IFC has picked upMedicine for Melancholy for day-and-date distribution. It’ll be released sometime next year; in the meantime, it’ll play in competition at the impending Los Angeles Film Festival.
Paramount is getting sued by Mario Puzo’s son, based on allegations that he wasn’t paid proper royalties on a video game based on The Godfather. He’s trying to make the studio stick to contract they made with his father seven years before his death, which was in turn intended to provide reparations for Paramount having gyped him when first buying the Godfather rights.
Sienna Miller will play Maid Marion opposite Russell Crowe’s Robin Hood Sheriff in Nottingham. Sure, it’s an unnecessary retread of a beloved brand, but it should be a nice break for her after filming G.I. Joe, don’t you think?
UPDATE 4/22 9:57 AM: We’ve been asked to remove the photo of Dennis Quaid in his G.I. Joe costume which originally accompanied this post.
Is it just me, or does Dennis Quaid look completely out of place in his G.I. Joecostume? It appears that he’s unsure of himself, too. It’s like they took a photo of him while he was saying, “are you guys sure this looks cool?” Fortunately, he can now receive the answer: no, Dennis, it doesn’t. But it’s fine, because most of the internerds are too busy drooling over the Rachel Nichols “Scarlett” images to pay much attention.
Plus, the four shots of Quaid as “General Hawk” (none of which make him look any cooler than the one to the right), are, along with the rest of the ton of G.I. Joe cast photos, being taken down all over the place. But for now you can still find the pics, which include Quaid, Nichols, Channing Tatum (”Duke”), Karolina Korkova (”Cover Girl”), Marlon Wayans (”Ripcord”), Byung-hun Lee (”Storm Shadow”), Sienna Miller (”The Baroness”) and Ray Park (”Snake Eyes”) over at What Would Tyler Durden Do?
The site is claiming an exclusive on the pics, which may explain Paramount’s request of removal elsewhere, but something tells me they might just have been leaked. Check them out while you can, just in case.
Suddenly, G.I. Joe became the Summer 2009 movie to avoid — not intentionally, of course, but we all know Sienna Miller, like her ex- Jude Law, is a bit of a box office kiss of death. Yet, Paramount has cast her as “the female lead” anyway. Don’t think she’ll be playing good-girl “Scarlett”, either; Miller’s character is apparently Baroness, the black-leather-clad femme fatale who works for COBRA.
Two more high-profile films have been delayed thanks to the WGA strike. This time it’s Mira Nair’s Shantaram, which is being produced by and is to star Johnny Depp, and the next Rob Marshall musical, Nine, which is partially based on Fellini’s 8 1/2. These films join previously postponed Angels & Demons and Pinkville. At least strike talks are set to take place next week.
John Singleton will never get another shot at Oscar with this kind of thinking, but at least he’ll have the honor of giving us yet another alien-invades-a-small-town movie.
I may be the only one, but I am indeed looking forward to Final Destination 4, which is a little late in being the 3-D installment. Typically, and obviously, they make more sense as the third in a series. Whatever, as long as they have cooler kills than #3, and not just because they look neat with the technology. Yeah, I’m probably thinking too highly of the franchise. I don’t care.
If you’re in the habit of visiting websites, you’ve probably seen ads for Interview, Steve Buscemi’s remake of a Dutch film by the same name, which stars Sienna Miller and which opens in limited release this Friday. Buscemi’s Interview is the first in a series of three films (the others are to be directed by Stanley Tucci and John Turturro), in tribute to the director of the original Interview, Theo Van Gogh. In 2004, Van Gogh was murdered by a Muslim extremist, who was acting in response to Submission: Part One, a ten minute film about the oppression of women under Islam, made by Van Gogh in collaboration with Ayaan Hirsi Ali. That film is embedded above.
I haven’t seen Van Gogh’s Interview, but I’ve just returned from a press screening of Buscemi’s, and in terms of style, content, weight and intent, it’s about as far away from Submission as you can get. Van Gogh has become something of a martyr since his death; a famed free-speech advocate in life, his body was found with a 5-page “jihad manifesto” attached to his chest with a dagger. His murder has since been used by some members of the Dutch government, as supporting evidence in their quest to limit immigration.
Put simply: the idea that the best way to pay tribute to that guy is to have three American actors remake his films is somewhat baffling. And after having seen Interview … well … am I the only one struggling to see how the solipsistic fantasy that Buscemi has committed to celluloid could possibly be seen as a proper tribute to anything?