I was as surprised as anyone when Smiley Face, the Gregg Araki-directed stoner comedy, was moved from a mid-summer dumping ground to halfway prestigous slot at the Toronto Film Fest. I didn’t see it there, but word wasn’t bad; audiences thought it was funny, at least. Speaking only for myself, the presence of the rather … Continue reading →
This ain’t good. Run Fat Boy, Run, the David Schwimmer-directed, Michael Ian Black and Simon Pegg-scripted romantic comedy, won’t be seen this year. And this only days after Micah spent several minutes writing up the latest trailer. (A trailer, mind, you, which did nothing but hurt the film by making the script’s pedestrian ambitions all … Continue reading →
All that’s missing from this Variety story trumpeting Gianni Nunnari’s plans to remake The Wild Geese is the obligatory casting of Jason Statham, Vinnie Jones and a gang of other British toughs to fill out the roles originally occupied by Richard Burton, Roger Moore and Richard Harris. And if you think "occupied" is a strange … Continue reading →
Just give me a second. I don’t know about you, but if the studios suddenly scrapped all of their pre-strike plans and decided to make nothing but chick lit adaptations from now until June, I would probably throw out my back trying to gnaw on my own testicles. To be fair, this isn’t necessarily related … Continue reading →
Let’s pretend that you’re Ridley Scott, just sitting around one day waiting for American Gangster to open. Wait, let’s be Brian Grazer instead. So much more fun. Anyway, you’re just minding your own business when Jay-Z walks in, drops an entirely new record in your lap. “See what you can do with this,” he says … Continue reading →
Even though it’s been ten years since his last fiction film, James Cameron is still a commercial force to be reckoned with until proven otherwise. And while you think his forever-in-development 3-D opus, Avatar, is the film that’s going to demolish his bankability… well, just know that Jeffrey Katzenberg does not agree with you. At … Continue reading →
The Cormac McCarthy adaptation train is really rolling now. With the Coen Brothers’ No Country For Old Men one of the blazing highlights of recent film festivals (it topped the off the cuff Best Of lists of nearly everyone I talked to at Toronto last week, and will probably top mine as well) the reclusive … Continue reading →
Thank God New Line’s publicity department sent an eight meg Sex and the City publicity photo, because my Outlook email box wasn’t behaving slow enough for my purposes. The image to the right is celebrating the start of shooting for the Sex and the City feature film and I must admit that I own the … Continue reading →
When Kristen Stewart mentioned during today’s In the Wild press junket that she was set to star in Greg Mottola’s Adventureland opposite Ryan Reynolds and Jesse Eisenberg, I pretended that I already knew all of this. In truth, Eisenberg was the only actor I’d heard connected to this Pittsburgh-set comedy about a college graduate forced … Continue reading →
Memo to Mark Waters and New Line: if you adopt the above title in favor of the banal Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, I will henceforth shower this production with ceaselessly positive coverage. Every casting choice and every shred of media (both official and "leaked") will be greeted as if it were the cure for dead. … Continue reading →