Paul Dano Signs On For ‘Gigantic’

Paul Dano is set to star alongside Zooey Deschanel in a new indie film entitiled Gigantic. This news comes from the Hollywood Reporter:

“Paul Dano, coming off his featured role in “There Will Be Blood,” will star in and executive produce “Gigantic,” an offbeat romantic comedy being helmed by first-time director Matt Aselton. Zooey Deschanel will also star in the indie feature.

Killer Films’ Christine Vachon and Charles Pugliese are producing, as is Mindy Goldberg of Epoch Films.

Written by Aselton and Adam Nagata, the script revolves around a mattress salesman and a young woman he meets at his store.”

There isn’t much in the way of details on this one yet, but I am still pretty interested. Paul Dano made a name for himself in Little Miss Sunshine which he followed up with There Will Be Blood, playing Paul and Eli Sunday. I am also a big fan of Deschanel, I’ve loved her in most everything I’seen her in. From Mumford to Winter Passing and even in Elf she’s proven herself as an excellent actress.

Production for Gigantic is tentatively set for early March in New York.

After Gigantic, Dano will move onto another indie feature by the name of The Good Heart, reuniting him with Brian Cox. The two starred together in L.I.E. directed by Michael Cuesta. The Good Heart is set to start in late April. Deschanel will be seen next in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening alongside Mark Wahlberg.

First Look At ‘Bedtime Stories’

We get the first photos from Hairspray director, Adam Shankman’s, new film entitled Bedtime Stories, from the guys over at /Film In the fantasy comedy, Adam Sandler plays a man whose life is turned upside down when the wild, outlandish bedtime stories he tells his nephews start coming true. In these photos, Sandler is shown sheilding himself from a magical shower of gumballs with an umbrella.

Adam Shankman is a funny guy, and he has plenty of experience in the realm of family comedies. As long as this Sandler is on point in the film, I think it will turn out just great.

‘Superhero Movie’ Poster ***PROFANITY WARNING***

The fellows over at Cinematical give us this poster and synopsis:

“A spoof of several popular superhero flicks, Superhero Movie revolves around a high school kid named Rick Riker who develops superhuman abilities after being bitten by a genetically altered dragonfly. Thus, he soon becomes The Dragonfly … and must go on a quest to stop a supervillain called The Hourglass from taking over the world. Of course, look for a whole slew of ridiculous antics in between.”

I don’t get it. How to the keep throwing this bullshit in our faces so quickly? It seems like the last bullshit spoof movie, Meet The Spartans, only came out a few weeks ago. Every time these movies get released the reviews are rightfully heinous, but they do mindbogglingly well at the box office. The fact these movies make any money at all make my brain want to fucking explode. They’re all the same fucking thing. Why would you need to see more than one!? Seriously, this poster is the exact same thing as all of these other shitty movies. I can’t put into words, exactly how enraged I am right now. All I can say is, for the love of anything that you might hold dear in your hearts don’t see this movie. For the love of any sort of god or other deity, DON’T SEE THIS MOVIE. DON’T SEE THIS FUCKING MOVIE.

‘Where The Wild Things Are’…..To Be Reshot!????

I’ve been hearing nothing but bad news today in reference to the fate of Spike Jonze’s rendition of Where The Wild Things Are. This is a bummer. Chud is reporting that the suits over at Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures are extremely unsatisfied with the film and are considering reshooting THE ENTIRE $75 MILLION FILM. Ridiculous. Check this:

“Yet I’m hearing that just such a massive reshoot is what is on the table right now. And it’s not because of technical issues, unless you want to consider the lead kid actor and the script technical issues. Sources tell me that the suits at Legendary and Warner Bros are not happy with Max Records, the actor playing Max, the mischievous boy who is crowned King of the Wild Things. Worse than that, they don’t like the film’s tone and want to go back to the script drawing board, possibly losing the Spike Jonze/Dave Eggers script when they do it. Apparently the film is too weird and ‘too scary,’ and the character of Max is being seen as not likable.”

Apparently, the test screenings last year yielded poor response. These are some of the respopnses to the test screenings, most of which I find to absolutely laughable, from /Film:

“I don’t think it’s for young children. They’d probably like the video version from ‘The Children’s Circle’ better.”

Another test screener writes:

“And some kids at my screening began to cry and asked their parents to leave, so that should give you an idea.” “The things are not cute. Max comes off a bit weird and off-putting ‘He slaps his mom!’ and he seems confused and not charming at all.” “No rumpus, no big set pieces, no ‘state-of-the-art’ lucrative sequences just some running around on some desert place and thats that.”

I hope this all blows over and we get to see what Jonze intended, as I trust his judgement. I always thought the story was failry dark. As for “The things are not cute,” they are monsters. Scary monsters that want to EAT Max. As for Max being “a bit weird and off-putting,” he is a bad little boy in a wolf suit, that dreams up a world of scary monsters. He threatens to eat his mother in the book. The leaked test footage looked cool enough, and wasn’t really anything according to Spike Jonze:

“that was a very early test with the sole purpose of just getting some footage to Ben our vfx (visual effects) supervisor to see if our vfx plan for the faces would work. The clip doesn’t look or feel anything like the movie, the Wild Thing suit is a very early cringy prototype, and the boy is a friend of ours Griffin who we had used in a Yeah Yeah Yeahs video we shot a few weeks before. We love him, but he is not in the actually film…Oh and that is not a wolf suit, its a lamb suit we bought on the internet. Talk to you later…“

Bottom line, this movie looks awesome and all the “negative” aspects I’ve been hearing about the film, seem like things I wanted to see in it. I’ve been excited about it for a long time and was glad that folks as great as Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers were involved. Hopefully everything works out and they get to show their film and I get to watch it. I’ll keep my eyes and ears open on this one, for sure.

The Test Footage:
**EDIT**: Sorry it’s been yanked off of youtube and I do not know how to do anything else, but you can watch it HERE!

The Story:

‘The Box’ News

Thanks to the kind souls at /Film we get a first look at the new Richard Kelly film, The Box.

“A mysterious stranger shows up on the doorstep of a desperate married couple’s (Cameron Diaz and James Marsden) home with a mysterious box. If they press the button inside the box, they’ll instantly get the money to save their ailing son, but in exchange, someone, somewhere in the world will die. But the temptation to save their dying son becomes too much, and Norma (Diaz) pushes the dreaded button and a gun shot goes off somewhere nearby. Consumed with guilt, Norma must do everything in her power to solve a murder she has knowingly caused.”

The story, based on a short story by Richard Matheson called Button Button, sounds really interesting.Richard Kelly has a huge hit with Donnie Darko and a general miss, with Southland Tales (I didn’t think it was so bad), so this could go either way. I am not usually a fan of Cameron Diaz, especially recently, but she does have her moments. this film will be interesting to say the least.

Ellen Page and Cillian Murphy To Star In ‘Peacock’

She just keeps piling the jobs on. Ellen Page is set to star alongside The Dark Knight’s Cillian Murphy in a psychological thriller entitled, Peacock. This comes from big bad Yahoo:

“The independently financed film is set in the small town of Peacock, Neb., where a man with a split personality (Murphy) fools the town into believing that his two alter-egos are man and wife. Page will play a struggling young mother who sparks a battle between the personalities.

Michael Lander will direct from a script he co-wrote with Ryan Roy.”

Ellen Page is really the hot ticket right now, as this is the third film that she has been cast in over the last month or so, including Whip It and Drag Me To Hell. Like her or not (I do), she’s going to be around a lot in the near future. The movie itself, sounds pretty interesting, and Cillian Murphy, who was also in 28 Days Later is great. I’ll keep my eye on this one.

Chocolate!

The trailer for Chocolate, the latest Thai film from the director of Ong-Bak and Tom Yum Goong, came out a while ago and it looked awesome. I completely forgot about it until now, when an international AICN spy saw the film and wrote a review of sorts.

“‘Chocolate’ is the story of Zen (Jeeja) autistic girl with the gift of fighting. The same way as Rain Man with Math gift, Zen remembers the fighting movement she watched on TV screen and can react it right away. She was a child of Japan Yakuza who came to do business in Thailand and fell for this girl who’s in loan shark gang. The Gang Boss didn’t impress with this affair and wanted it to end. Japan Yakuza flied back to Japan while the gang girl raised her child alone. But since she’s autistic, mom has to contact the dad to let him know, in case something happen to her.

Zen grew up but Mom get sick with cancer. So Mangmum - the only friend of Zen - took Zen out to get some money on the black book of debts Mom’s hiding.

I mean the storyline is better than before (for Pratchaya and Panna). Making the girl autistic and has the gift for fighting makes sense after I watched the movie. Zen doesn’t afraid/aware of pain. That’s why she fights so hard. And she got the moves from Bruce Lee (Ice Factory scene) and Tony Jaa (Warehouse scene). The first 30 minutes shows you the character and the background. After that, action scenes one after another. The final fight scene will leave you breathless. Just watching this scene in theater makes you feel exhausted. “

I really want to see this movie and I cannot wait until it get’s an American release. You can watch the trailer for it BELOW.

The Happening Trailer

The international trailer for the new M. Night Shyamalan’s new apocolyptic thriller, entitled The Happening has been released. It stars Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel and it set to come out sometime in June. I like the new trailer a lot more than the one that was leaked a while ago, as it actually gives you some real insight into the storyline of the film. The leaked trailer was still cool, but it really didn’t give you a look at any of the characters. You can still see it here.

Honestly, I could not fucking (excuse my profanity, but I feel that it is necessary) stand Lady In The Water. I thought the whole thing was absolutely awful. That film aside, however, I think Shyamalan is a great filmmaker. A lot of people love to rip on his movies, but he has consistently kept me entertained over the years and this film looks just as promising as the rest. I’m willing to put his last let down aside and give this one a chance. Also, Zooey Deschanel is in it. Also, Mark Wahlberg is cool. But mostly, Zooey Deschanel is in it.

Watch the trailer here!

Neil Young Promoting a New Tour Documentary

CSNY Déjà Vu takes a look at the 2006 “Freedom of Speech Tour”, a North American CSNY reunion tour on which they played Neil’s newest album entitled “Living With War”. It has screened at Sundance and the Berlin Film Festival recently and has received fairly positive reviews on the internet. Here is a small segment on the film from Sundance Channel.

As a fan of Neil Young and CSNY, I cannot wait to see this. It is startling to see how intense some of the reactions to the songs they played. Clearly many of the fans came into the concert expecting to hear “Our House” and “Teach Your Children” and instead they were hit with politically charged protest songs such as “Looking For a Leader” and “Let’s Impeach The President”. Had he played these songs in my area, I don’t think he would have recieved anything less than positive feedback, but I don’t leave the region often, and it’s jarring to see the way much of the rest of the country feels. The tour also took place in 2006 before the majority of public opinion had turned against the war. He was one of the first mainstream musicians to speak out against the war in Iraq. In any case this looks great and it is Young’s fifth film as director (as Bernard Shakey). I am very excited to see this.

Oscar-Nominated Short Films Speacial Release

For the third year in a row, the ten Oscar-nominated short films will get a special theatrical releas thanks to Magnolia Pictures and Shorts International. This breakdown of all the shorts is provided by Rueters via the almighty Yahoo:

“Among the five live-action nominees, three deal in some aspect with the everyday world of work. Italy’s “The Substitute,” by Andrea Jublin, is a spirited 17-minute collision between a typically self-absorbed group of teens and the strangely confrontational man who’s subbing as their teacher — and who has a hidden agenda that’s as much about his own needs as theirs. For all its energy, the film is more concerned with an idea than characters and leaves the least impression of the bunch.

But the office drones in the Belgian film “Tanghi argentini” are vividly drawn. Before his date with a woman he met online, nebbishy Andre (Dirk van Dijck) enlists the help of an aloof colleague (Koen van Impe) for tango lessons. Elegantly lensed and crisply edited, the 14-minute tale unfolds with wit as the unlikely duo perfect terpsichorean flourishes amid the filing cabinets. The film by Guido Thys provides a nice twist.

For the hapless protagonists of “The Mozart of Pickpockets,” the workday involves city streets and acts of petty crime. French writer-director Philippe Pollet-Villard co-stars with Richard Morgieve, and their terrific sad-sack chemistry as these clownish thieves gives the half-hour its punch. Their luck changes after a homeless deaf boy latches on to them, but it’s a less-than-convincing narrative element.

The two most affecting live-action entries are the spare Western “The Tonto Woman” (U.K.) and the heartrending hospital-set drama “At Night” (Denmark). The former, based on a story by Elmore Leonard, centers on a high-plains Hester Prynne (Charlotte Asprey), a woman physically marked by her Mojave captors and ostracized by her community after her release. She finds unexpected human connection in the form of a Mexican drifter (Francesco Quinn). The half-hour film by Daniel Barber uses archetypal widescreen desert vistas to strong effect.

In a far different setting, three young women have formed a community within the coolly lit rooms of a cancer ward in “At Night.” The 43-minute film by Christian E. Christiansen is direct and intimate but never maudlin. Restrained performances by Julie Olgaard, Laura Christensen and Neel Ronholt — and Henrik Prip as one girl’s father — have a devastating emotional power.

The animated contenders deliver an array of imaginative narrative filmmaking. “I Met the Walrus” (Canada) is the exception in the sense that it’s a documentary snippet. Josh Raskin uses audiotape of John Lennon, recorded in 1969 when 14-year-old Jerry Levitan snuck into the Beatle’s Toronto hotel room and coaxed an interview out of him. In its brief five minutes, the film free-associates line drawings and other playful 2-D visuals to Lennon’s down-to-earth intelligence and subversive humor.

Offering its own brand of playful subversion is France’s “Even Pigeons Go to Heaven,” by Samuel Tourneux. A wily priest-cum-huckster, brandishing a list of his would-be customer’s sins, urges an old man to buy a contraption built of “celestial titanium” that’s guaranteed to transport him to heaven.

A mood of dark mystery pervades another Canadian entry, Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski’s “Madame Tutli-Putli.” The silent claymation fantasy unfolds on a night train, where a woman in cloche and pearls, surrounded by her precariously stacked belongings, faces her fears. The imagery is rich with texture and atmosphere.

Four-time Oscar nominee Alexander Petrov (who won for “The Old Man and the Sea”) takes a classical approach in “My Love,” a fever dream set in 19th century Russia, where a pampered 16-year-old boy is attracted to his glamorous neighbor and his family’s good-natured servant. At 25 minutes, the piece feels a bit long, and its melodrama is not always absorbing, but with their watercolor shimmer and nightmare depths, the impressionistic visuals are fluent.

Most successful is “Peter & the Wolf” (U.K.-Poland), by Suzie Templeton, which fills its affecting half-hour with a delightfully rendered array of human and animal characters. Precisely choreographed and edited to Prokofiev’s music, the piece is a ballet both comical and poignant and a triumph of CG personality.”

I am a fan of short films. The shorts programs at the SBIFF were amazing and I hope this program is released in my area. The shorts hit fifty cities tomorrow, with the Rain Network providing digital distribution.