[Posted by Jeff Sneider]

Kris Tapley is "not big on" the idea that Johnny Depp may play The Riddler in the next Batman film, and frankly, I agree. Since when did villains overshadow the superheroes themselves?

Vulture interviews Tarantino mainstay Michael Madsen about his possible involvement in "Inglorious Bastards." Speaking of which, if Quentin doesn't end up casting Eddie Murphy (which has been rumored for the last few weeks), why not Chris Tucker? After all, he gave his best performance as Beaumont in "Jackie Brown" and he was also great in the half-war movie "Dead Presidents."

Talk about cool news! Quint lands a movie deal the same day that Moriarty's installment of "Fear Itself" debuts on NBC. The question is, when will we see Harry Knowles' "2gether 4ever?"

Empire debuts a classy quad poster for Jon Avnet's "Righteous Kill," which stars the two greatest actors of all-time, and no I am not talking about 50 Cent and Donnie Wahlberg. No offense Mr. Cent. As tough a time as the media has given De Niro and Pacino lately, I'll still be there opening night for their first teaming in 13 years. If their reunion winds up half as good as "Heat," I'll be happy.

Cinematical sinks its teeth into a story about Godiva releasing a "Twilight" chocolate bar. It certainly sounds dark and delicious but I'll wait and see how it tastes... if I can afford it.

With "Swing Vote" opening tomorrow, 411 mania has a cool retrospective of Kevin Costner's career. Unfortunately they leave off "3000 Miles to Graceland," a guilty pleasure in which Costner rocks some bad-ass 'burns.

I saw Guillaume Canet’s French thriller "Tell No One" last night and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. So here, just for the heck of it, is Stephen Holden's glowing review in The New York Times. Track it down, give it a chance, and if you dig it as much as Stephen and I did, disregard the title and tell everyone about it.

Vulture laments the delay of the much-anticipated "Ghostbusters" videogame. By the time this thing gets released, Baby Oscar will be in a retirement home. Hopefully they'll use the additional time to resurrect Vigo the Carpathian who was always overshadowed in "Ghostbusters" lore by Slimer and the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.

MySpace has the first look at the trailer for Peter Sollett's comedy Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist, starring Michael Cera and my personal celeb crush Kat Dennings. It also features a hot soundtrack (Modest Mouse, Vampire Weekend), a trio of supporting funnymen in Jay Baruchel, John Cho and Aaron Yoo, plus the naked girl from "Broken Flowers" and a Gray's Papaya cameo! I could watch this trailer an 'infinite' amount of times. Seriously, what's not to like?

Jeff Wells points to a bootleg version of "The Wolfman" trailer, which despite its poor quality, looks pretty good. It seems Universal is aiming for an R-rating because there's some nasty gore in there, which is always reassuring.

In other trailer news, Cinematical finds out "What Just Happened?" The Hollywood satire stars Robert De Niro as a movie producer based on Art Linson and a bearded Bruce Willis as a thinly-veiled version of Alec Baldwin circa "The Edge."

Finally, I direct you to a June 13th posting at Dark Horizons about Lionsgate's decision to dump "Midnight Meat Train" in a handful of theaters this weekend. At first I wasn't too concerned because I figured that at at least one theater in L.A. would step up and show it but having checked my local listings, I see the closest theater is in Norwalk, CA. As a horror fan, I'm extremely disappointed that I won't be able to check out a midnight screening this evening and if you feel the same way, you should let Lionsgate know in the comments section of this post. How am I supposed to ride the train if it doesn't stop in my neighborhood?

{Posted by David S. Cohen}

With all the furor over the McCain ad that dissolves from Britney Spears to Paris Hilton to Barack Obama, calling the latter a celebrity, let me add one small voice in defense of Ms. Spears.

The meme here seems to be that they are all celebrities, that is to say, people who are famous for being well-known. Plenty of people are defending Obama against that charge, but not Spears.

Now I don't know the woman and I'm not a fan, but not so long ago Britney Spears was mainly known as a star performer, something that requires some actual skill and hard work. More recently, even after she became a tabloid train wreck, her last album got some pretty good reviews. She got famous by becoming a star; she didn't become a star because she was famous. So, without going out of my way to be snarky about Paris Hilton, she's not Paris Hilton.

So... ummm... leave Britney Spears alone?

{Posted by David S. Cohen}

Are stories about the struggle against racism in sports in the 1950s and 60s turning into the male equivalent of chick flicks? And can't today's crusading fimmakers find something current to make movies about?

U's trailer for The Express caught my eye and hit on a pet peeve.

When I was a script reader, I'd tell the companies I read for "Don't send me chick flicks, you know, 'How to Make an American Quilt During a Weekend at the Lake With Boys on the Side.' It's not that I hate them, but I don't watch them, I don't really get them, and I don't think I'd know a good one if I read one.'"

But hey, I'm a guy, I get sports movies. I also trace some of my earliest memories to the days of the civil rights movement in Illinois and Kentucky, so I enjoy stories about that time. But I'm getting tired of movies that put the two together.

[Posted by Peter Debruge]

It's about time: Just as hand-drawn animation is going out of style, Disney finally gives us an African-American princess. But I have no clue what to make of this trailer. Others can have a field day with the P.C. issues raised. Me, I just don't see the charm of this scene, meant to set the tone for the movie: A toon princess has second thoughts about kissing a frog. Doesn't that violate all the unwritten rules of the Disney universe, as parodied so well in last year's Enchanted? Now that animation has gone post-modern, does that mean it can't go back?

(Hat tip to Zap2It's Dan Fienberg for unearthing the trailer.)

[Posted by Peter Debruge]

These days, my favorite thing about Pixar is the way each new idea they announce sounds even farther afield than the last, then the movie comes out, and it charms the pants off everybody: Rats in a restaurant? A robot love story?

Last week at Comic-Con, Pete Docter unveiled footage from Pixar's next curve ball, Up, in which an 78-year-old geezer (voiced by Ed Asner) fulfills a promise to his late wife, setting out on a great adventure to Paradise Falls, Venezuela. In the clip, the old guy pulls a fast one on two retirement home employees sent to collect him, attaching hundreds of helium balloons to his house and drifting away (with a hyper 9-year-old wilderness explorer named Russell unwittingly whisked along for the ride).

It was a gorgeous sequence, full of humor and sheer zen wonder -- the teaser only touches on it, since much relies on subtle character moments as old-timer Carl engineers his take-off (best of all, the presentation assured me Pixar isn't veering into Danny Deckchair territory here). That semi-surreal vision of so many multi-colored balloons against a clear blue sky reminded me of one of my all-time favorite television spots, the brilliant not-a-lick-of-CG ad for Sony's Bravia set:

But Docter lost me a bit when things flash forward to the jungle, to find Carl and Russell dragging the house by garden hose to its final destination: one of the unseen-by-human-eyes mountains that looms above the Venezuelan jungle. Is there really enough material here for more than a short film?

Then again, if we've learned anything from Pixar, it's that plot isn't nearly as important as character, and Docter made clear on the panel that his inspiration for Up was the personal revelation that old folks have led interesting lives. It's an intriguing thought: Could building a movie around a septuagenarian prove to even riskier than rats or robots -- and every bit as rewarding? (Don't forget, Pixar struck gold in this territory once before with the Oscar-winning Geri's Game, left.)

[Posted by Peter Debruge]

Anyone out there in the habit of watching movies or TV shows online? I've been slow to embrace the process, mainly because the titles provided through iTunes and elsewhere have been ones that would be better served by the largest possible screen. But my man Matt Dentler, who recently left his SXSW film festival gig to work for Cinetic Media, has engineered a deal that gives me hope: Watch Hoop Dreams for free on Hulu.

Now, here's a movie everyone should see, the same landmark documentary Roger Ebert named best film of the '90s. I remember being a bit disappointed when Criterion polished it up for DVD a few years back, since the film was originally shot on video and couldn't possibly meet the company's usual standard of visual quality -- the advantage here is that unlike other blockbusters you might attempt to watch online, Hoop Dreams doesn't suffer tremendously from the streaming video downgrade. But if those other more popular pics are more your style, check out Hulu's library -- they're adding a new film that can be viewed for free online every day this summer.

[Posted by Jeff Sneider]

Nikki Finke is hearing rumors about "Austin Powers 4". Yeah, baby!

Jeff Wells inhales "Pineapple Express", calling the first three-quarters of the film a "legendary stoner comedy."

Duane Dudek of the Journal Sentinel reports that Woody Allen's new movie, not "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" (which was excellent) but the one starring Larry David and Evan Rachel Wood in a May-December romance, will be called "Whatever Works." Works for me.

US critic Thelma Adams sits down for an interview with "Frozen River" star Melissa Leo, whose performance is garnering Oscar buzz. Too bad Tom O'Neill feels the need to basically throw her under the bus.

"Tropic Thunder" strikes David Poland like a disappointing bolt of lightning.

Roger Ebert sits down to talk about "Man on Wire" with the man himself, Philippe Petit.

Kevin Williamson has a smokin' interview with "Pineapple Express" star Seth Rogen.

And finally, after reading that last bastion of truth, Page Six, Vulture contemplates a future without NBC honcho Ben Silverman. I say without Ben Silverman, there is no Paradise.

[Posted by Peter Debruge]
Inspired by Pineapple Express (arguably the world's first coherent stoner comedy), Philadelphia Inquirer critic Carrie Rickey runs down the all-time greats of the genre:

1. The Big Lebowski (1998)
2. Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)
3. Dazed and Confused (1993)
4. Dude, Where's My Car? (2000)
5. Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)
6. Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004)
7. Half Baked (1998)
8. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001)
9. Repo Man (1984)
10. Up in Smoke (1978)

Click through to see her justifications. Carrie's choices strike me as a little recent (what about Easy Rider or the Jack Nicholson-penned Roger Corman classic The Trip?). It's not a comedy, but Jerry Garcia's favorite movie of all time, The Saragossa Manuscript, seems custom-made to be seen on LSD. And Donald Cammell/Nic Roeg's Performance virtually induces that mindset, no matter how sober the audience is.

But when it comes down to it, stoner movies have always annoyed me, since they're engineered to play best when the audience is high, thereby excusing egregious leaps of logic and/or continuity. Then again, they open the door to a sort of randomness simply not permissible in mainstream comedy. My favorite such example, the dude/sweet tattoo scene in Dude, Where's My Car?

Here it is dubbed for foreign television:

[Posted by Peter Debruge]

In this teaser for the new Inglorious Bastards DVD (which I review here), Quentin Tarantino recalls, "The first time I heard about Inglorious Bastards was the Variety review":

Ah, those were the days, when film lovers turned to us for their first morsel of information about exploitation and genre films. We're still tops when it comes to casting news, but the fanboys deserve credit for leading the charge on fringe cinema scoops online (let's hear it for Twitch, baby!). Personally, I can't imagine having to sit through all the pornos that Variety crix were expected to review in decades past.

As you've surely heard by now, Tarantino's cooking up his own in-name-only tribute, a men-on-a-mission WWII epic likely to end up as two separate films (cuz the guy's just that inspired). L.A. fans can catch a screening of the restored print tonight at the New Beverly Cinema, assuming you can get tickets. Everyone else will be served just fine by Severin Films' 3-disc DVD.

[Posted by Peter Debruge]

Now that I've picked on the MPAA, I thought I'd turn my attention to the FCC, who decide what flies on TV. Not sure how many of you caught the Comic-Con sneak of Heroes Villains, the back-with-a-vengeance third season of the popular NBC show, but I can't help but wonder whether they'll really be able to get away with the episode's big surprise (SPOILER ALERT!) -- namely, that Sylar finally manages to catch Claire, slices her head open and, after noodling around in her noggin for a spell on-camera, steals her power.

The scene makes the brain-eating scene from Hannibal look downright tame by comparison, although Tim Kring clearly realized he was operating in similar territory. When Claire asks whether Sylar plans to chow down, he quips, “Claire, that’s disgusting.”

(Posted by David S. Cohen)

Al Gore = Gore-Al = Jor-El?

This hits close to home because I may have married the only woman in the world, other than maybe Tipper, who thinks An Inconvenient Truth is a hot date. No pun intended.

[Posted by Peter Debruge]

It's starting to feel a little all-Twilight-all-the-time over here, and as much as I like the tween Vampire tale, nothing compares to Harry Potter. Here's a teaser for the latest, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (also available in HD from WB bedfellow AOL:

Ooh, scary Harry! I love how things are getting progressively darker with the series, although WB's The Dark Knight proves that no matter how grim they get, we can count on the MPAA to slap a kid-friendly rating on the film. Am I the only grandma-minded critic out there who thinks the R-rated Billy Elliott is more appropriate for kids than, say, Lord of the Rings or The Love Guru?

(Posted by David S. Cohen)

I've been having some problems with our DSL service and was considering switching to cable, despite Time Warner Cable's horrific rep for customer service. An ATT tech came by the house today and said something to the effect that ATT's U-Verse service has been installed locally, though it's not listed as available in our area (Westside L.A.). I'm guessing there'll be some sort of IPTV service announcement very soon.

No inside dirt on when Verizon FiOS might arrive, sorry.

I wrote about IPTV and the Telcos' entry into the TV biz here back in 2006. They've been slow to deploy here in L.A. but I'm guessing that people will like it once they see it. 

[Posted by Jeff Sneider]

Rumors swirl that Johnny Depp may reunite once again with Tim Burton to play the Mad Hatter in the director's take on Alice in Wonderland.

JoBlo has the one-sheet for Matthew McConaughey's Surfer Dude, which brings to mind Big Fish and prison clothes.

Nikki Finke has the lowdown on CAA parting with veteran agent Rick Nicita, who segues to Morgan Creek.

Vulture takes a look at the Tropic Thunder bobbleheads but of course they leave out the best one, Brandon T. Jackson's Alpa Chino.

Jeff Wells offers his thoughts on this year's Venice Film Festival lineup.

AICN's Quint has a solid interview up with director Sam Raimi and his Drag Me to Hell leading lady Alison Lohman, while Capone takes a moment at Comic-Con to sit down with Paris Hilton and her Repo! The Genetic Opera writer-director Darren Lynn Bousman.

With the Cinematical team on a mini-vacation following Comic-Con, the site revives a December post featuring Seven Stupid Things Last Men on Earth Do.

According to DHD, Alicia Keys and Jack White have recorded the theme song for the latest Bond film, Quantum of Solace.

Rob Scheer finds himself wrestling with the powerful themes of Boy A, which opened in limited release last week.

AICN has an early look at Beverly Hills Chihuahua, a movie about, well, just read it at your own risk.

MCN's Noah Forrest takes a scary ride on Brad Anderson's Transsiberian, which looks pretty good to me, but I'm partial to any movie featuring Kate Mara. Except Shooter, of course.

JoBlo's Sturdy lambastes the MPAA for, among other things, its NC-17 stance on Kevin Smith's raunchy comedy Zack and Miri Make a Porno.

And finally, the Vulture gang asks you to do your patriotic duty as an American and see The Dark Knight. They even include a very helpful pie chart full of lame excuses you might need to make if you haven't seen it yet.

[Posted by Stuart Oldham]

Believe it or not -- Guy Ritchie has another job besides being married to Madonna (and the press). The 'Lock, Stock' director is back with another British gangster film and this time, he's brought along Gerard Butler for the ride.

I am in Maine, taking a stop at an internet cafe in Ellsworth before driving into The Silence.

You won't hear from me for a while, but the Variety team led by Peter Debruge and David S. Cohen will keep on blogging and there's still plenty of Comic-Con fodder to be plundered.

Back in a week or so.

[Grand Theatre, Ellsworth, Maine]

(Posted by David S. Cohen)

Saw The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor last night, and couldn't help shaking my head at the fight scene between Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh. Admittedly, like athletes late in their careers, neither can do some of the things they did 20 years ago -- Hey, who can? -- but was it really necessary to cut the fight up into little bits, the way you would with actors who can't perform fight choreography for more than a second or two at a time? These are two of the most dynamic, skillful martial arts performers in recent memory. Wouldn't it have been great to watch them move around?

So I was especially interested in this video slide show from Dennis Lim Slate.com: Let's Step Outside: The Evolution of the Fight Scene from the Duke to the Dark Knight. Particularly note the fight between Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee, where at one point they actually go to slow-motion to make sure you can see what they're doing -- and be sure you know it's them doing it.

[Posted by David S. Cohen]

London's TimesOnline, burying its lead in a long, unrevealing puff piece on George Lucas in conjunction with the upcoming release of the new Star Wars: Clone Wars animated movie, puts this near the bottom of the story:

"Really, though, it was a challenge getting the story together and getting everybody to agree on it. Indiana Jones only becomes complicated when you have another two people saying ‘I want it this way’ and ‘I want it that way’, whereas, when I first did Jones, I just said, ‘We’ll do it this way’ — and that was much easier. But now I have to accommodate everybody, because they are all big, successful guys, too, so it’s a little hard on a practical level.

“If I can come up with another idea that they like, we’ll do another. Really, with the last one, Steven wasn’t that enthusiastic. I was trying to persuade him. But now Steve is more amenable to doing another one. Yet we still have the issues about the direction we’d like to take. I’m in the future; Steven’s in the past. He’s trying to drag it back to the way they were, I’m trying to push it to a whole different place. So, still we have a sort of tension. This recent one came out of that. It’s kind of a hybrid of our own two ideas, so we’ll see where we are able to take the next one.”

Ya gotta hand it to George. He's the only guy in the business who can get away with giving an interview to a major newspaper implying 1) Spielberg succeeded with Raiders by taking orders from him; and 2) Spielberg is a nostalgic stick-in-the-mud whom he cajoled into doing another Indiana Jones picture and accepting his forward-thinking ideas.

[Posted by Dave Lewis]

On the last day of Comic-Con, producers Brad Fuller and Andrew Form allayed fans’ Friday the 13th fears with promises that their reboot of the horror franchise would keep Jason Voorhees out of hell, deep space and Manhattan. 

Fuller and Form are well versed in the land of horror remakes, with credits that include Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hitcher, The Amityville Horror and soon, Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. And, as cineastes might feel about Hitchcock, horror fans expect loyalty to the source material. The first-look teaser for Friday the 13th (shown twice) seemed to satisfy with slick thrills, plenty of R-rated gore and what appeared to be a fleeting glimpse of Jason as a boy. Likewise, the poster offers a faithful image of Jason's gruesome goalie mask.

The producers promised a more "realistic" take on the legendary slasher; this time around, the masked man sticks to Crystal Lake. "We tried to keep it rooted in reality,” said Form. “We tried to go totally away from the supernatural.” Form and Fuller said they took some inspiration from parts 2-4 of the original series, although it goes back to basics by exploring Jason's past and revealing how he got the mask.

“They made Jason smart,” said Derek Mears, who plays the iconic Voorhees. “You feel sympathy for him." Leave it to other actors to dream of assaying Hamlet, or at least Superman; Mears said that as a child he used to think, "Someday, I'd like to play Jason."

That said, when the panel suffered from dull spots, Form didn’t hesistate to pull in the film’s hunky and amiable star, Jared Padalecki. Offered Form, "Have you guys seen Jared with his shirt off?" The thought of seeing the star of the CW's Supernatural bare-chested got the fangirls screaming, the sound Form and Fuller hope to hear February 13. See more photos from the "Friday the 13th" Comic-Con panel.

Here's an excerpt from Variety's 1980 review of the original Friday the 13th.

(Posted by David S. Cohen)

The Food Network was smart to break format and bring back three contestants to the finale of "The Next Food Network Star" instead of the usual two.

I agree with the choice of Aaron McCargo Jr. as winner of the competish. Even my wife, who's vegetarian, was grinning watching him grill a steak in the finale. Though not a trained TV performer, McCargo has natural charisma.

But does anyone else think Adam Gertler had a pretty good idea for a cooking show? I sure did. And doesn't Lisa Garza seem like she's a natural to, well, do something on television? I'm looking forward to see what they end up doing as well.

(Posted by David S. Cohen)

Another random thought sparked by Andrew Klavan’s op-ed piece in the WSJ arguing that the “Dark Knight” filmmakers are secret conservatives who must mask their true opinions by putting them into a comicbook movie.

If we extrapolate from the movie to real life, since Batman gives control of his let's-spy-on-everyone-in-Gotham's-cellphones technology to Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), who doesn’t approve of it and believes it’s too much power for one man to have, the Nolans et al must believe that the one person who ought to have control of the government’s real-life warrantless wiretapping system is…. senator Russ Feingold?

I tried to think of someone in show business whom I'd trust with that power. My wife suggested… Morgan Freeman. But I’m not so sure. True, he’s Hollywood's go-to guy for kindly authority figures: God, the President, the head of the Fraternity of Assassins. (Okay, not always so kindly.) But I’ve interviewed him on a couple of junkets and I think there’s just a touch of the rogue about Mr. Freeman. It’s part of his charm. But I can’t help but wonder if, given that power, he just might have a little bit too much fun...

The stoner comedy Pineapple Express, an inspired Seth Rogen/Evan Goldberg/James Franco/David Gordon Green/Judd Apatow collaboration, will score big time. "I always thought Superbad would get made," said Rogen at the Pineapple Express panel. "But this I never expected to get made. When I watch this stuff I am amazed."

See photos from "Pineapple Express" panel at Comic-Con.

Besides the fact that both Rogen and Franco are growing into leading man status, the revelation in the film is the third leg of the stoner trio, Danny McBride.

I ran into him at the Pineapple Express party Friday night, the best of the Con (three agency parties thrown by CAA, UTA and WMA were packed with agents, mostly, while the PE party was poolside, civilized, not too crowded). It turns out that McBride really wants to direct. He studied film at the North Carolina School of the Arts, where he and Jody Hill and Ben Best concocted the raucus martial arts comedy The Foot Fist Way, which played at Sundance and was eventually picked up by Adam McKay and Will Ferrell. He also has a juicy role as a special effects wrangler in Tropic Thunder and is coming up in Land of the Lost and Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles as well.

McBride now has a rising comedy career as a member of the McKay/Ferrell and Apatow comedy troupes. The ungodly stoner trio of Rogen, Franco and McBride did a lot of improvising, he said, including the last scene in the movie. (Apatow says that Rogen is unusually gifted at improvising entirely in character.) "I let the cameras roll," said Green at the Pineapple Express panel. "We do a lot of improvising. I let the actors have as much fun as possible which hopefully will translate to audiences. We started with a sober take, then went higher and higher until they were dancing on the ceiling."

"You don't have to know how to read," added Rogen.

"You don't have to memorize lines, which is nice," said McBride, who was told his character had shaved armpits, but not the reason why. "That's what you have to figure out," Rogen told him.

And nobody smoked dope. There were dangerous stunts, McBride pointed out. "I smoked a lot of weed in high school," said Rogen, who admits he once smoked pot with a fishbowl on his head. "You can't smoke weed when you're making a movie. It's too hard. There's too much heavy equipment around."

McBride answers a few questions on the Comic-Con press balcony: