative team from that film, Dimension instead got the hacks that collaborated on the terrible (in my opinion, argue if you disagree, I know there are some of you out there) Feast to handle this sequel. And the new Amityville movie, it’s supposed to be one of those found footage films. Anybody remember how boring Apollo 18 was? Yeah, I’m trying to forget too. I’d have to say that all signs are pointing to both of these movies turning out pretty bad. I mean, Amityville was already set to be put out in the film release wasteland of January, and now they’re not even comfortable putting [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]

Details have been flying around about the fifth installment of the Die Hard franchise all year. First some plot details leaked, letting us all know that this time around Officer John McClane would be heading to Russia and encountering some terrorism related problems alongside his now adultish aged son John McClane Jr. After that, it became clear that Behind Enemy Lines director John Moore was officially on as the director of the film. Things were coming together, we were starting to get an idea of what this movie was going to look like. And today, the next step toward a potential fifth Die Hard film becoming a reality was taken. Fox has announced that Die Hard 5 is on their schedule for wide theatrical release on February 14, 2013, and that the official title of the film will be A Good Day to Die Hard. If you ask me, that sounds more like a title for a James Bond movie than a movie about rough and tumble NYPD officer John McClane, but hey, when I was watching that tank top clad jerk blowing up Nakatomi Plaza all the way back in 1988 I guess I never imagined that I’d be seeing him traveling to Russia either. In order to continue getting Die Hard movies, it seems like we’ve had to sacrifice some of their Die Hardiness in order to find new stuff for McClane to do. That’s not necessarily the worst thing in the world though. Watching Bruce Willis doing [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]

It’s October and that means one thing in Hollywood: not releasing horror movies. It’s become sort of a yearly tradition for me to bitch about the lack of horror movies released in the month of Halloween and so far, Hollywood hasn’t yet disappointed in disappointing me. People love Halloween, they love scary movies, and they love combining the two. During the month of October, more people than ever are interested in seeing scary flicks and having fun in a theater. You can look at positively mediocre movies, like most of the Saw franchise, Rob Zombie’s Halloween movies, and Paranormal Activity, that are released in October and make oodles of money — money they wouldn’t make at any other time. It’s sort of like when poker started appearing on television, everyone started buying poker sets. Poker movies started coming out. SyFy Channel and The Asylum make a living off of making rip-off movies that play around the release of huge movies, when people are most interested in that subject. If only there were a way to know when people would be interested in what…

Vincent Gallo is one of those working artists who critics and audiences often find polarizing. What’s that mean? I guess it means that he’s always doing crazy shit and some people buy into it and some people get annoyed by it. The hype around the filmmaker seemed to hit its crescendo with his 2003 film The Brown Bunny, which consisted mostly of lengthy, boring scenes of Gallo driving, capped off with a graphic depiction of him receiving a blowjob from Chloe Sevigny. The film famously endured mass walkouts at Cannes and in the wake of that screening Gallo exchanged heated words about cancer and death with film critic Roger Ebert. Recently Gallo did an interview with the Danish Film Institute and it seems like he’s back to his polarizing ways. Or, more accurately, he’s doing more crazy crap and some people will applaud him while some people will scorn him. Last year Gallo directed a film named Promises in the Water about a Dr. Kevorkian-esque assisted murderer (Gallo) who strikes up a romance with a terminally ill woman (Delfine Bafort) that screened at Venice and TIFF. Right about now he should probably be talking to media outlets about when it will be available for limited release, but instead he is telling the DFI that he refuses to release it, or any other film that he makes from now on.

It’s being reported by Bloody Disgusting that filming is scheduled to begin for the sequel to 2010’s Piranha 3D sometime at the end of May. John Gulager will direct, and it will see him reteaming with Feast writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan. The film’s title insinuates that there will be an increased focus on 3D bosoms for the sequel, but in addition to that, some other plot details have become known as well. This time the story will detail the prehistoric piranha’s voyage through a town’s plumbing system and into their local water park named ‘Wilderness Waters’. Seeing as the first one was set at a spring break hot spot and this one is set at a public water park, I don’t see where they’re going to get the chance to focus as much on T&A, but my heart definitely goes out to them as they give it the old college try. The film’s release date is currently set as November 23rd.

You have almost a year to get your wallet ready.

Finally, two Jewish men will be delivering a remake of a John Wayne film on Christmas. My 2011 is complete.

You’re about to get a friend request from David Fincher.

One of Fantastic Fest’s best surprises has US distribution and a release date.

The must-awaited Tron: Legacy has an official release date for December 2010. And it has some competition.

Casting off one of the worst names I’ve seen in a while, The Vampire’s Assistant has gotten a late-October date with audiences who are hopefully not completely burnt out on vampires just yet.

As if the image of Willem Dafoe’s nude buttocks wasn’t enough to haunt you, Lars Von Trier’s entire film is going to be landing in New York and Los Angeles on October 23rd. Spooky!

The Clint Eastwood-directed Invictus will tell the story of Nelson Mandela’s fight against apartheid, and it’s gunning for Oscar territory.