Tôkyô! teaser, featuring Michel Gondry, hits the web
The triptych film Tôkyô! may not be premiering anywhere outside of Cannes for a long time, but its publicity has already started up. Check out the teaser trailer below: Tôkyô! is a triptych film by Michel Gondry, Bong Joon Ho and Leos Carax. Each director contributed a 30-minute film that takes place in Tokyo, making it closer to New York Stories than Paris, je t’aime in format. Strangely enough, none of the writer/directors are Japanese, which should make for some interesting ways of seeing the city. The teaser doesn't show much of the movie, and in fact it's more... read more
Speed Racer
In the first film written and directed by Andy and Larry Wachowski since they... read more
Gore Verbinski directing Bioshock film
We've long thought a Bioshock film was on the way, but that didn't make Variety's announcement of the specifics any less, well, shocking. Universal and Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean)will be making a film adaptation of the acclaimed video game, set for release likely sometime in 2010. Bioshock takes place in an Ayn Rand-based dystopia, with the player going deeper into its society and learning about how messed up things get. A surprise blockbuster upon release, considering the relatively lackluster performances of its spiritual successors in the System Shock series, the game has gone on to sell more than... read more
Criterion announces first Blu-ray releases
The end is nigh for DVD! Probably not, but this is big news regardless. Criterion, the premier distributor of high-end art films in America, has announced that this October it will begin releasing Blu-ray titles. The launch titles for this new format, though not necessarily an inclusive list, were contained in Criterion's subscriber newsletter: "Our first Blu-ray discs are coming! We’ve picked a little over a dozen titles from the collection for Blu-ray treatment, and we’ll begin rolling them out in October. These new editions will feature glorious high-definition picture and sound, all the supplemental content of the DVD releases,... read more
Common signs on for Terminator 4
Terminator 4 just began shooting last week, which means that final casting announcements for the film are leaking out. Common actually has a lot of acting experience, working in American Gangster and Smokin' Aces last year, and Wanted later this year. All of this, plus two albums planned for release, plus at least one side project, plus some tour dates, plus... Well, that Common is one busy man. Also signed on to the T4 project now are Sam Worthington (Avatar)and Anton Yelchin (Charlie Bartlett), with Josh Brolin rumored to be the new Terminator. The film is planned for release early... read more
Break out the Sex Panther: Anchorman 2 (still) in the works
Recently, USAToday's Pop Candy blog pointed out to the world that, once again, rumblings have started concerning the possibility of a sequel to the much-loved Will Ferrell movie, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. Two years ago, Ferrell attended the Toronto Film Festival, and spoke there about his desire to do a sequel, featuring Ron Burgundy as an European correspondent. Since, there hasn't been much in the way of news about it, but now that the filming of Step Brothers has been completed and it's heading for the theaters this July, perhaps Ferrell's busy schedule is beginning to clear up.... read more
Jimmy Page, The Edge, Jack White star in guitar doc
Davis Guggenheim, the director-producer behind Al Gore’s environmental call to arms, An Inconvenient Truth, just finished a new documentary set to premier at Cannes later this month about the storied history behind the electric guitar and it’s players, Variety reports. Shot throughout London, Dublin, Nashville and Los Angeles, the film looks at the instrument and its sound from the perspective of three rock musicians who have impacted electric guitar playing across different generations: The Edge, Jimmy Page and Jack White. The film is titled It Might Get Loud, and features each musician detailing how he changed the sound of the... read more
In wake of Iron Man's millions, Marvel piles up future films
A few years ago, could Robert Downey Jr. have imagined that he would helm an enormous superhero movie that would make $102 million in its opening weekend? Safe to say the ever-cynical actor would have found the proposition highly unlikely. And yet, here we are. Iron Man made (and very likely will continue to make) a lot of money, Downey’s career continues to move up and Marvel Studios is basking in the glory of the film that it produced. The studio produces films based on Marvel properties, so this success guarantees future projects and makes forthcoming successes much more likely.... read more
Tom Cruise in talks for Mission: Impossible 4
That Variety reports Tom Cruise is currently in talks to star in the next Mission: Impossible movie is a surprise for several reasons. Not least among these is that Paramount cut its relationship with Cruise two years ago, blaming him for smaller box office returns for Mission: Impossible III. Then there is the fact that these days Cruise's biggest fan is himself. But if they can overlook his issues, then perhaps so can we. At least, that's what the studio is hoping. "I consider Tom Cruise a great actor and a good friend," said Viacom boss Sumner Redstone, the very... read more
The Babysitters
In this dark, despicable comedy, 16-year-old babysitter... read more
?uestlove says Dave Chappelle's Block Party going to Dubai
Hot off the release of the new Roots album, ?uestlove has spent his time...at a Bryan Adams photography opening? In any case, while there, he spoke with New York Magazine's Vulture about new plans with comedian Dave Chappelle. Since Chappelle disappeared from his show and quickly reappeared in South Africa, he's mostly lain low and hung around his home in Ohio. His most notable project since then was the revolutionary concert documentary Dave Chappelle's Block Party, directed by Michel Gondry and featuring The Roots as house band. It looks like he's readying to do a sort of sequel to that... read more
New MacGyver movie in the works
Remember when MacGyver wasn't just a reoccurring joke on Saturday Night Live? Us either, really, but that doesn't seem to be stopping Hollywood from eyeing it as the next television-to-movie adaptation. Gizmodo reports that series creator Lee David Zlotoff has announced preparations for a new MacGyver film. MacGyver's been in retirement since his 1994 television movie, MacGyver: Trail to Doomsday. The new film is said to be big budget, with Zlotoff in full control of the property after its film rights confusingly ended up back in his hands. While we have no idea when the project will take no shape,... read more
Luke Wilson gets miraculous as Henry Poole
It's been a while since we heard from Luke Wilson. Lately, media attention has been (unfortunately) focused on his older brother, and Luke's behind-the-camera debut, The Wendell Baker Story, was a certified box-office flop. Of course, none of this makes any of the three Wilson brothers (oldest Wilson bro Andrew co-directed Wendell Baker) less talented or watch-worthy. And Luke is poised to make a big-screen comeback with his latest movie, the miracle fable Henry Poole is Here. The family-friendly film, co-starring (random alert!) Radha Mitchell, Cheryl Hines and George Lopez, centers on the morbidly depressed Henry Poole (Wilson), who moves... read more
Go Getter to feature Zooey Deschanel, Jena Malone, more
By now, you’ve probably (hopefully!) listened to She & Him and thought to yourself, “I wonder about the serendipitous events that brought Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward together to make such sweet, sweet music.” Your answer? Just like most L.A.-borne collaborations, they met on a film set. Martin Hynes wrote and directed said film, The Go Getter, which will be opening on June 7 in L.A. and NYC. Rumor has it that it will be available to the rest of us commonfolk sometime in August. An Official Selection at Sundance 2007, The Go Getter runs at 93 minutes and is... read more
Gervais and Co. make progress on This Side of the Truth
Ricky Gervais is a demanding director. He’s a man of all seasons who likes his scenes fresh and his wasabe strong. Yet he has a more refined side, too; he drinks milky tea and prefers dishes that used to have less legs rather than more. The crabs somewhere around week eight just didn’t cut it. What’ll Mr. Gervais be having this evening? Why, chicken and ‘mash. It does a body good. “I consider Gervais a handsome man because he gives people rides in horse-drawn carriages,” co-star John Hodgman writes on the blog for Gervais' directorial debut, This Side of the... read more
Kidman, Cunningham reunite for Dusty Springfield biopic
Perhaps motion picture studios have icon databases that remind them whenever the significant anniversary of an important artist’s death is on the horizon. Almost 10 years after British, blonde-beehived legend Dusty Springfield passed on from cancer, both Fox 2000 and Universal have biopics in the works. Vulture revealed last week that The Hours author Michael Cunningham is hammering out the script for Fox, which has cast a previous conduit for his Pulitzer prize-winning words, Nicole Kidman, as the soulful singer herself. Kidman, of course, demonstrated her pop-standard abilities in Moulin Rouge. As for what else will be asked of her... read more
Cross, Oswalt, more coming soon to Heckler DVD
“Why don’t you make like a Kennedy and die young!” The strangled cry comes from the back of a comedy club in Saskatchewan, Canada directed at a taken-aback Jamie Kennedy onstage. Kennedy responds with the astute point that “I came to this show in a limousine. You came behind 12 Siberian huskies.” The scene is the opening to the trailer of Kennedy’s new documentary Heckler which takes on the heckler in all its forms. In the film, which has been making the rounds of festivals for the past several months, Kennedy strikes back at not only the live-show heckler, but... read more
Demetri Martin in talks for Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock
You may know Demetri Martin from his "Trendspotting" segment on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart where he serves as the Youth Correspondent, covering such “youthy” topics as text-messaging, the Internet and credit card debt. Martin's segments report on trends like the term “Youthquake” used liberally by various television anchors to describe young voters influencing the 2008 election. The comedian is now in negotiations for the starring role in Ang Lee’s next film, Taking Woodstock. As previously reported, the film takes a fresh look at the often chronicled festival. Lee has teamed up with James Schamus again—the duo created Brokeback... read more
Soapbox: DIY Gondry
I'm still not sure what a "Fellini campfire scene" is, but I acted in one. As I communed blissfully with a fake tree, nobody questioned my motivation. Some pranced. An angelic hipster had liberated us from the world of sound with a radio device pried from her dead boyfriend's palm after a train inexplicably hit them. She was (obviously) the title character in our movie, The Silencer of Music. ... read more
Iron Man
There was never any question whether Iron Man would look great... read more
