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Hank Azaria, Katy Perry join cast of The Smurfs

Posted on 18 March 2010 by admin 1 Comment

EW‘s Nicole Sperling must be over the moon and/or pissed off at a lot of her fellow journalists right now because it looks like almost every news site out there is reporting on her exclusive without giving her credit.

Over at their Hollywood Insider site, Sperling announced that her sources told her that Hank Azaria would be playing the human role of Gargamel in the live-action/animated adaptation of The Smurfs with Katy Perry taking on the voice of Smurfette, the lone female Smurf (if you discount the shark-jumping Sassette, which I do). She also added that “Glee” guidance counselor Jayma Mays would be playing the pregnant wife of Neil Patrick Harris’ previously announced Johan, both human characters.

While Sony Pictures declined to comment, Sperling went on to say that the Raja Gosnell-directed picture would start filming next month in Central Park.

Two New Zealand actors join cast of Green Lantern

Posted on 15 March 2010 by admin 1 Comment

In an exclusive report, Borys Kit wrote in The Hollywood Reporter‘s Heat Vision blog that New Zealand actors Taika Waititi and Temuera Morrison would be joining the cast of Green Lantern, currently filming in New Orleans, LA.

Waititi is best known for writing and directing Eagle vs. Shark, an indie film about two misfits who try and connect with each other. Also a comedian and an actor, Waititi would be playing Hal Jordan’s best friend, Tom Kalmaku (who is supposed to be an Inuit).

Morrison is best known as Jango Fett from Episodes 2 and 3 of Star Wars, but he’s also appeared in a variety of films including the poorly adapted Blueberry (aka Renegade in the U.S. because only one volume of the original comic is available here) and Six Days, Seven Nights. He will be playing Abin Sur, the Green Lantern who ends up choosing Hal Jordan to be his successor.

Predators terrorize SXSW attendees

Posted on 15 March 2010 by admin 4 Comments

I’m writing this from a secret location–no, not SXSW–to let you know that producer Robert Rodriguez showed off a sneak peek of some footage from his Predators movie at the festival this past weekend:

Starring such actors as Academy award winner Adrien Brody, Academy Award nominee Lawrence Fishburne, Topher Grace, and Alice Braga (I Am Legend, Repo Man), Predators is directed by an American named Nimród Antal whose major work has been in Hungarian music videos and TV commercials. However, he did release a film in 2003 called Kontroll which won the Award of the Youth at the Cannes Film Festival that year, so it’s not like Rodriguez picked a no-name to direct this set of actors.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the script (of which Rodriguez wrote a first draft) by Alex Litvak and Mike Finch concerns a group of mercenaries and convicts who get lured to an alien planet/game preserve. From the preview, it looks like the movie is doing everything correctly when it comes to making another installment in a long franchise including taking the story back to its roots (group of martially trained fighters runs a-foul of a predator hunting party) and then amping up the excitement factor (introducing new breeds or races of predators).

As I’ve briefly mentioned before, the thing I liked about the first Aliens Versus Predator Dark Horse comic and its novel adaptation was that the predator in question became the co-protagonist of the story because you learned about its motivations and the culture of the predators through the human protagonist Machiko Noguchi. Time will tell if this new movie will do any of the same, but I highly doubt it.

RIP: Actor Corey Haim dies at 38 from pulmonary congestion

Posted on 12 March 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

TMZ.com reported Wednesday that actor Corey Haim (Lucas, The Lost Boys) died at 2:15 am; yesterday afternoon, Haim’s mother Judy told “Access Hollywood” that the coroner’s department determined that a cause of death was pulmonary congestion.

The autopsy also found that the Canadian-born actor had an enlarged heart and his lungs were filled with water; the official toxicology report will be complete in six to eight weeks.

Haim was a child star in the 1980s, stemming from his role in 1986’s Lucas, which earned him a nomination for Exceptional Performance by a Young Actor (Comedy or Drama) at the Young Artist Awards and prompted critic Roger Ebert to write in his review back then, “Haim creates one of the most three-dimensional, complicated, interesting characters of any age in any recent movie.”

Haim followed that with the TV series “Roomies,” but it will probably be his role as a teen who has to protect his mom and new hometown from a gang of punk vampires in The Lost Boys (1987) that more people remember. It was on the set of this film where Haim met another child star named Corey Feldman and the two went on to star in several movies together (License to Drive, Watchers, Dream a Little Dream).

After making some direct-to-video movies in the 1990s, gaining a drug dependency, and declaring bankruptcy, Haim’s career seemed to take off again, starting with a reality show on A&E with Feldman called “The Two Coreys” which aired in 2006 and other projects in the works. However, the show was canceled in its third season in 2008 due to some friction between the actors.

Haim is survived by his mother.

Video of the day: The 11th Academy Award nominee for Best Picture

Posted on 12 March 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

In the vein of Da Vinci’s Notebook’s meta-tastic song “Title of Song,” comes a brilliant trailer for a movie that everyone’s seen at least once a year, every year:

Created by Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney, you can find more of their videos here or even catch them live at the SXSW festival this weekend where they will be showing their short film “Eagles Are Turning People Into Horses.”

John Krasinski to join Ginnifer Goodwin for Something Borrowed

Posted on 10 March 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

Chick lit flicks are becoming the rage, it seems, and every where you turn, it seems another celeb is signing on to be in them.

For example, back in February, Empire Online announced rather snarkily that Ginnifer Goodwin (Margene from “Big Love”) would be starring in the adaptation of Emily Giffin‘s novel Something Borrowed. Directed by Luke Greenfield (The Girl Next Door), Goodwin would play Rachel, a well-meaning Manhattan lawyer who “accidentally” sleeps with her best friend Darcy’s fiance after a drunken 30th birthday party and realizes that she’s in love with him.

Now from The Hollywood Reporter comes news that “The Office” star John Krasinski is in talks to join Goodwin as the second male lead, sort of. It’s a little complicated, as Alcon Entertainment has also acquired the rights to the second book Something Blue which follows best friend Darcy’s single mother escapades in London with her writer-friend Ethan.

Except, THR claims that Krasinski would be playing Rachel’s male confidant in the first movie and Darcy’s eventual romantic interest for the second movie and unless there’s a character I’m missing or they tweak the hell out of the second book, I really don’t see how they’re going to pull that off.

Filming will begin this spring.

Liveblogging the Oscars 2010

Posted on 7 March 2010 by admin 6 Comments

It’s time for the 82nd annual Academy Awards ceremony; I’ll be your host for this evening. To join in on the conversation and fun, you can either respond below or holla at me by sending a message to “@trishalynn” on Twitter.

All times are Eastern ’cause I’m in New York City, and I pray that I will be awake long enough to finish out this awards show.

And let the show begin!

5:38 pm: I’m actually beginning this year’s live blog by watching the very first episode of “Leverage” with a friend who’ll be keeping me company during the boring categories. By starting with this show, I figure that I’ll be going into this very long ceremony on a good note.

I’d like to remind you that our hosts for this year will be Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, only one of whom has hosted the ceremony before. Also, the show is under the production of newbies Bill Mechanic and Adam Shenkman; I am eagerly predicting that there will be many dance numbers which makes my inner girly girl squeal with happiness.

6:44 pm: Yeah, I just finished watching another episode of “Leverage” from DVR because a) we’ve still got a lot of time to kill before even the red carpet stuff starts and b) I do have a guest. Also, there’s no way that I’m going to be able to eat dinner while the show’s going and type at the same time.

I’ve also just added Ben Lyons to my Twitter list because apparently he’s the official backstage Tweeter for the production office. But I’m not adding Ryan Seacrest, no matter how much you beg.

Elizabeth Banks was just on right now, mentioning that she presented the Sci-Tech Oscars, calling them the “nerd Oscars.” Though, there was this awesome moment where she mentioned that she was watching Versace and Tom Ford (fashion designer and director of A Serious Man) was standing next in line to speak to Seacrest so there was a little bit of friendly clashing.

6:50 pm : Sigourney Weaver is so cute speaking about Avatar because even though she is a fairly intelligent woman, she’s totally toeing the company line. She looks fantastic in her red toga-like dress, and she just mentioned that she’s going to be pole-dancing for her role in You, Again. HOMG, I think I may have turned gay.

6:58 pm: I can’t believe that Jay Manuel is employing Monday Night Football-style graphics to talk about fashion. Finally saw Sandra Bullock’s dress, and yes, she does look amazing and gorgeous, but my friend was all, “Eh.” He’s a boy, what does he know?

7:18 pm: Totally dislike Sarah Jessica Parker’s dress. My friend just said that she looks cured, like leather. I completely agree, but I think it’s interesting that they’re talking about the PBS miniseries that Matthew Broderick is on right now

Kathryn Bigelow is tall. I also just noticed that Linda Hamilton’s kinda tall, as is Weaver, and the Na’vi are humongous. I am prepared to unequivocally state that James Cameron has a fetish for tall women.

Charlize Theron had roses on her bodice, and I can’t believe that I’m agreeing with Jay Manuel regarding their placement.

7:28 pm: Matt Damon is looking old for some reason. I also think it’s a shame that though tuxes are so boring to look at. And George Clooney? What happened to your hair? Back to Damon, who mentioned briefly the Liberace project that someone in my office is upset about because one of her clients was going to be doing a Liberace project next.

7:31 pm: Clooney, Queen Latifah, and Adam Shankman are riffing on Jeff Bridges being Lebowski-like. And I think it’s hilarious how Meryl Streep was ignoring Seacrest for just a bit, and now she’s busting his balls.

7:38 pm: Keanu Reeves couldn’t grow a beard to save his life. Why so patchy?

7:42 pm: Gabourey Sidibe is so cute for fist-bumping Keanu Reeves and she just said about her dress, “If fashion were porn, this dress is the money shot.” But I do have to admit, that it reminds me of Christian Siriano’s brown prom dress that he designed for a teenager who ended up hating it.

7:44 pm: RDJ is awesome for rocking the blue bow tie and gray jacket. Thank you for being different and awesome. Seacrest is now just telling us that there’s going to be something awesome happening at the beginning of the show and if it’s NPH himself, Neil Patrick Harris, doing an opening number, I will plotz.

7:53 pm: Kate Winslet looks amazing. Not sure I like the front pleating, though. Jeff Bridges’ partner is just so beautiful. And… now I think they’re recycling the dress shots. That’s okay, this gives me a chance to renew my hatred for Miley Cyrus.

8:04 pm: Switched over to the ABC coverage because it’s close to crunch time. Nice coup for them getting all five of the Supporting Actress nominees to talk to each other, but it just feels weird to have them all corralled like that. OMG, how fucking awesome is George Clooney for running down the fan line like that?

8:09 pm: Seeing the trailer for The Last Song makes me not want to see it. However, I do still appreciate Greg Kinnear’s acting trajectory from “The Soup” and hope the same thing happens to Joel McHale and/or Chris Hardwicke.

8:14 pm: I almost plotzed when Kathy Ireland asked Morgan Freeman about his producer and daughter’s jewelry, but when he mentioned that they’d be auctioning them off to raise money for Nelson Mandela’s charity, I was cool.

Here’s the first montage of the evening, recounting the Best Picture winners for a certain time period before mentioning the nominees for this year. They’re just showing the movie posters in alphabetical order and so far, I am not impressed.

8:26 pm: I totally love Whatshisface from for calling Meryl Streep the most nominated actor in history. And let’s go on with the show! But after these commercial breaks.

8:34 pm: They’ve brought out all the Best Actor and Best Actress nominees on stage to start the show, and Sidibe looks like she’s having the most fun. And now, they’re being escorted off-stage by tuxedo gents and

I am so totally plotzing listening to Neil Patrick Harris sing his fucking heart out, and I completely forgive Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin right now.

8:45 pm: Seven minutes into the show, and I am not loving how often they’re busting into Meryl Streep. And then they just totally got me back with the Hitler joke because of how audacious it was. At least Gabourey Sidibe’s mom like Steve Martin’s joke. I fear I’m totally missing something with the Clooney/Baldwin staring contest, though. All in all, I give this opening monologue a C.

8:50 pm: First award is for Best Supporting Actor, and I want to shoot whomever wrote Cruz’s joke. And the winner is Christophe Walz, and good on him for it. I’m loving the Quentin Tarantino as navigator metaphor in his speech, and it was nicely done.

8:53 pm: Ryan Reynolds introduced Sandra Bullock’s performance in The Blind Side and I’m of two minds as to whether or not I think she should win it, mostly due to accusations of racefail that were thrown about.

9:05 pm: I like the Best Animated Picture introductions. And the winner is Up which totally surprises no one. Very gracious speech from director Pete Docter.

I hate Amanda Seyfried’s dress now, because it’s overly fluffy. She and Miley Cyrus are presenting the Best Original Song nominees, and I do love that they’re showing actual clips from the movie and/or showing the real singers doing the songs in context. Ryan Bingham and T-Bone Burnett take it down for “The Weary Kind” for Crazy Heart. I also just noticed that the “This is the XXth award for BLANK” announcements are back, and I wish they’d stayed away.

9:07 pm: Chris Pine introduces District 9, mostly only because he was in Star Trek. I think they only amped up the “The theme of this movie is based in apartheid” angle so that the rest of the people in the audience could know why it was nominated.

9:16 pm: Yeah, you betta recognize that Tina Fey revived your career, Baldwin. I am in love with the actor/writer banter between Fey and RDJ. There’s that snark and cynicism that I wanted to see in this year’s ceremony. Hooray for Mark Boal, winning Best Original Screenplay for The Hurt Locker.

9:21 pm: Oh no, I didn’t want to think about John Hughes’ death right now. *pours one out* And they’ve now brought out so many of his former leading actors and actresses, and gave his family a standing ovation. I also would feel remiss if I didn’t link to this blog entry I read the day of or the day after his death.

9:25 pm: Okay, as much as I loved Up, can I say that the only reason why I think it got nominated was because it does feature one of the saddest scenes ever to be shot in or for a Disney movie and yes, that does include Old Yeller.

9:35 pm: I’m in love with this montage for the Best Short Film nominees because showing how short films can lead to features and inspiring future full-length film directors is just so neat. “Logorama” wins for Best Animated Short, and I have got to find the whole thing somewhere because it looks kinda neat. I’m in love with producer François Alaux for these lines: “No logos were harmed during the making of the project”, “You can applaud them, they’re directors,” and after mentioning that it took six years to make the short, “I hope to come back with a feature film in about 36 years.”

Best Documentary Short goes to “Music by Prudence” and I am totally perplexed by this woman who just jumped into the middle of their acceptance speech… and they got played off! The winner for Best Live Action short is “The New Tenants,” but I didn’t pay attention to them at all because I was still trying to find out who the white woman was who pulled a Kanye West.

9:43 pm: Best Makeup is being presented by Ben Stiller in Na’vi drag, and there are ways it could have been more effective. I’m saying that Stiller’s 0 for 2 in my book when it comes to Academy Awards presenting. Star Trek wins, and goddamnit, I am really getting pissed off at these people being played off.

9:45 pm: Unfortunately, I have no thoughts on A Serious Man, and I’m totally jonesing for a cigarette.

10:22 pm: A tribute to horror movies? I’m digging this Paranormal Activity tribute, and oh no… Twilight is not a horror movie. How dare they tie these things in together? Still, a good representation from the best horror movies.

10:25 pm: Okay, I love this explanation of how sound editing works because god knows it’s a category that so many laymen don’t understand. Even better that it was narrated by Morgan Freeman. The winner for Best Sound Editing is The Hurt Locker. I hope they explain Sound Mixing at the same time. Nope… that’s a bit of an oversight. Winner for Best Sound Mixing is also The Hurt Locker, and I really hope this is a sign that Locker will beat Avatar for Best Picture.

10:31 pm What the hell was that? They only panned over a picture of the Sci-Tech winners? Oh, Oscars, you hurt us nerds so badly and yet we still care about you.

It would be so awesome if The Inglorious Basterds won the Best Picture award. And while I’m at it, I’m going to link you to this list of honest movie posters which is doing a better job of summarizing the Best Picture nominees than these clips are.

10:36 pm: What’s up with no clips for the Best Cinematography award? Avatar finally picks up a technical Oscar; I’m not as upset about this as I could be.

10:43 pm: Okay, Karl Malden got the most applause during the In Memoriam part and I totally loved James Taylor singing “In My Life” because that is just a sad and wonderful song. For some reason, there seemed to be many more younger people in this montage than usual. Or maybe I’m just noticing this because I’m getting older.

10:52 pm: Street dancers interpreting Original Score, and OMG, it’s the League of Extraordinary Dancers! Their interpretation still doesn’t beat Jasmine Guy and friends from the 1990s, though. The winner is Up, and I have to say that the LXD interpretation of that score did make me tear up. “Being creative is not a waste of time!” So freaking true.

10:55 pm: Avatar picks up the Visual Effects award, and really… it’s probably the only one it really deserved. “Thank you for trusting us with your performances, it couldn’t have been easy,” is such an understatement.

11:07 pm: What’s with all the writer-hate? And just what the hell happened to Matt Damon? Winner for Best Documentary Feature is The Cove which is probably giving every PETA member in a 25 mile radius a hell of an orgasm. But an organic one. Also a first for Oscars? First mass cell phone sign-up ad on stage.

11:10 pm: After a more entertaining bit than most of anything Martin and Baldwin have done, Tyler Perry presents the Best Film Editing award to The Hurt Locker and my hopes are renewed again. Also, love those editors for saying they did the movie mostly without studio interference. And speaking of The Hurt Locker, I’m sad to say that I still haven’t seen it yet.

11:18 pm: I’ve decided that I don’t like the lampshade curtain wall that keeps coming down. That must go. El secreto de sus ojos (The Secret in Their Eyes) wins Best Foreign Language film, and writer/director Juan José Campanella’s joke about not having to compete against Avatar probably only went over with me.

11:33 pm: Interesting that they’re bringing back one of the things I loved from last year’s telecast. Michelle Pfieffer’s tribute to Jeff Bridges rocked, as did Vera Farmiga’s to George Clooney. Colin Firth’s smile at Julianne Moore’s words to him made me tear up, as does Morgan Freeman’s at Tim Robbins’ joke, but in a different way. And of course Colin Farrell’s was amazing. Hearty applause for everyone. And the Oscar goes to Jeff Bridges! Goddamn, his wife is gorgeous.

11:52 pm: For some reason I’m not loving these Best Actress speeches as much as I loved the Best Actor ones… except for Stanley Tucci’s. Did Sean Penn just imply that Meryl Streep got robbed last year? God, I love that man sometimes.

Sandra Bullock wins for The Blind Side, and I think I love the fact that she’s not only the winner of the Best Actress Oscar but she’s also the winner of the Worst Actress Razzie for her work in All About Steve. Oh, God… is this over yet?

11:58 pm: Best Director goes to Kathryn Bigelow, and I did give a little screech of happiness. I’m even happier that Avatar didn’t win Best Picture.

And I’m done!

Trisha's Take: How to attempt to buy an Oscar in 400,000 easy steps

Posted on 7 March 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

Every year, the U.S. film entertainment industry dislocates its shoulder by giving itself (and our foreign friends whom we think are cool enough) the largest pat on the back in the form of the Academy Awards show. Viewed by almost 36 million people last year, the Oscars aim to honor the best in film in front of the camera, behind it, and even within it.

The awards are a venerable institution in Hollywood as have been attempts to influence either the selection of the nominees and/or the voting on the awards themselves. The winner of this year’s Best Controversy Heading into the 82nd Academy Awards ceremony is Variety publisher Brian Gott and director John Newton for Iron Cross.

Back in November 2009, Pete Hammond wrote in his blog for the L.A. Times a story about how British writer/director Joshua Newton was working non-stop around the clock to finish work on his movie Iron Cross so that it would be eligible for a 2009 nomination for lead actor Roy Schieder’s last performance before his death from multiple myeloma cancer the year before.

The blog entry itself was a nice piece of fluffy work, but not really anything special until this particular paragraph:

To that end [Newton] has gotten his investors to agree to a “substantial” buy (about $400,000) in the Hollywood trade paper Variety with ads of one sort or another running every day until Oscar voters have turned in their ballots in late January. The campaign started in mid-November with daily yellow-and-white teaser strips sporting phrases like “Would my dad turn this murderer over to the authorities?” and “Anger clouds the heart and threatens the choices we make” leading up to this week’s expensive Weekly Variety full color cover ad of Scheider and a one-page open letter to academy and HFPA members, the same one that ran in Monday’s daily paper with a DVD copy of the film’s trailer attached.

Thanks to some investigative journalism from the folks at Defamer.com, apparently that $400,000 advertising campaign also included yanking down a negative review of the movie from freelancer Robert Koehler because it didn’t mesh with the overall tone of the advertising campaign.

Defamer.com writer John Cook even printed an email he got from an anonymous source attributed to Newton which speaks about the advertising campaign and his disappointment in Koehler’s work as a critic:

I have checked Koehler’s [critiques] out. For instance, look at this list of reviews for the hit comedy Rat Race:

http://www.metacritic.com/video/titles/ratrace

You’ll note the very high percentages awarded by the top critics – reaching 100% by the San Francisco Chronicle. Koehler, who trashes many movies, gave it only 20%, stating “A lineup of comic actors running on empty long before the dust settles”. Clearly a man without a sense of humour. Which probably explains why he hated Iron Cross.

Best part of all is that Newton is now claiming that the Variety ad sales team is ultimately responsible for the mess because they promised that for his cost of $400,000, he and his private investors would get a top notch For Your Consideration campaign, but instead were sold a shoddy bill of sale upon the publication of the review. And thanks to the power of Google cache and citizen journalists, the entire review can still be seen here.

So congratulations, Misters Gott and Newton, and thank you for reminding us once again about the integrity surrounding the Academy Awards.

Director David Anspaugh to drive a Little Red Wagon

Posted on 5 March 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

When I was seven years old, I remember thinking that I’d figured out the “trick” behind what you should do when you meet a wish-granting magical being and submitted a book report where I said that if a genie granted me three wishes, I’d wish for more wishes.

When Zach Bonner was seven years old, he founded a non-profit organization, walked 280 miles from Tampa to Tallahassee in Florida, and raised over $25,000 in supplies and donations to aid homeless children.

Guess which of the two of us has optioned the rights to an autobiographical movie about his life?

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the John Templeton Foundation through the Philanthropy Project and Anonymous Content has hired David Anspaugh (Rudy, The Game of Their Lives) to direct a film about Bonner’s life and his non-profit organization Little Red Wagon. Patrick Sheane Duncan (Mr. Holland’s Opus) is currently writing the screenplay and filming is to start in the spring to coincide with Bonner’s latest project, a “walk across America” to raise more funds to aid homeless children.

I’ve been thinking about non-profit organizations lately and I recognize that there are so many types. My experiences have mostly been with groups who form educational NPOs so that they can put on anime conventions, and after four years of doing volunteer work at a senior staff level, I can definitely say that anyone who gets paid to work for an NPO is indeed doing “real work.”

That Bonner—who is now 13—is still interested in non-profit work and his cause bodes well for the strength of his character, and I hope that he gets through his teenage years with that same character intact.

There is no word yet on who would be cast in the principal roles.

Justin Timberlake to date a Bad Teacher

Posted on 3 March 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

Back in 2008, Justin Timberlake appeared in an ad for Pepsi during the Super Bowl, shilling their “stuff” program where you traded points or bottle caps or something like that for .mp3s, TV, etc. It was well-received and added yet another feather to his comedic cap.

It looks like that entire chapeau is ready for its debut as Timberlake will be joining the cast of Bad Teacher which also stars former girlfriend Cameron Diaz (Knight and Day) and Lucy Punch (You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger). Diaz will play the eponymous gold-digging seventh grade teacher who goes after rich-boy substitute teacher Timberlake who is already dating her colleague Punch.

Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky (Year One) are the screenwriters behind this comedy while Jake Kasdan (Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story) is directing and Columbia Pictures is distributing. Other members of the cast will include Molly Shannon, Eric Stonestreet, Jason Segal, and John Michael Higgins.

If there’s anything I do admire about Cameron Diaz, it’s that she’s got a great sense of comedic timing. I also like the fact that Justin Timberlake isn’t above having a little fun at his own image’s expense (“Dick in a Box,” anyone?). Put these two stars together in a comedy, and I can’t wait to see what happens.

And who knows? Maybe they’ll even get back together!

Darren Aronofsky, Angelina Jolie to head to the woods together?

Posted on 1 March 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

Borys Kit from The Hollywood Reporter is noting that director Darren Aronofsky (The Wrestler) and Angelina Jolie have quietly teamed up to shop a project around to the various studios.

Based on the 2009 novel by Ron Rash, Serena will tell the story of an ambitious Depression-era timber baron’s new wife whose monstrous behavior threatens the life of her husband’s illegitimate child. Christopher Kyle (K-19: The Widowmaker, Alexander) adapted the screenplay and Nick Wechsler (The Time Traveler’s Wife, The Road) is on board as producer.

Despite her recent dramas having achieved critical success, the box office numbers tell a different story. Changeling raked in only $35 million in the U.S. but its total worldwide gross is almost $113 million while A Mighty Heart only took in $18 million worldwide with about half of that being its domestic gross. Still, Kit re-relates the notion that Jolie is box office gold, calling her “one of the few female actresses who can make or break a movie.”

Personally, I think this is definitely a role that Jolie would sink her teeth right into and chew for all its worth, but I also think that Aronofsky’s the kind of director who could rein in some of her exuberance and re-direct that emotion into the acting.

Jolie will have a chance to prove her paycheck’s worth again with spy thriller Salt and its U.S. release July 23 and The Tourist, which she is currently filming with new co-star Johnny Depp.

Trisha's Take: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo review

Posted on 25 February 2010 by admin 2 Comments

Män som hatar kvinnor (“Men That Hate Women”)
aka The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Directed by Niels Arden Oplev
Starring Michael Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace, Sven-Bertil Taube

Two months ago, we learned that there would be an English-language film adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which is the first in a planned trilogy of novels knows as the Millenium trilogy. At the time I said that I hadn’t read the book yet and that there was no work on when the original Swedish-language film adaptation would be released by Music Box Films.

Luckily, we now know that it will be going into wide release on March 19 and I got to see a preview of it last night. And I have to tell you perfectly honestly:

The executives at Sony Pictures are nuts for wanting to remake this film.

Why go to all the trouble of hiring someone like Steve Zaillian to write the script when there’s a perfectly decent adaptation of the novel by Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg? Why hire a new director when Niels Arden Oplev has already spent the time directing fine performances from his stars Michael Nyqvist and Noomi Rapace?

I still haven’t read the book, but I can tell you that a friend of mine who has read it and went with me to the screening said that though parts were cut out, he could understand and see why they were in the pursuit of trimming a 572 page hardbound book into something that is a good feature length without having to switch reels too often.

Let me break it down for you, but not too thoroughly: Nyqvist plays Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative journalist who is about to serve a six month prison sentence for libel because he’d printed something about a huge conglomerate that ended up not being true. Except, his publisher and some of his friends at the magazine/newspaper (which is called Millenium, hence the name of the trilogy) believe he’s been set up to take a fall but there’s no proof.

Meanwhile, punk-gothic hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) has been hired by rich industrialist Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube) to do a thorough background check on Blomkvist because Vanger would like to hire him to look into the disappearance of his beloved niece Harriet who disappeared from the secluded family island 40 years ago. He believes that she’s been murdered and he wants to finally know for certain what happened to her.

An interesting thing about how this movie is paced is that Blomkvist and Salander don’t even meet until well after the first act of the movie is over. I am not irked at all that the movie takes its precious time getting to their first in-person meeting because of some important scenes that take place which may wind up sending those whose PTSD is easily triggered by scenes of violence and sexual abuse upon women into a severe state of shock.

Another interesting thing about how this movie and the original book is titled is that it gives away a major theme surrounding Harriet’s disappearance. However, because the English-language book title focuses more on the crime and romance novel system of similar naming in a series, it easily gets lost in the shuffle.

The third most interesting thing about this movie is that even though certain plot points were telegraphed and composer Jacob Groth did a damn fine job of making me cringe with his musical cues during scenes where I knew that there would be an unpleasant surprise, I did not care one whit about the translucency because it was just so entertaining. The audience of fellow members of the press, Academy members, and other associated film industry folk seemed to agree with me to the point of breaking out into tension-relieving laughter after such a scene close to the climax.

The fourth most interesting thing about this movie is that even though it’s most easily classified as a classic mystery, it’s also just a bit noir, just a bit revenge flick, and there are even romantic elements that made my heart go pitter-pat. I can only imagine that the book’s even better.

And though it’s not the last, the final thing I’ll mention as being so damn interesting about this movie is that even though there are some truly evil characters in the movie, I didn’t hate a single one of them. All of them were necessary to the plot, all of them added to the weight of the movie’s themes, all of the actors did a fine job portraying them.

I do have to admit that for the first 30 minutes of the movie and every now and then when something showed up in the movie that was just so non-American that it made me pause I found myself thinking of how one would translate what was happening on the screen to an American audience. I quickly gave up because not only was I drawn into the movie so deeply, I was also struck by how important it is that this movie takes place in Sweden complete with the Swedish culture.

It is supremely important to Lisbeth’s character that she has been thrown into a system where your probation officer also directly controls your finances. It is so very vital to the plot that though Blomkvist has been found guilty of libel and will be serving a prison term that he is free to travel to places that are connected to Harriet’s disappearance.

If I don’t want to undertake the mental gyrations necessary to translate that into something that the average movie-going-American-who-hasn’t-read-the-book would understand, why even try? Why does the Hollywood system underestimate its audience’s ability to empathize with people who don’t speak the same language we do? Oh, that’s right… we can’t even understand or empathize with the culture of a country whose citizens mostly speak the same language we do.

Still, if my single five-star review can get even one of you to run to the nearest town that will be showing this, then I’ll not have written these words in vain.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has not been officially rated but I’d say it will get a hard R due to language, scenes of graphic violence and female frontal and human rear nudity. And yes, some of that graphic violence involves women and sexual situations, so those who are easily triggered by that need to be warned as well.

Who will be Andy Fickman's Goddess?

Posted on 24 February 2010 by admin Leave a Comment

The thing about adapting “chick lit” novels into film is that already the studio knows that there’s an audience for it, which is a good thing. The tricky thing is that the audience is invariably going to be made up of some people who are not in the novel’s targeted demographic, and this audience has to be entertained as well.

Which is why I’m not surprised that Universal Pictures and Spyglass Entertainment have finally settled on director Andy Fickman (The Game Plan, You Again) to lead its adaptation of Sophie Kinsella’s The Undomestic Goddess.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Fickman will be reporting to both Spyglass and Tribeca Productions, working from a script by Aline Brosh McKenna (The Devil Wears Prada).

Goddess is the story of a workaholic London attorney named Samantha Sweeting who suffers a brief mental episode at work after making a costly error and escapes to the English countryside. There, she is mistaken for a candidate for a maid position at a country estate and decides to just go with it rather than facing her problems back in the big city. The production will keep the setting the same, but it sounds to me like they’re going to turn Sweeting into an American, which irks me only a little.

To say that Fickman’s recent films haven’t been good is definitely a matter of opinion as even though The Game Plan only scored a 27% on the Tomatometer, it ranked #1 in box office sales for its opening weekend in September 2007 and has a total worldwide gross of $147 million. It was also the top DVD rental for three weeks in a row upon its release in January 2008.

It doesn’t hurt that he’ll have McKenna’s adaptation to work from and the fact that Sweeting is a more empathic character than the one in Kinsella’s Confessions of a Shopaholic may also help the film’s chances.

Ultimately, I think the success of this film is going to be based entirely on whom they get to play the leads and how many great character actors they can get to fulfill the supporting roles. This could almost be a job for Amy Adams, but I doubt she’d want to do another romantic comedy so soon after Leap Year only made it to #6 on its opening weekend.

Screenwriters tell a Little White Lie for Laika Entertainment

Posted on 22 February 2010 by admin 1 Comment

With the success of its stop motion-animated film Coraline, Laika Entertainment has been adding feature films to its production slate, and now we can add one more to the list.

According to The Hollywood Reporter Chris McCoy and Jan Pinkava will be writing Little White Lie for the animation house under Pinkava’s direction (he also directed the Oscar-winning short film Geri’s Game).

McCoy (who also has a story credit for Ratatouille) is credited with the original story, but neither THR nor Empire magazine seem to know what the story’s about—which makes me wonder if Laika’s withholding information just to get people more interested in finding out more about the movie and the story. If so, well… they’ve got me hooked.

Other films on Laika’s slate include an adaptation of Alan Snow’s Here Be Monsters! and Paranorman which features a young teenager who has to defend his small town from a zombie attack.

James Cameron to re-dedicate himself to the Battle Angel movie

Posted on 19 February 2010 by admin 6 Comments

It is with optimistic feelings that I bring to you the news that right after he shoots a sequel to Avatar — and hopefully brings some closure to those who are “suffering” from post-Avatar depression — James Cameron is finally going to start work on the live-action version of Battle Angel Alita.

In a conversation with Larry Carroll at MTV’s Splash Page.com blog, Cameron’s producing partner Jon Landau revealed that because Avatar is to Cameron what Star Wars is to George Lucas, Cameron had always intended to make that movie first, but is now looking to continue further development on the manga/anime-turned-movie (which may be retitled Alita: Battle Angel, although Landau could have been joking):

[Alita] is something that Jim is very, very passionate about. It was actually brought to our attention by another filmmaker, Guillermo del Toro; Guillermo saw those things in the property that he thought would really relate to Jim, and Jim responded to it immediately.

and

We had a wonderful writer who came in and collaborated with Jim, Laeta Kalogridis [Night Watch, Shutter Island], who worked on it; Laeta brought to our attention that there was much more to this world of Battle Angel than we ever knew… We were familiar with the anime that had been produced, we were familiar with one of the main books. But she opened us up to the other nine books that exist, and how rich that world is.

The fact that Cameron and Landau are going deeper into the well of the Alita universe to find a good plot is fantastic news and as much as I disliked Avatar for its paper-thin plot, inconsistent characterization, and inconsistent theme (scroll to the last bit before the update), I’m excited to see Cameron’s latest technical and movie wizardry applied to an anime series I really liked.

I think in this case, how the movie shakes out will rest completely on the screenwriter’s head and hands; if Kalogridis remains the sole screenwriter and can apply the same kind of reverence towards the source material as Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyen did towards the Lord of the Rings books, we may have a winner.

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