Another look at Cameron Crowe’s We Bought A Zoo has arrived, which sees Matt Damon’s character decide to purchase the rundown Rosemoor Wildlife Park and do it up, even though he has no experience looking after wild animal. Trying to get over the death of his wife, Damon and his two kids – along with a dedicated staff (including Scarlett Johansson) – attempt to return the zoo to its former glory. It’s a shame the film has moved a true story than took place in Devon to America, but hopefully the movie will be good. The film reaches cinemas on December 23rd.
First Look: Nicholas Hoult In Warm Bodies
The first image from Warm Bodies has shown up, thanks to a pic ShockTillYouDrop snapped at the American Film Market. As you can see, Nicholas Hoult isn’t looking too healthy, and that’s becuase he’s a zombie. However while the picture makes this look a little like an undead Twilight, the plot is slightly more interesting.
The movie is based on the novel by Isaac Marion, with Hoult playing an angsty zombie named R who strikes up a friendship with the human girlfriend of one of his victims and sets off a chain of events that eventually affects all of zombie society. The movie is directed by Jonathan Levin (50/50, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, The Wackness), and should be in cinemas next summer.
General movie news courtesy of Movie Muser
Jason Statham On For Hummingbird
For the last six months or so, Eastern Promises screenwriter Steven Knight has been putting together Hummingbird, which he wants to be his directorial debut (well, he helmed a few episodes of the Jasper Carrot sitcom The Detectives in the early 90s, but that doesn’t count).
The film’s just got a little closer to happening as Variety reports that Jason Statham has signed up to star. He will play a former Special Forces solider who’s gotten involved in London’s grimy criminal underworld. However he wants out and when he gets the chance to take a identity, he embraces it and becomes an avenging angel looking to take down wrongdoers.
Knight hopes to shoot the movie early next year, between lucrative assignments punching up Hollywood scripts (he’s done work on everything from Wrath of The Titans to The Lost Symbol).
General movie news courtesy of Movie Muser
Sherlock Holmes 2 Character Posters Emerge
Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows hits cinemas on December 16th, which isn’t very long at all! Now a quartet of new character posters for the movie have emerged, showing off Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock, Jude Law as Watson, Noomi Rapace as the gypsy Sim and Jared Harris as the evil Professor Moriarty. Take a look at them above and below. (Image via Yahoo!)
General movie news courtesy of Movie Muser
First Image & Poster From Safe House
It seems Denzel Washington is still as much bigger deal that Ryan Reynolds, as the first image and poster for Safe House have arrived, neither of which seem to care much that Reynolds in also in the movie. There’s little doubt they’re doing a good job of making Washington look moody!
In Safe House, a CIA-operated safe house is targeted by a group of bad guys, and the facility’s house-sitter is tasked with the dangerous job of moving the criminal who is being hidden there to another secure location, without getting either of them killed.
General movie news courtesy of Movie Muser
Clash Of The Titans 3 Already In The Works
Warner Bros must be confident their Clash Of The Titans follow-up, Wrath Of The Titans, is going to be a hit, as they’ve already started work on a third film in the franchise. They’ve hired Dan Mazeau and David Johnson, who also wrote the second movie, to pen Clash of the Titans 3, even though Wrath of the Titans doesn’t hit theaters until March 30th, 2012.
Little is known about the story of Clash of the Titans 3, although THR says insiders claim Toby Kebbell’s Agenor, a sidekick to Sam Worthington’s Perseus in Wrath of the Titans, may feature heavily in Clash of the Titans 3. It is also believed that Wrath of the Titans director Jonathan Liebesman will return for Clash of the Titans 3, although no deal have been worked out quite yet.
However a third film is dependent on the seoncd movie becoming a hit. The first Clash flick grossed nearly $500 million worldwide, and Warner will be hoping Wrath does at least the same.
General movie news courtesy of Movie Muser
John Carney Takes On Steve Carell’s Dogs Of Babel
Back in 2006, director John Carney made a bit of a splash with the musical Once, which won the Audience Award at Sundance amongst many other gongs (including an Oscar for one of the songs). However he’s been fairly quiet since, probably because rather than going Hollywood, he’s continued to make small Irish movies.
However that may change as the LA Times reports he’s in final talk to direct Dogs of Babel, which has Steve Carell onboard as producer and star. Jamie Linden wrote the screenplay, which is adapted from Carolyn Parkhurst’s novel of the same name. It centres on Paul Iverson (Carell), a linguistics professor who returns home and finds his wife dead in their back yard.
Although the police rule the death an accident, Paul is still skeptical. He tries to teach his dog Lorelei, the only witness to his wife’s death, how to speak, in hopes of determining what really happened that day. Hmm, let’s hope it’s better than it sounds, but thankfully Carney is the sort of guy who could pull this off. It isn’t known when production may begin on Dogs of Babel.
General movie news courtesy of Movie Muser
Joel Edgerton Up For 300: Battle Of Artemisia
The sequel to 300, once called Xerxes and now 300: Battle of Artemisia, has been very slowly moving forward ever since the first film was released. Frank Miller has been hard at work creating the graphic novel on which the movie will be based, and while Zack Snyder was supposed to direct, he’s busy with Superman and so Noam Murro has taken over. However Snyder has been working on the script with Kurt Johnstad, and they’ve now completed work.
The next step is casting, and while one producer has teased the cameo returns of Gerard Butler and Lena Headey, Battle of Artemisia needs a new leading man to play Themosticles, a Greek general who led the defense against Persia’s invasion in 480 BC. According to Vulture, they may have found their man, as Joel Edgerton, recently seen in The Thing, Animal Kingdom and Warrior, is reportedly in talks to star. Let’s hope he looks good in a leather nappy, which will presumably be his costume, as it was for the guys in the first 300 movie.
Battle of Artemisia producers Mark Canton and Gianni Nunnari recently said of the Snyder/Johnstad script, “Zack Snyder and Kurt Johnstad, his writing partner, have killed it. They’ve done a tremendous job making a highly intelligent, epic story that will stand on its own. But it’s not a conventional sequel and, for what we do, that’s what you hope and pray for. That you can be original and authentic at the same time.”
General movie news courtesy of Movie Muser
Brian Cox Gets Into A Dog Fight
With the US Presidential elections next year, its seem Hollywood feels it’s high time for some political comedy, as Warner Bros.’ Dog Fight, starring Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis is due to start shooting this month, ready for release around the time the Yanks go to the polls.
Now the star duo have some more company, as Variety reports that Brian Cox has joined the movie. Ferrell and Galifianakis play two rival politicians running for a congressional seat in a small North Carolina district election. Cox will play Zach Galifianakis’ father, a former Senator who has always been distant toward his family, especially his son.
Jason Sudeikis, Dylan McDermott, Sarah Baker and Katherine LaNasa will also being in the movie, with Jay Roach directing.
General movie news courtesy of Movie Muser
Were The World Mine (DVD)
Starring: Tanner Cohen, Wendy Robie, Judy McLane, Nathaniel David Becker, Zelda Williams
Director: Tom Gustafson
Running Time: 93 mins
Certificate: 12
Release Date: May 18th, 2009
Director: Tom Gustafson
Running Time: 93 mins
Certificate: 12
Release Date: May 18th, 2009
Given how the musical is known for being popular with gay people, it’s surprising there aren’t more film musicals made with a gay bent. There have been a few, such as the superb Hedwig And The Angry Inch, but not as many as you might expect. Were The World Mine follows gay teenager Timothy, who’s routinely castigated for being a ‘fag’ by the rugby players at his school, even though he secretly lusts after one of them.
After being cast as Puck in the school’s musical production of ‘A Midsummer’s Night Dream’, Timothy discovers a way to make the plot of Shakespeare’s fantasy come true, spraying people from a flower so that they fall in love with the first person they see afterwards. Timothy soon manages to make his crush besotted with him, before spreading gayness around his small town to give the small-minded townsfolk a taste of what it’s like to live in his shoes. [Read more…]
Zombies Of Mass Destruction (DVD)
Starring: Janette Armand, Doug Fahl, Cooper Hopkins, Russell Hodgkinson
Director: Kevin Hamedani
Running Time: 86 mins
Certificate: 18
Release Date: October 18th, 2010
Director: Kevin Hamedani
Running Time: 86 mins
Certificate: 18
Release Date: October 18th, 2010
Another day, another zombie movie. Due to the fact they can be made fairly cheaply and generally sell quite well, there really are a ridiculous amount of movies about the undead made and released on DVD every year, most of which are pretty interchangeable and normally fairly dire. However, while Zombies Of Mass Destruction has a title that sounds like it’s going to be utterly dreadful, it deserves kudos for trying to reach above its no budget origins.
While some have compared it to Sean Of The Dead, that would be being a bit generous, other than the fact it’s a horror movie that’s also a comedy. More accurate description is its US tagline, ‘A political zomedy’. The set-up is pretty basic. Port Gamble is an idyllic small town where the locals are going about their humdrum lives when the whole place is taken over by the undead. As usual a small band of the uninfected has to try to survive. [Read more…]
The Celluloid Closet (DVD)
Starring: Lily Tomlin, Whoopi Goldberg, Susan Sarandon, Tony Curtis
Director: Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman
Running Time: 101 mins
Certificate: 15
Release Date: May 4th, 2009
Director: Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman
Running Time: 101 mins
Certificate: 15
Release Date: May 4th, 2009
It’s a bit of a surprise that it’s taken so long for The Celluloid Closet to make it to DVD. The 1995 documentary, which looks at the history of gays and lesbians in film, won numerous awards and was a major success on its release, and yet it’s only just appearing on DVD now. Based on the book by Vito Russo, which was the seminal work on the subject, it’s a fascinating trawl through a topic that has always been present in cinema, but for most of its history was hidden away and never openly mentioned.
Starting right at the earliest days of moving images, The Celluloid Closet charts the different ways cinema has tried to deal with homosexuality, from Marlene Dietrich dressing in a tux and kissing a woman in 1930’s Morocco, to how The Hay’s Code insisted that any suggestion of homosexuality was stripped out of film adaptations of Tennessee Williams. [Read more…]