The Dumb Are Mostly Intrigued By The Drum

Rodriguez has Banderas. Burton & Depp. Allen & Johansson. Yup directors have that one actor that they always go to and Scorsese is once again going back to work with Robert De Niro in an adaptation of I Heard You Paint Houses, a 2005 novel by Charles Brandt. The book is about an Irish mob hit man named Frank “the Irishman” Sheeran (which De Niro will be playing) whom claimed to have been the guy to wack Jimmy Hoffa. Sounds like a classic gangster Scorsese flick. Check out Slash Film here for more details on the project and permission is given to begin getting excited for this one.

These pics were floating around the net yesterday and this morning Slash Film confirmed (via TFW2005) that this is indeed how the leader of the Decepticons will look in the Transformers sequel due next year. So now he's a tank (reminds me of Galvatron) instead of an alien jet. Pretty cool shit cause that's the meanest looking tank I've ever seen. Check out the rest of the pics over here at Latino Review.

So back in 1998 when the Michael Bay classic Armageddon was released, I wonder if Australian Mary D’Souza was watching the film thinking "I will prove this movie wrong." You see, Mary isn't just a normal human being. Nope she's a PhD student with the University of Queensland's School of Engineering and she apparently knows her astro physics since she recently won an international contest for solutions to avoid a giant asteroid to impact our giant rock we call home. And what was the technique she came up with? The very one deemed stupid in the film by grand master Billy Bob: using solar sails to disrupt the path of the evil asteroid. In yer face, Slingblade! Swear if the earth is saved by going against something a Bay film has taught us to be stoopid, I sense no better poetic justice. A special shout out to Mary for saving (potentially) our home planet and our blog! Check out the full story over here at Slash Film.

Even though Clint Mansell's Requiem score can make any film look ten times better than it actually is, it wasn't enough to save this little abomination. It seems like Fox came in and took over for the director Mathieu Kassovitz when he couldn't deliver a PG-13 rating and edited the crap out of the film and essentially turned into a turd (although who knows if it was already a shit film before). So continues the tyranny of Fox Studios and their reign of terror (unless they're looking to hire me, then they're all good in my book!). Check out the full details over here at Slash Film, including the secret connection between Vin Desiel and Osama Bin Laden. Interesting stuff....

I've been raving & ranting about the awesomeness that Kick-Ass (the graphic novel) for a while now and although they announced some of the cast before, today they rounded it out by bringing out the big guns: Nicholas Cage. Meh. Yeah, not very impressed as I'm not a huge Cage fan but whatever gets the investors money to get the film made, right? So the word is the script was so violent that none of the studios wanted to touch this hard R-rated film involving kids beating each other and killing everyone (reminds of why Battle Royale never got a proper release here) hence the search for independent funding which they found. Keep your fingers crossed that Castor Troy doesn't mess this one up. Head on over to Slash Film here to see the full cast lineup with the characters they're playing, pretty cool. For the official story, The Hollywood Reporter has it here. Production is slated to start this Fall in Canada.

Tried as I might have, I couldn't come up with a better headline than the one Slash Film came up up, which is where this story comes from (I even stole their image). No more words, click on the link as read what Silent Bob thought of the film.

Yup, there it is. That's your prince Dastan lookin all yummy (I'm assuming that some women read this blog and maybe some of those enjoy Jake Gyllenhaal half nekkid. Soak it in ladies!) The movie, based on the video game Prince Of Persia, was recently pushed back a bit and is now on track for a May 28, 2010 release. This comes from Just Jared via SlashFilm. You feel the need for more Gyllenhaal? Click on him up there....

Variety (via SlashFilm) is reporting that Mr. Jolie has done it! He's on board for Tarantino's "grand masterpiece" Inglorious Bastards. Yeah, I'ma fan of the Pitt, sorry. Dude's pretty versatile and his fucken laugh...shit's great! So far that's 3 cast members: Eli Roth & BJ Novak & now Brad Pitt. The cast is begining to take form now but is still far from the epic dream cast the director had said he wanted years ago. Wait and see....

So this weekend was completely seized by our swede. Spending all weekend in front of the computer or behind the camera really wears a person down on you but it's all for a good cause, right? Yup, indeed our 1st Swede Festival is right around the corner and the entries we've received so far are phenomenal! Can't wait to see what tonight's deadline will bring us tomorrow. (If you look hard enough, you can find the entries online but I'll hold off posting them here in order to keep it spoiler free for those who rather wait) Now, let get into the weekend:

• Seems like those Batman rumors continue to swirl around (Jolie as Catwoman? Philip Seymour-Hoffman as Penguin?) as the film continues to dominate the box office. Well SlashFilm has an excellent article dispelling all of those Dark Knight sequel rumors and what might actually happen (if it happens) when we see the caped crusader on the big screen again.

• And speaking of The Dark Knight, the Batman curse has struck again and this time, it's put Morgan Freeman in the hospital after a car crash and left him in serious condition. Man, if I were Michael Caine, I'd be watching my back right about now.

• A photo from Evil Beet gave us a chuckle this morning as a movie theater marquee was switching from Hancock to The Dark Knight. Reminds me of another incident with a Hancock sign.

• SuperHeroHype has some cool ass hi-res images of the character posters that were shown at Comic Con for Watchmen. They'll make some cool desktop images to decorate with!

• So the last Spider Man film sucked donkey balls, right? Well, it looks like Sony is looking to head in another direction with the franchise and give Venom a chance to star in his own film, The Hollywood Reporter is reporting. As long as they recast Topher Grace (sorry, that was one of the most horrible casting fuck ups in a long time) then that might be cool...

I found this over at Slash Film. Read it. Go ahead, I'll wait. Wow, huh? I guess if you look deep enough into anything, you can see whatever you wanna see. I'm hoping that the Brothers Nolan & David Goyer (the creators of the film's story & script) come out and talk about this little piece. Maybe their intentions were to shine some light towards the great Dubya. But somehow, I really doubt it though. So what do you guys think? Is The Dark Knight George Bush? Does the fact that Rupert Murdoch owns the WSJ have any impact? Discuss freely..

Check out the original Wall Street Journal opinion piece here!

I loves me some clam chowder! And with that, lets continue on with the show:

• This little comic comes from The Rut and it helped me get my week off on the right foot. Thanks to battledrill for this lil' nugget of laughter.

• Oh, that little film that opened this weekened about some dude's dressed up as a bat and a clown? Yeah, it made a whole bunch of money. Like, the most ever in a weekend. The previous record holder was a film about some dude who dressed up as a spider. What's this world coming too?

• Ebert & Roeper are done. I guess ABC wanted to take the show in a different direction so the show, as we know it, is done. I knew the end was near when they stopped using the infamous "Thumbs Up/ Thumb Down" technique of reviewing films. That was weak...

• I know that The Boondock Saints has a cult following. When I originally saw the movie years ago, I was entertained, but never thought that it was that great. Then came Overnight. That made me hate the film even more (seriously, watch the trailer. It's truly captivating how someone can self destruct). Well Troy Duffy is a changed man now and has been de-blacklisted and is making a sequel to his first film. If your interested, check out the plot details here at Slash Film.

• Aintitcool has posted some dope Bill Sienkiewicz production artwork from The Dark Knight. Love this guy. Some of you might remember he did the cover for RZA's Bobby Digital ...In Stereo album a couple years back. Of course, I'll always remember him from his awesome comic book work on Elektra: Assassin.

Well, with imminent release of one of the biggest releases of the year in the video game world in Metal Gear Solid 4 (but not going to get as much hype as that other game) news about the franchise has started to boil over in certain circles. The latest coming out of Kotaku is that Kojima-san (creator/director of all things Metal Gear) is interested in having P.T. Anderson helm the film adaptation of his beloved franchise. P.T. Anderson, director of Punch-Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood and Magnolia directing and action-adventure film based on a video game. Hmmmm...although I'm going to lean to slashfilm.com's side and agree that they might have meant Paul W.S. Anderson (director of awesomeness such as Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil & Aliens Vs. Predator) which would suck cause that hack would most certainly bring no justice to the franchise (his wife Milla Jovovich might be perfect for the role of Meryl, though). But if the guy was in fact NOT misquoted, lets all sit back and imagine a P.T. Anderson Metal Gear film, shall we?