Oct 30 2009 New 'The Road' Trailer: Big Budget Bumfights

It's still hard to tell if The Road is going to be an overblown Roland Emmerich of a mess or a post-apocalyptic classic that will do its source material proud, but just from this new trailer I'm ready to give the film its first two awards.

Award 1: Best Score That Makes Me Think the Trailer Will End with Someone Landing on the Moon. I'm not sure if this is the film's actual score or a track lifted from a classic I'm failing to recognize, but hearing it has me on the edge of my seat waiting for that American flag to strike the lunar surface.

Award 2: Most Disarmingly Gratuitous Use of the Wilhelm Scream. If you're going to be that blatant about it, it should at least be followed by a cartoon "splat."

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Oct 22 2009 These Two Might Be Mad Max, Lady Mad Max

Despite being met by reactions ranging from apathy to disgust, it looks like the Mel Gibson-less Mad Max film is still moving steadily but slowly forward. E! has reportedly heard from multiple sources that, though director George Miller has been incredibly secretive about plot and details, he's looking at British actor Tom Hardy (from Band of Brothers, and looking crazy in this Bronson trailer) and Charlize Theron to play the leads.

So this means come-out-of-nowhere Australian action star Sam Worthington wasn't automatically cast as Australian hero Mad Max when the new film was announced? I just assumed.

Great. Now what am I going to do with all these shirts?

Jul 29 2009 'Florence of Arabia' to Give 'Prince of Persia' Arabian Prince Competition

Variety is reporting Charlize Theron's production company (everyone who's everyone has a production company), Denver & Delilah Films, has purchased the film rights to the Christopher Buckley novel Florence of Arabia.

Contrary to the title's implication (you'd assume it would be about the Florence Nightingale in Arabia sketch from the Paul Lynde Halloween Special, right?), the satirical novel focuses on a State Department employee (Theron, naturally) straining to bring women's equal rights to a fictional Middle Eastern nation after her friend, the wife of the country's prince, is beheaded.

Good luck with that, Florence. If Princess Peach's strong female presence in the Middle Eastern worlds of Super Mario 2 couldn't bring about gender equality, probably nothing will.

Charlize Theron ready for 'Arabia' [Variety]

May 14 2009 'The Road' Trailer: Apocalyptic Disasters Have Really Messed Up Our Roads

Ready to follow Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron, and their fictional son on a post-apocalyptic Homeward Bound: Incredible Journey? Then it's time to watch this new trailer for The Road, John Hillcoat's upcoming film based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy.

If you take one thing away from this, let it be the knowledge that even after a worldwide disaster that leaves few human survivors, hill-jacks will still act pretty much the same way they always have:

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Aug 7 2008 'The Road' Photos Reveal Pennsylvania's Hopelessness

USA Today has the first look at the bleak, post-apocalyptic world of John Hillcoat's The Road, starring Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron, and a child with an annoying name. Wondering how they ever found such a stark, depressing landscape in the real world (pretend you're wondering)? The answer: Pittsburgh!

The film, which stars Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron and 11-year-old Kodi Smit-McPhee, also was shot in Katrina-ravaged New Orleans and on Mount St. Helens in Washington state for scenes of devastation.

But most of the film was shot in and around Pittsburgh.

Hillcoat found abandoned coal fields, a deserted amusement park and an 8-mile stretch of closed freeway as locations.

"It's tangible, the misery and hopelessness and the bleakness," Mortensen says. "It gives you much more to work with if you're filming in that world instead of a green screen.

So basically, "Thanks for letting us shoot there, Pittsburgh, but man, you guys are absolutely drenched in misery, and you wear sadness like a cape made of pure melancholia--that is, if you still wear anything, since you're so weighed down by despair you probably can't even lift yourself to dress anymore. And by the way, the Penguins really blew it in the playoffs this year."

More here.

Jun 3 2008 'Hancock' is Poignant, Particularly on 'Ellen'

Hancock may be getting billed as an action-comedy about a drunk, homeless superhero, but it also has a dramatic, poignant side. So when Will Smith visited Ellen last week, he brought a dinner scene clip sure to make those dance-happy ladies in the audience personally hand him an Oscar--if they could see him through their tears! In it, Hancock explains that he's an amnesiac, how he got his name (a Which Founding Father Are You? Facebook quiz), and that he stopped aging 80 years ago, at precisely the current age of Will Smith. The previously-reserved-for-homemakers clip is under the cut.

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Jan 22 2008 'Sleepwalking' Trailer Is Like I've Been Sleepwalking, But It Woke Me Up

Overlook the initial desperation in conveying dysfunction (girl jumping off a diving board in roller skates and hating her life, the American Beauty music) and the distracting urge to figure out how you know young AnnaSophia Robb (from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Bridge to Terabithia, I eventually realized) and you might be tempted to think Sleepwalking could be decent if typical indie fare. Admittedly, the cast of Charlize Theron, Nick Stahl, Dennis Hopper, and Woody Harrelson looks somewhat promising, but with a visual effects artist at the helm, and a film colorist writing contrived lines like, "It's like I've been sleepwalking... but you helped me--you woke me up," I'll keep my reservations about this one.

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