Internet marketing and Make Money Online HowTo

Filed under: Comedy, Casting, Deals, RumorMonger, Fandom, Newsstand

If someone came to me and asked, “Erik, if you could pick any two actors to appear opposite one another on screen, who would it be?” — I’d probably tell them Kermit the Frog and Javier Bardem. But my second choice would most certainly be Lindsay Lohan and Jack Black. E! News reports that Lohan has decided to get back to work, and she’ll do so by starring in the comedy Ye Olde Times, opposite everyone’s favorite slightly overweight funnyman, Jack Black. The film follows “two rival Renaissance Faire troupes as they make their way through the competitive circuit.” Currently, there’s no word on whether Lohan will be competing with Black or against him, but regardless this film just hit my “Must See When Intoxicated” list.

Lohan, who recently left rehab to shoot the tango flick Dare to Love Me, seems keen to hop right back into the spotlight. Earlier in the week, her nude photo spread for New York Magazine was revealed, and while I’m not sure which step on the 12-step program includes nude photos for a prominent magazine, I’m sure it’s probably toward the latter end. Ye Olde Times, which will be directed by R.A. White, also stars Cary Elwes, Matthew Lillard, David Arquette and Orlando Jones. The film will most likely hit at some point this year.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Comedy, Drama, Romance, Trailers and Clips

Sorry folks — we’ve taken the trailer down at the request of the studio.

Wow — talk about shoving an entire season’s worth of drama and storylines into one movie, and then covering it all in the trailer! Okay, up there, you can see the new trailer for Sex and the City. This isn’t some vague teaser, but rather a full-blown trailer to finally give us something substantial, rather than rumors of false scenes and fan confusion. I hate to say — it looks like that god-awful wedding dress was not a spoof, but then again, what is Carrie if not a smart woman who a ridiculously stupid sense of fashion?

But that’s not all. According to this trailer, things don’t wrap up smoothly, even if the series finale ended in happiness… Carrie is having a HUGE wedding. Big isn’t happy. Rather, scratch that — John James Preston. It looks like she gets stood up at the wedding — I’m thinking for the way they made Sarah Jessica Parker look. Carrie finds her personal assistant, who has a really tacky reason for being in the city. Steve proves he’s an ass — a perfect cherry to my “Down with Brady” campaign. Charlotte increases her family. Samantha’s eye wanders.

And, well, there you have it folks. You can find out what happens (if you have any doubt), when the trailer hits screens May 30.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Deals, Sony, Distribution

Only one short day ago, talk surfaced of a bidding war that was taking place over Roland Emmerich’s latest flick, 2012. Emmerich had presented the flick to various studio bosses and let’s just say they liked what they saw. Cut to one day later and Variety reports that Sony has emerged victorious, and they are now the proud new owners of Emmerich’s apocalyptic flick.

2012 was inspired by the Mayan doomsday prophecy that some unspecified ‘change’ was afoot and as a result, the world would come to an end in 2012. Emmerich wasn’t the first person to come up with the idea of making a movie out of this story. Michael Bay had also made some moves towards his own flick based on a book by Communion scribe, Whitley Strieber. Heck, even Nickelodeon got in on the action and pitched a kiddie version of the end of the world story. But we haven’t heard a peep out of those projects, so it looks like Emmerich’s film might be the only one left standing, especially since Bay is hard at work on Transformers 2.

So despite what you might think of some of his earlier endeavors, Emmerich does have the distinction of being one of the few filmmakers that can finance a film on his own terms before even approaching the studios. This is probably what makes him so very popular with the bosses. 2012 is still a long way off (it will hit during the summer of 2009), so if you can’t wait to watch Emmerich blow something up, at least you can look forward to March 7th when 10,000 B.C hits theaters.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Drama, Deals, Scripts

If anyone has made a successful jump from novels to film, it’s Bret Easton Ellis. Half of his films have been adapted – Less Than Zero, American Psycho, and The Rules of Attraction. The other half are either in development or just wrapping production — The Informers, Glamorama, and Lunar Park. Topping all that off, he’s also been writing other scripts. The Frog King, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt is still on the go, and now The Hollywood Reporter posts that he’ll adapt Michael Hornburg’s novel called Downers Grove.

Methinks Mangrove Entertainment, who are financing the project, are looking for some Juno fame of their own. The book focuses on Crystal Methedrine Swanson, a youthful wisecracker with a “relentlessly vernacular teenage voice.” But unlike Juno, this flick is darker.

THR describes her as “a paranoid high school senior for whom graduating has become a matter of life or death.” That sounds kind of goofy, but her reasoning makes things interesting. She’s about to graduate from a school with a “curse” — someone in the senior class always dies. When some jerks try to rape her, she beats up a jock and starts getting harassed by him and his buddies — to the lengths that they “strew dead dogs on her lawn.” Not surprisingly, this young girl becomes paranoid that she’ll be the next senior to die.

There’s a long way to go before they get a director and some stars, but I wonder if they can find someone other than Ellen Page to be the snarky, tough teen?

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Comedy, New Releases, Theatrical Reviews

Charlie Bartlett is Juno’s dorkier, needier cousin, the one who’s watched Ferris Bueller’s Day Off too many times. Am I talking about the teenage title characters or the films themselves? Both, to a certain extent. Charlie Bartlett is a standard coming-of-age comedy with some amusing quirks, but as with Juno, I found myself enjoying the company of the older characters in the film far more than the teen leads.

Poor little rich kid Charlie Bartlett (Anton Yelchin) wants nothing more than to see all his high-school peers look up to him. So he does crazy dumb things that get him kicked out of a progression of private schools, like making amazingly realistic fake IDs. As a result, his dippy but sweet mom (Hope Davis) sends him to public high school, where his private-school ways make him an instant pariah. But he’s determined to fit in and tries to find a niche to fill. Charlie eventually ends up pulling more crazy stunts, but settles down to helping kids with his bathroom psychiatry gig. Still, his antics aren’t going over at all well with Principal Gardner (Robert Downey Jr.), especially since Charlie seems interested in Gardner’s daughter Susan (Kat Dennings).

Continue reading Review: Charlie Bartlett

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Classics, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Casting, Mystery & Suspense, Universal, Remakes and Sequels

There are casting announcements that make you howl with despair (I’m looking at you, Wolverine) and there are ones that restore your faith in the magic of movies. This is one of those.

Variety has announced that Hugo Weaving will be bringing his deep and scary voice to Universal’s upcoming remake of The Wolfman, and taking on the role of Detective Aberline. (Cue all the Matrix, “Evening, Mr. Talbot” jokes as Aberline hunts Talbot across the moors.)

Weaving rounds out an already impressive cast of Benicio Del Toro, Emily Blunt, and Anthony Hopkins. I know for many, the thought of touching those classic monster movies is complete sacrilege, but if you are going to do a remake, it doesn’t get any better than this. Hopefully, Mark Romanek’s departure is the only calamity to befall this production and it make a painless transformation (ha ha) to the big screen.

The only flaw remaining is that February release date. I’m glad studios are now realizing people like to see good films in all the months of the year, but The Wolfman really ought to command an October or November release. The atmosphere is just ripe for some Gothic horror. And some of us don’t want to see the 25th Saw installment.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Drama, Deals

This just comes from a wee little blurb over at Variety, but it should be good news for any of you John Leguizamo fans out there. It seems that three companies — Willoughby Pictures, Savandra Pictures, and Mission Launch — have come together to produce an upcoming feature called Tar Beach — and they’re in talks with Leguizamo to helm it. This would mark his second directorial gig, but hopefully one with a better response. His first was 2003’s Undefeated, which was a sports drama about a boxer, and didn’t go over well with the people who did see it.

Tar Beach, on the other hand, is a drama based on the true story of Carol Boyd — “a young woman saddled with caring for her alcoholic stepfather and paroled stepsister.” There is no word on who wrote the script — whether it is Ms. Boyd, if she has a book coming out about her story, or if someone else penned the account. (It’s not Faith Ringgold’s novel.) However, it does seem that Joe Anderson is attached for a role in the film. You might have caught him in one of his 2007 bunch of films — Across the Universe, Control, and Becoming Jane. Stay tuned — hopefully we’ll have more solid news soon.

Permalink | Email this | Comments