The Screengrab : katie holmes

Morning Deal Report: Katie Holmes in the Dark

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 07 May 2009 14:30:00 GMT

Guillermo del Toro and Matthew Robbins have scripted the thriller Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, a thriller that will star Katie Holmes. The movie “is based on a 1973 ABC telepic about a young girl who moves in with her father and his girlfriend and discovers they are sharing the house with devilish creatures,” Variety reports.

The Irishmen are coming! “Ray Stevenson, Christopher Walken and Val Kilmer will play the leads in The Irishman, a crime story that Jonathan Hensleigh will direct,” per The Hollywood Reporter. Stevenson will play Danny Greene, “a violent Irish-American gangster who competed with the Italian mob in 1970s Cleveland and ended up provoking a countrywide turf war that crippled the mafia. Walken will play the loan shark and nightclub owner Shondor Birns, and Kilmer is a Cleveland police detective who befriends Greene.”

Robert De Niro and Edward Norton will reunite for the psychological thriller Stone. “Story centers on a correctional officer (De Niro) who is seduced by the wife of a convicted arsonist (Norton) up for parole.” De Niro and Norton previously appeared together in The Score.

Getting Darrined: When the Sequel Doesn’t Need You

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 19:30:00 GMT

Out on the promotion trail for Fighting, Terrence Howard is still miffed about being replaced by Don Cheadle in Iron Man 2. “‘It was a very, very bad choice,’ fumed Howard, who played Iron Man's Army buddy Lt. Col. James "Rhodey" Rhodes in the first film, to Parade magazine about Marvel Studios' decision to reboot the part with Don Cheadle in the role. ‘You don't make $800 million and then try and shake everyone down. That's not nice,’ he said to MTV News, exaggerating the film's worldwide box-office gross by a mere $200 million.”

As the L.A. Times reports, however, Howard is hardly the first actor to get the “don’t call us, we’ll call you” treatment when sequel time rolls around. Rachel Abramowitz has even come up with a name for it – getting Darrined, as in Dick Sargent replacing Dick York as Samantha’s husband on Bewitched. “Or perhaps being ‘Baldwinized’ is a better term, for Alec Baldwin, who starred as Jack Ryan in the movie of Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October but was replaced by the far more popular Harrison Ford for the next two installments.” (OK, but then what do we call it when Ben Affleck replaces Harrison Ford in the same series? Besides a terrible, terrible idea?)

One explanation for Darrenization is simple penny-pinching; in Howard’s case, he was actually the highest-paid actor in the original Iron Man and was asked to take a significant pay cut for the follow-up. Howard wasn’t having it, and “it didn't help that, as some critics pointed out, Howard struggled to hold his own against the razor-sharp comedic stylings of Robert Downey Jr., who played Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man.” Nobody seemed to miss Katie Holmes in The Dark Knight, in which she was replaced by Maggie Gyllenhaal, but then again, Batman himself has been recast so many times, there’s probably not much reason to expect a consistent love interest.

The all-time greatest bit of sequel recasting isn’t even mentioned in the Times article. Of course I’m referring to the third Smokey and the Bandit movie, which was originally titled Smokey IS the Bandit and was allegedly shot with Jackie Gleason playing both roles – his traditional part as Sheriff Buford T. Justice as well as the one vacated by Burt Reynolds when he declined to play the Bandit a third time. I say “allegedly” because no footage or stills of Gleason in Bandit drag have ever surfaced, but the story is oft repeated that this version was screened for test audiences (including by Leonard Maltin in his movie guide). In any case, the finished Smokey and the Bandit 3 sees Jerry Reed taking over the driver’s seat for Reynolds, who does provide a brief cameo as the Bandit. Either way, the movie was a flop. Some roles simply weren’t meant to be recast.

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Morning Deal Report: Vegan Psychic Power Edition

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 16:00:00 GMT

Blart rules! Well, he rules the box office, anyway, as Paul Blart: Mall Cop topped the charts over the MLK holiday weekend with a $39 million haul. I just report the stuff, people! I accept no blame! Gran Torino slipped to second place with $26.2 million, for a gran total of $77.2 million. Appropriately enough, third place went to My Bloody Valentine 3D, with $24.2 million, followed closely by Notorious with $24 million.

Brandon Routh has signed up for another comic book adapation, but he can leave his cape at home this time. He has joined the cast of “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Edgar Wright's adaptation of the cult favorite Oni Press graphic novels for Universal," per The Hollywood Reporter. "Pilgrim centers on young slacker Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera), who meets the woman of his dreams (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) but finds he can win her heart only by battling and defeating her seven evil ex-boyfriends.” Routh is evil boyfriend number three, “a rocker with vegan psychic powers.” Hmm, maybe he does wear a cape after all.

Kevin Kline, Paul Dano, Katie Holmes and John C. Reilly are set to star in The Extra Man," a comedy that will begin production in February in New York,” Variety reports. “Kline plays a failed playwright who works as an escort for rich widows on the Upper East Side. He develops a mentor-student relationship with a troubled aspiring playwright (Dano).”

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Morning Deal Report: Paul Schrader Goes Bollywood

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:30:00 GMT

“Saying he feels the U.S. film market has become ‘barren,’ the writer of classics Taxi Driver and Raging Bull is packing his bags for Mumbai to write and direct the Bollywood action movie Extreme City,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. Paul Schrader is working on the script for this “cross-cultural tale that will center on an American man who travels to India to help resolve a kidnapping case for his father-in-law, only to get caught up in a gangster plot. There likely will be some musical numbers, and dialogue will be spoken in English and Hindi.” Call me crazy, but I’m intrigued.

Graphic novelist Joann Sfar will direct Serge Gainsbourg (vie heroique) for Universal – the first French-language picture in the studio’s history. Per Variety, the biopic of the French icon will follow Gainsbourg “from his youth growing up in 1940s Nazi-occupied Paris, when he was called Lucien Ginsberg, through to his transformation into the hard-living showman. He died in 1991 at age 62.” French model Laetitia Casta (pictured here) will play Brigitte Bardot.

File this one under K for “kill me now”: Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are reportedly contemplating a remake of Last Tango in Paris. Maybe it’s not time to panic quite yet, however – according to Now magazine, “Tom’s looking for something that’s cutting edge and sexy, but also accessible. He’s thinking along the lines of Basic Instinct – a movie that has a mainstream plot, but also some intense sex stuff.” Pass the butter, please.

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Morning Deal Report: How Tom Cruise Became Angelina Jolie

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 15:00:00 GMT

The espionage thriller Edwin A. Salt is getting more than a name change – it’s about to undergo gender reassignment surgery. Yes, it only took a dash of that old Hollywood magic to transform Tom Cruise into Angelina Jolie. (Do Katie Holmes and Brad Pitt know about this? And will there be camera crews on hand when they find out?) Cruise was originally attached to the project, which Philip Noyce will direct for Columbia Pictures, but according to Variety, Edwin “will be redrafted by screenwriter Kurt Wimmer as a star vehicle for Angelina Jolie.” She’ll play the title character (Edwina Salt?) – “a CIA officer who's accused by a defector of being a Russian sleeper spy and must elude capture long enough to establish her innocence.” Rumor has it Cruise lost interest when they wouldn’t let him wear his fat suit.

Cloverfield honcho J.J. Abrams is the new Irwin Allen. Abrams is teaming with original Omen screenwriter David Seltzer for a “disaster flick for Universal involving an earthquake,” says the Hollywood Reporter, which is quick to note that the project will not actually be a remake of the 1974 Earthquake. No word yet on whether the Abrams version will be released in Sensurround.

The young adult novel series Maximum Ride is coming to the big screen. As Variety explains it, “protags are six children who have been genetically altered to be 98% human and 2% bird. The kids, who are bred to fly, escape a lab-rat existence and are then pursued by their scientist creators, who send a pack of part-human part-wolves called Erasers to hunt them down.” Those kids live in my neighborhood and I gotta tell ya, they made a real mess of my windshield.

Related:
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Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Undies

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:15:00 GMT

What, you’ve got something better to do on a Friday afternoon than look at Maggie Gyllenhaal in her underwear? Fine, you continue with your little games of Scrabulous. We’ll be over here checking out these Agent Provocateur ads. (We’re not up on the latest fashions, but we gather Agent Provocateur is the 21st century hipster’s Victoria’s Secret.) Remember, this is the blog that brought you the post Maggie Gyllenhaal Lesbian Orgy, so it’s not like we’re above this sort of thing.

Anyway, Ms. Gyllenhaal, who replaces the Katie Holmes-o-Tron 3000 as Bruce Wayne’s love interest in The Dark Knight, surprised herself with her willingness to drop trou so soon after giving birth. “I found myself, six months after having a baby, in my underwear, getting my picture taken,” Gyllenhaal told USA Today. “How did I get here?...It was like playing a character. They're sexy, but they also have a little bit of irony in them. I love that.” Yes, irony. We were noticing that.

The campaign made for at least one uncomfortable moment for brother Jake Gyllenhaal. “I didn't know how scrutinized I'd be. My brother called me and said, 'I'm in Heathrow, and there's a 12-foot picture of you upside down in a negligee.' People are really rough on you when you do things like that. But I had a good time.” Well, that’s the important thing.

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DVD Digest for May 13, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 13 May 2008 14:00:00 GMT

This week: two new Criterion DVDs, the comeback effort of a master filmmaker, and the Chairman of the Board all compete for your DVD dollar. Who will win? Why, DVD buyers, of course!

DVD of the Week: For sheer comprehensiveness, nothing can touch Warner’s 22-film, 5-box-set tribute to the one and only Frank Sinatra. For all of Sinatra’s success as a recording artist, he was also a talented actor, given the right role, and this week sees the release of a number of his finest films. Among these are his Oscar-nominated performance in Otto Preminger’s The Man With the Golden Arm and Vincente Minnelli’s Some Came Running, both of which are included in the Frank Sinatra: The Golden Years box set. But if you prefer Sinatra the fresh-faced young crooner, check out Frank Sinatra: The Early Years, which includes such early-career titles as Step Lively, It Happened in Brooklyn, and The Kissing Bandit. Or see Sinatra match his pipes with Gene Kelly’s nimble feet in The Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly Collection, comprised of the classic musicals On the Town, Take Me Out to the Ballgame, and Anchors Aweigh. And if special features are your thing, there’s always The Rat Pack Ultimate Collector’s Edition, which finds the Chairman at his least inspired vehicles but leaves plenty of room for gawking at swingin’ celebrities of yore. Heck, Warner is even releasing 1993’s miniseries Sinatra on DVD this week, in case you want your Sinatra without all that Sinatra. All that’s missing is Sinatra’s two most acclaimed films, The Manchurian Candidate and From Here to Eternity. But I’m guessing you already own those, right?

As previously mentioned, this week also brings the release of two brand-spankin' new Criterions, Louis Malle’s The Lovers and The Fire Within. Also of note in classics on DVD: The Big Trail: Fox Grandeur Special Edition; the Godard double-feature of La Chinoise (Kino) and Le Gai Savoir; a new edition of Anthony Mann’s Man of the West (Fox); Saturday Night Live: The Complete Third Season (Universal); and the Fox Western Classics Collection, which includes the new-to-DVD titles Garden of Evil, Rawhide, and The Gunfighter. And in shameless cash-in news, this week brings new DVDs of all three Indiana Jones films, with a few added extra features so that buyers won’t feel completely ripped off.

In more recent films, today brings the release of Francis Ford Coppola’s Youth Without Youth (Sony, also Blu-Ray), his first official directorial effort in a decade. The film was generally regarded as a critical and popular disaster, but I found it fascinating- flawed to be sure, but intriguingly so- and I believe it’ll finally be appreciated for what it is on DVD. Also this week: Diane Lane in Untraceable (Sony, also Blu-Ray); Diane Keaton, Katie Holmes and Queen Latifah in Mad Money (Anchor Bay); and the French horror film Frontier(s) (Lionsgate). The other major new release this week is the DVD debut of The Animation Show 3 (Paramount), last year’s touring program of animated shorts presented by Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt. The DVD includes Hertzfeldt’s latest masterpiece Everything will be OK, as well as sixteen other shorts, some of which have been added especially for the DVD release.

This week’s Blu-Ray only releases are: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (Fox); Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (Fox); Mrs. Doubtfire (Fox); and just in time for this weekend’s new blockbuster, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Which brings me to this week’s Huddleston corner, in which we sigh over the lonely release of Warner’s One Missed Call on HD-DVD. I mean really, guys- you’re just kidding around now, right?

DVD Digest for March 18, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:00:00 GMT

This week, a memorable trio of new Criterions shares a release date with three of the most critically lambasted films of 2007. Who will prevail?

DVD of the Week: In the past decade, the suburban-dysfunction genre has had a lot to answer for, not least the seemingly endless string of glib American Beauty clones full of easy laughs and cheap stabs at profundity. But The Ice Storm shouldn't be held accountable for this- an uncommonly sensitive take on similar material, Ang Lee's adaptation of Rick Moody's novel ventures into uncomfortable corners of the bourgeois lifestyle without softening them with irony. Lee's film also boasted a cast that if anything is more impressive now than it was then, given the subsequent careers of then-newcomers Tobey Maguire and Katie Holmes, as well as former child stars Elijah Wood and Christina Ricci. Criterion's new two-disc set features commentary from Lee and writer/producer James Schamus, interviews with Moody and many of the film's stars, and much more, plus it promises to make Frederick Elmes' cold, wet cinematography look particularly gorgeous. It's the perfect opportunity to revisit a film that warrants a second look.

Also this week, Criterion brings us two films that are new to DVD, Alberto Lattuada's Mafioso and Hiroshi Teshigahara's documentary Antonio Gaudi. Not having seen either of these films I can't pass judgment on them, but I'm glad Criterion has seen fit to give them the best treatment possible, particularly Teshigahara's film, the latest effort on their part to celebrate his often-overlooked career.

Recent releases coming to DVD include: Joe Wright's Oscar-nominated Atonement (Universal), the kid-friendly princess comedy Enchanted (Disney, also Blu-Ray), the surprisingly good I Am Legend (Warner, also Blu-Ray), Fox's failed attempt at a Potter-like franchise The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising, and the aforementioned trio of critically-drubbed films, Love in the Time of Cholera (New Line), Revolver (Sony), and Southland Tales.

New TV on DVD includes Volume 1 of the 2007 reboot of The Bionic Woman (Universal) and Season 8 of Married... with Children (Sony). That's a strange juxtaposition of flashy action and soundstage-bound low comedy, but then when it comes to television, you can't have one without the other.

Also of note is MGM's trio of new DVD editions of baseball-themed movies to get viewers geared up for Opening Day: Bull Durham, Eight Men Out, and Pride of the Yankees. Indeed, these new editions appear to be geared more toward baseball fans than movie lovers, as they're chock full of baseball-themed extras, particularly the Curt Schilling-heavy Pride of the Yankees platter.

Finally, we bring you yet another edition of the ever popular Huddleston Corner. This week, we're offering shout-outs to two new HD-DVD releases, Atonement (Universal) and Justice League: The New Frontier (Warner). However, Mr. Huddleston would like to inform you that he doesn't know how many more condolences he has left in him, and he hopes that the bums companies who are still stuck on HD-DVD will get their acts together soon.

Citizen Cruise

Phil Nugent — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 21:00:00 GMT

In her final, book-length interview with Francis Davis, the late film critic Pauline Kael lamented that entertainment reporters were always wrting about John Travolta as if he were stupid. When Davis suggested that this might have something to do with Travolta's devotion to Scientology, Kael said that nobody seemed to have the same problem with Tom Cruise. That was then and this is now, and the furor over Andrew Morton's forthcoming unauthorized biography of the brainmaster behind Days of Thunder is shaping up to be all about the Scientology association that has done some much in recent years to type Cruise as a towering weirdo in the public eye and may be on the verge of derailing his career. Once upon a time, gossipy speculation about Cruise (and threats from his lawyers regarding same) tended to be all about his sexuality. Now they tend to be about whether it's true that he is the "defacto second-in-charge" of the "religion" and whether his choice of Katie Holmes to be his zombie bride (over such proposed candidates as Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Alba, and Kate Bosworth) was the result of internal negotiations with his Scientologist brethren.

Morton, who made his name serving as confidante and tell-all author to then-Princess Diana (producing a book that became a bargaining chip in the public relations war surrounding the royal divorce) and Monica Lewinsky; he's also written "unauthorized" bios about Madonna and the Beckhams, and reportedly claims that Cruise's current to-do list includes a high-pressure campaign to bring David Beckham to Scientology. He also claims that Nicole Kidman has kept mum about the church since her divorce from Cruise for fear that she would be prevented from seeing the two children she and Cruise adopted together. For his own part, there have been reports that Morton himself has been keeping a low profile for fear of violent reprisals from the Scientology Mafia. Cruise's attorneys have poo-poohed such talk and concentrated on making with the legal threats against the book's publisher, St. Martin's Press. As for Cruise himself, his lawyer Bertram Fields will say only that "He has no intention of reading it." It would seem to be implicit in this statement that for Cruise to pass up a chance to read about himself is no small gesture.