I have a new favorite show for the summer, Pirate Master. Its hokey and over-dramatic and I love it. Equal parts Survivor, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Amazing Race it has enough other twists to make it unique. It also features the most dangerous voting ritual that I can remember.

A James Franco interview from the set of The Pineapple Express. Learn what he is studying in college, what he thinks of Guatemala pants, and more.

Variety says Miramax Films and producer Scott Rudin have locked the Half Nelson team of Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden to adapt the Marisha Pessl novel Special Topics in Calamity Physics. Fleck will direct the film; Boden will executive produce.

The novel is about a teen who, after spending three years of high school moving each semester with her eccentric teacher father, looks forward to the normalcy of a full senior year in a North Carolina high school. She becomes part of an upper-crust social set called the Bluebloods, and gets caught up with the rest of her group in the mysterious death of their favorite teacher.

The duo are also working on an assignment they prepare to co-direct, Sugar, a drama about a Dominican baseball prospect with Major League dreams, who heads to the U.S. to play for a minor league team.

The trailer below for 5-25-77 looks better than I anticipated. Maybe because it's a movie about Star Wars or maybe it's because one of the characters was wearing a CE3K shirt but I actually want to see it now. Can we please stop using ELO's Mr. Blue Sky in every single for or marketing though? I liked it the first time I heard it in this commercial but now I can't listen to it without thinking of advertising.



UPDATE: I didn't realize this the first time watching the trailer but the main character is none other than Sam Weir from Freaks and Geeks.

Zooey Deschanel has signed to star with Mark Wahlberg in M. Night Shyamalan's thriller The Happening. The Happening tells the story of a man who takes his family on the run when an apocalyptical natural crisis threatens to end civilization then, presumably, a twist happens and everything was not as it seemed.

I never saw Lady in the Water so I can't give an opinion of the quality of that film. I did really like The Village and that seems to be his most panned movie to date. If nothing else, I like the title of this one. Reminds me of those 1950's science fiction movies (probably reminds me of those because it already was a movie).

Apparently On the Lot is failing. You know why? Because it sucks. Seriously, watch this and tell me you don't want to punch this guy in the face. They also have probably the worst host for this type of show and the judges will not say anything negative about the movies.

An interview with the stars and director of Once. It's a bit old but I just got around to reading it. Also, it's much more in depth than the David Goron Green interview I posted earlier.

At one point apparently Cillian Murphy was set to play the main role. I think Cillian Murphy is great but I really don't think the movie would have worked as well if he would have ended up playing the street singer.

Joblo.com has posted an interview with David Gordon Green from the set of The Pineapple Express. It's not the most revealing interview but a few of the more interesting quotes from DGG are below...

-I think all the films I’ve made have had a degree of humor in them and I just felt somewhat monitored by the fact that to a degree there is a line you don’t want to cross in a dramatic movie and still be faithful and considerate of the characters and respectful of the material. Again, bringing so much of the same manner and sensibility, you know we are doing a little bit different lighting in this movie because you light differently for comedies.

It is a totally different tone, and it is ridiculous and over animated sometimes. I always divide people, people love one movie and hate the next. Hate all of them, love all of them, so for me personally, it is valuable to do something totally different and if it sucks or I’m not happy with it, or audiences don’t respond, it might be difficult to do it again. Or I might not be interested in doing it again, but right now I think the funnest thing to do would be the unexpected.

-You know what I want to do that will never happen, but would be amazing is to do a sequel to “Tango and Cash” and “Pineapple Express” at the same time so you’d get, I like the idea of combining sequels like “Alien and Predator” or whatever. Bringing two franchises into the same sequel would be pretty cool. I like the idea of taking the director of another franchise and he directs his actors and I direct mine … doing something weird. Try something different. We’ll see what’s next.

A Los Angeles Times article comparing/reviewing two scripts. One set up to be the next Peter Jackson movie, the other (hopefully) the next from Michael Mann.

Breanne sent this to me. I'm guessing it's a few years old since they are discussing Undeclared, but it's a series of email battles of Judd Apatow Vs. Mark Brazill (the creator of That 70's Show). Read it here.

An article on the "abnormally high per screen averages" for Once and the unusual way its soundtrack got discovered

As for as movie mash-ups go, this one is pretty funny. It runs a little too long and relies a little too much on irrelevant monologues but the first few minutes are really funny.

I hate to say this but On the Lot is probably the worst show on television right now. Int he first episode, viewers were forced to watch the contestants pitch movie ridiculous movie ideas. Watching people pitch movie ideas isn't even entertaining if the ideas are good and yet a full hour was spent on it here. The second episode got a little better, an actual task was at hand but there were too many contestants to even know who was who. Now the third episode the show has undergone a complete re-haul. We left it last Thursday an Apprentice wannabe; we tuned in last night to an American Idol clone. The show reminds me of film class in college, having to set in the dark and watch one bad movie after another, most of them filled with fart jokes.

The new StarWars.com has revealed a first look at the trailer for the upcoming CG animated series, "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," click here to see it. The design of the characters looks a little weird, that doesn't mean I won't watch it though.

Michael Cera gets fired from Knocked Up.

Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman have embarked on another monumental motorcycle journey from London to Cape Town, South Africa, in a bid to raise money for charity, they are calling the trip Long Way Down. The pair completed a similar adventure in 2004 from Scotland to New York via Europe and Asia, which was made into the BBC documentary Long Way Round, which is really quite good. McGregor and Boorman will pass through 20 countries including many areas plagued with poverty, violence and civil strife. They hope to raise funds for UNICEF the Children's Hospice Association Scotland and the charity Riders For Health - which supports motorcycle - riding health workers in Africa. Long Way Down is also being made into a TV series.

Another Pineapple Express set report, this one is much more extensive. A few notes from the article...

-Danny Mcbride is also in the movie, so is Mo’nique.

-The movie is a crazy hybrid of a stoner comedy and something like Die Hard.

-David Gordon Green is good at shooting car chases.

-A quote from one of the writers on set, “That was David Gordon Green. Doesn’t he look like he just got his first handjob?”

The first episode of Michael Cera and Clark Duke's new Web series Clark and Michael has been posted here. CBS is involved with the show, a short-form comedy series featuring a lot of sitting, staring, and scripting lines like "What you just said, write that down as a line... period." It's funny and worth spending eleven minutes with.

And a clip from the film.

A set report from the new David Gordon Green movie, The Pineapple Express. Also, the first picture I have seen from the film.

I don't care about this movie and will probably never see it, but how can a it go from a somewhat decent teaser poster to an absolutely horrible final poster?

Exactly 30 years ago today, Star Wars premiered.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

I liked this movie but I really wanted to like it more. About a third of the way through Geoffrey Rush's character gives a speech about how there is too much debauchery and conniving on the high seas now, he is basically explaining my complaints about the first third of the movie. We are witness to some wonderful visual effects in these segments (the entire movie looks great and the effects are really top notch) but there are so many twists and turns it's sometimes difficult to keep up with what is happening. The main characters spend very little time together so instead of this film feeling like an adventure, it feels almost like a period piece. Not to mention that this first third contains very little action, it just seems to drag on and on and on.

The filmmakers have never employed the less is more approach in these films and they completely ignore it here. This movie is long and adds a lot of new characters that we have to spend time with. There are too many cooks in the kitchen, or pirates on the ship as the case may be.

The best part about the previous two films has been Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow, that is true here too. Depp is given one of the best introductory scenes in recent memory. He seems to embrace the fact that he is a pirate and doesn't take himself too seriously. The same can be said for most of the other pirates too, especially the aforementioned Rush. Without their performances this film would fall flat. This is also one one of the other problems with the film, at times it seems like Jack Sparrow is little more than a bystander in his own movie.

Unfortunately the same can not be said for Keira Knightly and Orlando Bloom. These two take themselves so seriously you wonder if they think they are in a different movie. Knightly actually seems to have more screen time than any of the other stars and even has to give the big emotional speech before battle to pump up all the troops. Knightly may be a good actress, but a tough girl she is not. Bloom is actually in the movie very little and somewhat redeems himself by the films end.

That being said, the movie does tie up the loose ends nicely and their are some twists in the final third that pay off nicely. If you have seen the other two see this one, if you haven't, I leave you to make that decision.

A Knocked Up deleted scene.

Once

Once is basically movie-making at its simplest. There is no real plot to speak of, the film just progresses as you follow a man and a woman and their eventful week as they write, rehearse and record songs.

The film is bittersweet and romantic but not overtly so. These two people connect over their love of music and a broken vacuum cleaner. This is a straightforward film about two people meeting at a certain time in their lives.

Music plays throughout the majority of the film which, in a sense, makes it a musical. We get to witness how the songs are put together and formed and the music is great. This is not characters breaking into song mid-sentence, these are performers writing and playing the songs, even before they are finished. To watch as the man and woman work together on a song in a music stores is to watch one of the best scenes so far this year.

I could write much more about the movie but I don't want to give anything away. Seeing this knowing as little as possible and just let it wash over you.

The trailer for Sicko has premiered over at moviefone. It looks like more of the same from Moore which you will either agree with him with or he will annoy the hell out of you.

Michel Gondry directed video for Paul McCartney's Dance Tonight.

Borat, the character played by British comedian/actor Sacha Baron Cohen, has signed a book deal with Flying Dolphin Press. The dually-titled book, Touristic Guidings To Minor Nation of U.S. and A. and Borat: Touristic Guidings To Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, will be released in hardcover on November 6. One half will be a guide to America for Kazakhs and the other half will be a guide to Kazakhstan for Westerners. It will include text, illustrations, and four-color photographs.

A French website has five clips up of the Coen Brother's No Country for Old Men. You will have to navigate past an intro but the movie looks fantastic, so it's well worth your time.

Another poster and a few clips from Michael Moore's Sicko.

Ain't It Cool News is one of the first websites I look at in the morning. It's a little too fan-boyish for my liking but they usually get really great exclusives to movie news. With all that said, I read a sentence tonight in a story about the upcoming Transformers movie that grammatically bothered me. Not that I am the best in this subject but this website constantly has these errors and the sentence below was the last straw...

"Not anything particularly new - in the one I have below - you can see a different angle on , which is actually - thus far, the most dynamic shot on that particular character. "

Read the rest of the article to see the context of that sentence but trust me, it doesn't help.

The first review I have seen anywhere of Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park.

An article on the upcoming 20th-anniversary DVD and live stage show of Dirty Dancing. Nothing really of interest but I did appreciate this line from the story...

"The deleted scenes include a long sequence of Jennifer Grey in a white bra and panties slow-dancing with a shirtless Patrick Swayze, who hoists her onto his crotch and ... well, let's just say that dirty dancing crosses the line to dry humping."

Follow the link and listen to the song.

Donald Trump has quit The Apprentice, after it has been cancelled.

Heath Ledger as the Joker.

Ain't it Cool News has posted a promo trailer for John Rambo. People lose heads, Rambo is Christian, and stuff blows up real nice but really, do we need another Rambo movie?

I like these NBA Playoffs promotions. My only complaint is that David Blaine has about as much personality as a nickel.

I can't stop listening to this.

The last time Al Pacino and Rober De Niro were in a film together they made one of the best movies of the 90's with one of the best modern day directors, Heat. The next time they will be starring in the horribly titled Righteous Kill, directed by the man who helmed the upcoming USA miniseries Starter Wife.

Any Jason Bateman news is good news. Universal Pictures has acquired "The Remarkable Fellows," a pitch for an action buddy comedy that Joe Carnahan will write to direct. Jason Bateman, who hatched the film's premise, will produce with Carnahan and Richard Gladstein.

"The Remarkable Fellows" revolves around two brothers who take over the family business, which involves exacting revenge for clients.

Bateman will play one of the brothers. The duo, who are "part James Bond and part Ricky Jay," get assignments "from their father and carry them out all over the world," Bateman said. "The revenge scenario is dependent on the intricacy of the plot. If the president of a major bank was sleeping with the French ambassador's wife, the banker would call these guys."

Bateman is also about to start filming the Peter Berg helmed "Tonight, He Comes" alongside Will Smith and Charlize Theron (Berg also directed Bateman in "The Kingdom" whose trailer I posted earlier in the week).

More strange casting. Former Hobbit Elijah Wood is to star as Iggy Pop in "The Passenger," a biopic of the legendary rocker. More at Variety

Mike White and The New Yorker visit the zoo.

This is the strangest casting choice I have read of in years. Tim Allen in a David Mamet film doesn't make sense but I'm excited about it. I'm excited anytime an actor or actress (or even Tim Allen) tries to do something new and different. No other movies sound like David Mamet movies. The rhythm and style of his dialogue is completely unique. It will be interesting to hear it coming from the mouth of Tool Times own Tim Taylor.

Chiwetel Ejiofor co-stars.

The plot of the film sounds ridiculous but it's not really the set up that makes Mamet films great, it's the delivery. Ejiofor stars as a Jiu-jitsu master whose purity is compromised when he is drawn into the movie business and manipulated into brawling in ultimate fighting matches.

Allen plays a troubled action star with marital problems who meets the master when he is getting pummeled in a street fight.

Below is the trailer to one of my favorite Mamet films. It just happens to feature an actor that has (just recently) been known to star in a variety of family films. Here he is playing probably the most dramatic role of his career.

From Variety. Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are teaming to direct and produce three back-to-back features based on Georges Remi's beloved Belgian comic-strip hero Tintin for DreamWorks. The movies will be produced in full digital 3-D using WETA Digital’s groundbreaking performance capture technology.

The two filmmakers will each direct at least one of the movies; studio wouldn't say which director would helm the third. Kathleen Kennedy joins Spielberg and Jackson as a producer on the three films, which might be released through DreamWorks Animation.

"Herge's characters have been reborn as living beings, expressing emotion and a soul which goes far beyond anything we've seen to date with computer animated characters," Spielberg said.

"We want Tintin's adventures to have the reality of a live-action film, and yet Peter and I felt that shooting them in a traditional live-action format would simply not honor the distinctive look of the characters and world that Herge created," Spielberg continued.

Jackson said WETA will stay true to Remi's original designs in bringing the cast of Tintin to life, but that the characters won't look cartoonish.

"Instead," Jackson said, "we're making them look photorealistic; the fibers of their clothing, the pores of their skin and each individual hair. They look exactly like real people — but real Herge people!"

A new trailer for The Kingdom is up at Yahoo Movies. This, unlike the trailer I posted earlier, looks really good. Anything that features Jason Bateman in a dramatic role will get my ten dollars for a ticket.

For some reason I can't embed this clip on the blog but everyone shoud see it. Further proof that Bruce Bowen is not a dirty player.

I don't like Eli Roth. I've never actually seen any of his movies and at this point I don't ever plan to. With that out of the way, he has a really horrible idea for a movie. It will probably never be made but the mere idea annoyed me. In a recent interviews he stated...

"I'm going to be doing a film of all fake trailers, like Thransgiving, called Trailer Trash. I want to make a movie like Borat or Jackass that's literally completely ridiculous, totally silly and absurd, that's just all fake trailers. I have a genius way to tie it all together so it will actually play like a movie" says Roth.

He adds "I want to do this with a budget because they have to look like movies. Literally I'll have the satisfaction because it will feel like I made 30 movies. That's the beauty of Trailer Trash - you just need good gags and good kills."

Below is Sofia Coppola's first short, Lick the Star. It's really not that good but worth watching if you have ten minutes to kill. It was shot by Lance Accord.

Further proof that Luke Wilson will be in any movie, the Blonde Ambition trailer.

The poster for A Might Heart, the story of the wife of slain journalist Daniel Pearl, is really sort of horrible.



The trailer is a little bit better but looks like Angelina Jolie in brownface. Also, every time I read the title I think of A Mighty Wind.

This is from Joblo. I'm not really sure what the story is, something about Bruce Willis not wanting to work with Michael Bay again. It's really not important, what is important is the photo below. I don't know, I thought it was funny.

A list of movies where nothing really happens by Chuck Klosterman. Not really notable except for the fact he mentions Security, Colorado, the worst movie Paul Schneider was ever in.

I know I've already posted a link to the trailer for Once but now you can see it here in HD. I don't know much about the movie and I'm trying to keep it that way. I'm looking forward to it so much that I actually went and dug out my Frames cd to give it another listen.

Now that Mark Cuban has more time on his hands he has decided to he wants to change the movie going experience. Cuban and 2929 partner Todd Wagner are going to pour millions into newfangled multiplexes for sophisticated datenight crowds, even inventing a concession concept dubbed the "Wall of Popcorn" and putting beanbag chairs in living room-like theaters.

They will start with these experimental cinemas in their Landmark chain, including one at the Westside Pavilion in Los Angeles. Sites in Baltimore and Denver are launching soon.

Wagner and Cuban want to create a world of moviegoing for adults.

"In our new Denver theater, we completely removed the concession stands," says Cuban. "The original design had the traditional concession stand taking up prime real estate and dominating the look and feel of the theater. We decided that we would rather use that space for amenities, retail sales (movies, books, indie cinema related items), and 'interstitial' type entertainment that complements our 'datenight for grownups' concept in a lounge-like environment. Basically it became a place where you could go on a date, have a drink, food and be entertained before and after seeing a movie."

More information about the project can be found at Variety

An article on the busiest man in comedy, Judd Apatow. The man behind two of my favorite tv shows (Undeclared and Freaks and Geeks) and one of my favorite comedies (The 40-Year-Old Virgin).

From Indie Wire, Francis Ford Coppola stopped by the Hogg Auditorium in Austin on Monday night to screen his wife's new hour-long documentary (CODA: Thirty Years Later) which follows the filmmaker during production of his upcoming feature, Youth Without Youth. He also answered a few questions after the film, here are some details.

- When young filmmakers ask him how to be a success, he often suggests, "get married." He recalled how nothing drove him to be a successful Hollywood screenwriter (he won an Oscar for writing Patton) more than a wife with a kid on the way.

- Coppola acknowledges that he made many films in the 1990s as a way to finance his dream project, Megalopolis. But even critical failures like Jack (1996) were things he was excited about (in that case, it was the chance to work with Robin Williams).

- After the monumental financial failure that was One From the Heart (1982), he took a lot of jobs-for-hire. They included Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), which he admitted on Monday was a hard film for which to get motivated. Until he realized that he should make it like the famous play, Our Town.

- During this slow creative period in his career, Coppola remembered days driving to the set and hoping the car wouldn't make it there. Which is why, he said, being the financier and producer of Youth Without Youth meant going to the set "with more anticipation."

- He said the realization of a planned adaptation of Jack Kerouac's On the Road (which he is set to produce and Walter Salles will direct) will entirely depend on who is cast in the lead roles.

- Which of his wines would he recommend to a film student on a budget? "You can't go wrong with Rosso & Bianco. It's $11."

I keep trying to think who would be a good cast for On the Road and keep coming up with nothing. I remember reading a long time ago that Brad Pitt and Billy Crudup would be playing Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty but they seem a little old now. Mabye have Ryan Gosling as Sal and hell, I'm drawing a blank for Dean. I'll tell you who does look like Kerouac though, Daniel Craig.

In honor of the Sky Movies poll (and Delaney's comment) about which movies are watched most by men and women I decided to list my top five. These aren't necessarily my top five favorite movies (though number one lines up nicely) but the movies I watch the most. I'm sure I could list twenty more, but that would get boring.

1. Sideways
2. Hoosiers
3. Breaking Away
4. The Shawshank Redemption
5. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Okay, I had to add two more:

The Fugitive
Die Hard

A somewhat interesting article about the directors of the 90's. It focuses a little too much on the poor box office outings but I agree that these people should make more movies.

According to a poll conducted by Sky Movies Star Wars and Dirty Dancing are the films people most love to watch over and over again. The top five for for each sex follows...

MENS' MOST-WATCHED FILMS
1. Star Wars trilogy
2. Aliens
3. The Terminator
4. Blade Runner
5. The Godfather

WOMENS' MOST-WATCHED FILMS
1. Dirty Dancing
2. Star Wars trilogy
3. Grease
4. The Sound of Music
5. Pretty Woman

Conan O'Brien visits ILM and talks with George Lucas.

The Brazos Drive-In in Granbury has seen better days. I guess this is what happens when severe thunderstorms run through Texas once a week.

Spider-Man 3

Spider-Man 3 is basically the antithesis of your normal big budget comic book adaptation. Sure it cost hundreds of millions of dollars and sure it features plenty of action set everywhere from an under construction sky scraper to the pipes below New York, but this is not the main focus. Fanboys be damned, the majority of this movie is centered around the relationships of the characters. We get characters singing, crying, more crying, and basically facing the problems that occur in everyday, ordinary lives (that is, ordinary if you happen to have been bitten by a radioactive spider).

Spider-Man 3 is essentially a romantic drama punctuated by special effects chases. Even the action scenes are built off of emotion. Revenge, love, guilt all play into the characters lives and lead them toward their actions. I can't remember a summer blockbuster that wears its heart so openly on its sleeve.

Part of the charm of the Spidey movies has always been its inherent goofiness. My favorite scene in Spider-Man 2 was the montage after Peter Parker had given up on trying to to save the world. We follow him as his new life is easy and care free and it's all set to Rain Drops Keep Falling on My Head. Here we get an extended sequence of how it is to be Peter Parker with the added power of the black suit. It's basically Tobey Maguire channeling Tony Manero from Saturday Night Fever. The whole montage (and a few scenes that follow) are corny and out of date and I loved them.

With the inclusion of this film, The Spider-Man saga has set the gold standard for comic book movies. Sure there are better movies within the genre (Batman Begins) but none that match the joy and charisma of this series. Will there be a Spider-Man 4? I'm almost sure of it and it doesn't matter, this film is a great ending for the three film strory arc and the best comic book trilogy in film history.

So you already have George Clooney and Brad Pitt set to be in your upcoming movie then who do sign to be the star? John Malkovich of course. Malkovich is in negotiations to star opposite Clooney, Pitt and Frances McDormand in the Coen brothers' Burn After Reading for Focus Features and Working Title Films.

The dark screwball comedy centers on Ozzie Cox (Malkovich), a former CIA agent who loses the disc of the memoir he is writing. McDormand will play Cox's philandering wife. Clooney is set to play an assassin. Because the screenplay is being kept under wraps, it is unclear what Pitt's character will be.

I know very little about the comic character Iron Man. I do know that the movie version has an impression cast that includes Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges, and Terrence Howard and will be directed by Jon Favreau. Anyway, Entertainment Weekly got the first look at the suit for the movie (below) and has a little more info about it on their sight.

CBS has announced the line up to Pirate Master. It's nothing more than a list of their names, locations, and professions but one name did catch my eye...

CHRISTIAN OKOYE

45

Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. (originally from Enugu, Nigeria)

Former NFL Player

That's right, The Nigerian Nightmare will be on a quest to find the largest booty, worth $500,000, and claim the title of "Pirate Master."

On the right side of this page you can see a promotional trailer for Nightwatching, Peter Greenaway's biopic of Rembrandt van Rijn. Greenaway doesn't always make the best movies but he is always interesting. What really drew my attention to this though, Martin Freeman is starring in the titular role. Obviously quite a departure from Tim on The Office.