Universal unveiled some footage from Spring 2009’s The Wolfman. The Victorian-era set movie, stars Benicio del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Hugo Weaving and Emily Blunt. We were excited out of the gate for the project because of the cast, the premise behind the film and the involvement of director Mark Romanek.

When Romanek left the project due to “creative differences” our excitement waned. Director Joe Johnson stepped in to finish the movie. Johnson is a steady if unexciting director. He can handle action, but nothing in his CV suggests greatness. Nothing suggests he could deftly handle a Victorian monster/horror film.

But the leaked footage looks promising. And I love the way the world looks and we haven’t had a great monster/horror movie since the Korean export The Host.

When Pixar essentially went all in and took over Disney animation a few years ago, the exciting news was that John Lassiter was taking the reigns and wanted to bring back traditional 2-D animation in the vein of classic Disney movies. They wouldn’t be hand drawn, obvs, but just the promise of Disney returning to the roots they ceremoniously abandoned for the computer animation oil field was exciting.

The first such project is going to be The Princess and the Frog, a Broadway-style musical tale set in 1920’s Jazz Age New Orleans and featuring their first African-American character, Tiana. Tiana is a chambermaid much like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, who no doubt meets a Prince and lives happily ever after.

Cool, I can get down with that.

Looks like we might even get some stereotypical cajun anthropomorphic insects and music by Harry Conick Jr Randy Newman (ugh).

So yeah, Disney isn’t exactly bringing it their first time around. The thing is we need this movie to be a success if animation fans (that would be me) want to have mainstream animation movies to see on the big screen. I suppose that’s a rant for another day, however.

Harry’s going to some dark places. This looks more like some epic Biblical fantasy movie than it does a family-friendly wizard story. It looks like Harry Potter has grown up. USA Today had posted a few pictures in a generic fluff piece yesterday.

The biggest thing they reveal is that young Tom Riddle, aka Lord Voldemort, is being played by Ralph Fiennes’s 11-year-old nephew Hero Fiennes-Tiffin. That’s good stuff, keeping it in the family.

“His mother (Martha Fiennes) is a film director, and Hero was very focused and disciplined,” [director David] Yates says. “The fact that he’s related to Ralph wasn’t the primary reason for choosing him. It was an advantage that he looked very similar to Ralph. Of course that was useful. But primarily I went for Hero because of this wonderful haunted quality that seemed to bring Tom Riddle alive on-screen for us.”

Yates stressed how hard it can be for very young actors to find the necessary dark place to play such a creepy character.

“But even though he’s the nicest child you’d ever want to meet, sweet-natured and pleasant, he got the corners and dark moods and odd spirit of the character.”

To be honest, until I saw the trailer I entirely forgot what Book 6 was about. I’m still a little hazy around the edges, but I remember Harry and Dumbledore go around looking to destroy the soul of Voldemort.

And by let’s get it on, I’m not talking Marvin Gaye, I’m talking Tyler Durden. Specifically, I’m talking brawling, fighting, putting up your dukes, taking names and kicking ass, asking questions later, turning someone’s face into pulp.

Slate’s Dennis Lin takes a look at the evolution of the fight scene to understand how film goers got from The Duke to The Dark Knight. Mostly, it’s a look at how things went from a clear sense of geography to the epileptic shaky-cam that is in vogue now.

The trick is to determine where the viewer’s attention is trained in a particular shot and to cut to a shot that contains a focal point in the same area of the frame. But there is at least one major exception to this rule: the fight scene. “You actually want an element of disorientation—that’s what makes it exciting,” [editor Walter] Murch says of his approach to splicing together a fight. “So you put the focus of interest somewhere else, jarringly, and you cut at unexpected moments. You make a tossed salad of it, you abuse the audience’s attention.” MORE »

Cool ass short film from a Brazilian director exploring the connections in Quentin Tarantino’s films. A lot of this is already documented by Tarantino nuts, or at least thought about and some of these connections seem like a stretch. Still, this is a well-made short film staring Seu Jorge (Life Aquatic). I also love that the movie sort of takes the piss out of the silly Tarantino fanboys at the same time. [via]

So I desperately wanted to watch a really bad movie last night. I was in the mood to see something so atrocious that it might end up being humorous. The choices came down to Strange Wilderness, that Steve Zahn shark movie, Fools Gold with Matt McConaughey and Katie Hudson, 10,000 BC the prehistoric fantasy flick and Drillbit Taylor.

Drillbit ended up looking like the best of a sorry lot. I took the metaphorical mangy dog home with me and I’m happy to report that the movie is every bit as terrible as I was hoping. I pity laughed maybe two or three times throughout the movie and genuinely laughed a few times more.

MORE »

Poking around and it looks like Pixar has another movie coming out next summer called Up. I’m not sure entirely of the details of the project (I’ll look into it and get back to you) but it’s going to have to be something special to top Ratatouille and Wall-E.

Lionsgate has been trying to get this removed, but it’s out on Youtube and other video sites. It won’t be difficult to find it if the embed below is gone.

With that said, W looks to be underhandedly funny, the juxtaposition of Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” as Dubya ascends to the White House. Also looks like this will be unflinchingly negative portrayal of Dubya’s early hard-partying ways.

Oliver Stone has been an uninteresting director for so long one wonders how this movie will be received. The cast looks great, almost strange and the timing of the movie - while the President is still in office - seems cumbersome. I almost feel like the release date should be moved back?

It’s not that I like Bush. I don’t. He’s an idiot that’s ruined the country. But, I can’t believe I’m saying this. It feels disrespectful. Don’t ask why, but watching this made me queezy on several levels, the least of which was that I can’t believe this is our President.

Anyway, consider the oven on for this one. It’ll be a hot button.

I love the line, “What do you think you’re a Kennedy? You’re a Bush. Act like one.” I’m giddy to see this.

On the surface the trailer for The Brothers Bloom looks like your average con movie with a pretty cast. But the movie has one big thing going for it - it was written and directed by Rian Johnson. Now, Johnson’s name isn’t a household one but it will be one day.

The Brothers Bloom is his follow up to the shamefully underseen Brick, which essentially launched the adult-acting career of Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Brick was a masterful work of film noir. A detective story set in high school. It’s one of my favorite movies and the layers of intrigue make it rewatchable. Seriously, do yourself a favor and go rent the movie if you haven’t seen it.

Now we have Mark Ruffalo, Adrian Brody and Rachel Weisz. The Brothers Bloom are the best con men in the world, swindling millionaires with complex scenarios of lust and intrigue. Now they’ve decided to take on one last job - showing a beautiful and eccentric heiress the time of her life with a romantic adventure that takes them around the world. Ruffalo and Brody are the brothers and Weisz is the heiress. MORE »

You know, I’m a bit ashamed to admit that I’ve never seen Rocky Horror Picture Show. It’s the granddaddy of them all, the midnight showing cult movie that people still go out out to see and get dressed up for.

According to Variety, MTV is remaking the 1975 movie with  “the original screenplay by Jim Sharman and Richard O’Brien but may also include music not featured in the original.”

Producers are aiming to start soon and have the movie in theaters for Halloween next year, but as of right now there is no cast, no director and no new music.

The original movie, starring Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Meatloaf and Barry Bostwick has grossed about $140 million dollars over the years due to those midnight screenings.

And though I’ve never seen the original this sounds like a disaster.  Who are you making this movie for?  The people who’ve never seen it like me?  No thanks I’d rather see the original.  Are you remaking it for the people who dress up and go to the midnight shows?  Again, I doubt they are gonna wanna see a remake, I’m sure they’re just fine with the original.  A newer, younger generation?  High school or college kids?  I suppose, but ultimately how do you sell them on a musical horror parody about a couple that breaks down and finds refuge at the castle of a sweet transvestite named Dr. Frank-N-Furter from Transexual, Transylvania?

The answer is you don’t.  This is the film that has been in theatrical release longer than any film in the history of the business.  Though I haven’t seen the movie this just has disaster written all over it.

Mp3: The Rocky Horror Picture Show - “Time Warp”

This “job montage” sequence from this week’s Step Brothers, a comedy starring Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, drops a lot of F-Bombs. A lot. I haven’t heard that many since my sophomore year in high school when my pre-algebra teacher called me in for a meeting. That was rough. This is just funny.

Despite the quality of his comedies trailer off sharply, we still have a soft-spot for man child Ferrell and when John C. Reilly does goofy comedy like this, there is hardly anyone better.

Now that everyone has seen the movie, we can probably talk about it openly.  How much money is the movie going to make?  Bundles more, there really isn’t anything on the horizon that looks to challenge the movie.  I’ll be back tonight to offer some thoughts about it and basically say goodbye to the movie after following it’s development from start to finish.  Quickly: I love it.  Thought it was pretty remarkable, but I did have some problems with it and I wanted to share them and see what other people thought.  So look for that tonight.  I don’t want to be contrarian, however, I think some things need to be discussed, things that need time to be fleshed out further.