Home

Advertisement

Customize
  Journal   Friends   Calendar   User Info   Memories
 

BazNet Film News!

30th May, 2005. 11:46 am.

Lots has happened since last time I updated you with joy. Most of that involves Revenge Of The Sith has taken the 1-Day, 4-Day, 5-Day, 9-Day and 10-Day Opening Gross domestic records. It's also one of the films to reach the $100million (3 days) and $200million (8 days) landmarks quickest, shared with Spider-Man 2. It's forever going up the charts of All-Time Domestic [41st going on 31st and higher] and it probably won't be too long until it enters the Top 10. Incidentally, it's also a fucking great movie.

Anyway, it now being the end of May, lots of movie news has been released outside the world of Star Wars. No, really! Let's start with news on Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg & Nick Frost, the lovely bastards behind things such as TV Series Spaced and last year's Romzomcom Shaun Of The Dead. They're going to be giving the Shaun-style treatment to cop-movies in a film titled Hot Fuzz. Production's hoped to begin early 2006 but little else is known. Though Frost has said that he's to be an "oafish copper". Yay!

A film version of Tekken is to be made. I know, I know.

George Lucas, a struggling director who's failed to achieve much with any of his previous movies is giving it one more go with a movie about some war that happened a long time ago. Red Tails is about "African-American fighter pilots during World War II, they were escort fighters and the only fighter unit during WWII that never lost a bomber. So they were, like, the best."

Meanwhile both Lucas and Steven Spielberg have approved an Indiana Jones IV script and it just needs a thumbs-up from Harrison Ford before it may actually happen! Jeepers!

On the topic of films that never looked like happening, Inglorious Bastards by Quentin Tarantino has been on the backburner longer than I don't know what. But thanks to Michael Madsen [LOVELOVELOVE], the only person ever to look like being in the film, we now know a bit more. Apparently the script's finished, which is also good, it's also set, according to Madsen, to star Tim Roth [no suprise there], Adam Sandler [semi-expected, what with his strong friendship with QT and everything] and Eddie Murphy WHAT THE FUCCCCCK?. Yeah, he used to be in some dark, weird shit. But for many, many years he's just been doing things you know, for kids. So either Madsen's dry joking again or well, Tarantino's trying to resurrect a few careers again.

Guy Ritchie's Revolver and Harry Potter IV both released teaser trailers that revealed absolutely bugger all apart from they both look like good films.

And finally, The Da Vinci Code a book which Every Person Ever appears to love is forever getting near being filmed. We've all known about Tom Hanks and Jean "OH HELL YES!" Reno starring in the film. But casting can only improve for what could be next year's biggest film. Alfred Molina [y'know, Doc Ock], Ian McKellen [y'know, Gandalf] and Paul Bettany [y'know, ... the... tennis guy...] have all been announced in the Ron Howard directed film. And gee whiz, that's a pretty great cast that makes me want to continue reading the book, that's for sure.

Right, now I'm gonna go punch whoever's been rining my doorbell for the past hour. I bet it's THE WIND.

Make Notes

5th April, 2005. 11:23 am.

First of all THAT film is little over 1000 hours from screens worldwide. France and Belguim are the best places to catch it first, on May 18th, while most locations [Norway, UK and USA included] will open the doors on May 19th. Woo. Also 3 TV Spots adding more light to the movies

Spider-Man has become a most fantastic franchise, and the 3rd tale of Sam Raimi's masterpiece has found itself a villainous actor in Thomas Haden Church. The guy recieved an Oscar nomination for his role in Sideways and also bears no resemblence to Venom, which leaves many question marks over the role he may play to ensue danger upon Spidey.

Which leads us to James Franco, Spidey's Harry Osbourne, is to star in a World War 1 dogfight flick alongside Jean Reno. Franco will play an American, Reno will suprisingly play a Frenchman. The drama's to be titled Flyboys and directed by Tony Bill, the lovely man that's brought us such films as Barb Wire - a great credit to have to your name to be sure.

Rowan Atkinson is set out to develop Bean 2. Oh god no.

There still isn't a James Bond.

POTC2: Dead Man's Chest has a release date of July 7 2006.

And finally, Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy is nearing and nearing and it's looking better and better as April 29th [or is it the 28th??] gets closer and closer. Perhaps the most eagerly awaited sci-fi-com for 20 years is jsut over 3 weeks away and it looks damn swell. And expect to fall in love with Zooey Deschanel, I know I will.

Make Notes

20th March, 2005. 10:34 pm.

Ewan McGregor, one of Britain's biggest actors thanks to his roles in cult movies like Trainspotting and Star Wars. And considering he's spent a lot of his recent time motorcycling across the world, it's somewhat a surprise of how busy he is. Or rather, how busy he was 2 years ago in long-produced films. Now, we all know about ROTS and ROBOTS. He's also the main voice in a British CGI film Valiant, which is about war pigeons. Another McGregor film very-nearly out is Stay, a thriller about a Professor attempting to prevent one of his students from commiting suicide. Fun stuff. It sounds even more fun with the inclusion of Naomi Watts [21 Grams and also The Ring], who we love veyr much for both her acting ability, and her norks.

Most intrestingly in terms of unpredictable Ewan films is The Island a sci-fi film featuring clones. The trailer has been released and suggests a more sane than most Hollywood-stylee film, which also has some comparable shots to THX-1138 [George Lucas' first film] with a more modern and fuller budget look to it. The film is due out in August this year and also stars Scarlett Johansson [likeable], Steve Buscemi [OMG YES!!!], Sean Bean [Ronin] and Michael Clarke Duncan [Green Mile]. Could be pretty great.

Ignoring the Scot's work [especially CGI comedy Gnomeo and Juliet due out next year], many other actors have things to do. Particularily Jean Reno, the Léon star who has an evil habit of working in foreign films among his few other success movies [See: Ronin and Mission: Impossible] is continuing the trend, but at a quicker pace. Among a couple of French films, he's of course part of the New Pink Panther movie with Steve Martin.

More excitingly, he's to be in the film version of The Da Vinci Code, the inevitable movie-intepretation is to be done, with an aim for late 2006, I believe. Tom Hanks is to take the role of the hero, Robert Langdon whilst Jean Reno plays Bezu Fache. I haven't read the book, so it means nothing to me, but apaprently EVERYONE ELSE EVER has read it, so. And more zaningly about the picture is that Ron Howard [Of Happy Days/American Graffiti acting fame and Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind directing fame] is to be taking the director's seat for the book-transplant.

And finally, Sin City the comic-esque stories from Frank Miller are soon to be hitting the cinema screens, with perhaps the most interesting cast list since... well, Pulp Fiction maybe? Jessica Alba [soon to be Fantastic Four], Elijah Wood [LOTR], Bruce Willis [Die Hards], Benecio Del Toro [Usual Suspects, Snatch, 21 Grams], Michael Clarke Duncan [See: The Island], Clive Owen [Kign Arthur, Closer] AND Michael Madsen [OMG HOT! Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill 2, Free WIlly] all star in a great casted film which also promotes fun as this trailer suggests.

Make Notes

14th March, 2005. 9:13 pm.

First of all, The Incredibles is coming out on DVD on Friday, I recommend it for all.

Secondly, Star Wars, the biggest saga is just over 2 months from a finale. And it really does look like being the biggest thing of the new millenium. It will be to the 2000s what Casablance was to the 1900s, and then some. It fucking rocks already. The trailer poster was released, eyebrows raised. But now THE FUCKING TRAILER IS HERE legally and officially to all humans and dogs. It's great, Obi-Wan Vs. Anakin is worth the money. Yoda Vs. Palpatine is worth the money. But you're getting so much more and it's just swell. Also worth noting are the Web Documentaries, with now 12 available to the normal public including some great ones on Wookies, Obi-Wan and C-3PO.

If there's one thing that gains a lot of interest that isn't Star Wars, it's Quentin Tarantino the director that's also doing nothing, energetically. So tired of his silence were the tabloids that rumours of QT directing a Friday 13th begun, only for QT to deny such claims more recently. So, he must be doing Inglorious Bastards then? Well, "probably". Most of it is written though Mr. Brown claims he still needs to finalise things before filming, though the WW2 movie will more than likely be his next effort. But there's more about Jimmy, he says that he'll like to please his fans for another "15" years. Now you guys may notice that 15 years is not a lot, especially considering QT only managed 5 films in 11 years [and that's *if* you count Kill Bills seperately], but the fact he's already considering retirement is somewhat frightful.

And finally, if like me you've resisted temptation time and time again to buy either of the Kill Bill DVDs in a naive hope that a proper thing might be released, your wish is soon to be granted. Due to Miramax leaving Wretched Disney things have paved way for not only a four-hour-long Kill Bill but also for the Japanese version [said to be more frightfully gross and disturbing than Yanks or Us Brits can cope with.] In case you still fail to understand the full details of the proper KB DVD, allow Tarry to clear up for you: "It will be Kill Bill the Japanese version - the four hour movie all together with an intermission in the middle. It will probably be the first release from Miramax's new company, first at cinemas and then on DVD. It will also probably get a higher age rating. We had to cut it when Miramax was part of Disney but now we can do whatever the fuck we want."

Make Notes

2nd March, 2005. 9:49 am.

Firstly, Hitchhikers have released TWO more trailers securing any worries in what simply looks like a GREAT and also AWESOME movie. [Thanks Viggy]

And now for some awful news. Dreamworks [the bastards behind awful films such as Shrek 2 [and creating Shreks 3, 4 and probably 5 already] and Shark Tale] have had a cunning idea. Instead of coming up with fresh, groundbreaking ideas, animation or humour, they're sticking to what they know best [not a lot]. Despite the countless sequels to Shrek already green-lighted, they're also to make a Puss-in-Boots Spin-off. But hey, why should originality be worth anything? Ah well, at least the fuckers didn't get any Oscars...

Neither did, for that matter Martin Scorcese or Our John [Williams]. Both were cheated and robbed respectively while the Oscars only managed one smart choice, giving the incredible The Incredibles the animation nod above of slight-twaddle Shrek 2 and Shark Tale. Morgan Freeman also managed to pick up an Oscar, and we kinda like him, so that's good, while any other year, I'd have been glad to see Clint pick up the awards he did, but Marty should be pissed.

Back to Sci-Fi trailers, SWE3:ROTS will be releasing it's full TWO MINUTES AND THEN SOME TRAILER on March 10th, 9pm PST. PST is some weird timezone, apparently UK wise, it's about 5am on the 11th, Friday. And that's only if you're an AOL subscriber, Hyperspace member, O.C. American fan or Fox's Robots cinema watcher. If you're none of these things, then [assuming you remain legal to the world, snarf] March 14th will see the legal global release of the trailer.

Oh, and for Will Ferrell fans, it seems quite likely that Elf 2 will be a-happening.

And I don't normally talk about the UK Box Office, but humourously, the top ten films all fail [By beloved Empire standards] to be worthy of even 4 star ratings, including films like Hide and Seek, Oh God No! Meet The Fockers, Oh God No! Ocean's Twelve and Jesus H. Christ No! Are We There Yet?. Never fear though, next week sees the awesome Laura Linney and the Qui-Gonimal Liam Neeson in Kinsey which looks a bit of alright.

Make Notes

22nd February, 2005. 10:31 pm.

The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy was a great book, a great radio series, argably a worthy TV series, and a great towel. It's fair to say that there's a lot of expectation about the film, which has a forever-improving date release [currently April 29th for the UK]. The official proper trailer has released, and while it has a strong scent of American about it [in order to gain attention from our oversea pals] there's still a general good ethos with British undertones not far away. There's a nice idea behind Zaphod's second head, bound to cause problems with fanboys. Meanwhile the role of Ford Prefect has maybe now been calmed after initial panics about the character being player by Mos Def [OMG, HE'S BLACK, THAT'S SUCH A BAD THING, MY CHILDHOOD HAS BEEN RAPPED!] Watch the trailer here on the official site. [there's also some more pictures in the site's gallery]

Silent Hill, the Playstation [and then some other consoles] game that resulted in every sane human excreting for weeks on end out of pure fear, is to get the movie treatment. Over about 5 years, 4 Silent Hill games have been released, but the movie world focuses on the original plot, with the first game being the apparent stem for the movie. No real news about the other details of the film, but you can expect it to be as scary as hell.

And finally, The Coen Brothers are back to work, and appear to be doing their first good in the world since The Man Who Wasn't There. They'll be directing half of a one-off London stage performance starring Meryl Streep, Steve Buscemi and others, with Charlie Kaufman [screenwriter of Eternal Adaptation Being Of A Dangerous Mind] directing the other half. Theatre has never sounded so fucking hot, it really hasn't. Such an event is planned for May, and one only hopes the Coens will then follow it up with a lovely movie to hit our cinemas.

Read 1 Note -Make Notes

4th February, 2005. 8:58 am.

It's February and film news is getter exciting.

But first, let's welcome the Razzies with open arms. The award show for godawful films and acting. You can read the noms here, but highlights include Catwoman and Alexander running away with most things. George Bush actually gets a nomination for Worst Actor for his "role" in Fahrenheit 9/11, meanwhile Ben Stiller gets wrongfully nominated for the same prize despite a great performance in Dodgeball. And to celebrate 25 years of the wonderful award show, they're giving out Ultimate Razzies which sees Battlefield Earth take on Showgirls for Worst Drama. Actually, I'm starting to think the Razzies could be losing their credibility. Snarf.

Clint Eastwood won the Best Director award at the Directors' Guild Awards thing. This will suggest [on past experience] that he'll also pick up the Oscar. But SURELY, the Oscars will not shun Martin Scorcese again. SURELY.

War! will be the first word of SWE3:ROTS after the expected "long time ago..." generic text. The opening crawl has been revealed, and nothing special is revealed about the film, but considering the film, everything revealed is special. You can read the crawl here.

Now, onto Pirates Of The Caribbean 2 the quiet sequel that's never revealed much for ages. Now, we've known that Depp, Keira and Godawful Bloom are all to star, but finally the title had been revealed, and it's to be Dead Man's Chest. ZOINKS! Also, Stellan Skarsgård [minor roles in Ronin and King Arthur] is to star as Bootstrap Bill, who will somehow get alive, it seems. It's also going to star Naomi Harris who's been in "After The Sunset" or something. The plot sees Jack Sparrow in debt to Davy Jones, failure to provide will lead to a curse more than likely. And blimey, Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann's help is a-needed. Hilarity ensues.

And yes, remember Moons Ago? A time when rumours spread like anything, as Pierce Brosnan and Quentin Tarantino campaigned strongly in an attempt for The Next Bond Movie To Be Casino Royale. Well today, producers EON and MGM announced that The Next Bond Movie Is Going To Be Casino Royale. But heck, it won't star Pierce Brosnan, it won't be directed by Quentin Tarantino. Clive Owen still leads the running for the role of JB, while Martin Campbell will be in the Director's chair. So yes, we'll have a plot-driven, non-formulaic, Bond film, and it won't have the actor or director all fans pined for. Ah well.

Read 1 Note -Make Notes

25th January, 2005. 11:30 pm.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW 2005

So, what great stuff has happened over the last month? Not too much unless you like awards or space.

Starting with space, The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy is in full flight getting ready for it's May 6 release date. Alan Rickman [Marvin], Bill Bailey [Sperm Whale] and Stephen Fry [The Guide] have all been perfectly casted to add their voices to a now wonderfully British movie.

Continuing with space and STAR WARS: EPISODE III: OMG IT'S FINALLY HERE! continues to become one day nearer, with May 19th being so close we're wetting ourselves, so we are. No real new news, it must be said, but does that really matter? No. However, March 11th sees the second trailer [likely to be shown before Fox's Robots in cinemas before "legally" hitting the internet.

Dodgeball comes out on DVD on the 31st, you should all be wise to buy it, along with Anchorman if you really know where it's at.

So yes, Golden Globes were given out, the useless Runner-Up to the Oscars only did one thing of interest, which was to give Our Nats a Best Supporting Actress award for Closer.

But yes, in terms of more real awards, the Oscar nominations have recently been revealed. Jamie Foxx is raping them for everything they're worth. Fahrenheit 9/11 tried so hard for something good, it's got absolutely nothing, but hey, it's on UK's Channel 4 this Thursday, which means you don't have to buy it on DVD. Martin Scorcese looks set to win his first Oscar for The Aviator, let's face it, not even the Academy Awards are retarded enough to believe that Marty doesn't deserve an Oscar by now, regardless of how good/bad the actual film in question is. Clint Eastwood has a pretty unique treble for being nominated with Best Film, Best Director and Best Actor, all for Million Dollar Baby. Our Nats isn't going to get the Best Supporting Actress award [See: Golden Globe kiss of death], but she remains nominated, as does the lovely [as in a lovely actress moreso than a lovely looking lady] Laura Linney for her role in Kinsey. The Incredibles looks a dead cert for the Best Animated Feature, due to lack of competition in Dreamworks' doubly dire Shark Tale and Shrek 2 assets.

Harry Potter 3 actually gets nominated for Best Visual Effects, whilst John "God" Williams picks up ANOTHER Oscar nomination for his score on said movie. And finally, Super Size Me will have a very good reason to feel confident as their lack of Documentary opponents better lead the guys to an Oscar, based on the fact that I haven't even heard of any of the other 4.

And in general other exciting movie news, there was a rumour that passed about saying that Kevin Spacey could be taking on the role of Lex Luthor in the new Superman flick directed by his Usual Suspects' director Bryan Singer. If it's true, it's cool.

Make Notes

10th December, 2004. 9:47 pm.

Today must be trailer day, because that's all your getting from these lips.

Let's start off with the most anticipated of the three: Charlie And The Chocolate Factory is starring Johnny Depp and directed by Tim Burton but those appear to be the only pros so far. This trailer seems more of a teaser, but it all looks rather bad. The last intepretation looked bad but got away with it because it was old, this "truer-to-the-book" version looks like the same kind of thing only with more amphasis on special effects. It really doesn't look that great: See.

Get Shorty was a great film. Okay, maybe it wasn't, I don't know, I never saw it, no-one did, really. But it doesn't seem to effect the sequel titled Be Cool which sees Danny DeVito return to the same role [whatever that was] along with John Travolta who, after 10 years of seemingly avoiding, will be acting alongside Uma Thurman and Harvey Keitel. And the cast list goes on to include Vince Vaughn [Dodgeball] and some "trendy" singers like "Andre 3000" and "Christina Millian. The plot seems to have something to do with the music industary, but let's face is, this movie will mostly gain from the reflected success of Pulp Fiction moreso than Get Shorty, but with John & Uma dancing again, this trailer suggests some good innocence about it.

War of the Worlds was a novel by HG Wells, and it still is. That's not a bad name to have attached to a movie. Neither is Steven Spielberg. Nor Tom Cruise. And hey, it's got Tim Robbins in it too. Of course this teaser shows none of these things and just adds to some atmosphere, but hey, who cares? We do. See.

Make Notes

27th November, 2004. 5:14 pm.

It's all well and good notifying people about film gossip of things to come in many months, but sometimes you just need to know what's going on right now. And with Winter coming up, and for some reason, this being a very suitable time to go out and watch films, and so...

Garden State looks the most promising. Starring Natalie Portman in what's being whispered as being her best performance since Léon and Zach Braff who takes his first real movie role as an actor, writer AND director, not bad for the guy who we all only know as the Guy From Scrubs. The dramatic comedy appears to look very beautiful, if the trailers are anything to go by. And this will start going around UK cinemas from December 10th.

The Merchant Of Venice is the latest Shakespeare play to become a big name film. And unlike many predecessors, this film is actually set in the 16th Century that it was written for. Sure it's Shakespeare, and watching it might feel like education. But hey, the brilliant Al Pacino plays the brilliant Shylock. Jeremy Irons, Joseph Fiennes and Kris Marshall [who you know for My Family and Love, Actually but for who I know for his more serious acting in Dr. Zhivago and Murder City]. And you Office fans [all of you] will also have Mackenzie Crook and other to look at. The trailer suggests that it's pretty great, though with the smaller parts played by Not Al Pacino, it's still hazardous. It'll be out from December 3rd.

Beyond The Sea got out yesterday in cinemas, Kevin Spacey acts the role of Bobby Darin, it's been reported to have highs, and some lows, but generally, anyone into Spacey or swing music should be happy. Spacey can damn well sing, by the way.

Gone With The Wind appears to be coming out in cinemas on December 3rd. Sure it came out tens and tens of years ago, but hey, perhaps people like us might go and watch it now?

And The Incredibles is still out in cinemas, and we all love Pixar not to forget it's directed by Brad Bird who used to write for The Simpsons back when it was great.

Make Notes

Back A Page