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.
TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE review: by the numbers
Jul 01
The Twilight Saga is about a young white girl whose affections are torn between an extremely old white man and a relatively youthful tanned fellow. The old dude glistens in the sun and wears make-up that makes him look like Data from Star Trek, while the young guy spends most of his time shirtless (even in the snow!), glowering, flexing his pecs, or being a wolf (for reasons unknown).
Data hates the Wolf-Boy, but, being the comfortably sub-standard person she is, the young white girl leads both of them on in an eternal struggle to keep tween girls reading the books no matter how long or stupid they get. Julia Gillard makes an appearance in the film as well [non-Australians: our new PM has red hair], as the series’ primary antagonist, whose sole purpose in existence is to something something (I didn’t watch the first film) kill the young white girl.
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse is a vast improvement over the last installment in the series, but that isn’t saying much; as I scientifically proved in my numerals-based review of New Moon, the second Twi-flick is one of those rare abominations of cinema that isn’t even so-bad-it’s-funny. To keep some semblence of continuity, I’ve employed the same technique of criticism here.
Some of these categories are new, and some of them are holdovers from last time, but the idea is the same: every time the movie broke my suspension of disbelief, I ticked a box. At the end of the movie I tallied the ticks in an effort to quantify the film’s worth (or lack thereof). As I said, the results are surprisingly positive, but don’t be fooled — it’s easily the best Twilight movie, but it’s a long way from being “hands the whole time.”
6 – Number of times the soundtrack doesn’t match the emotion of the scene
New director David Slade wisely eschewed the pop-heavy soundtrack style of New Moon and opted for a more symphonic, if hopelessly derivative, film score. This helps the film enormously. What few pop songs he does include, though, sound like mid-album filler from a record that wouldn’t even have been popular in the 80s. Oh, and there’s a Muse song, too; I may have counted that twice.
9 – Number of times Edward says or does something stupid
Last time, Edward crushed a phone with his bare hands, spouted second-hand one-liners and generally acted like a git, scoring himself 16 marks; this time around, Edward significantly improved himself and receives a mere 9 — some of the things he says even make sense this time. But not that hideously creepy proposal scene — I just wanted that to end.
10 – Number of times I laughed out loud during serious scenes
Eclipse, as with the previous Twilight flicks, exhibits the level of subtlety and logic a videogame script would be proud to call its own, and as such, is completely nonsensical and difficult to watch. Some of the scenes, though, are too much to bear. I tried to respect the people in the cinema around me, but sometimes the sheer inanity of it all got the better of me.
11 – Number of times Jacob says or does something stupid
Again, Jacob significantly improved himself from New Moon and scored a paltry half of what he earned last time, but there are still some head-scratchingly awful moments featuring the Wolf-Boy. It doesn’t help that Taylor Lautner’s delivery is about on par with what you’d expect from a 21st century George Lucas film.
12 – Number of times Bella says or does something stupid
Bella earns the big gold star this time around. She doesn’t try to kill herself once, she doesn’t launch into conversations with questions like “HAVE YOU TRIED NOT BEING A FREAK, YOU MONSTER?”, and she stays well away from her Apple Macintosh; dropping all the way down to 12 from 63 — 63 — is a feat worth celebrating. There’s still the small matter of her silly and unnecessary voiceover, and the fact that she tries to force Edward to have sex with her, and the fact that she is completely devoid of life and character, to prove that she, too, still has room for improvement.
15 – Number of times the laws of physics are wantonly ignored
This is a new category this time, and one that pops up early, and frequently thereafter. You know the kind of cartoon physics where someone back-hands another person across the room, or when people are shown to be running at regular speed but the landscape zooms around them like they’re some kind of pouty Superman, or when someone sustains horrific injuries to one side of their body but doesn’t even exhibit a bruise on-screen — Eclipse is full of that crap. I sort of get that Vampires are supposed to be, like, super strong, or something, but even if you could throw a guy across the room, at least make it look like you’re putting some effort into it — otherwise it looks like you just did it with kung-fu wires.
18 – Number of times the dialogue made me cringe
“I could care less” is one of those classic Americanisms that never fails to incite infernal rage in grammar-pedants such as myself. (The correct phrase, of course, is “I could not care less,” indicating that your apathy is total and all-consuming.) I began to wonder, especially in the early scenes of Eclipse, whether the filmmakers didn’t just decide to shoot the first draft and call it a day; a lot of the dialogue could easily have been fixed up with a second pass. Then again, maybe the script is just being faithful to the books. In that case, the books must be awful.
21 – Number of scenes that don’t make sense, lose their way, or are otherwise intolerable
This is the big one, the thing that drags Eclipse down from reasonable okay-ness to mediocre dross. The whole first half of the film is rambling and wishy-washy, and, just like last time, individual scenes often find themselves derailed for the sake of exposition. Some examples of bad scenes:
- The Cullen clan keep tabs on a local upstart Vampire group by watching the evening news. Because the evening news is infallible and extremely thorough, isn’t it?
- We are treated to a few extraneous but not unwelcome flashback scenes during the course of the movie, and one of them ends in implied rape. The atrocious crime is treated so flippantly the character in question might as well have been mugged and robbed — there’s no need to bring such a serious issue into such an incompetent entertainment.
- The movie cuts frequently to a secondary antagonist whose purpose and identity remain frustratingly unclear. Also, I still don’t understand why Julia Gillard wants that silly young white girl dead.
- The film spends an inordinate amount of time rehashing what happened in New Moon. The first few scenes are made up of “Remember we can’t do this because of this,” and “So how do you feel about what happened in the last movie?” character moments, and they drag on well into the second act.
- As in New Moon, there are a few editing non-sequitors on display here, as well. The most notable of these takes place early in the film, where some creepy vampire fellow breaks into Bella’s house and sniffs her sleeping dad. Bella walks into the middle of the scene and — surprise! — dad’s suddenly awake. I know the scene was designed to put me on edge, but it didn’t work. Not even a little bit.
- The worst of these scenes was near the end, and as such qualifies as a spoiler (not that I care, or anything): a little girl vampire is thrown over to the Volturi (the buzzkill jerks from New Moon) and faces an unknown fate. Will they rip her head off, turn her into some kind of Vamp-slave, or what? The scene cuts dramatically to black before the fate is revealed, and that cheapness is both annoying and disorienting.
There are plenty of other examples of scenes just like this — but I’ll let you to discover them for yourself.
86 – Total number of offences
For a film that runs 120 minutes, 86 illusion-shattering moments of ineptitude are enough to break the experience for me. This is far less than last time, but it’s still one big goof every 80 seconds, and that’s a little too frequent for Eclipse to carry itself over that fuzzy line between “absolute trash” and “good enough.” To be fair, though, it does have its moments, which is why I have devised a totally new category especially for this review:
5 – Number of scenes that are actually good
I was as surprised as anyone that Eclipse had any good scenes at all, let alone 5. That’s one every 24 minutes! Faint praise at best, but praise nonetheless. The main thing that elevates Eclipse over the dreary, never-ending New Moon is the biffo. The action scenes at the end almost make sitting through 100 minutes of mopey angst bearable – almost. Watching people’s heads and arms get ripped off is surprisingly cathartic after spending so long treading water, and for that, I congratulate Eclipse.
Other good scenes include a fuzzy but accurate Valedictorian speech given by that annoying girl from Up In The Air, an almost genuinely touching moment between Bella and her mother, and a sincere and — dare I say it — amusing interchange between Edward and Jacob in a tent on some mountain somewhere (or something); best of all, Eclipse (unlike New Moon) actually finishes, coming to a logical and satisfying conclusion.Much as I didn’t mind watching these scenes, though, they still couldn’t erase the dullness of all the others crowded around them.
It remains for me to quickly touch on the technical side of the film. As with New Moon, Eclipse features some half-decent photography absolutely ruined by a shallow grade; the film benefits greatly from its leaner running-time; Slade’s command of narrative logic is less tenuous than Chris Weitz’; and, as always, the performances are perfunctory but utterly un-convincing.
Just like the character named Bella, Eclipse knows it isn’t good enough, knows it isn’t everything it could be. Unfortunately, just like Bella, Eclipse doesn’t care that it isn’t good enough, and wallows comfortably in its own inadequacy.
So, in the end, Eclipse is just more of the same — another Twilight movie. But to be fair, it is the best so far (that is to say, it’s the least bad). If they’re going to keep making these movies — and believe me, they will — then it pleases me to know they’re actually trying to make them better. Maybe by the end of the series they will have learned to put together a genuinely good movie — maybe.
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Call Sheet: Matt Damon, Meryl Streep, Jeff Bridges, Bruce Willis, Gweneth Paltrow, Neil Patrick Harris
Jun 28
Call Sheet: A weekly run-down of movie casting news and rumours from around the web.
- Variety reckons Matt Damon is in talks to join Cameron Crowe’s Zoo, based on Benjamin Mee’s bestselling memoir We Bought a Zoo. Damon would play Benjamin Mee, a widowed father who buys a dilapidated zoo in the English countryside. Intense action ensues.
- Moviehole recently talked with Major League writer/director David S Ward who revealed that he hopes Charlie Sheen would return to play Wild Thing in Major League 4.
- “Wild Thing comes out of retirement to work with this 19-year-old player. We’ve actually got three new characters in the new film. And if the new film is popular, they could carry the franchise on.”
- Variety reports that Daniel Radcliffe (erm, Harry Potter) is set to star in a new version of the classic novel All Quiet on the Western Front which is on track to shoot in the spring of 2012. Meanwhile, I wonder who’ll play the new Harry Potter in the bound-to-happen spin-off movies?
- Deadline reveals that City of God director Fernando Meirelles will direct a film called 360, written by Peter Morgan. Will he ever be able to match City of God?
- The Wrap seem to think Mike Nichols is in negotiations to direct Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges as a married couple in Great Hope Springs.
- THR (via Slashfilm) report that Wayne Kramer is looking to direct Pretty Boy Floyd, a film about bank robber Charles Arthur ‘Pretty Boy’ Floyd.
- Robin Hare wrote about Michael Fassbender choosing X-Men: First Class over the Spider-Man reboot. Nice to be some.
- THR reports Michael Shannon and Jamie Chung are in talks to join the action-thriller film Premium Rush, being directed by David Koepp. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is already attached.
- According to Slashfilm, M. Night Shyamalan is shopping his next script around Hollywood with Bruce Willis, Gweneth Paltrow and Bradley Cooper rumoured to be attached. There’s hardly anything else about the project available at the moment– not even a logline or a title.
- Slashfilm reports that Imogen Poots has joined Toni Collette and Colin Farrell for the remake of the 1985 vampire film Fright Night. I wonder if this would still be happening without Twilight being so popular?
- Slashfilm reports that Neil Patrick Harris has confirmed he will appear in A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas. I guess fans of the franchise and Neil are excited by this, but it’s hardly surprising.
- 20th Century Fox revealed that John Lithgow has signed on to join Planet of the Apes prequel Rise of the Apes. James Franco is already attached and Don Cheadle is rumoured to be negotiating. Hands-up if you only know Lithgow as the Dad in 3rd Rock From The Sun? Shame on you… go rent Harry And The Hendersons.
- Slashfilm reports that Pierce Brosnan and his son Sean Brosnan are teaming up to co-star in a film called Bonded, which will see them in an “Oliver Twist-esque” thriller based on a story that took place in California in the early ’90s… I guess the Men-Expert ads didn’t pay enough?
- Due to scheduling conflicts Lake Bell had to leave Scream 4 just days before production got under way. I’m not sure that’ll make much of a difference to the film, it’s just a pain in the ass for the production. Here’s a saucy picture of her, anyway:
Weekend news round-up: TWILIGHT, NEUROMANCER and PIRATES updates
Jun 14
I’ll get the bad news out of the way first:
The fourth Twilight book, Breaking Dawn, will be split into two discrete films. This is bad news because the Twilight movies are bad, and more of them can’t be a good thing (did I really have to explain that to you?). The first part is due in December 2011.
Next up, some potentially good news:
Splice director Vincenzo Natali has been officially attached to the Neuromancer movie adaptation. Splice, while it hasn’t been released here yet, has been gathering interest from film critics and sci-fi buffs alike, so attaching Natali to the screen adaptation of the book that The Matrix shamelessly ripped off could go very well.
And finally, the good news:
Geoffrey Rush is due to reprise his role as Captain Barbossa in the upcoming Pirates Of The Caribbean refresh, On Stranger Tides. This is good news because Geoffrey Rush is never bad news. Rush is the only actor besides Depp to carry his role into the fourth film, and having a face as welcome and familiar as Rush’s can’t hurt the promising project in the slightest.
BATTLE: LOS ANGELES gets exciting new release date
May 24
Battle: Los Angeles sounds like a good old-fashioned military sci-fi flick, the likes of which hasn’t been seen since 1997′s Starship Troopers. It’s got aliens, warfare, gritty realism, and aliens. Did I mention the aliens?
Originally slated for a February 2011 release, Battle has been pushed back to March (the 11th, to be precise.) This is apparently quite exciting, because while February is something of a graveyard month, where studios send their movies to die, March (particularly the 11th) is the time 300 was released, and managed to drum up mass profit.
I don’t know if this has something to do with US school or uni breaks, or the pre-Easter cinema lull, but I’m pretty sure 300 did good business because everyone loved it and told their friends to see it. If you released a Twilight movie in February, it would do mammoth business; if you released a Woody Allen movie on the best day of the year, somewhere in June or July or whatever, it would still tank. It’s as much about the movie in question as it is the release date.
Anyway, enough of my jibber-jabber, here’s a small slab of text describing what goes on in Battle: Los Angeles:
When unknown forces put the City of Angels under attack, it’s up to a Marine staff sergeant (Aaron Eckhart) and his new platoon to come to the rescue. As the invasion hits the streets of L.A., the Marines become our first and last line of defense against a highly powerful enemy. Bridget Moynahan (I, Robot), Michelle Rodriguez (Avatar) and Michael Peña (World Trade Center) co-star alongside an ensemble cast including Ramon Rodriguez and Ne-Yo.
Studio Sony is more interested in name-dropping than plot, apparently, but I guess the vague ambiguity of the above synopsis will help keep intact the bubble of surprise that this film is cultivating. Aaron Eckhart is a fine actor, and what I can remember of everyone else is pretty good too, so I’m sure the characters are in good hands. Jonathon Liebesman is in the director’s chair, and while his earlier horror stuff was poorly received, his 2009 sundance film The Killing Room made more of a positive impression on critics. This bodes well for Battle.
One last thought: the “Battle of Los Angeles” is an event well-known in ufology circles, and I wonder whether Battle: Los Angeles’ premise was inspired by that supposedly real-life occurrence? Regardless of all that, it’s about time we got a thumping good, gritty, real-time alien war movie. Bring it on.
OPINIONS COUNT