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Weekend Movie News Wrap Up: October 19, 2008

Niall Browne — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 16:33:44 +0000

Sunday again and that means that it is time for the Weekend Movie News Wrap Up.

This week:

We see who is top of the box office; Kevin Smith ups his budget and goes into space; Brad Pitt goes on an Odyssey and plays an Unfair Game; Liam Neeson and Christina Ricci do Life and Ronin zooms to the small screen.

Box Office

Marky Mark Wahlberg is the box office champion with Max Payne. The film should manage about $20 million over the weekend giving 20^th Century Fox their first solid hit in months.

Oliver Stone’s W bucked the political movie trend by making a solid bit of cash. Grossing around $12MM for the weekend the film should be a modest hit. Considering the current political overkill going on in the press this is a considerable coup.

The Secret Life of Bees had a modest opening too, and should match the gross of the Bush film.

Meanwhile Sex Drive stiffed it on its opening with around $3.5 million. Could it be the death of the teen sex comedy?

Beverly Hills Chihuahua is showing legs with about another $11 million barked up by Monday morning. Meanwhile Ridley Scott’s costly Body Of Lies should manage another $7 million, the same as Eagle Eye.

Movie News

1. Kevin Smith will write direct and no doubt cameo in a $50 million space comedy. The Weinstein Company has read part of the script and seems interested in forking out the cash.

Smith has this to say:

“The moment someone steps out of the spaceship, it’s going to cost a little more.
All the relationships in the flicks I’ve done have been done before, have been either a guy falling for a girl or two dudes hanging out in a ‘bromantic’ comedy. I wanted to explore a father and son.”

The film won’t be made until after Smith’s Red State.

Expect at least one Uranus joke.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

2. Speaking of space – Brad Pitt will star in a futuristic retelling of Homer’s The Odyssey which will be directed by George Miller.

Pitt previously starred in an adaptation of Homer’s The Iliad, which became Troy.

Expect no Uranus jokes in this one.

Source: Variety

3. Speaking of Brad Pitt – the star may appear in Steven Zaillian’s adaptation of Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. The film is set to be directed by David Frankel. According to Variety:

“The Book’s subject is Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane, who assembled a contending baseball club on a shoestring budget by employing a sophisticated computer-based analysis to draft players.”

Source: Variety

4. Liam Neeson and Christina Ricci will star in After. Life (yes, the “.” supposed to be there).

Neeson will play a funeral director who is contacted by a woman (Ricci) who is caught between life and death (much like her career following Speed Racer). Agnieszka Vosloo will helm the film.

Source: Variety

5. The 1998 Robert De Niro film Ronin is coming to the small screen. The film which will likely be shot in Europe (like the film) will be co-financed by the BBC. The original film was helmed by John Frankenheimer and it played a bit like a middle-age Mission: Impossible, so a show should (or could) be interesting.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

That’s it for this week – see you at the movies!

Weekend Movie News Wrap Up: October 12, 2008

Niall Browne — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 18:43:58 +0000

It’s that time of the week again.

This week we see who is riding high at the box office; Hex marks the spot for Josh Brolin; Eric Bana is Armored; Frank Darabont isn’t a Law Abiding Citizen and we discover what Robert Downey Jr looks like as Sherlock Holmes.

Box Office

This week Beverly Hills Chihuahua remained top dog with a second week gross of around $18 million. Frightener flick Quarantine opened strongly in second place with a solid $14 million, while Ridley Scott’s Leonardo DiCaprio/ Russell Crowe starrer Body of Lies bowed to $13 million. That’s gotta hurt. Scott, Crowe and Di Caprio don’t come cheap, so the film will have to scoop some major award nods to help it make some solid bank. Having said that; with the film’s pedigree there should be some big international numbers to help off-set the lacklustre US gross. The Dennis Quaid/ Rob Brown (no relation) inspirational sports film The Express dropped the ball with a mild $5 million weekend. The Bill Murray kids Pic City of Ember tanked with a pathetic $3 million gross. A shame really – but its failure might just make Ghostbusters 3 happen. Meanwhile Shia La Boeuf’s Eagle Eye has flown to $70 million.

Movie News

1. Word on the street is that former Goonie and No Country for Old Men star Josh Brolin is apparently locked and loaded to play Jonah Hex in a film adaptation of the comic book of the same name, that is to be titled…er…Jonah Hex.

Earlier in the year Thomas Jane pitched for the role – even going so far as to produce photographs to persuade the filmmakers. Alas, they don’t seem to have taken the bait.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Thomas Jane ain’t going to be happy.

Source: Holywood Elsewhere

2. One time Hulk Eric Bana will star in Armored, a remake of the French film Le Convoyeur.

The adaptation was written by David Ayer and Andrew Kevin Walker. According to Variety:

“(The) Story follows a man who takes a job for an armored car company and ingratiates himself with his co-workers, who trust him enough to make him part of their heist plans. Unbeknownst to his colleagues, the man had his own motives for taking the job.”

F. Gary Grey will helm the pic, which will net Bana $7.5 million. However, the deal does rely on scheduling – the film starts shooting on April 1^st (that’s no joke), but Bana will have press duties for Star Trek in May.

Oh, and the film should more than likely undergo a title change!

Source: Variety

3. Forrest Whitaker will star in and direct a biopic of Louis Armstrong. The film titled It’s a Wonderful World (original) hopes to follow in the critical and box office success of Walk the Line and Ray.

Sounds like solid casting. Let’s just hope when Forrest comes down to editing the movie he doesn’t feel that we have all the time in the world. Ahem.

Source: Variety

4. Wanna see Robert Downey Jr as Sherlock Holmes?

Does anybody else think Chaplin?

Source: Just Jared

That’s it for this week. See you at the movies.

Body of Lies Review

Vic Holtreman — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 21:44:53 +0000

Short version: Body of Lies delivers excellent performances along with realistic action, suspense and drama.

Screen Rant reviews Body of Lies

My impression of Body of Lies based on the commercials and trailers was that it was going to be a taught, intense thriller – much more grounded in reality than your typical spy movie.

In that regard I was not disappointed, but while it was quite riveting – some aspects of the story did bug me. Some of it was based on my personal views, but some of it was not.

In Body of Lies, Leonardo DiCaprio plays Roger Ferris, a CIA covert operative whose background is never divulged. He works in the Middle East and ends up in Jordan searching for terrorists who have been bombing European civilian targets. In Jordan he uncovers information about Islamist radical leader Al-Saleem (Alon Aboutboul). Ferris devises a plan to infiltrate Al-Saleem’s terrorist network with the help of his boss back in Washington D.C., Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe). Ferris takes over the local CIA office and engages the help of the Chief of Jordanian Intelligence, Hani Salaam (Mark Strong) on the operation.

Unfortunately Ferris not only doesn’t know how far he can trust Salaam, but cannot trust Hoffman either – both of which could put his life in danger.

Ridley Scott gives us an excellent sense of what a close up view of the war on terrorism is like – not only from the point of view of government officials but more intimately, from the “men on the ground.” Between his performance in Blood Diamond and this film, Leo DiCaprio has actually made the transition from bright-faced young man in Titanic to what I would call a “real man.” Sure, they still seem to feel the need to put a beard on him to make him look older, but he surprises me with a screen presence that harkens back to old-school leading men.

Russel Crowe put on a bunch of weight for his performance and is excellent as usual. Besides DiCaprio, a big hero and focal point in the film is Mark Strong (who reminded me a hell of a lot of Andy Garcia) as the Jordanian Chief of Intelligence. He gives a powerful and convincing performance.

There is plenty of realistic action and suspense in the film and there isn’t much of either the annoying “quick edit” or “camera shake” technique that is so popular in films lately. The movie sucks you in for the most part, but kind of loses you when it gets to the romance between DiCaprio and a local nurse. Their romance does serve to bring us into a world we are little familiar with, but for some reason it didn’t quite gel for me with the rest of the film.

Another thing that bothered me was the portrayal of Hoffman. While obviously not an idiot, he was a stereotypical, easy to hate government official: Arrogant, fat, sloppy and with a Southern accent to make him even a tinge redneckish. He just cared about what was happening at the moment, and not willing to sacrifice an easy smaller win now for a much bigger payoff later.

On the other hand Salaam was handsome, self-assured, patient and honorable. I suppose at least they painted Ferris as an honorable American trying to get the job done despite all the pushback and double crosses coming from Hoffman.

Those nits however are not enough to detract from the excellence of the overall movie. I always find movie violence harder to take when it is in a more realistic setting (as opposed to some elaborate and unrealistic torture scene from the Saw series for example), so you might want to keep that in mind.

Body of Lies didn’t do well on its opening weekend, having been beaten by the horror flick Quarantine and believe it or not, Beverly Hills Chihuahua on its second weekend. So yet again another movie that takes a quasi-realistic look at the war on terror does not do well at the box office.

With things going the way they are with election politics and the financial crisis, I guess as usual people want to go to the movies to escape the “real world” and not to watch something that reminds them of what they see every day on CNN.

But if you’re looking for a great drama with its share of nail biting scenes, you’re OK with a couple of pretty brutal scenes and want to see an excellent performance by Leonardo DiCaprio, Body of Lies is definitely worth checking out.