Thursday, January 14th, 2010

The accompanying picture today is the five child stars that will forever be fondly remembered as the golden ticket holders in the 1971 trippy family film classic, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. What is sad is that the only one of the five that Cinematical lists as still being in the entertainment industry is Julie Dawn Cole, the girl who played Veruca Salt, which points to the British series that is unknown to myself, Tales of the Unexpected. It should also be noted that Charlie Buckett, or Peter Ostrum, takes a shocking dive towards Mustache of the Year honors.

Following the coverage of The Green Lantern's casting process this week, with the announcement of Blake Lively and Peter Sarsgaard joining the cast, HitFix has announced that Watchmen's Jackie Earle Haley is still being heavily considered for the role of Sinestro, meaning that he would share the villainous limelight with Sarsgaard's Dr. Hector Hammond.

Finally, I have to admit I didn't really dig through as much movie blogs as I would normally do, as it is about time for The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, and here at my little site, News from a Cinephile, I'm for Coco. Send hate mail to NBC, and keep watching Conan for the little bit of time he has left. Here is a link to /Film's rumor mill on the late night debacle.

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

During the Halloween season, there is always a plethora of places I want to go, including and not limited to, Halloween film festivals, corn maizes and supposedly haunted places to do a ghost investigation. One thing that I never really think of, especially seeing that I'm in the part of the world that cinema usually overlooks, is filming locations to classic horror fare. Turns out that in Morristown, Tennessee, roughly an hour and half away, was the site of Sam Raimi's classic 1981 The Evil Dead. Sadly, the site has a no trespassing sign up, but you can visit this web page to see pictures of the remnants of the burnt cabin if you would rather set online and look over risking jail time. They're also selling vials of earth and burnt cabin remnants. Anyways, this may warrant a stop on the next trip through the area.

Cinematical has a great countdown today of the seven best horror themes. A fitting countdown for the month that includes The Exorcist, Halloween and Psycho, among others.

Collider recently interviewed Jackie Earle Haley to debunk rumors that the actor will return to the DC Universe, this time to play Sinestro in the feature film adaptation of The Green Lantern. The good thing though, Haley didn't say he was uninterested, just was without invitation. So, we know Haley is a great actor, but with Haley being known to comic fans as Rorschach, would this be seen negatively? I mean, sure the man playing Hal Jordan, Ryan Reynolds, is also known as Deadpool, but that was in the horrific and very forgettable X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Still, I think Haley may be the best name I've heard thrown around for the role, so hopefully if casting hasn't already gotten underway, the folks over at Warner Brothers/DC will take a look at the positive buzz and consider this.

Speaking of superhero casting, until a sequel to The Dark Knight is either in theaters or completely confirmed to be dead, rumors will run rampant on who will be casted as the new villains. Well, this has been on my mind today as I had an off day from work and school and spent the entire day not moving from playing Batman: Arkham Asylum. Sure, I may have jumped aboard a bit late on this, but I can't get over how brilliant the character of Harley Quinn is. There is a overabundance of message boards you can go to in order to find who the public wants to play the villainess if she were to ever hit the big screen, such as this one from Newsarama, showing how truly terrible casting directors the general public would be. Anyhow, who do you think would make a good Harley? Of course, there is the veterans to the role, Arleen Sorkin, who voices The Joker's stalker-esque female companion in the aforementioned game as well as Harley's most widely known incarnation in Batman: The Animated Series. I also didn't think Marielle Guerber was a slouch in her version of the role in the dark French short Ashes to Ashes. The perfect voice, and possibly the perfect look if it had been shot right after the Wachowskis' Bound would have been Jennifer Tilly. Still, I can't really think outside the box on this one as reading down any list, they all seem absurd. Conversely though, I originally thought the same when I heard Heath Ledger's name mentioned, and that is now the reason that the future of Christopher Nolan's incredible reboot of the franchise is now in question... because he could never be duplicated. Anyhow, I'm going to get back to the game.

Monday, September 28th, 2009

Whenever I heard about a remake of Friday the 13th, I cringed. I hung my head both times it was announced that Rob Zombie would be taking on John Carpenter's classic Halloween franchise. Yet for some unknown reason, I've attached myself to Samuel Bayer's new take on Wes Craven's 1984 slasher A Nightmare on Elm Street. Is there any reasoning behind it? Well, I do love Bayer's music video work, but this is also his feature film directorial debut, and it is alongside a production credit with Michael Bay, one of the silver screen's leading douchebags. Also, Jackie Earle Haley is taking over the iconic role of Freddy Krueger. Sure, Haley definitely did the character of Rorschach justice in the adaptation of Alan Moore's Watchmen, but the actor is still relatively new to me, and despite his acting chops, will take nostalgia points away by simply not being Robert Englund. And finally, I haven't even heard of the lead actress, Rooney Mara, before. So, after this trailer, am I still wrongly and uncharacteristically stoked for this film? Probably, but here's hoping the odd intuition is right. Enjoy the trailer.
A Nightmare on Elm Street in HD


So, what does everybody think about Roman Polanski, a director constantly mentioned among the greats, getting arrested in Switzerland for a crime he committed in 1977? Of course, the crime was statutory rape. Still, on Polanski's side, the victim, the now 45-year-old Samantha Geiner doesn't want prosecution to be brought down upon the director. Another interesting thing to think about is that if Polanski would have been arrested back in 1978, when the United States issued warrants for his arrest for fleeing the country, we would have never had gotten his masterful 2002 film The Pianist. One last note on the Polanski scandal, I saw on Wikipedia, without a source, that his latest directorial effort, The Ghost was still in production and thus, has been put on hold. This definitely sounds like something that probably should be true, but I've yet to find an actual news site/blog to verify it.

Cinematical posted an article today announcing that, via Rian Johnson's Twitter account, The Brothers Bloom will get an earlier DVD release than planned, and will be on shelves tomorrow for rental only, not for purchase. I was actually shocked the film didn't get superb ratings, only scoring a 48% on RottenTomatoes from the top critics (vs. an 85% from the RT community), but I still have faith in the film and now have something planned for tomorrow.

Finally, another story that has been kicking around that I've yet to really grab onto is that CineVegas, the annual Los Vegas, Nevada film festival will be cancelled for 2010, presumably due to the "economic climate" according to the official site. I'm not all that broken up, because unfortunately living in southeastern Kentucky, film festivals are as imaginary and fantastical to me as the plot line to Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Still, CineVegas was the original venue for Visioneers last year, and any time an outlet for quality stuff that could fly completely under the radar leaves, it is a bit saddening.

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

I worked late tonight, so I come home expecting to sleep rather than blog, but then I check a few things online and get completely submerged into all of the San Diego Comic Con coverage. The first thing I find is via ComingSoon, where the 2010 Joseph Kosinski Tron sequel finally got a title, Tron Legacy.

Elsewhere, we get plenty of coverage on The Green Hornet over at Cinematical. First, director Michel Gondry raps about the upcoming feature, and in a separate story, writers Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen (who also will star as the titular character), revealed the hero's car, a black 1966 Chrysler Crown Imperial.

It was also announced that Saw's James Wan will take over the job of director in an adaptation of one of my favorite video games of all time, Kanomi's Castlevania. I'm not crazy familiar with any of Wan's work, other than Saw; however, it may be an improvement over the last director attached to the project, Sylvain White, who previously directed Stomp the Yard, yet on the other hand has already signed on the helm the big screen version of DC Comic's The Losers.

Today, during the Avatar panel, fifteen minutes of the film was shown. Yet, if you are envious like me, and about a three day drive from San Diego, we will all get a chance to watch the preview for free on August 21st at IMAX theaters worldwide. An interesting marketing ploy for something that I felt already had quite a bit of buzz going on to not have a built in fan base already.

Away from Comic Con, well, it could have actually debuted there, but IGN doesn't have much of a write up about it, a new poster to Samuel Bayer's remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street came out today to compliment our first view of Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger yesterday. The poster features Haley again, although as before, we cannot make any of his features out.

And finally, the Alice in Wonderland trailer that I had promised yesterday. You'll have to click the link though, as embedding was disabled on Moviefone, as well as YouTube. As expected, the film definitely looks intriguing, and very Tim Burton-y.

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

Have you ever been really excited by the upcoming release of a film, yet think you will hate it? That is kind of how I feel about next year's remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street. I was the same way with Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween, as I was sure it wouldn't be anything like the original John Carpenter version that I loved so much, yet I couldn't wait to see it. This newest picture that I found on MySpace Trailer Park, giving us the first, albeit unrecognizable, shot of Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger, furthers my excitement, yet doesn't show enough to distill the dread of probable disapointment.

The teaser trailer for Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland went online today, but before I could get home from work, was pulled until tomorrow. Still, if you can't wait, I'm sure there is still somewhere that has yet to pull it out there.

Yahoo! Movies has another look at Scarlett Johansson in Iron Man 2. We've still yet to see a quality picture of Johansson in full Black Canary get up. I'm sure that will be saved for the trailer.

AICN dropped the bomb today that Sam Raimi is on board as the director of a film adaptation of World of Warcraft, which will begin to shoot after Spider-Man 4. I have still yet to delve into the fandom of WoW, so I can't be too excited, but can you imagine the following this movie will obtain?

All movie blogs of the Interwebs will be buzzing this week due to the San Diego Comic Con getting under way. Although I am excited to receive all the nerdy spectacular news that will flow forth, envy for the cats in attendance is really the weightiest emotion I'll have this weekend.

SciFiSquad has a story saying that the F.W. Murnau Foundation of Germany has gotten their hands on some footage of Fritz Lang's epic 1927 science fiction masterpiece Metropolis, which up until now has been presumed to be lost. The footage, found in the archives of an Argentinean musuem, will be cleaned up by the Foundation, and will be released sometime in the future. The linked article tends to think the release will be in 2010 at the earliest, but it will definitely be an event, as it will be the most complete version shown, since probably the late 20's.