BuzzSugar

Buzz News Roundup, 2/11

BuzzSugar — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:30:34 -0800

The upcoming movie The Soloist is inspiring at least 174 orchestras in 46 states to participate in food drives. - AP
Showtime has renewed United States of Tara for a second season. - Variety
In other renewal news, Ugly Betty, Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, and Brothers and Sisters are rumored to be getting early pickups from ABC. - TV.com
Mark Valley will star in a Fox pilot called Human Target, while Kathryn Hahn and Kristen Johnston are officially cast in the Absolutely Fabulous remake. - TV Guide
Woody Allen has set Josh Brolin and Anthony Hopkins to star in the film he wrote and will shoot in London this Summer. - ComingSoon
Tom Cruise is in talks to star with Denzel Washington in the David Cronenberg-directed thriller The Matarese Circle. - Variety
Brad Paisley leads the Academy of Country Music Awards nominations with six nods. - AP
Sam Rockwell has joined Hilary Swank in the legal drama Betty Anne Waters. - The Hollywood Reporter

Photo courtesy of Paramount

King Lear Movie Gets Keira, Gwyneth and Sir Anthony

BuzzSugar — Wed, 21 May 2008 10:38:01 -0700

Get ready for another Shakespearean film adaptation
Recent news coming out of the Cannes Film Festival (courtesy of the UK's Telegraph): there will be a new big-screen adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear, this time starring Sir Anthony Hopkins, Keira Knightley and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Daddy's Little Girls
Sir Anthony will naturally assume the role of King Lear, while Keira will portray his daughter Cordelia. According to the article, "Gwyneth Paltrow is tipped to take the role of Regan, Lear's treacherous middle daughter. His eldest daughter, Goneril, is yet to be cast." Could this be another Oscar-earning project for Gwyneth? According to the Academy she does well with Shakespeare stuff.

Competition already?
As the Telegraph points out, there have been tons of adaptations of Lear, and this newest film will be "judged against a Channel 4 adaptation, to be screened this Christmas, based on the recent and highly acclaimed Royal Shakespeare Company production starring Sir Ian McKellen as Lear and Romola Garai as Cordelia. The play made the headlines due to McKellen's nude scene, which will be retained for the television version." So the Channel 4 version has nudity, but does it have the "epic battle sequences" that this latest adaptation promises? Nudity and battles aside, I'm curious to see this version of Shakespeare's play.

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Beowulf: See It in 3-D or Not at All

BuzzSugar — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 15:27:27 -0800

"I. Am. BEOWULF!" roars a computer-generated (and significantly enhanced) Ray Winstone over and over and over again. The animated epic story of Beowulf is impressive from a visual standpoint - it really is like living inside a video game - though story-wise it's empty and forgettable. But if nothing else, you will absolutely remember who. Is. Beowulf.

I managed to see Beowulf in an IMAX theater, donning some giant, goofy 3-D glasses. In this way, the movie is spectacular. You'll be splattered with blood, threatened with sharp spears, and nearly dropped into the sharp-toothed mouths of terrifying beasts. It is, quite simply, amazing. I completely understand Robert Zemeckis' desire to bring this story to life via animation. Using (and improving upon) the motion-capture technology he tried with The Polar Express, the humans look as real as possible (more or less) while still existing in a mystical land alongside monsters, mermaids and water serpents.

Overall, it's a cool idea. In execution, it's enjoyable enough, though I'm not sure I would have liked it half as much if I were not watching it on an IMAX screen in 3-D. However, having said that I agree with the complaint of a fellow reviewer that if you turn your face even the slightest bit, the 3-D image is skewed and unpleasant to look at. Sitting in the same position with my head frozen in place for two hours and watching a 3-D movie left me with neck pains as well as a headache. For more about the pros and cons of this movie, read more

As cool as Beowulf looks, it succeeds visually at the expense of interesting storytelling. Winstone voices the great warrior himself, though his "onscreen" self is a far cry from the doughy man we've watched in things like Sexy Beast. In a handsome war hero's body, Beowulf is our protagonist who arrives in Hrothgar's kingdom with his entourage. As Beowulf consistently reminds everyone, he's here to "kill your moanstah," the horrifyingly disgusting creature named Grendel (Crispin Glover) who terrorizes Hrothgar's people. In a laughable scene, Beowulf insists on fighting the monster in the nude, his manhood expertly hidden by various "coincidental" objects in a scene that mirrors the hide-the-pickle scene from Austin Powers.

There are moments like these that provide some much-needed levity, though there are many other moments that unintentionally generate laughter, like the "shot" of Grendel's Mother's (Angelina Jolie) stiletto heel-shaped feet (not shoes, feet). Indeed, this movie seriously pushes that PG-13 rating to the max. Just because it's animation doesn't make Grendel's Mother's buxom body any less near-nude.

Anyway, Beowulf fights Grendel and succeeds, only to then have to answer to Grendel's Mother. Once he meets her, he is seduced by her womanly charms (as she literally melts his sword in some not-so-subtle imagery) along with the promise of kingly glory. Herein lies the moral, I guess, of the movie (though not necessarily the literary work on which it's based): hubris and pride will doom the greatest of warriors.

The actors are quite good in this arena, with John Malkovich particularly standing out as the darkly complicated Unferth, though despite how close these animated figures have come to approximating human beings, there's an emptiness to them that still seems creepy. Their bodies have a strange weightlessness, and they often remind me of the human characters in the Shrek movies. Also, at times Angelina Jolie's character somehow looks worse than she does in real life (and I'm talking about scenes in which she is supposed to be stunning), which seems preposterous given that she is already unbelievably beautiful.

Bottom line: It's visually neat, if not a bit of an assault on the senses, but I sincerely hope this isn't our "future of filmmaking" as the promos for this movie keep promising.

Images courtesy of Paramount

Link Time! 10/23

BuzzSugar — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 13:45:50 -0700

In his interview with MTV Movies Blog, Anthony Hopkins reveals that he's going to play Alfred Hitchcock, and he has Hitchcock's voice all figured out.
TV Squad tells us how to rate the Schrute Farms B&B on TripAdvisor.
Idolator watched The Next Great American Band so you don't have to.
Popwatch wonders who else is trapped in the closet with Dumbledore, with suggestions ranging from Ernie of Sesame Street to Wonder Woman.
TV Filter analyzes some common TV careers.
Cinematical's Retro Cinema post reexamines an oldie but goody: Interview With a Vampire.
Stereogum is among those mourning the demise of file-sharing site OiNK.
TV Cocktail looks into how the California wildfires are affecting TV shoots.
Check out Spinner's countdown of the craziest costumed musical acts, starting with - who else? - Marilyn Manson.
Give Me My Remote posts a video of Steve Carell on Monday Night Football.

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What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday

BuzzSugar — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 13:30:11 -0700

All of the new DVD releases hit stores (and Netflix) on Tuesdays. So each week in What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday, I sort through the best of the batch and tell you what to add to your queue. In addition to these three creepy thrillers that join the others on video store shelves today, Wild Hogs also comes out on DVD, as well as David Lynch's Inland Empire.

The Lookout
One of my favorite thrillers of the year so far, The Lookout has Jeff Daniels and Joseph Gordon-Levitt both turning in superb performances as the good-natured blind man Lewis (Daniels) and his mentee Chris (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Chris suffers a severe head injury from a car accident that cut short his promising athletic future. Now working as a janitor at a bank and living with his blind friend, Chris falls in with the smooth talking Gary Spargo and his posse (including the sweet and sexy Luvlee played by Isla Fisher).

Gary lures Chris into his bank heist, preying on Chris' loneliness and desire to feel powerful again. At the last minute, though, Chris has second thoughts. Chilling and suspenseful throughout, The Lookout is a fantastically worthwhile thriller. For more of my take, check out my review.

For two more thrilling titles, read more

Fracture
Fracture pits the adorable and arresting Ryan Gosling against the ever-shifty Anthony Hopkins in a capable legal thriller. Gosling plays Willy Beachum, the up-and-coming assistant district attorney tasked with linking Ted Crawford (Hopkins) to the murder of Ted's wife. Hopkins shows nothing new with his performance, relying on his old Silence of the Lambs tricks to once again portray a clever yet disturbed criminal while Gosling does his very best to pick up the slack. It's a decent rental for a spooky night, however, especially if you need a Gosling fix.

Vacancy
Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson star in this horror/thriller that takes place at a creepy motel (hence the title). David (Wilson) and Amy Fox (Beckinsale) are forced to stay in the shady Pinewood Motel when their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. In the cursed Room 4, they turn on the TV and watch some slasher films... until they realize the low-budget movies were all filmed in their very motel room. Vacancy doesn't break any new ground, but it provides a few good scares if you're in the mood.

First Look: Beowulf

BuzzSugar — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 10:29:28 -0700

Speaking of Comic-Con, apparently there was a screening of 20-minutes from Robert Zemeckis' computer-generated version of the epic tale Beowulf, starring Angelina Jolie and Anthony Hopkins, among others. MTV's movie blogger was there, and reported this:

"This is the oldest story in the English language," [Neil] Gaiman told the crowd of press and VIPs. "And it’s told with the most modern technology available," [Roger] Avary finished.

After a few hundred people strapped on their 3-D glasses, the verdict was in. While scenes featuring Anthony Hopkins and a near-nude Angelina Jolie are astonishingly photo real, the fantasy epic still occasionally suffers the "Dead Eyes" look of Robert Zemeckis’ Polar Express.

The flick, which costs $1 million per minute, is aiming for a PG-13 take on the tale we were all forced to read in high school. "That was my reason for doing this," grinned Avary. "I wanted to make it easier or future generations."

Well, for us poor hacks slaving away at work instead of chatting up Neil Gaiman at Comic-Con, at least we can check out the trailer for Beowulf, which hits theaters November 16. As was sometimes the case with Zemeckis' Polar Express, I find it eerie to see well-known actors portrayed in not-quite-reality, but I'm still supremely excited to see this movie in 3-D. To see the CG-tastic trailer, read more

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Beowulf: The Movie

BuzzSugar — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 16:05:13 -0700

You may have heard about this project of Robert Zemeckis' (Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Forrest Gump) to turn the epic poem Beowulf into an animated movie which, it was recently announced, will be screened in IMAX theaters. The movie's official website is up and running (though it basically just features dancing flames, dramatic music and a cast list), and now a Dutch website has posted photos of the posters for the movie, including the one above. The posters aren't groundbreaking, but they have piqued my curiosity in this project.

Namely, I wonder who, exactly, is going to see this? It's animated like many children's movies are, though I've never scanned my memory for works of literature to make into children's movies and gone, "Oh, I know! Beowulf!" Yet are adults interested enough in the story - even an adaptation written by Neil Gaiman - to see a classic piece of literature made into a CGI movie on an IMAX screen?

I must say, however, that the cast of actors voicing the characters is quite impressive:

Angelina Jolie as Grendel's Mother
Crispin Glover as Grendel
Anthony Hopkins as King Hrothgar
Robin Wright Penn as Queen Wealhtheow
John Malkovich as Unferth
Alison Lohman as Ursula
and Ray Winstone, who I don't know, as Beowulf

What do you think? Come November 16 will you be checking out Beowulf?

Fracture: Broken In Too Many Places

BuzzSugar — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 04:20:31 -0700

In Fracture, Willy Beachum (Ryan Gosling) is a cocky but likeable prosecutor on the rise. He’s about to go from being an assistant D.A. to joining a goliath corporate law firm - all chrome, glass and prestige. To top things off, his new beautiful boss Nikki Gardner (Rosamund Pike) has demonstrated an interest in taking him under her wing, in more ways than one. What could go wrong?

On the eve of his move, he agrees to take on one more case for the D.A.’s office. Ted Crawford (Anthony Hopkins), who we see spying on his cheating wife and then shooting her in the head, has signed a confession admitting to his crime. It should be an open and shut case, but the hotshot prosecutor with a 97 percent conviction rate soon finds himself mired in a trap set by the sociopathic Crawford.

A courtroom revelation renders Crawford’s confession inadmissible, and Beachum soon discovers that they cannot find the gun used in the crime. “If you look closely enough,” Crawford says, taunting Beachum, “you can find that everything has a weak spot where it can break, sooner or later.” Unfortunately, Fracture suffers from too many weak spots, so

In spite of top-notch stars, Fracture abounds in flaws: The film drags, lacks an original story, and derives its main characters all too obviously from The Silence of the Lambs. In addition, moments that are supposed to be suspenseful - like when Beachum races to the hospital with a court-order to keep Crawford from pulling the plug on his comatose wife - are so badly paced that you forget what’s even going on.

The romance between Beachum and his new, seductive boss seems to come out of nowhere, and it doesn’t make sense that someone in as high a position as Nikki would jeopardize her job just to sleep with a new employee, however handsome. The film also stumbles during moments intended as comic relief, since the movie hasn’t done its job in setting the proper tone these moments were meant to disrupt.

But the biggest disappointment of Fracture involves what could have been a promising rapport between Gosling and Hopkins. Gosling is one of the few actors who can smirk and act cocky and still have you rooting for him; he plays it off as youthful exuberance. His elastic face is as expressive as a silent film star’s, and he has a magnetism that almost makes his boss’s seduction make sense.

Gosling deserves a better sparring partner than Hopkins, who seems to have simply walked from The Silence of the Lambs set without leaving character. Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter shtick is getting old. His arsenal of sociopathic tics - the nostril flaring, the reptilian slow-lidded closing of the eyes - isn’t bordering on self-parody; it fully inhabits it.

Although Fracture had promise, you just feel like you’re wandering around in familiar territory, none of it surprising or compelling.

Movie Preview: Fracture

BuzzSugar — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 12:58:13 -0700

Fracture comes out this Friday April 20 and I'm excited about it for three reasons: Anthony Hopkins, Ryan Gosling, and David Strathairn. Gosling plays an assistant DA with a gentle drawl who thinks he's got it easy when he's assigned to prosecute Ted Crawford (Anthony Hopkins), who has confessed to killing his wife.

But of course, the case isn't as easy as it looks on first glance. As Crawford tells the lawyer: "If you look closely enough, you'll find everything has a big spot where it can break sooner or later." Director Gregory Hoblit proved with Primal Fear that he can churn out a very unpredictable courtroom drama, so maybe this one will be similar. Check out my review this Friday, and to watch the trailer in the meantime, read more

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Link Time! Watch George Clooney Voicing Fantastic Mr. Fox

BuzzSugar — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:30:25 -0800

So cool - see how the voice acting was done on The Fantastic Mr. Fox - Cinematical
Comedy Central is teaming up with The Onion for a TV show - The Hollywood Reporter
No Doubt is suing Activision for using their likenesses inappropriately in Band Hero - GeekSugar
2012 already has a TV series sequel, 2013 - MTV Movies Blog
Fox Searchlight has halted the national release of Gentlemen Broncos - Vulture
Sufjan Stevens admits his 50 states album concept was a joke - Stereogum
Amazing video mash-up of scenes with characters saying the movie's title - Videogum
Anthony Hopkins and Annette Bening will play Ernest Hemingway and wife in Hemingway and Fuentes - Variety
The Decemberists' Colin Meloy and wife Carson Ellis are writing a children's book - Pitchfork
10 scary Christmas movies to bridge Halloween and Christmas - Rotten Tomatoes