New Nine Stills, Leaked Songs

Yahoo! Movies has a new set of stills from Rob Marshall’s glitz ‘n’ glam musical, Nine.

Here’s a sample to whet your appetite:

Click here for the rest. You know you want to…

Elsewhere, three tracks from the soundtrack have leaked on YouTube. Check ‘em out while you can. Nice to see someone’s finally found a good use for Fergie. Kate Hudson, meanwhile, sounds autotuned beyond recognition. Here’s hoping that’s just the case for this particular number.

Nine shimmies onto Australian screens on January 21^st.

Bonham Carter, Pearce and More Join Hooper’s Speech

Regal period pieces often wind up stuffier than the wearer of an undersized corset. But with the talent behind The King’s Speech, a drama based on the relationship between King George VI and Lionel Logue, the royal speech therapist who helped the sovereign drop his stutter and done learn to speak all good-like and that, such snooze-worthy adherence to prim convention should be of no concern.

Directed by Tom Hooper, the man behind HBO’s excellent John Adams and the recent, well-repped The Damned United, and starring Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush as King and coach, respectively, a royal flush of A-class, all-class thespians have just joined King’s court, The Hollywood Reporter tells.

Firth and Rush (no slouches themselves) will share the screen with no less than Helena Bonham Carter, Guy Pearce, Jennifer Ehle, Derek Jacobi, Timothy Spall and Michael Gambon. Quite the lineup for a tale which, on paper, at least, doesn’t so much scream “must see!” as it does stammer “c-c-c-could b-be interesting?”

Story here.

Win Wake in Fright on Blu-Ray

The re-issue of Ted Kotcheff’s wry and alarming Wake in Fright has been a homegrown highlight in a year teeming with quality Aussie produce.

Originally released in 1971, the film shocked audiences with its frank and unflattering depiction of life in the red centre’s back-of-beyond Outback townships, where blue-collar, beer-blurred delinquency takes a turn for the sinister when both the mercury and testosterone levels run high.

For more on the film, visit its official site.

celluloid tongue has a copy of the newly-released Wake in Fright blu-ray up for grabs. To be in the running, you’ll have to do two things: 1) Comment on this entry (anything will do); and 2) E-mail me the answer to the below question, along with the username used when leaving your comment, and your mailing address.

Question: Two brands of beer are featured in the film. What are they?

The competition is open to Australian readers only.

The winning entrant will be selected via random number generator (with each comment being assigned a number according to sequence) and will be notified via return e-mail on Friday, November 20^th.

Q&A: David Caesar

Prime Mover is David Caesar’s first film since 2002’s knockabout ‘Yanks Down Under’ crime caper, Dirty Deeds. An ambitious blend of romance, dance, music and big rigs, the film has garnered acclaim at both the Sydney and Melbourne International Film Festivals. Michael Dorman, Emily Barclay, Ben Mendelsohn and William McInnes front the cast, and it’s currently on Australian release.

In an echo of his stint as an arbiter on ABC TV’s 1997 competitive documentary series, Race Around the World, the writer/director has been appointed to the jury of this year’s 9^th Annual Bondi Short Film Festival. The position places him in the company of Rachel Ward, Gracie Otto, Balibo’s Damon Gameau, FilmInk editor Don Korvits and Triple J’s Robbie Buck.

David has kindly made the time to address a quick Q&A via e-mail for celluloid tongue.

Prime Mover is your first feature film in seven years. Why the wait?

In an ideal world I’d make a film every 2 or 3 years, but it’s never that simple. I’ve had two kids and been developing other scripts — who knows how long it will be before the next one. Soon, I hope!

Although it’s a distinctly Australian story (always a plus for filmmakers seeking local funding), the film is an unusual mélange of styles and genres. Was Prime Mover a difficult film to get off the ground?

They’re always difficult to get off the ground. I think the genres and styles were always a selling point. The other issue was not having an international star involved. That always makes it tougher.

Even more so than it did in Dirty Deeds, music plays a vital role in Prime Mover. How long before you go the full Moulin Rouge! route – would you ever try your hand at an out-and-out musical?

I like really raw musicals. My favorites are One From the Heart and Romance and Cigarettes, so I doubt I’d ever go the full Moulin Rouge! But I’m interested in the relationship between singing and violence, so I’m kind of developing something like that.

This is your third time working with Ben Mendelsohn, following Idiot Box and Mullet. Director/actor pairings always hold a certain fascination to an audience – what is it that’s kept that creative relationship kindled over the years?

I love working with Ben and I’m planning on doing it again and again over the coming years. The man is a legend of Australian film and TV!

You’ve been building on your respectable CV as a director of television dramas these past few years, working on shows such as RAN: Remote Area Nurse and Fireflies. What appeals to you about directing for TV?

It appeals pretty much as directing a feature, but it is always much faster. But there’s something great about diving in for a few weeks and then out again, instead of agonising for years on a single project. I also co-wrote and directed another mini-series for Foxtel called Dangerous, which in screen times terms was equal to two features. I think there is some really interesting stuff happening in TV and I love being involved in it.

As something of a modern veteran of the local industry, what excites you about your appointment as a judge at this year’s Bondi Short Film Festival?

I always look forward to seeing what the next generation is doing. I want to keep moving forward and doing new things, so I’ll always be influenced by other people.

How valuable do you consider short film competitions such as the BSFF and Tropfest for fostering the development of fresh talent?

The great thing about them is getting good work noticed. That’s what’s great these days, there’s lots of places for new people to get their stories shown and noticed.

It’s been a red letter year for Australian films, with a number of local productions finding both commercial and critical success. It’s quite a varied crop of titles – from Mao’s Last Dancer to Balibo, Mary & Max to Samson & Delilah – that have been widely embraced. What can the industry learn from these successes?

There’s plenty of others as well! They’re really different in terms of stories and genres — the bigger the range will always be better for audiences instead of a one size fits all model. It looks like we’ve got a couple of good years ahead, with Bright Star, Tomorrow When the War Began, Bran Nue Dae and Mad Max 4 all sounding exciting and very audience friendly.

Finally, insiders and punters alike have an opinion on how to improve the state of the Australian film industry. What do you feel needs to be done?

Make more films, raise the chance of success. I also think we should look more at idea and story development instead of script development. I think we often end up with beautifully developed scripts from insubstantial ideas.

Prime Mover is currently on national release. The 9^th Annual Bondi Short Film Festival screens its 14 finalists on Saturday, November 28^th at Sydney’s Bondi Pavilion. Find further details at the Festival’s official site.

Clash of the Titans Teaser Trailer

Before today, I wasn’t convinced the world needed a new Clash of the Titans, but after seeing the first trailer for Louis Leterrier’s looming, hulking great redux, I’m now certain of it. Frankly, it’s looking terrible. Swollen with cacophonous, CG-summoned spectacle, this looks like nothing more than The Scorpion King suffering an actue case of 300 envy, with a wearisome bid for Lord of the Rings-scale grandeur thrown in to amplify the impression that this is a film without a single original idea in its empty lunk head.

I’m all for ass-kicking spectacle, but compared to the stirring, tactile charm of Desmond Davis’ 1981 original (thanks in no small part to the stop-motion creature work by Ray Harryhausen), this slick new retelling of the Perseus myth looks every stony inch as enjoyable as making goo-goo eyes with a Gorgon. Here’s hoping Avatar delivers, because the Sam Worthington of Somersault, Dirty Deeds and Gettin’ Square feels further away with every one of these sterile blockbuster blow-outs...

Watch at Yahoo! Movies.

Clash of the Titans releases April 1^st, 2010.

Ryder, Hershey, Cassell Swan into Aronofsky’s Next

Somehow, I’ve thus far managed to neglect mention of Black Swan. Lord knows why — it’s one of the in-development titles to which I’m most looking forward, what, with it being the post-Wrestler Darren Aronofsky’s next item of interest. And that’s to say nothing of the casting of Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis as a pair of ballerinas...

Tagged as a “supernatural thriller set in the world of New York ballet,” Black Swan centres on Portman’s dancer who seems to be having delusions about Kunis’ rival performer. The Hollywood Reporter has announced three new additions to the cast: Barbara Hershey, Vincent Cassell, and (pinch me!) Winona Ryder.

Of the new additions, only Ryder’s role has been disclosed: she’ll be stepping into the slippers of a more seasoned ballerina. Fingers crossed Aronofsky can work some Rourke-style comeback magic with Ms Ryder, who deserves a career far better than the Hollywood wilderness to which she’s been relegated this past decade.

Find the full story here.

Jones Sources Gyllenhaal

I never found the time to write a review, but Duncan Jones’ gorgeous Moon remains one of my favourite films of the year. Today, The Hollywood Reporter announced the filmmaker will next lend his eye to Source Code, a sci-fi thriller that’s also attracted the attention of Jake Gyllenhaal.

Jones has been unable to secure funding for his hopeful sophomore feature, a Berlin-set sci-fi/actioner called Mute which he’s likened to Blade Runner. Source Code centres on a soldier who mysteriously awakens in a body that isn’t his own on a commuter train. To make matters worse, a bomb is about to detonate.

The original screenplay is by Ben Ripley, with Billy Ray (scripter of the recent State of Play feature) having recently tried his hand at a retool.

Lensing is on track for early next year.

More here.

Wolfman: Elfman Off, A Pair of Posters

It’s enough to make a grown Wolf-fan bay.

Just when everything was finally looking okay on the Wolfman front, along comes cinemusic with an announcement to have you howling: some three months from its February release, Danny Elfman has ceded scoring duties for the film. His replacement? Ex-Tangerine Dream synth-jockey and purveyor of forgettable pseudo-industrial dross — Underworld composer, Paul Haslinger.

Elfman has apparently completed a score in the vein of the grand, gothic splendour of Wojciech Kilar’s work on Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but, burrowed away in Tim Burton’s Wonderland as he currently is, has been unavailable for the additional duties incurred by The Wolfman’s extensive reshoots.

None of Elfman’s work will be used in the finished film.

Read more here.

In additional lupine news, a fresh pair of posters for the film have arrived at AICN and Cinematical.

Enlarge:

The Wolfman, complete with a new score I’m decidedly less enthusiastic about, reaches Australia February 25^th.

Fincher to Reincarnate Peter Proud

David Fincher’s perennially piled plate has just been topped off with another promising dollop of gristle.

Although soon to shoot the Aaron Sorkin-scripted Facebook founders story, The Social Network, and despite remaining tied to a new Heavy Metal anthology film, a live-action take on Charles Burns’ highschool body-horror, Black Hole, a mysterious project concerning a chef with Keanu Reeves and the eternally just-beyond-arms’-reach adaptation of Brian Bendis’ Torso, the infamously meticulous filmmaker has added yet another intriguing project to his ever towering ‘To Do’ pile.

The Hollywood Reporter tells Fincher will reteam with his Se7en screenwriter, Andrew Kevin Walker, to bring The Curious Case of Benjamin Button The Reincarnation of Peter Proud back to the big screen. The novel by Max Erlich was published in 1975, and the author scripted the first film telling of his work, which released later that same year.

From THR: “Proud centers on a college professor who begins having recurring dreams and nightmares and, realising they are images of a past life, decides to search out the source of the visions. With his girlfriend in tow, he discovers a woman and her grown-up daughter who are keys to his past life.

The supernatural thriller drew heat for a subplot involving incest.”

Fitting fodder for Fincher, then, who plans to send Kevin Walker back to the original source to contemporise the tale for modern audiences. If I’m honest, I’d sooner see Fincher get to Black Hole, but with that particular project still swimming sans screenwriter, it might well be a long time coming.

Full story here.

Salt Trailer

In case you (like myself) missed it last week, Yahoo! Movies debuted the first trailer for Angelina Jolie’s latest foray into high-octane action terrain, Salt. Directed by Philip Noyce, Salt locks its sights on a CIA officer who finds herself falsely called out as a Russian emissary. Seemingly equipped with a trunkload of wigs, the titular spy goes on the run, and Bourne-like identity crises and shock revelations presumably ensue.

There’s no doubt Jolie has a better nose for dramatic roles than she does her summer tentpoles (well, except for the surprisingly ace Kung Fu Panda — and, if I’m honest, I had a lot of fun with Wanted, too. For that matter, I never got around to Mr and Mrs Smith...), but with Noyce calling shots, perhaps Salt could prove quite the happy marriage of depth and kinetics?

Check it out here.

Salt releases August 26^th, 2010.

Paltrow is Alfredson’s Other Danish Girl

Gwyneth Paltrow has joined the cast of Tomas Alfredson’s follow-up to Let the Right One In, The Danish Girl, a sex change drama which locked Nicole Kidman as its gender bending lead in September.

The film is an adaptation of a book by David Ebershoff, which details the true story of the first ever post-operative transsexual, Einar Wegener (Kidman), and her wife Greta, who’ll now be played by Paltrow. With Alfredson at the reins and such a talented pair of actresses afforded what should equate to some of the meatiest roles of their career, The Danish Girl is quickly shaping up as one of 2010’s most promising titles.

Story at Variety.

Where to Watch The Brothers Bloom

Following a string of release setbacks long enough to make The Wolfman seem positively punctual by comparison, Rian Johnson’s The Brothers Bloom is finally slinking its way into Australian cinemas this week. I’ll be checking it out this weekend – I was a big fan of Johnson’s bold playground noir debut, Brick.

Find a complete list of cinemas who’ll be screening the film nationwide below:

VIC
Nova
Rivoli
NSW
Palace Verona
WA
Paradiso
QLD
AMC Stafford
BCC Cairns City
BCC Toowoomba Strand
BCC Mackay City
BCC Maroochydore
BCC Pacific Fair

Catch it while you can.

Drone Magazine in Print

I’ve contributed an article to the first ever print issue of Drone Magazine, which is being launched at Melbourne’s The Tote next Thursday, January 19^th. Copies of the inaugural edition (dubbed Issue 0.5) will be included with the $12 entry fee to the gig, at which Black Ryder, Slight of Build, Killed 2 Birds and Dreaming of Ghosts will be taking the stage for a night of raucous rock ‘n’ roll revelry.

Limited copies are available for purchase from the website for the very modest price of AU $4. I’ve taken a look at Nick Cave’s incredible career during his time as a moustachioed Renaissance man, and there are also exclusive interviews with Black Ryder’s Aimee Nash and Steve Kilbey of The Church — amidst other treasures — to be found within.

See Men Stare at Goats on Boxing Day

Sony has announced Grant Heslov’s The Men Who Stare at Goats will receive an Australian theatrical release from December 26^th, pitting it against Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones, Jane Campion’s young Keats snapshot, Bright Star, Guy Ritchie’s biff-heavy rethink of Sherlock Holmes, Riad Sattouf’s well-repped The French Kissers, Sam Taylor Wood’s teen Lennon biopic, Nowhere Boy, and, erm, Old Dogs, Did You Hear About the Morgans? and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel.

Film Review - A Christmas Carol 3-D

Get past the unremittingly ugly visual style and A Christmas Carol surprises. It surprises for its fidelity to its 166-year-old source. It surprises for its sombreness of tone and reflective engagement of regret and atonement. But what will really have you asking “What the Dickens?” come Christmas morning is why Robert Zemeckis’ latest motion-captured dispatch from the uncanny valley is being pushed as a gaudy, slapstick-stuffed thrill ride — excepting a handful of unfortunate lapses, at heart, it’s somewhat more noble than that.

‘Ugly’ might be a touch unfair, but Zemeckis’ spartan commitment to a technology that’s yet to close the ground between his ambitions and its own limitations detracts from an otherwise faithful adaptation of Charles Dickens’ oft-filmed literary classic. While the overtly fantastical Beowulf, with its dragons and sea serpents and sexed-up Angelina Jolie-as-succubus, was a befitting candidate for the entirely mo-cap-animated treatment Zemeckis first investigated with The Polar Express, A Christmas Carol is markedly less so. Cutting an entire synthetic reality from the same digital cloth makes sense when dealing with an abundance of pixel-grinding creatures of feature — if man, monster and mountainside all co-exist in the same computer-conjured cosmos, discerning the seams becomes a moot point.

It’s an argument which holds considerably less egg nog when applied to the well-worn story of Dickens’ miserly misanthrope, Ebenezer Scrooge (Jim Carrey). The spirits of A Christmas Carol don’t pose the logistical challenge of, say, Beowulf’s Grendel, so the decision to eschew live-action altogether feels like an obvious grab for the ubiquitous computer-generated bandwagon. And while Zemeckis revels in the dizzying freedom afforded his virtual lens (pay special attention to the ‘Ghost of Christmas Past’ segment), such liberty increases the allure of ‘look ma, no limits!’ capability-strutting braggadocio. Vertiginous flights across the skyline of Victorian London amply demonstrate the technology in full, soaring flight. Overpacking a rushed third act with a gratuitous chase sequence feels more like the candy cane that broke Rudolph’s back.

Close-ups on Carrey’s digitally-ripened mug, however, suggest that in five years’ time, Zemeckis’ methods might match pace with his madness. There’s no question that the characters of A Christmas Carol are, by and large, as aesthetically appealing as dropped mince pies, but glimmers of brilliance occasionally shine through the clunky, cold patina of ‘art imitating life — oddly.’

With Dickens’ yuletide staple so well-loved, it’s wise of Zemeckis’ screenplay to do things by the book. Slabs of dialogue are lifted straight from the page, and the story retains all of its chilling solemnity, commencing with Carrey’s parsimonious grump pocketing coins from the eyes of dead man. Things get so intense, in fact, that 3-D encounters with Marley’s ghost and the shrouded shadow that’s the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come could have tykes hurling the specs off and trembling under their seats. Which does pose the pertinent question of exactly who this is aimed at. Had he jettisoned the child’s play and pitched directly for the Beowulf bracket, Zemeckis’ innovative technological noodling might have been more readily palatable.

Where Zemeckis improves on screen Christmas-es past is by casting each of the seasonal spectres as projections of Scrooge’s own self. Aside from garnishing his Christmas Carol with a vibrant red ribbon thematically, it affords his adaptable leading man a chance to remind us he’s arguably the most under-utilised star in Hollywood today, portraying no less than seven roles with characteristic chameleonic ease. The elderly Scrooge is, oddly, his second time inhabiting a Christmas curmudgeon following Dr Seuss’ green meanie in The Grinch. Subdued and allowed to unwrap the pathos, he’s more memorable here than he’s been in the flesh for half a decade. Elsewhere, Gary Oldman and Colin Firth are casualties of less convincing animation, along with the rest of the largely featureless (though recognisable) support cast.

We probably didn’t need another take on the world’s most famous story of personal epiphany, and there’s no denying Zemeckis’ eerie motion-capture animated stylings still make for emotionally frosty affairs. As such, A Christmas Carol’s lasting impression is more that of a collection of well-intentioned and eye-catching stocking stuffers: appreciated, but this won’t fulfill your Christmas wishlist — nor will it inspire the earthy affection of the gift made with love and by hand. Which positions the film as something of a letdown. A failure, but a noble one, then.

DIRECTOR: Robert Zemeckis

SCREENWRITER: Robert Zemeckis

CAST: Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Robin Wright Penn, Carey Elwes, Bob Hoskins

RATING: PG

RUN TIME: 96 minutes

Hillcoat Talks Wettest County, Bunny Munro

John Hillcoat recently spoke with Atomic Popcorn in support of The Road, but also let drop a few tantalising details about upcoming projects.

Key points:

1) Nick Cave has scripted the previously-announced The Wettest County in the World.

2) Ryan Gosling and Shia LaBeouf look poised to star.

3) Plans are afoot to bring Cave’s novel, The Death of Bunny Munro, to the small screen.

Best news I’ve had all week.

Story here.

Julia @ ACMI

Just FYI, sad circumstances mean I’m away from home this week, so updates may remain scarce. Your continued patience is appreciated.

Tonight, however, I saw Eric Zonca’s Julia, which is skipping Australian cinemas and going direct to DVD in December. Rent it. Better yet, if you live in Melbourne, catch it during its limited season at ACMI later this month. It’s a film worthy of your attention.

Julia is an unflinching study of Tilda Swinton’s desperate, volatile alcoholic which segues sharply into thriller terrain when the titular trainwreck seizes an opportunity to commit, as she puts it, “the ultimate double cross.” The film is first-rate, and boasts a surprisingly satisfying conclusion, but Swinton is flat-out electric. Seeking proof she’s arguably her generation’s finest? Look no further. She’s that good here. Swinton is that rare actress working in the Hollywood system who’s unafraid of looking haggard onscreen. Not dowdy. Not sporting disfiguring prosthetics or an unflattering hairdo. But appearing au naturale and playing her age, and here, she looks to have lived every day of her 49 years as if it were her last on Earth. Which would obviously appear little more than a stunt if she wasn’t so startling on-screen. There are times when a performance single-handedly makes a movie. Julia is such an occasion.

ACMI’s first-look screenings of Julia commence November 19^th and finish November 22^nd. Book tickets and read more here.

New Trailer for The Road

That moronic first trailer for John Hillcoat’s The Road, in which Cormac McCarthy’s stark tale of survival and paternal devotion seemed to have been brought to the screen with all the bombast and business of a Roland Emmerich worldbreaker, did little to mollify anxious fans of the Pulitzer-winning novel. This second preview, arriving at Yahoo! Movies, is less deceitful — just.

A promising, tone-appropriate first half gives way to a wrap-up almost as disingenuous as the I Am Legend meets The Day After Tomorrow tropes on display in the previous trailer. While that abomination pushed hard to find an action yarn in Hillcoat’s by-all-accounts sobering film, the new trailer is intent on convincing you of another thing altogether: “THE ROAD IS GOING TO INSPIRE YOU AND MAKE YOU CRY!” There’s swelling strings (certainly not taken from Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’ original score for the film) and even an auditory appearance from perennial sound-engineer’s in-joke ‘Screams 3; Man, Gut-wrenching Scream And Fall Into Distance’ (not to be confused with the Wilhelm scream) amidst a montage of near every moment of vocalised hope and compassion in the book.

See for yourself here.

The Road reaches Australia on January 28^th.

New Avatar Trailer

That score might be a touch overblown, but there’s a lot of encouraging stuff to be found in the new trailer for James Cameron’s titanic romantic sci-fi actioner, Avatar. Having been in attendance on Avatar day, I’m already anticipating this one keenly. For everyone else, this new trailer is the best promo made widely available yet, stuffed with impressive new footage and greater insight into the film’s world and story.

Find it at Yahoo! Movies.

Avatar releases December 17^th. Do yourself a favour and catch it in IMAX.

Damon, Brolin Get Gritty

Old news by now, but not something I can let pass without mention: the Coen brothers are lassoing quite the cast for their new adaptation of Charles Portis’ True Grit. First Jeff Bridges entered talks for the role which earned John Wayne his Oscar in 1970. And now, The Hollywood Reporter revealed last week, the brothers have extended offers to Matt Damon and Josh Brolin for major parts.

Damon, if signed, would step into the role of the Texas Ranger working alongside Bridges’ brusque US marshal to track a murderous outlaw through hostile Indian territory. True Grit would mark his Coen brothers debut. Brolin, reteaming with the brothers for the first time since No Country for Old Men, would play the murdered man, the father of the story’s as-yet-uncast protagonist, a 14-year-old girl.

Full story here.

The Coens’ A Serious Man reaches Australia on November 19^th. It might well be my favourite film so far this year.

Happy Halloween

Hopper Cancels Melbourne Visit Due to Cancer

Unfortunate news for anyone intending to attend ACMI’s upcoming Dennis Hopper events, Dennis Hopper Masterclass and Dennis Hopper in Conversation with David Stratton (myself included): Hopper has been forced to cancel his trip to Australia after announcing he’s suffering from prostate cancer.

Hopper was heading to Melbourne to launch ACMI’s upcoming Dennis Hopper and the New Hollywood exhibition, an exclusive retrospective which opens November 12^th. Anyone with tickets to either of the in-person events can contact ACMI on 03 8663 2583 or 03 8663 2200 to organise a refund.

All the best to Hollywood’s easy rider for the rough road ahead — it’s sad news indeed.

Jennifer’s Body Heading Direct to DVD in Australia

No reason for the decision has been divulged (perhaps the lukewarm reception in the US?) but the film which looked from the outside to be one of the easiest sells of fourth-quarter 2009 will no longer be reaching Australian cinemas.

Karyn Kusama’s highschool horror Jennifer’s Body, starring Megan Fox and penned by Juno’s Diablo Cody, will now head directly to DVD in Australia, Twentieth Century Fox Films has announced.

Phuket, Thailand indeed.

Liked and Loved...

AFI Award Nominees

There are some dubious inclusions, some infuriating omissions, and, thankfully, a number of very deserving nominees amidst the contenders for the 2009 AFI Awards.

See for yourself here.

Film Review - The Invention of Lying

In a world free of deceit, flattery and fiction, one man alone learns how to lie. That said man is cringe-com maestro Ricky Gervais (here making his feature debut as writer/director) should engender much faith in the Capra-lite The Invention of Lying, but be warned: despite the comparable pedigree and a pregnant-with-potential inverse Liar Liar high concept, those expecting Groundhog Day-level laughs and philosophical fulfillment are likely to go home deflated.

Working without regular collaborator, Stephen Merchant (who cameos, along with ‘Barry from Eastenders’, in one of Lying’s funniest segments), Gervais and creative partner Matthew Robinson fail to find a satisfying narrative underpinning for their promising-in-theory-but-only-sporadically-engaging-in-practise conceit. The most imaginative humour (witness advertising in a world without creative embellishment; blind dates devoid of grace and politeness) hits the mark, and Gervais remains a wormily endearing everyman. Yet the squandering of a star-laden, knock-out support cast (Jennifer Garner, Rob Lowe and Tina Fey included) adds considerable insult to the crippling injury that’s the film’s disappointing slide into eye-rolling, easiest-way-out rom-com convention.

Gervais hints, quite disarmingly, at a wellspring of genuine dramatic talent in a rawly-played deathbed scene (in which he also inadvertently originates religion), but the sad truth of Lying is that what most sticks in the memory is how the typically well-metered comic’s most prominent Hollywood outing to date bafflingly culminates with him interrupting a wedding, hand on heart, heart mawkishly on sleeve. Scouts’ honour.

DIRECTORS: Ricky Gervais & Matthew Robinson

SCREENWRITERS: Ricky Gervais & Matthew Robinson

CAST: Ricky Gervais, Jennifer Garner, Rob Lowe, Louis C.K., Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, Jason Bateman, Jeffrey Tambor, Christopher Guest

RATING: TBC

RUN TIME: 99 minutes

Hold, Please...

A busy week awaits on this side of the screen, so celluloid tongue will be updated intermittently, at best. I’ll be seeing five films between now and the weekend (namely: A Serious Man, 9, The Descent: Part 2, The Box, and another this evening I can’t mention until next week when it releases). I’ll be sure to post a little Twitter slug on each, as usual, however. Things will pick back up again after Halloween.

- gerard.

Bad Lieutenant Clip

Not enough nuts in your weekend? Rest easy. Apple Trailers has you covered, with a new look at Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, which sees a cadaverous Nic Cage blathering about buried pirate plunder.

Watch here.

New Wolfman Trailer

I could have done without the bland, faux-metal riff to underscore the gaslit goings-on, but this minor gripe aside, the new trailer for Joe Johnston’s The Wolfman gets a big ol’ howling tick from me. (Although, if I’m honest, I do still favour the first one).

Watch at Apple Trailers.

The Wolfman reaches Australia February 25^th, 2010.

Blomkamp’s Next to shoot 2010

District 9 was just the shot in the neck 2009’s blockbuster season sorely required. And for its savvy amalgamation of allegorical sci-fi, stomach-churning body horror and electric, grue-splashing action, you have director Neill Blomkamp to thank.

Variety has today announced Blomkamp will begin production on his follow-up, another original, as-yet-untitled science-fiction picture, in mid 2010.

“I’m not particularly interested in massive budget films, or creating huge spectacles that some young directors might be attracted to,” tells Blomkamp. “Hopefully, this will be a bit unique. It is absolutely another science fiction film, quite different from District 9, but some of the blending of genres and the tone might be within the same realm.”

Working under the wing of producer Peter Jackson, Blomkamp delivered his hit debut for a comparably modest budget of $US30 million. The new project, says the article, will “certainly cost more than District 9,” and has taken precedence over an inevitable District 9 sequel in Blomkamp’s slate.

Story here.

Collapse One-Sheet

Via Cinematical comes the one-sheet for Collapse, documentary filmmaker Chris Smith’s portrait of policer officer turned whistleblower turned independent journalist Michael Ruppert (of From the Wilderness).

From the film’s official synopsis:

“[Ruppert] predicted the current financial crisis in his self-published newsletter, From the Wilderness, at a time when most Wall Street and Washington analysts were still in denial.

Sitting in a room that looks like a bunker, Ruppert recounts his career as a radical thinker and spells out the crises he sees ahead. He draws upon the same news reports and data available to any Internet user, but he applies a unique interpretation.”



Intrigued? You should be.

Find more info on the film at CollapseMovie.com.

More Avatar Pics

Spoiler TV has a new cluster of pics from James Cameron’s Avatar, the most exciting of which can be enlarged above.

To view the rest, head here.

Avatar reaches Australia on December 17^th. The film’s new trailer will arrive online next week.

Film Review - Astro Boy

At age 57, Osamu Tezuka’s beloved robot boy is given a glossy new coat of paint in a zippy, coruscating computer-animated big-screen reboot. But power down those retaliatory hand cannons, Astro-fanboys: this 2009 model Astro Boy is no childhood-blighting catastrophe.

With an origin-detailing script that’s seemingly been assembled via reverent schematic, it’s no reinvention of the rocket boot, either. But in the hands of Flushed Away director David Bowers and with a charismatic Hollywood cast (Nicolas Cage, Kristen Bell, Bill Nighy and Nathan Lane among them) on vocal duties, this respectful modern rendering of Japan’s most enduring cartoon superstar makes for surefire family entertainment.

When the son (Freddie Highmore) of a brilliant scientist (Cage) is killed in an experiment gone awry, the bereaved father transplants the boy’s personality into a state-of-the-art robot replica in the hope of painlessly supplanting his departed child. But the powerful new technology keeping the soulful contraption’s gizmodified innards ticking and tocking soon draws the attention of the trigger-happy President of Metro City (Donald Sutherland, whose animated counterpart appears inspired in equal parts by Ratatouille’s snooty food critic and Peter Cushing’s Grand Moff Tarkin from Star Wars). So, with a father who’s questioning the moral integrity of his own hi-tech handiwork and the full force of the military hot on his contrails, the fresh-off-the-production-line little android blasts off to find his place in the world.

Aesthetically, Astro Boy remains true to its anime origins, and despite falling shy of the vivid visuals offered by Pixar (the continuing industry yardstick for technical achievement), the animation by Hong Kong’s Imagi Studios is surprisingly rich and expressive. A gladiatorial arena battle in which the outed Astro proves his metallic mettle is more exciting than anything in last year’s tossed-off Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and inventive design elements make simply combing the frame more rewarding than most nostalgia-ransacking ‘toon adaptations ever are in full (here’s looking at you, Scooby Doo).

In a final concession to its hero’s cultural lineage, Bowers’ film dutifully trades on that most time-honoured and sacrosanct tradition of Japanese cinema: having a gargantuan monster stomp the living sashimi out of an unwitting and swiftly-collapsible city. Like the rest of his Astro Boy, it’s a flight through familiar skies, but one that’s so affectionately fashioned and quietly accomplished as to leave any shortcomings flapping in the wake of its shimmering slipstream.

DIRECTOR: David Bowers

SCREENWRITERS: Timothy Harris & David Bowers

CAST: Freddie Highmore, Nicolas Cage, Kristen Bell, Bill Nighy, Nathan Lane, Donald Sutherland, Charlize Theron, Samuel L. Jackson, Matt Lucas, Eugene Levy

RATING: PG

RUN TIME: 94 minutes

Tim Burton MoMA Exhibition Arriving at ACMI in 2010

As fate would have it, I’m currently knee-deep in the process of planning a holiday to New York in March next year prompted by the Museum of Modern Art’s upcoming retrospective on the medium-spanning works of Tim Burton — the largest and most comprehensive exhibition of the artist’s work yet collated and exhibited in a public space. Today, Melbourne’s ACMI has announced the showcase as its second Winter Masterpieces presentation (after 2007’s Pixar: 20 Years of Animation), and the collection, simply titled Tim Burton, will be on show from June 24^th-October 10^th, 2010.

Which, of course, is spectacular news (and obviously does nothing to dampen enthusiasm for my mooted Libertyland sojourn — hell, a holiday’s a holiday, after all). ACMI will curate a season of Burton’s films to complement the exhibition, and Burton himself will be in town to snip the figurative ribbon on the event. (My eternal, unfaltering gratitude to whomever out there in internetland can set me on the path to teeing up an interview...).

As outlined in a press release from ACMI, “the exhibition Tim Burton brings together over 700 examples of rarely or never-before-seen drawings, paintings, photographs, storyboards, moving-image works, puppets, maquettes, costumes, and cinematic ephemera, and includes an extensive film series spanning his 27-year career.” Of particular interest to enthusiasts is word the retrospective will include his early student and non-professional films, as well as the elusive live-action Disney Channel adaptation, Hansel and Gretel, replete with all-Asian cast, gender-bending wicked witch, decollated gingerbread man and chop-socky kung-fu finale.

Read more at ACMI’s official site, and watch Burton’s (very brief) salutatory video address to Melbourne at The Age.

Burton’s Alice in Wonderland releases March 4^th, 2010, and Shane Acker’s 9, a computer-animated post-apocalyptic ragdoll adventure produced by Burton, reaches Australia December 9^th.

Van Diemen’s Land Pair Plan Australian Western

The duo behind Van Diemen’s Land, Jonathan auf der Heide and Oscar Redding (whom I interviewed in tandem here and here), seem to be getting to their dream of shooting a western a little sooner than expected.

Speaking with Twitch, auf der Heide tells the pair are developing an ‘Australian western’ based on the life of the infamous bushranger, Ben ‘The Gentleman’ Hall.

“He was the most prolific bushranger; he did something like 300 robberies and girls dug him,” tells the filmmaker. “He’s a good basis but I think for the next film we won’t be so caught up in the true events, and will make it more action-packed.”

If there’s one thing Van Diemen’s Land has in spades, it’s atmosphere, and the film’s greatest strength was auf der Heide’s use of the menace inherent to the varied Australian landscape. So a western would seem right up the 30-year-old filmmaker’s alley. And the decision to trade Van Diemen’s Land’s divisively moody, slow-burn M.O. for the pistol-slinging actioneering of morally ambiguous rogues and scoundrels is certainly a wise step. “We don't want to be pigeonholed into making these serious art movies,” says auf der Heide.

Story here.

Salles and Rivera Ready Rust

Walter Salles and Jose Rivera, the director/screenwriter pairing behind 2004’s young Che Guevara roadtrip picture, The Motorcycle Diaries, are set to bring Philipp Meyer’s American Rust to the screen, says Variety.

Telling the story of two lifelong friends who become mixed up in a crime in their financially troubled Pennsylvanian hometown, the novel (first published this year) has garnered no shortage of critical acclaim. It’s currently nestled amidst my towering ‘To Read’ stack, but LiteraryMinded’s voracious peruser of prose, Angela Meyer, called it “the most memorable book I have read so far this year” back in May, which is what first brought American Rust to my (admittedly negligent) attention.

Colour me curious indeed.

Full story here.

Bunny and the Bull Trailer

/Film has the ace trailer for Bunny and the Bull, the first feature from Mighty Boosh director Paul King.

Edward Hogg (of tap-dancing hilbilly freakout, White Lightnin’) stars as a pained recluse who embarks on an imaginary roadtrip across his flat, with various trinkets, snapshots and memories from a disastrous European sojourn years prior paving the surreal topography of his nightmarish interior landscape.

None of what’s on show here would look out of place in an episode of The Boosh, though given how visually inventive King’s work with Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding (both of whom appear in Bunny and the Bull) has been, that’s far from being an unwelcome prospect.

There’s no Australian release date yet. Watch the trailer here.

The Missing Person Trailer

I saw Noah Buschel’s grainy neo noir The Missing Person at the Sydney Film Festival earlier this year, and while it’s certainly a film not without its flaws, a boozy Michael Shannon and a resonant mid-way narrative rug-pull make this worth checking out. (Read my original capsule review here).

The film’s trailer is now live at Apple.

The Missing Person releases December 3^rd.

New Poster for Doctor Parnassus

Now that’s more like it.

If the original key art for Terry Gilliam’s lovely-if-muddled The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus underwhelmed (as it well should have), the film’s new UK one-sheet should serve to rekindle those wavering interests.

Flanked by a striking selection of key scenes and characters rendered in typically Gilliam-esque cut-and-paste mise-en-scène, the doubly striking Lily Cole (whom, it must be said, seriously impresses as the blossoming, ennui-stricken daughter of the titular mystic in the film) has a not-inappropriate air of the post-prandial Alice down the rabbit hole about her here...

Enlarge:



A contender for poster of the year, methinks.

This debuted at The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus Support Site.

The film reaches Australia on October 29^th, and I’ll have a review up in the not-too-distant future.

Film Review - The Final Destination 3-D

You can’t cheat death. That rather obvious observation is as close as you’ll find to a lesson in this fourth (and final?) entry in the enduring Final Destination franchise. But if you’ve sat through the series’ first three installments — in which bland, transposable American teens are eviscerated in extravagant fashion after seemingly sidestepping fate — you probably won’t be attending this disingenuously titled sequel in ask of challenging subtext...

The original Final Destination was a moderately clever, post-modern slasher flick cooked up by a pair of X-Files alumni and the writer of, erm, 2008’s ill-advised resurrection of Day of the Dead. Death itself was the villain, and its implacable, hopeless inevitability saw to it that anyone ‘lucky’ enough to evade its clammy grasp (say, by benefit of an ominous premonition in which their own fiery, mid-flight demise was detailed in frightening clarity moments before boarding an airliner) soon found their name at the head of some merciless cosmic hit-list. Next, their head was soon likely to be found several feet from its decimated body — after an unlikely succession of coincidences had dealt them a send-off so spectacularly orchestrated as to put Wile E. Coyote and his better-mousetrap ACME contraptions to shame, that is.

Three films later, and it’s same-old, slain-old, with The Final Destination’s sole ‘new’ ingredient being the option to receive your serving of slaughter in reasonably-executed 3-D. This time around, a quartet of production-line teenagers escape a disastrous scrap at a race-car rally, and, along with a racist redneck, a buxom MILF, a cowboy and “the security guard, George,” are one by one taken to meet their maker, kicking and screaming (and burning, and bleeding, and drowning...).

Despite gouging pikes, falling ceiling fans and a wayward nailgun to stretch the stereoscopics, the gore-slinging is so flatly handled by Snakes on a Plane director David R. Ellis that only the opening car-tastrophe and a crushing encounter on an escalator get anywhere near the level of excitement/exploitation required to qualify this as even the guiltiest of pleasures. When characters are so boring you can’t even be bothered to root for their ridiculously outrageous annihilation, a cynical cash-in like this becomes nothing more than an endurance test, even at The Final Destination’s slight 82 minutes. Like its doomed characters, you’ll be left to wonder: “Am I going to make it through to the end?”

DIRECTOR: David R. Ellis

SCREENWRITER: Eric Bress

CAST: Bobby Campo, Shantel VanSanten, Nick Zano, Haley Webb, Mykelti Williamson, Krista Allen

RATING: MA15+

RUN TIME: 82 minutes

Broken Embraces Trailer

Pedro Almodóvar reteams with Penélope Cruz.

Enough said.

Watch at Apple Trailers.

Broken Embraces releases on Boxing Day.

Park Plans Le Couperet Remake

Oldboy helmer Park Chan-wook is eyeing a remake of Costa-Gavras’ Le Couperet as his potential follow-up to the flawed-but-fantastic Thirst, Variety announced yesterday.

Le Couperet is a black comic thriller centred on a dismissed ex-chemist who, after three years of joblessness, decides to quite literally eliminate his competition. Perfect fodder for the dark-humoured Park, then.

“I was glad to hear that Park, who has made political genre films, wants to remake my film,” says Costas-Gavras.

Sounds good to me.

Full story here.

The Box UK Quad

Richard Kelly’s The Box will finally open in Australia on October 29^th, and Empire has undraped the film’s no-nonsense UK quad.

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Based on a short story by seminal sci-fi scribe, Richard Matheson, The Box centres on a couple (Cameron Diaz and James Marsden) faced with a hefty moral dilemma when presented with the enigmatic object of the title. Inside is a button. Every time they push the button, they receive one million dollars. Every time they push the button, a stranger will die...

Toy Story 3: Theatrical Trailer, More Character Banners

To he or she who can watch the wonderful new trailer for Pixar’s Toy Story 3 without getting choked up: get thyself to a preferred spiritual medium, statim!, because yours is clearly a defective soul...

Don’t you love the idea of a series growing up as you do?

Watch at Yahoo! Movies.

Additionally, Woody and Slinky Dog now have character banners, which may be enlarged below:



These appeared online at Moviefone and AICN.

Australian Release Date for Antichrist

You’ve heard all about The Most Controversial Film of the Year™. Now, Lars von Trier’s Antichrist has finally announced its Australian release date: November 26^th, chaos reigns.

According to distributor Transmission’s Twitter feed, the engagement will only encompass Melbourne and Sydney. When and if more information comes to hand, I’ll be sure to relay it.

More Toy Story 3 Character Banners

Here are two new additions to the series of Toy Story 3 character banners that began cropping up online yesterday, this time featuring Buzz Lightyear and Jesse the cowgirl.

Enlarge below:

These arrived online courtesy of Yahoo! Movies and Coming Soon, respectively.

The film’s theatrical trailer will premiere online early this week.

Hello Darkness Film Festival

Melburnians with an appetite for the darker side of cinema would do well to check out the lineup for the inaugural Hello Darkness horror film festival, which runs from October 26^th-31^st at ACMI.

Two Australian premieres head the bill: Dennis Illiadis’ remake of Wes Craven’s nasty Last House on the Left, and Jon Harris’ The Descent: Part 2. I’m a huge fan of Neil Marshall’s 2005 original, which is also on the itinerary, and will definitely be on deck to find out what Harris and co. have cooked up for the sequel.

Elsewhere (and arguably most worthy of note), so-hot-right-now low-budget haunted house chiller Paranormal Activity is lined up for opening night. It’s currently slated for a December 3^rd Australian release, but believe me when I say the best way to enjoy this (fun enough, yet hugely overrated) film is to take in a screening with an excitable festival crowd. Also screening are the (very) black comedy, Sheitan, starring Vincent Cassell, the punishing Haute Tension (pity about that useless twist ending…), Shane Meadows’ revenge thriller, Dead Man’s Shoes, and Tomas Alfredson’s beautiful, bloodsucking bildungsroman fable, Let the Right One In.

Tickets can be booked from the official site. If you’re in town, get along — but perhaps bring a friend...

Film Review - $9.99

Figures.

You wait a lifetime for the first feature-length Australian stop-motion animation, then a pair reach our screens five months apart. Thankfully, however, it’s a more welcome instance of in-cinema synchronicity than, say, the Armageddon/Deep Impact turf-trampling of 1998. And, if you want to get persnickety, $9.99 isn’t solely homegrown — rather, it’s the first feature-length Aussie/Israeli stop-motion animation; not to mention the first Aussie/Israeli feature-length co-production, period.

Like 2009’s purely locally produced Play-Doh opus, Mary and Max, Tatia Rosenthal’s eccentric animated dramedy isn’t exactly the squeaky-clean child’s play audiences might expect of the medium. But while Adam Elliot’s film — despite dealing in decidedly grown-up concerns — was all-ages appropriate, $9.99 enticingly isn’t. Within its first moments, a gun is produced. Minutes later, there’s a corpse on the sidewalk. Throw in a healthy dose of recreational drug use and a shot of a puppet’s unshod penis and you have a cartoon admirably committed to exploring the full extent of its M rating.

Working from his own award-winning short stories, co-scriptwriter Etgar Keret teams up with Rosenthal to people an inner urban Sydney apartment complex with an existentially anxious assortment of quirk-laden characters. Geoffrey Rush (no stranger to claymation, having narrated Elliot’s Oscar-winning animated short, Harvie Krumpet) here voices a dishevelled and cigarette-sponging angel, and has likened $9.99 to a stop-motion reworking of Robert Altman’s multi-strand drama, Short Cuts. It’s never as successful, despite boasting a continually surprising surrealist bent and an overarching lackadaisical charm, but as far as in-a-nutshell descriptions go, a more apt analogy is difficult to imagine.

Voiced by an impressive collection of local industry luminaries (Anthony LaPaglia, Claudia Karvan, Joel Edgerton, Ben Mendelsohn, Barry Otto and Samuel Johnson among them), $9.99’s cast of misfits and navel-gazers navigate their richly realised miniature milieus with varying degrees of satisfaction. While a wry subplot involving Mendelsohn’s lovestruck repossession officer and the femme fatale around whose little finger he soon finds himself twined (Leeanna Walsman) unexpectedly twists into a bizarre beat on the radical measures we’ll take in the name of l’amour, the narrative nub of a thin-skinned dilettante philosopher’s (Johnson) search for the meaning of life in the pages of a mail-order booklet (“For the low price of $9.99!”) falls short of being any more than an amusing idea. It might be too tall an order to expect a solution to the ultimate metaphysical quandary, but $9.99 feels decidedly detached without a more mundane personal awakening amidst its host of largely off-the-wall individual denouements.

Still, it’s so curious a creation as to warrant a look-in, and a storyline centred on Rush’s grungy seraph and a lonely pensioner (Otto) both tickles the ribs and carries considerable dramatic sway. Whatever their film’s shortcomings, Rosenthal and Keret invest an enormous amount of humanity in those two little latex figurines.

DIRECTOR: Tatia Rosenthal

SCREENWRITERS: Etgar Keret & Tatia Rosenthal

CAST: Geoffrey Rush, Anthony LaPaglia, Claudia Karvan, Joel Edgerton, Ben Mendelsohn, Barry Otto, Samuel Johnson, Leeanna Walsman

RATING: M

RUN TIME: 78 minutes

Toy Story 3 Character Banners

A pair of character banners for Toy Story 3 have shown up at MySpace and /Film, featuring the anxious plastic Tyrannosaur, Rex, and Hamm, the motor-mouthed piggy bank.

Enlarge below:

Additionally, a remix of Randy Newman’s ‘You’ve Got a Friend in Me’ was recently posted at the official DisneyPixar YouTube account. Make of it what you will.

Toy Story 3 reaches Australia on June 24^th.

Wasikowska Restless for Van Sant

Soon to be sent down the rabbit hole by Tim Burton in next year’s Alice in Wonderland, 20-year-old Australian actress Mia Wasikowska will next star in Restless for Gus Van Sant.

The Hollywood Reporter calls the project a “dark coming-of-age drama... which delves into the complex tale of a teenage boy and girl who share a preoccupation with mortality.” First-time feature scribe Jason Lew will adapt his own play for the screen.

Although I’m by no means a fan of his entire oeuvre, Van Sant is nothing if not perennially interesting. And Milk was an ace return to narrative storytelling for the filmmaker (although I still haven’t caught up with Paranoid Park) — here’s hoping Restless continues the trend, not least because Wasikowska is quickly shaping up as one to keep both eyes on.

Story here.

Alice in Wonderland releases March 4^th, 2010.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans Trailer

“Shoot him again! His soul’s still dancin’!”

Of course it is, Nicolas Cage.

If you’re not convinced the (slightly) more high-profile half of Werner Herzog’s upcoming weirdo double-whammy, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (the other being the seriously out-there-looking My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done) should finally give pathological eyebrow acrobat Cage an ideal channel for his increasingly manic screen presence, look no further than the film’s new trailer. Lounging iguanas fill the frame. Cage rants about his underpants. And clearly tailspins into one serious downward spiral.

The film doesn’t yet seem to have secured an Australian distributor, but you can watch the trailer at Yahoo! Movies.

The Lovely Bones Poster

With its Boxing Day release just eleven weeks away, Peter Jackson’s fantastical take on Alice Sebold’s best-selling novel, The Lovely Bones, finally has a one sheet courtesy of Yahoo! Movies.

Enlarge:



It’s a litle Big Fish, though obviously more in idea than execution.

See for yourself.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus US Trailer

Although not so different from its UK equivalent, I love the new US trailer for Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Glad to see the marketing team have avoided the garish temptation to push this as Heath Ledger’s final performance, instead simply permitting the director’s signature hallucinogenic cartoon visions to speak for themselves.

I’m seeing the film tonight and will have a review ready in time for its October 29^th Australian release. In the meantime, in case you missed it the first time around, why not swing by the very wonderful Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus Support Site and take in my article on Tom Waits?

Watch the new trailer at Yahoo! Movies.

Splice Clip

Rotten Tomatoes has a clip from Splice, the new film from Cube director Vincenzo Natali. Starring Sarah Polley and Adrien Brody, Splice seems to be pitched in the interesting middle ground between Alien and Species, seaming the ominous mood and slow-burning measure of the former with the DNA-dallying rogue science and kinky, interspecial sexual predation of the lesser. Guillermo del Toro is executive producer, which should come as encouraging news to genre fans.

Watch here.

Release Date Changes

Just a quick word regarding some newly-announced release date changes for the calendars of Australian audiences.

Firstly, Jennifer’s Body, originally set to drop in time for Halloween at the end of this month, will now bow on December 10^th. December 9^th will see the arrival of the animated 9, while In the Loop (capsule review here) has moved from Boxing Day to January 21^st. Sam Mendes’ Away We Go (which I thoroughly enjoyed at the MIFF) has also been retracked from a late October release to December 10^th, and, finally, acclaimed Aussie horror The Loved Ones will be in cinemas from February 11^th.

Film Review - The Horseman

In the ferocious, low-budget revenge thriller, The Horseman, a grieving father pummels, slays and blazes his way across rural Queensland on the trail of the men responsible for the heroin-addled death of his teenage daughter.

Its commitment to the shocking lengths a tormented soul will slog for retribution might be absolute, but first-time writer/director Steven Kastrissios leavens the grimness by developing a tender friendship between the bereaved Christian (Peter Marshall) and a mixed-up young hitchhiker (Caroline Marohasy) to elevate The Horseman beyond the realms of simple easy-sell, bloodhound-appeasing exploitation. That it succeeds as a gut-wrenching drama is owed to Marshall’s convictive, conflicted performance, with his vengeful Christian managing to remain on the right side of our sympathies without ever coming off as merely mind-snapped, sadistic or maniacal.

Shooting on grain-soaked, largely handheld digital, Kastrissios brings a hammering immediacy to Christian’s various haemoglobin-splattering encounters, which sit just close enough to realism as to trigger in-seat audience squirm (even when the act takes place off-screen). Points, too, for the inventive methods of torture our eponymous punisher both dispenses and is himself later subjected to — you’ll never look at a football pump the same way again.

Cobbled together on a budget that makes Samson & Delilah’s modest pricetag seem positively decadent, The Horseman is by no means the obvious product of its humble spend. Kastrissios has deftly tailored his tale to the production’s fiscal limitations, so it’s exactly the kind of raw and unpolished its stark story so flatly demands.

Think of it as a homegrown answer to Oldboy via El Mariachi: bracingly visceral and laudably ambitious.

DIRECTOR: Steven Kastrissios
SCREENWRITER: Steven Kastrissios
CAST: Peter Marshall, Caroline Marohasy, Brad McMurray, Jack Henry, Christopher Sommers
RATING: R18+
RUN TIME: 110 minutes

Mann Makes Waiting for Robert Capa Next

Variety has announced Michael Mann will next lend his fastidious eye to the story of combat photographer/photojournalist Robert Capa, famed for his dramatic photography of the 1944 Normandy invasion.

Mann will direct and produce the film, which will take Susana Fortes’ novel Waiting for Robert Capa as source, telling the story of Capa’s two-year romance with fellow photojournalist Gerda Taro against the turbulent backdrop of the Spanish Civil War. Taro, the first ever female battle photographer of wide renown, later succumbed to critical injuries sustained in a motor collision with a tank during the Battle of Brunete.

It’s not difficult to see why Capa’s life poses interest to Mann, who’s built his career essaying stories of driven and skilful rogues and the star-crossed love lives they lead. Capa’s own life ended in as poetic a fashion as one could imagine: being whisked, wounded, from the battlefield, camera in hand and with Taro’s portrait the lone photograph occupying his wallet.

Mann envisions the project as “a gritty, low budget film,” but exactly what this means remains to be seen.

Story here.

Shutter Island Theatrical Trailer

The new trailer for Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island rightfully paints the film as a straight-up B-movie thriller, with a latter-part leaning towards spooky hallucinations and an upping of the creepy-character-actor ante (I’m talking about you, John Carroll Lynch, Ben Kingsley and Jackie Earle Haley).

Originally set to have opened this week, Shutter Island will now bow on February 18^th, 2010.

Find the new trailer at Apple.

Up in the Air Theatrical Trailer

It mightn’t be as intriguing as the film’s recent teaser, but the new theatrical trailer for Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air still makes this look like a classy affair.

Check it out at Apple Trailers.

Up in the Air arrives January 7^th.

Trio Line Up for Let Me In

Richard Jenkins, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Chloe Moretz will front the cast of Matt Reeves’ American-set retake on Let the Right One In, Coming Soon has announced.

13-year-old Australian Smit-McPhee, who will next be seen in The Road, has taken the role of the introverted adolescent, Owen (formerly Oskar in both John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel and Tomas Alfredson’s Swedish language adaptation), with (500) Days of Summer’s Moretz set to play Abby (previously Eli), the androgynous object of Owen’s blossoming affection who’s soon revealed as a vampire. Jenkins, next year appearing in both the Hunter S. Thompson adaptation, The Rum Diary, and opposite Julia Roberts in Eat, Pray, Love, will play the adult caretaker of Abby with whom he shares an unsettling past.

Jenkins and Smit-McPhee could hardly be better cast, but, given my unfamiliarity with Mortez (whom, it could be argued, has landed the most crucial and difficult role in the film) beyond (500) Days of Summer, it’s hard to say whether she’s as deft a selection. Reeves, however, would seem to think so, calling the confirmed triumvirate an “absolute dream cast.” Here’s hoping.

Read the full release here.

New Avatar Pics

A new batch of pics from James Cameron’s Avatar has arrived online at Spoiler TV, and what’s most immediately striking is that no still image seems able to capture just how impressively lifelike the film’s wholly digital Na’vi characters really are onscreen. Avatar Day left me convinced that Cameron’s been cooking up something truly special (at least where the pushing of technological boundaries is concerned), so, as striking as these new stills undeniably are, know that Avatar’s saving its true haymaker for the IMAX screen.

Enlarge a few of the pictures below:

…and head here to view not only the rest, but each of these in ludicrously hi-res.

Avatar, in all of its in-theatre iterations, arrives on December 17^th.

Toy Story 3-D Double Feature Vignettes

Those animated icons, Woody and Buzz, appear in a new spot to plug Pixar’s 3-D reissue of Toy Story and Toy Story 2 at Apple Trailers. The pair of Pixar classics will be re-released in Australian cinemas as a newly dimensionalised double feature on January 21^st, 2010.

Watch here.

Find additional clips at Yahoo! Movies.

Fantastic New Fantastic Mr. Fox Trailer

I’ve been sold on the retro stop-motion stylings of Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox since day one, but it seems many people haven’t been so readily enthusiastic. Should you count yourself among that stone-faced flock, I’d suggest a viewing of the film’s wonderful new trailer (its best and most patently Anderson-esque yet) — if it doesn’t convince you this is one to look forward to, I fear nothing will.

Watch at Apple Trailers.

“The cuss you are!” “Are you cussin’ with me?”

It really looks quote-unquote “fantastic.”

Fantastic Mr. Fox releases January 7^th 2010.