Movie news on your iPhone today!
Advertisement
Coverage of what is truly interesting in the film world

TOP STORY:

Hong Kong Erotica to Save 3D. Trade Roughage 01/26/09

Christopher Campbell
By Christopher Campbell posted 10 months ago
  • del.icio.us
  • Technorati
  • Reddit
  • Ma.gnolia
  • YahooMyWeb
  • Facebook
  • StumbleUpon
  • While many cinephiles were watching indie films at Sundance and celebrating the nominations of little-seen Oscar-hopefuls, regular moviegoers were buying tickets to Paul Blart: Mall Cop, which topped the box office for a second weekend in a row. With 10-day earnings at $65 million, the comedy has already outgrossed Best Picture shoo-in Slumdog Millionaire. Of course, nearly all major Oscar contenders did at least see a boost in box office following the announcement of nominees (Doubt being the exclusion).
  • Was anyone else watching the SAG Awards last night and wishing it would turn into a death match, or at least a debate? Well, Variety has a multitude of backstage quotes from actors from both sides of the infighting union. And of course there’s the onstage taboo-breaking prophecy of Tina Fey.
  • In an admitted attempt to battle piracy and boost the Hong Kong film industry, producer Stephen Shiu Jr. is making a 3D sequel to the 1991 erotic adventure movie Sex and Zen. Simply titled 3D Sex and Zen, it will apparently be the first 3D erotic film ever made. Perhaps this is just what digital 3D needs to get that much-needed rise in interest.
  • Universal has moved Sacha Baron Cohen’s Bruno from mid-May to mid-July, reportedly to fill a gap left by 2012, which was pushed back to November. Of course, it also won’t hurt Cohen to avoid getting hammered by Angels & Demons.
  • And for those of you who missed the additions to our Sundance deals chart, the films Spread, Moon and Art & Copy were all picked up for distribution over the weekend.

Oliver Stone Has 5 Months To Finish His Bush Movie

Karina Longworth
By Karina Longworth posted 1 year ago
  • del.icio.us
  • Technorati
  • Reddit
  • Ma.gnolia
  • YahooMyWeb
  • Facebook
  • StumbleUpon

That improbable release date quoted in the Entertainment Weekly story about W? Variety has confirmed it. Apparently, Lionsgate is all set to release Oliver Stone’s George W. Bush movie on October 17…even though it’s not even going to begin shooting until May 12. I’m sure it’s technically possible to finish casting, shoot, edit and promote an ensemble cast biopic about the president of the United States in five months (actually, I’m not sure, but I’ll give Stone the benefit of the doubt). I’m just not sure such a total rush job is really the best breeding ground for a great work of political criticism. Hope I’m wrong!

Brad and Jen Still Something We Need To Be Concerned With: Trade Roughage 04/01/08

Karina Longworth
By Karina Longworth posted 1 year ago
  • del.icio.us
  • Technorati
  • Reddit
  • Ma.gnolia
  • YahooMyWeb
  • Facebook
  • StumbleUpon
  • Are real celebrities now taking self-parody cues from an unusually trite episode of Entourage? The same morning that Paramount announces a major acquisition for producer Brad Pitt and the production company Pitt started with former wife Jennifer Aniston, Aniston announces that she’s starting her own 3206213_e97abbbc32_m-1.jpgproduction company! Through which she’s going to make movies  “about distinct characters that embody something relatable and relevant about human nature’s double-sided coin of vulnerability and mettle.” Anything you can do, I can do better! Even if you maybe married the homewrecker you knocked up whilst trying to rebuild New Orleans with your multi-culti band of orphans!
  • Richard Brenner, described as Toby Emmerich’s “right-hand man,” will stay on at the new New Line as president of production.
  • Variety has a raft of release dates for fall Oscar hopefuls, including Sam Mendes’ Revolutionary Road, David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Ron Howard’s adaptation of Frost/Nixon.

My Blueberry Nights Bumped from Valentine’s Day

Karina Longworth
By Karina Longworth posted 1 year ago
  • del.icio.us
  • Technorati
  • Reddit
  • Ma.gnolia
  • YahooMyWeb
  • Facebook
  • StumbleUpon

Via The Reeler comes news that Wong Kar Wai’s My Blueberry Nights, the Hong Kong auteur’s English language debut, which opened the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, has been bumped from its Valentine’s Day release date to early April. Release date delays of multiple months are rarely considered a positive sign––especially when we’re talking about a film that was mostly excoriated by the international press at the one and only film festival at which it screened––but in this case, I don’t know.

The Weinsteins haven’t started to promote Blueberry in earnest, so it’s not like they’re throwing away money already spent. There’s plenty of datey competition the first two weeks of February (although, it should be noted, nothing remotely arty or adult), with TWC’s own Diary of the Dead slotted in as Valentine’s counter-programming on the 15th. If nothing else, moving Blueberry to April gives the struggling Weinsteins time to support it without dividing their resources, which is what I blame for their inability to effectively platform either Control or I’m Not There.

But in that case, why not put it at the end of the month and try to relaunch it at Tribeca––a festival that, at least historically, LOVES throwing big, stupid premieres to launch star-studded product? Maybe this is actually a sign that Tribeca meant it when they said they were going to downsize and generally try to be less ridiculous. If so, good news all around!

Southland Tales has a release date!!!

Karina Longworth
By Karina Longworth posted 2 years ago
  • del.icio.us
  • Technorati
  • Reddit
  • Ma.gnolia
  • YahooMyWeb
  • Facebook
  • StumbleUpon

It’s the news Richard Kelly geeks have been waiting 15 months for: Southland Tales, the long-awaited film from the Donnie Darko auteur, has been given a release date. According to indieWIRE, Sony, Destination Films and Samuel Goldwyn are partnering to put the film in U.S. theaters on November 9th. November and December are usually reserved for “prestige” releases. Could this mean that a year and quarter worth of editing has somehow managed to transform Southland from Cannes pariah to possible awards contender? We can’t wait to find out.

More on Southland Tales:

Southland Tales still in limbo

Southland Tales: What’s The Deal?

The Return of The Western: Trade Roughage 07/10/07

Karina Longworth
By Karina Longworth posted 2 years ago
  • del.icio.us
  • Technorati
  • Reddit
  • Ma.gnolia
  • YahooMyWeb
  • Facebook
  • StumbleUpon

Rare is the year that a studio moves up a release date, in order to ensure that their film is “the first Western in the marketplace.” But such is the case this fall, as Lionsgate has decided to open James Mangold’s 3:10 to Yuma a month ahead of schedule, in order to get a jump on the competition (ie: The Coen Brothers’ No Country For Old Men, and The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, starring Brad Pitt). But while Lionsgate might have dodged their genre competition, September’s an increibly crowded month for “prestige” releases; still, 3:10’s biggest competition on that particular weekend will be hardly-fearsome The Nanny Diaries.

Spike Lee held another press conference in Italy yesterday, in which he wowed the local journalists with his usual “don’t call me mainstream, I’m just here to scout locations for my $45 million film” bon mots. Amongst other revelations, Lee intimated that recent success has hardly made his life in Hollywood any easier. “My last feature film, Inside Man, was my most successful so far, and I was naive enough to think that that meant I could go from there and make any film I wanted to make. But I was very, very wrong about that.”

Apparently attempting to replicate the, um, success of Bewitched, Nicole Kidman will produce and star in a wacky romantic comedy called Monte Carlo.