Anne Hathaway Catwoman

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--- Lots of Superman news this week - Henry Cavill sported the Supes curl in public which got all the fan-boys wet (I was too busy staring at the way he fills out those trousers and getting correspondingly wet from that to notice his hair), he talked about his crazy training regime and trying on the super suit for the first time, and Laurence Fishburne got the role of Perry White (great choice).

--- Good to see Natasha Lyonne getting some work, we liked her back in the day, and this is some good work at that (we assume, sight obviously unseen) - she's gotten a gig in that dark comedy of Kristen Wiig's called Imogene that we've been hearing so much about lately.

--- Lost Hitchcock movie The White Shadow has been found! Or at least half of it has. Plus Hitch didn't actually so much direct the movie as he did a bunch of important creative tasks in the making of it. But still! Some cool pics from it can be seen over here.

--- End Of Times - Stake Land, a movie I liked, is out on DVD this week and Twitch caught up with its director Jim Mickle to find out his favorite pieces of apocalyptic fiction and it's a fun list.

--- And speaking of apocalypses, and when aren't we, ow weird is it that the problem that's now holding up George Miller's 4th Mad Max film - the one that supposed to stuff Tom Hardy into those snug leather pants - is there's been too much rain in the area of Australia where they were set to film and it's not apocalyptic enough to shoot in now? Cursed by foliage! George Miller can't catch a break.

--- And in sexy apocalypse news, big bad Benjamin Walker, who I haven't seen in anything yet but am still sort of infatuated with, is playing the archangel Michael in Alex Proyas' movie Paradise Lost, which already has Bradley Cooper playing Lucifer. Ben's got the baby-face and godly bod of every dream archangel.

--- Apparently Margaret - the second film by Kenneth Lonergan after You Can Count On Me that's been sitting on a shelf for what, six years now? - is getting released in September. It supposedly has a brilliant performance from Mark Ruffalo, but got all tangled up in legal crap (plus the studio wanted a shorter cut and Lonergan refused).

--- I'm not really sure I have it in me to watch a show from Ryan Murphy at this point. Nip/Tuck became nigh unwatchable after a couple seasons and y'all know my feelings towards Glee, not to mention the man himself has proven himself completely and totally insufferable in the press. I guess we'll always have Popular. Anyway his next show is a horror show so maybe I can be brought around. It's called American Horror Story (Really? Blah.) and it stars Dylan McDermott and Connie Britton (I know people love her from Friday Night Lights but as I've never gotten around to that show she's left me relatively unimpressed so far) but most awesomely Jessica Lange as the neighbor, presumably spooky. I dunno. BD has a teaser and some pictures. McDermott still looks pretty good (although he'll always be the crappy husband from Steel Magnolias to me).

--- Did anybody else see the trailer for Battleship in theaters this past weekend - two minutes of Taylor Kitsch and Alexander Skarsgard looking hot in naval uniforms amidst some really blatant Transformers ripping-off (Really, Peter Berg? Michael Bay's who you wanna rip off?) - and experience what I did when the title came up, which was an entire audience of people bursting into laughter? I wonder if the folks at Universal did, since news is they're scrapping their plans for several of their long-planned board-game movie adaptations like Clue and Monopoly.

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--- Adorable hipster director Cary Fukunaga will make that sci-fi movie Spaceless next, which was a rumor a few weeks back. Two movies down - Sin Nombre and Jane Eyre - ad I'll follow the dude anywhere.

--- Thrones Keepers - Some casting news for A Game of Thrones: they've cast Theon Greyjoy's sister Asha (although she can't be named Asha in the TV series because of that whore character Osha they invented for the show, so now she's called Yara, because none of us need any more complications when it comes to this show) and Xaro Xhoan Daxos, a kingly dude that Dany deals with. I'm not familiar with either actors at first glance, but the show's shown itself pretty dang good at picking the right actors so far.

--- Recent Piranha remaker Alexandre Aja might remake Pet Semetary. I find myself with very little to say about that. Huh.

--- After Zach Snyder makes his Superman movie with Henry "swoon" Cavill, he's lining up a movie called The Last Photograph which sounds more serious than what we're used to from him - it's set in "war-torn Afghanistan" and:

--- Ben Foster will be playing John Gotti Jr. in that Gotti movie with John Travolta; we worried last week when Dominic Cooper was rumored up for the role, and now we're worried for Ben. Mitts off, Travolta!

--- Diablo Cody, who seems to be inexplicably-to-me hated these days more than she's liked, appears to be drawn to birds of a feather since she's apparently offered the co-lead in her directorial debut (previous post) to Russell Brand. These are both people I am always being forced to argue in favor of! This movie will drive me to knife-wielding!

--- Have you seen the poster for Drive yet? It's Goslinglicious! (via)

--- We just rambled a little bit about Miranda July earlier, and here's more - she talked to io9 about the science-fictional way time works in her new movie The Future.

--- And finally, here's the first clip from Todd Solondz's new movie Dark Horse. I haven't watched it yet and I might not watch it in order to keep myself pure - please please please let this movie play at the New York Film Festival this Fall! - but have at it if you will.

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Did this week's True Blood really melodize the sight of Alexander Skarsgard's pumping bum to Neko Case singing one of my favorite songs of hers "I Wish I Was The Moon" or did I fall and hit my head and enter some strange dream netherworld where the greatest things I could ever imagine all mushed themselves up together into one big fat audio-visual ball of hallucinatory eyeball-bursting glee?

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--- Space Snaps - Some brave nerd snapped pictures of the footage they showed of Ridley Scott's Prometheus at Comic Con and those have made their way online, for now. You can see them at Dread Central, for now. There's Michael Fassbender to the left staring intently at a tiny thing, and there are equally grainy looks at Noomi Rapace and Charlize Theron and Idris Elba in their costumes and lots of moody Alien looking sets, if you so desire. Gotta say I got a thrill seeing that moody world restaged, even if I don't have a whole lto of faith in Ridley Scott anymore. Great cast, at least.

--- Wiig's Boy Toy - Since I don't watch Glee I haven't had a reason to post any pictures of Glee star Darren Criss - and since I don't watch Glee I've never seen him act, ever - but here he is signing on to co-star in that Kristen Wiig dark comedy called Imogene that we spoke of a few weeks back so hello excuse. He's playing Kristen's love interest! Ha that is awesome. Cradle robber! Also at that same link is word that Annette Bening is playing Wiig's mother in the movie.

--- Havoc Back - Lucas Till, who was a bit block-of-woodish in X-Men Muppet Babies 0but still looked good in his sleeveless sweatshirt, is the latest name added to the cast of Park Chan-wook's English language debut called Stoker. Just the other day Jackie Weaver joined the cast that already included Mia Wasikowska, Nicole Kidman and Matthew Goode.

--- Emo Bug - ComingSoon has an ultra his-res set of those pictures of Andrew Garfield & Co. in The Amazing Spider-Man that we've been looking at for a few weeks now. But no butt shot! That's the one want the hi-res of, dang it! Although we haven't seen that one there without the EW cover type all over it so that's welcome too.

--- Bane On Bat - Chris Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises is filming outside a lot so we're getting lots of pictures from the set, including lots of Tom Hardy in his Bane costume. Weird that we've seen no Anne Hathaway, isn't it? See some here and more here. This one's my favorite:

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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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--- Rah Rah Rosario - There have been several very cool casting announcements (or rumors) coming out today, and this one's arguably the coolest: Rosario Dawson, lady I love and cry about getting no respect every time she shows up in terrible movies which is far too often, has joined the cast of Danny Boyle's new movie Trance. Finally, some respect! A good-to-great filmmaker using her again. Happy news. Also joining the cast is Vincent Cassel, which was rumored already (he's taking the part Michael Fassbender almost took). Trance stars James McAvoy and Cassel as some sort of art thieves, and DH says Rosario's character "has an unusual relationship with both men."

--- Stoker Sweetie - Fighting it out with the above news for coolest casting of the day is Jackie Weaver, so incredibly chilling in Animal Kingdom, getting a role in Park Chan-wook's Stoker. This you should recall is his first English-language film and it already stars Mia Wasikowska and Nicole Kidman and Matthew Goode (his casting news here). Very happy to see Weaver popping up again in something outside of Australia. No word on what her part will be.

--- Honest Pace - And then we hear that Lee Pace is joining the cast of Steven Spielberg's Abe Lincoln bio-pic! Ya know, Pace is tall and skinny enough to have played Abe himself if they were going younger. But no, they had to go with the completely talentless Daniel Day Lewis! Anyway Lee's playing the mayor of New York. And his part will probably be too tiny because Lee Pace is never given big enough parts to satisfy us. (Insert "But Lee could give me his big part to satisfy me anytime" line here)

--- He Smash - In an interview at the LAT Marvel president Kevin Feige talks about what the Hulk will be like in Joss Whedon's Avengers movie. Supposedly there will be more of Mark Ruffalo to his face then there was of Eric Bana or Ed Norton in their respective films.

--- Mobbed Mentality - I hope this casting rumor turns out to be only rumor because I don't want my beloved wading into this thick den of Scientologists - Dominic Cooper's rumored to be taking a role in that Gotti bio-pic that Barry levinson's making that's already got John Travolta and Kelly Preston and Al Pacino. Dom would supposedly play Gotti's son, Gotti being played by Travolta. Ugh stay away from Travolta, Dominic! Stay away from all of it! Just the thought of the porcupine hair alone, ugh.

--- Got Guts - Universal Studios: Hollywood is building an elaborate Halloween maze based on the Hostel films by Eli Roth for their Fall season. I want to go to this so bad I can taste the blood spurting from my severed tongue.

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I've been so busy posting today - today has been a crazy prolific day, too much, too much - that I haven't even gotten around to watching this the trailer for Lucky "May" McKee's new movie, The Woman. (via)

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The film's become infamously associated with the screening where some dude freaked out at a Q&A at Sundance that supposedly almost turned into a fight, so offended was the viewer by what he perceived as rampant misogyny. Several of the actresses in the film, inlcuding McKee's muse since May Angela Bettis came to the film's defense. Point being, I've been dying to see this movie since it was first announced and the hoopla only made me die a little bit more. I've been waiting for a New York screening for ages but haven't seen a single one pop up anywhere. Boo! I'll keep on keeping my eyes peeled. According to the film's website it's out on August 18th but it's an Aussie web address so it's confusing. IMDb doesn't have a date listed at all so I'm inclined to wonder. Wonder I will!

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--- Yo Joe - The little boy from the first Jurassic Park, Joseph Mazzello, has been getting quite a few little parts lately now that's he grown into a handsome young man, and he just got cast in the GI Joe sequel. And his name is Joe! That's nuts! Anyway are they even bothering with any girls this time around? Channing and Joe and The Rock and Ray Stevenson and sexy bitch Byung-hun Lee. Beefcake on top of beefcake! Which sounds about right. That's how I played with my GI Joes at least.

--- And speaking of Jurassic Park, yes Steven Spielberg confirmed the push for a fourth film at Comic Con and yes they're saying it could be in the next two years. But it's not really anymore news then we heard a couple months ago. so I'm sitting on my hands til real concrete stuffs comes out like, I dunno, the movie itself. No more yanking me around! (Riiiight, this will last.)

--- Pro Dentata - Over at The Film Experience Robert crafted a wonderful ode to the 2009 vaginal horror flick Teeth, which I need to rewatch right soon. Why hasn't Jess Weixler gotten more work off off that movie? She's so good in it! Or hey what about young buck Hale Appleman? He's so hot in that!

--- Dead Man Walking - Frank Darabont has quit his job running AMC's The Walking Dead. Sadness! According to him he wasn't quite prepared for the demands of a day-to-day TV show after being a movie-maker for so long, but there's been a lot of drama behind the scenes of that show since the start. The first season was wobbly so I dunno what this might mean, good or bad, up or down, for the second season which starts in October. Guess we'll have to wait and see (says Mr. Obvious).

--- Royale With Cheese - Astonishing Stacie Ponder wrote up some thoughts on a bunch of Asian horror flicks the other day, including her first time with Battle Royale and Audition! Now that's a kick-ass two-fer.

--- Skin Tagged - Also via Twitch is the full trailer for Pedro Almodovar's The Skin I Live In, which I would set fire to the Statue of Liberty in order to see right a screening of this second.

--- Damme Hot - I know he's a crazy weirdo, but Jean Clauda Van Damme's gotten himself all beefed up for The Expendables sequel as you can see there (via) and I can't help but gawk again. I know there won't be, they never even got Always-Shirtless Jason Statham out of his top for the first one, but I'd kill for one more look at JCVD's greatest asset.

--- Speaking of Statham, Crank 3 will supposedly be made with or without him in it, says Efren Ramirez who was in both of the earlier films too. I can't imagine Statham not making the third film. God I love these movies. They're so ridiculous.

--- Let's Go Leviathan - Robert Zemeckis has finally decided to step the hell away from those dead-eyed monsters he'd been forcing us to stare at movie after movie and making something with real human beings, plus sea monsters! I guess the massive flop heard round the galaxy, Mars Needs Moms, drove the point home finally. The new project is called Here There Be Monsters and it may or may not be a project he does in the near future, but it sounds cool on paper. I've been jonesing for a giant monster movie renaissance for some time!

--- One Lopsided Triangle - Emma Stone might be re-teaming with her Zombieland director for Gangster Squad, which would make her the moll caught between her Crazy Stupid Love co-star Ryan Gosling and Sean Penn, which eww. Is there even a whiff of a choice there? I mean really.

--- Re Masked - Have you guys gone over to the Facebook page for Before the Mask, the prequel to the wonderful slasher flick Behind the Mask, yet? They're raising funds from fans in all sorts of neat-o ways, including offering up - for a price, natch - the opportunity to be killed on-screen! How rad is that? it's beyond my meager budget unfortunately, but man that is cool. You can also win a telephone call from the slasher himself, Nathan Baesel, who was so good in the first film. But they don't say if it can be a phone sex call or not. I'll just assume that's a yes. The director Scott Glosserman talks about this and more over at STYD.

--- Inn July - Twitch posted a couple of reviews worth checking out today. I loved their take on Miranda July's The Future. I had so much fun writing my review but it was vague in a lot of ways. On purpose, but still. So I don't think I made it clear how much darker this movie is than her first film Me and You and Everyone We Know. And despite is rep MAYAEWK was no walk in the park. Anyway I love this movie more and more the further I get from it. It's out this weekend in limited release! See it!

And secondly they've got a review of Ti West's follow-up to The House of the Devil, the haunted house (make that inn) story The Innkeepers, which I would set fire to the Statue of Liberty a second time in order to see a screening of right this second.

--- And finally, my bud Sean wrote a Spider-Man comic! That is so cool! Conrgats, Sean!

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... when you're laughing, the sun comes shining through.

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I watched the movie Red Hill over the weekend, which reminded me of John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13... only set in Australia, and starring Ryan Kwanten, and taking place across an entire small isolated town instead of a lone police station, and with just one guy attacking instead of a big gang. Okay they're not really that much alike at all, I don't know what I was thinking. Anyway it really wasn't very good. Kwanten was decent enough - he's a good actor but his acting abilities are constantly overshadowed by his muscles (but oh what muscles!) - but I never really found it capable of building much tension. You never care enough about the people being hunted because they're all dicks, and it's obvious from early on they want you to sympathize with the hunter but they don't give you enough to do so in order to have to both ways for way too long. Sloppy storytelling gets all up in its own way.

Anyway I saw in the credits that the film was produced by Greg McLean, the director of a film I've talked at length about here at MNPP with effusive praise heaped upon effusive praise, 2005's Wolf Creek. He's been busy producing stuff like this and the previously-posted-upon flick Crawlspace, but hasn't directed anything since his killer-croc movie Rogue way back in 2007 (co-starring Sam Worthington before Avatar and also before everybody forgot who Sam Worthington was again). I wrote in September of 2010 that there was talk of a Wolf Creek sequel from McLean... well now here nearly a full year later there's an actual announcement, and funding. So this will probably happen? With McLean behind the camera I am excited about this, although I tremble at the balls it takes for him to face off with what I consider a modern masterpiece.

But then I realize we're talking about silver stallion Greg McLean's balls and I completely lose my train of thought. What?

If I were writing my own version of "My Favorite Things" - and let's be honest, I'm obviously the modern day counterpart to Rodgers and Hammerstein - "Brandon Routh" and "Pizza" would both easily make the cut. Add in a dash of horror movie and this new Funny Or Die video's hitting my happy buttons.

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--- A New Midnight - The third book in Clive Barker's Abarat series will for sure be out in September, says Mr. Barker himself. It's called Absolute Midnight. It's been listed on Amazon for then for awhile so I guess he's just making we know for sure for sure here. I might have to go back and read the first two volumes, my memory's pretty vague on it at this point. The last one came out several years ago. It's a good series though. Now that I've finished A Dance With Dragons I've picked Barker's Imajica back up, which is also great.

--- One Million Movie March - If you haven't been you oughta be keeping up with Glenn's epic journey through the Melbourne International Film Festival - he's seeing like 30 thousand movies over the course of it's couple weeks and writing up his thoughts over at Stale Popcorn. Of movies I haven't yet seen but am dying to see he's already seen Meloncholia and Martha Marcy May Marlene and The Innkeepers, amongst others. Jealous.

--- Two For Hugh - Two bits of Hugh Jackman news - he's apparently pretty much set to star in the movie version of Les Miz, and it's about time he made a movie musical wouldn't you say? Even if I have very little interest in seeing this I can say that all the same. And secondly, he's revealed who the villain will be in the second Wolverine movie. I guess it's a spoiler but we'll probably hear all about whoever gets cast when it happens so I doubt anybody will be able to avoid this news for too long.

--- Frat Boys - Seth Rogen and Zac Efron are teaming up for a fraternity-themed R-rated comedy, says Deadline. Somebody's balls better end up on somebody's chin, is all I gotta say.

--- Head Go Boom - Alexandre Aja is going to produce a TV series based on David Cronenberg's 1981 telekinesis classic Scanners? This is what awesome sounds like.

--- Betting On Braga - I say this every time I link to one of these but man I love Craig's Take Three series at The Film Experience. He always manages to make me think about performers that I either don't give enough thought to personally or don't hear other people mention often enough. His latest is on Alice Braga. She was great in Predators; much better than that movie knew what to do with.

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I trust everyone had a nice night's sleep?

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