Movie News: Tuesday, October 31

Sutherland strikes "Gold" in treasure comedy (Reuters)
   Reuters - Donald Sutherland is joining the hunt for "Fool's Gold," an adventure comedy starring Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson.

China film director hailed for harming environment (Reuters)
   Reuters - Chinese director Chen Kaige, whose movie "The Promise" harmed a pristine Himalayan lakeside during shooting, has been nominated for a "Green Chinese" award for raising environmental awareness.

"Silence" is golden for European documentary (Reuters)
   Reuters - "Into Great Silence," a nearly wordless documentary about a reclusive order of French monks, has been picked as this year's best European documentary, the European Film Academy announced Tuesday.

Brooklyn Rules
    ( Release: Dec. 15, 2006   Rated: R (MPAA)    Details  ) — Set in 1985, three boys grow up together on the violent streets of Brooklyn. Naturally, one of the guys wants the mafia life, and all their lives are threatened.

The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes
    ( Release: Nov. 17, 2006   Rated: Not Rated    Details  ) — A beguiling opera singer is kidnapped by one Dr. Droz. An innocent piano tuner becomes tangled up in the doctor's bizarre plans to stage a "diabolical opera" while attempting to rescue the ill-fated woman.

Baldwin wants off Schwarzenegger film (AP)
   

AP - Actor Alec Baldwin wants to be removed as narrator of an Arnold Schwarzenegger documentary called "Running with Arnold," saying filmmakers went too far by including images of Nazi rallies.

L.A. Confidential sequel to be done by Joe Carnahan
   

L.A. Confidential is one of those movies that really rocked my world, but it's also one that I feel could handle a sequel, if put in the right hands, like Joe Carnahan's. The good people over at moviehole.net give us this

:Joe Carnahan, the talented brains behind the acclaimed thriller ?Narc? (2004), has signed to direct a sequel to the 90s hit, ?L.A Confidential?.?The film I?m doing next is White Jazz, the sequel to LA Confidential,? Carnahan tells CHUD. ?My brother and I wrote the adaptation,? he said.

?That script is one of my favorites. It?s heartbreaking. It?s, to me, what that book always was ? the point of departure from the Eisenhower 50s to the psychedelic freakshow, Manson 60s. It?s a total combination of the two with a heavy, heavy voice-over narration, this kind of classic noir. I love the script, dude. I?m going to get it out there ? once it?s done I?m going to get it on the internet so people can read it.?

White Jazz?, the film, has been in development hell for quite a while. At one stage, Nick Nolte was set to play the films lead character, a corrupt copper named David "Dave" Klein, and John Cusack was attached to play his partner, Junior Stemmons. Just weeks before she was arrested for shoplifting, Winona Ryder was reportedly in talks to play a role.

One thing is certain though; between Smokin Aces and White Jazz Carnahan's career is getting hotter by the moment. He's being smart too, he's still working on projects that have a least some of the flavor that Narc had. He isn't trying to direct slap stick comedy, he's sticking to guns and tension with the occasional smart mouthed line. This movie could possibly make his name very well known if it's done right and I think he knows it.

If he's able to get the many factors together to make this movie a success, the script, the location, the costumes, the music, the talent and of course the tone then this movie has the potential to rock even more worlds that it's predacessor.

Hey Look! Street Fighter! Just what we neede.. oh .. wait.
   

I guess you can file this under "Releases we weren't expecting" or perhaps"Releases I won't notice."

To be fair, I might be jumping the gun on that one, but looking at history gone by, this can't be a good idea. (Although the guy who wrote it, Justin Marks, just finished a "Voltron" script, which I find terribly funky.)

You may remember "Street Fighter" being released 12 years ago - but, let's be realistic: - No you don't. Geez, I'll be honest, I had to look it up. That may work in their favour as the "remake" / "re-attempt" is slated for your eyeballs sometime in 2008 - apparently marking its irrelevant 14th year anniversary.

I may be committing what the filmmakers don't want - which is a comparison. As the new film has nothing to do with the first one - as far as I've read. They're keeping the plot line [smirk] under wraps because, I'm guessing it'll just, like, completely blow your mind. Although we do know the film will center around Chun Li, y'know, everyone's favourite female character in the game - who will also, no doubt, have cleavage that practically covers her face. Lara Croft who?

Source: Variety & Movieweb

Se7en prequel?
   

Well, not quite, there have been some rumors about a Se7en prequel, but from what slashfilm.com shows us, there is probably very little truth to it:

According to BD, a treatment titled Virtue is being sent out to potential scribes. The horror website claims that the movie would be released and marketed as "it's own entity, but when the finale comes to light we are hit with a revelation that we're watching the next Se7en film."

This one quote makes me doubt the validity of the scoop. Would a movie studio keep a prequel/sequel a secret even in the marketing phase? I seriously doubt it. And how could any movie studio expect such a secret not to leak out onto the internet and become widely known to the mainstream public before release? But we'll see.

The original 1995 film follows two detectives (Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman), one new to the district and one about to retire, investigating a series of ritualistic murders inspired by the seven deadly sins. Over the course of the following days the two try to track down the killer through the bleak streets of the rain-soaked city that is the backdrop of the story. The film was written by Andrew Kevin Walker (8MM, Sleepy Hollow) who is currently working on a screenplay for the Universal remake of The Wolf Man.

David Fincher has in the past talked about a sequel: "I read a script two or three years ago that they wanted to make the sequel to Se7en. It didn't make a lot of sense to me. They wanted Morgan to have become clairvoyant in some way and that was the way he was now solving serial-killer cases! And I was like, 'Well, that's handy!' Its the kind of high concept you worry about. So I don?t know that there is going to be a sequel. I do know that they have to call me if they're going to do it..."

A 7-part comic book series based on the movie is currently being released.

To be honest I just don't care about Se7en anymore. If they made a prequel to Se7en five years ago I would have been interested but now...I just don't think so. The movie was good, I liked it, but I don't own it, I don't rent it and I don't think about it.

However that being said I would like to add that if there was a prequel in the works it I think should follow either the killer and how he began, maybe the detectives that never caught him. Or perhaps as suggested in the above the story could follow Morgan Freeman's character, though medium like abilities are just a tad bit over the top.

In reality the thing I got most excited about was the idea of Se7en comic books. It's quite possible that I could be punished for sloth while reading those.

News about the Unnamed J&J Project (Chan and Li)
   

Lots of news has come out as to who was involved in the upcoming Jackie Chan and Jet Li project. It hasnt even got a name yet, but its got a script, director, producer, etc.

Coming Soon.net

Jackie Chan and Jet Li will star together for the first time in a $70 million action-adventure that Relativity Media will finance and Casey Silver produces, reports Variety.

Robert Minkoff (The Lion King, Stuart Little) will direct, while martial arts expert Yuen Woo-Ping (The Master) will create the action sequences. Shooting is set for April.

The trade says that the film is one of two new big-budget projects that Relativity will be offering to buyers at the American Film Market starting Wednesday. The second is Brian De Palma's $70 million prequel The Untouchables: Capone Rising, which Paramount will distribute domestically.

Chan-Li starrer, known as the untitled J&J project, has been rumored for some time, but Relativity, headed by Ryan Kavanaugh, boarded only recently. The John Fusco (Hidalgo) script is based on the legend of the monkey king and his quest to achieve immortality.

Li is set to play two roles, that of the monkey king and the silent monk. Chan will play the monk T'sa-Ho.

Either way, this looks like it will have some great action, Chan's personal charm, and a team up that good or bad will be talked about for a long time.

Harold and Kumar 2
   

I can honestly say that I tend to avoid movies that revolve around the glorification of smoking pot. Generally the type of humour that goes along with it is something I dont find entertaining. I dont recall why or how, but I ended up watching Harold and Kumar go to Whitecastle and I ended up finding it rather funny.

Cinematical says:

John Cho (Harold) and Kal Penn (Kumar) have officially signed on to star in Harold and Kumar 2, with screenwriters Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg (who penned the first flick) set to make their directorial debut on the sequel. Now, before there was word that a sequel would find the boys traveling across Amsterdam, however we're not certain whether it will take place abroad or here in the States. PR describes the pic as a cross-country adventure that "follows the pot-smoking duo as they try to outrun authorities after being suspected as terrorists when they try to sneak a bong on board a flight to Amsterdam."

I wonder if the cheeta will make a cameo. Or Patrick Harris.

The Dead Girl
    ( Rated: R    Details  ) —

Halo Is Dead - And the 4 Great Bullshits That Followed
   

The Halo movie project has been a total disaster from almost day one. Joke after joke has followed in its footsteps since its inception and today the final nail was put in its coffin (for now anyway, like a zombie it will return at some point in the not too distant future I'm sure).

Yup, from cancelled release dates, the hiring of a director who has never worked on any movie in any capacity in his life, more moved release dates, claiming they loved their script only to scrap it later and hire a totally different writer, refusing to budge on their own profit numbers in order to accommodate Fox and Universal, getting dumped by the studios, failing to find another studio... and now this. They've officially announced that all pre-production on Halo has been stopped and the film is on the shelf. The good folks at AICN give us this official press release from Wingnut Film (Peter Jacksons company) and Microsoft:

"As was previously confirmed, we deeply regret that both Universal and Fox did not choose to move forward with financing the Halo film under the original terms of the agreement. At this time Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, along with their partner, Microsoft, have mutually agreed to postpone making a feature film based on the Halo video game universe until we can fulfill the promise we made to millions of Halo fans throughout the world that we would settle for no less than bringing a first class film to the big screen. We are fully supportive of Director Neill Blomkamp's vision of the film. Neill is a tremendously gifted filmmaker and his preliminary work on Halo is truly awe-inspiring. While it will undoubtedly take a little longer for Halo to reach the big screen, we are confident that the final feature film will be well worth the wait."

BULLSHIT #1 - BUNGIE REP SAYING THEY WANT PARTNERS WHO ARE MORE CONCERNED ABOUT THE ART OF THE FILM THAN THE "NUMBERS"

Remember this bullshit line last week that Bungie made when Fox and Universal pulled out? So here's my question for the bullshiters: If you're not concerned about "the numbers" yourself... then why didn't you agree to Fox's and Universal's request to give them a bigger percentage to lessen their financial risk and lower your own percentage? Oh that's right... BECAUSE YOU'RE CONCERNED ABOUT THE NUMBERS TOO! Hypocrites.

BULLSHIT #2 - THEY BELIEVE IN NEIL BLOMKAMP'S VISION

This is such a joke. What vision? They did the script without Blomkamp's input. They started pre-production without him. They did the freaking storyboards without him. So if you did the script, structured the story and even began work on the movie all before you even hired the guy... HOW THE HELL IS IT HIS VISION???? Nice attempt at spin.

BULLSHIT #3 - THEY BELIEVE IN THE PROJECT

This is a huge bullshit. If they believed in the project so much... then why don't they PAY FOR THE DAMN THING THEMSELVES??? Microsoft has more money than Fox and Universal combined. Don't believe the bullshit, if Microsoft actually believed Halo the movie could be a financial success, they would have put their own damn money up for it and production would already be well underway. But instead they wanted other people to pay for it who wouldn't care about "the numbers".

BULLSHIT #4 - "WE ARE ALREADY IN NEGOTIATIONS WITH OTHER STUDIOS"

Remember when they said this just last week to make it sound like other people were just waiting to step up to the plate to replace Fox and Universal? Yeah... well that was all bullshit too. They weren't in negotiations... they were out BEGGING other studios to pick the project up. And as I predicted just last week, no one was stupid enough to bite.

Look, I love Indiana Jones... but I call bullshit when I see it. And everything we've heard from Lucas, Speilberg and Ford has been bullshit. Indiana Jones 4 ain't ever getting made. I don't hate Halo at all... as a matter of fact I love all sci-fi... but I call bullshit when I see it, and this whole Halo mess has been bullshit from day 1, and I've called it the whole way.

So now ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to take on the character of "arrogant jackass prick" and say something a few commentors have suggested I say since last week. Ready? Ahemmmm.....

I TOLD YOU SO!

Ok, that felt good.

I have no doubt Halo will return at some point. But maybe they'll get it right and just do it as a full 3D animated kick ass action sci-fi flick. I think that would be better suited, but maybe not. It's just a sugestion.

Microsoft, Peter Jackson postpone "Halo" movie (Reuters)
   

Reuters - Microsoft Corp. and the Oscar-winning team behind "The Lord of the Rings" movies are delaying plans for a feature film based on "Halo," the software company's popular alien shoot-up video games.

AFI Film Festival celebrates 20 years (AP)
   AP - In a city where people leave to see movies — and see and be seen — at film festivals around the world, the American Film Institute is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its own festival.

Review: Almodovar returns for `Volver' (AP)
   AP - On almost every level, Pedro Almodovar's "Volver" proves you can go home again.

Kazakhstan to Borat: Not so funny! (AP)
   AP - Borat, beware: Accept an invitation by a top Kazakh official to find out what the country is like and you could be in for a nasty surprise.

Method comedy: Borat and faux personas (AP)
   AP - In promoting his new film, Sacha Baron Cohen has not wavered in presenting himself as the backward Kazakh journalist Borat Sagdiyev — be it in interviews, at movie premieres or on his thorough MySpace.com page.

Angelina Jolie may sue Cambodian ex-ally (AP)
   

AP - An associate of Angelina Jolie has said a lawsuit may be filed on behalf of the Hollywood actress against the head of a Cambodian aid group she alleges misappropriated her donations.

Kazakh anger has yet to ebb over Borat (AP)
   

AP - Borat beware: Accept an invitation by a top Kazakh official to find out what the country is really like and you could be in for a nasty surprise.

Shock! "Saw" No. 4 set for release next Halloween (Reuters)
   

Reuters - Perhaps inevitably, the record-breaking box office launch of "Saw III" has inspired the film's distributor to order a fourth installment of the R-rated horror series.

Mysterious ways: U2 in 3-D concert film (Reuters)
   

Reuters - U2's Vertigo world tour may soon create a real sense of vertigo among moviegoers as the Irish rockers are planning to release their first 3-D concert film next year.

Leconte film finds "Friends" in U.S (Reuters)
   Reuters - IFC Films has acquired all U.S. rights to Patrice Leconte's French comedy "My Best Friend" (Mon meilleur ami), starring Daniel Auteuil.

Canadian cities star as themselves in new movies (Reuters)
   Reuters - Canadians have long been used to seeing their cities on the big screen as backdrops for Hollywood shoots here.

Latest Hollywood script deals (Reuters)
   Reuters - Actor-director-producer Bill Duke has optioned the book "Push" and entered into a development deal with its writer, urban author and street lit publisher Relentless Aaron.