MOVIE OPENINGS – Jan 25
UNTRACEABLE
Director: Gregory Hoblit
Stars: Diane Lane, Colin Hanks, Joseph Cross
Studio: Screen Gems
The Plot: FBI agent Jennifer Marsh (Lane) races to identify and bring down a killer who flaunts his crimes on the Internet.
RAMBO
Director: Sylvester Stallone
Stars: Sylvester Stallone, Julie Benz
Studio: Lionsgate
The Plot: In Thailand, John Rambo (Stallone) assembles a group of mercenaries and leads them up the Salween River to a Burmese village after hearing that a group of aid workers he assisted have gone missing.
HOW SHE MOVE
Director: Ian Iqbal Rashid
Stars: Rutina Wesley, Tre Armstrong, Brennan Gademans
Studio: Paramount Vantage
The Plot: A family tragedy forces a young student to drop out of her private school and return to her old neighborhood, where she eventually rediscovers her love of step dancing.
READ REVIEWS OF 'HOW SHE MOVE'
THE AIR I BREATHE
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Director: Jieho Lee
Stars: Forest Whitaker, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Brendan Fraser
Studio: THINKFilm
The Plot: A drama based on an ancient Chinese proverb that breaks life down into four emotional cornerstones: happiness, pleasure, sorrow and love. A businessman (Whitaker) bets his life on a horse race; a gangster (Fraser) sees the future; a pop star (Gellar) falls prey to a crime boss (Garcia); a doctor (Bacon) must save the love of his life.
READ REVIEWS OF 'THE AIR I BREATHE'
4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS
Director: Cristian Mungiu
Stars: Anamaria Marinca, Laura Vasiliu, Vlad Ivanov
Studio: IFC Films
The Plot: A 1987-set drama that chronicles a Romanian college student's effort to get an abortion while living in a Communist regime
READ REVIEWS OF '4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS'
MEET THE SPARTANS
Director: Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer
Stars: Sean Maguire, Kevin Sorbo
Studio: Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
The Plot: A parody of the movie 300 in which the heroic, leather-clad Leonidas (Maguire) leads 13 of his fellow Spartans in a campaign to defend their homeland from a Persian army that includes a hunchbacked Paris Hilton and many others
READ REVIEWS OF 'MEET THE SPARTANS'
Heath Ledger’s Death May Mean Film’s End
Heath Ledger’s death has created an enormous marketing challenge for Warner Brothers in promoting its Batman sequel, “The Dark Knight,” in which he plays the Joker. But that is nothing next to the predicament confronting Terry Gilliam, who was less than halfway through directing his next film when Mr. Ledger, one of its stars, was found dead in a New York apartment on Tuesday.
Mr. Gilliam’s $30 million morality tale, “The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus,” stars Christopher Plummer as the title character, the leader of a traveling theater troupe that tempts its audiences with the chance to “transcend mundane reality by passing through a magical mirror into a fantastic universe of limitless imagination,” according to an official synopsis. Mr. Ledger played a troupe member who romances the character’s daughter.
(Source: New York Times)
‘Treatment’ goes deep into therapy
A lot of people in Israel, like here, used to complain there was nothing to watch on television. Then came "B'tipul" -- a five-night-a-week scripted drama about a psychologist and his clients that won every top award in that country and an unprecedented, loyal and rapt audience.
Now, when Americans are currently complaining that the writers strike has left no original programming on television, HBO hopes to repeat history. On Monday, the network will launch "In Treatment" -- its remake of the Israeli series.
"In Treatment" stars Gabriel Byrne as Paul, an intense middle-aged therapist whose life is secretly falling apart. With his patients, he specializes in listening, serious eye contact and saying things like, "I'm very interested in everything you have to say. I mean that." Viewers can watch him every weeknight, for the next nine weeks, as he befriends, challenges and uncovers the unspoken secrets of his promiscuous, suicidal, abused, angry or guilty patients.
(Source: LA Times)
Lionsgate and Marvel strike deal with writers
Lionsgate and Marvel studios have signed interim deals with the striking Writers Guild of America (WGA).
In a statement Lionsgate said: "It was an important time to have our writer partners get back to work."
Talk show host David Letterman's firm, United Artists and The Weinstein Company have already struck deals.
In a statement, the WGA said: "We are pleased Lionsgate has joined the growing number of companies that have signed interim agreements with the Writers Guild."
The WGA have been on strike since November in a dispute over royalties for work distributed online or on DVD.
(Source: BBC News)
Sylvester Stallone explains why he’s bringing back Rambo
Sylvester Stallone was in a hurry.
He was moving quickly but gracefully down the hall at the Four Seasons hotel in Los Angeles like a young John Rambo – not like an older Rocky Balboa.
Just as he got to his destination, he was intercepted by two young men in dark suits. They had a question you don't hear every day in Hollywood.
"Do you have time to take a call from the Dalai Lama?"
Stallone declined, saying he was late for an interview to promote his new movie "Rambo," which opens Friday. He ducked into the room, closed the door behind him and left the Tibetan spiritual leader's emissaries in the hall.
(Source: OC Register)
CASTING COUCH
- Ellen Page will follow up her star-making and Oscar-nominated turn in "Juno" by starring in Mandate Pictures' "Whip It!" which marks Drew Barrymore's directorial debut.
- Andrew Jarecki is set to direct period love story with Kirsten Dunst in negotiations and Ryan Gosling signed on to star in the period love story/murder mystery "All Good Things" for Michael London's Groundswell Prods.
- Adrien Brody and Jeffrey Wright will play major music-biz figures Lenorad Chess and Muddy Wtaers in Sony BMG Film's "Cadillac Records," which goes before cameras in March.
- J.J. Abrams has started putting together the cast for his new Fox series "Fringe." Kirk Acevedo and Tomas Arana have been cast in key roles on the skein, which marks Abrams' first big series under his deal with Warner Bros. TV.
Morgan Spurlock’s ‘World’: Director Clues Us In At Sundance On Search For Osama Bin Laden
Morgan Spurlock's left hand is bandaged up, the result of a snowboarding accident on his first day at the snow-covered Sundance Film Festival. Suffice it to say, that's the only thing that's gone wrong for him lately.
The charismatic "Super Size Me" star/ director/ guinea pig touched down in Park City knowing that his April film, "Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden?," was already sold and that thousands of hard-core filmgoers would line up around the block to get an early peek. Early at the fest, the buzz centered on whether he had actually tracked down the man responsible for 9/11. Now the word is out that, although his mission proved impossible, people are finding the film to be an enlightening, hilarious international trip worth taking.
We caught up with Spurlock at Sundance on Wednesday (January 23) to discuss his beard, his baby and bin Laden.
(Source: MTV)
Movie critic Roger Ebert says he will have surgery again
After undergoing a series of cancer surgeries, film critic Roger Ebert says he'll have yet another operation this week.
According to a statement in the Chicago Sun-Times, Thursday's surgery is to address complications from previous operations.
Ebert has been a film critic at the paper for more than 40 years.
Ebert didn't elaborate on the surgery he'll undergo in Houston in the statement.
(Source: Chicago Tribune)
Websites make it easy to catch a missed TV show
Even as their supply of new programs dwindles during the months-long writers' strike, major TV networks continue to try to capture online viewers.
Streaming free full-length episodes on their own websites was just the beginning. Episodes from ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC are showing up on an assortment of sites, from big destinations such as AOL to newcomers Veoh and MeeVee.
Signs are that time spent watching video — not just snacks à la YouTube, but full episodes — is increasing. The number of broadband users who watched full shows online weekly doubled in 2007 from 8% to 16%, says market research firm Horowitz Associates.
Embracing the Web is "an acknowledgement that this is real (and networks) have a business model and can monetize it and make it part of their growth," Howard Horowitz says.
(Source: USA Today)
Heath Ledger: His Last Costar Reflects
Last week in London, Heath Ledger was busy wrapping up several months of long days and nights he'd spent at often-frigid outdoor locations, filming scenes for The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. But with Ledger's death on Tuesday in New York, the movie has become a reported $30 million question mark, since there were additional weeks of studio-soundstage filming yet to be done in Vancouver.
Imaginarium is a fantasy tale, written and directed by Terry Gilliam, a filmmaker known for his outlandish visual invention (he previously worked with Ledger on 2005's The Brothers Grimm). Christopher Plummer, who's now 78, plays the title character, an eccentric theatrical trouper trapped in a deal with the devil (Tom Waits) that dooms Parnassus's lovely daughter, Valentina (played by British-born model Lily Cole). Ledger was playing Tony, a roguish charlatan who gets mixed up with the troupe and begins a series of through-the-magic-mirror adventures to a strange parallel universe.
Early on Sunday, Jan. 20, Plummer boarded a plane back to New York and went on to his Connecticut home. Ledger took a different London-to-New-York flight and repaired to a SoHo apartment where, two days later, he was found dead. EW spoke with Ledger's final costar about what happened, what the filming was like, and what may or may not become of the last scenes Ledger ever performed.
(Source: EW.com)