The A.V. Club - Film

Film: Newswire: Billy Bob Thornton is making a movie about Angelina Jolie, sort of

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 16:57:00 -0600

Among the many, many topics that one should refrain from bringing up to Billy Bob Thornton in an interview, unless they want to become part of a meme, his brief, bizarre marriage to Angeline Jolie ranks up there with what sort of music he listened to as a kid or whether he thinks it is, indeed, nice weather we’re having. But it turns out that Thornton’s frequent stonewalling on the subject—interrupted by the occasional jarring revelation—may be because he’s been hoarding all the good stuff for himself: Variety reports that Thornton’s next directorial effort ...

Film: Newswire: Dan Aykroyd now saying he'll just recast Bill Murray's part in Ghostbusters 3

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:49:00 -0600

The spring of 2012 approaches and with it the promise, after months of seeding with rumors and watering with anguished tears and vodka, that Ghostbusters 3 will finally take root, sprouting a whole new branch of the franchise that you can then jab into your eye. And as it’s been at least a few months since Dan Aykroyd has insisted that Ghostbusters 3 is happening and offered a dismaying glimpse into his cavalier attitude about it, Dan Aykroyd dropped by Empire to do just that, answering a few questions about the project—and, as always, creating a dozen more ...

Film: Newswire: Denzel Washington may take a break from being an agent or cop or something to play Thelonious Monk

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 13:54:00 -0600

Perhaps sensing that his career choices of late had lapsed into self-parody, Denzel Washington has begun considering projects that could find him briefly stepping away from being an agent or cop or something who plays by his own rules and butts heads with a younger guy. For starters, there’s the upcoming Robert Zemeckis drama Flight, in which Washington puts on a different kind of uniform and breaks some different kinds of rules by playing a Sully-like hero pilot who's revealed to also have a drinking problem. Now he tells The Observer—shortly after insisting that he would be ...

Film: Newswire: Ben Stiller hires people who are not Ben Stiller to help Ben Stiller remake The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 13:25:00 -0600

Ben Stiller is making some serious progress on his remake of 1947’s The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty—with director Ben Stiller workshopping daily with star Ben Stiller, giving him honest advice, Stiller to Stiller, and offering the sort of constructive criticism that Ben Stiller knows will get the best performance out of Ben Stiller. But as there are limits even to the capacity of Stiller, Ben Stiller has hired some non-Ben Stillers to join the story of a nebbishy man who slips into a fantasy life where he can do anything, and also co-star in The Secret Life ...

Film: Newswire: Rambo 5 might be happening after all

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 12:42:00 -0600

In 2010, Sylvester Stallone said that he was “99 percent sure” that he was done hiding the graying Rambo franchise behind an increasingly musty headband of contrived mercenary subplots, despite rumors that Rambo might once again be called from retirement to dispense mumbly justice to human traffickers or even genetically engineered mutants. But as recent protests have shown us, we are ruled by the 1 percent, and thus Rambo 5 is still apparently a possibility—at least, according to self-pitying Conan The Barbarian writer Sean Hood, who recently tweeted that he’s working on a Rambo 5 screenplay that is ...

Film: Newswire: Saoirse Ronan to play non-Snow White in Disney's Snow White movie that isn't a Snow White movie, it swears

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 11:45:00 -0600

The great Snow White war of 2012 has yet to begin, but it already claimed its first casualty (besides all of those production assistants that Julia Roberts strangled for kicks): Back in August, Disney officially modified its long-gestating Snow And The Seven—a kung fu-inflected version of the tale in which the dwarfs were also Shaolin monks—into the less-obvious Order Of The Seven, dropping the dwarfs entirely and remaking it as a standalone action film about an Englishwoman in 19th-century Hong Kong who seeks the protection of a group of seven warriors turned outlaws. (A group that also bears ...

Film: Newswire: The BAFTA Awards give everything to The Artist, proving that British people are aware it's a silent film

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 10:11:00 -0600

Still mortified by the actions of certain Liverpool ruffians, the BAFTA Awards went out of their way to celebrate The Artist last night, allowing the film to sweep more than half of the dozen categories in which it was nominated, even when it faced exceedingly British competitors such as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The Iron Lady. Through pursed lips and punctuated by plenty of embarrassed harrumphing, the red-faced presenters awarded Michel Hazanavicius’ ode to silent films best picture, director, actor, screenplay, music, cinematography, and costume design—thus proving that one is well aware that The Artist is a silent ...

Film: Newswire: Weekend Box Office: Valentine's Day belongs to the hunks

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 09:05:00 -0600

Apparently, mid-February is the new summer. There was enough audience to go around for all four of the week’s top openers, despite a spate of negative reviews for each of them. Having already coughed up $30.5 million to boost the opening weekend of his last big romantic drama, the Nicholas Sparks adaptation Dear John, viewers were powerless to resist the leaden charms of Channing “The Big Brisket” Tatum in The Vow, as he wrapped his beefy arms around Rachel McAdams and $41.7 million. And with a modest $30 million budget, massive profits are assured, especially in the ...

Film: Inventory: Landmark films: 13 newly constructed buildings prominently featured in film

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

1. Burj Khalifa (built in 2010), Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol (2011) Big, ambitious buildings have a way of capturing the world’s attention, especially in Hollywood, where a cool new one can provide the perfect backdrop for a movie—giving the film a timely hook and the building a profile boost, especially if the building is only a few years old. The Mission: Impossible films rely on exotic destinations, perhaps none more so than Ghost Protocol, which shifts from Budapest to Moscow to Dubai to Mumbai to, um, Seattle. The third leg of that journey is basically just an excuse ...

Film: Newswire: Syfy-caliber movie Legion to become actual Syfy series

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:52:00 -0600

Finding inspiration, like so many networks seem to be doing these days, in its Netflix queue, Syfy has begun developing a TV adaptation of 2010’s Legion—a series that would potentially join the channel’s adaptation of The Adjustment Bureau, as well as the dozen other movie-to-TV shows pitched this development season that were most recently compiled here, because we’re tired of digging up the links to all of them over and over again. So just go look at that list. According to Deadline, Legion’s writer-director Scott Stewart is set to direct and executive produce the small-screen ...

Film: Newswire: Yet another version of Beauty And The Beast in the works

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:52:00 -0600

Because the best stories are those that can be told again and again, preferably in competing versions and all at once, Beauty And The Beast is making inroads toward becoming the next Snow White in terms of fairy tales that producers believe in their heart can sustain multiple simultaneous updates, if only they clap loudly enough. Joining that growing chorus today is Christophe Gans, with the Silent Hill director now shopping his own version of the story with Vincent Cassel as the Beast and Lea Seydoux as the woman who loves him. Did Gans have an appropriately grandiose statement to ...

Film: Newswire: New version of Rebecca to be haunted by the memory of Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:18:00 -0600

Alfred Hitchcock won his only Best Picture Oscar for 1940’s Rebecca, suggesting that anyone who would attempt their own adaptation of Daphne du Marier’s novel—as DreamWorks and Working Title are now planning—would be haunted by the lingering spirit of their predecessor, with everyone cruelly comparing this would-be replacement to the original Rebecca and forever finding it wanting. And then cinephilia's various housekeepers, who have preserved Hitchcock's room in their hearts just as he left it, would encourage this new film to commit suicide, and other referential metaphors. But this younger, updated version of Rebecca ...

Film: Movie Review: The Vow

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:40:00 -0600

If you’re going to make an unapologetically cheesy romantic melodrama, why not cast Channing Tatum as the male lead? A former model, dancer, and stripper before he transitioned into acting, Tatum has the good looks and cut-granite physique of the sort of men encountered most often in daydreams, and the puppy-dog earnestness of a boyfriend who secretly worries he isn’t worth your time. The looks come from nature. The latter quality comes from Tatum’s acting, which always seems to be striving not to disappoint. He may not be a natural actor, but he’s trying so hard ...

Film: Newswire: George Lucas says Han never shot first, you were just confused

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:29:00 -0600

Last month George Lucas, emboldened by his impending retirement from the business of blockbusters, opened up about his weariness with the complaints of Star Wars fans who have long griped about his many changes to the saga over the years—for instance, making it so that Han shoots first, to correct what was once a glaring “violation of his own naïve style.” And while that’s more explanation than George Lucas believes you deserve—and it’s already out there for public consumption, and everyone is now familiar with it—there is, of course, no reason why that explanation ...

Film: Newswire: Here's who's been cast so far in Jason Reitman's "all-black Reservoir Dogs" reading

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:08:00 -0600

Director Jason Reitman has been entertaining audiences with movies that are not his own for a while now, gathering diverse and inspired groups of actors for live readings of films such as The Breakfast Club, The Princess Bride, and The Apartment that you could have seen if only you lived in Los Angeles and weren’t broke. His next one-night-only, already-sold-out performance on February 16 is his most dramatic reinterpretation yet: Reitman will take the (fittingly, very talky) script for Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs and completely overhaul the cast with all black actors, a decision that he and co-curator ...

Film: Great Job, Internet!: Jean-Ralphio is the new Spider-Man; Entertainment 720 now superhero base of operations

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:05:00 -0600

The trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man hit the Internet recently, and it was only a matter of time before someone spliced in footage of Jean-Ralphio instead of Andrew Garfield. (And by "a matter of time," I mean "I'm extremely grateful College Humor made the time.") I mean, the hair's pretty much the same, and Spider-Man does look good getting run over by a Lexus while daggering Donna on the dance floor. With great power comes great responsibility, and a preowned Acura Legend. Deleted scenes include Peter Parker applying for a job as an accountant and showing himself the ...

Film: Newswire: And lo, Legendary Pictures did cast its 3-D Paradise Lost movie into the abyss

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:30:00 -0600

As foretold by the oracle God and Variety, Legendary Pictures has scrapped all plans to adapt John Milton’s epic 17th-century poem Paradise Lost into a 3-D movie about angels and demons engaged in “aerial warfare,” hurling the project headlong flaming from the ethereal sky into eternal darkness, which would have looked super cool when rendered with a bunch of CGI volcanoes and stuff. The Alex Proyas-directed film had previously been banished to development Purgatory for the sin of costing a shitload of money, and although Proyas offered repentance and bargained with the devil (the metaphorical one, not the Bradley ...

Film: Newswire: The addition of Billy Connolly finally brings an end to Hobbit casting news

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:41:00 -0600

It has been a long and unexpected journey fraught with assorted perils and YouTube tributes set to Enya songs, but at last Peter Jackson’s quest is at an end: With the addition of Billy Connolly, the director has announced that he has finally finished casting for The Hobbit, bringing to a close a far-reaching search that most people thought was over, like, months ago. But anyway, now it definitely is, with Connolly—the man who makes Scottish people laugh and briefly pause from kicking each other’s teeth in—joining the sprawling Hobbit ensemble as Dain Ironfoot, dwarf warrior ...

Film: Primer: Robert Bresson

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:00:00 -0600

Primer is The A.V. Club’s ongoing series of beginners’ guides to pop culture’s most notable subjects: filmmakers, music styles, literary genres, and whatever else interests us—and hopefully you. This installment: the work of French filmmaker Robert Bresson. Robert Bresson 101 The films of Robert Bresson are daunting, no doubt. His standing as one of cinema’s “patron saints” marks his work as genuinely intimidating. “Bluntly put,” J. Hoberman wrote in Village Voice, “To not get Bresson is to not get the idea of motion pictures—it’s to have missed that train the Lumiére brothers ...

Film: Newswire: Today in movies not starring Jessica Chastain: Naomi Watts, not Jessica Chastain, will play Princess Diana

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 11:34:00 -0600

In an increasingly rare instance of a role not going to Jessica Chastain, Deadline reports that Naomi Watts has taken the lead in the Princess Diana movie Caught In Flight, a part which had initially been attached to Chastain in accordance with modern American movie regulations. Instead, Watts will play the Princess of Wales during the last two years of her life, a time during which she, according to the official description, found “true personal happiness for the first time” until our society’s relentless need to gawk at and criticize that personal happiness ended in her in death. Director ...