Posted on Tuesday, January 24th, 2012 by Angie Han
HBO has developed quite a reputation for attracting high-profile, high-quality talent, with the likes of Steve Buscemi and Dustin Hoffman leading shows on the network, and now they’ve brought on one of their biggest names yet. Ben Stiller has signed on to star, direct, and executive produce All Talk, a comedy from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close novelist Jonathan Safran Foer, with Alan Alda in talks to co-star. Scott Rudin is set to executive produce with Foer, Stiller, and Eli Bush. More details after the jump.
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Posted on Tuesday, January 24th, 2012 by Angie Han
You wouldn’t think that a playful family comedy like Aardman Animation’s The Pirates! Band of Misfits would court much controversy, especially seeing as it won’t even be released for another two months. But one joke shown in the trailer, released last year, has already drawn enough criticism to prompt the studio to take action.
Aardman has agreed to change a scene showing a leper boat after objections from leprosy groups like Lepra Health in Action and the International Federation of Anti-Leprosy Associations (ILEP), who were concerned that it could increase the stigma associated with the disease. Read more after the jump.
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With 2011 being a rare exception, a Sundance award winner is almost always in the thick of awards season. And while the 2012 Sundance Film Festival has yet to bestow its awards, let alone premiere all the films, I feel confident in saying Ben Lewin‘s The Surrogate will likely be in the mix for awards here and possibly next year at the Oscars.
The Surrogate is the true story of Mark O’Brien (John Hawkes), a California-based journalist relegated to a gurney and iron lung because of disabling polio. At the age of 38, he’s still a virgin and, with the blessing of his priest (William H. Macy), Mark hires a sex surrogate (Helen Hunt) to remedy the problem.
While the story sounds kind of creepy, pathetic and depressing, The Surrogate is exactly the opposite. It’s hilarious, brave and frank about both disabilities and sexuality. It’s a special film which had its world premiere this week in Park City, leading to what looks like a $6m deal for Fox Searchlight to distribute the film. Read more after the jump. Read More »
We’ll likely spend some of today reacting to the Oscar nominations, which were announced this morning. But before we get to complaining and picking apart the Academy choices that snubbed certain films, let’s celebrate a couple of movies that just got a big bump from the Oscar nods.
In the Best Animated Film category two of the nominated films are ones that are probably unfamiliar to a lot of people. A Cat in Paris, by Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli, and Chico & Rita, by Fernando Trueba, Javier Mariscal and Tono Errando were both nominated. But before you get too up in arms that these movies helped snub Pixar and/or Tintin, take a look at the trailers for the two films below. Chico & Rita, for example, is simply gorgeous. Read More »
Posted on Tuesday, January 24th, 2012 by Angie Han
Eight years after his sophomore directorial effort P.S., Dylan Kidd is heading back into feature filmmaking with a new comedy for CBS Films titled Get a Job. And he’s got his eye on some intriguing young stars (and Bryan Cranston) for the lead roles: Miles Teller is in talks for one of the leads, while offers have gone out to Cranston and Anna Kendrick for other roles. Meanwhile, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Jay Pharoah, and Jesse Eisenberg, who starred in Kidd’s debut Roger Dodger, are said to be circling as well. More details after the jump.
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This morning the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the nominations for the 84th Academy Awards. Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone, The Hunger Games) read the new Oscar nods, with by Academy President Tom Sherak.
The big nominees were The Descendants, The Artist, and Hugo, all which come as no surprise. But Moneyball scored four big nominations, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy also walked away with a couple big nods, and The Muppets is now Oscar-nominated. The Adventures of Tintin was shut out of the Best Animated Film category, and Andy Serkis did not end up with a nomination for his work in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Read More »
Briefly: Here’s some pretty late-breaking casting news for Zack Snyder‘s new Superman film, Man of Steel. While we know that Lois Lane will be the primary female lead in the film, played by Amy Adams, now we know for certain that ground is being laid to include another romantic interest for Superman alter-ego Clark Kent (Henry Cavill).
A past romantic interest, at least. Jadin Gould (Battle: Los Angeles, The Mentalist, Chuck) has been cast as a young Lana Lang, and will appear in at least one flashback to Clark Kent’s childhood in Smallville, likely opposite Dylan Sprayberry as the young Kent. Lang is traditionally the first of Kent’s ‘double-L’ entanglements, before he runs into Lois Lane and Lex Luthor. Oddly, Gould could almost pass for a young Kristin Kreuk, who played Lang on Smallville. [Superman Super Site via ComingSoon]
There’s a good movie somewhere in the middle of the 130 minutes comprising Spike Lee‘s Red Hook Summer. A focused movie. A movie that has a lot to say about the conflict between younger and older generations, faith versus religion, young love and even technology. That movie is in there. Unfortunately, Red Hook Summer as it currently stands at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival is a bulky, dense and meandering film. It is at times thought-provoking and at others just plain confusing. Read More »
