I don’t know anyone who dislikes Al Pacino’s acting, he is a legend and a killer actor to this day. So it is no surprise that he’s been honored with the AFI’s Lifetime Achievement award. Yahoo.com gives us this:

Al Pacino can add another acting accolade to his collection. The 66-year-old actor will receive the American Film Institute’s highest honor, the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award, it was announced Friday.

Sir Howard Stringer, chairman of the AFI board of trustees, called Pacino “an icon of American film.” “His career inspires audiences and artists alike,” Stringer said.

The 35th AFI Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to Pacino at a tribute dinner in Los Angeles on June 7, 2007.

Good for Pacino. He really deserves this, this is a guy who earned his acting chops the old fashioned way. He started in school plays, he was one of the best users of Lee Strasburg’s Method acting style, he used to have to borrow money for buses to auditions but it paid off when he won a Tony award (before he even started into film)for Does the Tiger wear a necktie. The guy worked hard, and beat out Robert Redford, Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson for the role of The Godfather. He’s direct, written and produced movies and is an avid supporter of theater. Pacino has been nominated 7 times for an academy award and won for Scent of a Woman.

Everything Pacino is in is better because he is in it. My favorite Al Pacino movie is Frankie and Johnny, with The Merchant of Venice coming a close second. But there are so many other amazing roles that he’s played.

What makes him so good? I don’t know but it’s seems to be a mix between his eyes and his voice, and his crazy sexy confidence. Yeah I said it; Al Pacino is sexy.

Congratulations Al. You really deserve it.

Michael Sheen is doing a lot these days but apparently he hasn’t forgotten where he started and wouldn’t mind going back there. The people of cinemablend.com give us this:

Michael Sheen has been a busy little bee these days with no less than three projects up in the air, and that’s just on the big screen. In an interview with Coming Soon about his current PR child The Queen, in which he plays British PM Tony Blair, CS took the opportunity to squeeze for a little fan boy juice. Here’s what they came up with regarding that Underworld 3 prequel we told you about a while back.

When asked if he’d like to go back and play Lucian he said, ” Oh, yeah, absolutely! I love playing that character. It’s great, and I’m always amazed by how popular the character is with people who are into that sort of genre thing. He adds, “It’s an incredibly popular character, so I think the idea is that we’re trying to work out the whole idea of doing a third film. It would be a prequel and it would be about Lucian, the third film. Hopefully, we’ll get that together.

I’m not a fan of Underworld movies, even with Kate Beckinsale doing her girl power kick butt thing with cool vampires it just never floated my boat. But I do like Michael Sheen. He did a few lower profile roles before Underworld and in everything I’ve seen him in he has been a strong actor, even when there wasn’t much to work with.

Now there are reasons for Sheen to do this movie and reason for him to pass.

Reasons against doing the prequel: Many prequels are not successful. Yes of course we hear about the winners like Star Wars but what about the poorly executed cash grabs that were Ginger Snaps back: the beginning or Tremors 4: the Legend begins or Butch and Sundance: the Early Days. Also Sheen has moved on in his career, he did a wonderful job as Tony Blair in The Queen, opposite Helen Mirren, he has the role of Nero Caesar in Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire and he will no doubt be getting better offers for interesting role that he hasn’t played before. Finally, there is just doesn’t seem to be a lot of interest for another Underworld movie.

However there are reasons for this flick to go on ahead and beneficial parts to Sheen doing his role again. First is the fact that there is a new twist on the Underworld if it is delving into the life of Lucian may get fans interested in another movie. Also since Sheen’s role will have more screen time that means there will be more cash involved, probably quite a lot more. And also it does show respect for a film that really put Michael Sheen on the map.

Do I think it’s enough? Nope. It’s possible the Underworld Prequel will be a box office hit. But It think it will more likely be a blow to Sheen’s career.

What does everyone out there think, if Sheen goes through with this movie will it help or hurt his career?

This is one event that I am truely dissappointed that I could not attend. This ranks up with some of the greatest opportunities in the entertainment industry.

FilmThreat reports:

Hollywood’s Master Storytellers series presents Stan “The Man” Lee and Kevin Smith LIVE! On Monday, October 30th at 7:30pm, Hollywood’s Master Storytellers will be presenting a screening of Spider-man 2 at the Grauman’s Chinese Theatres Complex in Hollywood. After the screening will be a live Q&A with Spider-man creator Stan Lee and filmmaker friend Kevin Smith. On top of seeing a comic book God live, come dressed as your favorite Stan Lee character and potentially win “Best Costume.”

“Any time there’s a chance to share a podium with the always provocative, ever unpredictable, never dull Kevin Smith there’s no way I can refuse; especially when the function is an evening at Hollywood’s Master Storytellers which is one of the most enjoyable and thought provoking sessions any writer can find himself trapped in!” says Stan Lee. “The only negative about the whole affair is the fact that everyone’s saying I’m the one guy who won’t need a Halloween mask! I wonder if they’re tryin’ to tell me something!”

Always keeping his wit about him, this guarantees to be a legendary moment to see these master storytellers in a candid and open discussion about them and their works. On the same stage.

Its no secret Kevin Smith idolizes Stan Lee, and is an avid comic collector himself. For anyone to achieve the credit to now be considered a close friend of your idol has to be a dream come true.

“An Evening with Kevin Smith” is incredibly entertaining. If you are a comic book fan/Kevin Smith fan or just a Movie nut, you should see this open discussion. Its incredible Kevin Smith is not just a Master Storyteller, but he is one of the finest communciators in our time - period. And now he teams up with a legend just to watch a movie and chat with people.

If you are richer than me, or live in the Hollywood area, and want to attend this event you can buy tickets at Hollywood Master Storytellers or at Mann Theatres

Rachel McAdams is easily one of the most distractingly attractive women in Hollywood today. This is not only her physical looks, but her personality as well. Shes proven herself with strong roles in Mean Girls, The Notebook and Wedding Crashers. (I still prefer her as a brunette) and she is not slowing down.

CinemaFusion gives us:

Rachel McAdams will be joining the ranks of the Time Traveler’s Wife, a film based on the 2003 novel by Audrey Niffenegger, according to Coming Soon. The movie will be penned by screenwriter Jeremy Leven (The Notebook) and the studios are in talks with a few directors, but haven’t come to a decision yet.

The movie “is the story of Clare, a beautiful art student, and Henry, an adventuresome librarian, who have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six, and were married when Clare was twenty-three and Henry thirty-one. Impossible but true, because Henry is one of the first people diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement Disorder: periodically his genetic clock resets and he finds himself misplaced in time, pulled to moments of emotional gravity in his life, past and future. His disappearances are spontaneous, his experiences unpredictable, alternately harrowing and amusing.”

I like that McAdams is taking on interesting projects. This sounds just like the type of movie I would like to see.

No word yet on who her co-star will be. Of course many of the news sites are already hoping for Ryan Gosling, which I agree would be a good pick. The boy can act, and they clearly have great chemistry.

With all the buzz and anti-buzz about the fourth Indiana Jones movie, at least ONE person involved is trying to put a positive spin on things.

SciFi Wire says:

Harrison Ford, speaking to the press at the Rome Film Festival last week, said that he feels “fit to continue” to play Indiana Jones, despite growing older, the Associated Press reported. Ford, 64, said that he was delighted to team up again with director Steven Spielberg and producer George Lucas for the film.

“We did three films that stay within the same block of time,” Ford told reporters. “We need to move on for artistic reasons and obvious physical reasons. I feel fit to continue and bring the same physical action.”

Now we all know that John thinks this movie will never happen. I gotta tell you, I have TRIED to come up with a reason to argue against him on this. But really I have to admit, I too don’t think it will happen.

Harrison says he is fit enough to do the movie, and considering they are going to move the timeframe up a step, that wouldnt be hard. This is supposed to be an adventure of an older Indiana Jones. So he is just admitting that he is as ‘unfit’ as the character they are writing for him. Now to add some flavour to their monthly planned Indy4 tidbits, Ford admits that Connery may reprise his role too, calling Sean a “part of the emotional fabric of these films”

This movie will be forever in “pre-production”. We should start a poll for which month they will declare they are NOT doing this movie after all.

Pinhead from the Hellraiser films is maybe one of the most unknown, and yet instantly recognizable 80’s horror icons around. The dude was juat a fantastic character… even if the subsequent films in the franchise weren’t really all that enjoyable (but that’s up for debate). Well now is looks like Pinhead is coming back… but not in another sequel, in a remake.

Now, before you get too up in arms about his news, you also have to understand that Clive Barker has been tapped to write the remake himself, which is good news. The good folks over at Movieweb quote Barker and give us this:

“They’re going to remake Hellraiser One with a lot more money and they’ve invited me to write it - the invitation came from Bob Weinstein - which I am going to do, on the basis that if I don’t do it, it will be done in some way that I probably won’t like!

“It’s only that one that I really, really, really care about in terms of its remake value - and it’ll be kind of fun to have the extra money to do the effects and all that cool stuff. So it puts me in the situation of writing both the beginning and the end of Pinhead at the same time - ‘In my end is my beginning…’ I’m not in the middle, as it were, I’m leaving out his middle age, I’m just dealing with his beginning and his end.”

This may not be popular, but I for one am kinda looking forward to revisiting that character and that story, and with Barker doing the writing, you can at least be sure that the feel of the original will be kept in tact. This is one I’m looking forward too.

I have never been a boy scout, so I can’t claim to have a total understanding of what the program is really all about… but I do know that you can get badges. And come on… who doesn’t like to get badges. My Sunday School once gave me a badge for HUMILITY… but later they took it away from me for wearing it. HAHA… get it? Oh never mind.

So now the Boy Scouts have a new program in the Los Angeles area that scouts can earn a badge for… learning about the evils of piracy… from the folks at the MPAA. Yeah, I thought it was a joke at first too. The good folks at Yahoo give us this:

Scouts will be instructed in the basics of copyright law and learn how to identify five types of copyrighted works and three ways copyrighted materials may be stolen. Scouts also must choose one activity from a list that includes visiting a movie studio to see how many people can be harmed by film piracy. They also can create public service announcements urging others not to steal movies or music.

I can’t put my finger on why… but this just seems evil to me. Yes, piracy is wrong… I’m not disputing that… but something about multi-billion dollar industry corporations going into the Boy Scouts to teach them how to keep the really rich people… really rich. Yeah… the idea just makes me want to puke and kind of epitomizes where our culture has gone. Yuck.

Jerry Seinfeld (at least appears to be) the role model for knowing when you have enough. This guy walked away from a million dollars an episode on his TV show (one of the greatest sitcoms of all time) when the ratings were still strong and his following was HUGE. He could have ruled the world. But instead, he walked away, focused on his comedy (which is his passion) took life easy and dedicated time to just being a family man. I admire that. The man just seems to have one of the most level heads in the entertainment world.

Seinfeld reruns are still just as gold as when they first aired. I swear I can still watch it for hours straight. And the funny thing is, his absence from the public eye for all these years in any significant manner hasn’t hurt the mans popularity one little bit. The word “Seinfeld” gets mentioned and people will still pop their heads up and listen. Well here it is folks… Seinfeld is getting into the movie business. The following comes from our friends over at Cinema Blend:

Jerry’s in the midst of making a movie about bees. The film’s being called rather simply, Bee Movie and it’s being produced by the folks that brought you Shrek and some other animated movies that no one really liked as much, DreamWorks. Jerry is writing, producing, and stars in the movie as a bee voice. I wonder if the bees will hang out at honey shops and discuss nothing?

Ok, I’ll be the first to tell you that I was a little disappointed to hear that Seinfeld’s journey into film was starting with an animated movie… but the genius of Seinfeld has always been in his writing… so I honestly could care less that he’s doing one of the voices in the movie. I’m more excited that he wrote the thing… and THAT is what will make this movie work (at least I hope so).

The big question is “will the bees be the masters of their domains”?

Here is some of the other movie new floating around the web today that you might be interested in:

- Producer Grant Curtis talks Spider-Man 3

- Flags of our Fathers misses black soldiers
Seems like a pretty brutal oversight

- Fraggle Rock Movie Gets A Screenwriter
Look, Iove the idea of movie remakes that bring back my childhood and all… and I liked Fragle Rock as a kid… but this one just doesn’t seem like a good idea to me

- Talladega Nights Blu-ray DVD To Be Bundled With Playstation 3
Crazy over praised movie… and I’m a massive WIll Ferrell fan.

- Did Michael Bay steal The Island?

- More casting stuff from Die Hard 4

- Saw 4 is on the way

- Simon Pegg and David Schwimmer Go Dark in Big Nothing
Couldn’t Pegg have found a project with a better co-star?

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The first images of what Optimus Prime and Starscream will look like in the upcoming Transformers movie have just made their way onto the web. These toy images are of the robots in their original “Protoform” configurations (ie. what they look like on Cybertron before they get reconfigured to look more like earth vehicles after arriving on earth).

AICN points us to Actoys were they have a bunch of images of the two toys. See them below and then go to the site to see more.

The much anticipated Toronto After Dark Film Festival was launched last night in Toronto and gets itself into full swing today… and there are still tickets available!

Here is a quick run down of what’s happening:

Saturday, Oct. 21
3.30pm Frostbite (Sweden) Toronto Premiere
6.30pm Shinobi (Japan) Toronto Premiere
9.15pm Retribution (Japan) Canadian Premiere
11.59pm The Beach Party at the Threshold of Hell (USA) International Premiere

Sunday, Oct. 22
1.00pm Make Your Own Damn Movie! Masterclass with Lloyd Kaufman Special Event
3.00pm Toronto Zombie Walk
4.15pm Vengeance (Thailand) North American Premiere
6.45pm Night of the Living Dorks (Germany) Toronto Premiere
9.30pm Re-Cycle (Hong Kong) Toronto Premiere
11.59pm Mad Cowgirl (USA) Toronto Premiere

Monday, Oct. 23
6.45pm Tokyo Zombie (Japan) Toronto Premiere
9.30pm Funky Forest: The First Contact (Japan) Toronto Premiere

Tuesday, Oct. 24
6.30pm SL8N8 (Slaughter Night) (Holland) North American Premiere
9.30pm Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (USA) Toronto Premiere & Closing Gala

For information and trailers of all the films, ticket pricing (very reasonable) and location maps, you can just jump over and check out the Toronto After Dark Film Festival website. I’ll be there… find me and say “hi”.

Oscar award nominated writer Frank Darabont is hard at work adapting “The Mist”, a Stephen King story. The good folks over at cinemablend.com give us this:

At last, Frank’s getting back to making his own movies. Variety says he’s adapting yet another Stephen King novella into a film script, and then directing it. The novel in question is The Mist, which Frank will make into a horror film.

Doing a horror movie is something of a departure from his previous movies. Darabont says, “It’s time to get down and dirty and make a nasty little character-driven gut-punch horror movie.” Apparently, The Mist is a project he and King have been kicking around together for years, but it got shelved in favor of what he calls “classier” work like Shawshank.

“The Mist” was published in 1985 as part of a collection of King short stories. In it, a thick fog or mist engulfs a small town and kills anyone caught up in it. Survivors take refuge in a supermarket, where they end up under siege by murderous beasties trying to get in.

Lets throw out the classy and get back to the trashy! Hey we all need movies like The Shawshank Redemption but once a while we need our junk food fix of films too.

Darabont is just as skilled at giving us the costume jewels as he is at showing real gems. On the gem side he wrote The Green Mile and has now been given the honor of being the writer for the new movie version of the amazing Ray Bradbury’s Farenheit 451.

As for some fun horrors he’s done we can look at The Fly II, The Blob and remember A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 Dream Warriors? It was the movie that made me like the Freddy series again, Darabont penned that one just for the kids I bet. One of his first adapting and directing was for The Woman in the Room; part of Stephen King’s Night Shift Collection (how interesting that he’s getting back to horror directing and writing with another one of King’s creations).

This is exciting, I’m always up to see what a good writer can do with a creepy Stephen King story. How about everyone out there?

There’s a first time for everything and apparently Hong Kong is becoming open to experimentation with their support of the Gay and Lesbian Film fest. The good folks over at monstersandcritics.com give us this:

Hong Kong - A gay film festival has received government backing for the first time in Hong Kong as part of a push to raise awareness of AIDS in the territory, a health official said Friday.

The Health Department’s Red Ribbon Centre has provided 8,000 US dollars in sponsorship to the Gay and Lesbian Film and Video Festival, which is to be held over two weeks beginning November 2. It has also produced a 30-second advert promoting the use of condoms that will be screened before each film, published AIDS-awareness articles in the festival programme and will distribute condoms to the audience at the 50 films on show during the festival.

The move is part of a push to increase awareness of AIDS prevention among the gay community in Hong Kong, which has witnessed a rise in the number of HIV infections among men who have sex with men.

This is bittersweet. It’s great that an alternative film festival is getting support from it’s country, but when the reason for it is that AIDS is still claiming more victims it’s not really a cause for celebration.

But that’s not to say we shouldn’t celebrate alternative films. They are so nessesary in times like these. When everything is SO in or SO out the fact that gay and lesbian film fests continue to show movies about AIDS after the newpapers have moved on is yet another reason for them to be supported.

Also I know I’ve said it before but I really feel strongly that the more walks of life people get to see the better, it helps us understand each other, not be afraid, and see beyond labels and stereotypes. Just like I don’t like to be judged as a white girl from Canada I don’t want to be making assumptions about my neighbors based on their ethnic background or sexuality.

Good movies are compelling stories about people and life. It will be great when there is no need for alternative festivals, when everything is just judged by the quality of the film. Philadelphia is an example of a movie that broke through commercial cinema barriers and took us beyond the lifestyle choices of the characters to communicate a story and a message that even if you are dying of AIDS you still have the right to be treated with respect and die with dignity.

But until movies like Brokeback Mountain and Philadelphia become more common place, alternative film festivals need to exist.

I’m glad to see a conservative nation putting aside its personal beliefs to financially assist a Gay and Lesbian film fest. And while they aren’t they helping them out because they agree with their values they are doing it for an almost as honorable reason: Because they care about the health of the attendees. That’s a pretty good start.

When the tax man comes you had better have your check book ready or be out of the country. Wesley Snipes chose the latter msnbc.com gives us this:

Actor Wesley Snipes, indicted by U.S. authorities for tax fraud this week, is filming a movie in the African country of Namibia which has no extradition treaty with Washington, officials said on Friday. The indictment alleges that Snipes failed to file federal income tax returns from 1999 through 2004 and conspired with two accomplices to file two amended returns for Snipes for 1996 and 1997, fraudulently claiming tax refunds of almost $12 million.

Snipes, the star of the “Blade” movie series, is the lead actor in a new movie entitled “Gallowwalker” filming in the Namibian desert near the town of Swakopmund — the same coastal resort where Hollywood superstars Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt had their first child in May.

Man, oh man Wesley what were you thinking? When you are a big shot movie star you pay your taxes! You do it on time and you throw in a few diamonds just in case. You do forget to file for five years.

Snipes needs to get some major help, from a lawyer and a banker. The best lawyer and the most generous banker. He also needs to finish that movie he is on before he leaves South Africa because it’s probably going to be the only bit of money he gets for a while. Let’s hope it’s a blockbuster.

I like Wesley Snipes, he is always a very watchable character in movies, likeable always and he seems like a cool guy. But everyone tries to screw the government and hardly anyone ever gets away with it. I don’t feel sorry that Snipes got caught, it was bound to happen. I feel bad that he thought he could do it in the first place.

It is possible for Snipes to get jail time over this, 16 years at the most. I don’t think anyone deserves to go to jail for that long over money. It always angers me when I see people who are charged with violent crimes such as assault or rape getting a few years while people who are yes, doing wrong by cheating the government but not physically harming anyone get ten or more years. I’m curious to see if Snipes does jail time over this, it may happen, after all Martha Stewart did time just last year.

Jail or not nobody gets away with tax fraud clean. Poor Willie Nelson lost everything in 1990, he owed 16 million in back taxes, and the government took his houses, his recording studios (if it weren’t for his successful album The IRS tapes: Who’ll buy my memories?” he may still be broke).

In life there are two things you can always count on, death and taxes. If Snipes is smart he will pay back what he owes and let the loss motivate him to be more discerning on whos advice he takes in the future.

One good thing for Wesley Snipes fans; he will probably be doing a lot of movies in the next few years.

The Halo movie has been simultaneously dropped by both studios that were co-financing the project. Universal and Fox studios announced that they were both backing out of the project. This is actually really unexpected, at least from an outsiders point of view. I talked to a person at Universal this morning who just said “this has been coming for a while now”, but didn’t offer any other explanations.

There are a few primary SPECULATIVE reasons floating around right now about why Universal and Fox both dumped Halo now and at the same time:

1) Microsofts demands were too high taking $5 million upfront and 10% of the take

3) The studios were uncomfortable with the selection of Neil Blomkamp, a guy who has never worked on any movie in any capacity, as the director.

There are conflicting reports about the validity of one or all of the above “reasons”, but it’s obvious to me that something SIGNIFICANT must have occurred for both studios to back out at the same time, and I have a feeling a combination of the above reasons, as well as one or two others we probably don’t know about, are at the heart of it.

Now, don’t worry too much. Yes, it’s a REALLY BAD sign that both studios dumped Halo at the same time… BUT… don’t doubt for a second that this project will get made. Too much money has already been sunk into it, and the profile is too high. Someone will step up to the plate to fill the massive shoes of Universal and Fox. I have no idea who that will be… but it’ll happen. But I’ll guarantee you something significant will change… either the budget, or Microsofts cut, or the script or the director… but if there were reasons big enough for Universal and Fox to ditch at this point, other studios will probably be hesitant to step in without those issues being addressed. But Halo, one way or another, WILL happen. To much is at stake for it not too.

Early The Prestige reviews are coming out, and they don’t look great. As a matter of fact, I’m really disappointed in what I’m reading. The Prestige has been one of the films I’ve most been looking forward to seeing ever since watching the trailer a few months back… but so far no one I’ve talked to who has seen it is raving about it. A bunch of people like it… but didn’t love it. Damn!!

Here is what some of the critics are saying in their “The Prestige” reviews:

>“Pic insists on a depth of human emotion that isn’t developed — protags emerge as one-dimensional, despite the efforts of two of our best leading actors — amid increasingly elaborate, uninvolving plot mechanizations.”
Dennis Harvey - Variety

The Prestige isn’t art, but it reaps a lot of fun out of the question, How did they do that?
Owen Gleiberman - Entertainment Weekly

A dazzlingly complicated narrative; indeed, it might prove a little too complicated for many viewers.
Andy Klein - Los Angeles CityBeat

Audiences might enjoy this cinematic sleight of hand, but the key characters are such single-minded, calculating individuals that the real magic would be to find any heart in this tale.
Kirk Honeycutt - Hollywood Reporter

As of right now, The Prestige is holding a disappointing 60% on Rotten Tomatoes. Much lower than I was hoping for.

Ok, let me use a sports analogy here. Sometimes, when a GREAT football team is playing a crap team this week, but a GOOD team next week, they’ll be so focused on next week that they forget to give their full attention to the team they’re playing NOW and get beat… my question is… COULD THAT BE THE CASE HERE? Could Nolan have been too preoccupied with Batman 2 stuff that he didn’t have enough focus on The Prestige??? Just a thought. Tell me what you think after you see the film.

The early Flags of our Fathers reviews are coming out… and althought they’re pretty good, they’re not as good as I (or a lot of other people) were expecting. Certainly not Oscar type reviews anyway. I really like Clint Eastwood as a director. He’s not affraid to make a point, or say something with his films, even if that something isn’t popular at times… and I like that… even if I don’t always agree with him.

So here is what the critics are saying in their Flags of our Fathers reviews:

In Flags of Our Fathers, the story behind that Iwo Jima image, Clint Eastwood has crafted a bold and meticulous epic.
Richard Corliss - TIME Magazine

In Flags of Our Fathers, Eastwood is here to tell us that the reality of World War II was scarier and darker than any inspirational photograph.
Owen Gleiberman - Entertainment Weekly

A rambling mess of random war images mixed with sentimental recollections … delivers a generic retelling of events, sampling liberally from other sources without offering anything new.
Edward Douglas - ComingSoon.net

The good news is that Flags is a stately, sober picture that boasts excellent production values. The bad news is that it’s not particularly interesting or involving.
Ethan Alter - Premiere Magazine

As of right now Flags of our Fathers reviews are holding at 70% at Rotten Tomatoes. A good score… but not the AMAZING stuff we’ve been expecting. I’m still really interested in seeing it and will give my review later this weekend.

The early Marie Antoinette reviews are coming in, and they don’t look too bad. Not fantastic, but pretty solid. I’ve got to admit I haven’t had one shred of interest in this film ever since I saw the first trailer for it a few months ago. The fact that Sofia Coppola is directing it gets my attention, but nothing I’ve seen so far has solidified that. Looks like it might be worth watching after all.

Here is what some of the critics are saying about Marie Antoinette reviews:

Highly theatrical and yet also intimate and informal, Marie Antoinette lets its story slink almost casually through its lovingly composed and rendered images.
A.O. Scott - New York Times

The work of a mature filmmaker who has identified and developed a new cinematic vocabulary to describe a new breed of post-postpostfeminist woman.
Lisa Schwarzbaum - Entertainment Weekly

Let them have eye candy pretty much sums up Sofia Coppola’s approach to her revisionist and modernist take on the famous royal airhead who in the end lost her head.
Todd McCarthy - Variety

If Sofia Coppola isn’t the queen of slow, she’s the princess of bore. Despite its sumptuous production design and cinematography, this is grotesquely superficial, slow, and boring.
Tony Medley - tonymedley.com

As of right now Marie Antoinette is holding a 68% on Rotten Tomatoes… which isn’t too bad really. One of the things that is preventing me from having any enthusiasm about the project is Kirsten Dunst who has yet to impress me in anything other than Interview with a Vampire when she was a kid. Maybe she’ll surprise us.

A lot of people are still holding on to the idea that some how… some way… Arnold Schwarzenegger will appear in Terminator 4 despite all of the reports that seemed to suggest otherwise. Well… there’s another strike against the idea… the writer of Terminator 4 says he’s not in it.

The good folks over at Coming Soon had this to say:

Terminator 4 co-writer Michael Ferris has given Entertainment Weekly a hint about what we can expect from the next installment. First, however, he addressed the questions on whether Arnold Schwarzenegger will be back. “‘Terminator 3′ kind of closed the book on Schwarzenegger, as did his gubernatorial career,” said Ferris, who wrote the fourth film with John Brancato.

Well, if that doesn’t do it, I don’t know what will. And the fact of the matter is, this is GOOD news.

I love Arnie… always have and I always will… but him getting all buffed up one last time for Terminator 3 (which was over 4 years ago when he filmed it) was just that, ONE LAST TIME. Arnold is turning 60 in a few months, and while he could still kick the living crap outta me… the fact of the matter is his action movie days are over… at least as a huge unstoppable power droid… he just can’t be believed in that role anymore.

Sure, put him in another Conan movie where you can at least make Conan an older, aging King who is called to glory one last time, or is training another to take his place… but the Terminator doesn’t age. He can’t play the same guy he did 20 years ago. It just won’t work. Some argue that it didn’t work for #3… but I thought they did it ok.

Ed Sanchez, creator and director of the crazy successful “Blair Witch Project” (and no, he didn’t have anything to do with the horrible Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows), has a new flick finally coming out called “Altered”… and it’s going straight to DVD. To bad, because it sounds like it could be amazing! Our friends over at FIlm Junk give us the following:

Altered is another low budget horror movie, this time about an alien abduction, but there’s a twist: it’s also a revenge flick. Fifteen years ago, five friends were abducted and only four returned. Now they’ve managed to capture one of the creatures responsible for taking their friend… payback is a bitch, right?

I had a chance to hang out with Sanchez a couple of years ago (that’s him and me in the pic) in Indianapolis at a little festival that I had a short film entered in (Rise fo the Tradiz!!!!). He’s such a down to earth easy going guy… which is maybe why his career didn’t take off after Blair Witch.

I think Altered sounds fantastic… can’t wait to see it. Comes out December 19th

Wow… slow news day today… but here are some things you MIGHT be interested in:

- Click #1 in DVD
Too bad the movie was such a let down. Just under $10 million in it’s first week. Nothing compared to the X-Men 3 total of about $50 million, but still not bad.

- “If I Did It” By O.J. Simpson

“The former football great, who was acquitted in criminal court 11 years ago of killing his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman, reportedly has been paid a whopping $3.5 million to write about the double murder that shocked and riveted the nation in 1994, according to a detailed report in the new National Enquirer. But Simpson is not actually confessing to the murder — rather, he’s writing a “hypothetical” book — which the Enquirer reports is tentatively being called “If I Did It.” Yeah, this one will be a movie in about 10 minutes.

- Roger Bard To Star In Hostel 2 and American Gangster

- Quentin Tarantino Getting Pissed off
Found this via slashfilm. QT getting right pissed off on the Oscar Red Carpet and going after an MTV host. Wow.

- The Good German trailer
George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, Tobey Maguire, directed by Steven Soderbergh.

The Borat character is something of a phenomenon. Yeah, he says the wrong thing but really, thats the point. So I thought it was strange when I read this from Yahoo News:

“We are accusing him of defamation and inciting violence against Sinti and Roma (gypsies),” Marko Knudsen, head of the European Center of Antiziganism Research, told Reuters. Antiziganism refers to hostility to gypsies.

The group said it had filed a complaint to prosecutors over the film, “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” saying it treated violence and discrimination against Roma peoples as acceptable behavior.

State prosecutors in Hamburg will investigate the allegations before deciding whether to take action.

In the satirical film, which is due to open in Germany on November 2, Cohen, creator of the comic character Ali G, plays Borat Sagdiyev, a fictional Kazakh television journalist who travels to the United States to report back on the American way of life.

The film’s comic barbs also target gypsies, Jews, women and many other groups.

The complaint adds to a series of protests against Cohen’s creation, whose views are not only racist and anti-Semitic but also misogynist and homophobic.

Some of the most prominent criticism has come from Kazakhstan, Borat’s central Asian homeland.

I am reminded of a case where the Turrets Society took offense to the portrayal of a person with Turrets Syndrome in Deuce Bigalo. I don’t recall seeing much come of that either. I think the point that people are missing is that Borat is that he says the wrong thing consistently against all social groups, cultures, lifestyles and people. Its not like he is trying to OFFEND. The point is that the character is so clueless that he doesnt know he offends. This is the charm of Borat. We have to expect it from him. If the character did nothing BUT make innappropriate statements about Gypsies, then maybe Knudsen might have a case.

My favourite part of the Yahoo Report was this quote:

Knudsen’s group has asked for an injunction to stop the film from being shown in Germany. “We called the distributors, but they laughed at us,” he said.

Should the actions of a character be grounds for a lawsuit against the actor who portrays him? Or the writer who gave them the lines?

What do you think?

The Resident Evil series has all but one quality that makes me want to watch it. Milla Jovovich kicking ass. Yeah, that’s about it. Sure the games were fun, and you had to wear depends if you played it alone at night in a dark basement with the lights off and surround sound…. er.. so I hear.

Arrow In The Head offers:

As far as story line is concerned I seem to be finding some inconsistencies. There have been several times where I have read that the story revolves around Alice (Milla Jovovich) leading a group of survivors through the desert to get revenge on the Umbrella corporation for what they’ve done, yet in the interview below Jovovich says that her character is traveling through the desert alone until she stumbles across some survivors that make her fight zombie dogs.

Just when the Round Table guys were saying that science was the new magic, we get another dose of Zombies running rampant as the result of a failed scientific experiment. Why can’t we have more voodoo/occult zombies? You know, the ones that bullets and knives cant scare?

Anyways, I can’t say I am overly excited about another Resident Evil. Sure, Milla is hot. Im just not sure thats enough anymore.

The links to the journal Diaries are Here and Here. They are in German, but the parts where the actors talk is in English. You pretty much get the gist of what is going on for the rest of it.

Have fun!

Good grief… this was funny… especially the part about Khazak censors objections to anti-semitism:

Al gave me the heads up on the nice little video from the 300 video journals. This entry is focused on the make up and effects for a couple of the key supporting characters in the movie. Click the image to check it out!

Jason sent me this nice link to a short video segment talking about the death of Optimus Prime in the Transformers cartoon movie. There are a couple of pretty interesting things said in it.

First of all, one of the lead story consultants says that they killed Optimus Prime for 2 reasons:

1) They never realized what a huge Icon he had become

2) To make way for new toys

I KNEW IT!!! Those bloody bastards!!!! Kill Prime to get me to buy that crappy Rodumus Prime toy?!?! Well even as a kid I never fell for it. The Transformers animated movie marked the end of my love for the Transformers cartoon show. After that movie, I never watched another show, nor did I buy any more toys. Good plan guys.

Check out the video here. It’s worth watching. The link to the video is just below the Tranformers poster on the page there.

I know I know… this isn’t movie news… well tough… it’s my damn site! :P

This morning just after 3am I became an Uncle again. My sister Sandy gave birth to 7′13 son… who my mother tells me is at this point just named “BOY”. They just haven’t come up with a name for him yet… but I’m hoping they keep “Boy”. I think that would be cool.

I’m kinda sick right now… so I don’t know if I’m going to get to see the little guy today or not… but I can’t wait to meet him. Guess it’s time for me to start stocking up on my kids movies around here.

It’s true that I get kinda geeky about seeing my favorite cartoon shows as a kid turned into modern effects movies (hence my viagra like enthusiasm for The Transformers). So it should come as no surprise to anyone that I’m really looking forward to He-Man… no matter how bad it ends up being.

The John Woo version of the film has been in the “works” for a long time now, and there are reports of the project losing momentum. As a matter of fact, some reports are even suggesting that John Woo isn’t really all that interested in the project anymore. That’s a shame if it’s true, since I think he’s do a pretty decent job with it.

However, all is not lost just yet. According to the guys over at MovieHole:

The one thing suggesting that the film is still going ahead though is the report that Mattel are in “active” talks with Lions Rock about the film - indicating that not everyone has lost zeal in the project.

One thing I’ve learned from doing The Moive Blog for over 3 years… it doesn’t matter if the artists say “no” to a movie… if the business people (you know, the ones with the money) say yes, then you can bet your ass it’s going to happen. He-Man will happen.. it’s just a matter of when.

Oh it’s going to be so deliciously bad… and yet… I’ll be there.

This was a list that caught my attention and thought would be a funny brainless read. The guys over at IGN posted up a top 10 list of professional Wrestlers who also took on acting as a career. I agree with pretty much the whole list… except I would have put Piper at #2 (a bit higher than they have him.

So here is the list:

#10 Triple H (I’d also have put him a bit higher… but not too much)
#9 Goldberg
#8 Kevin Nash
#7 Kane (nope… wouldn’t have put him on the list at all, and certainly not above HHH)

#6 Hulk Hogan
#5 Rowdy Roddy Piper
#4 Jesse Ventura (I’d have put him at #3)
#3 Tor Johnson
#2 Andre the Giant
#1 The Rock (who knew that this guy would actually develop to the point that he can really ACT.)

it’s a fun list, and if you go over to read their article you can check out their commentary for each one. It’s worth the read.

Oh good grief. Let the cinematic incest party rage on! It’s now being reported that Helena Bonham Carter is joining Johnny Depp and Sacha Baron Cohen in Sweeney Todd. Directed by… the most overrated uni-stylistic director around, Tim Burton (don’t get me wrong, I like one or two of his flicks, and did enjoy Charlie and the Chocolate Factory… but man I hate this guys movies for the most part).

I’m all for teams, and buddy flicks from time to time… but how many Burton films can have the exact same cast all the fricken time (at least that’s what it feels like). One of my biggest problems with Burton films (and yes, I know I’m in the minority here) is that so many of his fricken films, for the most part, feel the same… and always having the same bloody actors in his projects isn’t helping, even if one of the actors is as good as Johnny Depp.

The good folks at Movieweb give us this:

she will play the diabolical meat pie-maker Mrs. Lovett in the film directed by Tim Burton, and starring Johnny Depp and Sacha Baron Cohen. Based on the Stephen Sondheim play, Mrs. Lovett is a murderess who dispenses her victims’ bodies in meat pies and becomes the amorous accomplice of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

OOooo… I’m Tim Burton… I’m sooooo daarrrkkk… and troubled… I am goth incarnate…. look at my crazy hair, that’s the hair of an artist… see how artistic I am… just look at my collection of crazy and DARK glasses! Gimme a break. YAAWWNNN. (It’s always fun reading the comments after I put up a negative Tim Burton post)

Oh my sweet bubbly Jebus. Did someone actually make a sequel to Behind Enemy Lines?!?! Yup… they sure did. And thank goodness it was only a direct to dvd release. And oh what a title: “Behind Enemy Lines II: Axis of Evil“. Whheeee..

So why am I even bothering to write about it? Well, the plot of the movie hits kinda close to home. It involves a North Korea with a nuclear weapon. Fun times! The folks at Yahoo give us this:

The plot of the action film revolves around a group of Navy SEALs dropped into North Korea to destroy its long-range missile. Dodson said it was natural to wonder how the balance of power would shift if the government of communist dictator Kim Jong Il developed such a missile. “I think it’s great to raise awareness, to realize what we’re allowing with our apathy to happen in North Korea,” said Dodson, who does not advocate a particular solution to the problem.

Lucky bastard timing. He made this flick without ever knowing that NK was actually developing a Nuke. With everything going on in the world right now, some people may actually be curious enough to go and pick this puppy up. I won’t be one of them though.

Finally!!! The filming for my documentary “Prince of Peace - God of War” (which I continue to shamelessly plug on here) is finished!!! Yesterday, I flew out to meet with Brian McLaren. Brian was listed in the TIME MAGAZINE cover story of “The 25 Most Influential Evangelicals In America”, and has authored several best selling books.

Brian lives in Maryland, but was speaking at a conference up in Canada, so I flew out there yesterday morning, rented a car and drove an hour, meet with Brian for a few hours, drove back to the airport and flew home… I was exhausted by the end of the day… but it was well worth it. Brian was just amazing, and I’m very grateful he was so generous with his time.

That also explains why I didn’t post anything myself yesterday on the site. It’s a good thing Rod is around to keep the store open.

I’m crossing my fingers Prince of Peace - God of War will be done before Christmas. Now back to regular movie news.

There has been very little news lately about the TV Show remake into a big screen movie based on Dallas. Dallas was the primetime soap of the 80’s. The cast was huge, and a lot of actors were digging for spots on the remake’s roster. Well there might be some good news for them.

Insomniac Mania says:

The movie will still be directed by Gurinder Chadha, but will no longer feature Luke Wilson, Katie Cassidy, Shirley MacLaine, Jennifer Lopez or any of the other previously confirmed stars. Luke Wilson must be laughing all the way to the bank today however, as his contract stated he would get paid whether or not he even got round to making the final film!

There is no word on when the movie will now shoot, but I guess it will now be delayed by at least a few months if not longer.

So now they will be casting the roles to actors who list “I dont have a job lined up for the next 4-8 months” at the top of their resume. Good job guys! This only spells good things for the movie!

I think they should hire an entire cast of child actors from the 80s who are now about the age of the original adult Dallas cast. And hey, they are likely available! Who else are you going to get on short notice??

Now this may just turn into a publicity stunt, or a wild rumour that we will laugh about later, but I have to wonder what the reasoning behind this huge cut is? Are studios less willing to put some money behind a remake? The win/loss ratio has been rather dicey lately.

I guess we will have to wait another 4 months for Dallas rumours. Perhaps Jessica Simpson will go on a publicity tour promoting the movie and try to Hasselhoff her way into a role!

Michael Caine recently talked about his role as Alfred Pennyworth and he speculates on what he might do in the upcoming movie.

Cinema Blend

SciFi quotes Caine in their interview as saying: “I was talking to the widow of the man who wrote Batman, and she said that he wrote a marvelous scene that [we] should do in [our] next movie … She told me that he wrote a sequence where Batman was trying to get bad guys, and he wanted to use the butler dressed as Batman as a ruse, and then go back around behind him. So I said to Christopher, and I don’t know whether he’s going to use it, because he won’t tell you anything about the script, but I mentioned this to him, because I thought that this was a great idea. I think that if he dresses me as Batman, it could be one of the funniest sequences in the history of movies … Can you imagine what I would make out of that? Trying to get into the Batman suit and then running around the woods [while] he’s going around the [other] way to try and get the bad guys? See, you’re already laughing, and those films are very serious. My job is to bring the humor of the sort of ordinary person being in that situation, which is what I am.”

I think this is very interesting. Michael Caine takes a humourous take on the idea, and pokes some fun. But really I can see it. Not that I crave to see Caine in a rubber suit, but it makes sense for the movie to pay tribute to the comic book. This has happened in the pages of the comic more than once. In a number of instances Pennyworth put on the cape and cowl to play the Dark Knight in the book. It doesnt seem a stretch at all.

Wether they do this or not, even Caine admits is purely speculation, but I wont be surprised at all if something like this happens.

So one of the most notable female actresses of this generation is teaming up with one of the most non-notable fluff actor of our generation.

Cinema Blend says:

MTV says The Best Time of Our Lives is about Welsh poet Dylan Thomas and his wife Caitlin caught in a machine gun/hand grenade driveby, but when talking about the film with the musicless music television channel Lindsay seems more interested in potentially making out with her co-star Keira Knightley. Lindsay plays Caitlin and Keria plays her friend and wife of the man who blows up their house. Lohan told MTV, “[Keira] is older than me, but she kind of has a mysterious relationship with my lover… And then there’s somewhat of a lesbian undertone.”

Ok, you still with me? You are stuck on the whole lesbian thing right?? Keep in mind that they said “lesbian undertone” not “a movie about lesbians. You do realize that this is not a story about a lesbian love affair. There is actually a story in there.

The real story here is that Lindsay and Keira are doing something serious for a change, a movie about one of the 20th Century’s most celebrated drunken poets. The movie will explore what in Dylan and Caitlin’s life led them to the middle of an explosive maelstrom and should contain at least a little on screen binge drinking from whoever ends up playing Thomas.

This could be a defining point for Lindsay Lohan. If she can pull off a good job, she might just make a turning point in her career. I can honestly say her fluff roles in movies are entertaining enough, but to think of her in a serious dramatic role? This isnt the first we hear of a fluff actor wanting to turn serious, but I am equally reluctant to buy into it. Knightley in a serious role. Sure, no problem there. She can nail that. But Lohan? I dont know that people will buy that.

The two of them getting frisky together? That I can see. Im picturing it right now.

Can Lohan do serious drama? What do you think?

Movie watchers are very fickle folks. Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth has a way of slapping people awake or knocking them out cold. In Berlin they loved the film, and in Bangkok theaters people walked out. The good folks over at yahoonews.com give us this:

U.S. critics swooned over “An Inconvenient Truth,” the documentary film about global warming starring ex-Vice President Al Gore, but international response has ranged from raves in Oslo to yawns in Bangkok. Promoted as a true-life disaster flick — “It will shake you to your core … By far, the most terrifying film you will ever see,” the trailer thunders — it is Gore’s 80-minute environmental argument about the need for immediate action to combat climate change.

In eco-friendly Germany, where Gore attended last week’s Berlin premiere, the film was a multi-media event, covered by major newspapers and several television news shows. It drew specific praise from German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel at a news conference on energy.

“It carries a strong message and hard fact with Al Gore as the presenter but it is a boring documentary presentation that could have been made more fun and exciting with some editing techniques,” Bangkok film critic Natakwang Sirasoonthorn said.

An Inconvenient Truth” has grossed more than $23.7 million in the United States since it opened in May, distributed by Paramount Pictures. That makes it the third-highest grossing documentary, behind No. 1 “Fahrenheit 9/11″ and second-ranked “March of the Penguins” — both of which have been running far longer.

But foreign box office receipts for “Truth” have totaled only $4.1 million, compared with $103.3 million for “Fahrenheit 9/11.”

I can understand the mixed reviews on this film. I saw it back when it first opened in Canada and although I liked it, it did leave a bit to be desired when it came to entertainment and film style. But if you want to see ten thousand charts that all look the same, those desires will be fufilled.

On the positive side An Inconvenient Truth is one of the few documentaries on the environment that didn’t make me feel helpless, it gives concrete ways to fix what we have broken in our world. And it’s also an interesting peek into Al Gore’s life.

But as some may remember from when he was running for president, Gore does tend to be a bit monotone and dry.

So it makes sense that certain parts of Europe just wouldn’t have the patience to see a film about the environment that has Al Gore as the star. But it’s still a solid documentary that I always recommend to people. How about everyone out there? Would you reccomend this movie?