Werner Herzog

Since it can often be hard to see some of the Oscar-nominated documentaries in theaters, it's nice to get a taste of them before Oscar night — not to mention that it might help you when you fill out your Oscar ballot. So this week I'll feature as many of the Best Documentary previews as I can.

Leave it to Werner Herzog to find the poetry and beauty in hanging out with a bunch of quirky Antarctica scientists. By all accounts Herzog, considered a most talented modern-day documentary filmmaker, has achieved something truly special with this latest project.

The movie's website describes what's going on this time around:

There is a hidden society at the end of the world. One thousand men and women live together under unbelievably close quarters in Antarctica, risking their lives and sanity in search of cutting-edge science. Now, for the first time, an outsider has been admitted. In his first documentary since Grizzly Man, Werner Herzog, accompanied only by his camerman, traveled to Antarctica, with rare access to the raw beauty and raw humanity of the ultimate Down Under.

From a visual standpoint, the images he captures of Antarctica are breathtaking and seem otherworldly. And I believe the Academy and the critics when they say his story is just as compelling.

To watch the trailer for yourself, read more

The wildly talented German director Werner Herzog (Rescue Dawn, Grizzly Man, Little Dieter Needs to Fly) has tapped the Ghost Rider leads for his next project, a remake of Bad Lieutenant. The original 1992 film has this description on Netflix:

Winner of an Independent Spirit Award (Harvey Keitel for Best Male Lead), director Abel Ferarra's gritty, visceral crime drama puts an out-of-control police lieutenant (Keitel) on a collision course with disaster. A survivor of the streets, this junkie, thief and killer comes face to face with his own sordid past. Although he's exploited young girls for sex, he's forced to confront his private demons when he investigates the rape of a nun.

Herzog's "reimagined" version will star Eva Mendes and Nicolas Cage with, I'm assuming, Eva Mendes playing the nun. I gotta say, this casting makes me scratch my head a bit. Herzog worked with Christian Bale and Steve Zahn on Rescue Dawn and made an incredible film. It seems like he could have gotten some better talent for this movie, but hey, maybe he sees something in Cage and Mendes that we haven't been able to see yet.

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• Has it really been that long? Fox has picked up King of the Hill for a 13th season, TV Guide reports.
• The Hollywood Reporter writes that Judi Dench and Nicole Kidman may join Rob Marshall's film adaptation of the Broadway musical Nine.
• According to ComingSoon, Werner Herzog will write and direct The Piano Tuner, a Victorian-era drama about one man's journey to war-torn Burma.
• Reuters reports that the Stone Temple Pilots reunion tour is definitely a go.
• Denzel Washington is attached to star as the hero in a film adaptation of the bestselling Robert Ludlum novel The Matarese Circle, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
• USA Today writes that MySpace will be launching a full-fledged music service where people can buy music and concert tickets.
• John Schneider and Molly Ringwald have been cast in ABC Family's Juno-esque teen pregnancy TV pilot from the creator of 7th Heaven, writes Zap2it.
• Justin Long and Hayden Panettiere have been tapped to voice the lead characters in the animated family film Alpha and Omega, reports ComingSoon.

Photo courtesy of Fox

When I first saw the poster for The Grand I had to groan. Not another casino movie! But then I looked a little closer and found some familiar, welcome names like Cheryl Hines, David Cross, Chris Parnell, Judy Greer and Woody Harrelson. The Game is a mockumentary-style spoof on professional gaming, with a ridiculously talented cast full of funny people.

You just have to check out this trailer for the movie which opens in limited release March 21. And in case you're wondering, yes, "The Scary German" is legendary German director Werner Herzog (Rescue Dawn, Grizzly Man, Little Dieter Needs to Fly). Hilarious.

To see what I'm talking about, read more

The true story of Dieter Dengler is so astounding that director Werner Herzog felt compelled to tell it twice: first, in the 1997 documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly and now in Rescue Dawn, a new movie starring Christian Bale as the German-born American pilot who escaped from a Laotian POW camp in 1965. The Vietnam War-era saga follows the soldier from his first mission, when he survives a plane crash only to be tortured and starved by Laotian soldiers before fleeing into the even more superhuman hardships of the jungle.

Best known lately for the 2005 documentary Grizzly Man, German director Werner Herzog is — to put it mildly — a very extreme director inclined to extreme film-making. (For his 1982 movie Fitzcarraldo, he famously filmed a steam ship being hauled over a mountain without the use of special effects.) So it makes sense that Herzog would be drawn to Bale, who infamously lost more than 60 pounds for his role in The Machinist. As crazy as both of these guys may be, their collaboration results in a brilliantly affecting piece of art, so read more

Based on a true story, Rescue Dawn tells the tale of U.S. fighter pilot Dieter Dengler (played by Christian Bale), a German-American whose plane is shot down in Laos during the Vietnam War. A captured POW, he managed to organize an incredible and risky escape for a group of fellow prisoners.

From the trailer it looks like director Werner Herzog has created a tense and grim depiction of war with a little bit of hope tinging the edges. The movie is currently out in New York and L.A. and will open in other select cities as the weeks go by. To watch the trailer and tell me what you think, read more