What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly movie news collection that doesn’t usually involve so much nudity, or Dance Dance Revolution references, but Mondays are always a little special. We begin this evening with a new shot from The Hobbit, a film you may have heard about. It’s also a film that will undoubtedly be filled with little people, tall wizards, shires, middling earths and rings inscribed with “From Sauron, with love.” This one features Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins, standing amongst friends.

Based on the article, Seeing A Sex Surrogate, The Surrogate takes you into the life thirty-eight year old Mark O’Brien (John Hawkes) who has lived with polio since the age of six. Only able to be out of his iron lung for a few hours a day, Mark is otherwise stuck inside with just his thoughts, poetry, and faith. Most would resent a life like this, but Mark finds the humor in his situation, always putting those around him at ease and never letting the fact that he can barely move his head from side to side limit his ambition. Having graduated from the University of Berkeley, Mark now has even bigger aspirations in his life – he wants to lose his virginity. Mark takes a shine to one of his aids and while it seems she seems to return his affection, when he expresses it, she gets scared and runs away. Mark jokes to his priest (William H. Macy) that he tried to go about his sexual revolution the “proper” way, but now he has another option he is considering – a sex surrogate who specializes in helping the disabled not only have sex, but teach them the tools and skills to have their own sexual relationships.

Dirty Girl is a candy-coated collection of ’80s hairstyles, pop tunes and other sparkly flourishes. Despite the best efforts of Juno Temple, who perfects her standard character — the sullen oversexed young woman — it’s a forced, facile effort. The film takes a premise with promise, in which the titular “dirty girl” (Temple) searches for her long-lost father, and flushes it away in a haze of standard road-trip silliness. It’d be hard to conceive of a movie more painstakingly comprised of dramatic filler than this one, in which nothing of consequence happens until the climax. Danielle and her shy study buddy Clarke (Jeremy Dozier) take off from Oklahoma for California, in the hope of finding the absentee paterfamilias who knows not of her existence. Both misfits are escaping unfortunate home situations: Danielle’s mom Sue-Anne (Milla Jovovich), a former “dirty girl” herself, wants to settle down with the domineering Mormon Ray (William H. Macy). Clarke has it worse. His father Joseph (Dwight Yoakam) abuses him, sends him to therapy and threatens military school if his son can’t repress his homosexuality.

Charles Matthau’s upcoming adaptation of the Elmore Leonard novel Freaky Deaky was all set to be a star studded, A-list affair. First, it scooped up William H, Macy in a starring role. Solid, sturdy, that’s a good choice. Then it began filling out the ranks of its cast with big names put in supporting roles. Matt Dillon, Brendan Fraser, Craig Robinson, they were all on board, and it was looking like this could end up being a big hit like one of Leonard’s other page to screen adaptations, Get Shorty. But then, suddenly, the entire cast dropped out of the pic and were recast with names that are more, uh… B-list. Uh-oh, that can’t be a good sign.

Charles Matthau’s big screen adaptation of the Elmore Leonard novel Freaky Deaky has been hiring actors right and left to fill out some of its bigger roles. Being a Leonard novel, I’m sure you can imagine the complexity of the plot, and the amount of roles that need to be filled, so it’s encouraging that Matthau and his casting crew seems to be off to a good start. We already knew that everybody’s favorite actor William H. Macy has signed on to play a drunken, irresponsible movie mogul, and that saucy young dish Camilla Belle is attached to do something as well, but today there’s a trio of casting announcements that really put what this project is going to end up looking like in better perspective. The film’s plot involves two former political activists and bomb experts who intend to use their pyrotechnic expertise to intimidate and trick Macy’s character out of millions of dollars. One of the activists, Skip Gibbs, we now know will be played by Brendan Fraser. Matt Dillon has signed on to play Chris Mankowski, a bomb squad officer who stumbles on Fraser and company’s plot and therefore gets sucked into the whirlwind of nonsense that is an Elmore Leonard story. And lastly, Craig Robinson has been hired to play Donnell Lewis, a former Black Panther who has become the assistant to Macy’s character due to a newfound love of capitalism. All of these actors have their strengths, and it sounds to me like the roles [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]

While Brian goes through detox he thought it an interesting experiment for me to take my palette of appreciation for important film and muddy it with something incredibly not that. I took a gander at the menu and, sho’nuff, came across one of my favorite I-wish-I-knew-how-to-quit-you movie desserts – chocolate-covered fortune cookies that are completely void of little wisdom slips (again, you can email your complaints of racism to brianismoreracistthanadam@stillnotarealemailaddress.com).

So, grab your chopsticks and boombox and venture with me into the streets of 1980’s Harlem to seek the one and only Mastah in Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon.

Bienvenu, mes amis, to Junk Food Cinema, which has a certain, as the French say, “ordure.” Our beloved Brian will be back next week, when he returns from his vacation ghostbusting. Until then, you can pin the blame for your eyeball blisters on me, Mrs. Junkfood-Cinema. I’ll be piloting this trash barge over the choppy waters of murky, questionable cinema, picking our precarious way through the flotsam and jetsam of a capsized wreck of a film. But just when you start to panic and look for the life vests (there are only 2. BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!), we arrive at the golden shores of redemption. I throw out beach towels so we can all bask in the warm glow of this film’s not-so-crappy side. And like any good day at the beach, I brought snacks. Unhealthy snacks. This week…well, this week, allow me to set the stage: Ahh, it’s a good day to be white off the coast of Isla Sorna. But what is this? CG fog? Bad green screen? What’s happening?! This isn’t the Jurassic Park Crichton envisioned, painstakingly researched, and that had audiences everywhere scared to ride in Jeeps for months afterword. This isn’t even the Jurassic Park 2 Crichton begrudgingly churned out and to whose script he turned a tactful blind eye. This is the notorious, superfluous, suck-o-saurus: Jurassic Park 3. JFC JP3. The point is,  you’re alive when JFC starts to eat you. So, you know…try to show a little respect.

As the classic soul song “Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City” plays over the opening credits of The Lincoln Lawyer, the perfect tone is set for the movie. At its core, it’s a classical lawyer procedural thriller, but is smoothly played by its star and large cast so much so that you can’t help but be entertained for two hours. It’s a movie where the title explains it all. Mickey Haller (Matthew McConaughey, looking little older, but still with some breezy cool swagger) is a high profiled LA defense lawyer who works out of his Lincoln Town Car. As he wheels and deals throughout the day with his driver Earl (Laurence Mason), we meet the various lawyers, bail bonds men, private investigators, celebrity drug addicts, and gang members that he works with. Some of them love him, but most have some sort of card to play with him.

I’ve been crushing on Camilla Belle pretty hard ever since I saw her show up on Conan last week to promote her upcoming film From Prada to Nada. So it was some strange serendipity when news came down the line that she has signed on to upcoming Elmore Leonard adaptation Freaky Deaky, seeing as I’d already been creepily Googling her name all day. It’s like she’s trying to tell me something! But the charm and beauty of the lovely Ms. Belle isn’t the only thing that this one has going for it. Elmore Leonard novels have a surprisingly decent track record going when it comes to big screen adaptation to begin with, and this one has already signed on everybody’s favorite actor William H. Macy to star.  Plus the story is about an estranged couple who made their living blowing things up reuniting one last time to cash in on a huge blowing things up score all while being hunted down by a Detroit cop who is having his last day on the bomb squad. I love movies about cops who are trying to retire, but get sucked in to chaos! So, to recap: This movie adaptation of an Elmore Leonard novel has 1) Camilla Belle 2) William H. Macy and 3) Lethal Weapon plot tropes. Where I come from we call that a triple threat. And explosions! Source: The Playlist

This week we feature the best movie the Coen Brothers have made and one of the greatest of all time.

What is it with Owen Wilson and movies about dogs?

Question: What Robert Rodriguez film was more successful, Spy Kids or Sin City? I’ll give you a hint, Rodriguez’s next film is a family film…

After over 100 film and television appearances and almost a dozen writing gigs, William H. Macy is taking his turn behind the camera. And he’s convinced Milla Jovovich to play an ex-stripper. Pretty good for a first-timer.