Call Sheet: Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Scream 4, Demi Moore, Angela Bassett and someone will finally be Spider-Man

Call Sheet: Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Scream 4, Demi Moore, Angela Bassett and someone will finally be Spider-Man

Jul 05

Call Sheet: A weekly run-down of movie casting news and rumours from around the web.

• Undoubtedly the biggest casting news of the week was the appointment of Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker in the all-new upcoming Spider-Man franchise reboot, being directed by Marc Webb.

• THR revealed the second biggest (potential) casting news of the week: Meryl Streep may be signing on to star in the biopic about Margaret Thatcher, the UK’s first and only female Prime Minister to date. The Iron Lady (yeah…) is being developed by Mumma Mia! director Phyllida Lloyd. Jim Broadbent is in talks to play Margaret Thatcher’s husband, Denis.

• Scream 4 has so many comings and goings it’s been hard to keep track. It’s even had a complete re-write, which, given production has already started, is ironically scary. Anyway, Adam Brody, Marley Shelton, Erik Knudsen, Alison Brie and Mary McDonnell have all joined the cast over the past week.

• Amanda Seyfried is set to star in Disney’s live action retelling of Cinderella, written by The Devil Wears Prada scribe Aline Brosh McKenna. I’m excited by this news because it also means I get to post a photo of Amanda’s gorgeous face. See:

• The New York Times has it on good authority that Paul Reubens will finally return to his PeeWee Herman character in a feature film being directed by Judd Apatow. I don’t know about anyone else, but ‘Pee-Wee’ sorta creeps me out… and not in an entertaining way. At all.

• There’s a popular comic book (sorry, ‘graphic novel’) called Cowboys & Aliens that is being turned into another comic-book-adaptation-feature-film. People are excited about it because it’s being directed by Iron Man 1 & 2 director Jon Favreau, and currently stars Daniel Craig, Olivia Wilde, Harrison Ford and Sam Rockwell (which, granted, is a very impressive cast). Anyway, All My Children‘s Abigail Spencer just joined the cast this week.

• Demi Moore will play Miley Cyrus’ mother in an adaptation of the French film LOL. Yep– that’s Laugh Out Loud. Internet talk in movie titles. Brilliant. Ashley Greene, who plays Alice Cullen in Twilight, and Thomas Jane are also in negotiations to join the film.

• Deadline is reporting that Colin Farrell and Eric Bana are currently in negotiations to star in By Virtue Fall, which will be directed by Up In The Air co-writer Sheldon Turner.

• Slashfilm reckons Bradley Cooper is no longer interested in M. Night Shyamalan‘s next project. After the bashing The Last Airbender has been getting, I’d say it’s a smart move to get as far away as possible.

• THR broke the news that Angela Bassett will star alongside Paula Patton in Jumping the Broom, a wedding-themed ensemble comedy directed by Salim Akil. She’s a fantastic actress, but every time I see her I always see Michael Jackson’s mother from that 90′s mini-series The Jacksons.

• While everyone was scoffing about how fucking stupid an idea the LEGO movie is, Warner Brothers went ahead and hired Chris Miller and Phil Lord to direct. They were responsible for Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, which was surprisingly good and entertaining. So, now what are we supposed to think, WB? You’ve got some fresh directors but a product with NO PLOT… the screenplay/logline/premise is going to be damn interesting, whenever it is revealed.

• David Fincher‘s The Social Network just got a little more interesting for fans of Nine Inch Nails: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are writing the score for the film.

• And finally, in a rumour that will never go away for a project that will likely never happen, producer Jerry Bruckheimer still thinks Tom Cruise might be up for Top Gun 2. Because that’s what the world needs right now. It’s not the 80′s any more, Bruckheimer… move on, please.

IRON MAN 2 review: no girls allowed

IRON MAN 2 review: no girls allowed

Apr 29

Julie Andrews suggests I start the very beginning (which is apparently a very good place to start), so I’ll do that:

Iron Man 2 starts off bad.

There’s an awkward opening scene establishing Mickey Rourke’s “Whiplash” character that comes off hideously awkward and unnecessary, which plunges quickly into a vomit-inducingly sexist scene involving various swooping close-ups of womens’ body parts as they gyrate in moody lighting and then — as if to top it all off — Jon Favreau himself (the film’s director) appears on screen as Tony Stark’s slave / assistant. What pretentiousness! thought I. What nerve!

After making a pretty naff first impression, Iron Man 2 eventually lurched into gear, but the movie I found myself in wasn’t at all familiar. Maybe my memories of the first flick are too vague, and maybe Terrence Howard’s forced removal and replacement subconsciously confused the heck out of me, but Iron Man 2 didn’t really feel like a sequel to begin with. Sure, Robert Downey Jr’s in this one, and he’s still a prick, and Gwyneth Paltrow’s here, and she’s still a bit prickly, but nothing really jived too well and I started wondering if Iron Man 2 was yanking my chain.

Then the action scenes started and I remembered why I was here: because Iron Man’s awesome. That’s really the long and short of it, and it’s the reason why we go to see his movies. Out of the suit he’s the kind of asshole we only dream of someday becoming, and in the suit he’s the kind of red and gold robot fellow whose toys — ahem, ACTION FIGURES — we used to play with as boys. If we were boys — I know I was one, at least once; 50/50 odds that you were, too.

Without this boyish awesomeness these movies would be ridiculous. You wouldn’t find a character like Tony Stark in a Serious Movie, because his personality and abilities are larger than life. Which is fine, if you like that kind of thing, but I couldn’t help but feel two things: a) this is a boys only club (no girls allowed!), and b) the movie would’ve been better served by a more rapid and less circuitous route to the boyish awesomeness.

To elaborate on point a), Jon Favreau must be some kind of chauvinist dog, because he takes every opportunity to objectify women (other than Gwyneth Paltrow). The vomit-inducing shots I mentioned above are one problem, but framing a shot with Scarlett Johanssen’s figure is another. I know a lot of people (read: men) don’t give two hoots about this, so I won’t repeat myself here, but bear in mind that Iron Man 2 is shamelessly sexist, and that this is a bad thing. Also Johanssen’s performance isn’t too crash hot. Just sayin’.

Point b) is pretty self-explanatory. There is a fantastic scene in which Whiplash makes himself known to the world at large, and while the scene is appropriately awesome (in a boyish way), it would’ve had even greater impact if we’d never seen Whiplash before. I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the two scenes with Whiplash that are thrown into the first act before his big reveal could have been removed entirely. Then the ensuing scenes involving Whiplash would have a bit more mystery and confusion and — perhaps — tension to them that are lacking here.

Those are my two main gripes. Other than that, Iron Man 2 is an exemplary middle child: building on the first film while leaving the door wide open for a third. There’s even the customary Act 2 self-doubt and moral complexity you’d expect from a good Marvel film, but it’s not carried as far as it could be here, which brings me to my third main gripe (sorry): Tony Stark.

RDJ’s performance in the role is rock solid. He’s quick, sharp, unpredictable, impeccably groomed — but there’s something about Tony Stark that just bugs me. I don’t remember why he’s so rich, so I’ll accept that as a given; but how does he know how to build a high-intensity laser beam with his bare hands in a matter of hours? I didn’t realise he took advanced physics alongside his professional asshole-ism course. Of course, that’s just my personal ignorance talking, and comic book fanatics will lap this up like there’s no tomorrow, but for me there were a couple of things that were just a wee bit too implausible (which, in a comic book flick, says a lot).

Oh yeah, there’s also Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer, possibly the most annoying character I’ve ever seen in a Marvel movie. Rockwell’s performance is fine, but the film cuts back to him a few too many times, and he becomes really annoying after a while. HINT: he’ll probably play a big part in Iron Man 3 and / or The Avengers.

Anyway that’s enough of the bad stuff, let’s talk about the good. The action scenes are still good, filled with richly-rendered robotic violence, but they’re all spoiled to some extent by the trailers. I hate the feeling you get when you’re half-way through a movie and you’re subconsciously ticking off scenes from the trailer that have already been shown and you realise that the best bit of the trailer is yet to come, and that it’s likely to be in the climax of the film. There should be a rule that trailers can only take footage from the first three reels of a film. Also, trailers shouldn’t be allowed to suck.

Also making a return appearance is Tony Stark’s mind-boggling futuristic super-advanced super-hero-only software technology, voiced by Paul Bettany, whereby he manipulates floating holograms with his bare hands. This is a strange thing to bring up in a review, I know, but it’s awesome. Science and technology play a vital role in Iron Man’s universe, and it’s cool to see them introduced and dealt with in such a hip way. Whether or not this tech will appear hip in 20 years is another matter entirely.

The script is good — I think. I mean, I didn’t consciously think “Hang on, what?” and I didn’t roll my eyes at any of the dialogue, which is a good sign, especially in a comic book movie. I have the feeling the script might have lost its way in the middle, where things get a bit muddled, but otherwise it gives the characters plenty to do without becoming overly predictable or ridiculous. The cinematography is similarly delightful: the nauseating aerial shots are shot in a realistic manner, which lends a bit of pizzazz to the dogfights peppered throughout the movie.

I wonder if superhero movies are in decline. There used to be a time — granted, I was only like 12 back then — when going to see the latest Spider-Man or X-Men movie meant rolicking action and good old-fashioned characters. I get that Tony Stark’s a more post-modern superhero, more of a playboy bully than a dweeby do-gooder, but that really robs Iron Man 2 of the warmth inherent in some of those previous films.

Nevertheless Iron Man 2 is a robust and polished exercise in comic bookery, but I still feel obliged to ask the ladies in the audience to come at the film with patience — lots and lots of patience — because sometimes men are idiots, and sometimes men like to relive their childhoods; in this case, Iron Man 2 is a spiffing, if sometimes perfunctory, amalgamation of both.

Iron Man 2 score

71/100

Ah, crap: Joss Whedon’s doing something again

Ah, crap: Joss Whedon’s doing something again

Apr 16

Just when I thought Joss Whedon would go back to TV forever and leave us cinephiles alone, here he comes to potentially ruin another few promising franchises. The purveyor of all things smug and sarcastic, Whedon  has been called in to rewrite the Captain America and Avengers scripts. This comes hot on the heels of the news that he would be directing The Avengers, and makes sense, I suppose, as Whedon’s known more for his writing than for his ability to stage a good scene.

It’s no secret that I don’t like Joss Whedon’s work, so hearing that he’s practically taking over Marvel for the next couple of years is disheartening indeed. I mean, come on, Kenneth Branagh is directing Thor, and he’s all like, a Shakespearean actor, and stuff. Then there’s Joe Johnston directing Captain America, who’s at least an established, if mediocre, director. The franchises seemed to be doing okay on their own.

Enter Joss Whedon, whose greatest moment in film came in 1995 when he scored a writing credit on animated smash Toy Story. Ever since then he’s been running a series of increasingly lame TV shows, frum Buffy The Vampire Slayer through Firefly to Dollhouse, of which I’m happy to say I’ve never caught a second’s footage. There’s something about Whedon’s smarmy, sarcastic, American dialogue that really rubs me the wrong way with a cheese grater, and no amount of spluttering about how aweseme Firefly is can dissuade me of that opinion.

I’m hoping Whedon will somehow manage not to irrevocably ruin characters like Captain America, Thor, Hulk and Iron Man for everyone, because I rather like a spot of superhero biffo. But don’t forget that Whedon’s name is also on the writing credits for Alien Resurrection, which was awful (due mostly, but not entirely, to the weakness of the script). Only time will tell just what damage Whedon does to Marvel’s budding franchises.

Oh, and the internet is buzzing on this so it’s worth noting that Captain America’s girlfriend / love interest Peggy Carter will be played by some British lass by the name of Hayley Atwell (pictured below). Never seen The Duchess or Brideshead Revisited so I’m unqualified to pass judgment on her acting skills, but I can confidently assure you her staring-off-into-the-distance-while-revealing-some-cleavage skills are worthy of the tasks likely to be set for her as a female Marvel character.

Captain America rolls this winter (Northern summer) for a 22nd of June 2011 release; The Avengers due on the 4th of May 2012

CAPTAIN AMERICA finally settles on its lead

CAPTAIN AMERICA finally settles on its lead

Mar 23

That’s right, Chris Evans has officially accepted the role of Steve Rogers / Captain America in Marvel’s upcoming superhero flick. Yeah, Chris Evans was in the Fantastic Four movies, but because they weren’t produced by Marvel, and because they’re getting rebooted anyway, apparently Chris Evans is allowed to also be Steve Rogers without causing the Marvel multiverse to implode upon itself. Or something. Anyway this Captain America flick is going to be prefixed The First Avenger, in order for Marvel to be able to bring the Hulk, Iron Man, and next year’s Thor together with Captain America in a big old Avengers flick in a couple of years’ time. Yup, Marvel’s got big plans, and they’re definitely moving on them.

Wait a minute — isn’t Chris Evans a terrible actor? You’d be forgiven for thinking this if you’ve only seen him in Fantastic Four and Push and The Nanny Diaries, but under the right direction Evans is more than a pretty set of abs: see Danny Boyle’s best film Sunshine for evidence of this. He doesn’t even get his shirt off in the whole movie. It’s that serious! So that’s good news, but then I remembered who’s in charge of directing this Captain America flick — Joe Johnston. His last good movies were 20 years ago: Honey, I Shrunk The Kids and The Rocketeer. His more recent efforts are less impressive: Jumanji, Jurassic Park 3, Hidalgo, The Wolf Man — it’s like a calling-card of mediocrity. Considering what crimes he committed especially in Jurassic Park 3, and The Wolf Man, it’s likely that even Captain America’s hallowed source material won’t be treated right. There’s a pattern here, and it doesn’t bode well for Captain America.

Back to that Avengers business — remember when Samuel L Jackson appeared in Tony Stark’s apartment in the stinger for Iron Man? And how Robert Downey Jr. rocks up at the bar at the end of the rebooted The Incredible Hulk? They’re trying to plant seeds early and build up a consistent and homogenous comic book universe in film which is, as far as I know, an entirely new and untested trick as far as Hollywood is concerned. Building subtle links between movies like this almost guarantees flow-on business as consumers flock to the new movie because it’s kind of like a sequel, and in this case, The Avengers is going to come out last and act as a sequel of sorts to Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Captain America. Big bucks for Marvel, and an interesting experiece for us humble movie-goers. We’ve had direct sequels and even spin-offs before, but never chronologically consistent and complimentary films from various individual franchises tie together like this. It’ll be interesting to see how it comes along.

Finally, you might be wondering what Captain America is all about, especially if you, like me, don’t live in America and consequently find the character a little bit tacky and a tiny bit racist. Well, story goes that Steve Rogers (a quintessentially American name if ever there was one) is a sickly, frail bloke who gets injected with some super-serum to make him big and tough and manly and more American, and he’s then used as a secret weapon to turn the tide of World War II in favour of the “good guys”. Captain America has an indestructible shield (symbolism!) which he uses both defensively and offensively, but besides his super strength, martial arts prowess and increased tactical intelligence no other super powers are mentioned. Gung-ho patriotism and worldwide warfare don’t go well together any more, especially since Saving Private Ryan showed us what war was actually like, so I don’t know how well the WWII sequences in the Captain America film will play out, and I can only guess how they’ll be received by the public.

Either way, Captain America will generate a lot of business and will be an interesting watch, especially for international viewers. Here’s hoping Johnston pulls his head in and works closely to a well-written script, there’s no need to repeat the Wolf Man debacle.

Captain America begins shooting at the end of June in the UK; expect a mid-2011 release

The 7 best comic book movies

The 7 best comic book movies

Jan 11

The Joker turns 70 this year. The clown prince premiered in the northern hemisphere spring of 1940 in Batman’s first standalone series. Batman himself, as well as Superman and some other, lesser-known characters, are a few years older even than Mr J. Back then it was all about domino masks, tights, capes, and good-old-fashioned crime-fighting, with a dash of Freudian introspection on the side. With the exception of Superman, ostensibly the first super-powered comic book hero, straight detective stories were favoured for a good many years till the likes of Marvel popularised super-powers in the fifties and sixties and the genre exploded. Comic books were respectable back then. Hypermasculine men fought each other while hyperfeminine women floated around in the background; morals were unquestioned; the pulpy, predictable serials were tasteful and plain, unadorned with such concerns as sexuality, racism or moral ambiguity. Crime was duly punished, and justice was pursued in a cheap, disposable monthly medium affordable to the average middle-class American kid.

In the 80s comics underwent something of a rennaissance. Batman was rebooted in a grittier, morally challenging storyline, the X-Men got serious with Wolverine’s brutal training in Tokyo finally explored, and out of a hole in the sky fell the Watchmen series, one of very few successful stand-alone comic books. Since that sudden reversal of content comic books have floundered in an endless torrent of glossy, cookie-cutter superhero stories. The art styles have gotten more sleek and gratuitous in their anatomic inaccuracies, but the actual content, as far as this detached, casual observer can tell, hasn’t developed into anything really worth taking notice of.

The 90s saw a brief rush of comic book movies — The Mask, Spawn, Men In Black — that were okay, performing so-so at the box office, but it wasn’t until Bryan Singer’s X-Men that the world finally got a superhero flick that did justice to its (overrated) source material. It was fun, subversive, mature and posed a few interesting sci-fi questions, while telling a remarkably personal tale with emotion and flourish. After the critical and commercial success of this pioneering film the floodgates were opened and in the past decade we’ve seen just about every single major character in the Marvel stable trotted out for a cinematic outing or two, and DC haven’t slacked off in their contribution either. But the vast majority of these films have been mindless dross homogenised by the Hollywood machine — witness The Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Elektra, The Spirit, etc., for evidence of this.

There have, however, been many shining lights in the dark. Here are the seven best comic book movies as judged by yours truly.

7 - V For Vendetta (2005)

Socio-political commentary has a propensity to become dangerously dull. How do you make it interesting, you ask? Add masked vigilantism, a fascist regime, some huge explosions, and Tchaikovsky to it. A dark, apparently faithful adaptation of the “graphic novel” (isn’t it cute when they try to sound mature?) of the same name, the V film is dark, violent, and socially relevant. The themes of freedom, justice and masked vigilantism are classic comic book fare, but here it’s all wrapped up in a smart, mature tale that’s pretty fun to watch.

6 – Road To Perdition (2002)

Bet you didn’t know this was originally a comic book. Actually I bet you didn’t even see this movie, hardly anyone did. But it’s got Tom Hanks in it, and a pre-Bond Daniel Craig, not to mention Paul Newman, some delicious cinematography, and some cool shootouts. The story is a tad melodramatic and simplistic, but the scrambled morality of gangster lifestyles is explored in a more compelling manner here than in any Scorcese flick to date. Sam Mendes, of American Beauty, directs.

5 – Iron Man (2008)

Funnyman Jon Favreau miraculously wound up at the helm of this (by ’08) routine superhero origin flick, the first act in an inevitable franchise. Thankfully Favreau kept the film sharp with the casting of Robert Downey, Jr. in the title role as Iron Man / Tony Stark, whose moral compass isn’t as concrete as Spidey’s or the Bat’s, and in the film’s fresh, brisk pace and tone. Anyone who claims not to have had fun watching Iron Man is lying.

4 – X-Men 2 (2003)

Captain Jean-Luc Picard scoots around in a mind-controlled wheelchair, staring people down and unleashing his merry band of mutants on the world, trying to make it a better place, while Gandalf the Grey floats around in a metal bucket for a helmet trying to stop Picard for no other reason than “the Nazis killed my parents, therefore everyone deserves to die.” Okay, okay, there’s more to this sequel to the film that started the heroic avalanche in 2000 — some breathtaking action set-pieces, some palpable drama between the main characters, a very cool sci-fi aesthetic, and the kind of professional filmmaking usually reserved for “serious” movies. X2 perfectly rides the line between mindless entertainment and intellectual stimulation, with great performances all round. Shame about X-Men 3 and X-men: Origins: Wolverine: The Prequel: The Beginning.

3 – The Dark Knight (2008)

Oh Christopher Nolan, you simultaneously delight and disappoint me. The Dark Knight is a big, loud, dark, complex film on every level. Christian Bale’s Batman, introduced in the middling Batman Begins, faces his first true test as a superhero in the form of Heath Ledger’s ultra-villain the Joker. The Joker’s wicked anarchic sense of humour is simultaneously amusing and terrifying, and Ledger’s performance of the character is the stuff of cinema legend. He inhabits the role, a role invested with such realism and integrity as to be utterly repulsive but ultimately fascinating and compelling at the same time. Bats is forced to question his own morality and identity in the face of the Joker’s cruel and unusual pranks and set-ups, meanwhile contending with a psychotically deranged Harvey Dent / Two-Face incited to violence by the Clown Prince himself. Batman’s dark, ugly world is a thematically beautiful and intellectually interesting place: every villain in Gotham City has a fascinating aspect to their psyche, and Batman invariably winds up being the most boring character in anything he’s in. The reason I don’t love Nolan’s second bat-flick is because it’s so cool, so loud, so flashy, so dark and awesome and gritty that there’s very little actual character to latch onto when all is said and done. The emotion is there, it’s just buried miles deep beneath layers and layers of crowd-pleasing aesthetic stylings.

2 – Watchmen (2009)

Having just criticised The Dark Knight for being shallow, I feel a pang of guilt including Watchmen in a higher position on this list. It is literally a shot-for-shot, visual-effects-driven recreation of the original comic book, but beneath the arguably flimsy veneer is the single most coherent, challenging and daring narratives in the history of comics. Some masked vigilante kills some other masked guy, and there’s a scientist who was de-atomised and is now a blue god, and there’s some Rorschach-wearing clown going around being unpredictably awesome for some reason — the plot merely serves as a prism through which comic books can be deconstructed and scrutinised and then spat back out as a damning observation of the world circa 1985, and as such, it is amazingly fun to watch. I identified most with John Osterman (Billy Crudup) as he undertook the journey to coming to terms with his superpowers: Dr Manhattan, as he is known, is an immediately more realistic depiction of a superhero than was ever depicted before Watchmen hit the shelves — he’s over the whole infinite power thing, he’s over seeing through time, and he’s bored of life as we know it. I guess that’s the kind of thing ultimate power brings you — boredom. So why do we all spend our lives scurrying to secure a slice of the power pie? Imagine thoughts like this, suggested constantly and in every scene of this visually entertaining flick, and you have some sense of the extent to which I was engaged and challenged.

1 – Spider-Man 2 (2004)

Ah, the amazing Spider-Man. The original Spidey flick was one of the earlier superhero flicks, and one of the better ones. Director Sam Raimi infused the story with enough classic character archetypes, modern references, universal coherence and pure, undiluted emotion for the film to be a promising start to the franchise. But it was nothing compared to the first and as yet only good sequel, in which the characters set up in the first film are dutifully knocked down in one of the most brutal, uncompromising but ultimately optimistic middle acts in the history of cinema. I enjoy every single scene of this movie, and it’s one of those few movies I could watch a dozen times and not become utterly sick of.

So there you have it, Froley’s favourite 7 comic book movies!

Honourable mention should go to 1978′s Superman for setting the bar for superhero dramas in their current form; Zack Snyder’s 300 proved that sometimes even slavish adaptation of the oft-maligned source material can prove to be entertaining; and David Cronenberg’s A History Of Violence barely even resembles a comic book movie at all, what with the lack of capes and superpowers and whatnot, and is all the better for the absence of such silly things.

What are some of your favourite comic book movies of all time? Do you think Hollywood has gone a little costume-crazy since X-Men was released, ten years ago? Do you think the style of storytelling and characterisation inherent in comic books is leaking into non-comic book movies? I want to know what you think, dammit!