With the way his career has been going in recent years, it can be hard to remember that Nicolas Cage is an Oscar-winning actor. It seems that he says yes to pretty much any film he's offered, and while many of those films have not been bad per se, none of them have been exactly noteworthy. I wish I could say that Cage's latest vehicle Tokarev look like it could change the actor's fortunes, but based on the recently released trailer I have little hope.
William Friedkin. Mae West. Bette Midler. I'm not certain that HBO could have constructed a better grouping if they had tried. With Friedkin back in a big way since his darker-than-dark Killer Joe, he now plans to make the move to directing an HBO film about iconic star Mae West, starring the only woman capable of filling her bustier: Bette Midler.
I'll just go right ahead and say that the Coen Brothers must be planning on hitting every genre they can before they retire. They have already covered classical and biblical adaptations, film noir, the western, the screwball comedy, the epic journey, and various forms of crime stories. Recently they mentioned their ongoing work on a 'sandals movie' set in ancient Rome and now the brothers say that there's another genre they can mark off their list, as they take on the musical comedy.
There are a lot of exciting films set to premiere this December, but I think just about everyone in the film community is ready for The Wolf Of Wall Street. Martin Scorsese's latest feature has been a long time coming, facing its share of adversity and a number of drastic cuts to keep down the run time. Clocking in at a final three hours (give or take), the film will finally hit cinemas on Christmas Day. The director and stars of The Wolf of Wall Street certainly seem to think that the wait has been worth it, as they express their thoughts on the production in a 25 minute roundtable discussion of the film.
When Darren Aronofsky built his own ark for Noah, he actually made it bigger than the original Biblical specifications. If the footage that we've seen so far is any indication, then the film itself also seems to elaborate on the Biblical story of a man, a flood, and a whole boatload of animals.
The Coen Brothers are no strangers to time travel. They've penned scripts and directed films set in the early 20th Century, in the Old West, in Greenwich Village of the 1960s and in the apparently timeless frozen tundra of the mid-1990s. They've updated Biblical narratives for the modern day, and rewritten the Odyssey for South of the Mason Dixon. But they've never gone as far back as ancient Roman times, nor did we ever expect them to. Now, however, the Coen Brothers are talking about doing just that.
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein has seen a multitude of adaptations since it first hit bookshelves all the way back in 1818. It has spawned sequels, retellings, stage adaptations and numerous films, most of which have very little to do with the original novel. Paul McGuigan's version of the Frankenstein story looks to be no different, adapting characters who never appear in the original novel into a story that likely to be a bit different from the Frankenstein tales of the past.
It's not easy being an undead monster, even if you're the most remarkably handsome undead monster since Dracula got a makeover. At least, that's what this new TV spot for I, Frankenstein tells us, as we see Aaron Eckhart coping with his imperfect handsomeness by punching gargoyles in the face.
Not having an actual film to promote has never stopped Quentin Tarantino from doing the press circuit. This year he's been voicing his opinion on everything from the best movies of the year (before the year actually ended) to complaining about The Lone Ranger. But I don't really care what he does or does not like in the contemporary movie scene; I care about what his next film will be. On The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, he finally shared something we can all get excited about.
Vin Diesel taking on the lead role in Universal's Kojak might seem like a pretty easy casting choice. Kojak is tough, mean and bald, which pretty much describes Diesel. Of course, the next big question for the film is who Universal will pick to direct the police procedural adaptation. Thanks to the actor's chronic inability to avoid teasing his fans via his Facebook page, we now know that Diesel has a first choice in mind: Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee.
