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A Brief Interview With ‘In Memorium’ Director Amanda Gusack
14 hours ago
I recently sat down and watched Amanda Gusack’s In Memorium, and found it to be just as enjoyable as Oren Peli’s smash success Paranormal Activity. You can read my review of the film right here. I also had the chance to briefly interview the screenwriter/director about the state of In Memorium and the possibilities for a wider release on DVD. Check out the interview below!
John: First of all, I just want to say that I really enjoyed In Memorium — a lot more than some big budget horror films I’ve seen in theaters recently. What you’ve accomplished under immense constraint is pretty remarkable.
Amanda: Thanks so much!
Why the paranormal? Why ghosts? What took you toward this subject material?
There’s so much in our minds that we don’t understand. I believe we all carry around a level of fear based on the fact that, »
- John Cooper
‘127 Hours’ Of Silence
14 hours ago
A couple days ago, we brought to you the news that Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle had signed on for his next project, 127 Hours, a film that will tell the true-life story of Aron Ralston, the mountain climber who spent 5 days trapped by a boulder before finally amputating his own arm.
One big detail of how Boyle will shoot the film has now been revealed, and it’s a fairly daring move on Boyle’s part.
Boyle plans to keep the movie as realistic as possible, which means shooting the first hour entirely free of dialogue, since Ralston was completely alone while trapped. Unlike Castaway, which also followed a character stranded by themselves, 127 Hours will not give the actor cast as Ralston any external monologue or prop to talk to.
Because the first hour will consist of a solitary character and no speaking, it will be a challenging role for whoever is cast in the part. »
- Carly
Aliens vs. Ninjas
14 hours ago
In the last couple of years, the debate over whether ninjas or pirates would win in a battle has become increasingly heated.
Well, Hollywood’s not quite ready to settle this matter for us, but they are going to give us a different ninja battle to satisfy us for a bit.
Straight from Japan, a hotbed for low-budget, fairly absurd action films, comes a match-up for the ages, Aliens Versus Ninjas.
The film is being brought to the screen by writer-director Seiji Chiba and action director Yuji Shimomura, and will tell the tale of a band of ninjas who go into the forest to identify a fireball they saw fall from the sky. Upon approaching the fireball, they discover beastly aliens who immediately eat several of the ninjas.
Demonstrating true honor, the surviving ninjas vow to avenge the deaths of their comrades, only to discover that all of their weapons »
- Carly
Shady’s Back, Back Again
14 hours ago
Just when you think Eminem has slipped off the radar, the man makes a re-entrance onto the scene.
Marshall Mathers, who goes by the stage persona of Eminem, will be starring in the aptly named Shady Talez, a 3D anthology horror film from D.J. Classicz/Davis Entertainment.
Shady Talez, which is described as “The Twilight Zone meet Creepshow,” will see Mathers starring in multiple roles, as well as serving as the film’s producer.
The film is being co-written by Dallas Jackson and Kevin Grevioux, who will also be turning the story into a four-issue comic book series to be released by Marvel Icons in 2010.
This will be Mathers’s first feature appearance since starring in 2002’s 8 Mile.
Send This Movie to 10 People, or Face the ConsequencesThe Unborn trailerThe Ruins Movie Review »
- Carly
Send This Movie to 10 People, or Face the Consequences
14 hours ago
I don’t know about you, but I remember chain letters being huge when I was about nine or ten years old. You know how they go: You get a letter, it tells you a story of some sort, then advises you to pass the letter on to a certain number of friends or have bad luck.
People rarely ever take these letters (or in today’s technology based society, e-mails) seriously, but next year we may feel more inclined to do so.
New Films has picked up the rights to Chain Letter, a horror film by Deon Taylor that follows a serial killer who targets teenagers who don’t follow through on forwarding chain letters.
Chain Letter, which will star Nikki Reed, Betsy Russell, and Brad Dourif, is already being looked at as a franchise possibility. The film will be released next year, produced by Todd Slater through Slater Brothers Entertainment. »
- Carly
“Ring” Director to Take on “Voice From the Stone”
14 hours ago
Hideo Nakata, the director behind the Japanese version of The Ring and the English version of The Ring 2, has signed on to direct the supernatural thriller Voice From the Stone.
An adaptation of an Italian novel, Voice From the Stone follows a child psychologist helping a boy who promised his dying mother he would remain silent until her spirit returns.
The novel has been adapted for the screen by Mark Wheaton, and will be produced by Dean Zanuck and Stefano Gallini-Durante along with Oliver Simon and Daniel Baur.
Voice From the Stone is being made in a collaborative effort between Zanuck Independent and K5 Films. The two recently worked together on the film Get Low.
Voice From the Stone is scheduled to begin shooting next spring or summer.
‘Sex Crime Panic’ Finds DirectorAdam Shankman to Direct “Rock of Ages”Tommy Lee Jones on Way to ‘Lincoln’Blindness Movie Review »
- Carly
Daniel Craig Moving into ‘Dream House’
6 November 2009 8:18 PM, PST
Daniel Craig is stepping off of the Broadway stage and heading back to the big screen–but not just in the role of James Bond.
Craig is moving from Pinewood Shepperton’s studio in Britain, where the James Bond films are shot, to the company’s Toronto location to star in Jim Sheridan’s psychological thriller Dream House.
In the film, Craig will be playing the role of a man whose family moves to a small town, only to find out they’ve moved into a house that’s being haunted by its previous inhabitants.
Although the Morgan Creek production is being shot at Pinewood Shepperton’s Toronto studio, the parent company in Britain will earn fees based on the revenue performance of the Toronto studios.
Dream House is scheduled to be shot from January 25th to April 9th, 2010.
Milla Jovovich To Be a Face in the CrowdBond Back in »
- Carly
Gwyneth Paltrow, Nicole Kidman to be ‘Danish Girls’
6 November 2009 7:58 PM, PST
Taking on a fairly interesting duo of roles, Gwyneth Paltrow and Nicole Kidman have both signed on to star in The Danish Girl.
The film is based on the real life relationship between Danish artists Einar and Greta Wegener, but is adapted from a David Ebershoff novel dealing with the same story.
Although dealing with a relationship, the film is not your typical boy meets girl, girl meets girl, or boy meets boy tale. Einar Wegener was, in fact, the first post-operative transsexual, and the film follows his and his wife Greta on the journey Einar takes from playing around with gender roles, to finally getting a sex-change operation.
In The Danish Girl, Paltrow will play the role of Greta, a portrait painter who asks her husband Einar to step in when a female model fails to show up for a sitting. Kidman will be playing the role of Einar, »
- Carly
‘This Is It’ Bringing in Millions
6 November 2009 7:54 PM, PST
Heading into its second weekend in theaters, the Michael Jackson movie This Is It has already brought in the big bucks.
According to Sony, This Is It has raked in more than $100 million from international box offices. This far exceeds the expectation for the film, which many thought would see similar intake as 2008’s concert film Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds. Instead, This is It has brought in over twice the amount that Best of Both Worlds did.
The countries in which This Is It has seen the highest box office take were Japan, Britain, and Germany, bringing in $18.2 million, $11.1 million, and $8.9 million respectively.
Combined with the $44 million grossed in the U.S. and Canada, this takes This Is It’s profit to $144 million so far.
This is It has seen such success that Sony has extended the film’s run to go through early December in the U. »
- Carly
The Men Who Stare At Goats Review
6 November 2009 6:52 PM, PST
Seven out of ten times, I’m going to come out enjoying a film that operates on its own terms. It’s the first and best thing I can say about Michael Mann, which just adds to my fanboy nature when it comes to his work. As a more recent example, the Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man just acts as its own entity from beginning to end, and never makes any apologies for it. While not as brilliant or as great as that picture, The Men Who Stare at Goats is that kid we all knew in high school. You’re not really sure who he is or what he’s about, but you know that when you spend time with him, you’re going to be entertained.
So why won’t this appeal to the masses? Very simply because of the script, which goes off the rails midway through the picture. »
- Philip Barrett
The Fourth Kind Movie Review
6 November 2009 9:37 AM, PST
It is up to you to decide.
That’s about as far as the creators of The Fourth Kind are really willing to go in confirming the ‘truth’ behind their new film. Ultimately, that’s probably as far as they should go considering all of the events and ‘footage’ presented in this 90-minute treatise on alien abduction and extraterrestrial paranoia. Despite assertions from star Milla Jovovich and director Olatunde Osunsanmi that the film includes actual footage, there’s a surprising lack of supportive evidence found anywhere outside of The Fourth Kind. I personally couldn’t uncover anything that substantiates that there is an actual Abigail Tyler or even any significant reports of UFO phenomena in the area.
Still, The Fourth Kind sets it all up in the same fashion that a TV documentary might; introducing the real Abigail Tyler, a haunted and frail looking woman, and then switching over to »
- Nathan Bartlebaugh
The Box Movie Review
6 November 2009 6:05 AM, PST
If you push the button on the titular box in Richard Kelly’s new sci-fi opus, two things will undoubtedly happen. The first is that somewhere in the world, a person you do not know will die. The second is that after pushing the button, you will receive a briefcase filled with 1 million U.S. dollars delivered to your home by one Arlington Steward, who looks a bit like Scrooge meets the Phantom of the Opera. If you watch the film The Box, two things will very likely happen. You will be drawn in by a moody, compelling and well-acted 45-minute set-up. And then you will be completely flummoxed by a preposterous, barely cohesive and frustrating second half. The question ahead is clear. Are the initial pleasures substantial enough to warrant enduring the resulting flaws? Let’s look at the facts.
Kelly’s The Box opens in 1976 with the button »
- Nathan Bartlebaugh
A Christmas Carol Movie Review
6 November 2009 6:00 AM, PST
I sit in my seat and look about to see my surroundings; I start to hear clicking sounds getting louder and louder. I start to fly around the city of London, looking around I see people having snowball fights with each other, singing Christmas songs. This might sound like the Star Tours “The Christmas Carol Edition” that would be at Disneyland. You might think wow that sounds kind of cool, well in this film it played out to be too much of something can be a bad thing. It sounds strange that Zemeckis could not pull off a simple adaptation. The last animated film we saw from Zemeckis was “Beowulf” which I found to be an excellent adaptation; it carried strong writing as well as excellent use of 3D effects.
“A Christmas Carol” was written by Charles Dickens, it tells the tale of a decrepit old man named Ebenezer Scrooge »
- Ilya
Universal Grabs Some Desperados
6 November 2009 5:48 AM, PST
It really was only a matter of time before a film was put into production that directly emulates The Hangover in style and content. Universal has their hands on what’s potentially the first of these knock-offs: a spec script from Ellen Rapoport entitled Desperados. The film will be produced my Mark Gordon and Jason Blum, and is being called a starring vehicle for actress Isla Fisher.
The story for the film revolves around a woman who “sends an indignant e-mail to her new beau, who’s gone silent after they have sex. When she discovers he’s comatose in a Mexican hospital, she races south of the border with her friends in tow to intercept the e-mail before he recovers.”
So it’s essentially The Hangover again. With a female-oriented cast. And I’m sure it will sell like gangbusters.
Fisher last starred in Confessions of a Shopaholic, but »
- John Cooper
Ashley Greene Sees ‘The Apparition’
6 November 2009 5:38 AM, PST
Twilight is out of control, and now its floodgates have burst, spilling its contents everywhere. Bit players such as Ashley Greene from the Twilight films are now getting genre work — in this case, it’s The Apparition for Joel Silver’s Dark Castle production house.
(To be fair, I have no idea how big or small of a role Greene plays in the Twilight films, because I haven’t seen either of them yet. All I know is that she isn’t one of the dynamic duo the films center around.)
The Apparition is apparently (*yawn*) based on true events, and revolves around “a young couple haunted by a supernatural presence unleashed during a college experiment.” Ooh. The Stanford Prison Experiment with a supernatural twist?
Production will start in early February with writer/director Todd Lincoln at the helm. He’s pretty much a newbie, only having done effects work »
- John Cooper
Crazy Heart Bumped to December Release
6 November 2009 5:23 AM, PST
It seems that Fox Searchlight, desperate to have at least one film out by the end of the year (looks like they oddly don’t have enough on their plate this season) will be bumping Crazy Heart up to a December 16 release date. It’s a little romantic drama of sorts, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and the omnipresent Jeff Bridges, alongside Robert Duvall.
Written and directed by actor Scott Cooper, Crazy Heart centers around “the story of boozing and broken-down country singer Bad Blake (Bridges), who finds redemption with the help of a young journalist (Gyllenhaal).” I don’t know about you, but it would be refreshing to see Bridges not play alcoholics so often in his latter years. He’s becoming sort of typecast.
Crazy Heart was originally a novel by Thomas Cobb, so if you’re interested, check that out!
The Men Who Stare At Goats ReviewJeff Bridges: The Dude Who Stares At GoatsDamon, »
- John Cooper
The Mentalist – Season 2: “Black Gold and Red Blood”
6 November 2009 3:25 AM, PST
In Sutter Valley, California, a man is found dead from blunt force trauma to the head. Before the team can really dive into the investigation, however, Jane is arrested by Bosco for bugging the agent’s office.
Bosco tells Jane he won’t press charges if he will step down as a consultant to the Cbi, but Jane decides he won’t step down and would rather face Bosco in court. Because it is the weekend, however, Jane can’t post bail for three days and must spend those days in the county lock-up.
Although he plays tough, after talking with his cellmate on the first night Jane starts to really regret going choosing prison. The next morning in the common room he uses his suave mentalist skills to both confuse and impress the other inmates, keeping his skin safe for a little while longer.
Meanwhile, Lisbon and the Cbi »
- Jorden
Flash Forward 1.07: “The Gift”
6 November 2009 3:22 AM, PST
At the beginning of tonight’s episode, we find out that the blue hand is actually the symbol of a club, for people who saw nothing in their flash forwards. They gather together to take fate into their own hands, “like a book club, with bullets” says Mark.
At Aaron’s workplace, Mike, an army veteran, gives back Tracy’s knife. Mike tells Aaron that he served with her and she wanted him to have it, as a good luck charm.
Back at the FBI, an agent from MI6 has flown in to help Al after seeing him in her flash forward. In his flash forward, he apparently admits to his attorney that he killed a woman, but we don’t yet know who.
While investigating the Blue Hand Club, Demetri, Mark and Al go to a meeting for members of the club. They meet a man in a room »
- Jorden
Dan Aykroyd: Not Your Average Bear
5 November 2009 7:19 PM, PST
Following the trend of classic books and cartoons finding their way to the big screen, everyone’s favorite pic-a-nic basket stealing bear is making his way from the animated forest of Jellystone to a theater near you.
Warner Bros. has acquired the rights to Hanna-Barbera’s Yogi Bear, and will be turning the cartoon into a feature film that combines live-action and CG.
Currently in talks to be part of the film are Anna Faris, Dan Aykroyd, and Justin Timberlake.
Faris will play the role of a filmmaker making a nature documentary who roams through Jellystone park to catch the antics of Yogi, and Timberlake could likely be the voice behind Boo Boo, Yogi’s faithful sidekick.
Aykroyd will be providing the voice of Jellystone’s main attraction, Yogi Bear himself.
This is not the first voice-over role for either Aykroyd or Timberlake. Aykroyd was the voice of Chip in »
- Carly
Bradley Cooper Wandering Through ‘Dark Fields’
5 November 2009 7:18 PM, PST
Bradley Cooper, who shot to stardom in this summer’s The Hangover, has replaced Shia LeBeouf to star in Relativity Media’s Dark Fields.
Cooper will be playing a writer who’s down on his luck and manages to stumble upon a secret pharmaceutical drug designed to make a person smarter. The drug leads to the writer gaining financial and social success, but of course there’s always a catch. In this case, the drug has lethal side effects, including one that causes time to move in a stop-motion manner.
Dark Fields is said to be along the lines of Fight Club and The Game (both stellar movies, by the way) and, also like Fight Club, is based on a novel.
Alan Glynn’s book has been made into a screenplay by Leslie Dixon, the writer behind the screenplay for The Thomas Crown Affair. Dixon will also serve as producer of Dark Fields, »
- Carly
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