'Tamara Drewe' Gets a Standard Rom Com Trailer
Filed under: Trailers and Clips
Talk about a cliché romantic comedy promo. The trailer for Stephen Frears' Tamara Drewe has been caught floating around the Internet and it's got every ingredient necessary for making a standard film about a gorgeous girl reluctantly spending time in a small town. Based on Posy Simmonds' graphic novel, Tamara Drewe features Gemma Arterton as the titular character. It's hard to imagine, but in her younger years, Tamara was an ugly duckling, but now she's a drop dead gorgeous and successful newspaper columnist who's forced to return to her family's rural home for a bit. Her big arrival attracts a ton of attention from the townsfolk as well as Tamara's old flame, Andy (Luke Evans). The problem is, she's got a rock star boyfriend back in the big city (Dominic Cooper). Hello love triangle.
Some Thoughts on the Trailer for 'The Town'
Filed under: Drama, Warner Brothers, Movie Marketing, Trailers and Clips
Warner Bros. has put a substantial number of its eggs in Ben Affleck's basket, attaching the trailer for The Town to Inception and thus ensuring that millions of people will not only see it but see it twice. Repeat viewings of the Town trailer are not nearly as rewarding as repeat viewings of Inception, though. (Watch the wedding ring!) For while at first it seems like a perfectly good trailer for a perfectly good movie -- a movie that has just been announced as the opening-night gala for the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival -- further examination brings out some red flags. Let us consider. (The trailer is posted after the jump, if you want to catch up.)
That title. Ugh, never mind. We'll get nowhere with this. The novel it's based on is called Prince of Thieves, which probably sounded too Robin Hood-y, or maybe it made people think of Prince of Tides, so of course they had to change it. Why they had to change it to the most generic title imaginable, I don't know. Naturally, a gritty, suspenseful crime drama deserves the dullest possible name. "How about The Location?" "Nah, too evocative. What about The Place Where Things Occur?" But like I said, never mind. Movies are supposed to have bad titles now. It's just how things are. Forget it, Jake. It's The Town.
Maury Chaykin Passes Away on 61st Birthday
Filed under: Obits
Canadian film and television actor Maury Chaykin passed away today in a Toronto hospital on his 61st birthday. Born in New York to an American father and Canadian mother, Chaykin made his way to Toronto in the '70s, where he remained for the rest of his life, amassing a myriad of roles, Genie nominations for Iron Eagle II and Cold Comfort, and a win for 1994's Whale Music.Boasting an impressive 153 film and television credits, Chaykin was known in and out of the land of the maple leaf. In Canada, he graced a number of Atom Egoyan films including The Sweet Hereafter, Exotica, and Where the Truth Lies, he teamed up with Don McKellar (who recently lost wife Tracy Wright) on Blindness and Cooking with Stella, and more recently played Sam Blecher in the Mark McKinney-produced Less Than Kind. But his accomplishments and impact reached stateside features as well. Chaykin played Major Fambrough in Dances with Wolves, Sam Tipton in My Cousin Vinny, and in recent years, he played "Harvey Weingard" -- aka "Harvey Weinstein" -- in Entourage.
Maury, you will be missed.
[via CBC]
Oprah Planning Some Star-Heavy Documentaries
Filed under: Documentary, Distribution, Home Entertainment, Cinematical Indie
Could Oprah Winfrey do for documentaries what she does for favorite novels? I wish it were so, but her new monthly documentary film club won't exactly be the equivalent of her book club. The difference is that most of the two-hour docs showcased by the club will be produced by her own OWN network and will air on the channel, as well. And on top of this, they'll also have additional celebrity names attached, including Julia Roberts and Goldie Hawn. According to indieWIRE, the former is presenting a film about mothers titled Extraordinary Moms while the latter's entry is an examination of the pursuit of happiness, which she'll narrate, called Searching for Happiness. The other three docs currently planned are as follows: Gabriel Byrne is co-producing Tent City, about homelessness in Nashville; Mariel Hemingway presents and stars in Seven Suicides, which involves the death of her grandfather, Ernest Hemingway, and other family members; and Forest Whitaker will produce and narrate One Last Shot, about Angola prison. The subject of that last film should be familiar to hardcore doc fans, having been the focus of the Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning The Farm: Angola, USA and very recently the Samuel L. Jackson-narrated In the Land of the Free. But with Oprah's name attached to One Last Shot, this could likely garner a larger audience than either of those.
Eva Longoria-Parker as Wasp in 'The Avengers'? Not So Fast
Filed under: Action, Casting, Paramount, RumorMonger, Celebrities and Controversy, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels
Though we received a pretty definitive Avengers announcement this past Saturday, the rumor mill continues to insist that The Avengers will be adding more to the line-up. Fox 411 is insisting that Eva Longoria-Parker is "this close" to appearing in The Avengers as The Wasp. Longoria previously denied all rumors that she was in talks with Marvel, though she was spotted with a stack of Avengers comics last year. Marvel even denied Longoria-Parker was in talks to Fox 411, though they have taken that denial to mean that she's suiting up in New York. Fox 411 also swears Nathan Fillion will be Ant-Man, but this was denied at Comic-Con by Joss Whedon and Marvel. If fans thought that was mere trickery, Fillion failed to join the assembled Avengers onstage (and he was at the convention all weekend long wearing, among other things, a Green Lantern shirt to boot!). But still, the rumor mill insists the ink is merely drying on his contract.
While I know there are bound to be more surprises coming out of The Avengers production, I think the final line-up is set. From a sheer marketing perspective, it would make little sense to add two more Avengers after Comic-Con. The first official Avengers photo was quite literally seen around the world, and was the first indication non-geek audiences had that there would be an Avengers film. There's no way Marvel would have missed the chance to have Wasp and Ant-Man onstage, especially if they were being played by Longoria-Parker and Fillion. (Miss out on having more pretty faces -- especially another female face -- onscreen? Come on.) Nevertheless, I think there will be stories like this right up until the credits roll on The Avengers, as anonymous sources are going to insist they're in the film somewhere.
Wanna Know What Rainn Wilson Looks Like as a Superhero?
Filed under: Casting, New Releases, Movie Marketing, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Images
Comic-Con may be over, but when you cram so many news stories and events all into the span of a few days, invariably some things don't get covered right away. Things like James Gunn's latest, Super -- another in a recent spate of films about ordinary people becoming superheroes. Normally, news of yet another superhero flick would leave me unfazed, but James Gunn is an interesting dude and the talent he's assembled for this project has my fangirl sense tingling.Rainn Wilson plays the lead role -- a man named Frank D'Arbo. Frank is just an average Joe, but he transforms himself into The Crimson Bolt when his wife falls under the influence of a local drug dealer. Naturally, Frank doesn't have any super powers, but he is armed with the urge to make the world a better place.
With a cast that includes Wilson, Ellen Page, Liv Tyler, Michael Rooker, Nathan Fillion and Kevin Bacon (all working for minimum wage, basically), Super certainly isn't lacking for star power and should appeal to a wide audience.
Gunn showed off footage of the film during a Comic-Con panel and early buzz has been positive. Unfortunately, Gunn posts on his blog that he won't be releasing that footage to the masses for quite some time, but to tide you over, he did unveil the first photo of Wilson as his alter ego -- The Crimson Bolt. You gotta love the padded crotch guard ...
Check out some of the panel footage after the jump and then sound off with your thoughts on Super in the comments section. See The Crimson Bolt in all his glory in the gallery below.
Gallery: The Crimson Bolt
TIFF Packs 2010 Slate with Redford, Aronofsky, Affleck and More
Filed under: Exhibition, Toronto International Film Festival
It's hard not to feel a tingle of eager excitement when a film festival announces the first wave of its slate and it's chock full of great talent. If this first wave of films is any indication, the 35th year of the Toronto International Film Festival is going to be killer. Perhaps the idea of a goofy hockey musical made you apprehensive of the 2010 proceedings, but the announced list should quash those worries pronto. I mean, how can you not purr over a slate that includes Michael Winterbottom, Robert Redford, Mark Romanek, Julian Schnabel, John Cameron Mitchell, and many more?
Watch Josh Hutcherson Fight Jocks in 'Spider-Man' Audition Tape
Filed under: Action, Fandom, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Trailers and Clips
While at Comic Con, I heard some buzz about Josh Hutcherson's Spider-Man audition tape; how it existed, how another movie website had it in their possession, and how it was pretty badass. Back when all the Spider-Man casting rumors were going around, a lot of people wrote Josh Hutcherson off because he was too much of a pretty boy for the role. Sure, he seemed to possess the right amount of All-American, dude-next-door appeal, but he was just too good looking for a young high school version of Peter Parker.
But now the kid's audition tape has leaked online, and though they kinda turned him into an after-school-special sort of nerd, I did like the fight choreography (Latino Review claims Larnell Stovall from Undisputed 3 was the one behind the fight sequence). I'm not positive if Sony and Spider-Man director Marc Webb were the ones who put this together, or if this was done independently in order to show the studio what it'd look like with Hutcherson in the role, but I could see why they didn't go with him.
In my opinion, Andrew Garfield is not only a much better actor than Hutcherson, but he also lends a bit more realism to his roles. Sure, this is just an audition tape, and it's a tad bit corny with lines like, "Looks like your dream girl is sweet on Parker, bro," (please tell us they're not reading from the real script), but while it may prove Hutcherson had the chops for the role, it re-confirms (to me at least) that they ultimately went with the right Peter Parker.
Check out the audition after the jump (courtesy of the guys from LR) and let us know what you think.
No 'Sex and the City 3'? Could We Be So Lucky?
Filed under: Romance, RumorMonger, Remakes and Sequels
When Michael Patrick King and his fashion-centric stars of Sex and the City wanted to make a feature film, it was a goldmine. The budget weighed in at $65 million, and the return was stellar -- almost $153 million in domestic earnings, and almost $263 million at the foreign box office. Combined, the film brought in over $400 million, so naturally a sequel was inevitable. With some extra cash to burn after the success of the first film, Carrie and her posse returned with Sex and the City 2 and a pricey $100 million price tag. The film flopped, not even making its budget back on the domestic take, but making up ground with $185.5 million from foreign theaters.So what are the chances of getting film #3?
Terry Gilliam Directing Arcade Fire Live Broadcast
Filed under: Music & Musicals, Fandom, Home Entertainment
As Montreal indie band Arcade Fire prepares for their big August 5th concert at Madison Square Garden, they've decided to let fans who don't live in NYC see the show as well. Everyone will be able to check out the complete concert via live stream at youtube.com/arcadefirevevo.
That's interesting news if you're a fan, but this isn't a music site. What ties it back in to Cinematical territory is news that the band has hired noted director and Monty Python member Terry Gilliam to direct the webcast. Gilliam, best known for Brazil and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen will bring his unique visual style to the concert -- something that should get even film fans who aren't Arcade Fire lovers to check out the event.
What might Gilliam -- known for his love of surreal images and wild camera angles -- bring to the show? No one knows at this point. I suspect it will be something unique and interesting that sets this concert apart from all the others we've seen while highlighting the band without upstaging them in the process.
What do you think? Does Gilliam's involvement make you curious enough to check out the show just to see what he comes up with? Hit the comments section and chime in.
Some Thoughts on the Trailer for 'The Town'
Watch Josh Hutcherson Fight Jocks in 'Spider-Man' Audition Tape
Put Down Your Pitchforks; Oliver Stone Apologizes
Exclusive: Poster Premiere for 'Down Terrace'
The 2010 Comic-Con Awards!
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