The Academy is doubling up on everything this year aren’t they? First the Best Picture nominees jumped from 5 to 10, and then on Tuesday they announced that the show’s co-hosts would be Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin. What’s next? An 8-hour broadcast? God, I hope not. Read the rest of this entry »
Ed note: When a bunch of stories hit that aren’t quite “single post worthy” we’re going to start to try to round them up into one post. Consider this a trial run of that, which is also a semi-replacement for the Daily Links posts we used to do (that I no longer have time for).
Wayans is Pryor
Marlon Wayans is circling the Bill Condon- (”Dreamgirls”) helmed, Happy Madison-produced film about Richard Pryor’s life. Eddie Murphy was previously attached to the role that might have helped him jump-start his currently-awful career. Wayans is an interesting choice for sure, you know, because he mostly sucks.
Adrien Brody is a ‘Predator’
In other oddball casting news, the lead actor for Robert Rodriquez’s “Predator” reboot/sequel “Predators” is…Adrien Brody? Oh, and Topher Grace is in talks to join up as well. Clearly these two beefcakes will be playing the Arnold and Carl Weathers characters, respectively due to their similar physiques.
Reboot ‘Vacation’
New Line is moving forward with a reboot/sequel to the “Vacation” franchise that will follow Rusty Griswold as a now-grown up father taking his kids on their first trip. Chevy Chase and Beverly D’ Angelo could appear as grandparents. This is one of those reboot ideas that doesn’t sound awful, especially considering “Vegas Vacation” mostly sucked anyway.
The animated feature “9” is creating a lot of buzz amongst the fanboy community, partly because Tim Burton has plastered his name all over the project, partly because the trailer makes it look like another action extravaganza, and partly because Coheed and Cambria’s “Welcome Home” is the movie’s theme. But there’s another movie the fanboys should watch before they see the movie tonight, or whenever. It won’t take long.
See, fanboys can get excited about just about anything, but my bet is that 99% percent of them have no idea the director (firstly not Tim Burton) Shane Acker originally produced a short film called “9” in 2005 and was consequently nominated for an Oscar for it. It’s only about ten minutes long, is dark and mysterious, beautifully animated and without any dialogue. Heck, I didn’t know this existed either, but I wasn’t the one getting overly excited for the feature film. Read the rest of this entry »
Not long after their chief rival Marvel penned a major deal with Disney that will only make competition tougher, DC Comics (and its parent company, Warner Bros.) announced a shake-up of their own today.
DC Comics is no longer. The company is now DC Entertainment. Warner noted that, “the revamp is designed to make better use of DC’s massive library of characters.” Industry insiders noted that the move was in the works for a long time.
Moreover, veteran DC Comics leader Paul Levitz, will step aside to “return to his roots as a writer for DC and become a contributing editor and overall consultant to the new company.”
Hey everyone! Here’s the latest edition of the WEEKEND Watchers Official Podcast, where I’m joined by Brian Welk, Paul Mattingly and Jordan Greenberg in an intense wrap-up of the summer movie season. We had a great time with this one, and I hope it shows.
Above is the red-band trailer for the second and “long-awaited” “Boondock Saints” film, “All Saints Day.” Frankly, the hype and fervor surrounding the original film never made sense to me. But for whatever reason, that diehard cult support helped get a second film made, which is pretty cool in its own right. Though I’ll be interested to see if this one does as well with audiences. It’s so long removed from the original film and with all those expectations, people are bound to be disappointed.
Your thoughts on this new trailer? Do you like the original film?
Above is the trailer for Martin Scorsese’s “Shutter Island.” If you watched it, you know that the film looks beyond awesome. And though the film was supposed to rule our lives this October, Paramount has pushed it back to February 2010.
The reason?
The recession has hampered the budget for marketing, even though the film tested through the roof and people are already thinking Oscars. Now “Island” is in the weird position of not premiering until too close to the Academy Awards, but I guess the 10 noms for Best Picture help its case.
I guess this now means that Leo is starring in my TWO most anticipated films of 2010, this and the mysterious “Inception,” the post-”Dark Knight” Christopher Nolan film that will probably be amazing.
After months, nay, years, of hype, the first full-length trailer for James Cameron’s “Avatar” has hit the web and is obviously posted above.
I know that a small laptop screen cannot really compete with a giant IMAX 3D screen, but uh, this kind of sucks folks. The supposedly “revolutionary” imaging and effects look solid, but ultimately underwhelming due to the hype. The entire trailer just left me numb. The Na’vi (the cat-looking characters) just don’t seem that real, each scene with them felt like a video game or animated movie and honestly I am already more interested in anything where I actually see Sam Worthington in human form. I trust Cameron obviously, but these two minutes don’t instill much confidence in me. And of course, I’m not the only one — enjoy some of the comments from those classy folks at Aint It Cool News.
Thoughts? Does James Cameron still have it? Or did all that money from “Titanic” make him suck?
Above is the first official trailer for “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell,” the film based on the best-selling book written by one of the Internet’s most hated, Tucker Max.
Whether or not you believe most of the insane, sexually-fueled stories that Max penned in his book that shares a title with this film, you cannot help but be slightly entertained by them. Not as entertaining: frat boys and dumbasses who think this book is gospel.
The film is based on his “Austin Roadtrip” story and stars GILMORE GIRLS and FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS alum Matt Czuchry, but to be honest, it looks pretty lame. It’s an independent effort with Max writing the screenplay (which wasn’t well-received), but I can imagine a load of bros with high hopes for this one. If they were as intelligent as I hope they are, they’d be disappointed. But who are we kidding.
November 5th, 2009 by 
Brian Welk
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