Quentin Tarantino has cast actors Diane Kruger, Christoph Waltz and Paul Rust (no idea who he is but he has some funny stuff over on his website) in his war film Inglorious Bastards.

They join Brad Pitt, Eli Roth, Mike Myers, Michael Fassbender, B.J. Novak and Samm Levine.

Kruger (National Treasure films) plays German actress Bridget Von Hammersmark, who figures prominently in a plot to sabotage the Nazis. It is a role for which Nastassja Kinski was first mentioned.

Waltz, who is best known in Germany for his television work, has landed the role of Col. Hans Landa, who is the primary antagonist.

I've complained about the news service on IMDb before. They use WENN, not really the most reliable of sources. More gossip than actual news, which is sad for the best movie resource on the internet. It seems that I was not alone in detesting the section as they now list this at the bottom of their "news" section:

IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles. News articles are published for the entertainment of our users only. The news items do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the site responsible for the article in question to report any concerns you may have.

Follow this link to watch Be Here to Love me, the wonderful Townes Van Zandt documentary. I don't really know anything about the site but it appears to be a lot like Hulu, at least in its quality (its video player isn't quite as neat). No idea what else is featured on the site but I am going to do a little exploring. I could have posted the film on the site but it makes the image so small I thought it best just to watch it there.

CNN has what appears to be the first actual footage from W. Other than the trailer and behind the scene clips, this is the first look at Josh Brolin and Elisabeth Banks in action as our current president and first lady.

I can't comment on its authenticity but I like the loose thread editing to this scene, not over the top and it has a nice laid back feeling to it. Something I don't think I have ever said about about a Oliver Stone film.

This is a pretty perfect pair. George Clooney is in talks to star in Up in the Air, an adaptation of the Walter Kirn novel that Jason Reitman adapted and will direct.

Clooney will play an unapologetic corporate downsizer whose untethered life is consumed by collecting air miles.

Charles Ferguson’s “No End in Sight” has landed it’s own YouTube channel this week.

According to the press release, it will become “the first widely released feature film to screen in its entirety on YouTube starting on September 1 and continuing through the 2008 presidential election on Tuesday, November 4.”

Check out the channel here, where you can currently view the trailer and a few other related videos.

I'll repost this once the actual film shows up on the site.

This is fantastic. I randomly came across it on Vimeo and it is probably the best thing I have seen on that site. Its basically exactly the kind of short documentary I want to make, which makes it both inspiring and completely intimidating. The whole thing looks amazing too.

The video is the story of Paul Mawhinney, who over the years he has amassed what has become the world's largest record collection. Due to health issues and a struggling record industry Paul is being forced to sell his collection.


The Archive from Sean Dunne on Vimeo.

The Tropic of Thunder mockumentary about the film within the film, Rain of Madness, has been released as a complete video for free on ITunes.

I haven't watched it yet but it is "created by" Justin Theroux and Steve Coogan, the 30 minute farce and stars both men and features all of the stars from the movie and a few surprise guests.

A few more details have started to emerge from the new season of Survivor. This from EW's Dalton Ross (he covers everything Survivor for them). The most interesting is the small change to Exile Island (now called Exile), tempting the players with comfort over clues for the immunity idol.

The 18 contestants competing this fall on Survivor: Gabon—Earth’s Last Eden for the series' 17th cycle include an Olympic gold medalist, a Gilmore Girls actress, and a professional video game champion, EW.com has learned exclusively. Crystal Cox, who won gold at the Athens Games in 2004 as part of the 4x400m track relay team, is the biggest name on the roster this season, which premieres with a two-hour episode on Sept. 25. Also among the fresh faces is Jessica “Sugar” Kiper (Gilmore Girls fans may remember her as the pin-up model who made out with Milo Ventimiglia during her four-episode arc as Shane) and Ken Hoang, the current international champion of Nintendo’s Super Smash Brothers Melee video game. There will also be a prominent international presence, with contestants who have lived in South Africa (Gillian Larson), London (Ace Gordon), and Chile (Paloma Soto-Castillo).

As for the format, the biggest twist of Survivor: Gabon involves Exile (formerly Exile Island). “When you go to Exile this time you can either get a clue that will help you find the hidden immunity idol, or you can get ‘instant comfort’ — a nice thing to sleep on, some food, some fruit,” explains host Jeff Probst. “Depending upon the time, we’ll make the temptation bigger and bigger. The idea was to see if anybody would be dumb enough to choose comfort over the only thing that guarantees you to stick in the game, which is immunity.” Okay, did it work? “By the time this season is over, you can make the case that maybe this is the dumbest team when it comes to idol play.”

to Also for the first time ever, Survivor: Gabon will be shot entirely in HD. “If you’re a Survivor fan and you have HD, it will be a completely different show,” Probst promises. “When you incorporate the wildlife, it’s kind of like being in a Spielberg movie. I mean, it’s so real-looking that it’s exciting and scary.” And that wildlife Probst speaks of will come into play when elephants visit a tribe camp. “A truly real, raw moment of a wild animal that’s not in a park or some protected area,” Probst says.

The contestants of Survivor: Gabon will be divided up into two tribes at the very outset by a good old fashioned schoolyard pick ’em, which will immediately lead to the contestants’ first challenge. And while there are no hardcore “showmances” this time around, Probst does tease that one player proves particularly popular: “Marcus, the doctor from Georgia — one of the most arrogant guys that we’ve had on the show — he at one point had three people after him. And not only women.”

I just figured this out, CBS allows you to embed their video clips so here is a much better introduction to the cast of Survivor Gambon.


Watch CBS Videos Online

Here is the cast for Survivor Gambon. This is the biggest photo I could find of the group but you can head over to the CBS website to watch some video footage or EW for more info and photos. After just a quick read through I am guessing my favorites will be Ken Hoang the nerdy professional video game player and Bob Crowley, the oldest male competitor. I also am curious to see Crystal Cox because she looks like she ate Alicia from Survivor Australia.

The trailer for Fast & Furious, the fourth in a film series that no longer uses articles.

Fast & Furious in HD

Woody Allen gave excerpts of his Vicky Cristina Barcelona diary to the New York Times to publish. Of course its not real but funny nonetheless.

I really want one of these Torrance and Lundegaard family portraits by Arkansas-based Kirk Demarais. A couple other great ones are over on his site.

The trailer for Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon. This has been floating around the internet for a few days now, just with Danish subtitles. I don't know what to make of this, but Ron Howard's best film is Apollo 13 and this has that same sort of period vibe to it. It features Frank Langella as Nixon, Michael Sheen as Frost, and Sam Rockwell, Oliver Platt, and Kevin Bacon in various other roles.

Wow, this was fast. The Wall Street Journal that the studio is going to be reintroducing Superman. Superman Returns was only released 2 years ago and now they are going to act like it never even happened. Probably for the best, the "Returns" story line sort of pigeon holed the franchise and the whole thing was basically an homage to the first Richard Donner directed film. Adding a kid who may be Superman's and my have super powers was probably a bad idea too. I guess this will be similar to how Louis Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk was a reboot of Ang Lee's Hulk. Here is what the article says:

Warner Bros. also put on hold plans for another movie starring multiple superheroes -- known as "Batman vs. Superman" -- after the $215 million "Superman Returns," which had disappointing box-office returns, didn't please executives. "'Superman' didn't quite work as a film in the way that we wanted it to," says Mr. Robinov. "It didn't position the character the way he needed to be positioned." "Had 'Superman' worked in 2006, we would have had a movie for Christmas of this year or 2009," he adds. "But now the plan is just to reintroduce Superman without regard to a Batman and Superman movie at all."

The article also talks about Warner Bros. adapting other DC properties over the new few years. Those projects will likely be about single characters at first, and will be darker much like The Dark Knight. Here is another problem, The Dark Knight is not successful because it is dark, it's successful because it's a damn good movie. The overall tone has nothing to do with it, but that is what fit with that story. I don't need to see a self conflicted Superman. Hell, they tried that with the first film and it didn't work. Just find the right tone for each individual story and then get talented filmmakers to tell those stories. That is The Dark Knight approach.

With "Batman vs. Superman" and "Justice League" stalled, Warner Bros. has quietly adopted Marvel's model of releasing a single film for each character, and then using those movies and their sequels to build up to a multicharacter film. "Along those lines, we have been developing every DC character that we own," Mr. Robinov says.

Like the recent Batman sequel -- which has become the highest-grossing film of the year thus far -- Mr. Robinov wants his next pack of superhero movies to be bathed in the same brooding tone as "The Dark Knight." Creatively, he sees exploring the evil side to characters as the key to unlocking some of Warner Bros.' DC properties. "We're going to try to go dark to the extent that the characters allow it," he says. That goes for the company's Superman franchise as well.

Nicolas Cage has been cast in Kick-Ass, Matthew Vaughn's adaptation of the Mark Millar comic book.

The book centers on a high school dweeb named Dave Lizewski who decides to become a superhero even though he has no athletic ability or coordination. Things change when he eventually runs into real bad guys with real weapons.

Cage will play a former cop who wants to bring down a druglord and has trained his daughter (Chloe Moretz) to be a lethal weapon.

The problem with Cage is he will pretty much star in any film. Its what makes him so frustrating, because for every Ghost Rider there is a Leaving Las Vegas and for every Wicker Man there is an Adaptation. He can be oh so very good in the right roll but in the wrong one, watch out.

I love stories like this. Over at Cracked (I remember buying this magazine as a kid but I had no idea this thing was still around) the have The Insane True Stories Behind 6 Cursed Movies. Though this story isn't quite in depth or funny enough (look at the source material) it is a good waste of time.

NOTE: There are a couple links to other stories like this at the end of the article, including 7 Movies Based on a True Story (That Are Complete Bullshit) and The 6 Worst Movies Hollywood Almost Made.

According to Slashfilm and JoBlo, incoming latenight host Jimmy Fallon and "Arrested Development" star Alia Shawkat (Maebe Funke from Arrested Development) have joined the cast of Drew Barrymore's directorial debut "Whip It!" Fallon replaces Barrymore's ex Justin Long in the role of roller derby announcer "Hot Tub Johnny."

Ben Affleck has joined the cast of Mike Judge's next film, Extracted, and now we know a little more about the plot.

Affleck will play an ambulance-chasing lawyer in the film, which centers on a flower extract factory owner (Jason Bateman) who's dealing with workplace problems and a streak of bad luck, including his wife's affair with a gigolo.

Clifton Collins Jr. is also joining the cast as a factory worker who loses a body part in a freak accident and is now due for a huge settlement.

The film also stars Mila Kunis and Kristen Wiig.

A little B roll footage that shows first substantial look at Josh Brolin capturing the mannerisms of George W. in W.

Bill Murray, flying.

This is bad news.

MGM has hired Juliet Snowden and Stiles White to write the screenplay for a planned remake of Poltergeist, the 1982 horror film that was directed by Tobe Hooper and produced/co-written by Steven Spielberg.

Poltergeist is my favorite horror film of all time, one of those movies anytime I see it on I watch the entire thing. It's also endlessly quotable, particularly little Zelda Rubinstein, whom I quote pretty much every time I finish vacuuming my house. Watch the clip below to figure out what that quote is (it happens around the 3:37 mark).

NOTE: Just a warning, if you haven't seen the movie before, the clip contains the films climax.

Michael Stuhlbarg, a Tony-nominated actor and Richard Kind, a character actor best known for his role on ABC's "Spin City," will star as brothers in the Coen Brothers period black comedy, A Serious Man.

Set in 1967, the story centers on Larry Gopnik (Stuhlbarg), a Midwestern professor whose life begins to unravel when his wife sets out to leave him and his socially inept brother (Kind) won't move out of the house.

A Spanish language trailer for Steven Soderbergh's Che, starring Benicio Del Toro, which looks sort of awesome.

Update: Turns out this is for The Argentine, part 2 of Soderbergh's two part Che film (the other one is called Guerrilla).

Greg Mottola (Superbad, upcoming Adventureland) will direct Nick Frost and Simon Pegg's new movie, Paul.

Written by Pegg and Frost, the road movie is about two British comic book geeks that get into an adventure across America.

In related news, Pegg won't be able to star in Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards, due once again to scheduling conflicts.

This will finally be released in November.



Special Features

* - DIRECTOR-APPROVED DOUBLE-DISC SET SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
* - New, restored high-definition digital transfer supervised and approved by director Wes Anderson and director of photography Robert Yeoman
* - Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack
* - Commentary by director/co-writer Anderson and co-writer/actor Owen Wilson
* - The Making of “Bottle Rocket”: an original documentary by filmmaker Barry Braverman featuring Anderson, James L. Brooks, James Caan, Temple Nash Jr., Kumar Pallana, Polly Platt, Mark Mothersbaugh, Robert Musgrave, Richard Sakai, David and Sandy Wasco, Andrew and Luke and Owen Wilson, and Robert Yeoman
* - The original thirteen-minute black-and-white Bottle Rocket short film from 1992
* - Eleven deleted scenes
* - Anamorphic screen test, storyboards, location photos, and behind-the-scenes photographs by Laura Wilson
* - Murita Cycles, a 1978 short film by Braverman
* - The Shafrazi Lectures, no. 1: Bottle Rocket
* - PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by executive producer James L. Brooks, an appreciation by Martin Scorsese, and original artwork by Ian Dingman

Tropic Thunder

I don't think I will have time to post any kind of review of this over the next few days so I will do the next best thing (ok, its actually the best thing) and share Roger Ebert's review with you. I agree with everything he says here in his 3 1/2 star review. The movie is funny but not perfect. It falls flat on occasion but those are so few and far between you hardly even notice them. Now, on with what our man Ebert has to say:

The documentary “Hearts of Darkness” is about the struggles of filming the great Vietnam war movie “Apocalypse Now.” Ben Stiller’s “Tropic Thunder” plays like that doc’s nightmare. A troupe of actors, under the impression they’re making a Vietnam war movie, wanders dangerously in the jungle and is captured by a gang of druglords who think the actors are narcs.

The movie is a send-up of Hollywood, actors, acting, agents, directors, writers, rappers, trailers and egos, much enhanced by several cameo roles, the best of which I will not even mention. You’ll know the one, although you may have to wait for the credits to figure it out.

All but stealing the show, Robert Downey Jr. is not merely funny but also very good and sometimes even subtle as Kirk Lazarus, an Australian actor who has won five Oscars and has surgically dyed his skin to transform himself into a black man. So committed is he to this role that he remains in character at all times, seemingly convinced that he is actually black.

This exasperates his fellow actor Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson), a rapper who was born black and blasts Lazarus for his delusions. Alpa Chino (say it out loud) is like many rappers and promotes his own merchandise, notably Booty Sweat, an energy drink that keeps him going in the jungle. If Chino doesn’t buy the Lazarus performance, Lazarus is critical of Tugg Speedman (Stiller), who also starred in “Simple Jack,” a movie about a mentally challenged farmer who thinks animals can understand him.

Ironically, it is this role that saves their lives when they’re taken prisoner. The bored druglords have only one video, an old “Simple Jack” tape, and think Speedman is Jack himself. In a brilliant comic riff by Downey, Lazarus critiques Speedman’s work as over the top: The really big stars, he observes, “never go full retard” when playing such roles.

The movie opens with trailers establishing three of the characters — not only Lazarus and Speedman, but Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black) whose specialty is fart humor. Portnoy is a heroin addict who is in withdrawal for much of the trek through the jungle, and has a funny scene after he begs to be tied to a tree and then begs to be set loose.

The set-up involves the actors, director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) and burnt-out screenwriter Four Leaf Tayback (Nick Nolte) in the jungle with a huge crew and explosives expert Cody (Danny McBride). When one of the explosions goes off prematurely (think the opening of “The Party”), Speedman, acting as producer, fires the crew and announces he will direct the movie himself. He explains that hidden cameras have been placed in the jungle and will record everything that happens. Uh, is that possible, especially when they get lost? These actors, even the five-time Oscar winner, almost seem to believe so, a tribute to their self-centered indifference to technical details.

Intercut with the jungle scenes are Hollywood scenes featuring an agent and a studio executive. The movie, written by Justin Theroux, Stiller and Etan Cohen, is familiar with the ordeals of filmmaking and location work, and distills it into wildly exaggerated scenes that have a whiff of accuracy. Especially interesting is the way the director, Damien Cockburn, leaves the picture, which perhaps reflects the way some actors feel about some directors.

The movie is, may I say, considerably better than Stiller’s previous film, “Zoolander” (2001). It’s the kind of summer comedy that rolls in, makes a lot of people laugh and rolls on to video. It’s been a good summer for that; look at “Pineapple Express.” When it’s all over, you’ll probably have the fondest memories of Robert Downey Jr.’s work. It’s been a good year for him, this one coming after “Iron Man.” He’s back, big time.

One more item that I wanted to add and Ebert sort of touches on it in his final paragraph. The main thing that goes a long way in selling this is that it looks like a real war movie. Wonderfully photographed in the jungle you never for a minute think you are not out there, on location with the actors.

Tina Fey and Steve Carell will play a married couple in Date Night.

Shawn Levy (Big Fat Liar, Just Married, Cheaper By The Dozen,The Pink Panther, Night At The Museum) directs from a screeplay by Josh Klausner (Shrek The Third,Shrek Goes Fourth).

The story follows a couple who find their routine date night becomes much more than just dinner and a movie.

It is exciting to see these two work together but my hopes are a little shaky due to the talent behind the camera. Not exactly the most solid filmography.

Two new cast members for Inglorious Bastards, what has to be the strangest group of actors assembled for a film in some time. Mike Myers has been cast as British Gen. Ed Fenech, a military mastermind who helps hatch a plot to kill Nazi leaders, in director Quentin Tarantino's WWII drama.

It is also being reported that David Krumholtz will not be in the film due to scheduling conflicts and instead will be replaced by Samm Levine from Freaks and Geeks. He played Neal Schweiber, the best friend of John Francis Daley's Sam Weir. This one is a ever stranger because Levine still looks to be about 16 and hardly resembles any type of soldier I have ever seen.

NOTE: Not related to anything to do with Inglorious Bastards but I just remembered that Krumholtz played Levine's brother on Freaks and Geeks for one episode.

Also, Krumholtz has horrible luck with movies. He was originally cast as one of the roommates in Knocked Up but then left the movie to star in a Woody Allen movie. The Allen movie was then canceled but it was too late to join back up with Knocked Up. Now this.

I forgot to post a review of Tropic Thunder today. Saw it last night, hopefully I can get around to it tomorrow. Here is a two word summary though: it's funny.

A new Body of Lies trailer that is a lot like the last one. Just a bit more fleshed out.

Valkyrie is now set for a 2008 release date, again.

MGM has moved the film to open Dec. 26, instead of the Feb. 13 date that was previously announced. Originally it was going to open October 3.

The film is directed by Bryan Singer and stars Tom Cruise.

Liam Neeson and Orlando Bloom will star in an untitled pic based on Bill Carter's book "Fools Rush In."

Javier Bardem is in talks for a supporting role.

Brazilian helmer Andrucha Waddington ("Me You Them") will direct.

Carter wrote the book about the period of time when he lived and worked as an aid worker in Sarajevo during the bitter Balkans war siege that lasted 43 months.

Look at the poster and the still released today for Rian Johnson's The Brothers Bloom and tell me what is a little weird about them.