interesting: Christian Bale Next Role? The Villain in Spike Lee's Remake of 'Oldboy'?

Christian Bale is not taking any time off after Batman.  The role of the Caped Crusader has vaulted him to the top of a lot of lists I would imagine. His acting chops have never been in question, more the issue was around could he carry a tentpole as the lead. Well, we know the answer to that now.

FirstShowing has a great breakdown of the roles he is considering. There are plenty of opportunities out there however there is one that I am keeping my eye one.

Recently, Spike Lee has landed the opportunity/curse of remaking the epic and genius Oldboy. Recently, they had a version where Steven Spielberg and Will Smith attached (which I have been on the record to say was a horrible idea). Oldboy is one of those untouchable gems that Hollywood just should not touching.

Yet here we are.

Spike Lee is a great director so in his hands it might not suck as much as I am afraid it will.

Now we have news that Christian Bale might be considering the role for of the Villian. Without giving too much away about the story, that is a great fricken idea. Like through the moon fantastic.

I still hate the idea of an Oldboy remake, but with these choices that are being made about it so far, I am holding on to hope.

Filed under  //  Batman   Christian Bale   FirstShowing   Hollywood   Oldboy   Spike Lee   Steven Spielberg   Will Smith   film   nerdiness   pop-culture   tumblrize   xavierpop  
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Northern Lights Shine Bright On First-Time Filmmakers In #TIFF11 's Canada First!

News is coming fast and furious from the TIFF Festival press office.
Next up the announcement of the features as part of its Canada First programme.

Oh Look! A Press Release:

Northern Lights Shine Bright On First-Time Filmmakers In Canada First!

Toronto â€" The Toronto International Film Festival® demonstrates its commitment to Canadian film with the announcement of seven features as part of its Canada First! programme celebrating new and provocative Canadian auteurs. Comprised of three world premieres, the 2011 roster offers audiences a compelling journey through secrets, self-discovery, loss and new beginnings, and opens in the Québec Eastern Townships with Guy Édoin's Wetlands and a haunting family dynamic.

Canada First!  Opening Night

Wetlands (Marécages) Guy Édoin, QC

North American Premiere

On a dairy farm in the Eastern Townships, in the middle of a drought, an accident will disrupt the life of the Santerre family. Forced to band together like never before, they will have to learn to forgive. Starring Pascale Bussières, Luc Picard, François Papineau and Gabriel Maillé.

Amy George Yonah Lewis, Calvin Thomas, ON

Canadian Premiere

Thirteen-year-old Jesse wants to be an artist, but believes that his mundane middle class Toronto life has left him unprepared. After reading a book on what it takes to be a “true artist,” he sets out looking for risk, ecstasy, wildness and women.

Leave It On The Floor Sheldon Larry, ON

Canadian Premiere

This indie-narrative musical is set in the drag-ball community memorialized in the documentary Paris Is Burning. With 11 original songs by Beyoncé’s musical director Kim Burse and choreography by Beyoncé choreographer and ‘Mr. Single Ladies’ Frank Gatson Jr., the film tells the story of a young African American thrown out by his narcissistic mother for being gay. He stumbles upon a competitive drag ball organized by runaways and throwaways where he ultimately finds a new home and family.

Nuit #1 Anne Émond, QC

World Premiere

Clara and Nikolaï meet at a rave. They return to Nicolaï’s apartment and make love. Afterwards, instead of parting, the two lovers divulge their deepest secrets to one another. Nicolaï is a beautiful loser. At the age of 31, he leads a simple and frugal life. He envisions big projects and has large ideas but, inevitably and despite himself, loses sight of them before they are realized. Clara, like Nikolaï, seems not to be made for this world. By day, she works as a Grade 3 school teacher; by night, she is a compulsive party-girl, sleeping with men, women or both at once. Starring Catherine De Léan and Dimitri Storoge.

The Odds Simon Davidson, BC

World Premiere

In The Odds, a murder mystery set in the world of illegal teenage gambling, 17-year-old Desson Orr must find his best friend’s killer before the game is exposed.

The Patron Saints Brian M. Cassidy, Melanie Shatzky, QC

World Premiere

The Patron Saints is a disquieting and hyper-realistic glimpse into life at a nursing home. Bound by the candid confessions of a recently disabled resident, the film weaves haunting images, scenes and stories from within the institution walls. Sidestepping conventional documentary methods for a heightened cinematic approach to storytelling, the film employs lyrical realism and black humour in its charged portrait of fading bodies and minds.

Romeo Eleven (Roméo Onze) Ivan Grbovic, QC

North American Premiere

Romeo Eleven is the intimate portrait of a shy young man looking for love in all the wrong places. A path of lies slowly catches up to him before leading the audience to a surprising and moving conclusion.

Tickets to screenings for this programme will be available for individual purchase as well as through the Canadian Pack, a ticket package selected by TIFF programmers that offers film lovers exposure to Canadian talent with a selection of five new Canadian films for $80 ($68 for students and seniors). Purchase Festival ticket packages online 24 hours a day at tiff.net/festival, by phone Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. ET at 416-599-TIFF or 1-888-599-8433, and in person at the TIFF Bell Lightbox Box Office at 350 King St. West from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. ET. Methods of payment include cash, debit or Visa†.

The 36th Toronto International Film Festival runs September 8 to 18, 2011

Filed under  //  film   nerdiness   pop-culture   tumblrize   xavierpop  
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#TIFF11 Festival Announces Free Programming

One of the cool things about TIFF is the free programming  that the festival offer to patrons every year. This year's list is out and of note is Mark Cousins' epic 15-hour documentary The Story of Film.

The question is who is going to stay for the whole thing?

Oh Look! A press release:

Toronto International Film Festival Announces Free Programming

Toronto â€" The 36th Toronto International Film FestivalÃ' today announced its free programming which includes screenings of the World Premiere of Mark Cousins’ epic 15-hour documentary The Story of Film: An Odyssey; Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb’s This is Not a Film â€" a day-in-the-life portrait of filmmaker Jafar Panahi, under house arrest in Iran; and the screening of the winner of the 2011 Cadillac People’s Choice Award. Also open to audiences free of charge is a City to City Panel of filmmakers and programmers exploring the emerging film scene in Buenos Aires as well as a special discussion to accompany the Future Projections installation James Franco and Gus Van Sant: Memories of Idaho.

“The free Festival programming we are presenting honours the Festival’s tradition of celebrating filmmakers and film. Among them the important work of Cousins, Panahi and Mirtahmasb will offer audiences a window into the history and current situation of artists and cinema around the world,” said Piers Handling, Director and CEO, TIFF. “We are happy to be able to offer this access to special screenings and discussions to Festival audiences.”

Free Programming includes:

This is not a Film Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, Iran (Toronto Premiere)

Sentenced to six years in prison and banned from writing and making films for 20 years by the Islamic Republic Court in Tehran, Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi waited for the verdict of his court appeal for months. Through the depiction of a day in his life while he’s on house arrest, Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb (a documentary filmmaker and former assistant director) offer audiences an overview of the current situation of Iranian cinema.

The Story of Film: An Odyssey Mark Cousins, United Kingdom (World Premiere)

Filmed on four continents over six years, this epic 15-hour documentary tells the story of innovation in the movies based on the acclaimed book of the same title by Mark Cousins. Featuring exclusive interviews with legendary filmmakers like Stanley Donen and Abbas Kiarostami, The Story of Film: An Odyssey is a passionate, cinematic journey across 11 decades of cinema, and a thousand films. The film will be screened first in five instalments of three hours each, every morning at 10am from Monday, September 12 to Friday, September 16. On the Festival’s final weekend the film will be screened again: eight hours on Saturday, September 17 and seven hours on Sunday, September 18.

Cadillac People’s Choice Award Winner screening

Once the ballots have been counted, and the winner revealed, the fan favourite film of the Festival will screen on the last day of the Festival â€" Sunday, September 18 â€" at Ryerson Theatre. The winner will be announced that morning.

City to City Panel

Filmmakers whose works are featured in the Festival’s City to City spotlight on Buenos Aires, Festival programmers and industry professionals join together for a lively and interactive discussion of the emerging film scene in Buenos Aires.

A special discussion to accompany James Franco and Gus Van Sant’s Memories of Idaho (1991; 2010 and 2011)

Saturday, September 10 in TIFF Bell Lightbox

In 1991, Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho and its central performance by River Phoenix had an enormous cultural impact, not least on a budding young actor named James Franco (127 Hours, James Dean). Now Franco has collaborated with Van Sant to create Memories of Idaho, a meditation on the seminal film in multiple parts. At the work’s core are two new films, projected sequentially, in a darkened, generic space. The first film, My Own Private River, is a feature-length chronological reassemblage of excised scenes and alternate takes from the original shoot, radically foregrounding Phoenix. The second film, Idaho, comes from one of three scripts Van Sant used to create the original film, its Super-8 texture meant to be a “ghost” of his original conception. Van Sant contributes ghosts of his own, large-format photographs of actual Portland street hustlers who appeared in, and provided inspiration and source material for, the film. Present ed at TIFF Bell Lightbox Atrium, 350 King Street West. September 8 to 18. (*One of the film elements of “Memories of Idaho,” My Own Private River, was previously shown at Gagosian Gallery Los Angeles, February 26 to April 9, 2011.)

Tickets for This is Not a Film, The Story of Film, the Cadillac People’s Choice Award winner and City to City panel will be available on a first-come, first-served basis from the relevant venue box office two hours prior to start of the screening.

Admittance to the Memories of Idaho discussion will be granted on a first-come, first-served basis. Space is limited.

 

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Where has this movie been? - Trailer for the The Way

Where has this movie been hiding?

Having made it's premiere last year at TIFF, The Way directed by Emilio Estevez and starring his father the incomparable Martin Sheen just dropped its trailer and man it's a thing of beauty.

Sheen has already proven that he has some serious acting chops. His performances in Apocalypse Now, the Departed and Catch Me If You Can have illustrated that in spades. He will be known to this current generation mostly as President Josiah Bartlett in the brilliant TV series The West Wing.

My love for The West Wing is pretty vocal amongst those that know me so anything he does garners my attention.

As I watched this trailer, I slowly started to kick myself for not finding this trailer earlier. In hindsight, I also should have seen this at TIFF last year.

Watch this trailer. Do it now.

Need another reason?
If this is promoted properly and if the glimpse we are getting now with the trailer carries through to the film, Martin Sheen has just made a pretty strong argument for an Oscar nomination.

Here is the synopsis:

Martin Sheen plays Tom, an American doctor who comes to St. Jean Pied de Port, France to collect the remains of his adult son, killed in the Pyrenees in a storm while walking The Camino de Santiago, also known as The Way of Saint James. Driven by his profound sadness and desire to understand his son better, Tom decides to embark on the historical pilgrimage, leaving his “California bubble life” behind. Armed with his son’s backpack and guidebook, Tom navigates the 800 km pilgrimage from the French Pyrenees, to Santiago de Compostela in the north west of Spain, but soon discovers that he will not be alone on this journey. While walking The Camino, Tom meets other pilgrims from around the world, all broken and looking for greater meaning in their lives: a Dutchman (Yorick van Wageningen) a Canadian (Deborah Kara Unger) and an Irish writer (James Nesbitt) who is suffering from a bout of “writer’s block.” From the hardship experienced along “The Way” this unlikely quartet of misfits create an everlasting bond and Tom begins to learn what it means to be a citizen of the world again, and discovers the difference between “The life we live and the life we choose”. THE WAY was filmed entirely in Spain and France along the actual Camino de Santiago.

Here is the trailer:


source: Collider

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Listen to the full Muppets Tribute Album - Muppets:The Green Album on NPR

In advance of the Muppets movie coming out this fall, an album has been put together where artists from today cover some of the most beloved songs that have played over the years on the show and the movies.

Some of the covers are pretty interesting and some are just weird. Weezer does a pretty good job with 'Rainbow Connection' and the Fray do Mahna Mahna very well. OK GO's version of the Muppet theme is a bit wonky for me however it is still a bit of a thrill to heard these songs re-interpreted for youth today.

Head over to NPR where you can stream the whole album. It is definitely worth the time and is a great listen.

thanks to @randeepk for the heads-up.

Filed under  //  Andrew Bird   Arts   Muppet Show   Muppets   NPR   OK Go   Rainbow Connection   Weezer   film   nerdiness   pop-culture   tumblrize   xavierpop  
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Melanie's Review of Fright Night

I’m a little torn about the Fright Night remake.

I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for the original, so I went into the remake a little skeptical. There wasn’t necessarily anything wrong with the 2011 version, but it just wasn’t as good as the 1985 film.

Putting that aside, director Craig Gillespie and cast tried very hard to live up to the original. Unfortunately, I didn’t find it as campy as I would have liked, and it lacked some of the back-story that I remember from the first Fright Night. I was also a little worried about the 3-D aspect of the film, but have to admit that I liked the subtlety of it and liked that it wasn’t overdone.

Craig Gillespie has only directed a couple of movies, but made a very smart move not straying too far from the original storyline. It’s the standard formula: teen leaves behind geeky past, scores hot popular chick, tries to deal with dad ditching him and his mom, new neighbour moves in next door who’s a vampire, then teen has to save mom, girlfriend, and the world from vampire.

I’ll be honest: Colin Farrell (Miami Vice, Horrible Bosses) is hot. He is really, really hot.

Yet can ‘hot’ carry a movie? Sadly, not really. It worked for a little while, but Farrell didn’t really say much during the film and after a time it became really noticeable. I also found that he didn’t have as much charisma as Chris Sarandon the first Jerry.

One thing I really appreciated about this film is they cast the two main teenage leads well. I enjoyed Anton Yelchin (Star Trek, Alpha Dog) as Charlie Brewster in this version. He was relatable and strong enough to help carry the movie.

Imogen Poots (28 Weeks Later, V for Vendetta) was also excellent as the cool popular girlfriend, who’s different from the other teenagers her age. She gave the movie some of its depth. Yelchin and Poots were far better than their original counterparts in the first film.

I also really enjoyed David Tennant (Harry Potter, TV’s Doctor Who) as Peter Vincent. His interaction with my favourite character, Ginger, played by Sandra Vergara, was definitely the best part of the movie. The two of them together were hilarious! She was dead sexy too!

inally. McLovin.  Oh, McLovin. I’m thinking that Christopher Mintz-Plasse’s time is nearly over in the movie world. He’s been playing the same role in every film since Superbad, and personally I’m getting a little tired of him. He definitely had the ‘nerd’ part of Charlie’s ex-best-friend Ed down, but didn’t offer up much beyond that. Personally I found his entire performance flat. The original “Evil Ed” played by Stephen Geoffreys, was such an amazingly played character, that I’m not sure that anyone could have lived up to it.

I found Toni Collette (The Sixth Sense, Little Miss Sunshine) who played Charlie’s mom, to be wasted in the film. She’s such a strong actress, and didn’t have much in the script to latch on to.

The cameo by Chris Sarandon was priceless. Although, I wish he’d been in the film a lot longer. He is a fantastic actor, and his part was too fast. I actually would have loved to have seen him play Peter Vincent. I think that would have been a fun twist.

If I were to sum up my feelings on this movie, I would say that people who haven ‘t seen the original will totally enjoy the ride. I think anyone who has seen the original will have a more tepid take on it.

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