BLOGS
June 2008 Archives
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Helena Bonham Carter is the latest casting coup for the producers of Terminator Salvation.
Either L.A. audiences either really enjoyed watching 63-year-old Ben Kingsley make out with 21-year-old Mary-Kate Olsen, or The Wackness is a legitimately good movie: its director Josh Levine won the audience award at the Los Angeles Film Festival.
It's June 30th, and we all know what that means: The deadline for a deal between the Screen Actors Guild and studio owners is at midnight, so a strike is imminent, right?
Another comic book movie is in the works: Variety reports that Matthew Fox is in talks to play the title character in Billy Smoke, a film based on the Oni Press comics.
Let's get this out of the way: Hancock is not a great movie. It has all of the makings of one: a terrific cast, a pretty brilliant concept, and loads of ambition. But it never rises too far above any other summer action flick.
Both new movies in wide release debuted strong at the box office, a sign that the box office numbers aren't slowing this summer, despite our nation's economic crunch.
To no one's surprise, Pixar's latest, WALL-E debuted at No. 1 (don't Pixar's movies always? I can't find one that hasn't), taking in $62.5 million, which ties it with Monsters, Inc. for the third-highest Pixar opening weekend, after The Incredibles and Finding Nemo.
Rose Red: McGowan to Play Sonja
If you're a fan of Conan the Barbarian, you're likely a fan of Red Sonja, his female counterpart, also created by Robert E. Howard. However, you're likely not a fan of her 1985 movie starring Brigitte Nielsen. Despite featuring Ah-nuld as a less-exciting warrior named Kalidor, it was campy as hell, with a kid sidekick and some fat comic relief, and the final nail in the coffin was that it deprived Sonja of her trademark steel bikini and gave her a ridiculously bad hairdo. Well, Rose McGowan has apparently been cast as the new Sonja, and if anyone was ever born to wear a steel bikini, it was her. (Sorry, Jennifer Lopez.)
Because there's apparently nothing new under the sun, the 1981 Harry Hamlin toga fest Clash of the Titans is being remade. News of the remake has been circulating for a while has been out for a while, with reports that Blade director Steve Norrington would direct, but the movie's only just now been greenlit by Warner Brothers, thanks to a change in directors. Hot on the heels of his success with The Incredible Hulk, Louis Leterrier is set to take the reins of this refurbished ancient Greek chariot and drive it to the finish line. Warner Brothers wants him to hurry, though, because he isn't in the race alone: Variety reports that the studio is hoping to make it to theaters ahead of Relativity Media and its own epic Greek god flick, War of Gods. But how to speed up production to secure a victory?
If you're a PBS or BBC geek like me, or just a lover of veterinary literature, the title All Creatures Great and Small probably brings up a very specific memory for you: Country vet James Herriot tending to his stable of animal patients. He treated horses, dogs, cats, and a pregnant cow or two--the latter by very memorably inserting his arm into the birth canal up to the shoulder. So when The Hollywood Reporter reported that the writers of Wanted have penned a script for a movie also called All Creatures Great and Small, it gave me a moment of pause. I started imagining Siegfried Farnon as the Morgan Freeman character, Sloan, recruiting young vets and barn yard animals into a secret fraternity of assassins. Dairy cattle would be instructed to "curve the milk" to hit their targets. But never fear; although Derek Haas and Michael Brandt's script is about animals, it's probably not about cows.
Always wanted to plant one on Angelina Jolie? Have dreams of sucking face with Leonardo DiCaprio? If you the opportunity ever arises, you may want to pass and let your wildest dreams stay just that. In Touch Weekly got the skinny on making out with a number of celebs from their co-stars, and if these actors are to be believed, not a single one was a pleasant experience. (In Touch tells you to pick up a copy of their newest mag on newsstands to read the full listing, but fear not dear readers, Defamer has them all in gory detail.)
