Is this site for real? It can't be, can it? It has to be some sort of elaborate practical joke. If it isn't then I don't really know what to say.

Here is the trailer for Frank Darabont's The Mist. Based on the novel by Stephen King it tells the story of, well, a mist that envelopes a town (or at least a supermarket). I'll see this movie because of Darabont's involvement but the trailer makes the movie appear to be too on the nose and annoying.

This is the first cell phone technology that I have been excited about. Being able to watch video on a one inch screen, not that exciting. Being able to project it up to a wall, probably not something anyone would ever need but it still sounds interesting.

This is a really bad poster. After watching the trailer for this film I thought at the least it would be interesting and at the most possible oscar material. The folks over at CHUD are hearing different things though. They have heard it described as either being bad, horrible or completely rotten.

EW has a pretty revealing Q&A with Glen Hansard, the lead actor in Once and singer for The Frames.

The green striped one in the front isn't a very good dancer.

Yahoo has the trailer up for the John Cusack starring Grace is Gone. It seems the trailer features some of the new score written by Clint Eastwood. I can't be for sure but it sounds in the same vein as his previous efforts.

The website for The Darjeeling Limited has posted a bunch of behind the scenes featurettes. My favorite moment comes from the first day of production. Owen Wilson has put a lime in his shoe to help with his limp. He says that the lime is durable but not very comfortable and that maybe he should "just try acting".

This could be the worst music video ever for a good song. It's sort of amazing how bad and boring this video actually is. Nothing happens, the animation is bad, and to be honest it comes across as a little bit pretentious.

This isn't movie news but if you click here you can see Steve Nash on the Charlie Rose show. This link was stolen from True Hoop.

About seven and a half years ago, Esquire Magazine asked five film critics to nominate a young director to answer the question, "Who is the next Scorsese?" The director himself even offered up his own nomination. Here is an article that goes through the nominations to see how they hold up. I want add my own director to the list, something I mentioned here sometime ago, and that would be Craig Brewer. Nobody works better with music in todays films and nobody is making films that are set in a specific place like Brewer. He is doing for Tennessee what Scorsese did for New York.

The ghosts from Field of Dreams are retiring.

Variety reports that Star Wars creator George Lucas has hired screenwriter John Ridley to pen the script for Red Tails, Lucas' WWII action adventure about the Tuskegee Airmen to be financed and produced through Lucasfilm.

The film is about a group of African-American fighter pilots who had to overcome racism and the color barrier to become the Tuskegee Airmen, the legendary first African-American pilots in U.S. military history. (The planes were distinguished by their red-painted tails, hence the title.)

According to the Variety story, Lucas hired Ridley after reading L.A. Riots, the Universal/Imagine drama Ridley wrote for director Spike Lee, and Ridley has already met some of the surviving pilots at a Texas convention. Ridley came up with the original story for Three Kings and has also been the best guest host that I have seen on Ebert & Roeper during Roger Ebert's health issues.

A new, severely pixelated trailer for the Ian Curtis biopic Control.

The Top 10 Performances By Directors.

So apparently Owen Wilson tried to recreate his brothers best scene from The Royal Tenenbaums. I wonder if he was listening to Elliott Smith?

A list of alternative sports movies. I would move the number seven movie to number two but I completely agree with the top choice.

This isn't really news I am interested in, it is just a way to somehow relate this post to Freaks and Geeks. Keanu Reeves will star in 20th Century Fox's remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, the classic 1951 sci-fi movie directed by Robert Wise. The actor will play Klaatu, a humanoid alien who arrives on Earth with a warning to world leaders that their continued aggression will lead to annihilation by species watching from afar. Michael Rennie (The Third Man) played Klaatu in the original. Director Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose) will direct the updated remake from a script by David Scarpa.

How does this relate to Freaks and Geeks you might ask? Well, it doesn't really but in the Halloween episode Tricks and Treats Sam Weir dresses up as Gorth, who is the robot from the original The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Can The Bourne Ultimatum make you sick?

An article on the style of Woody Allen films. But probably not the style that you are thinking, the actual style, the clothes.

This is from a blog from USA Today. It concerns the soundtrack to Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited.

I just got an e-mail asking about the music in The Darjeeling Limited. It was definitely one of the highlights of the film, though it's not as ear-popping as it is in, say, Rushmore or Tenenbaums. As expected, we hear a bunch of Kinks tracks and a dash of the Stones.

A sample of the tunes:

- The Rolling Stones' Play With Fire (I think I may need to hear this again on the way home)

- The Kinks' This Time Tomorrow

- The Kinks' Strangers

- The Kinks' Powerman

- Joe Dassin's Champs Elysees

- Peter Sarstedt's Where Do You Go to (My Lovely)

Wes Anderson also throws in several classical tracks, like Debussy's Clair De Lune and Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A, Op. 92. Of course, expect to hear several Indian songs as well. I'll keep you posted on details of an official soundtrack disc. The movie opens Sept. 29.

From this clip I can't tell if if Barack Obama shoots with his left hand or his right. I was going to make a joke that if his foreign policy is as bad as his follow through then my vote will be going elsewhere but I'll have to make that decision after I see all the other canidates jump shots.

A really great interview with David Lynch is up at MTV. This is my favorite part from the interview, I really want to see this cooking show.

MTV: Traditionally there aren't a ton of extras on DVDs of your films. Why load this one up and pull the curtain a bit on your process?

David Lynch: Pulling the curtain on some things isn't good. I always want to protect the film and experience for people. But this time there were a lot of scenes ... that formed a kind of thing that I call "other things that happened." It's like, you meet the family in the film — except for the sister who lives in Ohio. And now with this it fills that out. And then — I don't cook, but I had this recipe for quinoa. And cooking shows are very popular. So I thought I'd do a cooking thing.

MTV: Perhaps the cooking show could be a new part of your career?

Lynch: Let's talk at MTV because it could be big. It could be huge, man. [He laughs.] A black and white cooking show with stories, because there's a lot of waiting in cooking.

This is taken from a Roger Ebert review, this time for The Nanny Diaries. It again has little to do with the movie but damn, that Roger Ebert can write.

Nanny, whose real name is Annie, got the job by saving the life of Grayer after he wandered away from his mom in Central Park. Annie says she is "Annie," Mrs. X hears "Nanny," and concludes that Annie is a nanny, assuming that Nanny is both a job description and a given name. Even the legendary Butcher Drier of Three Oaks, Mich., was called "Ed," not "Butcher," and you won't find a better smoked ham anywhere.

Did anyone else notice you can now upload videos directly to Blogger? Am I the only one excited about this? I'll probably never use this feature but it's nice to know it exists.

The No Country for Old Men website has an exclusive red band trailer for the film and it is violent as Hell. Be prepared to verify your age and use your real first name, apparently Colby Allen can't watch rated R trailers but Dennis Allen can.

UPDATE: You can view the trailer here without any of the age verification stuff.

Adam Scott and Mary Steenburgen have joined the cast of the Judd Apatow-produced comedy Step Brothers, which Adam McKay is directing.

Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly are starring as two immature, coddled men who become stepbrothers and best friends, much to the chagrin of their parents.

Scott is playing the younger, successful brother of Ferrell, while Steenburgen is playing their mother.

Also joining the movie are Katherine Hahn as Scott's wife and Andrea Savage as Ferrell's therapist. I have no idea who these two people are and am too lazy at the moment to look them up.

Universal Pictures has picked up "Renaissance Men," a comedy Rainn Wilson is co-writing with fellow actor Matt Ross. Wilson, who snagged his first Emmy nomination for his work on NBC's "The Office," also will star and produce the feature with Jay Roach.

The story follows two down-and-out community theater actors who think they've accidentally killed a co-star. In a panic, they go on the lam and hide out in a Renaissance fair.

"It's a bit like 'We're No Angels,' only funny, and in a Renaissance fair," Wilson said.

This isn't really news but I found it interesting anyway. The story is from Hollywood Elsewhere.

I don't know why Paul Haggis' In The Valley of Elah (Warner Independent, 9.14) wound up using almost half the cast of Joel and Ethan Coen's No Country for Old Men (Miramax, 11.9), but these films are certainly joined at the hip in this sense.

Elah has Tommy Lee Jones in the lead role and Josh Brolin in supporting, and this situation is reversed in Old Men. (Jones' supporting role --- a small-town sheriff -- is far more pivotal than Brolin's character is in Elah. You could argue that Jones' guy is central to Old Men -- the soul of that film, a one-man Greek chorus.)

In both films Jones has a frank, sobering chat with an old friend played by Barry Corbin (i.e., the Air Force general who said "Hell, I'll piss on a battery if it'll do any good!" in John Badham's WarGames.)

Kathy Lamkin plays a straight-talking blue-collar employee in both -- a fast-food worker in Elah, a trailer-park secretary in Old Men. And Josh Meyer has a walk-on role in both.

Elah was filmed after Old Men. Ellen Chenoweth was the Old Men casting director; Sarah Finn and Randi Hiller did the casting for Elah. They must be phone buddies.

And of course, Roger Deakins shot both.

This trailer for Anderw Dominik's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is probably the best trailer of the year so far (or at least tied with the There Will Be Blood teaser). The western is supposed to be in the same vein as a Terrence Malick film and it feels that way from the trailer. This isn't the best quality to watch it in, I'll post it again when it becomes available in quicktime.

UPDATE: Two more reasons to be excited about this movie. Apparently it features extensive voice over lifted straight from the novel, something I always like in a movie and Nick Cave and Warren Ellis are doing the music. They did the wonderful music for the Australian western The Proposition last year.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Click here to see the trailer in quicktime and HD.

Some more images for Todd Haynes' I'm Not There. Another look at the six actors portraying Bob Dylan.

Remember when Ice Cube made Three Kings and it sort of looked like his acting career was turning a corner and he was going to start making better, smarter movies? That thought didn't last long as he went on the make countless Friday sequels, Are We There/Done Yet, and probably the worst of the bunch, xXx: State of the Union. Well, he might have hit a new low with a project that sounds like like it will play to every sports cliche from the history of motion pictures. He also found a good director to helm the project. The news comes from Coming Soon.

Dimension Films has set a November 26 start date for Comeback, an inspirational sports drama that Ice Cube will star in and produce. Fred Durst will direct.

The film is based on a true story, and Cube will play a former high school football star who takes his niece under his wing as she becomes the first female quarterback in Pop Warner football history. The 11-year old QB, Jasmine Plummer, led her team to the Pop Warner tournament, and became the first female to play in the tournament's 56-year history.

A completely useless list of the 100 best directors. Any list that has Rob Reiner at 35 (I like most of his films but he has made some really horrible ones) ahead of other directors such as François Truffaut, Werner Herzog, or even Ridley Scott is hard to take serious.

10 Movies To Keep An Eye On This Fall.

Do you think if audiences 50 years ago had been shown this movie still they would be amazed or a little disheartened by how ridiculous it looks?

The six Bob Dylans.

I found this earlier today on Big Screen Little Screen. It was published last February but it is the only information (if you can even call it that) about Miranda July's next film.

“The first thing I did after the movie [Me and You and Everyone We Know] was … to basically tell my brand new fancy movie agents, ‘Oh, by the way, just don’t even talk to me for a year because you’re not going to care what I’m doing.’”

Set to make its east-coast debut on March 1st, in-house favorite Miranda July talks with Erica Orden of the New York Sun about her multimedia stage performance Things We Don’t Understand and Definitely Are Not Going to Talk About, which incorporates live and taped video segments, with musical help from Jon Brion (favorite of P.T. Anderson, Michel Gondy, and most recently Kanye West) and audience participation from real-life couples and singles. Orden states that Miranda is in the process of adapting Things We Don’t Understand (described as a “disintegration of a romantic relationship” narrative) into a film script, continuing:

“But Ms. July would rather no one know about that. When asked when to expect the film, she answered with the modesty of someone much less celebrated. ‘It’s so dangerous to say because no one could want to finance it,’ she said. ‘So it’s best for everyone to just forget about it. Of course, except me.’

Watch this trailer for The Great Wall of Sound.

A new photo of George Clooney's Leatherheads has popped up online.

This is from Joblo.com.

So we're all looking forward to THE DARJEELING LIMITED, right? As if a great movie wasn't enough, there's most likely going to be a great short movie in front of it, and it's going to star a great short movie star, by the name of Natalie Portman.

Apparently, a 12-minute short film called HOTEL CHEVALIER, a prequel to DARJEELING and starring Miss Portman will premiere in front of the main feature, with Schwartzman acting in both (Portman also appears in LIMITED). CHEVALIER will take place in a hotel room, and will lead to the journey that takes place in THE DARJEELING LIMITED.

This film is either going to be really good or really self indulgent, and probably a bit of both. Either way I am interested to see how it turns out. The trailer for Todd Haynes Bob Dylan biopic I'm not there.

From the Entertainment Weekly fall movie preview, The Darjeeling Limited.

Several years ago, Wes Anderson ran an idea by his Rushmore star, Jason Schwartzman. ''Wes said, 'How about a movie with three brothers on a train?''' Schwartzman recalls. ''I was like, 'Uh, yeah, it sounds great!' And he said, 'Just think about it.' I didn't think it was an invitation to help him write it.''

Turned out it was. Anderson, who scripted Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums with Owen Wilson and The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou with Noah Baumbach, collaborated on this one with Schwartzman and the actor's cousin Roman Coppola (CQ). Over the course of two and a half years, meeting in various locales around the world to write, the three friends crafted a tale about a trio of estranged siblings — played by Schwartzman, Wilson, and Anderson-repertory newcomer Adrien Brody — who, after the death of their father, undertake a ''spiritual journey'' on a train through India. ''The movie's about how you can be in a beautiful place,'' says Schwartzman, ''and someone you love can push your buttons, and you're like, 'I can't believe this is happening! Not here, not now!'''

Anderson got the idea to set the movie in India from Martin Scorsese, who years ago showed him a print of The River, Jean Renoir's 1951 film about the subcontinent. ''Seeing that was the moment that made me think I really needed to do this,'' says the director, who also credits the films of Satyajit Ray for inspiration. ''I owe a debt [to Scorsese], definitely.'' Even though the production — based in Rajasthan on the country's northwest coast — used a real train, and the movie is packed with the director's usual eyepopping attention to meticulous and funny detail, Wilson emphasizes that it's about brothers not a wacky train ride through India. ''Sometimes people focus on the eccentric stuff in Wes' films,'' says Wilson, ''and the other stuff gets lost, that there's a real emotion in his work. It's definitely there in this one.'' All aboard.

From Entertainment Weekly's fall movie preview, a little bit of info about Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood.

After finishing Punch-Drunk Love in 2002, Boogie Nights director Paul Thomas Anderson found himself fumbling for a follow-up. ''I was really sick of the way I was writing,'' he says. ''Everything looked as though I had written it, and that was a horrible feeling.'' Purely as an exercise, Anderson decided to adapt a scene from a novel he had just discovered: Oil!, Upton Sinclair's 1927 take on the grueling, greedy business of prospecting for black gold in California. ''It was a buoy, just to keep writing,'' says the director. ''I didn't think I would end up adapting the [whole] book, but it turned out that way.''

And so out trickled Blood, which hews close to the first 100 pages of Sinclair's book before going its own way as it tracks the relationship between a silver miner-turned-oilman (Daniel Day-Lewis, who was interested after reading only half the script) and his son (Dillion Freasier). Shooting took place last summer in the remote desert terrain of Marfa, Tex., because, as producer Joanne Sellar explains, ''you can't find old California in California anymore.'' An 80-foot oil derrick was built and filled with fake oil that, according to Anderson, includes ''the stuff they put in chocolate milkshakes at McDonald's.'' The director thinks Blood has helped revitalize his creative process. ''I'm writing something new now — and I actually like it,'' he says. Then, with a chuckle: ''I know that will end.''

The credit from the top of this poster is a little misleading. It is only produced by the same guy who produced Sideways and Alexander Payne (the director of the same film). Also, the map line gives the poster a bit of a Bart Simpson look. You can view a trailer here.

This is fromHollywood Elsewhere but I couldn't agree more. I, of course, haven't seen all of the Elvis movies but the ones I have are actually painful to watch. The problem is that the first one I actually watched was Jailhouse Rock in which he actually delivers a good performance and the movie is just wonderful to look at.

The 30th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley came and went last Thursday without much stir on this end. And for good reason -- the metaphor of his film career is more than a little painful to contemplate. For a guy who began making movies with the dream of emulating the pathos of James Dean, Presley's celluloid history is probably the saddest in motion picture history.

He made 27 stinkers in a row after Don Siegel's Flaming Star, his last reasonably decent programmer. I was going to say something about the three or four that are half-palatable -- Robert D. Webb's Love Me Tender, Richard Thorpe's Jailhouse Rock, Michael Curtiz's King Creole and Flaming Star. But even these are mixed- bag affairs.

27 depressingly slick and shallow films in a row is just staggering -- a metaphor for the most appalling commercial sell-out in history.

In relation to the trailer posted below I will offer you this article from the Times Online, Why did Woody stop making us laugh?

A French subtitled trailer for Woody Allen's next film, Cassandra's Dream, is now online. It is probably the most un-Woody Allen trailer for any of his film, it would be hard to guess that he had made this without the film by credit. The movie costars Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell as two brothers in a financial bind who both fall for a femme fatale (Haley Atwell), who steers them into a criminal scheme.

This is bad news. According to Collider Martin Scorsese has dropped out of making Frankie Machine, his upcoming film that was going to re-team him with Robert De Niro. It seems quite likely the production will fall apart without his involvement.

For those who hadn’t heard of “Frankie Machine,” the film was being made at Paramount and the original title was “The Winter of Frankie Machine.” The story was about a retired hit man and back in March of this year, Variety reported that “Ocean's Thirteen” screenwriters Brian Koppelman and David Levien were writing the screenplay for De Niro before Scorsese got involved.

CBS today announced the 16 new castaways who will compete in "Survivor: China" when the 15th installment of the series premieres Thursday, Sept. 20. There are a few new twists in the series but seems to be following the same basic premise as the past few seasons with immunity idols being located at the contestants camps. To see the cast and a short commercial for the season, click here.

"Survivor: China" will feature a cast of 16 Americans who will begin the series amid the bustle of downtown Shanghai before moving to HuangPu Mountain's Mi Tuo Temple for a Buddhist ceremony where they will be instructed to leave all of their worldly possessions behind. The castaways will then be marooned with the clothes on their back at two separate islands on Zhelin Lake (translation: the Land of 1,000 Lakes) located in the Jiangxi Province. They will split into two tribes, Fei Long (translation: Flying Dragon) and Zhan Hu (translation: Fighting Tiger), and will each be given a copy of Sun Tzu's The Art of War for tribe motivation and assistance throughout the game.

"Survivor: China" will once again afford each tribe the opportunity to obtain a Hidden Immunity Idol which may save someone from elimination at a future Tribal Council. This time, two Hidden Immunity Idols will be in plain sight (one at each camp), although the castaways will not realize this at the start of the game. Each week, the winning tribe of the Reward Challenge will be allowed to kidnap someone from the losing tribe. The person who is kidnapped will receive a note from host Jeff Probst before departing for the enemy camp and will be instructed to give it to one member of the enemy tribe (the kidnapped victim will decide who receives it) in private. The clue will inform this person of the Hidden Immunity Idol located somewhere at their camp. This person must then decide if they wish to share the information with their tribe or keep it to themselves. The kidnapped victim will return to their original tribe at the following Immunity Challenge.

Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston will star in Marley & Me, the Fox 2000 adaptation of John Grogan's bestselling memoir about an incorrigible Labrador retriever.

Marley is the yellow lab adopted by Grogan, a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, and his wife. Their idea was to give them a taste of parenthood, but the dog proved to be a hyperactive handful. He wreaks havoc, gets kicked out of obedience school and gets even worse when the children begin to arrive, yet becomes an indispensable part of the family.

I haven't read the book and have no knowledge of it (other than having seen the cover at a book store) but I am going to guess that the dog dies at the end. I actually hate it when movies do this, it is a cheap and easy dramatic payoff. It is probably the easiest way to get the entire audience to feel sorrow. I have no problem with the death of animals on screen when they add to the story and aren't over sentimental, such as Straw Dogs or Half Nelson.

David Frankel, who last directed The Devil Wears Prada for the studio, will helm; and Scott Frank (who last wrote and directed the wonderful The Lookout) is working on the latest draft of the script.

I got this from Joblo.com. Superbad director Greg Mottola has signed on to direct his next film based on his own script. He will next direct Adventureland, a period comedy set in the late-80s. The film will tell the story of a college grad ready to summer in Europe before starting grad school. Only problem is his father just got laid off and now he's stuck at home in Long Island. Forced to get a job and support himself, he gets a job at the local amusement park Adventureland where comedy abounds and he falls in love. Though the film will be based on Mottola's own experiences at Long Island's actual Adventureland, filming will actually take place in Pittsburgh this October.

This is from Roger Ebert's review of Superbad. It doesn't have anything to do with the movie, I just liked the story he told at the end.

In its treatment of adolescent sexual yearning, "Superbad" remembers not only the agony but the complete absence of the ecstasy. I remember in eighth grade some kid asked how long you could entertain an impure thought before it got upgraded from a venial to a mortal sin. "There aren't rules for things like that," the sister explained, "but I'd say that after five seconds, you're asking for it." The kid and his buddy went down to his basement to study his dad's collection of Playboys, and he got a stopwatch and had his buddy punch him in the arm every four seconds.

Roger Ebert is doubling back and reviewing some of the films he missed last year while he was recovering. Here he reviews Casino Royale.

Superbad

This movie is awesome. It is like the most foul mouthed and funniest episode of Freaks and Geeks or Undeclared (it helps that a lot of people from those two series show up in this film). It instantly joins the ranks of American Graffiti and Fast Times at Ridgemont High as the quintessential high school movie. Jonah Hill and Michael Cera are an amazing comic team, you actually believe they are friends. They talk the ways friends talk and this goes a long way in making the movie so enjoyable.

I can't really say enough good things about this but it is easily the funniest movie of the year. I would like to go more in depth about it but I don't want to give away any of the jokes. Just go to the theater and see it, then see it again.

The trailer for Walk Hard is now online. It seems to be more of a parody than any of the other Judd Apatow produced comedies but that isn't a bad thing. Just glad that Tim Meadows gets to be in at least one more movie.

From the Criterion Blog, information about the new transfer for Days of Heaven.

When I found out last year that we’d be working on Days of Heaven, I got goose bumps. It’s always been one of my favorite films, and I had wished it could be in the Criterion Collection ever since I started here twelve years ago—that and Sixteen Candles (I’m very diverse). Paramount titles were always off-limits to us, until last year, and when we put it on our wish list to them, I thought they’d never say yes. But they did.

Fast-forward to a year later, and I began work on Days by evaluating Paramount’s existing film and video materials. The transfer used to make the previous DVD was good, but it was almost ten years old and could stand to be improved. The studio had two interpositives (the second-generation film element made from the original negative, and the film most often used for a transfer, since it’s a protection of the original and has timing lights), but after a critical evaluation of them, we noticed they had some problems. The original IP was gorgeous, but it had these chemical stains on the left side of the frame that would creep into the picture as the film reels advanced. It was incredibly distracting in an otherwise perfect image. The second IP, made in the nineties, was awful; it had no life in it, and was soft and muddy.

Man, was I depressed. I called Terrence Malick and told him of my evaluation. We discussed that we’d most likely have to transfer the original IP, but that I was going to try to get Paramount to make a new one. Much to my surprise, they agreed, and Criterion and Paramount chipped in to fund a new restored positive at Triage Laboratory in L.A. Paramount’s chief film archivist, Barry Allen, supervised the new film element and was as excited as I was about the project. As we kept moving forward I began to realize how many people just love Days of Heaven. When folks would ask me what I was working on lately, and I told them it was Days, they would light up.

I called Terry to tell him about the new IP with Paramount, and he was really happy to hear the news. He knew that the film needed this, so this was exactly what he wanted to hear. Six weeks later, the IP would be finished, and we’d start the new transfer. At first Terry said to simply match the existing transfer because he’d always liked it. I pleaded with him that this new transfer would be the definitive one and that it was really important to have him in the room with us when we color corrected it. He finally agreed, and a date was chosen to do the work in L.A.

I had just finished working in New York with legendary cinematographer John Bailey on Paul Schrader’s film Mishima, so John and I spoke a lot about Days of Heaven. I hadn’t realized that he was the camera operator on the film and had worked closely with Nestor Almendros on the photography. John said that he would really like to be in on the transfer of Days, since he would have a lot to add. I mentioned it to Terry, and he ultimately liked the idea. It would be Terry, John, editor Billy Weber, myself, and my mentor, Maria Palazzola, overseeing the work. Behind the wheel was Criterion’s favorite colorist, Gregg Garvin, manning the color corrector. This really was a dream team.

When Terry initially came into the room, we had done a general color correction pass on most of the film, using the old transfer as a guide. Before he arrived, I wasn’t sure how hands-on he was going to be with the color. As soon as he sat down, though, Terry made it clear that the new transfer needed to feel natural and not too “postcardlike.” We weren’t allowed to use words like golden or warm. The natural beauty of the land needed to be represented, since that was what they were going for when shooting. When we first started to take out the gold and the warmth, it was heading toward a really different place from the previous transfer. Not bad, mind you, just different and definitely more natural. I would sometimes joke in the room that such and such a shot was pretty, and then I would say to Terry, “But not too pretty!” We’d all laugh. DVD producer Kim Hendrickson was also with us one afternoon, and when she started to say out loud how pretty it was, we all turned in our chairs to cut her off and simultaneously say, “Shhh!” After three days of Terry, Billy, and John’s expertise, we were finished. It looked beautiful, but boy, was it different. I told Terry that people were really going to be pretty surprised by this new transfer, since it was such a radical departure from before, but he said it was perfect.

Back at Criterion a couple of weeks later, our New York crew went to work on the restoration. I came into the room where Betsy Heistand was cleaning up some damaged frames, and I said, “So, what do you think?” She said, “It’s beautiful.” I had to see it again for myself to make sure we really did everything right, since I was still a bit nervous about how different it was from the old transfer (especially with DVD Beaver around!). I sat down in our QC room, turned off the lights, and watched the entire film on our great 24-inch Sony Pro-monitor. Betsy was right: it was beautiful. Days of Heaven finally looked the way it should, and I got goose bumps once again.

Two of my favorite movies are being released as Criterion DVDs, Jean Luc Godard's Breathless and Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven. This is really great for each film, the single disc versions I have have their respective problems. For Breathless I have never seen the same translation twice, each version I have watched (VHS, cable, DVD) have all translated the film differently and it will be nice to have a definitive version. As for Days of Heaven, the disc I own really doesn't have the best transfer. There is noticeable scratches on the print and the whole thing doesn't pop like it should. This is really a problem for one of the best looking movies of all time. Here are the covers for the two.

The Playlist also has the same information about the I'm Not There soundtrack but they also have the first photo up with Heath Ledger as Dylan that I have seen.

Vinyl Fever has learned the track listing to I'm Not There, the film about the life of Bob Dylan that follows seven characters, each embodying a different aspect of Dylan's life story and music. The film is directed by Todd Haynes (Far From Heaven, Velvet Goldmine) and stars Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Michelle Williams, Richard Gere and Julianne Moore. The soundtrack will be released on 10/30 and will have the following music:

All Along The Watchtower --Eddie Vedder & The Million Dollar Bashers
As I Went Out One Morning--Mira Billotte
Ballad Of A Thin Man--Stephen Malkmus & The Million Dollar Bashers
Billy--Los Lobos
Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window--The Hold Steady
Can't Leave Her Behind--Stephen Malkmus & Lee Ranaldo
Cold Irons Bound--Tom Verlaine & The Million Dollar Bashers
Dark Eyes--Iron & Wine & Calexico
Fourth Time Around--Yo La Tengo
Goin' To Acapulco--Jim James & Calexico
Highway 61 Revisited--Karen O & The Million Dollar Bashers
I Wanna Be Your Lover--Yo La Tengo
I'm Not There--Bob Dylan
I'm Not There--Sonic Youth
Just Like A Woman--Charlotte Gainsbourg & Calexico
Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues--Ramblin' Jack Elliot
Knockin' On Heaven's Door--Antony & The Johnsons
The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll--Mason Jennings
Maggie's Farm--Stephen Malkmus & The Million Dollar Bashers
Mama You've Been On My Mind--Jack Johnson
The Man In The Long Black Coat--Mark Lanegan
Moonshiner--Bob Forrest
One More Cup Of Coffee--Roger McGuinn & Calexico
Pressing On--John Doe
Ring Them Bells--Sufjan Stevens
Señor (Tales Of Yankee Power)--Willie Nelson & Calexico
Simple Twist Of Fate--Jeff Tweedy
Stuck Inside Of Mobile With Memphis Blues Again--Cat Power
The Times They Are A Changin'--Mason Jennings
Tombstone Blues--Richie Havens
When The Ship Comes In--Marcus Carl Franklin
Wicked Messenger--The Black Keys
You Ain't Goin 'Nowhere--Glen Hansard & Markta Irglova

Here are the first photos I have seen from the upcoming Judd Apatow produced Jake Kasden directed Walk Hard. The plot synopsis:

America loves Cox! But behind the music is the up-and-down-and-up-again story of a musician whose songs would change a nation. On his rock ‘n roll spiral, Cox sleeps with 411 women, marries three times, has 22 kids and 14 stepkids, stars in his own 70s TV show, collects friends ranging from Elvis to the Beatles to a chimp, and gets addicted to -- and then kicks -- every drug known to man... but despite it all, Cox grows into a national icon and eventually earns the love of a good woman -- longtime backup singer Darlene.

Hot Rod

Hot Rod is by no means a good movie but it's just weird enough to get a pass from me. I actually laughed all the way through and anytime the plot started to wear thin something so out of left field happened that it caught me off guard and I got back into the movie. Of course having Danny McBride in this movie goes a long ways in its enjoyment. He got all of my biggest laughs as he is essentially playing the same character he played in All the Real Girls, Bust Ass. In fact, almost every actor is essentially playing a character is they have before. I guess this makes them all more easily recognizable and easier to spend time with. There really isn't much more to say about this movie (I had actually planned on saying less) but if you have an afternoon or evening to kill you could do much worse than this. I guess thinking back to the movie I actually enjoyed more than I thought.

A trailer for Martin Scorsese's Rolling Stones documentary has shown up on the films Spanish site.

Seth Rogen promises that The Green Hornet and awesome action movie. From the MTV movies blog:

“We’re really going to sit down and get into it,” he insisted. “We made ‘Pineapple Express’, which is an action-comedy, but the action is the thing that stood out to the people we’ve shown the movie to so far - and my favorite types of movies are action/adventure movies, so that’s what we’re trying to do. We really want to make it an awesome action movie.”

“We write movies based on relationships, and that’s what drew us to ‘The Green Hornet’,” he said. “It’s about these two guys who fight crime together…it’s the only really quote-unquote ’superhero-type movie’ that is about that…Batman would still be Batman without Robin, but Green Hornet would probably be useless without Kato.”

Michael Cera has signed on to star in Dimension Films' "Youth in Revolt," an adaptation of the best-selling C.D. Payne novel. I know nothing about these books.

Apparently Payne's self-published "Youth in Revolt" became an underground sensation and garnered a cult following throughout the world, leading to a series of books featuring a teenager named Nick Twisp.

The novels follows Nick Twisp who strives to balance out his budding sexual urges while remaining an intellectual teenager in a world of moronic adults.

In the first novel, Twisp meets the girl of his dreams while on a family vacation and he turns his life and the lives of all those around him upside down in order to be with her.

This should be the last template change for a while. I liked the last one a little more but it seemed to be too hard to distinguish between posts, this one is a little more bland but I think it's easier to read.

A new (French) trailer for the Ian Curtis biopic Control is now up at the film's myspace page.

IFC has posted new chapters (and a recap of the first 12) to R. Kelly's epic song/conversation thing Trapped in the Closet. I'm only a minute into chapter 13 and have already heard the lyric "You're crazier than a fish with titties". It also features commentary by R. Kelly before and after each chapter. Now does this commentary make sense? You will have to watch for yourself, but really, does anything R. Kelly do make sense?

This is a promo still for Matt Damon's upcoming appearance on the PBS kids series "Arthur". I wonder in this if he beats anybody up with a book, like he did in "The Bourne Ultimatum". Or I wonder if this will make anyone nauseous, also like "The Bourne Ultimatum".

Two really good movies come out on DVD today. First is one of this years better movies, The Lookout. I mentioned somewhere on here before how this movie has grown in my mind since seeing it. I liked when I originally saw it but every time I think back it just keeps getting better and better. I will be interested to watch it again and see if it still holds up.


The second is one of last years absolute best movies and one of David Lynch's best, Inland Empire. This also has the satisfaction of being one of the most annoying experiences I have ever had in a movie theater. The screening was at the LA Film Festival and was completely sold out (actually over sold). Austin and I found somewhat decent seats but there was one guy in front of us saving a seat for a friend, something the organizers at the festival asked not to be done. The film starts and a few people still coming in ask if they can sit there and he says no, it is being saved. This last for the first hour of the movie and his friend never shows up but he won't allow anyone to sit in the seat. Not only did I have to put up with the annoyance of the guy not letting anyone sit there, I also had to move out of the way as people leaned over me to beg him to sit there. Anyway, I will be forcing anyone that comes over to my house this Friday into watching this three hour digital epic.

For the fist time in a long time I am somewhat excited about a Kevin Smith movie, maybe. According to AICN Smith may have found his Zack for his Zack and Miri Make a Porno and it is none other than Michael Bluth, Jason Bateman. This is just a rumor but actually Bateman seems like a good fit for the Smith universe. He has sort of the same vibe that Jason Lee (and the same first name) had before he went off and started making Underdog and Alvin and the Chipmunks.

I am not the biggest fan of Smith. I like Clerks and Chasing Amy but the rest of his stuff just seems like he is repeating himself. Jersey Girl was almost unwatchable a second time around. My interest in this film basically hinges on the involvement of Bateman, if the rumors are untrue my interest level in this returns to about zero.

Part three of the Superbad roundtable.

Below is the first still from Jurassic Park IV. Okay, actually its from a 80's toy line called Dino Riders. After reading the plot outline for the film my mind instantly reminded me of a toy and with a little research I was able to figure out what it was. I don't really remember much about them, I think I owned a half hour movie about them and one of the actual dinosaurs. Then again, I could be completely wrong and am thinking of a different line of toys that featured men riding dinosaurs equipped with deadly lasers and such.



UPDATE: Yep, this was it all right. Here was the video (I love that it's only 27 minutes and that is including Tyco commercials).



And here was the actual toy I had. Not really sure what the guy up top in the bubble is doing.



And yes, I know this post was of little interest to anyone other than myself.

A website called Bloody-Disgusting (never been to it before, just ended up there following some links today) has some rumored info about a Jurassic Park IV.

Bloody-Disgusting learned this weekend that Universal Pictures has officially begun casting for Jurassic Park IV, which will film in Kauai, Hawaii later this year! Laura Dern confirmed her return to the franchise as Dr. Ellie Sattler here as Sam Neill will NOT return. We're told that the film is about the government who has trained dinosaurs to carry weapons and use them for battle purposes. Based on the I can now safely declare that this franchise has entered 'ridiculous sequel mode'.

I would think this to be way too bizarre to believe but I actually remember reading a script review for this, posted on August 17, 2004, over at AICN. Now who knows if this is actually going to happen but I really hope it does. There doesn't need to be another retread of the first three movies, there probably doesn't even need to be a Jurassic Park IV, but if there is I hope it is as crazy and insane as this premise sounds.

Part two of the Superbad roundtable. The movie comes out on Friday so you will only have to read about it here for four more days. I think every other topic I post is about this movie.

With all the buzz around the upcoming Superband, and his stature in Hollywood on the rise, if I was a producer in Hollywood I would snatch up Jonah Hill for a Rodney Dangerfield biopic as soon as possible. I remember hearing at one point that one was in the works but I haven't read anything about it lately. Of course if they can't get Hill, I would like them to consider my second choice.

I'm not exactly sure if this is an photo from the film or not but I found this image over at Paulschneider.com with the words Pretty Bird next to it.

Paul Schneider is getting a pretty impressive cast for upcoming directorial debut Pretty Bird. Joining the aforementioned Paul Giamatti (who is also producing) Billy Crudup and Kristin Wiig (who absolutely killed in all of her scenes from Knocked Up as one of the higher ups at E! Entertainment) have also joined the film.

A relatively uninteresting Q & A with Superbad's Jonah Hill. No fault of Hill's but the questions read like something you would see in the back of a crappy magazine. A get to know you piece where the interviewer is trying to be as funny as the interviewee. What are we really going to get out of the following exchange:

Young man, have you done your homework? Unfortunately, no.

While watching the clips from below I also came across another early Scorsese documentary, Italianamerican. I have only seen clips from this on Scorsese retrospects and have always wanted to see it. Again, info about the film from Wikipedia:

Italianamerican is a 1974 film directed by Martin Scorsese. Martin Scorsese's parents, Catherine and Charles Scorsese, feature in this homemade documentary acting as themselves. The Scorseses talk about their experiences as Italian immigrants in New York among other things, while having dinner at their flat on Elizabeth Street. Mother Scorsese even shows us how to cook meatballs, a recipe later featured in the credits of the film. The family, religion, their origins, Italian ancestors, life in Italy after the war, the hardships of poor Sicilian immigrants in America striving to make ends meet, all feature in this film and as leitmotifs in Scorsese's later work.

I have never heard of this movie but someone has posted an early Martin Scorsese documentary about Steven Prince on youtube. Wikipedia has more info on the film:

Its subject is Scorsese's friend Steven Prince, best known for his small role as Easy Andy, the gun salesman in Taxi Driver. Prince is a raconteur telling wild stories about his life as an ex-junkie and a road manager for Neil Diamond. Scorsese intersperses home movies of Prince as a child as he talks about his family. When talking of his years as a heroin addict, Prince tells a story about injecting adrenaline into the heart of a woman who overdosed, with the help of a medical dictionary and a Magic Marker. This story was re-enacted by Quentin Tarantino in Pulp Fiction.

The whole thing is about an hour long and broken up into six sections.

Part One of a Superbad roundtable featuring Seth Rogen, Judd Apatow, Michael Cera, and Jonah Hill.

Slashfilm reports that Lucasfilm has filed for six different titles for the fourth "Indiana Jones" feature with the Motion Pictures Association of America. The six that are apparently being officially considered as titles for the fourth film are:

"Indiana Jones and the City of Gods"
"Indiana Jones and the Destroyer of Worlds"
"Indiana Jones and the Fourth Corner of the Earth"
"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull"
"Indiana Jones and the Lost City of Gold"
"Indiana Jones and the Quest for the Covenant"

The first, "Indiana Jones and the City of Gods," has long been the rumoured working title for the production. I personally like "Fourth Corner of the Earth" but not a fan of "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" and "Lost City of Gold", which was already a movie with Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold, a knock off of the Indiana Jones series and the sequel to King Solomon's Mines.

An article from Woody Allen on Ingmar Bergman from The New York Times. Below are three of the more interesting points (these were taken from Hollywood-Elsewhere).

Thought #1: "I have joked about art being the intellectual's Catholicism, [or] a wishful belief in an afterlife. Better to live on in one's apartment than to live on in the hearts and minds of the public, is how I put it. And certainly Bergman's movies will live on and will be viewed at museums and on TV and sold on DVDs, but knowing him, this was meager compensation. I am sure he would have been only too glad to barter each one of his films for an additional year of life."

Thought #2: "I've said it before to people who have a romanticized view of the artist and hold creation sacred: In the end, your art doesn't save you. No matter what sublime works you fabricate (and Bergman gave us a menu of amazing movie masterpieces) they don't shield you from the fateful knocking at the door that interrupted the knight and his friends at the end of The Seventh Seal."

Thought #3: "Because I sang his praises so enthusiastically over the decades, when he died many newspapers and magazines called me for comments or interviews. As if I had anything of real value to add to the grim news besides once again simply extolling his greatness. How had he influenced me, they asked? He couldn't have influenced me, I said, he was a genius and I am not a genius and genius cannot be learned or its magic passed on."

My vote for the worst Rolling Stone cover of all time. Who is this and why is his shirt half off?

Have you always wanted to star as the Notorious B.I.G.? Click here and your dreams could come true.

Another trailer has showed up online. This one for the Steve Carell starring Dan in Real Life. I like that Carell seems to be trying something more in the vein of Little Miss Sunshine with this, the only bad part of the trailer is the voice over guy. The film is written and directed by Peter Hedges who gets a lifetime pass from me for writing What's Eating Gilbert Grape.

Two trailers for two of my most anticipated movies, and a poster for one of them.

The first, Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind.

The second for Lars and the Real Girl starring Ryan Gosling and more importantly Paul Schneider.

This is strange news, Los Angeles Times' Gold Derby reports that Clint Eastwood will compose a new musical score for the John Cusack film Grace is Gone:

After viewing a screening of "Grace Is Gone," Clint offered to compose a new musical score, which he's still busy doing now. The new score won't be laid down until close to the movie's debut at the New York Film Festival in September and in theaters in early October. Meantime, screening audiences are still hearing the old score by relative rookie Max Richter.

The film is about a dad (Cusack) who takes his daughters on a road trip while avoiding telling them that their soldier mom died in Iraq.

Whatever Happened to Trippy Movies for Kids?

From an article in USA Today, Steven Spielberg on one of the best movies of the year, Once.

"A little movie called Once gave me enough inspiration to last the rest of the year."

Not a whole of of movie news came out today so I thought I would post a few upcoming Criterion releases I am looking forward to.

Some information has been released about Woody Allen's next film. It will be titled "Midnight in Barcelona," and in it Scarlett Johansson stars as an American tourist caught in a love triangle with a local painter (Javier Bardem) and his jealous ex-girlfriend (Penélope Cruz).

The Bourne Ultimatum

I am a little embarrassed to admit that I have never seen the first two films in Bourne series in their entirety. I have seen enough of them that I know the basic story but I have never sat down and watched them from start to finish. After seeing The Bourne Ultimatum I am going to fix this problem, only I'm a little nervous, there doesn't seem to be anyway that either of the previous films could be as good as this one.

This is visceral filmmaking at its finest. Literally from the opening frame we are plunged into the story and it takes few breaks to slow down. The film also has an ingenious time structure. The first two acts take place before the last film ended. It sounds confusing, but it's not. They are simply filling in the plot with details that make the story much more personal.

The few times the movie does slow down it doesn't overburden you with details. I liked that things are left unsaid, there are subtle hints at past lives and relationships. These are never fully explained and they don't need to be, leaving a mystery around some subjects makes them much more interesting.

The Bourne Ultimatum also features one of the best endings to any movie I have seen this year. It sort of brings the trilogy full circle without too much closure. I can only imagine it will that much more satisfying once I have seen the entire series.

Not that great of poster but I am still looking forward to the movie.

A short film about Movies by Errol Morris.

The history of the slacker rom-com.

A look back at one of the greatest movies of all time, Raging Bull.

An interview from 1982 with a 34 year-old Steven Spielberg.

A Q & A with Superbad writers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg

I already know I am going to spend way too much time of this website, a collection of the old Siskel & Ebert and Ebert & Roeper shows. It is really great to be able to go back and watch the old shows featuring Gene Siskel, to see him and a much heavier Roger Ebert argue so passionately about the merits of a certain film or to fall in love with one takes me back to a time when sometimes the only way to learn about certain movies was to stay up late on a Sunday night and catch the syndicated show.

A little background for the ending to the clip posted below. It is the ongoing joke between Matt Damon and Jimmy Kimmel.

This is actually much funnier than I thought it would be, especially when the real Jason Bourne Identity shows up.

Some really bad camera work for a really funny video featuring Seth Rogen and a cleanly shaved Judd Apatow.

The trailer for Drillbit Taylor, produced by Judd Apatow and co-written by Seth Rogen (based on a treatment by John Hughes nonetheless). It doesn't look quite up to par with their recent efforts but Owen Wilson is funny within these few scenes. Also, Danny McBride shows up half way through the trailer.