Posted Jun 16th 2008 6:10PM by William Goss
Filed under: Thrillers, Mystery & Suspense, Sony, Celebrities and Controversy, Remakes and Sequels, Religious
On June 5th, production began on Angels and Demons, the sequel (wait, wasn't the book a prequel?) to tepid religious mystery/global mega-hit The Da Vinci Code.
On June 9th, Jessica Barnes brought to our attention a couple of photos from said shoot.
And as of June 16th, the Vatican has formally denied the long-awaited request on behalf of the filmmakers to film crucial scenes within the critical churches of Santa Maria del Popolo and Santa Maria della Vittoria.
According to Variety, the proper permits require cooperation between the Italian government and the Vatican. However, since "the film pursues a type of fantasy that damages common religious sentiment," they were not approved. The production has already relocated to near Naples in an effort to double the needed interior shots, and the film is still scheduled to open on May 15, 2009.
Tom Hanks' hair could not be reached for comment at the time of this post.
Posted Jun 13th 2008 9:02PM by Matt Bradshaw
Filed under: Comedy, Documentary, Drama, Independent, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Trailer Trash, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels, Religious, War, Trailers and Clips
There have been war movies pretty much for as long as there have been movies. If and when we finally get to see Tarantino's long-promised
Inglorious Bastards, and if it proves to be a hit, I'm betting we see a surge of war flicks. For now, though, we've got five trailers for war-related movies, starting with...
Punisher: War Zone
Between
Iron Man and
The Incredible Hulk, Marvel properties are pretty hot these days, but I just don't see this one coming anywhere near that kind of success. Much like Batman, The Punisher started his career driven by vengeance, but instead of fighting crime with his fists, he selected the admittedly more practical weapon: guns, lots and lots of guns.
Thomas Jane chose not to return for this sequel and this time we have
Ray Stevenson wearing the skull emblem and firing the automatic weapons. His delivery is particularly stump-like, but there's only so much that can be done with lines like "sometimes I'd like to get my hands on God." I've never liked the comic book and I haven't seen any of the other
Punisher movies, so maybe fans of the character will find this more interesting.
Miracle at St. Anna
This new one from
Spike Lee should be worth waiting for. In 1983, a postal employee named Hector Negron gives a customer a look of recognition before shooting him in cold blood. Police find an ancient Italian artifact worth $5 million in Negron's apartment as well as a purple heart from World War II. The details are told in flashback as we see him and several other black American soldiers in 1944 trapped behind enemy lines in Italy. This is based on a novel by James McBride and it opens on September 26. Here's
Christopher's take.
Continue reading Trailer Park: War is Hell
Posted Jun 9th 2008 5:32PM by Jessica Barnes
Filed under: Thrillers, Mystery & Suspense, Sony, Religious, Images
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Having been one of the ten people on earth who hasn't read
The Da Vinci Code or
Angels and Demons, it's no surprise that I'm not terribly amped for the follow-up flick from
Ron Howard. But, I know I am in the minority here, so feast your eyes on
a new batch of photos (courtesy of Trovacinema) of
Tom Hanks and company hard at work on the big-screen
Angels and Demons. Most of the cast is pictured in the photos, and by the looks of it, everyone seems to be having a grand old time on location in Rome.
Demons will center on Robert Langdon (Hanks), who's smack dab in the middle of a fight between The Vatican and The Illuminati. Once again, the Harvard professor will have to take down an ancient conspiracy, but this time they have an eye on assassinating high-ranking members of the church. Casting finally finished back in April with the
addition of Ewan McGregor (which is a good thing for me, because if anyone can make me sit through a
film I normally wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole, it's McGregor), and
Ayelet Zurer as the daughter of a CERN physicist looking to solve her father's murder.
Shooting on the picture just began last week, and Howard will finish up location shots in the next three weeks. Then the production will move back to the states where they can complete interior shoots on the Sony lot. So as long as a
SAG strike can be avoided, Howard should be able to get the production in on time.
Angels and Demons is scheduled for release on May 15th, 2009.
Posted Jun 7th 2008 3:32PM by William Goss
Filed under: Documentary, Lionsgate Films, Celebrities and Controversy, Movie Marketing, Religious, Trailers and Clips
Being one not entirely fond of controversy for controversy's sake, I cannot deny that the prospect of 'Politically Incorrect' host Bill Maher working with Borat director Larry Charles to make a documentary regarding religion in any respect and having it distributed by a studio all too proud to remind you of the hand it had in releasing Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 wasn't one that had me eager to line up around the block for it any time soon.
However, all things considered, while the new trailer for Religulous fails to dilute any notions that this thing is a lightning rod in waiting, I found myself unexpectedly consoled by the fact that Maher and Charles appear to be covering every faith and denomination that they can in making a film about the seemingly ridiculous nature of any one belief to another.
If Ben Stein can both cause an old-fashioned ruckus with his doc on the exclusion of creationist thought in public schools and rake in some relatively decent grosses while doing it, it'll be interesting to see just how much attention this film will inevitably garner come this October 3.
Posted Jun 3rd 2008 5:02PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Comedy, Celebrities and Controversy, Religious
Mike Myers' latest,
The Love Guru, has been sparking up a lot of controversy. There were (and still are) Hindu protests based on the trailers. Then, the British Film Institute
declared that it wouldn't screen the film, nor would it be involved with any release of the comedy. Now, we're getting some positive press about the film -- straight from Deepak Chopra.
He wrote a post in
his blog called
Love Guru: Hindu Lions and Hollywood Lambs? back in April, and it's now hitting the wire, since he says that the protests are unwarranted. He discusses previous films and their impacts, the importance of comedy in faith, and his own involvement with the film. "As viewers will find out when the movie is released this summer, no one is more thoroughly skewered in it than I am --- you could even say that I am made to seem preposterous. If I don't take offense and some Hindus do, that doesn't make me superior or more mature or even innately tolerant. I just know the difference between a belly laugh and a diatribe."
The Hollywood Reporter fleshes out the story, discussing Chopra's relationship with Myers -- his books reportedly helped Myers through depression and led to the new character, he got Chopra's blessing before making it, they've popped up together on
Iconoclasts, and Myers wrote the forward for
Why is God Laughing? Are the Hindu protesters jumping the gun? Is Chopra being too forgiving? We'll find out soon enough -- the film opens on June 20.
Posted May 16th 2008 9:15AM by Jette Kernion
Filed under: New Releases, Disney, Theatrical Reviews, Family Films, Religious
It's been two-and-a-half years since we watched the Pevensie children come to life on the big screen in Disney's splashy adaptation of
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but for the characters, only a year has passed between those adventures and the ones in the new movie,
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. Well, time is funny like that when you're dealing with the magical land of Narnia, as the storyline of this movie amply illustrates.
The structure of events in the movie is actually an improvement on the C.S. Lewis book, opening with a captivating chase scene as young Prince Caspian (
Ben Barnes) attempts to escape from his Uncle Miraz (Sergio Castellito). Miraz has been scheming to steal Caspian's throne and now wants him dead. But Caspian's tutor gives him a magical horn, the horn of Queen Susan, to summon help in time of need. When Caspian blows the horn, suddenly Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter are pulled out of a London Tube station (which was the first scene in the book) and into a world of wild, wooded ruins that turns out to be Narnia, thousands of years after they've left. However, Caspian thought he was summoning kings and queens, not British children, and how can these kids help him regain the throne and help Old Narnia? And where is Aslan the Lion in the middle of all this?
Continue reading Review: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian -- Jette's Take
Posted May 14th 2008 7:35PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Drama, Foreign Language, Casting, Celebrities and Controversy, Religious, Cinematical Indie
Next time Terry Gilliam gets down about his bad luck, he should talk to Constantin Film about
Pope Joan. In
October of 2006,
Franka Potente signed on. In
April 2007, John Goodman got sued for backing out of the feature. That made
production stop. Then director Volker Schlöndorff was
fired over comments he made to a paper. Last we heard, there was a new director, Sönke Wortmann, but that was
last August.
And I just had to go and say: "How funny would it be if she could no longer do it? Also disappointing, since I'd love to see her really command a period piece."
The Hollywood Reporter posts that due to scheduling conflicts from the rampant delays, Franka is out and German actress
Johanna Wokalek is in as Pope Joan. That news just, well, sucks. It would've been a great opportunity for Franka, and Wokalek isn't well-known stateside, which could affect the production further.
But here's where things get weird. It seems that although he was sued and left eons ago, "Constantin said Wednesday that it remains in talks with Goodman and that the actor could still join the cast." That would certainly help foreign cred, but is he really still around? Is this just due to the lawsuit? The whole production just seems like a mess.
Should I even bother saying that principle photography is now set for August, with the film's release set for 2009? Will this come to fruition, or are more problems on the way?
Posted May 14th 2008 3:32PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Drama, Independent, Casting, Religious, Cinematical Indie
But can Sisto deliver them from evil?
The Hollywood Reporter posts that
Kristin Chenoweth is going to star with
Jeremy Sisto in an upcoming indie drama called
Into Temptation. And finally, a link in my brain is showing up on the big screen. News of Chenoweth (
Running with Scissors), always makes me think of Sisto, the Chenowiths, and
Six Feet Under, so it's about time the two were combined.
And just like the dead-filled show, this is far from an upper. "Chenoweth will play a suicidal prostitute who confesses to a priest her plans to end her life on her birthday. The priest (Sisto) then searches for her to intervene."
Firstly, I really like the idea of a priest getting emotionally involved with a story he hears during confession. It breeds a million possibilities, but really -- do we need a struggling stripper on the big screen YET AGAIN? I feel like a broken record saying this, but it keeps continuing, so how can I not? There's enough flipping strippers on the big screen, people. Use those creative juices of yours to come up with new material!
The film is written and will be directed by Patrick Coyle, and production begins next week.
Posted May 2nd 2008 6:25PM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Drama, Mystery & Suspense, RumorMonger, Celebrities and Controversy, Peter Jackson, Religious
Say it ain't so! I want this to be nothing more than hyperbole and ugly rumor mongering. But let's look at it anyway: According to
Flicks.Co.NZ, there are troubling stories surrounding the set of Peter Jackson's
The Lovely Bones.
The first is a bit of a yawner. Reportedly, Jackson is having creative differences with his art director over the best way to portray Heaven -- a pretty key location in the book, if you remember. Things even reached a point where the production had to take a break as the disagreement was sorted out, according to reports.
But then came word (today) from
The Bad and Ugly that the film has now been delayed, and instead of a March 13, 2009 release date, it's been pushed to Fall, 2009. No word on whether this was due to production issues or if they'd rather hold the film for a potential Oscar push.
Additionally,
Susan Sarandon seemed like she was pretty iffy on the film and especially her performance while speaking to press at the London premiere of
Speed Racer: "I play the comic relief, an alcoholic grandmother – my first grandma – but she doesn't really seem like a real grandmother because she has a lot of hair and jewelery and nails and liquor. I don't think I ever talk without a cigarette and a drink in my hand. Peter Jackson is really a nice guy and very interesting. It was really a very different way of working. We had a good time, I'm really curious to see what it's like because he kept pushing me to be more and more extreme and sometimes that's when you make your big mistakes so I'm not sure how it will come off -- it will be interesting to see it from the point of view of the audience."
Continue reading Peter Jackson's 'The Lovely Bones' Delayed; Production Hurting?
Posted Apr 26th 2008 6:32PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Action, Thrillers, Deals, Scripts, Religious
We get action-adventure thrillers all the time, and sometimes, they even dip back into history a little bit. But how often do they go really back? I'm not talking BC-times, but rather, to the Renaissance era?
Variety reports that Phoenix Pictures has nabbed a spec script by Javier Rodriguez called
The Heretic, which they are fast-tracking for our eager, moviegoer eyes.
The film focuses on "a fallen priest-turned-hitman sent by a rogue archbishop to assassinate
Martin Luther, only to discover that not everyone is telling the truth." What? Old religious officials not telling the truth? That's crazy talk. I don't know why, but something about religious hitmen and rogue archbishops is sounding damn irresistible to me. I keep thinking of films like
Grosse Pointe Blank, Pulp Fiction, and
Leon, but in Renaissance garb and surrounded by crosses. And just how do you be a hitman way back then? It's not like you just sit in the shadows with a fancy gun and wait for your target to appear. They'd have to be more tricky -- maybe Russian-like with poison or something.
Phoenix is looking to start production by the first quarter, so we should get more news on the project relatively soon. In the meantime, who would you cast in a film like this? We all know the usual action-thriller stars, but which of them could pull off the hitman aspect, the religious flavor, and the historical, Renaissance context?
Posted Apr 24th 2008 9:02AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Casting, Mystery & Suspense, Sony, RumorMonger, Newsstand, Remakes and Sequels, Religious
This is one movie I keep forgetting is actually being made.
Ron Howard's adaptation of
Angels and Demons has been simmering away, sending out casting calls, not quite reaching any level of heady anticipation. Maybe this news will do it.
Entertainment Weekly is reporting that Israeli actress
Ayelet Zurer has landed the part of Vittoria Vetra, the daughter of a CERN physicist who is embarked on a journey to uncover the truth behind her father's murder. Of course, Robert Langdon (still played by Tom Hanks) accompanies her, and they must foil a terrorist plot in the process.
The studio has yet to confirm. Naomi Watts was reportedly the last to be in talks for the role. No other parts have been cast.
I'm not an avid reader of Dan Brown, so I must ask: is the plot of
Angels and Demons really that similar to
The DaVinci Code? Is it really that a pretty foreign girl loses a member of her paterfamilias, and Robert Langdon must help her? Is it via the works of coded works of Michaelangelo? Is the Catholic Church evilly involved? I am guessing it is, since one of the characters in need of an actor is an aide to the Pope. Fill me in, because I will never read the book.
Angels and Demons is still set for release May 15th, 2009.
Posted Apr 23rd 2008 1:32PM by Eugene Novikov
Filed under: Newsstand, Religious
Well, uh, here's something I wasn't expecting to read today, though I might have been less blindsided had I seen
this Cinematical post from a year ago.
Paul Verhoeven -- he of
Robocop,
Showgirls,
Basic Instinct and
Starship Troopers (and
Black Book, yes, but the contrast's not as much fun) -- is...
publishing a biography of Jesus! Co-written by Rob Van Scheers (who also wrote...
a biography of Paul Verhoeven!), the book is reportedly based on 20 years of research by the director, and looks to be a historical rather than a Biblical account of Jesus's life. The book will make some controversial claims, such as that Jesus was the son of Mary and a Roman soldier who raped her, and that he was not in fact betrayed by Judas Iscariot.
Awesome. With all deference to Verhoeven, I'm not sure how much he can possibly have to contribute to such a well-trodden subject. A note at the end of the
Hollywood Reporter story may go a long way toward explaining the existence of the book: Verhoeven has long aspired to make a historically-grounded movie about Jesus, and hopes this book will generate interest in such a project. The book comes out in September, and I, uh... can't wait to read it? Maybe I can write a review, at least if it's released in English as well as Dutch.
As far as we know, when he's not researching Jesus, Verhoeven is still in pre-production for
The Thomas Crown Affair 2.Posted Apr 23rd 2008 8:02AM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Drama, Casting, Deals, Scripts, Religious
Maybe you remember him from
Earth 2 all those years ago, or more recently in
Prison Break. Or, perhaps you spotted him in
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Whatever the project,
Rockmond Dunbar has been keeping busy over the years, and now
The Hollywood Reporter posts that he's gearing up for his next directorial gig -- an indie drama called
Pastor Brown that was written by Rhonda Freeman-Baraka.
The film, which is currently in production in Atlanta, is being described as a "twist on the prodigal son story." Jesse Brown (Salli Richardson Whitfield) is the daughter of a pastor who has charted her own course to get away from her religious roots by becoming an exotic dancer. But then she gives that life up and returns home "to make amends with her family and teen son and eventually lead her father's parish, becoming Pastor Brown." She not only finds religion, but a little love in a Muslim man named Amir (who will be played by Dunbar). It sound more like a comedy than a drama, but I guess it can be serious as long as the Pastor doesn't give a lot of advice that starts with: "When I was an exotic dancer..."
Continue reading Rockmond Dunbar Falls for 'Pastor Brown'
Posted Apr 22nd 2008 12:02PM by Eric D. Snider
Filed under: Documentary, Independent, New Releases, Box Office, Religious, Cinematical Indie
Up front, let me confess an error I made regarding
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, the new documentary about the Intelligent Design movement. In Friday's edition of
"The (Mostly) Indie Film Calendar," I said the movie was "a documentary about how people who believe in evolution are big meanies who don't understand why 'Intelligent Design' (i.e., that God made everything) should be taught in science classes, too." This was a mistaken summary of what Intelligent Design is.
Having now watched the film -- which is terrible, filled with specious reasoning, false dichotomies, and self-contradiction -- I find that I did learn a thing or two. I had assumed that Creationism and Intelligent Design were the same thing. They are not. Creationism is the belief that God created the Earth more or less the way it's described in Genesis. Intelligent Design merely holds that certain things about life on this planet are best explained by something supernatural. Where there are gaps in scientific knowledge, ID fills 'em in.
There is plenty of overlap between Creationism and ID, of course, and I guess you could say all Creationists are also ID-ists. But you can certainly believe in ID without believing God made the world in six days. The film says that this misunderstanding is why so many scientists are so virulently anti-ID -- because they think it's Creationism, which truly doesn't have much scientific evidence in its favor.
Continue reading Fan Rant: 'Expelled' Is Awful, But Let's at Least Be Honest About It
Posted Apr 20th 2008 12:02PM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Exhibition, DIY/Filmmaking, Movie Marketing, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Religious, ComicCon
The picture above takes place toward the very end of the scene they showed us yesterday at New York Comic Con, and it comes toward the end of a battle between armed forces and the Hulk. This scene is also predominantly featured in the new trailer which will play before
Iron Man in about two weeks. Essentially, the military have Bruce Banner (
Edward Norton) on the run. They chase him into this glass tunnel, lock both entrances on either side and launch two smoke-type bombs into the area. Outside, jeeps and a slew of troops gather awaiting Banner's transformation. They want this monster and they want him bad.
Suddenly, as the smoke builds up, we see Banner press his hands against the glass -- his eyes go green, his face fighting the beast within. Smoke fills the screen; it's quiet. Everyone waits. Then ... BOOM! -- the Hulk crashes out of the glass onto this huge field, running for his life. Several jeeps give chase, guns firing from every corner of the screen -- bullets ripping into Hulk's skin; he bumps one jeep and the vehicle rolls over. He gets to another one, picks it up and proceeds to smash it until the thing is in a million pieces. Emil Blonsky (
Tim Roth), who at this point has been given a few injections of that super serum, heads out to where Hulk is. Hulk tries to beat down Blonsky, but the latter has an extra bounce in his step. For some reason, he's not like the others -- he can move pretty fast. After a brief cat and mouse, the two approach each other (seen above). Blonsky says, "Is that all you got?" Hulk looks down, winds his leg back and goes to deliver a giant kick to Blonsky's stomach ... and we ... cut to black.
Continue reading NYCC: 'The Incredible Hulk'
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