Anne Hathaway Catwoman

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Our Brit brethren probably know Mr. Kazinsky from a hole in the ground, unlike me who only became aware of him this morning when I saw he'd been cast in Guillermo Del Toro's Pacific Rim (as has Willem Dafoe!) fighting giant monsters and robots opposite Charlie Hunnam and Idris Elba - Kazinsky is straight outta Brighton and was on EastEnders for awhile. Recently he got cast in The Hobbit as one of the thirteen hundred dwarfs, but had to back out for ominous sounding "medical reasons." Hopefully he's alright - must be, since he's signed on for Pacific Rim now. The first thing I stumbled upon when looking him up was this:

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Obviously it snowballed from there. Pacific Rim is just gonna be bursting with eye candy! Hit the jump to see a dozen or so more pictures of Rob and his sexy little furry ginger self.

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I was a big fan of the first Paranormal Activity movie (my review). I know it wasn't everybody's cuppa but I loved the slow build and the way it forced you to just stare and stare at a static image until you thought your brain would snap from the tension. In the way that The Blair Witch Project mastered its teeny tiny budget through an electrifyingly creative manipulation of its sound-design so I felt that PA pulled a similar trick with its rigid visuals, turning a limitation to their favor.

Unfortunately the second film mucked it all up (my review). There were too many cameras around the house that they kept editing between, slicing any mounting tension up into ineffectual ribbons.

Plus the characters went way too far above and beyond the call of unbearable douchiness. Micah and Katie were deeply flawed characters in the first film - some might call them, and many did, monstrously annoying - but the movie was smart about it, I thought, and seemed to have built their less-than-savory aspects inextricably into the tale they were telling. Their passive-aggressive relationship became a game of one-upmanship and the final frame brought the game, and the camera and the home, crashing down. The awful people in the second movie were just ciphers with no interaction between who they were and what was happening to them. The film never found a purpose, and ended up treading stale steps in the first film's much more successful wake.

Point! We now have a teaser trailer for the third film.

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(via) So it's a prequel way back to the 1980s with the two sisters as little girls who've got access to what would have been at the time super-expensive crystal clear video technology. Mkay. What makes me most sad about this is we won't get to see any more of Micah.


Bye Micah! You were a sexy asshole. The most curious thing here is the fact that this is coming from Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, the directors that made last year's buzzy curiosity Catfish (my review), the questionable documentary of a slightly adorable dorky New York douche getting caught up in a sad lady's Facebook espionage. I was pro-Catfish for the most part but didn't really keep up with it once it came out and people began picking it apart.


Anyway I am curious to see what these chaps might bring to the Paranormal table. Catfish was sold as a horror movie but really didn't end up being that at all. But it still managed to wring a lot of tension from that curiosity before you knew what was coming. I vividly remember being freaked out when Nev & Co. get to that horse-farm late at night and are peering through the darkened windows of the barn. So they can maybe handle suspense? I guess we'll see. PA3 is out on October 21st...


... which is a date that's making my brain question a question: What horror movies are we getting for Halloween this year? The Saw franchise is blessedly over and blessedly done with its nearly-decade-long campaign of ruining the holiday, and I thought we were getting Cabin in the Woods but as we found out this morning it turns out that's not coming out until April.

So as long as this is on our brain, let's take a look-see at all the major horror movies coming out between now and All Hallows. (There will probably be smaller films that will get scheduled between now and then that we're unawares of just yet.)


-- The only horror movie out before July is over - if you don't count The Smurfs - is the "teenage British thugs vs. aliens" movie Attack the Block on July 29th, which I reviewed right here. I had a fairly complicated reaction to the film and I'm still sort of plagued by it. Fantastic monster design and some wonderfully staged action scenes though, even if I'm not sure they didn't ruin everything with an erratic tone and possibly irredeemable main characters.


-- In August we get Final Destination 5 on the 12th and the Fright Night remake on the 19th. I've stopped writing about the latest FD movie because I can't look at any more trailers or pictures, I don't want to spoil anymore of the deaths than I already did with the first trailer, but I wanna see this like crazy, like I do with every installment. I hump this series to death. I think Fright Night looks generally terrible but Toni Collette and Sexy Vampire Colin Farrell might get me there anyway.


-- The Guillermo Del Toro produced remake of Don't Be Afraid of the Dark starring the soulless Katie Holmes and the asstastic Guy Pearce is out on August 26th.

-- Shark Night 3D - from the director of two Final Destination movies, including my favorite the second one! - is out on September 2nd. The trailer for this movie is just absolutely awful, but my FD-loving brain keeps arguing with me about it. Whole conversations have been had inside of my head! Crazy ones!


-- Also on September 2nd comes Apollo 18, which is "Blair Witch on the Moon." Space horror isn't done often enough if you ask me - it don't get much more isolated than that! I hope there's a shot of someone being killed reaching towards Earth in the sky for help. That'd be neat-o.

-- September 9th brings us Contagion, Steven Soderbergh's global pandemic movie with an impressively starry and serious cast. Winslet, Paltrow, Law, Damon, Cotillard, and wait what's this John Hawkes! Love him.

-- The closest thing to horror on September 16th is the Straw Dogs remake but that might just be terrifying us because of the basic fact that they remade Straw Dogs. It does have lots of violence and rape though so close enough. But it also has Alexander Skarsgard and Jimmy Marsden swanning around half-naked and there's nothing scary about that. Stimulating, yes. Intimidating, definitely. But certainly not anything even approaching scary.


-- Dream House, which we just saw the shirtless-Daniel-Craig-ified trailer for yesterday, is out on September 30th.

-- As is Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil, the supposedly pretty funny horror-comedy starring Alan Tudyk and Reaper's Tyler Labine as two innocent hillbillies caught up in bloody shenanigans. I think the idea is that they get mistaken for serial killers by a bunch of stupid vacationing college kids who then try to kill them as if they're in a horror movie fighting off Jason Voorhees. And it's a really fun idea.


-- The Thing remake is out on October 14th. We just saw the first trailer for that last week. Love the cast and want it to be good but it has been sitting around gathering dust for a little while now. That could just be due to factors other than its worth though - I think, like Cabin in the Woods, it got held up due to studio problems.

-- Also out that same day, at least in limited release, is The Skin I Live In. It's Pedro Almodovar's newest movie. It reunites him with 80s man-muse Antonio Banderas, and it's apparently very dark and very creepy. The teaser trailer scared me. All of these things are making me want it something insane.


-- On October 21st, the same day as PA3 is out, Kevin Smith's Red State finally gets a proper release after Smith toured the country earlier this year with it. But from what I hear it's not really the horror movie it's been sold to be either?


-- Same day, another indie weirdo cult movie (as in a movie about a cult) that got talk at Sundance - Martha Marcy May Marlene also isn't really a horror movie in the oogie-boogie slobbery monster sense but it's supposedly pitch-black and horrifying in its own way. Plus it has John Hawkes again and I will mention him whenever I can. Hi again John Hawkes!

As of right now there's apparently nothing scary scheduled for October 28th, which seems bonkers. Expect something to pick up the slack, I imagine. After Halloween we're into Oscar season so there's not as much spooky scheduled - I refuse to categorize the Twilight movies as horror (except for what they say about our culture); Piranha 3DD is supposedly out on November 23rd - perfect for taking Grandma to over Thanksgiving holiday!; David Fincher's Girl With the Dragon Tattoo movie will presumably be pretty horrific a la Straw Dogs with the violence (a lot specifically of a sexual nature) and the throbbing NIN techno; The Darkest Hour has Emile Hirsch fighting killer aliens.   

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--- Ash Rises - Bruce Campbell's been confirmed to cameo or something in the Evil Dead remake or reboot or reimagining or whatever. That is a good thing. Very. BD has a couple quotes from the director Federico Alvarez that also attempt to head everyone's pre-panic off. Alongside Diablo Cody working on the script, these are all good signs for a project I never wanted to see happen, and I've gotta admit my abhorrence has leapt right past curiosity into I will most likely see this thing.

--- Cool Chick Alert - Speaking of horror movie cameos involving old horror movie properties stretching their limbs here well into the new millenium, Marilyn effin' Burns has a role of some sort in the latest Texas Chainsaw movie. Marilyn Burns! That's Sally Hardesty aka the final girl of Tobe Hooper's original film for all you no-nothings.

--- Tree Mama - Jessica Chastain, who looked lovely standing there while the movie whispered at her in Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life, is maybe going to star in a Guillermo Del Toro-produced horror flick called Mama. I've never heard of the original short film, but the same director's extending that to feature length. Twitch says the original is fantastic, so I must watch it.

--- Twas Beauty - Speaking of Guillermo Del Toro-produced horror movies, he's attached himself to a new version of Beauty and the Beast that is set to star the lovely Emma Watson. What, Beastly wasn't enough for him? Anyway I didn't even realize it until he came in he bathroom and gave me a thumbs up but Guillermo Del Toro apparently executive produced my bowel movement this morning, too.

--- Burning Hunger - I could just post the fiery motion poster for The Hunger Games movie, but I'd rather link to Nat's annoyed yelps at it at The Film Experience because they're amusing.

--- Oh Boy Wizard - Curious about what got left on the cutting room floor or what they never shot in the latest and last Harry Potter film? io9 got the word from director David Yates himself. It's been so long since I read the book I turned to the boyfriend after the film and was all, "I'd completely forgotten that Snape and McGonagall duel briefly!" Turns out they didn't, and that scene was added to the film. My brains, useless.

--- And finally, there's the new poster for 30 Minutes or Less, the bank-robbery comedy starring Jesse Eisenberg and Danny McBride, plus those other two I am too lazy to write all their names out this morning even though this sentence is taking so much longer god make me stop. How have I not mentioned this movie before, is my point? It's from the director of the spotty but fun Zombieland. Of course you know all this because it's written in gigantic letters there on the poster. Anyway word's good on this movie? It's out August 12th.

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--- Mo Better Boy - I have to admit that the prospect of a Spike Lee directed remake of Park Chan-wook's Oldboy is an interesting idea. Spike certainly isn't afraid to be controversial (ha, understatement) and could possibly be ballsy enough to take this movie where it needs to be taken, unlike somebody like Spielberg, who momentarily talked about doing this. Would Denzel Washington inevitably star? Hrm dunno about him in the role. It's a shame Morgan Freeman's too old - he'd be perfect considering outside concerns, ahem. I know this is a really weird suggestion, but I can't stop thinking Eddie Murphy now. Oh Dae-su should have a "broken clown" quality to him.

--- Deeper Than Deep - A lovely little observation about a moment in Dario Argento's Profundo Rosso from Arbogast here.

--- Cold Flesh - Apparently Bruce La Bruce decided he wanted to take the wound-fucking scene from his last movie Otto, or Up With Dead People (a movie I liked) and turn that into a whole movie, and that's what LA Zombie is. Which well obviously I'll see this at some point. Go read Adam's take on the film.

--- Wack-a-duo - Reunited and it feels very fine - Michel Gondry will direct the new Bjork video for her new song "Crystalline." Yes, that is a good thing. Sad story: I was grooving to this song at a dinner we had at my house over the weekend when I realized everyone's conversation around me had turned to how much they hate Bjork. Awww. Cue my deflated face and head-hung trip to skip to the next track on the iPod. Rejected!

--- RoboStatham - There's some probably entirely baseless speculation going about that Jason Statham could star in a 4th Transformers film which - post-Bay and LaBeouf - would take the series into a darker direction. Can't really get much darker than being a signal of the end of times like the entire franchise has been so far, can ya? And I doubt there's much space for half-naked field fucking in a Transformers movie so I says pass, Jason!

--- The Woman Beat - Ever since an audience member freaked out at a screening of Lucky McKee's The Woman (starring his May star Angela Bettis) I've been jonesing to see it (good press, that), so I'm happy to hear it's been picked up for distribution finally. I was hoping it'd play here in NY some time before officially getting released but it's been months and no go so I guess I'll have to stick it out with the rest of y'all plebes!

--- Hey It's Hooper - Apparently Texas Chain Saw Massacre director Tobe Hooper has written a horror novel called Midnight Movie in which he is the star. STYD has the details - it's fairly reminiscent of Wes Craven's script for New Nightmare in a lot of ways. Now he just has to direct and star in an adaptation and we can slide right on down the rabbit hole.

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Know hope! Maybe when Guillermo Del Toro's Pacific Rim (starring Idris Elba and Charlies Hunnum and Day) comes out on July 12, 2013 and is a box office sensation, knock on wood, we'll see GDT swivel over to make his greatly-desired-by-me HP Lovecraft adaptation still. Via an interview at the LAT:

And hey we can keep our fingers crossed, there's a good chance that one-time-mentioned star Tom Cruise will have completely evaporated as a possibility by 2013, right? Please tell me that's right. He's got a lot of his own ass to disappear up still. A lot.

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--- Wax Off - Hey look Stephen Dorff took his top off for a new Immortals poster! Check out the whole thing over at Stale Popcorn. I'm with Glenn - this is great and all but it's basically SACRILEGIOUS that his chest is shaved. Stephen Dorff's chest hair should be granted historical landmark status and anyone who comes within reach of it should be immediately thrown into prison. Do not pass Go!

--- Hi Hos - The names attaching themselves to the cast of dwarfs in Snow White and the Huntsman read like a Who's Who of Kick-Ass Character Actors - Eddie Izzard, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Toby Jones, Eddie Marsan, Ian McShane, and Stephen Graham just so far! I think they should cast Peter Dinklage next and then shrink everybody else down so he's the biggest one of the lot, is what I think.

--- Ghosts Busted - Looks like James Wan is hoping to double-down with his Insidious success and direct another haunted house movie next - AICN's got the word on The Conjuring, which is based off "true events" in Long Island. Mmmhmm. Just hire Patrick Wilson again and I'll believe anything.

--- Forward To Fall - At TFE Nat's got some whispers coming at him from screenings of My Week With Marilyn and the Madonna-directed W.E. I don't so much care about the latter - although if nothing else Madonna's always been excellent at surrounding herself with talented folks and it's got a pretty great cast, so we'll see - but I'm dying to get a look at My Week With Marilyn and the picture of some of the cast at that link - Williams and Dominic Cooper, specifically! - ramps up my excitement further. (DOM.)

--- Out Foxxed - Quentin Tarantino's worked plenty of miracles in the past so I can't quite force myself to doubt him, but if Jamie Foxx is indeed now cast as the lead in Django Unchained he's making it very very hard for me. Foxx has never been anything less than eye-gougingly annoying to me in the past, so you'll have to work some fucking magic here, QT.

--- Rimming Elba - Meanwhile the dude that would've been a far less terrifying choice for that role is Idris Elba, but he's just officially signed on for Guillermo Del Toro's Pacific Rim opposite the Charlies Hunnam and Day.

--- True Titillation - All the menfolk of True Blood seem to be making their media-rounds with the premiere of the 4th season only a few days away, which translates into "all the men-folk of True Blood be taking their shirts off," hooray! There's Stephen Moyer in Men's Health via JJ, and did I really never post the pictures of Joe Manganiello in GQ? I don't know how that's possible. Anyway click that link for 'em.

--- Jerri Blank Returns! - Yeah I wish. I missed this so bless Jarett's heart for posting the video of Amy Sedaris on Letterman last night. Why must it be so hard to get new Amy? Want more! I can only skim through her books and laugh at the funny pictures of her in nylons so many times! Alright that's a lie they will never stop being funny.

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--- An Impressive Phallus - Back in May I posted a couple of pictures of James Franco from his movie about the gay poet Hart Crane, as well as the news that there'd be "a love scene" between him and Michael Shannon in it - well I guess the film screened in LA and word on it (via K212) is even more explicit:

Indeed! James Franco is dedicated. (To being awesome.) There's an interview about the film with James at that second link. The film will supposedly come out next year. 

--- Kill Bots - Steven Spielberg's supposedly going to make a movie out of it, but the new book Robopocalypse hadn't even been seen by the general public yet. Til now - it's out, and io9 says it is awesome. I just finished a book and need something to pick up and this sounds awfully perfect for June reading. Killer robots ho!

--- Mars Needs Men - JJ has a couple of shots of Colin Farrell looking like Colin Farrell (aka hot) in jeans and a t-shirt on the Canadian set of the Total Recall remake, which I guess means that movie's finally shooting. Huh.

--- Little Person - Ian McShane is playing the head dwarf in Snow White and the Huntsman (that's the one with Kristen Stewart and Chris Hemsworth and Charlize Theron, not the Julia Roberts one). The head dwarf is named Caesar, snooze - make him act all tough and regal and shit while pulling off a Dopey, dammit. That's acting.

--- Speaking of our current revisionist fairy tale craze, Guillermo Del Toro would love to make Maleficent, he says. He even busts out some dorky knowledge about the dragon's wings! God I love him. But the basic point stands that Guillermo Del Toro would love to make a million movies, but there is only one of him. So I won't hold my breath on that.

--- No Strangers 2 Strange - Bryan Bertino's successful 2008 horror film The Strangers has come up in my home a couple times these past weeks so I'm feeling inclined to hear what's up with its sequel; thankfully STYD got some news from Liv Tyler herself. Unfortunately it's not good news:

Indeed it is, Liv. Bertino's got nothing else lined up on IMDb either. WTF.

--- Tara Burns - PopWrap chatted with everybody's favorite True Blood doormat Rutina Wesley aka Tara and she says Tara will not be victimized this year, dammit! Everybody seems to think the rumor of a character going gay this season will be her, but god do I have my fingers crossed that it's Ryan Kwanten. That ass needs to be appreciated! Publicly. And what happened to all that homo-vibe between Bill and Sam anyway? Explore that some more dammit!

--- O Khaleesi - I still haven't gotten around to the Game of Thrones finale - tonight, tonight! - but you should check out Sean's recap of the episode alongside his friend Megan - Sena's read the books, she hasn't - to see a take on the first season from both perspectives. But only if you've seen the finale already!

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--- Hot For Hobbitses - There's been some filling out of the Shire lately with Peter Jackson's The Hobbit currently filming - 100% Heterosexual Actor Luke Evans joined the cast as Bard the Grim (he's a human archer that'll have more of a role in the second film, apparently); meanwhile Lost's Evangaline Lilly will be playing a woodland elf, Benedict Cumberbatch, who is apparently really named that, will be voicing the dragon Smaug, and Barry Humphries, aka Dame Edna, will be playing the Goblin King (in mo-cap a la Gollum).

--- Snow Falling - A single bit of promo art's made its way online, plus a couple of desciptions of others, for Tarsem's next project, his Snow White movie with Julia Roberts as the Witch and Armie Hammer as the prince.

--- Queen Carla - MNPP loves Carla Gugino so we love this week's Take Three in appreciation of three of her performances over at The Film Experience.

 

--- Bedevilled Dom - The quad version of the poster for The Devil's Double has been released and they smartly kept their focus squared on Dominic Cooper's bulky golden crotch for it.

--- Goodbye Hellboy - According to Mike Mignola, Hellboy's creator, things ain't looking good for the time being for a third Hellboy movie from Guillermo Del Toro.

--- Join The PTA - A couple new young actors have joined the cast of Paul Thomas Anderson's next film, which has officially been titled The Master, a title that was up in the air for a bit there. 

--- A Clash of Kings - Having ended their first season last evening - I haven't watched the episode yet, will do so tonight - HBO's A Game of Thrones will begin filming its second season in July. People seem pleased with how the first season's gone? I am.

--- Fresh Meats - When I went to Austin last year it was either go and visit the graveyard where the opening scene of the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre film was shot, or go an hour outside of the city to visit the house where the film was shot which's been moved from its original location and turned into a restaurant. I chose the former - see my pics here! - but now there's a look at the latter going around that's worth checking out for sure.

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