'This Side of the Truth' Update: Release Date! Title Confirmation!
On Ricky Gervais's blog, the comedian has posted a new video with himself and This Side of the Truth co-writer/co-director Matt Robinson. The two clear up a couple things:
1. Contrary to reports otherwise, the title is still This Side of the Truth, not Truthy Truthness.
2. The tentative release date is September 25, 2009.
Apologies for previously reporting the title had been changed to The Invention of Lying, and that the film would be released in 2010. Sometimes I forget the internet is a liar.
In case you want to hear it yourself, having learned your lesson about trusting internet words, here's the video:
'Astro Boy' Trailer: We Should Never Give a Child Such Immense Power
It's '60s anime meets CGI; it's A.I meets Japan; it's Edward Scissorhands meets Superboy; it's Weird Science meets My Two Dads; it's whatever you want it to be (of those options)! The Astro Boy teaser trailer:
Modern Warfare Just Got Both Cuter and More Horrific
I've seen most modern war films that have been considered graphic or controversial in their portrayals of violence. I've played one of those Call of Duty realistic combat simulation video games. But I have never found war as disturbing and morally questionable as I did watching this trailer for the anime Cat Shit One (perhaps you read the manga under its American title, Apocalypse Meow). It is truly unsettling. You haven't fully understood the horrors of Middle Eastern warfare until you've seen them through the eyes of a rabbit on its hind legs fighting an anthropomorphic camel:
'Away We Go' Poster: This Movie is a Bit More Independently Stylish, Everyone
Look, this is cute and all--the little line drawings, the washed out colors, the unmissable similarity to the Juno credits--but I'm a firm believer in the design rule that a film's poster should not work equally well as a parody of what the film's poster would be. If the spoof comedy duo Friedberg & Seltzer's ever decide to continue their [Genre] Movie franchise with Indie Dramedy, this would be the poster, except their version would feature Austin Powers and Amy Winehouse as the couple, because imagine those two together!
Away We Go Poster [JoBlo]
New 'Astro Boy' Promo Art: IS THIS HIS ASTRO SOUL?
I know next to nothing about the Astro Boy character, but if the time ever comes that we decide we've entrusted too much power in the body of a child, and we have to take him out, let's all shoot at that glowing mass in his chest. Everything I know about weak points tells me that's his weak point. Let's just hope it never comes to that.
David Cross Back on TV... in the UK
Broadcast Now reports David Cross, who's already made himself a TV favorite with Mr. Show and Arrested Development, will star in a new comedy pilot he's written with Shaun Pye. Fellow Americans, time to warm up our downloading machines, because this one's going Channel 4:
The US actor will star in The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, a culture-clash comedy he has written with Shaun Pye for RDF Television. It centres on a US executive who finds himself out of his depth when he is mistakenly sent to run his company's UK arm. Cross' Arrested Development co-star Will Arnett is also in talks to appear.(via Flick News.)
UK, is it not enough you've already made most of the recent great television comedy? Now you're stealing some of our best people to work for you too? This must be how every non-US-based sports fan feels.
Warner Gets in the DVD Burning Business
Following in the footsteps of my download-crazy friend in college, Warner Bros. has announced a new on-demand service where they will burn DVDs, complete with packaging, for you:
The studio's home entertainment division has come up with an innovative plan to allow custom ordering of 150 films never before released on DVD. Dubbed the Warner Archive Collection, an online vault of films including 1942's "Once Upon a Honeymoon," starring Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers, and 1947's "Possessed," with Clark Gable and Joan Crawford, can be tapped by consumers visiting WarnerArchive.com.Upon the selection and purchase of a title -- at $19.95 per disc -- Warners will burn, package and ship the DVD to customers for receipt within an estimated five days. The studio plans to increase initial inventory in its virtual vault by 20 titles per month and make more than 300 film and TV titles available online by year's end.
Why not just make them available for downloading or streaming? In this video-on-demand age, this is printing out emails for grandma. But I guess, seeing that grandmas are probably one of the biggest audiences for 1942's Once Upon a Honeymoon, that makes some sense. Just make sure grandma can somehow order these DVDs during her weekly Walmart trip.
Good News from the Frankenhood
Their most valuable player is rest in peace! Coming soon to DVD, Blaxwell Smart's directorial debut, Frankenhood:
Motown (DeRay Davis) and Darius (Jasper Redd) work in a morgue, trading put-downs and toiling among the most undemanding of customers. But outside of their decidedly dreary jobs, the two dream of bigger and better things. If only they could win the $25,000 prize that will go to the winners of the upcoming 3-on-3 Streetball Tournament. One night, having been demoted to graveyard shift, they run into their semi-sane colleague Franklin (Charlie Murphy) in a dark alley outside the morgue. They find Franklin using the auto battery of Motown's precious Gremlin to bring to life a monstrous dead man (Bob Sapp) whose heart Franklin has just replaced. That 3-on-3 basketball tournament isn't looking so bad...if they can just get their new mutant friend to play basketball!(from Dread Central, thanks to Chris.)
If they can just get their new mutant friend to play basketball! Argh! That's always the rub, isn't it? So many Frankenstein Monsters, so few Frankenstein Monsters able to learn complicated rule systems and manipulate their lumbering bodies in such a way to as to become effective 3-on-3 basketball players.
Maybe I'm looking for too much accuracy from a movie called Frankenhood, but don't Frankensteins traditionally have the bolts in the neck, not the temples? That will probably be my one issue with the film when I rent it on May 5th.
'Crank 2' Has a See You Next Tuesday Labeling Utility
Been looking for a way to add a single insulting word to photographs but can't be bothered to open Photoshop, Paint, Word, or any other program that's able to easily accomplish this task? Then doyouthinkivegotcuntwrittenonmyforehead.com is just what you've been looking for, because that is the only thing it does. It's all part of Crank 2's esoteric viral marketing efforts to make a reference to one moment in the first film.
Thus far in the user gallery, someone has made the obvious but undeniable connection between the big C word and George W. Bush, while someone else uploaded the face of Bob the Builder and brilliantly labeled him "bob". Can you do better?
New 'True Grit' Thankfully Not 'True Grittier'-Style Sequel
A remake of True Grit, the John Wayne-starring western that earned the actor an Oscar? That sounds like an idea made by fools! But what if I told you that these "fools," as you so callously regarded them, are the Coen Brothers, and they're planning on writing and directing a version of the film that will more closely reflect the original novel? You'd be thinking this "no way" is becoming an "ok, way":
Not a traditional remake, the Paramount film will be more faithful to the Charles Portis book than the 1969 pic, also distributed by Par.Portis' novel is about a 14-year-old girl who, along with an aging U.S. marshal and another lawman, tracks her father's killer in hostile Indian territory.
But while the original film was a showcase for Wayne, the Coens' version will tell the tale from the girl's p.o.v.
How will any actor exude as much genuine grit as John Wayne? Those Coen boys have a chore ahead of them in the casting department. And the grit department.
Coen brothers to adapt 'True Grit' [Variety]