A film based on the “controversial” novel, a WWII era period piece about a boy and the strange woman he befriends, a woman everyone believes is a witch.
Actor turned director Carl “Devil in a Blue Dress/Out of Time” Franklin directed it, and his IMDb page has questions like “Why doesn’t this guy work any more?” on it. A no-name cast makes this an iffy vehicle for a comeback, but you never know. Feb. 22, in theaters.
Drafthouse Films, which operates out of the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, a landmark in indie cinema, distributes the occasional midnight movie or would-be cult film.
The Orlando-made “Miami Connection” is one they’re running out to other arthouses at the moment. They take on films with cult potential, genre pictures and the like that other distributors ignore.
They’ve just acquired the rights to a movie their people are comparing to “Stand By Me,” a tale of a kids’ game of Capture the Flag that knows no boundaries.
“I Declare War,” it’s called, “a high stakes action flick starring 12 year olds.” Sounds a little like “Son of Rambow.” Jason Lapeyre and Robert Wilson directed it.
“The Heat” has a laugh-out-loud trailer going for it, an Oscar winner (Sandra Bullock) as its star and until this week, an early April dumping ground release date.
Buddy cop comedies with mismatched cops are a summer staple. It must not have that much potential right?
Wrong. Co-star Melissa McCarthy is riding that rude, rough and raunchy “Bridesmaids” train all the way to a June 28 release date. Fox moved it. Perhaps they’re trying to get out of the way of Universal’s February Melissa comedy, “Identity Thief.,” the one co-starring Jayz Bates (Jason Bateman).
But this smells like a big ol’ vote of confidence for this Bullock-McCarthy comedy.
Choppy and bordering on incoherent, “Bullet to the Head” is Stallone’s answer to Schwarzenegger’s “The Last Stand,” an action exercise in “Here’s how we used to do it.”
Sly one-ups Arnold in that old school regard by bringing in Walter “48 Hours” Hill, king of action directors when Stallone was in his glory days – the ‘80s.
But “Bullet” isn’t remotely as direct as its title. It shows all the hallmarks of a movie that’s been re-cut, that changed directors (Wayne Kramer started the film). Characters, relationships and motivations seem shortchanged. And it’s every bit as dated and dumb, in different ways, as “The Last Stand.”
Forget the debate over which feature film is favored to win Best Picture at this year’s Oscars. That august field of nine has nothing on the nominated live-action shorts this year, five films of differing styles and tones, but each polished to near perfection – short films so good you’re dying to see feature length versions of every tale told here.
Tom Van Avermaet’s Belgian “Death of a Shadow” is a sublimely spooky and romantic ghost story set around World War I. Matthias Schoenaerts plays a soldier given a magical camera and sent in search of shadows of the dead. The camera allows him to see how they died, and takes images of the shadow of death that he delivers to an omnipotent “Collector of Shadows.” Then, he meets a girl and must decide whether to capture her in death, or figure out a way for her to live.
Yan England’s “Henry” covers the same ground as best picture nominee “Amour,” and does it in 21 minutes. An old man (Gerard Poirier) practices his piano and makes plans with his violinist-wife. But strangers shake him out of his idyll with “They’re LOOKING for you Henry,” and “Your wife is in danger.” “Henry” is one thing “Amour” never manages to be – achingly romantic.
Imagine a “Twilight” where the panting, flirting teens were in on the joke, where the gulf between them was more about communication skills than supernatural schisms.
Where one teen had really bad skin.
That’s “Warm Bodies,” a funny teen romance set against the aftermath of the Zombie Apocalypse. Jonathan “50/50” Levine has turned Isaac Marion’s teen romance novel into an often amusing tongue-in-cheek romantic comedy — tongue in cheek, and brains in teeth. Chewy, tasty brains.
Nicholas Hoult (“Clash of the Titans,” “X-Men: First Class”) is the perfectly droll zombie narrator who staggers about with the usual teen angst.
“Why can’t I connect with people? Oh, right. I’m dead.”
He can’t remember his name, can’t justify his means of survival – eating the brains, etc., of the few remaining humans. “At least I’m conflicted about it.”
And he’s lonely. He holes up in an abandoned business jet and listens to old love songs (“Missing You”) in his battery powered turntable.
And then he sees “Her.” And if you’ve seen Teresa Palmer in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” or “I Am Number Four,” you get it — gorgeous enough to reanimate the dead.
They make a musical video parody of your chances. So Anne Hathaway, congratulations, sister.
He’s the teen dream Peeta of “The Hunger Games,” the kid who grew up making journeys “To the Center of the Earth,” and one of the kids of “The Kids Are All Right.”
Josh Hutcherson — if you don’t know him, ask your teenage or tweenage daughter — turns 21 this year. He’s got more “Hunger Games” franchise films to do, another “Journey to the Center of the Earth” to film, and a transition to adult roles well under way.
And he’s in “Epic,” the summer’s big animated um, “Epic.”
Questions for Josh? No, a proposal isn’t a question. My daughter already asked.
Post them as comments below, and thanks. Here’s the trailer to “Epic.”
Paul Newman was working on and planning to cameo in “Lucky Them,” a romantic dramedy about a female journalist in pursuit of a reclusive musician who happens to be an ex-boyfriend.
Toni Collette has signed on to star in the long-gestating film, with Thomas Haden Church as the missing rocker. Oliver Platt is also on board. Joanne Woodward is keeping the Newman hand in it by taking a producer credit.
Deadline.com says that Megan Griffiths (they left out her first name) is now set to direct it.
Zombies, zombies everywhere – from TV (“The Walking Dead”) to the big screen (“World War Z”), from bookshelves filled with zombie survival guides, to the Internet (zombiesurvivivalwiki.com), trickling down to parades (“zombie walks”) and theme parties from coast to coast.
Are these warning signs that America is headed for its own zombie apocalypse?
“Well, I don’t want to come out and say these things are turning us into a nation of zombies,” says Jonathan Levine, director of the film of Isaac Marion’s teen zombie in love novel, “Warm Bodies.”
“Have you ever played ‘Words with Friends?’” giggles Analeigh Tipton, one of the stars of “Warm Bodies,” which opens Friday.
Let’s see, cell-phone addicts mindlessly staring down into a phone, missing the life that’s passing us by? Maybe that’s a sign.
“It’s no secret that texting and Twitter and Facebook have become obsessions of social interaction among young people,” says Tipton, 24, who plays a human who becomes sympathetic to zombies in “Warm Bodies.” The movie suggests that a little love, or lust, gets the old heart pumping and who knows how much that will humanize the Walking/Living Dead? “Everybody is craving some commentary that calls that sort of behavior zombie-like. This movie doesn’t call people idiots for doing that. But the commentary is there. Staring at the ground like your head is buried in a phone call. That’s kind of zombie-like.”
Levine says that “the central allegory in Isaac’s book, really resonated with me. Are people really living in the moment, being the best version of themselves they can be, or are they bored and drifting around?”
The story’s other big allegory is that being an awkward teen, unable to communicate with the opposite sex, is a bit like being a zombie.
“It’s not technology that’s making us zombies,” says Tipton, the skater turned model/actress (“Crazy Stupid Love”). “But it is a sign of how we’re relating to each other. Like zombies, we can’t talk to somebody or pick up their social signals.”
“Conversation’s always tricky,” Levine adds. Zombies typically just moan. “That takes a bit of pressure off, though, on a date. You don’t have to talk because you CAN’T.”
“And there’s always the body parts and maybe leftover brains around the house,” adds Tipton. “That can be a real relationship=-killer.”
Levine is best known for the dramedies “The Wackness” and “50/50.” For “Warm Bodies, “I had to go to ‘Zombie Camp.’ That meant watching every George A. Romero (The “Living Dead” movies, font of all big screen zombie lore) film.
“Our movie breaks a lot of his ‘zombie rules,’ Levine says. Zombies can move pretty fast when they’re attacking in his film. And they might be redeemable as human beings.
“But watching Romero’s films, I realized that he was constantly pushing the tropes of his own zombie mythology in new directions. There was already a precedent for others changing those rules, in films like ’28 Days Later,’ Zack Snyder’s ‘Dawn of the Dead.’ It’s not dogmatic about the rules.”
Levine, an American Film Institute alumnus, also got to finally – at 36 – get a “rite of passage for student filmmakers” on his resume. They all do a zombie movie, usually as students.
“It’s fun to dress up and act that way. And if you’re smart, there is an underlying social commentary about the genre. When you’re a zombie, you’re playing a heightened BORED version of your real self.”
