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Oscar season kicks off with a click of a mouse as David Fincher unveils his latest film "The Social Network" or as most know it "That Facebook Movie." It's a really strong film and is poised to do great business at the box office against a weak group of contenders this weekend. With reviews this strong, the picture could have a long shelf life as we rocket into awards season. Competition this week comes in the form of a couple of horror films. "Let Me In" is the English-language remake of 2008's swedish vampire movie "Let the Right One In." It should easily outdo the buzz-less Renee Zellweger-lead "Case 39" for your multiplex dollars. The art-house is a quiet spot this weekend as well, with a couple of interesting documentaries, "Freakonomics" and "Casino Jack and the United States of Money" looking like your best bets.
In Wide Release: One week after Oliver Stone's attempt to capture the zeitgeist with "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps," another great filmmaker examines a different dimension of recent American history in "The Social Network." David Fincher's film is, of course, the long awaited Aaron Sorkin-scripted story of the founding of Facebook, centering around Mark Zuckerberg (played by Jesse Eisenberg) who ultimately got most of the credit as well as the cash---to the tune of 6.9 billion dollars. We reviewed the film back at the New York Film Festival, finding it to be thrilling, grand entertainment and a great addition to Fincher's filmography after the relative disappointment of 2008's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." RT: Metacritic: 97% Metacritic: 98. 
"Let Me In" is the American adaptation of John Lindqvist's novel "Let The Right One In." The films tells the story of an outcast young boy (played by "The Road'" actor Kodi Smit-Mchee) who starts a friendship with a female vampire ("Kick Ass" actor Chloe Moretz) living in secrecy. Director Tomas Alfredson brought the book to the screen with his acclaimed and beloved 2008 Swedish-language versions and fans worldwide were miffed by Hollywood's intent on remaking the material. We reviewed the film when we saw it at Toronto last month and were pleasantly surprised by "Cloverfield" director Matt Reeves' film, which is just as powerful and moving as the original. RT: 82% Metacritic: 78.
The generic looking horror film "Case 39" opens today. Generic-looking isn't always a bad thing when it comes to box office for fright flicks, but considering this one stars Renee Zellweger, who hasn't had a hit in ages, we're surprised this release didn't go straight to DVD. The actress plays a social worker trying to help a 10-year-old girl escape from her evil parents. This one didn't screen early for critics, so consider yourselves warned. RT: 23% Metacritic: n/a.
In Limited Release: There are a couple of interesting releases this week on the documentary front. “Freakonomics" is the omnibus documentary adaptation of the bestselling book from economist Steven D. Levitt and author Stephen J. Dubner. Divided into four mini-stories, the film is directed by Morgan Spurlock ("Super Size Me"), Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady ("Jesus Camp"), Eugene Jarecki ("Why We Fight"), and Alex Gibney ("Taxi to the Dark Side"). We reviewed the film, finding it lacking cohesion and a bit too literal of an adaptation. RT: 52% Metacritic: 54. Gibney also directed this week's "Casino Jack and the United States of Money," a look into the Jack Abramoff scandal. Gibney is suited to the material, given his fantastic film "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" a few years back. RT: 89% Metacritic: 68.
Also in limited release, the horror film "Hatchet 2," the sequel to the adequate low-budget slasher flick "Hatchet." We saw the film and didn't find much of anything to like. Especially with "Let Me In" out this week, there's no reason to go out and see this one. RT: 32% Metacritic:49. Patrick Wilson stars in the comedy "Barry Munday," the tale of a man who wakes up to find he's missing his testicles while at the same time facing a paternity suit from a woman he can't remember sleeping with. The cast is strong with supporting players Judy Greer, Cybill Shepard and Chloe Sevigny, but the word hasn't been very strong so far. RT: 25% Metacritic: 29.
"High Fidelity," "About A Boy," "An Education" -- it's quite an impressive film resume for novelist Nick Hornby (we'll politely overlook both versions of "Fever Pitch"; they're not that great) but it appears he has a new muse.
The Daily Mail reports that Nick Hornby is writing an original comedy script, not based on any of his books, with a part in mind for Rosamund Pike. Pike was part of the cast of the Carey Mulligan career-maker "An Education," and we presume he was taken by her turn as the willfully ignorant girlfriend of the shady art dealer played by Dominic Cooper. Of course, since its still a script stage, there's no director or studio attached and the project is probably more than a year off. It's an exciting prospect nonetheless.
As for Pike, she has a number of films hitting the big screen in the next little while including the women's rights drama "Made In Dagenham," the Mordecai Richler film adaptation of "Barney's Version" and the comedy "The Big Year" with Owen Wilson, Jack Black and Steve Martin.
Remember earlier this year when Ridley Scott talked non-stop about his "Alien" prequel films? And then remember how everything suddenly got very quiet? Perhaps there is a reason for this.
Script Flags (via Bleeding Cool) are reporting that Ridley Scott and 20th Century Fox are clashing over the budget and rating for his prequels. According to the site, "Scott wants a budget of around $250m to make it a sci-fi spectacular, and is also pushing for an 18-rated level of violence and horror" (bear in mind this is a Brit site so change "18-rated" to "R"). Fox apparently don't want to spend that much and want a wide audience friendly PG-13 rating.
While we can't vouch for the source, the circumstantial evidence does add up. Scott has already intimated more than once that his 3D prequels will be gritty, and that he wants to out do James Cameron's "Aliens." And he was definitely jazzed about doing the films after reading the original script by Jon Spaights, but the hire last summer by Fox of "Lost" writer and "Star Trek," "Cowboys & Aliens" c0-writer, Damon Lindelof to re-write the script certainly seems like they want a much more populist and PG-13 affair.
One only has to look at the box office performance of Scott's last two films to see why they might be hesitant to hand over $250 million to the director. "Body Of Lies" (rated R) brought in $115 million on a $70 million budget; "Robin Hood" (PG-13") brought in $310 million on a budget of $200 million. While arguably profitable, with budgets like that, studios are expecting at least double their investment if not more. Particularly for a budgets over $200 million, Fox would want some "Inception" or "Avatar" sized numbers (both rated PG-13 btw).
Also worth mentioning is Script Flags' August story is that "[Noomi] Rapace met with....Ridley Scott (and Scott Free’s Michael Costigan) [and he] is most likely currently looking for lead actresses and with the films he has on his slate there is really only one that requires personal meetings at this stage, Alien Prequel." It's an interesting way to connect the dots -- Rapace did indeed meet with several Hollywood directors -- but it seems like she is just in the mix (he also met with a not-so-interested Gemma Arteton), rather than a favored choice.
It will be interesting to see how long Scott waits to get a green light from the studio. He doesn't like to sit idly by and has numerous projects he can jump to instead, but lately, this is easily the one he's most eager to do. If you're a concerned fanboy you can join this very lame Facebook campaign for Scott to retain creative control on the film.
How do you sell a movie with Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie in it? You make a poster with Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie on it. Columbia Pictures aren't trying to reinvent the wheel here, and this first poster for "The Tourist" puts its two biggest assets right there for the world to see. Though we have to say, the airbrushing of their features is beginning to freak us out.
Directed by Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck (the German helmer behind "The Lives Of Others"), "The Tourist" is a romantic spy drama based on the 2005 French film "Anthony Zimmer," that follows a bumbling American tourist (Depp) as he finds himself romantically involved with an international spy (Jolie) in this quasi-Hitchcockian tale of a man in the wrong place at the wrong time.
While we had minor issues with the trailer, it looks like breezy enough fun and it will surely be a nice antidote to the steady stream of serious, awards season fare when it's released right in the thick of it on December 10, 2010.
Like pairing chocolate and milk or peanut butter and jelly, The Weinstein Company have sealed up an instant awards horse, getting Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts to team up for the big screen adaptation of the Tony-award winning play, "August: Osage County."
Set to be directed by John Wells ("The Company Men") and utilizing a screenplay by the playwright Tracy Letts, the film will find Streep once again stretching her talents playing "Violet, the drug-addicted matriarch of the working class Weston clan. Roberts will play Barbara Fordham, the oldest daughter in the family. While mom's problems and her penchant for revealing family secrets is a big issue, Barbara is melting because her husband is cheating with a college student. They are brought together when Violet's husband goes missing and all three of their daughters come home to rally around mom. In the process, a lot of family secrets get revealed." Sounds pretty damn great.
Production on the film is set to begin by next summer. What effect this might have on the gestating Streep vehicle "Great Hope Springs" with Philip Seymour Hoffman and James Gandolfini, which was aiming for a March shoot, remains to be seen, but we hope it's still in the works.
We mentioned last week the Luis Guzman Memorial Club that we're building in Hollywood for the unsung heroes of the character actor world, and somehow, we failed to mention Ciaran Hinds. The Irish-born actor came to prominence in the theater world (he was in the original cast of "Closer," and played Richard III for Sam Mendes), before breaking through to Hollywood as the Russian president in "The Sum Of All Fears."
Since then, he's been one of those guys who crops up in everything, amassing a pretty impressive collection of collaborators: "Road To Perdition," "Munich" (one of his best performances, actually), "Miami Vice," "Margot at the Wedding," "In Bruges," and "Life During Wartime" have all come in the last few years, although he's probably best known for playing Caesar in HBO's "Rome," and for being Daniel Day-Lewis' right-hand-man in "There Will Be Blood." And, like the best character actors, he pretty much elevates everything he's in.
Unfortunately, everyone's got to eat, and Hinds, who's already done the tentpole villainy thing a couple of times, in "Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life" and "Race to Witch Mountain," has just signed on to one of the more unnecessary sequels of modern times, "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance." Hinds will play the devil in the film (renamed Roark in the script, for no apparent reason), taking over the role from Peter Fonda, who took it on in the original. He was something of a background player in the first film, at least as far as we can remember before we threw the DVD out the window, but he's very much the villain in this piece, aiming to take over the body of his human son, and only a fiery-headed Nic Cage can stop him.
Violante Placido ("The American") has also joined the cast, as the boy's mother. We hope that they'll both be paid handsomely for their efforts. Hinds at least has brighter things in his future: he's in the starry cast of "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy," he's supporting Daniel Radcliffe in ghost story "The Woman In Black," and he'll crop up in "John Carter of Mars," and even the final Harry Potter films, as Dumbledore's brother. "Crank" directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor are the men in charge, and the film hits theaters, in 3D of course, on February 17th, 2012.
Despite "Australia" being something of a misfire, we're always keen to see what Baz Luhrmann is cooking up -- we may not be unconditionally in love with all his films, but few directors working in big-scale cinema are doing what he does. For some time, Luhrmann's been circling a number of projects: while he flirted with "My Fair Lady," the main contenders have been an unknown historical epic, a musical, possibly a collaboration with "Slumdog Millionaire" composer A.R. Rahmann, and an adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby."
MTV spoke to our favorite Australian Roger Sterling-lookalike at the premiere of "The Social Network," and he confirmed that he'd narrowed his decision down to two projects, 'Gatsby,' and the mysterious musical, which seems to be set in New York. Luhrmann told them "I've got the script for both of them and I'm making that decision in four to six weeks, no longer than six weeks."
Coincidentally, Production Weekly ran with some casting rumors for 'Gatsby' via Twitter yesterday -- namely Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby, Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway and Amanda Seyfried as Daisy Buchanan. DiCaprio makes sense, although there's a suavity to the character he's never quite displayed (Ryan Gosling would be perfect), but as always, the names are probably at this point not much more than names on a wishlist. Luhrmann was non-committal when he spoke to MTV, telling them that "You know I think of casting all the time, but I put that to the side and I complete the text. Obviously there are natural choices and there is a natural top of the list, but I really refuse to say anything until we have the text right." With that in mind, we're certainly not going to take the casting rumors with anything other than a colossal pinch of salt at this point.
That said if the intel is on the right track, both DiCaprio and Maguire do have open calendars in 2011 (with former shooting Clint Eastwood's "Hoover" early in the year) when we presume 'Gatsby' would shoot -- if that's what Luhrmann decides to do. And as DiCaprio and Maguire are good pals, it would certainly lend an extra element to the film.
Oscar season kicks off with a click of a mouse as David Fincher unveils his latest film "The Social Network" or as most know it "That Facebook Movie." It's a really strong film and is poised to do great business at the box office against a weak group of contenders this weekend. With reviews this strong, the picture could have a long shelf life as we rocket into awards season. Competition this week comes in the form of a couple of horror films. "Let Me In" is the English-language remake of 2008's swedish vampire movie "Let the Right One In." It should easily outdo the buzz-less Renee Zellweger-lead "Case 39" for your multiplex dollars. The art-house is a quiet spot this weekend as well, with a couple of interesting documentaries, "Freakonomics" and "Casino Jack and the United States of Money" looking like your best bets. 
"Let Me In" is the American adaptation of John Lindqvist's novel "Let The Right One In." The films tells the story of an outcast young boy (played by "The Road'" actor Kodi Smit-Mchee) who starts a friendship with a female vampire ("Kick Ass" actor Chloe Moretz) living in secrecy. Director Tomas Alfredson brought the book to the screen with his acclaimed and beloved 2008 Swedish-language versions and fans worldwide were miffed by Hollywood's intent on remaking the material. We reviewed the film when we saw it at Toronto last month and were pleasantly surprised by "Cloverfield" director Matt Reeves' film, which is just as powerful and moving as the original. RT: 82% Metacritic: 78.
