Review: `Sweeney,' Burton a Perfect Fit

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

"Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" is the quintessential Tim Burton movie, even though it springs from somebody else's celebrated mind.

Everything about Stephen Sondheim's revered musical, which provided the inspiration for the film, seems tailor-made for the director's sensibilities. Truly, what other filmmaker could tell the story of a vengeful barber (Johnny Depp) who slits his customers' throats and the lovesick baker (Helena Bonham Carter) who grinds up the dead bodies for her meat pies?

It's strangely beautiful and beautifully strange, with horrific subject matter that produces plenty of wicked humor and characters who initially seem ghoulish but ultimately reveal themselves as sympathetic and deeply sad.

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Review: `Golden Compass' Is Lackluster

Dakota Blue Richards

Nicole Kidman's presence in the elaborate fantasy flick "The Golden Compass" is emblematic of the movie itself: aesthetically lush but ultimately cold to the touch.

This adaptation of the first novel in British writer Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy has some fanciful moments but never achieves the sense of awe-inspiring wonder of the "Lord of the Rings" films, to which comparisons will be inevitable. It's also probably too scary for a lot of kids, with its themes of totalitarianism and mind control; adults, meanwhile, may find it hard to take seriously, despite how seriously it takes itself.

Writer-director Chris Weitz ("About a Boy") takes on the biggest project of his life with this CGI-filled spectacle, which he also had to cram with tons of exposition to set up a potential series. The visual highlight is supposed to be the battle between two powerful, armored polar bears, voiced with ire and gravitas by Ian McKellen and Ian McShane; since this is the film's signature sequence and we know it's coming, much of "The Golden Compass" feels like a waiting game until it arrives.

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Review: `Atonement' a Dazzling Romance

Keira Knightley, left, and James McAvoy

Those ruby-red lips puffing away at a delicately hand-rolled cigarette, those shoulder blades jutting like weapons from a knockout of a backless, emerald-green gown Keira Knightley would seem to be starring in an elegant period drama, one that's predictably and self-consciously reserved.

"Atonement" is anything but. It changes again and again, lulling us in with its glamorous trappings before turning sexy, suspenseful, richly romantic and achingly sad. And if you haven't read the Ian McEwan best-selling novel that inspired it, you'll be dazzled by its twist of an ending.

Joe Wright, who directed Knightley to an Academy Award nomination for 2005's "Pride & Prejudice," rejoins most of his technical team from that film for this decades-spanning story of jealousy, betrayal, damage and repentance. Where his Jane Austen adaptation reveled in the gritty reality of the time, here he luxuriates in high style everything has a shimmering, dreamlike sheen about it, perhaps as an homage to the sweeping, historical romances of long ago but without lapsing into parody. It's just exceptionally well-crafted.

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Review: Say `I Don't' to `Margot'

Jennifer Jason Leigh, left, and Jack Black

With 2005's "The Squid and the Whale," writer-director Noah Baumbach created characters who were smart, witty, sad, vulnerable and, above all else, laceratingly verbal.

With "Margot at the Wedding," he's got the laceratingly verbal part down, but he left out all the rest.

In this claustrophobic homage to the French New Wave (the title seems to be an allusion to Eric Rohmer's "Pauline at the Beach"), Baumbach depicts sibling rivalry not as something fragile and evolving but as blood sport.

Nicole Kidman stars as Margot, an accomplished Manhattan short-story writer who travels with her adolescent son, Claude (Zane Pais), to the East Coast island where she grew up for the wedding of her estranged hippie-chick sister, Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh).

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David Cross Defends Alvin and the Chipmunks Role

Critics, bloggers, movie website readers -- pretty much anybody who knows their way around a keyboard have voiced their "concern" for Alvin and the Chipmunks. (Though with $150 million in the bank after only three weeks, the rodents are doing well with the average man on the street and his family.) But enough is enough, says David Cross, and he's countering with a lengthy tirade of his own.

Cross, who plays a sleazeball record exec in the movie, writes on the Bob and David site:

"I am not stupid nor unobservant. I knew going into this movie that I would be eating a lot of delicious s--t for it. Usually I wouldn't give a s--t about what everyone's feelings are about it, but I wasn't prepared for the level, or amount I should say, of vitriol that's been flung about like so much monkey poo."

Goaded into action after remarks from fellow comedian Patton Oswalt, Cross presents four-and-a-half reasons why he took the role and why some criticisms are out of place:

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`Harry Potter' Star Donates Eyeglasses

Daniel Radcliffe, who has captivated moviegoers as the bespectacled schoolboy wizard in the Harry Potter films, has donated the first pair of glasses he wore as a child to an exhibition marking the horrors of the Holocaust.

The British actor joins Yoko Ono, talk show host Jerry Springer, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other celebrities and members of the public whose spectacles will be linked together in the shape of a railway track recalling the trains that carried many of the Nazis' victims to concentration camps throughout Europe. An estimated 6 million Jews died.

The exhibition in Liverpool will open Jan. 21. The port city in northwest England will host Britain's Holocaust Day commemorative service on Jan. 27, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Muslim leaders are to attend the multicultural service, which is the culmination of a series of lectures, exhibitions, stage shows and musical events recalling the Nazi atrocities and more recent genocides. Jason Isaacs, who stars as the sinister Lucius Malfoy in the "Harry Potter" films, will also take part in the service.

The 18-year-old Radcliffe, whose mother is Jewish, sent the oval, gray metal-framed pair of glasses he wore as a 6-year-old.

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Madonna Directorial Debut at Berlin Fest

Madonna

Madonna's debut movie as a director will have its world premiere at the annual Berlin film festival in February.

"Filth and Wisdom," starring Eugene Hutz, Richard E. Grant and Stephen Graham, will screen in the Panorama section, outside the main competition, a festival statement said Thursday.

Organizers didn't specify whether the 49-year-old singer will come to Berlin to present the movie.

The event, which runs from Feb. 7-17, is the first of the year's major European film festivals.

Source: www.cinema-pedia.com

Report: Pitt Pulls Out of Universal Film

Brad Pitt has backed out of a Universal Pictures movie set to begin filming this year, a newspaper reported.

"State of Play" was to star Pitt as a political consultant-turned-journalist who helps investigate the death of a congressman's mistress.

The actor left the production Wednesday, Hollywood trade paper Daily Variety reported on its Web site.

"Brad Pitt has left the Universal Pictures production of 'State of Play,'" the studio said in a statement. "We remain committed to this project and to the filmmakers, cast members, crew and others who are also involved in making the movie. We reserve all rights in this matter."

A message left early Friday for Pitt's publicist, Cindy Guagenti, was not immediately returned.

Source: www.cinema-pedia.com

Rumor We're Starting: Calvin & Hobbes: The Movie!

We get tired of reporting nothing but news stories and valid opinions, so we thought we'd branch out with some blatantly false (but oddly believable) rumormongering. Try it! It's fun!In development: Calvin & Hobbes: The Movie.

Bill Watterson is legendary for being reluctant to license his beloved comic strip characters, but Paramount Pictures has finally convinced him that they'll treat the mischievous boy and his pet tiger with the respect they deserve. And what a treat they have in store for us!

The brilliant comedy director Adam Shankman -- who made such masterpieces as The Wedding Planner, Bringing Down the House, The Pacifier, and Cheaper by the Dozen 2, before selling out with Hairspray -- will direct Calvin & Hobbes: The Movie, and he promises to make it the kind of family comedy America loves. That's right, folks: plenty of fart jokes!

Paramount is looking for an unknown actor to play Calvin, while the rest of the cast is chock-full of superstars. Calvin's boring parents will be played by Eugene Levy and Amanda Peet, while Hobbes will be CGI and voiced by Jim Carrey.

The story is being kept mostly under wraps, but here's what we know: it focuses on a 6-year-old boy named Calvin who's sassy, precocious, and doesn't take no for an answer! His best friend is his stuffed tiger, Hobbes, who comes to life when no one's around. Together they get into all sorts of trouble!

Calvin's favorite pastime is urinating on the Chevrolet logo. Whenever he sees it, he pees on it! In the film, the Ford Motor Company finds out about this and wants to hire Calvin as their new spokesperson. Before you can say "transmogrifier," Calvin and Hobbes are whisked off to Hollywood, where Calvin quickly becomes a celebrity. (Paris Hilton has promised to make a cameo in the scene where Calvin sneaks into an exclusive L.A. nightclub.) He wreaks havoc on the studio lot where his Ford commercials are being filmed, and he's always making a mess of things!

Meanwhile, Hobbes tries to be a real "cool cat" and keep Calvin out of trouble. Hoo boy, does he ever have his work cut out for him! You can expect lots of hilarious scenes where Calvin accidentally destroys things, or where he says something that adults find offensive. But hey, Calvin's just keepin' it real!

Calvin & Hobbes: The Movie will open May 28, 2009. Three sequels have already been greenlighted.

Source: www.cinema-pedia.com

Bush Tops Film Threat's Frigid 50 List

He's not exactly a movie star. He doesn't even play one on TV. But President Bush nonetheless has been named the coldest person in Hollywood.

The online magazine Film Threat placed Bush at the top of its "Frigid 50," an annual ranking of the "least-powerful, least-inspiring and least-intriguing people in Hollywood" in contrast to the "hot" lists that celebrity magazines often compile.

Film Threat's editors point out that Bush has been parodied in movies like "Transformers" and "American Dreamz" and scrutinized in documentaries such as "Sicko" and "No End in Sight."

"With all due respect to Hollywood," they wrote, "the mighty W is as much a cinema celebrity as the next despotic tyrant."

Coming in at No. 2 is someone who's a perennial fixture on those lists of the hot, sexy and powerful: Angelina Jolie.

"Traveling the Third World with a small army of stylists and publicists, the one-time Lara Croft feels like an unholy mix of Mother Teresa and Paris Hilton: Look at the poor, but make sure you get me in my best light," the magazine says. "Ironically, more people saw her in Cambodia or Namibia than in `A Mighty Heart.'"

Also making the "Frigid 50" are Oscar winners Nicole Kidman and Hilary Swank for their less-than-stellar film choices of late, and Jon Heder who "hasn't made a single good movie" in the three years since "Napoleon Dynamite" made him a cult figure.

The "winners" in previous years include Mel Gibson, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, Michael Moore and Freddie Prinze Jr.

Source: www.cinema-pedia.com

Original Gangster Outshines Film

Frank Lucas, at 77 years old and in a wheelchair, still has a small gang doting on him. Sons, publicists and friends swirl around Lucas in nearly perpetual commotion, fetching him everything from pills to a cooling fan. A recent visitor is directed kindly though in no uncertain terms in and out of the room.

There's still plenty of power left in Lucas's presence, even though his days as a Harlem drug lord are decades past, his millions long ago seized by the government.

Lucas is again in the spotlight because of "American Gangster," the Ridley Scott-directed film in which Denzel Washington portrays Lucas. A special as part of BET's "American Gangster" series also recently profiled him.

"If you can find one better than Denzel Washington, I want you to tell me," says Lucas, in a halting drawl similar to bluesman John Lee Hooker's. "What's their name? What's their name?"

Lucas's story is unbelievable even by Hollywood standards. After a childhood in North Carolina, he moved to New York, eventually becoming the driver for and pupil of Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson, a powerful Harlem gangster.

After Johnson's death, Lucas, who went by the nickname "Superfly," took over his heroin dealing business, but made one audacious change: He established his own drug connection, cutting out the middleman and landing huge amounts of nearly pure heroin. Sold on the street as "Blue Magic," it netted him an incredible profit up to $1 million in revenue a day, Lucas claims.

He managed this by buying his dope in the jungles of Vietnam, tipped off by U.S. soldiers then fighting in the war. To get the drugs back to the States, Lucas established the infamous "cadaver connection," hiding the heroin in the caskets of dead soldiers.

Judge Sterling Johnson Jr. of the Federal District Court in Brooklyn, who prosecuted Lucas and played a major role in bringing him down, once called the operation "one of the most outrageous dope-smuggling gangs ever."

Lucas wasn't the only arrogant gangster in New York then. His rival, Leroy "Nicky" Barnes (played by Cuba Gooding Jr. in the film) appeared on the cover of The New York Times Magazine in an article titled "Mr. Untouchable" which prompted President Jimmy Carter to pressure for a crackdown.

In "American Gangster," Lucas is depicted to a certain degree as an entrepreneur who broke through the racial barriers of traditional organized crime.

"That had nothing to do with it," says Lucas, who also sold his drugs to Italian mob families. "I saw an opening, a soft spot the soft part of the belly and I took advantage of it."

After Lucas was arrested in 1975, his sentences in New York and New Jersey added up to 70 years in prison and he quickly turned into a government informant, most notably against the then-corrupt Special Investigations Unit of the NYPD.

Out of 70 SIU officers, 52 were eventually either jailed or indicted. Lucas claims he only informed on corrupt police officers. He insists: "The only people I every ever informed on were them ... cops who took my money."

But prosecutors involved in the case have contradicted that. Richard "Richie" Roberts, who prosecuted the superseding indictment in New Jersey, says plainly: "Absolutely not. He gets mad every time I tell the truth."

Lucas's sentence was reduced to five years after his informant work. Once released, Lucas was quickly arrested again for drug dealing, but on a much smaller scale. He served seven more years and, when he got out of jail in 1991, Roberts came to his aid ("I couldn't buy a pack of cigarettes," says Lucas).

Today, they are good friends. Roberts is Lucas's defense attorney and the godfather to his 11-year-old son, Ray, whose education Roberts has paid for.

"We've had our ups and downs over the years," says Roberts, speaking from his New Jersey law office. "The charm that Denzel exhibited in the movie was the way Frank was. Frank would probably shoot you and make you feel pretty good as you were dying."

Russell Crowe plays Roberts in the film, though the character is a composite of the many detectives and prosecutors who arrested and tried Lucas. Lucas for a moment hesitates to speak ill of his friend, but the inflated screen persona given to Roberts riles him.

"Richie Roberts and his crack crew couldn't catch a ... bad cold in Alaska in the wintertime," he says with undimmed competitiveness. "They were the bad-news cops."

It was originally Nicholas Pileggi (who wrote "Wiseguys," the book "Goodfellas" was based on) who brought attention to Lucas' story. He introduced Lucas to writer Mark Jacobson, whose 2000 New York Magazine article was the basis for "American Gangster."

Lucas, Roberts, Pileggi and Jacobson flew to L.A. together to meet with producer Brian Grazer, who Pileggi says, snapping his fingers, "bought it right in the room."

The stars of "American Gangster" and its writer, Steve Zaillian, consulted heavily with Lucas and Roberts. Lucas was present almost daily on the Harlem film set, lending Washington frequent advice on details like how he taped his gun.

On the BET special, Washington said about Lucas: "He'll have you working for him by the end of the day."

Of the slow pace of film productions, Lucas, who uses a wheelchair because of complications from a leg he broke in two places some time ago, poetically says: "It was kind of like watching a flower grow in the nighttime." He then adds with phrasing rather alarming coming from a former gangster: "The way they do it is not according to Jim, you know what I mean? I usually am bang, bang, bang I'm gone."

Lucas, who lives with his wife and youngest son in Newark, N.J., says that the experience couldn't help but rekindle his memories.

"You're back in the saaame thing," he says with a laugh. "The girls I knew, some of them came up claiming they got kids by me. Since I started making the movie, I got 10 more sons."

But Lucas says he's repentant. Aside from any murders he himself committed or had carried out, the strength of Lucas's potent heroin killed many young users.

"I regret it very much so," he says. "I did some terrible things. I'm awfully sorry that I did them. I really am."

Many of those who lived through the events depicted in "American Gangster" worry the film could glamorize Lucas' drug-dealing days.

Pileggi, also an executive producer on the film, says he hopes "American Gangster" above all makes clear "that you're going to get caught, even if you're as clever and try to be as laid-back as (Lucas)."

"He can never redeem what he did, he can never bring those kids back or clean up the schoolyards, but there is rebirth or redemption in realizing what you did was bad," says Pileggi.

Lucas now touts a charity founded by his daughter, Francine Lucas-Sinclair, that seeks to raise money for the children of incarcerated parents (http://yellowbrickroads.org).

"I always keep my eye on the prize," says Lucas. "The film, in three or four months, it'll be gone but I'll still be here. And I gotta keep the fire burning."

Source: www.cinema-pedia.com

HBO Filming Movie About the 2000 Recount

Laura Dern wore a cowboy hat, boots, a super-tight blue T-shirt, equally tight jeans, brunette wig and plenty of makeup as she rode a horse through downtown Monday afternoon. The character she was portraying was immediately recognizable: Katherine Harris.

The actress is part of the cast of the HBO movie "Recount" being filmed in the capital seven years after the election that for five weeks left the world wondering who would take over the White House. Harris was the secretary of state who certified President Bush's 537-vote victory. She was also the butt of many makeup jokes.

"It looked like her," lobbyist Trey Price, who was a political consultant summoned to Tallahassee during the recount, said as Dern passed by on a saddle.
"With makeup, anybody looks like Katherine," quipped state Rep. Ron Saunders, a Democrat from Key West.

Harris didn't return an e-mail seeking comment.

The movie also stars Kevin Spacey, John Hurt, Denis Leary, Bob Balaban and Ed Begley Jr. It will attempt to show what happened behind the scenes from Election Day though the U.S. Supreme Court decision that ended Vice President Al Gore's challenge and handed Bush the presidency.

Much of the film is being shot in Jacksonville, but the crew is in Tallahassee shooting scenes this week. Their arrival stirred memories of the recount for many of the people who lived through it.

"I remember it very well. The night she certified the returns I was sitting up in that conference room watching it on TV," said lobbyist Mac Stipanovich. "I was helping Katherine, who had no significant experience with things of this magnitude and politics on this level, just generally being an adviser and helping her out."

At the time, Tallahassee was filled with tension as hundreds of lawyers, strategists and reporters converged on the capital, which is usually known for its easygoing Southern pace. HBO was trying to re-create some of the frenzy, filming Spacey as Gore's chief of staff, Ron Klain, walking up a brick-paved street leading to the Capitol.

"Are you really going to contest the election?" a woman cast as a reporter shouted at Spacey as a mob of extras with pens, pads and cameras surrounded him.

In the background, people waved signs like "Hail to the Thief" and "Veterans for Bush say no more Gore."

"It was unbelievable. We were the center of the world with all the hanging chads, and the recounts. In one way it was quite embarrassing because of all the jokes on the late night talk shows about how Florida can't count," said Tim Barry, a National Weather Service meteorologist. He's an extra in the movie, playing a photographer.

Most of the people stopping downtown to watch the filming were smiling or joking about the recount a far cry from seven years ago.

"It's more of a curiosity now than a current pang in anyone's heart, other than maybe the Nobel Prize winner," said Stipanovich, referring to Gore, who recently was a co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to raise awareness about climate change. "It's probably a characteristic of American society that seven years ago is like a century ago."

Source: www.cinema-pedia.com

Cusack Plays Fathers in 2 Fall Films

With a filmography littered with teenagers, bachelors and guys trying to get the girl, John Cusack the dad is a new entry. In two new films this fall, Cusack plays parts where fatherhood is central.

"It signifies I'm getting older," Cusack, himself still childless, said with a laugh during a recent interview.

The 41-year-old actor, though, appeared remarkably the same as he did in 1990's "The Grifters."

"I don't feel any different," he said, smiling. "Recover a little slower, but that's about it."

Cusack first stars in "Martian Child," opening Friday, as a science fiction writer who adopts a shy, eccentric boy. Next month comes "Grace is Gone," a Sundance Film Festival hit in which the actor portrays a former soldier who delays telling his daughters that their soldier-mother has died in Iraq by taking them on a road trip.

In "Martian Child," he essentially keeps his usual screen persona: witty, aloof, idiosyncratic. It's easy to envision his character as the grown-up version of Lloyd Dobler in 1989's "Say Anything" or the slightly older incarnation of Rob Gordon from 2000's "High Fidelity."

In "Grace is Gone," though, he gives a quiet and grief-filled performance for which he's getting considerable buzz, courtesy of a Harvey Weinstein-orchestrated Oscar campaign.

The duality of the roles is typical of Cusack, who tends to alternate between studio pictures (1997's "Con Air," 2001's "America's Sweethearts," 2005's "Must Love Dogs") and more offbeat indie fare (1999's "Being John Malkovich," 2002's "Max").

"I keep trying to explore stuff that I like and balance the business with personal passions," Cusack explained.

Clearly differentiating between the motivations behind "Martian Child" and "Grace," he said: "One the studio wanted me to do, and the other was a script I really loved."

Not one to ever totally go Hollywood, Cusack has referred to fame as a "24-hour petting zoo" and lamented how studios view him as a "brand."

"It's only when you try to get jobs or get certain things made from the studio that you realize what that is," said Cusack, who speaks barely above a whisper. "You just understand it when people tell you `No.' It's mostly just more what they think will make money. That's really it. `Can we get Johnny Depp?'

"I'm interested in doing stuff that people I admire do, which is try to explore being human and admit that you're human," he said. "At least admit it in film, if you can't do it everyday in life."

For some, living up to the glib charm of Cusack's earlier roles (particularly Dobler) is difficult. Writer Chuck Klosterman once labeled Cusack the "neo-Elvis," claiming a generation of women will forever be in love with him.

But while "Martian Child" recalls that side of Cusack, "Grace is Gone" (for which he was also a producer) reveals a new dimension to the actor. Writer-director Jim Strouse (who wrote 2005's "Lonesome Jim") wrote the part with Cusack specifically in mind.

"I just thought it required some things I knew that he could do but hadn't been asked to do," said Strouse. "He's got so much energy in life and on screen and he kind of can't contain himself. I just thought it would be interesting to see him say very little kind of the opposite of everything he's known for and so good at.

"He was really excited," Strouse added. "When I first met him, his enthusiasm reminded me of a child almost."

Others have been enthused as well, including Weinstein, co-chairman of the Weinstein Co., who has shepherded numerous small films to Oscar success.

"I truly believe he has a breakout performance in `Grace is Gone' and I hope that he will be recognized this awards season," Weinstein said in an e-mail.

Asked about his thoughts about a possible Oscar nomination (which he's never received), Cusack replied: "It's good for the movie and would be great for me. It's kind of like the prom, right? You wouldn't want to admit that you want to go, but you probably secretly want to be asked."

The role is notable also for taking a different approach to material usually treated politically. Though Cusack is himself an ardent critic of the war in Iraq and the Bush administration (he's blogged about both on the Huffington Post), he plays a patriotic ex-soldier. Any anti-war message in "Grace" is purely related to the pain war causes families.

"Film isn't just a megaphone for your opinions," said Cusack. "You're trying to explore something that transcends you a little bit, hopefully."

In "Martian Child," his character remarks that every work of art is somewhat autobiographical. When asked how that applies to himself, Cusack said he identifies with how his character "is tying to find meaning and transcend his own ... not selfishness, but he's looking for more of a purpose."

Film critic David Thomson in his "Biographical Dictionary of Film" wondered of the ever-youthful Cusack: "So when is he going to be emphatically grown-up?"

With "Grace is Gone" and "Martian Child," Cusack may have answered that question.

Source: www.cinema-pedia.com

How To Make a Bad Movie Trailer

The people who cut our movie trailers are some funny folk. They can make us laugh, thrill us, anger us, cause us to sneer or make us physically sick, and all within a minute and a half. They cut together teasers or trailers to the point that they are like mini-movies. After careful review, I've decided these people are morally ambiguous, like the Others on Lost. They're kind of like mercenaries. You hope they are just sharing your enthusiasm for film a lot of the time. Hey guys, doesn't this movie look fun? We sure think so! At the same time, you wouldn't be surprised if they're really just trying to rip you off. We are blowing your mind and showing you all of the good stuff in the movie, suckers! I have no idea who these people are but I know they exist. I see their markings every time I go to see a movie. They show the future. Sometimes the future looks bright. Sometimes it looks action-packed. Sometimes it looks dull. You never know what you're going to get from these fortunetellers. One thing I do know, however, is sometimes the Others are good at making trailers and sometimes they really, really aren't. Either way, I'm almost always having fun with movie trailers.

Here are but a few of the odd methods the marketing folks have trotted out over the years:

1.) Show the beginning, middle and end of the movie.
It's extremely important that you show the entire movie before I actually pay to see it. Revealing key plot points that signify the basic premise, the basic rising action, and the basic resolution is essential to my avoidance. If you simply tease me, I might make the mistake of throwing down money for the ticket. You don't want that (obviously), so steer clear of anything resembling the vague. Don't hold back. I want to see everything, especially the best parts. If I actually end up seeing the movie, I will be very disappointed if I don't know ahead of time every step the movie will take.

2.) Milk the actors' Oscar history for all it's worth.
Look, if an actor's been nominated six times, I want to know it. If someone else in your movie was nominated four times, that is also important information (please see the Lions for Lambs teaser at your convenience). It tells me right away, "Okay, this guy wasn't nominated as many times as the other guy, but he's still pretty damn good. After all, he's been nominated."

And nominations are like the actor's equivalent to sainthood. That makes Meryl Streep Mother-flippin-Teresa. It is also relevant to point out which actor has been nominated, versus which actor has actually won. This is a further outline of the caste system that I find valuable as an audience member. But if you really want to get on my good side, throw in a couple actors who won, at least one actor who's been given a nod but never brought one home and finally, the one actor in the cast who hasn't even been nominated... ever. I love seeing these people humiliated on screen. And the older the actor, the funnier it is. "Haha, you're time is running out and you still have nothing!"

3.) I got a fever... and the only prescription... is more VOICE-OVER Guy.
This summer, in a world of taste gone awry, in the year's most EXPLOSIVE film, one man will learn how to make everything on screen appear super duper lame with the simple sound of his sometimes gravelly, sometimes soft, but always self-important VOICE! MGM Pictures in association with Tig Productions in association with Imagine Entertainment in association with Happy Madison bring you a Stephen Sommers film that you will not (queue heightened music) ... soon ... (even more heightened please) FORGET!!!! (make heads explode with magnificent volume increase).

Source: www.cinema-pedia.com

Review:No Gray Area in `Rendition'

"Rendition" focuses on the U.S. government's policy of transporting captured terror suspects to foreign countries for detention, interrogation and perhaps torture a topic that's prime for debate and more than worthy for exploration in a film.

But there's not much room for debate in director Gavin Hood's first feature since winning the foreign-language Oscar for South Africa's "Tsotsi" from 2005.

Everything is black and white here, a tremendous disservice considering the complexity of the issue. There's also an oversimplification, an insulting dumbing-down, as if the audience were incapable of interpreting shades of gray.

The abduction of an Egyptian-born American (Omar Metwally) suspected of helping North African terrorists plot a deadly bombing is obviously a mistake. His pretty, pregnant wife (Reese Witherspoon, in her first role since winning an Oscar for "Walk the Line") is left to worry, understandably, but her response is reduced to little more than increasingly shrieky grief.

The CIA analyst (Jake Gyllenhaal) assigned to monitor the suspect's torture is unwavering in his disapproval; conversely, the CIA's head of terrorism (Meryl Streep),

who ordered the rendition, is unflappable in her certainty.

Then, at the very end, the script from Kelley Sane takes a narrative twist that's distractingly contradictory to the realism and relevance "Rendition" had been trying to achieve all along.

Walking in, we're clearly expected to view this as a film of great importance, because of the subject matter and all the Oscar winners up there on the screen (the cast also includes Alan Arkin as a senator from the suspect's home state of Illinois who refuses to help facilitate his release). Instead, it feels like a missed opportunity, though Hood does achieve some moments of wrenching intensity.

"Rendition" begins with Metwally's chemical engineer, Anwar, flying home from a South African business conference and apparently disappearing before catching a connecting flight in Washington, D.C. That's the way it initially looks to his wife, Witherspoon's Isabella, who's waiting for him in suburban Chicago with their young son and another baby on the way.

Meanwhile, in an unnamed North African country, an explosion has rocked a town's central square. Its intended target was Abasi Fawal (Igal Naor), the head of the secret prison where terror suspects are taken for questioning and more, if they're not forthcoming. He oversees this grueling process himself and takes great pride in his work (again, no moral dilemmas with him). And his teenage daughter (Zineb Oukach) happens to be dating a young Islamic fundamentalist (Moa Khouas) who may have been involved in the attack.

Pointing fingers at Anwar seems like a misunderstanding at first maybe a mix-up involving cell phone numbers and similar names. Nevertheless, Streep's strident (and conspicuously Southern) Corinne Whitman declares dismissively, "Put him on the plane." (She and Arkin, both villainous figures, get a few zingers here and there but their characters are drawn two-dimensionally.)

Isabella is left to do her own detective work with the help of an old college boyfriend (Peter Sarsgaard), who conveniently works as a top aide to Arkin's Sen. Hawkins, who's on Whitman's committee and meets with her weekly. Which also seems too convenient. Sarsgaard brings the sort of nuance to his conflicted character we've come to expect from him in every role ("Kinsey," "Shattered Glass"), and he does get one tantalizing exchange with Streep.

But Witherspoon, normally so bright and engaging in both comedies and dramas, doesn't get to do much here besides furrow her brow, beg for information and eventually, shrilly, explode. A lot of actresses could have played this role; director Hood told The Associated Press that he wanted Witherspoon to help get his point across because "who better to help take that out there to that world than the all-American girl?"

His visuals do more to get his point across. Working with cinematographer Dion Beebe (also an Oscar winner), Hood creates a visceral, immediate sense of danger, and he certainly doesn't shy away from showing us the elaborately cruel abuse Anwar suffers. Unfortunately, he ends up beating us over the head at the same time.

"Rendition," a New Line Cinema release, is rated R for torture/violence and language. Running time: 122 minutes. Two stars out of four.

Source: www.cinema-pedia.com

Author Applauds 'Kite Runner' Film Delay

"The Kite Runner" author Khaled Hosseini is commending the delayed release of the film adaptation of his novel over fears for the actors' safety.

Movie distributor Paramount Vantage delayed the debut for six weeks, until Dec. 14, after three of its adolescent male stars said they could be targeted for their participation in a homosexual rape scene. The studio the art-house label of Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures is moving the boys and their families from socially conservative Afghanistan, possibly until next spring.

"I applaud the studio for delaying the release of the film even though it goes against whatever commercial wisdom there is," the 43-year-old San Jose resident said Monday at a media event in San Francisco.

"Afghanistan has become a pretty violent place within the last year," said the Kabul native, who immigrated to San Jose in 1980. "If the boys and their families think there is a reasonable risk of threat to them, then you have to take all of the steps that you can to make sure they are OK." The scene in which the 12-year-old protagonist witnesses the brutalization of his friend but does nothing to stop it is one minute of a two-hour film and two pages of a 380-page novel. It plays on ethnic tensions that pervade the book, pitting an upper-class Pashtun bully against a lower-class ethnic Hazara boy.

Hosseini defended keeping the scene in the film as a pivotal moment of character development.

"Without that moment, the tower of cards really falls apart," he said.

Source: www.cinema-pedia.com

Justice League of America Plot Confirmed!

We still don't know who will be starring in it, but the storyline for George Miller's Justice League of America movie has been revealed.

A recent issue of Entertainment Weekly contains an article about the production, including a plot summary, obtained from "an early version of the script," that breaks down as follows:

Seven original members of the Justice League -- Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman, and the Martian Manhunter -- are featured in an origins story about the superhero conglomerate. The plot revolves around villainous businessman Maxwell Lord and involves cyborgs called OMACs (One-Man Army Corps), who can take over humans and turn them into killing machines. There are epic battle scenes between Superman and Batman, as well as Superman and Wonder Woman, and League could spawn a slew of additional franchises if it's successful.

The production is apparently still on track for a February 2008 start and a summer 2009 release.

In related news, IGN Movies has obtained confirmation from Jessica Biel's reps that she is really, honestly, seriously no longer in negotiations to play Wonder Woman in JLA -- which isn't really news, per se, but it sort of dovetails with the hubbub surrounding a recent decree rumored to be made by Warner Bros. president of production Jeff Robinov. Read on:

We are no longer doing movies with women in the lead.

Robinov's reasoning for this, apparently, is that The Invasion and The Brave One didn't perform well at the box office, and they had female leads, ergo female-led films are box office poison. It's innovative thinking like this that earns Robinov the big bucks, folks.

Anyway, one of the sticking points in the Biel negotiations was supposedly a guarantee, or lack thereof, that she'd star in a Wonder Woman spinoff. Now, as Comics2Film points out, Robinov's comments would seem to indicate that Warners has given up on the project entirely -- or, at the very least, that women need not apply for the starring role.

Source: www.cinema-pedia.com