My Best Films

Warners commit to suicide

Robin Hood has his bride

Samuel L Jackson has (finally) signed

Dragonball has weird designs

The Green Hornet has a spotless mind

Lesbian Vampires will make you go blind

Zack Snyder loves guns

Mark Wahlberg just wants to have fun

No Country for Mark Strong

Hot Tub? Meet John.

Deemed unfilmable, the most celebrated graphic novel for the last twenty years, Watchmen the movie will be with us in a week’s time. But get this… unless all the listings and cinema databases are not updated yet, it appears that only 10 screens will be showing this film in the UK… Ummm… surely that cannot be right !!

Suddenly getting to see this film in itself is going to become an epic undertaking, trust me when you have a two year old and a wife that is four and a half months pregnant, nipping off to the cinema at least 50 miles away for a 160 min long film is not so straight forward! But see it I must! A plan is required…

UPDATE : Well it seems all these cinemas dont update a month’s listings till the beginning of the month… which is a bit stupid, because how do you ever find out what new releases are showing on the first week? Watchmen IS showing in Brighton - WOOOO HOOOO !

The Coen Brothers have just made a PSA – or Public Service Announcement – on the subject of “clean” coal and how it might not be all it’s cracked up to be.

Talking of cracked, the brothers’ effort is a veritable sea of quality and intelligence compared to some of the wacky, OTT and - in hindsight -  just plain hypocritical efforts out there.

While the subjects covered are both worthy and worthy of attention, we’re not sure all of these work.

We take the subjects seriously, but we thought we’d take a look at a few of the ads and figure out if they helped or hindered their cause…

The Cause: Debunking the myth of “clean” coal, and poking light fun at the energy company’s claims.

The Celebrity: Joel and Ethan Coen directed it.

The Result: Actually, we really liked this one. It’s simple, effective and gets the message across well. It’s clearly been fashioned for the short, sharp, punchy Internet age.

We still expected Anton Chigurh to burst through the door and slaughter everyone with his high-pressure bolt gun.

Sample YouTube comment (sic): “type of chemical that can be a good transferer of energy and economical itll be 50 years before we are off coal.” Thanks, ‘Dorgatharn’

The Cause: Cleaning up New Yorkers’ nasty littering habits

The Celebrity: Shot by the stylish David Lynch.

The Result: Terrifying blend of pure dread and black & white photography. It looks like a horror movie stumbled into a Calvin Klein ad.

Aaaaah! Giant rat! Okay, just regular rat. It does make you think about littering, though. But only white paper and blank cups, so you’re safe for everything else.

Sample YouTube comment (sic): “That reminds me of the old Nazi propaganda films attacking the Jewish people.” Quality feedback from ‘Djbethell’, there.

The Cause: Turning your phone off in the cinema

The Celebrity: Martin Scorsese directed  - and stars – in it.

The Result: Yes, Martin Scorsese, the real one. Telling you to shut that bloody phone off when the lights go down in the cinema.

It’s decent, and aims for the funny, but comes off a little earnest. Plus gits who use their phones in the cinema are more likely to snigger then keep doing it anyway. Dolts. And we still like the Orange ones more.

Sample YouTube comment (sic): “That commercial made me laugh so hard I laughed my heart out and I know everything about Mr. Scorsese that he directed Goodfellas and Casino but also he stared in the animated movie shark Tale who took the voice of Mr. Sykes.” Insightful wisdom lovingly typed by ‘gojiranotgodzilla’.

The Cause: Drinking and driving

The Celebrity: Lindsay Lohan and popular beat combo A Simple Plan

The Result: Lindsay Lohan – LINDSAY LOHAN – is trying to warn us all about the dangers of imbibing and driving.

If only, say, Lindsay Lohan had paid attention a couple of years later. Sad, but true.

Sample YouTube comment (sic): “it arrives lindsay lohan for to never ever you really change down the gadgets”. Wittily summarised by ‘Ximenapop’

The Cause: Fighting youth apathy towards voting

The Celebrity: Jessica Alba and Heroes’ Hayden Panettiere

The Result: Fetish-tastically odd spot that keeps the message sidelined but makes us think Alba has a glittering career in the infomercial presenting industry.

That said, Barack Obama did get elected and the youth turnout was bigger this year. Expect Labour to try it with Gordon Brown and nipple clamps. Now you’re nauseous.

Sample YouTube comment (sic): “id bang them both” Cutting political savvy comes courtesy of ‘brettstenberg’.

The Cause: Crack, and the possibly lethal side effects thereof.

The Celebrity: Pee Wee Herman. Or his robot double.

The Result: One from the ‘80s, which sees the Hermanator attempting to warn us all about crack cocaine, “the most addictive form of cocaine.”

He’s right to warn us, but is he the right person? His eerie solemnity just comes off as spooky and wrong, and is undercut by the fact that it was part of his plea deal after being caught “entertaining himself” in a porn cinema in 1992.

Sample YouTube comment (sic): “yeah but im sure he says diffrent about acid…i mean the talking chairs and shit.” Astute observation from ‘
deftonesrule311’

The Cause: The brain/heroin problem.

The Celebrity: Rachel Leigh Cook

The Result: Cook goes absolutely bug nuts in a kitchen trying to explain just how nasty the drug can be for your brain, your family and your wallet.

Sadly, it would appear that the main effect has been to slow Miss Cook’s career to a less-than-stellar crawl.

Sample YouTube comment (sic): “any questions? yeah, uhm, i love you” A pithy response from ‘dupersloby’

Can’t say we saw this one coming – New Line has signed Jim Carrey and Jake Gyllenhaal up to star in a remake of classic musical Damn Yankees.

Originally on stage in 1955 (and first turned into a film in 1958), Yankees tell the fateful tale of Joe Boyd, a happily married schlub who is devoted to his favourite baseball team.

Offered a deal by Satan to help the team, he’s magically transformed into expert batter Joe Hardy – but at the cost of (surprise!) his soul.

Boyd can get out of the deal, but only when the team are in the middle of the championship World Series. Oh, and the devil also sends along a sexy lost soul to seduce him and help seal the deal.

Carrey, you might have guessed, will be playing the devil, while Gyllenhaal takes on the everyman role.

Not surprisingly, Craig Zadan and Neil Meron  - who brought us the film musical version of Hairspray – are the driving force behind this update. They’ve tried once before to get it up and dancing, but the plan fell apart at Miramax.

Now, with the rights back in their hands and at New Line, they’ve hired writers Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel to brush up the script into a more modern setting, while maintaining the spirit of the show.

We hope for their sake the musical genre hasn’t vanished back into the ether by the time the movie hoofs it on screen.

[Source: Variety]

A baseball musical? Would you watch? Or does it strike out with you?
 

Hollywood has been threatening for ages to sequelise or remake Total Recall, and now producer Neal Moritz is making it happen for Sony.

Yes, Paul Verhoeven’s 1990 actioner is getting the reboot treatment, with Moritz and co hoping that a new version of the film can wipe our brains and make us appreciate it with fresh, bulging, oxygen-starved eyes.

For the three of you who’ve never heard of the Arnold Schwarzenegger-starring original, the Austrian Oak plays Douglas Quaid, construction worker haunted by dreams of a trip to Mars.

He visits a company called Rekall Inc, which implants memories of a Martian holiday, but complications lead to him starting to believe he’s a secret agent fighting to help overthrow the despotic ruler of a colony on the planet.

Turns out he’s not dreaming it all up! Sort of… It’s based on Philip K Dick’s story We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, which plays with the notion of memory and delusion, but which was adapted into a typically OTT Verhoeven action movie.

Still, it’s a hell of a lot of fun and any new version will have to seriously compete. Moritz told The Hollywood Reporter that he hopes advancements in effects technology can breathe new life into the story.

Yeah, that’s comforting. But if they can hire Verhoeven to channel his ’80s/’90s self… we’d watch.

[Source: THR]

A new Total Recall… Ready to embrace it? Or do you hate the whole idea?

Splice, the new genetic tinkering thriller from Cube’s Vincenzo Natali, has been sitting in release limbo for a while since it finished shooting early last year.

But now the film – which stars Sarah Polley and Adrien Brody - is aiming to hit cinemas (at least across the pond) in September and the lads at Bloody Disgusting got their paws on some spooky new pics.

Brody and Polley play two young, rebellious scientists who decide that what the world really needs is an experiment splicing animal and human DNA together.

Naturally, because this is a Frankenstein-inspired story, things don’t go quite to plan.

They’re successful in that they create a creature called Dren (Delphine Chanéac) who quickly matures from a lumpen infant into a beautiful, but still odd winged being.

She forges a bond with her creators, but events quickly go scare-shaped as you’ll see in the pictures. You can find them in the gallery to the right.

[Source: Bloody Disgusting]

Do these pics make you excited for the film? Tell us!
 

Just when you thought there were no more kiddie fantasy tomes to mine for likely franchises, Warners’ development pickaxe strikes another – The NeverEnding Story.

The original film, which arrived in 1984 and was directed by Wolfgang Petersen, no less, was adapted from Michael Ende’s German novel.

It tells the story of Bastian Balthazar Bux (talk about vindictive parents!) a loner of a lad who escapes school bullies by delving into the titular book, which holds a parallel world.

As he makes his way through, he discovers that his life has become intertwined with the plot – in which a hero has to save the land of Fantasia from a growing darkness.

Clearly sensing Potter-like potential, Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way has set up a production pact with The Kennedy/Marshall Company and Warners to dust off the book and give it a modern spin, while aiming to – we’re quoting here – “examine the more nuanced details of the book that were glossed over in the first pic”.

There are no writers and certainly no director attached at this stage – for all we know, it could vanish back into the mystical world of Developmentia, but if they have to revisit the universe, could it at least be better than the sequels?

[Source: THR]

What do you think? Do you remember the original? Can it work today?

Eddie Murphy is attached to play comedian Richard Pryor in Bill Condon’s biopic Is It Something I Said?

Taking its name from one of the legendary laugh-grabber’s most famous comedy albums, the script has been floating around Hollywood for a while – at one point, Talk To Me’s Kasi Lemmons was trying to get it made.

But now, with Condon writing and directing and his Dreamgirls star on board, he’s in a position to start shopping it around the studios.

Pryor, who died in 2005, was known for his searing stand-up routines on racism and other hot-button subjects, a chequered film career and his struggles with drugs and alcohol.

There’s no word on a pickup yet, but according to Entertainment Weekly, Fox Searchlight  - who released Condon’s Kinsey biopic – are said to be interested. It remains to be seen if they’ll cough up the $25 million the director needs to get the film made.

And while Murphy seems a solid choice – he has impersonated Pryor in the past as part of his act – we’ll be intrigued to see if the final film features Pryor shooting Harlem Nights, which saw him appear with… Eddie Murphy.

So who’ll be playing Murphy? Or will they go the Man On The Moon route, where Danny DeVito played Andy Kaufman’s manager, and we never saw DeVito during the scenes of Kaufman (Jim Carrey) appearing on Taxi.

[Source: EW]

Could this be Murphy’s comeback? Or his downfall? Discuss.