Variety has announced that George Clooney will star in Men Who Stare At Goats, a big screen adaptation of Jon Ronson's scary-because-its-true book. Clooney's Smoke House partner Grant Heslov will direct, while Peter Straughan has penned the script.
Ronson's book is an investigation into the secret wing of the U.S. First Earth Battalion. It was a paranormal research unit created in 1979 with the purpose of creating "Warrior Monks," soldiers who could walk through walls, become invisible, read minds, and even kill a goat simply by staring at it long enough. One ex-Army employee Ronson interviewed claims that he actually did kill his pet hamster and a goat by staring at them for a very long time. While the book is full of kookiness, it does branch out to discuss how the paranormal project has come to play in the current Iraq war. Not only have some of First Earth's research projects been employed as torture, a few of those claiming to have developed superpowers have reportedly been deployed to Iraq. Our tax dollars at work, people.
It all sounds like one of the funnier episodes of The X-Files -- a perfect project for Clooney; the right mix of political activism and screwball humor. Frankly, I'm sold by the title alone. Here's hoping they won't change it to appeal to a wider America.
Baby, when I met you there was peace unknown. I set out to get you with a fine tooth comb..
Okay, sorry. I couldn't resist. Like Ryan back in January, I had to start this with a little "Islands in the Stream," Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers style. (Btw: Did you know it was written by the Bee Gees?) Anyhow, back in January, we learned that Tommy Lee Jones was circling a new adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's first posthumous novel, Islands in the Stream. Now The Hollywood Reporter posts that Jones has signed on to adapt, direct, produce, and star in the project, which will be presented to buyers at Cannes.
Stream follows an American painter, Thomas Hudson, tucked away in the Bahamas. Through three acts, the reader is introduced to Hudson's life, from the arrival of his sons to his island getaway, to alcoholism and naval reconnaissance during WWII, to Hudson's desire to pursue a ship of German soldiers who killed an entire village. At one point, there was also a fourth part, but it was removed and became the epically popular The Old Man and the Sea.
Joel Silver thinks he will, and he would probably know. Silver gave a long interview with Moriarty over at AICN, where the long and torturous road of Sgt. Rock was brought up. And the answer was surprisingly optimistic: "I'm going to make that. I'm going to make that very soon. With Guy Ritchie, I think." When pressed for more details, Silver would only reply with, "I hope so."
First, does anyone else think it's crazy that DC Comics would deliver a movie about a humble soldier on-screen faster than the Green Lantern or Wonder Woman? When I think of must-see DC properties, Sgt. Rock doesn't come to mind -- but that might just be me.
And if you're unfamiliar with Sgt. Rock, Wikipedia has his long and glorious WWII history. The short answer is that he is the WW2 soldier to end all soldiers, having fought in every campaign there was. Depending on who you talk to, he either died in the war or lived on to perform covert operations for the United States.
Steven Soderbergh's two-part Che Guevara biopic has been shrouded in mystery and controversy for so long, it's hard to believe the world is finally going to see it. It's like pulling teeth to get some biopics to the theatre, isn't it? In case you were beginning to doubt its existence again, two new photos of Benicio del Toro have surfaced online. Once again, the likeness is downright eerie.
At this point, as Eric Kohn reported, it is still set to screen at Cannes. However, only one half (The Argentine) has a U.S. distributor in Focus Features. Guerilla does not. Neither have release dates. (I'm going on basis of IMDB; quite possibly no one has updated info on Guerilla, or they are being combined and no one said anything.) That could all change after Cannes, and I hope it does. I want to see the whole thing, controversy or not. Don't you?
While doing publicity rounds for a certain fedora-wearing adventurer, Steven Spielberg told German magazine FOCUS that he intends to return his focus to his long delayed biopic of Abraham Lincoln.
According to Variety, Spielberg is shelving the Aaron Sorkin-scripted Trial of the Chicago Seven because he is dissatisfied with the script, and could not get the rewrites he wanted due to the WGA strike. Though that is over, it apparently needs some development time not even Tintin will provide.
And yes -- Tintin is still scheduled to begin shooting in early fall, though we still are lacking any casting confirmations. Spielberg says the actor's strike will not delay it, because the film is motion capture.
But back to the Lincoln biopic! It has been kicked around so long that Spielberg's decision is almost a nonevent, but it is still all kinds of exciting because it could begin shooting early next year. Liam Neeson is still attached and has been for the past three years, reportedly amassing research all this time. It will still have that Tony Kushner script, and it is still based on The Uniter: The Genius of Abraham Lincoln, the brilliant biography by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
I really want this to finally come together. Neeson is due for another meaty role like Abraham Lincoln, and there has never been a proper movie made about such an iconic figure. Actually, I don't really think there has been a movie that truly dug into the Civil War, not in the way that can really attract and educate an audience. If anyone is up to the challenge, it's Spielberg.
Give Joshua Seftel some credit; he didn't pull any punches on War, Inc.In his first feature film, written by star/producer John Cusack, Jeremy Pisker, and Mark Leyner, Seftel attempts to make a scathing commentary on the War on Terror, the privatization of the military, the commercialization of societies all over the world, and other shenanigans. In a former life, Seftel was a former network news producer, and became known around Hollywood circles for directing documentaries like Breaking the Mold: The Kee Malesky Story.
He was nice enough to speak to me about the experience from a very blue room at the Tribeca Film Festival press office. Text and video are after the jump.
What do you say when a film is so bad that you actually feel physical pain for everyone involved? You literally sit there for an hour-and-a-half and feel sorry for everyone who put such a hard effort into the making of the film, only to see it lay there like a lox when it's finally projected on the big screen. As a reviewer, there's not much more you can do than just endure it and hope to see a fleeting moment or two of quality, just so you don't think you've completely wasted your time.
That's all the thoughts that were going through my head as I watched War, Inc., an ambitious film that fails miserably at everything it attempts to be. As a comedy, it's not funny. As a satire, it's as subtle as a sledgehammer. And as a treatise on war, the corporatization of the military, and the horrors of pop stardom, it doesn't tell you anything that you don't already know if you just watch the 24-hour news channels or read the news online even a little bit.
Only the date of this convinces me I haven't written it up before, it seems so weirdly familiar. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Universal has optioned Oni Press' Resurrection, the third title the studio has snagged from the small publisher.
Penned by Marc Guggenheim, a Wolverine scribe and the writer behind the television series Eli Stone, Resurrection is the story of a post alien invasion Earth. It begins where most sci-fi movies end, with a group of survivors trying to retake and rebuild the planet.
There's an eleven page preview of issue #1 over on Oni's website, full of those usual issue-one hints -- apparently there was a human counterattack of some kind, and we're reduced to communicating via smoke signals. It looks like the series is going to end at six issues, which is like the magic number these days. Eleven pages is just not enough to go on for me -- I can't help but compare it to The Stand (which I caught again on that Sci-Fi Channel broadcast), and it doesn't hook me as well as eleven minutes of that, but that is hardly fair.
No word on director or release date. These post-apocalyptic stories are really the rage -- thank goodness for the cuddly comfort that is The Hobbit, or I am going to be having nightmares for weeks. Alien invasion movies and me are not a good mix.
A horror flick that takes place in Afghanistan in November of 2001? Intriguing, to be sure, but I'll admit to being more than a little skeptical as I walked in to check out Daniel Myrick's The Objective. I was half-expecting some sort of run-of-the-mill occult thriller that got mixed with modern warfare ... just because it's a topical thing to do. Happily, those assumptions turned out to be completely wrong. Since it works much better as a bleak adventure flick and a very sweaty psychological thriller, it'd probably be inaccurate to label The Objective as an out-and-out horror flick -- but I enjoyed it anyway, which means that most of the other genre fans probably will too. Heck, how often do you get to check out a movie described as a wartime horror thriller sci-fi adventure drama?
Without spoiling anything, here's the gist: On the hunt for a contact who will direct him toward some "WMDs," CIA agent Ben Keynes has returned to Afghanistain after a ten-year absence, and it's there that he takes charge of a gung-ho, no-nonsense, bad-ass military unit. Keynes has a very shady assignment, but his new charges are on a need-to-know basis ... and suffice it to say that the CIA guy's secret assignment is, well, it's pretty frickin' weird. On the surface, though, Keynes and his new troop must head out into the staggeringly unforgiving desert, and it's there that their mission goes from mysterious to bad to a whole hell of a lot worse. Suffice to say that something not human is definitely involved, but our heroes will have to make it through some perfectly mortal enemies before discovering any secrets.
There are two ways to watch Charlie Wilson's War. The first way is to watch it like we watch most movies -- go in to be entertained, to experience something outside of our scope of experience -- to leave our lives at the door and encounter something different. The other way is to be critical, having researched the situation upon which the film was based, to see how it diverges, and then decide whether the divergence is acceptable within the realm of what actually happened. One way will give you an entertaining experience. The other will probably result in the film getting under your skin.
I usually get pretty tense over large leaps in the truth. To this day, I grumble at the thought of Girl Interrupted, and the fact that they could insinuate that a character based on a real, live person could be indirectly involved in another's death when it simply isn't true. With Charlie Wilson's War, however, I wasn't completely weighed down by derailments from truth. Perhaps this is due to being warned after reading reviews like James' and Kim's, maybe it was due to the film more omitting facts than completely changing them, or perhaps it was the light delivery of the subject. Whatever the case, Charlie Wilson's War is an enjoyable film weighed down by its decisions of omission.
While this starts off like some old-school joke, I assure you -- this is nothing of the kind. Variety reports that producers Michel Shane and Anthony Romano are developing a World War II drama written by Michael Justiz and Steven Sikes called Lifeboat 13, and the inclusion of these religious figures is anything but funny.
The film will focus on the story of a rabbi, a Catholic priest, and two Protestant ministers (along with an African-American Coast Guardsman) who gave up their lives when the USAT Dorchester went down due to a U-boat torpedo in 1943. They had given away their life jackets as the ship sunk off the coast of Greenland in less-than-pleasant 36-degree waters.
You know, I am pretty happy to be me. But every once and awhile, I see something like this, and I am possessed with fury that I wasn't born Nicole Kidman -- or at least an Australian actress who could have stolen the part from her. Damn. That photo is just all kinds of sexy. And there's more gorgeous stills from Australia over on IESB.net as well as a few over on the film's official site.
ITunes and 20th Century Fox have also paired up to bring ten Set to Screen with Baz Luhurman podcasts, which document all aspects of the upcoming film. This actually debuted yesterday, but because I couldn't access the podcast, there wasn't any way to properly write about it. If you're as technologically ill-equipped as I, the podcasts have been put up on MovieWeb. There are two up now, and both are worth watching for the gorgeous scenery (no, I'm not talking about Jackman) and the glimpses of the film. The one on still photography is especially stunning -- pure art!
I do believe Ray Park is the first G.I. Joe actor to speak on the new movie -- which fits, as he's the first character the studio allowed us to see. Park gave a big interview to Geekscape! where he discussed Joe, Snake Eyes, Iron Fist, and the finer points of stunts and martial arts.
Park was determined to snag the role of Snake Eyes for himself. "One of the reasons I always wanted to play Snake Eyes is because I played as him when I was a kid. Star Wars fans and the fans I've met at conventions have said 'You'd be the best Snake Eyes ever if they did a GI Joe movie!' So when I heard they were actually going to do it I did everything possible to try and get in a meeting or try and get an audition cause I wanted to do it for myself, I wanted to do it for the fans and I wanted to do it for my cousins and all my nephews and my kids. It's great to be here and to be able to tell those stories."
While it may have had an all-star cast boasting the likes of Robert Redford, Meryl Streep, and Tom Cruise,Lions for Lambs appeared without a splash. In fact, it hit audiences with a dull and disappointing thud. Honestly, that partially surprises me, partially doesn't, and partially disappoints me. The film is by no means a masterpiece, nor is it a powerful and hard-hitting political thriller, action film, or drama. However, it does pack a punch against apathy and disinterest, and does so with a passionate and measured hand.
The film focuses on three main interactions – the journalist (Streep) and the politician (Cruise), the professor (Redford) and the student (Andrew Garfield), and the two soldiers and old friends (Michael Pena and Derek Luke), who are in Afghanistan. Each character provides a face to an aspect of today's current war-filled society -- one that brings it out of abstract thought and the printed word.
So we all know that Tom Cruise jokes are getting a little old, but you can't deny it's been fascinating to watch one of the most powerful guys in movies have a "freak out" and be forced to watch all his star-worship fade away. According to Fox News' Roger Friedman, it's not looking good for Bryan Singer's historical drama, Valkyrie. According to Friedman, "Valkyrie is a set up for not only failure, but ridicule." Friedman goes on to take shots at Cruise's attempts at a German accent and even Singer and Christopher McQuarrie's dialog gets a few (dis) honorable mentions. Although, to be fair, I wouldn't count on a gossip reporter from Fox to be the final word on film criticism.
Friedman joins the chorus of critics who think that Valkyrie will not only fail to improve Cruise's current Hollywood standing, but that it will further add another nail to his box office coffin. Cruise still has a few more chances to pull himself out of this mess: First up will be a cameo in Tropic Thunder, then it's on to a full-on attempt at comedy with director Todd Phillips (Old School) in Men, and finally Cruise is expected to star alongside Ben Stiller in the buddy comedy, The Hardy Men (which I personally think has some potential). Who knows? Maybe he will finally be making people laugh at him on purpose. Valkyrie arrives in theaters on October 3rd.
This is officially the greatest movie title ever. 
Baby, when I met you there was peace unknown. I set out to get you with a fine tooth comb..
Joel Silver thinks he will, and he would probably know. Silver gave a long interview with Moriarty over at 
.jpg)
While doing publicity rounds for a certain fedora-wearing adventurer, Steven Spielberg told German magazine FOCUS that he intends to return his focus to his long delayed biopic of Abraham Lincoln. 
Only the date of this convinces me I haven't written it up before, it seems so weirdly familiar. According to 
While this starts off like some old-school joke, I assure you -- this is nothing of the kind. 
I do believe Ray Park is the first 
So we all know that 
Insert Caption: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian_thumbnail.jpg)
SCOOP: Spider-Man 4 and 5 Might be Shot at the Same Time!
Cinematical Seven: Disney's Awesome Live-Action Kid Adventures
