News from Get The Big Picture

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6 September 2008 7:21 AM, PDT

I'm certainly not the first to say it and I know I won't be the last: Damn...Summer Glau is hot.

The 27-year-old Texan first caught our eye in Firefly, which naturally led to Serenity, which probably had something or other to do with landing a gig on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Glau plays the terminatrix Cameron (gee, I wonder where that name came from...) and season two kicks off Monday night on Fox.

Even though we don't cover TV as a general rule, a couple of weeks ago, we shared some posters from Gossip Girl, so it's only fair to move the spotlight to another network now, right?  I mean...look at her. Can you blame us?

Summer Glau: Reason number four we should bring back Battle of the Network Stars.

Colin Boyd

6 September 2008 4:28 AM, PDT

The Hollywood Reporter announced that Denzel Washington will team with Allen and Albert Hughes (Dead Presidents) for a futuristic drama called The Book of Eli. Denzel will play a lone hero who tries to save what's left of civilization after it becomes a wasteland in the near future.

Think I Am Legend without a different kind of antidote, I guess.

Denzel will co-produce the film with Alcon Entertainment, a division of Warner Bros. "This is an epic tale, a thriller set in a future uninviting yet hopeful, and its hero could not be batter [sic] suited to Denzel Washington," said Alcon brass in a statement. "The Hughes brothers will bring a bold, contemporary edge to the story and we're excited to have this be our next film."

Colin Boyd

6 September 2008 1:10 AM, PDT

Here's a pretty significant foundation for a movie disguised as political news: The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that Ohio may lose a $100 million film production to neighboring Michigan if certain incentives aren't met to keep the film in the Buckeye state. Incentives are a big deal these days; just ask Jon Favreau, who wants California to remain competitive with other states by offering studios tax breaks to shoot more in the movie capital of the world. Seems strange, but when you consider that more and more domestic and international locations are now being used instead of California, Favreau has a point.

So, too, does Ivan Schwarz of the Greater Cleveland Film Commission, who finds himself in a fight to keep a major motion picture out of Michigan, which has passed incentives - the largest in the country, in fact, at a 40% rebate.

Here's the movie: Torso, based on Cleveland's unsolved

Colin Boyd

5 September 2008 11:59 PM, PDT

Undeniably, this is big news. Not because we think it could save a franchise that got off track the last time around but simply because it's improbably that, ten years after they started, Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire would want to return to Spider-Man.

Apparently, that's the deal, or so says Nikki Finke. Over at Deadline Hollywood, Finke says Sony has the go-ahead from both actor and director for Spider-Man 4, and Sony doesn't want to recast Mary Jane, even though...well...let's just say Kirsten Dunst doesn't exactly make or break this movie.

The other big news is that Sony may want Spidey 4 and 5 shot back-to-back. I would have to believe five would be it for the current incarnation of Peter Parker. Raimi is actively pursuing other things at this point and by the time a fifth movie is released, Maguire will be closing in on 40. No foolin'. Spider-Man 4

Colin Boyd

5 September 2008 10:09 PM, PDT

You'll never catch me wavering on my definition of what's needed for a good movie. The first thing, the most important thing, is a good screenplay. The second thing is good performances. Together, they can cover up a whole lot of problems. So when I read in The Hollywood Reporter that the crime thrilla Bone Deep will star Paul Walker and Hayden Christensen, my first thought was, "Jesus, they better have a really good script."

The pair of actors, neither of whom will soon be mistaken for Olivier, join a cast that already includes Matt Dillon, playing "a hard-boiled detective" and Chris Brown, T.I. and Idris Elba. Walker will play the leader of a group bank robbers whose $20 million get-rich scheme is foiled by Dillon and a wet-behind-the-ears sleuth played by Christensen.

Bone Deep was co-written by its director, John Luessenhop, and is currently in pre-production.

Colin Boyd

5 September 2008 8:57 PM, PDT

It was indeed sad to hear that both Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes had passed away so suddenly and within 36 hours of each other. Then I learned, as many others did, that they're both in Soul Men, which opens this November.

The title is a tip of that to the song "Soul Man," of course, but how many people knew that's actually an Isaac Hayes tune? Sam & Dave performed it back in the 1960s, though to the majority of us, the version recorded by The Blues Brothers is the one stuck in our heads from time to time.

Making it all the more bittersweet is that the movie is about a pair of singers who reunite 20 years after their last performance to honor the memory of their former bandleader, who has just passed away.

There's a trailer for the film now, which co-stars Samuel L. Jackson and is directed by Spike's cousin,

Colin Boyd

5 September 2008 5:46 PM, PDT

The career restructuring of Tom Cruise will continue, whether you like it or not. Cinema Blend is reporting today that they've received word from a well-placed source that DreamWorks is considering casting Tom as the villain in 2010's Shrek Goes Fourth.

I can only imagine that the studio was over the moon with his cameo in Tropic Thunder, and they might even be speculating that Cruise's career may be in full rebound mode in a couple of years. It is also believed that Shrek 4 director Mike Mitchell is something of a Cruise fan, which couldn't hurt. Expect Shrek Goes Fourth to be an origin story, of sorts, explaining how he wound up in the swamp in the first place.

My guess is he used to live somewhere much nicer until he started making movies like The Love Guru.

Colin Boyd

5 September 2008 2:44 PM, PDT

Bangkok Dangerous

Starring Nicolas Cage and Shahkrit Yamnarm

Directed by Danny and Oxide Pang

Rated R

You hear all the time that sex and violence in movies and television has desensitized our society, and dangerously so. We're warned about letting our children play Grand Theft Auto, meanwhile their grandparents sang along as Johnny Cash shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. Sorry, but I don't see much difference.

Sex and violence is around us all the time and it always has been, intertwined in a way that it probably shouldn't be. Of course, Jack the Ripper never downloaded porn or watched a slasher movie, so what set him off?

On the surface, Bangkok Dangerous brings to mind those images of sex and violence, not separate but rushing together. Bangkok, as you probably know, has one of the world's most liberal sex trades - you want it, you got it.

Colin Boyd

5 September 2008 1:40 PM, PDT

The Toronto Film Festival has begun, and that means big stars in huge press conferences. Among them is Gerard Butler, who was fielding questions about his new flick, the Guy Ritchie caper RocknRolla.

Of course, he wasn't just answering questions about that film. Superhero Hype! asked if Butler has been updated on the rumors of a 300 follow-up. The talk is that the movie will get another chapter, although Zack Snyder hasn't specifically said whether it will be a prequel or a sequel. Both options have their merits, to be sure.

Butler, however, doesn't seem to be making reservations for another night dining in hell.

"I've heard some backroom chatter, but nothing more, so I don't know if it would be a sequel or a prequel," Butler responded. "I don't want say anymore than that, because I really don't know. I haven't read anything. I can't see it myself--sequel for me absolutely not,

Colin Boyd

5 September 2008 10:01 AM, PDT

I didn't care for the first trailer for Jim Carrey's Yes Man. True, a lot of that is because I don't care for Jim Carrey. Nothing worse than a guy who used to succeed when he tried to be funny but now only tries harder to be funny and doesn't succeed.

Ok, there are a few things worse than that; you're right.

Still, how long has it been since we had a good Jim Carrey comedy? Bruce Almighty, if you liked that, was five summers ago. If you thought we was already at the end of his rope by that point, then you'd have to go back to The Truman Show, which was a full decade ago.

The sad thing is, I guess Carrey didn't realize that he was at his best in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which is not at all the Jim Carrey character people have grown to ignore.

Colin Boyd

5 September 2008 8:24 AM, PDT

Have we been swerved about Sherlock Holmes? Did Guy Ritchie give us an intentional smokescreen earlier in the week when he denied that Russell Crowe would be playing Watson to Robert Downey Jr.'s master detective? After all, Ritchie never said Russell wouldn't be in the movie.

In a move that makes a lot more sense, Latino Review cites a hush-hush source who says Crowe may play Holmes' nemesis, Prof. Moriarty instead. They are, for the record, the best-matched hero and villain of their kind, and in a way, Moriarty is the first supervillain, a man with tremendous power, resources, and resiliency. Unless he's near a waterfall. It's definitely a great character, no matter how you slice it.

Of course, this isn't an official press release, so it could be as bogus as the Watson reports, but based on Crowe's terrific work in 3:10 to Yuma as a villain, playing

Colin Boyd

5 September 2008 7:30 AM, PDT

Documentarian Michael Moore will release his new film Slacker Uprising online, where you can download it free for three weeks beginning September 23rd. "I thought it'd be a nice way to celebrate my 20th year of doing this, and also help get out the vote for November," explained the Oscar winner. "

I've been thinking about what I want to do to help with the election this year."

The film covers Moore's personal campaign to get more young Americans to the polls during the 2004 election. WENN reports that Moore's previous film, last year's health care documentary SiCKO, was illegally downloaded in large numbers. So this time, I guess, doing the same thing is Ok.

As long as we have a consistent message, I guess.

Colin Boyd

5 September 2008 5:23 AM, PDT

You don't necessarily look at Guillermo del Toro and think he wakes up saying, "I've got my next decade all planned out." That's where you're wrong, though. The Hellboy director tells Variety he's going to be very busy between now and 2017, as a director and producer.

It's an ambitious slate, with the two Hobbit films currently in pre-production, and how about this trio of remakes as a director: Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Slaughterhouse-Five. Wow.

He'll temper that by adapting the lesser-known Drood by Dan Simmons as part of his four picture deal with Universal. Do the math: Two Hobbit movies by 2012, and then four movies by 2017. That's a new movie every year from 2011 - 2016, with only one not a full-fledged classic when he took it over. Incidentally, Drood is historical fiction, in which Charles Dickens survives a train crash and becomes a much darker soul as he

Colin Boyd

5 September 2008 1:04 AM, PDT

Here's a message from the Damn Shame Department: Variety reports that Robert De Niro has left the set of Edge of Darkness, and he won't be coming back.

Last month, we expressed a cautious excitement about De Niro and Mel Gibson working side-by-side on this revamped version of Edge of Darkness. Both the film and the BBC series on which it is based have Martin Campbell (Casino Royale) in the director's chair, and the update was written by William Monahan. The film just began shooting two weeks ago in Massachusetts, with Gibson playing a Boston cop investigating the murder of his daughter. Through his digging, he uncovers some pretty unsavory things, including "government collusion." In the BBC series it was nuclear secrets. That's a plot point that could easily be changed.

Bobby D was scheduled to play a government agent sent in as a cleaner after the murder. Now the

Colin Boyd

5 September 2008 12:01 AM, PDT

I was fortunate enough to check out Choke earlier this week, and as you may know, it's the adaptation of a book by Chuck Palahniuk, who has not seen another of his works hit the big screen since Fight Club. That's nearly impossible to believe, since Fight Club was nine years ago.

Choke stars the obscenely underrated Sam Rockwell as a sex addict who, in order to pay for an expensive nursing facility for his mother, makes extra money by choking on food in restaurants and falling in the laps of the richest diners available. The hope is that they'll feel such a strong connection with the person they saved, that they'll chip in and help him with "emergency dental surgery" or some other excuse he can come up with to con them.

His real job is as a historical interpreter, basically a character at a colonial-themed village. So that's the set-up,

Colin Boyd

5 September 2008 12:00 AM, PDT

Elegy

Starring Ben Kingsley, Penelope Cruz, and Dennis Hopper

Directed by Isabel Coixet

Rated R

Without looking, I'd say that love stories are probably the most common types of movies. That's because they can be disguised as any number of things, from musicals to murder mysteries. So to see one - a smart one, no less - that has no other pretense but to be an investigation of how a relationship works or doesn't work is a bit like walking a high wire without a net. I mean, Transformers has a love story in it.

Elegy is, for better or worse, about two people who fall in love while not meaning to. David (Sir Ben Kingsley) is a professor and art and literature critic. He was married once when he was a young man, left his wife and child because that life was not for him, and has never been in a deep relationship since.

Colin Boyd

4 September 2008 9:01 PM, PDT

IGN has culled news from various sources, trying to get to the bottom of new rumors about another live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. The bottom line: It ain't happenin'. At least not in this incarnation.

Turtles co-creator Kevin Eastman made the claims earlier this week on his Heavy Metal forum, but Tmnt writer Stephen Murphy calls them "complete nonsense and entirely untrue." So while a sequel may happen in a couple of years - emphasis on may - but it will be animated, I guess.

Of course, anyone who saw the animated movie last year was probably a little let down; the trailer was infinitely better. So a live action film seemed to be the most logical conclusion. Try telling that to Stephen Murphy.

Colin Boyd

4 September 2008 5:03 PM, PDT

The Advocate sat down with the unquestionably liberal Susan Sarandon to find out if she'd consider fallen potential nominee Hillary Clinton in a bio-pic. The answer might surprise you.

"No," insisted Sarandon. "At this point, to say after what's happened to her campaign and how they squandered all that money and all the different reasons her campaign fell apart, to blame it on sexism, I find so destructive to every young girl who dreams about making a difference through government."

The Oscar winner continued, "Instead of saying, 'Look how far I've gotten and you can do it too,' and all the positive things she could have done, she's turned into such a blamer and whiner, as if that was the reason, when clearly she wouldn't have been in the position she was in if she hadn't been a woman."

So despite her Democratic affiliation, the outspoken Sarandon leaves little doubt that she's not interested.

Colin Boyd

4 September 2008 4:12 PM, PDT

Dan Aykroyd told E! earlier this week that there is a threequel in the works for Ghostbusters, saying, "two sharp young writers are purported to be writing the sequel...If I could interest Seth [Rogen] and Judd [Apatow] to be part of it, that would be an absolute dream.

The two young writers probably aren't Rogen and Apatow, at least according to Rogen, who has already denied it, but rather Gene Stupnisky and Lee Eisenberg, who are a couple of the talented scribes on The Office. So says Pajiba.

They also wrote Year One, which will be directed by Harold Ramis. Here's where it gets interesting: Ramis is also directing Ghostbusters 3, at least in theory, but he hated the outline Stupnisky and Eisenberg came up with for that project (without his prior knowledge).

The studio, however, loved their ideas and not Ramis', which are now apparently dancing side-by-side with the good ideas

Colin Boyd

4 September 2008 1:21 PM, PDT

You know who's not cool? People who come up with personalized catchphrases and look for any opportunity to use it in a sentence. People who call themselves by nicknames qualify for this, Christian Siriano from Project Runaway is definitely a candidate by spewing "fierce" into the atmosphere so often, and now Michael Bay.

Odds are, you already thought Michael Bay was pretty uncool, anyway. But in this new video from the set of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, he actually explains his own personal brand of chaos - "Bay-haos" - and I gotta tell ya, it's as bad as if he referred to himself in third person.

Still, at least we've got some new Transformers video out of it, so there's that.

Experience the "Bay-haos" next summer.

Colin Boyd

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