Closet ABBA fans will unite for the release of Phyllida Lloyd’s Mama Mia, and won’t be disappointed by the casting of Meryl Streep and Amanda Seyfried as the mother/daughter duo. The classic Broadway musical, set on a Greek island during the 1970’s is quickly transformed on screen as a present-day vintage tribute to glam rock.
As the film progresses, the characters crank up the glam at regular intervals until the wardrobe morphs from vacation seersucker to items from an attic raid. Amanda Seyfried is not just a pretty face, and gets to show off her vocal talent as an innocent bride-to-be, opposite her “aunt” Tanya played by the cougar-esque Christine Baranski. Donna and Sophie’s plots are paralleled, both flanked by identical supporting friends, until Donna/Meryl overshadows Sophie/Seyfried.
Streep proves once again that she is capable of anything- acting, singing, dancing, and leading a multi-generational female entourage with youthful leaps.
The same cannot be said for Pierce Brosnan’s vocal performance. It is lyrically evident that his character struggles with emotional pain, but it appears that singing is physically painful for Brosnan as well. It seems singing actually hurts him as much as it hurts the audience to listen. Given two solos, Brosnan was miscast for this role- and the costume glam getup doesn’t help him at all.
If Lloyd was looking for an all-star cast, or just someone to equalize Streep’s onscreen presence by sheer middle-age eye candy, perhaps she has learned her lesson and will hold future auditions according to musical aptitude.
Geeks of Doom have reported that Troy Duffy has plans to make the sequel to the classic Vigilante flick calling it “Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day”. Basically, what you can expect is lots of new guns and lots of new action… The Geeks break the story line down as follows…
The boys (Norman Reedus, Sean Patrick Flanery) and their father Il Duce (Billy Connolly) have been living in seclusion, deep in Ireland on a sheep farm, away from everything, when Il Duce’s brother comes to tell them that a priest was murdered in Boston and it was set up to look like it was done by the Saints.
The boys rush back to deal with it, while they’re supposedly ailing father stays on the farm. There’s a new character who’s kind of the Rocco character named Romeo; funny, but much more bad ass. As soon as the brothers land, they start picking off anyone who may be tied to this framing. Willem Dafoe is not in the sequel, a new FBI detective comes into play — a female with a strong southern accent. She wants to catch the Saints and is working with some of the detectives in the first movie (like Bob Marley) who, as we know, decided the Saints were good and began helping them, but they don’t think she knows this, so they need to go with that. Eventually their father comes back into play and tells them what’s going on, which sets in motion a full-on flashback of the story of Il Duce from day one.
Hell yeah I’m excited about this. I loved Boondock Saints, apart from its really good humour and very likeable characters, it did give everybody who watched it a debate to rage about, either within themselves or with their friends. Is vigilante justice a good thing or a bad thing?
I’ll hold my opinion for now but I can’t wait for this one to come out. there are no further details I can dig up but stay in touch there might be more later
The Wachowski Brothers seem to have a little man crush on Keanu Reeves or least they respect his acting (try to contain your laughter) enough to recruit him for their latest project, a rumored new Plastic Man flick. The Wachowskis penned a script based on the stretchy comic book character back in the ’90s and now it seems they’ve revived the idea with the help of producer pal Joel Silver.
Person #1: I’ve heard WALL-E is really good, but is it political? I mean, in the way Happy Feet was political?
Person #2: Well, I don’t really think so. But I agreed with everything in WALL-E, so it didn’t strike me as polical.
If you don’t dwell too much on the U.S.-centric viewpoint you might be able to ignore politics in the film. Yes, all humans are relocated to outer space for survival, but they all appear to be English-speaking American citizens; the third world countries having perished, presumably, for lacking funds to board the giant space cruise. Substitute the abandoned Earth for an Iraqi war zone and you have yourself one heck of a political message in WALL-E.
The primary focus of WALL-E is ecological and technological. The animation spans across a backdrop of failed waste management and an atmosphere cluttered by abandoned satellites. Humans are entirely dependent on robots, and issue that later reminds one of Ray Bradbury’s solemn hypothesis on automated services.
There are biblical references as well; WALL-E being the lone lifeforce like Adam, yearning for a romantic companion, until EVE comes along one morning after WALL-E wakes up. Together they help re-populate the Earth.
But the overall message is that future generations will have to deal with out ecologically destructive patterns as we favor convenience over hard work and solutions. Whether or not that makes this film “political”, it’s a fate we can’t deny or argue against.
It’s no wonder we’ve spent the past two and a half years watching trailers for Hancock, patiently awaiting a new kind of superhero in Will Smith and predicting the villain, plus the outcome. With so many stunts and wreckage and twisted metal, not to mention countless extras and digital editing, there’s no way a movie like this could meet a proper deadline or budget. Good thing they starred Will Smith because I don’t know if audiences could tolerate such a long wait for anyone else.
The ever excusable Smith managed to lend depth to a character careening towards one-dimensional. This is not to say Hancock is loveable in the teddy bear sense of the word. But he is allowed to go home at the end of the day with the same nod we give Samuel L. Jackson, even after a bad film.
If Hancock had turned out to be bad, I doubt anyone would blame Smith. The only shortcoming I could find with Hancock was the liberal sprinkling of profanity from the mouths of kids, which leads me to wonder of this film barely squeaked under an R-rating, save for a complete lack of sex scenes (but that’s a debate for another time. I know there are already contributors to this site who second-guess the MPAA rating system).
There were a few questions hanging open in the end, the kind that probably could not be answered with a sequel. I hesitate to use the term “plot hole” but let’s for lack of a better word.
Nonetheless, Jason Bateman and Charlize Theron were also great, but I’ll stop here before I give anything away.
Elfquest, the cult comic is heading to the big screen courtesy of Warners Bros. and Rawson Thurber.
The Hollywood Reporter says Thurber (Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story) will write, direct and produce the feature, whose format is undetermined.
The comic follows a tribe of elves known as the Wolfriders in their attempts to survive and link with other dispersed elves on an Earth-like planet with two moons while on the lookout for tribes of humans and trolls, both of which acted as allies and enemies.
The new full trailer for horror-thriller Quarantine, starring Jennifer Carpenter, Jay Hernandez, Columbus Short, Greg Germann, Steve Harris, Dania Ramirez, Rade Sherbedgia and Jonathon Schaech.
In the Oct. 10 release, Carpenter plays TV reporter Angela Vidal who, with her cameraman (Harris), are assigned to spend the night shift with a Los Angeles Fire Station. After a routine 911 call takes them to a small apartment building, they find police officers already on the scene in response to blood curdling screams coming from one of the apartment units. They soon learn that a woman living in the building has been infected by something unknown. After a few of the residents are viciously attacked, they try to escape with the news crew in tow, only to find that the CDC has quarantined the building.
Quentin Tarantino will start shooting his next film, the World War II action tale Inglorious Bastards, in October, with hopes of having it ready in time for the Cannes Film Festival next May.
The long-gestating project revolves around a Dirty Dozen-like group of soldiers behind enemy lines. No cast is yet in place, though Brad Pitt’s name has surfaced.
Tarantino acquired the title and remake rights to Enzo Castellari’s 1978 film of the same name, but his screenplay is said to be an original.
The project is set up at the closely held Weinstein Co., which is looking to co-finance it with a major studio in exchange for foreign rights.
The Weinstein Co. have a long history with Tarantino, from 1994’s Pulp Fiction through the commercially disappointing Grindhouse films in 2007, Terror Planet and Death Proof.
Warner Brothers has announced their lineup of events at Comic-Con. if you’re lucky enough to be there, be sure to tell us how it was.
Thursday, July 24th:
Dark Castle Presentation: Rocknrolla, Ninja Assassin, The Hills Run Red, Ferryman (comic book) 6:00pm – 7:00pm in Hall H Expected Talent: Joel Silver (producer) and Susan Downey (producer)
Rocknrolla: Guy Ritchie (director & writer), Chris Bridges, Jeremy Piven (tbd) additional cast tba,
Ninja Assassin: James McTeigue (director), Ji Hoon Jung (“Rain”) and Naomie Harris
The Hills Run Red: Sophie Monk and Tad Hildenbrink
Ferryman: Marc Andreyko (“Ferryman” writer) and Jonathan Wayshak (“Ferryman” artist)
Friday, July 25th:Watchmen 11:55am – 1:00pm in HALL H Expected Talent: Zack Snyder (director) and Cast (tba) Star Wars: The Clone Wars 4:00pm – 5:00pm in Hall H Expected Talent: Dave Filoni (director) and Catherine Winder (producer) Saturday, July 26th:Terminator Salvation 1:15pm – 2:15pm in Hall H Expected Talent: McG (director) and Cast (tba) Sunday, July 27th:
Friday the 13th Remake 1:00pm – 1:30pm in Room 20 Expected Talent: Jared Padalecki, Derek Meaks, Brad Fuller, Andrew Form (producers)
The Wachowski Brothers seem to have a little man crush on Keanu Reeves or least they respect his acting (try to contain your laughter) enough to recruit him for their latest project, a rumored new 
