Movie News: Wednesday, November 01

Listen! Do You Smell Something? 'Into Great Silence' Coming to North America.
   

Tired of drunk guys' mumbling garble during your movies? Sick of teens addicted to sugar/E/smack/crack bellowing during the emotional bits? Well, we've got a movie for you, because you won't be finding anybody like that at this one. In fact, you can leave your pulse at home - it's 'Fast and the Furious' proof. Not saying it's bad, mind you, apparently it's great - so says the European Film Academy as it lobbed the award for Best European Documentary its way - The Sundance Festival gave it a special Jury prize back in January as well.

The rightly titled "Into Great Silence" is about a virtually hidden sect of French Monks. [I just lost half the readers I think]. In order to get permission from the "head honcho Monks" to film it, it took the director 16 YEARS. 16 years - the only thing I've done for 16 years in my entire life was wait for my nuts to drop. 16 Years for one film - Regardless, this guy must really love his subject. And he loves it quiet.

There's virtually no dialogue in the entire film as it sets out to contrast our modern, hectic, Fight-Club "Get Out And Buy Stuff" mentality with a trip through the power of stillness and the need for silence in our lives. Therefore, Tony Little probably won't see it either. North America will get its chance to see-and-not-hear-it at an as of yet, unpublished date.

Source: Hollywood Reporter/Reuters

Christopher Reeve's take up his cause (AP)
   AP - Christopher Reeve's children are carrying on their dad's crusade: finding a cure for paralysis.

Shirley Temple Black injured in a fall (AP)
   AP - Child actress-turned-international diplomat Shirley Temple Black broke her wrist in a fall "a few weeks ago," her publicist said Wednesday.

Martin Scorsese?s Rolling Stones Documentary
   

Martin Scorsese, the director who loves stories with grit and toughness is doing a documentary on The Rolling Stones, the band that lived so long on their drugs and rock and roll and now still and won't quit. moviewebnews.com gives us this:

Paramount Pictures has picked up the rights to The Rolling Stones documentary from Martin Scorsese.

The long awaited film has already gotten underway with Scorsese shooting last Sunday's birthday bash for President Clinton at New York's Beacon Theatre; he'll be back to shoot again for tonight's show. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film will focus on the two concerts from the group's current 'A Bigger Bang' tour as well as historical and contemporary behind-the-scenes footage and interviews. The camera team expects to film more than half a million feet of film at the Beacon, using additional Hi Def, DV Cam, 16mm and 8mm cameras to shoot behind-the-scenes footage.

Paramount plans to release The Rolling Stones documentary in late 2007.

However there are some people who are a little pissed off at the Rolling Stones for canceling a few dates recently. The folks over at cnn.com gave themovieblog this story:

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- The Rolling Stones on Tuesday canceled an upcoming concert in Hawaii and rescheduled three other performances, while a fan sued the band for $51 million for pulling out of a New Jersey show last week. Rosalie Druyan filed a class-action lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court on Tuesday accusing Jagger and the Stones of fraud and in acting in bad faith because of the cancellation, which she said cost her and thousands of fans money on non-refundable hotel bookings.

The suit charges that Jagger sought medical attention before the concert and knew he would not perform but did not disclose that in time for ticket-holders to cancel travel reservations.

The story is interesting and I hope Scorsese gets The Stones take on things. It?s going to be interesting to see how they are shown, are they the hard working band who meditate and get along great, or is what?s keeping them young that old school rocker mentality that keeps bringing the groupies back to their bus?

I can?t lie, I?m hoping for the latter.

Unknown - Trailer
   Five men wake up in a locked-down warehouse, none of them able to remember how they got there or even who they are. They soon realize that they were all part of a kidnapping - without having the slightest idea of which side they were on.

Why Halo Getting Dumped Could Be For The Best
   

Well, it's been about 24 hours since I posted the Halo death notice (I love that graphic of the tombstone that Rodney made for me). In my email client I have a folder called "Halo Hate" that I created almost a year ago specifically to put emails in that were from people either 1) Saying I didn't know anything about movies or 2) Calling me various names. All in response to the fact that for some time, I've seen the writing on the wall and that Halo was headed for disaster (As of today there are 140 messages in that folder). The fact is that Halo has been horribly mishandled since day one. Everyone said I was an idiot and subjected me to a lot of abuse... well... you read the story yesterday.

HOWEVER...

As badly as Halo has been handled up to this point and what a mess the people at Bungie and Micronut (Thanks for that phrase Chark) have made of things... there is a silver lining to this debacle. As a matter of fact... when all is said and done... we may all look back at yesterday and say that Halo getting canceled (for now) may have been the BEST thing to happen to it in the long run. Consider the following...

1) Perhaps now Neil Blomkamp can actually cut his teeth on a smaller project and get some experience under his belt before doing Halo. This would be nothing but positive for Halo. The main job of the director is working with actors (It's why George Lucas did such a bad job with the prequels). Blomkamp has never really done this... and to get some real movie experience working with real performers on a real project will do nothing but improve Halo's chances of being the good movie so many people want it to be.

2) Perhaps Peter Jackson realizes he needs to make amends for King Kong and decides to direct Halo himself? Tell me that wouldn't be every Halo fan's wet dream.

3) It gives the Halo folks more time to examine the script, give more thought to it and perhaps improve it even more

4) Now that Bungie realizes they don't know squat about the movie business, perhaps they'll be more knowledgeable about what to look for in potential partners... and to actually LISTEN to those partners.

5) Visual effects technology is only getting better and better each day. If Halo would have looked amazing visually now... just think about how good it may look if they do it 3 years from now.

6) Realistically, WETA is over booked right now anyway, and I know for a fact that they've been hiring freelance (non-weta artists) artists out the ying yang to make up for it. Perhaps now, when Halo is actually gets rolling, it'll be staffed by true WETA team members exclusively.

7) Maybe (and this is just my personal thought) with all this time they have to think about it, perhaps they'll decide to scrap the live action route and do a full 3D CGI movie instead. I think that would be amazing.

The point is, that many of us could see yesterday coming from a mile away... BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD for Halo fans. This could be the best thing that could have happened... and I think the end result... if Bungie takes its head out of its ass and learns some things... will be a better Halo movie then what we were destined to end up with... which in my opinion wasn't going to be very good.

Halo will live again at some point... and it'll be better than it would have been if it hadn't had been stopped. But that's just my two cents worth.

Soap - Trailer
   32-year-old Charlotte (Trine Dryholm) could have it all, but she doesnt want any of it. When she moves away from her boyfriend, she happens to become the upstairs neighbor of the transsexual Veronica (David Dencik). Veronica prefers to keep to herself with her little dog and a romantic soap show on TV, while Charlotte gets through the nights with one-night stands.

Love says Gibson helped her get sober (AP)
   

AP - Courtney Love, who has been sober for 15 months, says Mel Gibson helped her on the road to recovery.

Mexican wrestling film legend dies at 80 (Reuters)
   Reuters - Daniel Garcia, who starred as Huracan (Hurricane) Ramirez during the golden age of Mexican wrestling films in the 1960s, has died of a heart attack, family members said on Wednesday.

Supermodel to film AIDS documentary (AP)
   AP - Supermodel Maggie Rizer returned to her hometown this week to begin working on an AIDS documentary being directed by Alexandra Kerry, the daughter of U.S. Sen. John Kerry.

Alec Baldwin Won't Slam Schwarzenegger.
   

Hey look at that... Some people can actually agree to disagree...

Here's the situation: Alec Baldwin doesn't politically support Arnold Schwarzenegger, but was cast to narrate a documentary about him called 'Running With Arnold' and Alec agreed. As far as I know - in this day and age - most people would jump at the chance to be in something that pokes a bit of criticism in the direction of a politician we don't agree with. Oh who's kidding, with the States being Redder and Bluer than they ever have been, almost everybody would. (I've probably ruffled feathers just typing that.) Anyhow...

The film has gone and dug up some 60 year old Nazi footage of some guy who didn't go to Arnold's wedding, but is said to have been invited. And some paperwork about Arnold's Dad. Reading that over, it's hardly likely that they were being used in a happy-Christmastime manner. And Alec, instead of buckling down and saying "Oh, this'll be fun"... He's gone on the record as saying: ""The filmmakers hammer Schwarzenegger over his private behavior and his record as governor... But Schwarzenegger deserves to be treated fairly and the film's images of Nazi rallies were over the line." The filmmakers of course, say "...this is not really a critical look at Arnold ? there's a lot more we could've done to be critical,". Yeah, I bet.

Alec went a step further and returned his payment for the narration and THEN put out a Cease and Desist order on the film. Holy Crap. I gotta hand it to him, not bad for a guy defending someone else he doesn't even agree with. That's sorta like me writing this good-natured article even though Alec's a PETA member. (Sorry Alec, had to squeeze that one in..)

Source: USAtoday.com

Inarritu wraps his trilogy with `Babel' (AP)
   

AP - Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu speaks reverently about an Argentine theatrical group whose suspended acrobats pluck audience members off the ground and into the air.

Review: 'Flushed Away' fun but frantic (AP)
   AP - The claymation masterminds behind "Wallace & Gromit" got together with the computer gurus who brought us "Shrek" at DreamWorks Animation to make "Flushed Away."

Saw 3 Hospitalizes Movie Patrons
   

It seems the horror movie fashion has gone from monster to slasher, to Japanese remakes, to just plain gore. And as mentioned in this week's Audio Edition the new breed of Gore-Horror has stepped it up a notch. But is it TOO gory?

M&C Movies say:

Hollywood`s horror hit, 'Saw III,' is keeping British emergency medical crews hopping with squeamish movie patrons being overwhelmed by its realistic gore.

Emergency medical technicians made three visits to Cineworld in Stevenage, Herts, Friday night. Two adults were treated at the scene for fainting and a 20-year-old woman had to be taken to the local hospital until she calmed down, the BBC reported Tuesday.

Another EMT crew was called to the theater in Peterborough, Cambs, to treat a 34-year-old man overwhelmed by the film`s content.

Imagine the producers all gathering at the horror film awards in Transylvania.

"Yeah, well my movie was so gory that people fainted and were rushed to the hospital"

"Oh Yeah?" The director of Hostel 5 says, "We actually KILLED actors on screen to get some realism!"

Where does it end. Can it GET worse/better? Who wins?

Tara Reid gets Downloaded in Incubus
   

Tara Reid has the ability to enter your dreams! Hell, I already knew that. Oh, you mean she plays a character who does that in a movie? Uh.. I knew that.

So the idea got you interested and now you want to see it? Cinematical tells us where!

So apparently Ms. Tara Reid has a new horror flick called Incubus, and you won't find it in theaters, on TV, or scattered amongst the DVD stacks. Nope, the only way to enjoy the flick, .... is by downloading it from AOL Red, which I'm told is AOL's teen-centric department
...
Directed by first-timer Anya Camilleri and written by also-newcomer Gary Humphreys, Incubus is about a group of teens (one of whom is played by Reid, giggle) who run afoul of a psychopath who has the power to control their dreams.

So the director has never actually directed anything before? Only TV stuff? So what, everyone needs their first movie. Good luck to the lass. This will give him some of that much needed exposure to move on to bigger and better things.

And its written by a first timer too? Cool. Great to see new blood in the mix.

So honestly this is not something the studio sees as the biggest and best movie to ever come out, so why not use it to test the waters of AOL's Direct to Download service instead of putting it on some shelf and never releasing it. It seems everyone lately has been working strategies for the booming downloadable content wars.

So now we get another avenue for inexperienced directors and writers to get their works out, save a TON on distribution costs, and still reach their target audience? It could catch on.

Maybe HALO should have been direct to download?

Madonna's film company claims idea theft (AP)
   AP - Maverick Films, the production company co-founded by Madonna, has filed a lawsuit alleging another film company stole ideas to benefit a competing project.

Paramount rolls with Scorsese on Stones movie (Reuters)
   Reuters - Paramount Pictures has bought North American rights to the Rolling Stones documentary that Martin Scorsese is currently shooting in New York.

Indian actress Aishwarya Rai turns 33 (AP)
   

AP - Bollywood's top actress, Aishwarya Rai, turned 33 on Wednesday and was planning a quiet day with her family to celebrate, a news report said.

Man indicted with Snipes due in court (AP)
   AP - One of two men indicted with actor Wesley Snipes on eight counts of tax fraud charges was scheduled to appear in a Florida federal court Wednesday, federal authorities said.

Blockbuster to accept online DVD returns at stores (Reuters)
   Reuters - Blockbuster Inc. said on Wednesday it was changing its online movie rental policy to allow customers to return DVDs either through the mail or at its stores.

Ben Kingsley has right "Stuff" for satire (Reuters)
   Reuters - Ben Kingsley is attached to star opposite John Cusack, Hilary Duff, Joan Cusack and Marisa Tomei in the political satire "Brand Hauser: Stuff Happens."

"Time Traveler's Wife" hooks director (Reuters)
   Reuters - German director Robert Schwentke ("Flightplan") is in final negotiations to shoot "The Time Traveler's Wife," a love story based on the celebrated book by Audrey Niffenegger,

Kazakh minister says can't laugh at Borat's jokes (Reuters)
   

Reuters - Kazakhstan will probably not show a British comedian's film poking fun at the former Soviet republic, the country's foreign minister said, adding that he did not find it funny.

"Speed Racer" hits live-action high gear (Reuters)
   Reuters - After years of idling, the big-screen, live-action version of "Speed Racer" is ready to zoom, this time with the creators of "The Matrix" at the wheel.