Watch the Happy-Go-Lucky trailer

UK Director Mike Leigh’s most anticipated feature film Happy-Go-Lucky is set to play in theaters September 26th. Leigh (High Hopes, Secrets & Lies, Career Girls), who is responsible for uncommonly powerful films about blue-collar people living in London, has had a fruitful career. His method of direction is to accumulate working actors with a theme in mind and then develop the script using improvisation and a deep understanding of the characters. The result is films that feel as unpredictable and as fascinating as life really is.

Vera Drake (2004), Leigh’s previous feature, showcased Imelda Staunton in an Academy Award Nominated Performance as a nurturing mother and wife who, out of the goodness of her heart, performed abortions deemed illegal back in the 1950s. Leigh’s love for the plays of Gilbert and Sullivan inspired Topsy Turvy (1999), staring Jim Broadbent and Allan Corduner as the creative duo in a dramatized realization of their comic-opera “The Mikado”. After that, Leigh made the gritty and heartfelt All or Nothing (2002) portraying a working-class family (Timothy Spall, Lesley Manville) whose sudden crisis shakes them out of their destructive malaise.

One of the characters in All or Nothing, an angst-ridden young woman who berates her alcoholic mother is played by Sally Hawkins. Hawkins is in the title role of the comedy Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) as Poppy, a thirty-year-old preschool teacher who exudes great wit and optimism wherever she goes. Her bright outlook in life is tested by a troubled child being abused at home and by a cynical driving instructor who holds onto deep prejudice. In Leigh’s hands, such a cheerful character will be extraordinarily complex as to harbor deep feelings of bitter-sweetness.

Honored for her performance as Best Actress by the Berlin Film Festival this year, Hawkins portrays Poppy as the kind of sweet, outgoing and insightful free-spirit that you just want to embrace. She has an enduring sunny quality reminiscent of Zooey Deschanel (Almost Famous, All the Real Girls) that’s quite infectious. Let’s hope Leigh’s film is too.

Gremlins are back! Overseas in the UK those nasty critters, including Stripe, are having a blast destroying an office department to their exhilarating tune by composer Jerry Goldsmith. The TV spot uses ingenious computer animation to digitally transfer the original puppet-controlled monsters seamlessly from the Joe Dante 1984 original into a new modern setting. It is a marvel to behold. For instance, the gremlin going head first in the waste basket is the exact same one going into the bowl of frosting attached to the blender in the first movie’s notorious kitchen sequence. There are even some new actions performed by the gremlins that look convincing on part of the effects animators here. That tap dance sequence doesn’t exist, not even in the deleted scenes on the DVD.

Yes, I enjoy Gremlins.

Click here to watch the Gremlins BT TV Spot

Watching the TV spot only confirms the marketing department for BT, a Britain-based internet connection support company, are wicked masterminds. They even got Timothy Spall (Tim Burton’s Sweeny Todd) to do the voice-over.

I hope Hollywood and Joe Dante are paying attention. Here’s the pitch: Move Gizmo and the gang to Japan and call it: Gremlins: Lost in Transmogrification. And do it while Dick Miller is still around to play Mr. Futterman.

UPDATE (May 2nd, 2008) :

I was just informed by an insider involved with the Gremlins BT TV Spot that no gremlins from the original 1984 film were lifted (or harmed) for the advertisement. All of the effects work was created using new Gremlin puppets. The attention to detail and the superb homages to the original are simply astonishing. Thanks for the know-how, Gaskett.

Watch the two-minute featurette here

Yahoo has just posted some comments from director/Lost creator JJ Abrams about his upcoming “reboot” of the Star Trek franchise.

“It was an opportunity to take what I think has been a maligned world — to sound crass, a franchise — and treat it in a way that made it something that I wanted to see,” said Abrams, who recently finished shooting on “Star Trek,” due in theaters May 8, 2009. “To take the characters, the thoughtfulness, the personalities, the sense of adventure, the idea of humanity working together, the sense of social commentary and innovation, all that stuff. To take it and apply it in a way that felt genuinely thrilling.”

Abrams would not share plot details, saying only that the movie would remain faithful to the original while breaking new ground in action, drama and visual effects, which are being crafted by “Star Wars” creator George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic outfit.

“I feel like this is so unlike what you expect, so unlike the `Star Trek’ you’ve seen. At the same time, it’s being true to what’s come before, honoring it,” Abrams said. “I can say the effects for `Star Trek’ have never, ever been done like this. … I can only tell you the idea of the universe of `Star Trek’ has never been given this kind of treatment.”

Read the rest of the story.