Well, these are some fine lookin’ gentlemen in contention for a coveted HUNGER GAMES role.

We’re getting close to the beginning of production on THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE (yeah, that’s the official title) and director Francis Lawrence and producers are filling in all the casting holes. Obviously Katniss, Peeta and the rest are taken care of but what about the new characters? One of those characters is Finnick Odair, the charming, handsome Hunger Games champion who returns for the Quarter Quell, a special match of the Games that features past victors doing battle. Man, just when you thought Katniss and Peeta had made it out on top.

Odair is something of a fan favorite from what I’ve been told so it’ll be interesting to see fans’ reactions to the three possible choices Lionsgate is eyeing. Garrett Hedlund (TRON: LEGACY), Armie Hammer (THE SOCIAL NETWORK, THE LONE RANGER) and Taylor Kitsch (FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, JOHN CARTER) are apparently the top picks for the part, according to E!

Sources say a decision will be made soon, even as early as next week.

Over the weekend, a small outrage erupted when rumor had it that TWILIGHT star Robert Pattinson was in the running for the part, a story that was quickly shot down. The amount of furor over that idea just proves how much fans cherish Finnick. So will they warm to the idea of Hedlund, Hammer or Kitsch instead?

I personally vote for Kitsch because that guy needs a hit after JOHN CARTER and BATTLESHIP.

While the photos released yesterday for director Tom Hooper’s LES MISERABLES didn’t really do much for me, the teaser trailer is a whole other story. Stunning, stirring, and goose bump inducing, let the cast take you through the dirty, poverty stricken streets of Paris – if for only a few minutes. Anne Hathaway has dreamed a dream, and it’s one you’ll want to be a part of come December 14.

Take a look at the beautifully epic teaser below and share your thoughts with us. Thanks Bing!

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN
Synopsis: Lynne Ramsay’s We Need To Talk About Kevin explores the toxic and seriously messed up relationship between a mother and her son. Tilda Swinton plays, Eva, who contends for 15 years with the increasing malevolence of her first-born child, Kevin (Ezra Miller). John C. Reilly also stars.
Tomatometer Rating: 76%
Special Features: There’s a behind the scenes featurettes, raw footage from “La Tomatina” Tomato Festival in Spain that’s featured in the film, a Q&A with Tilda Swinton, and an interview with Author Lionel Shriver who wrote the novel the film was based on.
Deals: Amazon has the blu-ray combo pack for $26.24.
Buy/Queue/Skip: The film was very polarizing, but most critics felt that Tilda Swinton gave a knock out performance. I’d say QUEUE IT and give it a shot. Check out Courtney’s AFI Fest review for more.

MAN ON A LEDGE
Synopsis: Sam Worthington (and his career?) are on a ledge. For a whole movie. Ed Harris, Elizabeth Banks and Jamie Bell also star.
Tomatometer Rating: 31%
Special Features: There’s a making of featurette, a look how the film was shot on an actual ledge, and inexplicably, the film’s trailer with commentary from Elizabeth Banks.
Deals: Amazon and Best Buy have the blu-ray for $16.99.
Buy/Queue/Skip: The movie’s being sold for half price in it’s initial week. Come on. SKIP IT. Read Courtney’s review for more.

Also Available This Week

Also available this week are GOON with Seann William Scott, Ralph Fiennes in Shakepearean adaptation CORIOLANUS, THE AGGRESSION SCALE, and the Fourth Season of TRUE BLOOD, all of which J.C. will be reviewing this week.

There’s also a sequel to PHANTOM OF THE OPERA that you never asked for: LOVE NEVER DIES.

Best Buy has a sale on 90s TV DVD, which features seasons of shows like BOY MEETS WORLD, DAWSON’S CREEK, FELICITY, FULL HOUSE and NYPD BLUE all on sale for ten bucks each!

Manny’s Pick

My pick this week is CRUEL INTENTIONS, the brilliant 1999 film which is now on Netflix Watch Instantly. The film stars Ryan Phillippe, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Reese Witherspoon. It takes on the narrative from Dangerous Liaisons and instead of bourgeois French people, it’s snotty high schoolers on New York’s Upper East Side who are playing games with emotions and sexuality. While the film has aged slightly, I think it’s for the better, since what might have been considered overacting in the film’s initial release has now fully fallen into camp territory. If you haven’t seen it before, definitely check it out, and if you have, pour yourself a big glass of wine and revisit it!

See you next week!

PROMETHEUS is only a little more than a week away and most of us have been pretty good about staying away from spoilers. It’s exciting to think how fresh the film will be when it opens next Friday. It’s been tough but I’ve stayed away from practically every video related to the film. However, the latest video gives us a spoiler-free behind-the-scenes look at one of the film’s most important characters: the ship itself.

You can bet a lot of time will be spent aboard Prometheus so it only makes sense that we get well-acquainted with it. The featurette below shows us how intricate and detailed the production designers, writers and crew were in order to make a believable and impressive vehicle. It’s a damn shame to think of how banged up the ship will become.

While the video is damn cool, this is just a big excuse for me to watch something from PROMETHEUS. Next Friday needs to get here fast.

Over the weekend, we saw the debut of the first clip from Brad Pitt- Andrew Dominik reunion, the anticipated flick KILLING THEM SOFTLY. Now we get to see a bit more and boy are we excited.

Three dumb guys who think they’re smart rob a Mob protected card game, causing the local criminal economy to collapse. Brad Pitt plays the enforcer hired to track them down and restore order. KILLING THEM SOFTLY also features Richard Jenkins (THE VISITOR), James Gandolfini (“The Sopranos”), Ray Liotta (NARC), Scoot McNairy (MONSTERS), Ben Mendelsohn (ANIMAL KINGDOM), and Vincent Curatola (“The Sopranos”). Max Casella, Trevor Long, Slaine and Sam Shepard also make appearances. KILLING THEM SOFTLY is written for the screen and directed by Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford), and is based on the George V. Higgins novel, “Cogan’s Trade.”

The new clip below shows Ray Liotta dragged around the inside of a double wide and then tossed out.

KILLING THEM SOFTLY will slay its box office competition on September 21.

If there’s one thing I’m sure of in life, it’s that people go bonkers for LES MISERABLES. And rightfully so. It’s amazing. The timeless tale has gone through several cinematic incarnations that haven’t done very well at the box office. However, all that is about to change with director Tom Hooper’s (THE KING SPEECH) musical version which will have all the drama and all those beloved songs. Today quite a few stills from the film made their way onto the net. So without further ado, let’s take a look!

While most of the photos don’t really do anything for me besides whet my appetite to see the trailer (which I’m told debuts online this week), the photo of Anne Hathaway’s Fantine is beautiful – even if her hairdo is a hair don’t. In the rest of the photos, we take a peek at Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean, Isabelle Allen as young Cosette, and last but not least, Amanda Seyfried as the grown-up Cosette, who’s shown with Eddie Redmayne as Marius.

These next two photos made their debut on the film’s Twitter page.

So what are your thoughts? Are you salivating to see this? Eager to hear Jackman and Hathaway belt out some tunes? Yeah. Us too! LES MISERABLES hits theaters on December 14.

Tattered fields with advert covered fences and uncomfortable metal bleachers still exist and you can still get a ticket for a few bucks to see professional baseball in any one of four or five dozen towns and small cities across the country. Sure there have been some tweaks, some changes, but the world of BULL DURHAM could still be out there — another Nuke with a head filled with air and an arm filled with potential, another Crash offering sage advice, stoically standing in against some kid whose already fantasizing about what kind of sportscar he’s going to buy when he gets to the show. Hell, there might even be another Annie somewhere — might be, but I doubt it.

Fact is, while Major League Baseball has embraced gloss and spectacle, Minor League Baseball remains time-locked, family friendly, and romantic in its transience and minimalism. Players aren’t, in most cases, millionaires, and many of them are hungry and easily interact with fans, not over-fat from the excesses of stardom and churlish — hell, some of those fans are their neighbors, or the people that run the deli where they get their morning coffee, because in the minors, a city doesn’t have a team, a team has a city and a part in the community.

Really, the portrait of Minor League Baseball that I’ve seen first hand, with ample visits to towns like Augusta, Trenton, and Norwich seem a bit like the portrait of Major League Baseball from that long past era of purity that my grandfather told me about, that era and that tie between the Minors and the past that BULL DURHAM celebrates.

The best baseball movie of all time, by my estimation, DURHAM takes a snapshot of a season in the Carolina League, with the Durham Bulls minor league baseball team. Ebby Calvin LaLoosh (later dubbed Nuke) is a fresh call-up, a hot prospect, and an undisciplined mess in need of guidance. Enter Crash Davis (Kevin Costner, as always making it look effortless, and fun) as a veteran of 12 years who once got to spend the best 21 days of his life in the “show”, aka the Majors. Crash has been brought all the way down to A ball from Triple A, a world away from the show’s doorstop, to mentor and help LaLoosh. “You don’t want a ballplayer, you want a stable pony” says Davis when told of his new job before quitting. On his way out though, the game pulls him back and Davis takes on the task.

LaLoosh (Tim Robbins), meanwhile, has more swagger than brains and quickly gets into a scrape with his new catcher while fighting for the affections of Annie Savoy(Susan Sarandon), a unique woman who worships at the altar of baseball and dedicates her body, mind, and time to training one ballplayer a year for his life as a ballplayer and a man. Confident in LaLoosh’s lack of accuracy and discipline, Davis dares LaLoosh to throw a baseball right at his chest outside a bar, “I’d kill you” says LaLoosh,  ”From what I hear, you couldn’t hit water if you fell out of a fucking boat.” responds Davis, who continues to goad LaLoosh until he throws a wide fastball nowhere near his chest.

Impressed by both players, Annie invites them back to her house. In LaLoosh she see’s another brash, young kid who might be blessed with the vigor of youth. With Davis though, she sees not an unformed ball of clay and a boy, but a man with bruises and sense. Put off by her undecided nature, Davis removes himself from the competition as he is unwilling to “audition”. On his way out the door though, Davis lets free one of the best streams of dialogue that I have ever seen, a poetic mini-monologue that feels like a credo we Y chromosome havers should all embrace.

The Student

Having won Annie’s attention by default, Nuke “studies” with his strict instructor who tries to broaden his horizons in and out of the bedroom. On the ballfield, Davis also tries to mentor the stubborn boy wonder.

The film is, in essence all about and not all about Robbins character who eventually becomes slightly deeper and more effortless on the mound, forgetting about everything but throwing the ball. Soon though, Nuke’s progress is noticed and the big club calls him up and out of Durham, where he is sure to never return.

Nuke is the embodiment of realized dreams and dumb luck. Someone whose God given talent takes them further than their 10 cent brain deserves. He’s benign enough so that we don’t hate him, but as Annie says following Nuke’s departure, ”The world is made for those who aren’t cursed with self-awareness.”

The Teachers 

Crash is, as writer/director Ron Shelton once said, a bit like William Holden in THE WILD BUNCH, and “everyone who loves something more than it loves him back. He’s also everyone who stays too long at the party, because he loves the party desperately.”

Unfortunately, that love isn’t enough though, and Crash gets released from the Bulls while the exhaust from Nuke’s car is still thick in the air — his protege gone, the club wants to go in a different direction but Skip, the Bulls manager, puts in a good word and tells Crash that there may be a manager job opening up in Visalia next summer.

His career possibly over, Crash shows up on Annie’s doorstep and the two spend a night together that is two parts sultry and one part sweet and fun, before he too leaves her bed for one last fling with the game of baseball, heading off to the Asheville Touristsa in an effort to finish out the season and chase the dubious distinction of becoming minor league baseball’s all time home run leader.

We know, of course, that these two are meant for each other, so it’s no surprise that Annie finds Crash sitting on her porch in the rain during the films last moment, and that they both swear off those worlds and those dreams that they had been chasing for the whole of their adult lives. “I quit, hit my dinger and I hung em up.” Crash says while sitting next to Annie on her swing. “I’m quitting too, I mean boys not baseball.” she says with tears welling up in her eye as he tells her about that possible managerial opening in Visalia.

In the end, BULL DURHAM sort of begs us to wonder about the definition of “happiness”. Is Nuke pulling his Porsche into the parking lot of a big league stadium to find success as a baseball star and hit on everything with a pulse the definition of happiness, or is true bliss all about the simplicity of a shared laugh, a dance on a hot summer night, and white hot passion? When I was a kid, in my teens or my early 20s, I might have chosen the former, but as I get a little older and I realize that you need more than one pitch to make it through life, I may have evolved to a point of clarity, because I don’t even have to think about it — I believe in slow kisses, a good long dance, and the ability to just be.

We have hardly even begun seeing most of our most anticipated Summer films and already we here are concocting our Fall/ Winter lists. And you’d better believe that Quentin Tarantino’s DJANGO UNCHAINED is going to make an appearance on more than one of our lists. After the debut of 8 minutes or so of footage at Cannes, The Weinstein Company has released a few new stills from the highly anticipated film. Giddy up!

Set in the South two years before the Civil War, DJANGO UNCHAINED stars Academy Award®-winner Jamie Foxx as Django, a slave whose brutal history with his former owners lands him face-to-face with German-born bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Academy Award®-winner Christoph Waltz). Schultz is on the trail of the murderous Brittle brothers, and only Django can lead him to his bounty. The unorthodox Schultz acquires Django with a promise to free him upon the capture of the Brittles – dead or alive. Success leads Schultz to free Django, though the two men choose not to go their separate ways. Instead, Schultz seeks out the South’s most wanted criminals with Django by his side. Honing vital hunting skills, Django remains focused on one goal: finding and rescuing Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), the wife he lost to the slave trade long ago. Django and Schultz’s search ultimately leads them to Calvin Candie (Academy Award®-nominee Leonardo DiCaprio), the proprietor of “Candyland,” an infamous plantation. Exploring the compound under false pretenses, Django and Schultz arouse the suspicion of Stephen (Academy Award®-nominee Samuel L. Jackson), Candie’s trusted house slave. Their moves are marked, and a treacherous organization closes in on them. If Django and Schultz are to escape with Broomhilda, they must choose between independence and solidarity, between sacrifice and survival… ‘

Take a look at the photos and share your thoughts. Are you just as excited to see this film as we are? One thing is for sure. It’s going to be an extremely long wait until the film’s box office debut on December 25.

Not a lot of things get me excited these days but the idea of E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL on Blu-ray sure does. We’ve known about its release for awhile but a new trailer (embedded below) hints at some of the features included on the disc and, most importantly, proves that Steven Spielberg has eliminated all those pesky digital alterations he made a few years ago.

As the trailer shows, those government goons are once again holding shotguns instead of walkie talkies. As well, we don’t see any shots of the computer-generated E.T. that bugged so many people. Spielberg has publicly said he wasn’t a huge fan of the changes made to the film and, unlike his buddy George Lucas, was intent on releasing the original film on Blu. This makes E.T. fans happy, I know many who only own the altered film on DVD.

This trailer is only missing on thing: a release date. Fall 2012 seems so far away.

GOON
Studio: Magnolia Pictures
Rating: Rated R for brutal violence, non-stop language, some strong sexual content and drug use
MSRP: $26.98, but Amazon has it for $11.99.
Running Time: 92 minutes

What’s Going On?

You might not think of Sean William Scott as a great actor, but GOON will serve to challenge that way of thinking.

Doug Glatt doesn’t have much of a purpose in life, until he figures out that he’s good at one thing; fighting. He ends up on a minor league hockey team and begins his life as an enforcer. He’s also a hell of a nice guy.

Who’s In It:

Besides Sean William Scott, there’s also Liev Schreiber, Alison Pill, Jay Baruchel and Eugene Levy has a small part as well.

If You Like…:

Things that are funny. Also if you like sports movies, this film is for you. Think Slapshot meets Super Troopers. It’s that level of greatness and quotability.

Special Features:

• Commentary with Director Michael Dowse and Co-Writer Jay Baruchel
• Power Play Mode – Interactive Behind the Scenes Movie Experience
• Deleted Scenes
• Outtakes/Blooper reel
• Goalie Audition
• Fighting 101
• HDNet: A Look at Goon
• Goon Hockey Cards

The Verdict:

This is quickly becoming one of my favorite films to watch over and over again. Infinitely quotable, incredibly funny, great sports scenes. It really does have a lot for people to enjoy. BUY IT