I’m a sucker (and I do mean sucker) for a good high-concept plot idea, and it sounds that Ann Brashares’ novel My Name is Memory hangs on a corker. The book won’t be published until next June so there’s no way of knowing yet if this smarty pants concept is at the centre of a good story or a bad one but the hook alone intrigues me. Essentially a romance story, the story actually starts with an awkward stalker moment when a couple meet at college and the young man claims that the two of them have been reincarnated over and over as lovers in different time periods and while she can’t remember any of this, he can. That idea gives me the creeps, but of course, in Brashare’s book, he manages to provide her with an explanation, calm things down and get the romance rolling again in this era.

There’s a little bit of The Time Traveller’s Wife in there, I think, while other comparisons to Twilight are, for some reason, also forthcoming. I guess its the notion of a genre-fied young romance.

I’ve got an explanatory excerpt from the novel after the break, as well as some details of the studio bidding war that saw the rights go for a “high six against seven figures” sum.

Brashares has completed the book, and in celebration published an excerpt on her official site. Here’s an exceprt of that excerpt, one which explains the story’s genre mechanics a little:

“Well. It’s a strange thing,” I explained. “With each birth your body starts out fresh and mostly blank, but then you print yourself on it over time. You hold onto old experiences: injuries, injustices, and great love affairs, too.” I glanced up at Sophia. “And you hold them in your joints and your organs and wear them on your skin.”
“You do.” She was giving me that same look of indulgence, but it was less confident.
“We all do.”
“Because we live again and again?”
“Most of us.”
“Not all of us?” Her indulgence showed more signs of genuinely wanting to know.
“Some live only once. Some a very few times. And some just go on and on and on.”
“Why?”
I put my head back on my pillow. “That is hard to explain. I’m not sure I really know.”
“And you?”
“I’ve lived many times.”
“And you remember them?”
“Yes. That’s where I’m different than most people.”

She goes on to explain how memories linger in dreams and some of that other stuff, including this funny little bit about madness:

“An asylum is about the densest concentration of people with partial memory you will ever find. They get flashes and visions, but usually not in the right order.”

Variety have reported that New Regency took the rights for the film in what they call a “high-six against seven figures” deal. This seemingly includes only the rights to the first book though Brashares is - surprise, surprise - planning a trilogy and, success of the books and film alike, might have just made herself rich enough for several lifetimes. Losing bidders included Universal, who were wanting to set it up with Chris and Paul Weitz producing  - if not (one of them) directing - and Warner Bros. who were going to have Denise DiNovi produce.

At new Regency, it’s Peter Chernin who will be heading the team to shephard the project to the screen. Chernin is a long time News Corp. man and has received a lot for the plaudits for the success of Fox’s cable channels - something tells me he and I just would not get along. His other projects include The Deep Blue Goodbye, with Leonardo DiCaprio atatched to star, a film about Moses and the True Lies-alike Queen & Country.

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BentTV, the guys who created the original Star Wars Rap viral video, have created a sequel of sorts: Star Wars Gangsta Rap Chronicles.

MCs Vader, Skywalker, Palpatine and Trooper are back with another edition of the hit animated series Star Wars Gangsta Rap. With surprise appearances from Leia, Lando, and all your favorite flow from a galaxy far, far away.

I’m not so much impressed with the lyrics this time around, but the animation is impressive, and the expanse of the Star Wars universe is pretty epic. Check it out now, thanks to Atom Films, embedded after the jump.

• Cool Stuff: XKCD’s Movie Narrative Charts
• LOL: Drunk Ewoks Ruin Today Show Halloween Segment
• Cool Stuff: Admiral Ackbar Obama Parody T-Shirt
• LOL: Obi-Wan’s Mos Eisley Tourism Video
• Cool Stuff: Darth Tut T-Shirt
• LOL: President Obama and His Lightsaber

Got six days to spare? Then you might be able to stick around for the entire public screening of Cinematon, a film by Gerard Courant, when it unspools in Avignon later this month. The project has been running for 30 years, and represents Courant’s original intent — to document the lives and thoughts of his artistic friends — taken to an interesting extreme.

Calling Cinematon a ‘film’ isn’t quite correct, however. Really, it is a collection of short films. More specifically, it is a series of three and a half-minute documentary portraits. In each portrait, which might be of an unknown adult, a famous cinéaste (Jean-Luc Godard, Terry Gilliam, Gaspar Noé) or even of a baby, the frame is fixed. In that three and a half minute shot, each person can do whatever they want. All of the portraits I’ve seen are silent, with most shot on Super 8. Courant originally intended to film 100 Cinematons, but liked the idea enough to keep going. There are now 2242 of them, as represented on his website. The most recent was shot just a couple of weeks ago, on October 19.

So, yeah, not exactly a film. More like an art installation, and definitely a giant collection of data that might make for a really fun editing and/or remix project. And  more a document of Courant’s life than of the people in the portraits. When you look at the numbers — 2242 individual shorts, 150 hours, 30 years — it seems like the product of an obsessive. But that’s really just shooting a couple of three-minute segments a week during that span of time. (On average, at least.) So think of it as a product of persistence, rather than obsession, and one that shows where Courant has been, who he’s met and how they react to him and his camera.

[Telegraph UK]

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Some of the early big pictures for Summit Entertainment was involved in were thrillers: Memento, Vanilla Sky and Insomnia. But the company has courted kids lately with Twilight, Sorority Row and Sex Drive. But the company hasn’t ruled out making fantasy films for adults — Summit has just picked up a script called The Cold Light of Day, by writers Scott Wiper and John Petro, which the company will co-finance and distribute.

Variety reports that the film follows “a young American whose family is kidnapped while on vacation to Spain. He’s left with only hours to find them, uncover a government conspiracy and the connection between their disappearance and his father’s secrets.” That’s a lot to do in just a few hours; hopefully there’s a guidebook to government conspiracies laying around. Like I said: a fantasy film for adults. No swords and orcs required. Granted, with that logline the movie could be just about anything. But Scott Wiper is the writer / director behind The Condemned, the ’serial killers on an island’ movie starring Steve Austin and Vinnie Jones, so you’ll forgive me for guessing that the movie is going to go in a more over the top direction than most thrillers.

The casting will obviously have something to do with where the film ends up, but we don’t have any names yet. Taken could have been a routine piece of filler without Liam Neeson, and I’m sure that fact hasn’t gone unnoticed at Summit. We also don’t have a director for the picture. While IMDB lists Wiper as the presumptive director, Variety says Summit is looking for someone to shoot the film in Spain next year. Wiper and Petro have been developing the film for a year or more, so I don’t know how long the IMDB listing has been active.

• The Condemned Poster, Movie Trailer and Stills Revealed

Moneyball still isn’t dead yet. Aaron Sorkin has been working on a new draft of the script since Steven Soderbergh was essentially booted a few months ago, but the film still needs a director. And that’s where Capote’s Bennett Miller and Marc Webb, director of (500) Days of Summer, might come into the picture. They’re on the list of a few guys that Sony has been talking to as possible new helmers for the film, which surprisingly still has Brad Pitt attached to star. The question is, who’ll get the job?

THR has a report, and so does The Playlist, the latter of which has come up with some very good Soderbergh-related news of late. THR doesn’t really pin either director to the gig, but does give Marc Webb more prominence in the report, which could lead to a reading that he’s the guy. But The Playlist has heard that the Webb offer is old, and that Miller is really the one to watch here. Richard Linklater was evidently offered the film right after the Soderbergh fiasco, and turned it down. Too bad about that; of this list, he’s the one I might have been most interested to see take the job.

It’s hard to say which of the two, if either of them, would be suitable for the film now without knowing more about where Sorkin has taken his version of it. Soderbergh’s film was to be fairly unconventional, certainly as sports and business movies go, but we don’t know much about Sorkin’s ideas. THR hedges around that aspect, saying only that his version is not as unconventional as Soderbergh’s. The Playlist hears that the film is now much more of a comedy, which would be really…odd, and disappointing. That could mean a lot of things, though — a comedy in the vein of Soderbergh’s The Informant! could still work, as ironic as that would be. Not that I’d expect this to be Mr. 3000, anyway. Wait, that wasn’t really a comedy, either, was it?

• Moneyball Steps Back Up To The Plate; Now Pitching: Aaron Sorkin
• VOTD: Marc Webb Directs Weezer’s (If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To
• Marc Webb May Direct Remake of Just Another Love Story
• Clooney to Direct Hamdan v. Rumsfeld Film, Matt Damon to Star?
• Soderbergh Finally Talks About Moneyball
• David Fincher’s The Social Network Gets Greenlight

Things aren’t going well for video news rental goliath Blockbuster. Netflix’s rental service arguably offers a superior consumer experience. Redbox DVD kiosks are cheap, convenient, and fast. And online streaming from Netflix, Hulu, and other companies threatens to destroy a huge chunk of the DVD industry at a whole. In September we learned that they might be closing almost 1,000 of their remaining 4,400 stores.

Into the breach comes a new scheme to allow movie rentals through kiosks via SD cards. But does the plan make any business sense?

According to Fast Company, customers can take an SD card to these kiosks (Or a card would be provided for you. It’s not 100% clear) and then load it up with a movie, after which it can be played on a TV or a SD-reader equipped mobile device. The new scheme will actually have some benefits over your standard Redbox rental: Specifically, you won’t need to return the movie, since there will be DRM software loaded onto the card that will prevent you from playing the movie after a certain date. SD cards are also harder to damage than DVDs.

Bafflingly, the article posits that “Blockbuster is hoping that the better quality video contained on their SD cards will win streaming video customers back…” It sounds plausible to me that this is Blockbuster’s reasoning, but if so, it further demonstrates their inability to adapt to a rapidly changing environment. People don’t stream movies because they’re looking for the highest quality; they do it for the convenience above all else. These kiosks seem to be anything but.

I can see these kiosks being popular at airports, where people with netbooks or Macbook Pros might be able to stick an SD card into their laptops and play a film on the flight. But I can’t see this beating Redbox (who wants an SD card instead of a DVD?) and I definitely can’t see it supplanting streaming as a growing and preferred content delivery method of choice.

Discuss: What do you guys think? Would you ever rent a movie on an SD card?

• Question: Would You Be Sad If Video Rental Stores Vanished?
• Blockbuster May Close 20% of Locations; Is the Chain’s Future Kiosk-Only?

[Photo by Flickr user Cheryl]

Note: The following contains potential spoilers for third season of Mad Men. We’ve hidden them in invisotext so you can easily avoid them if desired.

Here at /Film and on the /Filmcast, we deal with the issue of spoilers on a daily basis. We are true fans of the moviegoing experience, and although we cover news about movies that won’t come out for months or years, we try not to reveal a movie’s plot details if we think they could potentially spoil the joys of watching that film. If we do reveal such details, we scrupulously attempt to ensure that these are marked clearly (aurally or textually) with a spoiler warning. [In general, when I refer to spoilers, I'm referring to plot elements that occur more than 1/3rd of the way through the film, although there are certainly many exceptions to this.]

I was scanning through my Twitter feed this morning when I saw a link to an article at Televisionary entitled “Spoil-Sport: Why Talking About An Episode That’s Already Aired Isn’t a Spoiler.” The context for the piece: Earlier, Televisionary author Jace Lacob had published a spoiler-heavy piece over at the Daily Beast, with the title “Mad Men Postmortem.” The piece featured a lengthy interview with series creator Matt Weiner, but its opening, bolded paragraph led off with the following: “Dead presidents, divorce, and new digs.” I have not seen more than one episode of Mad Men, but I have been told that these words (arguably) reveal key plot points for the ending of Season 3. And obviously, the interview itself discusses major spoiler-ific plot points in detail [Side note: Hunter's Mad Men season three wrap-up discusses this interview and other topics in-depth].

One of the commenters cried foul:

Hey Jace Lacob, have you ever heard of alerting your readers with “Spoiler Alert”?!?!?!
Thanks, I’m only on the 6th episode of this season, now I guess I don’t need to watch anymore?
Really, is it asking too much for you to say “Spoiler Alert” at the head of your article?

In Lacob’s post responding to this commenter, Lacob argued that while he also hated being spoiled, it is unreasonable to expect that an article not contain spoilers if it’s about a TV episode that’s already aired. According to Lacob:

I firmly believe that, once an episode has aired across the country, all bets are off. It’s a free-for-all, as far as I am concerned. Writers, critics, bloggers, whoever, should be free to discuss the episode’s intricacies and plot developments with abandon. There’s no need to label a post, an interview, or anything as a “spoiler” because it’s not spoiling anything. The details about the latest episode’s plots, reality series eliminations, character deaths, etc. are out there in the public consciousness. Consider them public domain, if you will. And the onus to avoid them isn’t on the part of the writer but on the reader.

If by some bizarre occurrence (say, I was trapped on a Martian base being chased by a water-based homicidal creature), I was to miss an episode of Doctor Who or Lost, I would firmly expect to have plot points revealed in every single piece written about Doctor Who or Lost the following day. The burden, therefore, is on me to avoid all sites, forums, blogs, and print publications that might make mention of plot developments of which I am unaware. Likewise, BBC One will air Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars a month before BBC America does here in the States. If I want to avoid knowing just what happens, I’m going to avoid visiting any British publications and websites for several days after the special airs. I wouldn’t expect those journalists to label their stories with a “spoiler” warning and I don’t believe that they should.

I think I may agree with Lacob’s general reasoning for this particular article: Anyone that clicks on a “Mad Men Postmortem” the day after the season finale has aired (even if they aren’t aware that the season finale has just aired) is probably asking for trouble. But in general, I find this argument pretty objectionable. Where I get off this train of argument is Lacob’s unrelenting insistence that a) it is completely the reader’s responsibility to keep track of when shows air even if they live in different countries/territories, and if they don’t then they are screwing themselves, and b) Critics should not and do not have any responsibility to alert readers of what plot details they are revealing, so long as they are writing after the show has aired.

As a thought exercise, think of how people would respond if a film critic said the equivalent: “If a movie’s already come out, then I’m allowed to give away spoilers with reckless abandon!” They’d be figuratively pilloried in the internet square. TV is obviously a different animal; for broadcast television, people have access to these shows for free, and so there is a greater possibility that you would have been able to experience a program when it originally aired. Cable television is the same way, to a large degree. It’s a lot easier to expect that your readers sat in front of the tube for one of their favorite shows’ finales, than it is to expect your readers to have gone out and forked over $12 for a 2-hour movie the previous weekend.

But let’s talk about TV specifically. The world of broadcast and cable television is rapidly moving away from the idea of fixed schedules for television shows. Very few of my friends and colleagues watch shows on TV when the air, and if they do, they also use things like DVD, DVR, and Hulu to supplement the episodes they don’t see. On the one hand, I question how realistic and reasonable it is to expect people to know exactly where a show is in its timeline. If you’re catching up with a show on DVD/DVR/Hulu, it’s entirely possible that you will have no idea what episodes have recently aired. And while you would be a good, well-behaved TV watcher if you kept informed, it’s a lot easier for me to take five seconds to write a one-sentence spoiler warning than for you to find out where exactly a show is in its release schedule.

Put aside the idea of spoiler warnings for a moment. I’ve seen many TV writers (and some film writers, including us occasionally) put critical plot details in the title, or in the case of Lacob’s article, in the opening paragraph/lede. If I like reading a blog like Televisionary, it’s hard for me avoid plot details if they call out to me from the title of a post. This practice strikes me as gratuitous and unnecessary. As online writers, we should be making it easier for people to enjoy entertainment, not harder, which is what happens when we make spoilers really difficult to avoid. I put this point to Jace and he responded: “That’s an editorial decision, not the writer’s. Post-finale interviews by nature discuss the finale as well as previous eps…” I understand if it’s beyond your control how your post is titled and what the abstract is, but everything I’m saying should apply to content creators and their editors: Why not do the humane thing and put the plot details where they might not be so conspicuous? Your title can still be catchy without incorporating crucial plot details.

In fact, that’s perhaps my biggest objection to Lacob’s piece: My visceral reaction that his article seems to be advocating for some sort of laziness on the part of writers. Really, how difficult is it to just throw up a sentence at the beginning of the post explaining what exactly you’ll cover/spoil? Does it really break up the flow of the article? Does it really disrupt, artistically, what you are trying to do with your writing? You probably saw that I put a quick one-sentence spoiler warning at the top of this post. If you’ve made it this far, you might agree that it was no skin off my back or yours, but it might have saved a few readers from getting spoiled.

That wasn’t so hard, was it?

Discuss: What do you think of spoilers, especially for TV shows? Do you find them easy/difficult to avoid when you’re online? And what obligations, if any, do online writers have to prevent readers from getting spoiled?

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One of the many reasons we love Fox Searchlight (other than the fact that they usually distribute some cool movies) is that they uusually hold a bunch of free advance screenings nationwide to get the word of mouth out about their upcoming releases. Searchlight is doing just that for Wes Anderson’s new film, a stop-motion animated adaptation of Roald Dahl’s book Fantastic Mr. Fox.

The screenings take place on either November 23rd or 24th (that’s a Monday or Tuesday) in the following cities: Albuquerque, Austin, Baltimore, Boston, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dallas, Houston, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Louisville, Memphis, Milwaukee, Montreal, New Orleans, New York, Norfolk, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pitsburgh, Portland, Richmond, San Antonio, Seattle, Tucson, Tulsa, and Washington DC. You can RSVP on FoxSearchlight.com.

Remember, if you do get an rsvp confirmation, Searchlight usually overbooks these screenings under the assumption that some people won’t show up. They want to fill the theater. What often ends up happening is that some people don’t make it into the screening. So show up early to ensure you get in. Show up even earlier to ensure you get a good seat. The early bird gets the worm.

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Legendary producing couple Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy have set their sights on remaking this summer’s French-Canadian hit, Fathers and Guns (released as De Pere en flic). The plot concerns a father and son, both cops, who seemingly hate each other. Of course, they get assigned to work an investigation at a group therapy camp for fathers and sons—hilarity ensues. Sony Pictures has already picked up the project due to Marshall and Kennedy’s involvement, but there’s no writer or director assigned yet.

According to THR, the film has gathered all sorts of acclaim in Canada:

It beat out “Bruno” on opening weekend, took in two-thirds of the summer’s ticket sales in French-language films in Quebec and out-grossed Hollywood fare by more than a 50% margin. It is now the highest-grossing French-language film ever released in Quebec and Canada.

The concept is simple enough that it wouldn’t be too difficult to find pretty much any writer and director for this project, but ideally I would love to see Shane Black tackle it, if only because this is totally his territory. Black basically started the buddy cop film trend with Lethal Weapon, and he proved he’s still got talent with the recent Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. The only future project he seems to have lined up is Lethal Weapon 5 (seriously), and that won’t be going anywhere for a few years. I’d rather the guy tackle a remake rather than fall into obscurity once again.

The material certainly wouldn’t be too difficult for Black, and it would put him in good producer company so that he doesn’t spend another several years letting his talents go to waste. And let’s face it, he’s among the few directors that knows this genre, and would do something good with it.

[Via First Showing]

• New Indiana Jones 4 Video Diary: Reuniting The Family
• Indiana Jones 5 Really Isn’t That Close
• Producer Frank Marshall Says “Don’t Spend Your Money” on IMAX Digital
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• The Last Airbender Teaser Trailer Attached to Transformers 2

Our friends at Collider scored a shitload of early promotional images and posters from the American Film Market. You can head on over to Collider to see all of the images, but I thought I’d profile a few of the projects that I’m more looking forward to. After the jump you will find photos of Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere starring Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning, Noah Baumbach’s Greenberg starring Ben Stiller and The American starring George Clooney,

Sofia Coppola’s (Lost in Translation) new film Somewhere tells the story of Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff), “a bad-boy A-List actor stumbling through a life of excess while living at Hollywood’s legendary Chateau Marmont Hotel.  His days are a haze of drinks, girls, fast cars and fawning fans.  Cocooned in this celebrity-induced artificial world, Johnny has lost all sense of his true self.  Until, that is, his 11-year-old daughter Cleo (Elle Fanning) unexpectedly shows up and unwittingly begins to anchor him.  Johnny’s fragile connection to real life slowly revives in her presence. So when the time comes fro Cleo to leave, his sense of loss is palpable, but the gift of hope she has also brought him leads to a beautiful, poetic denouement imbued with all of Coppola’s remarkable powers to conjure mood and atmosphere.”

Noah Baumbach’s (The Squid and the Whale) new dramedy Greenberg stars Ben Stiller as Roger Greenberg, “a dysfunctional 40-year-old at a crossroads in his life.  Roger wants to “do nothing” for a while, so he agrees to housesit for his younger and more successful brother, giving him a free place to stay in L.A.  While in town, he tries to reconnect with his old friends and band mates but times have changed, and old friends aren’t necessarily still best friends.  Greenberg starts spending time with his brother’s personal assistant Florence (Great Gerwig), an aspiring singer and herself something of a lost soul too.  During a series of embarrassingly awkward romantic encounters, we sense that perhaps even someone as irascible as Greenberg may have found somebody who is prepared to appreciate him for himself - if he would only stop critiquing Florence’s techniques in bed.  Over the course of several weeks, we watch an uncertain and wonderfully vulnerable courtship play out, and learn how funny, and terribly unpredictable, love in the modern world can be.”

Anton Corbijn’s (Control) The American stars George Clooney as ”an artful assassin with a lengthy track record, constantly on the move and always watching his back.  When an assignment goes wrong and a lover ends up dead, he vows that the next job will be his last.  This final obligation takes him to a picturesque town nestled amongst lush Italian hills, its historical piazzas bursting with life.  But to Jack, every location is a trap and every person a potential threat.  Still, he surprises himself, enjoying confessional conversations over Armagnac with an insightful priest and slipping into an affair with a local beauty.  But by letting his guard down, Jack may be tempting fate.  A dangerous shadow-dweller shows every sign of closing in, and the mysterious woman who has hired him may not be all that she seems.  As an increasingly wary Jack contemplates life, love and death in Italy, the film escalates into a climactic showdown through the cobbled maze of age-old alleyways.  This sexy, suspenseful and intricate story blends intrigue and passionate romance within a searing morality tale to finally reveal the heart of this deeply private man.”

Check out a lot more images on Collider, including ALL GOOD THINGS (Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst), PIRHANA 3D, SHANGHAI, and THE FIGHTER: AFM 1, AFM 2, AFM 3.

• Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning Cast in Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere
• George Clooney and Anton Corbijn’s A Very Private Gentleman Becomes The American, Begins Filming in Italy
• Chris Pontius Cast in Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere
• Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere Draws on Family History
• Benicio del Toro Joins Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere
• /Filmcast Ep. 47 - Crank 2: High Voltage (GUESTS: Dan Trachtenberg from Totally Rad Show and Jen Yamato from Rotten Tomatoes)

This week, Dave Chen, Devindra Hardawar and Adam Quigley wonder whether or not Avatar will actually be profitable, express bafflement at the inclusion of aliens in Peter Berg’s Battleship film, and ponder whether Jake Gyllenhaal’s Prince of Persia constitutes brownface. Special guest Matt Singer joins us from the IFC News podcast.

You can always e-mail us at slashfilmcast(AT)gmail(DOT)com, or call and leave a voicemail at 781-583-1993. Join us next Monday at 9 PM EST / 6 PM PST at Slashfilm’s live page as we review 2012.

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Shownotes

Introduction

• (00:25) Subscribe to the Tobolowsky Files new podcast feed at Tobolowskyfiles.com!
• (01:47) Introducing Matt Singer from IFC
• (03:15) A note about guests: Leave us comments and tweets if you like them!

What We’ve Been Watching

• Matt (07:15): The Grand, Sliding Doors
• David Chen (17:08): A Christmas Carol
• Devindra (29:44): Mad Men Finale

News Discussion

• (30:56) Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Movie Trailer
• (41:47) WTF?: Sony has acquired the rights to Risk boardgame and aliens in Battleship?
  
• (49:08) Avatar’s Budget Approaches $500 million
• (55:07) Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours To Have An Hour of No Dialogue

Featured Review

• (1:00:05) The Box

Credits

• The Scene Unseen Podcast is great! Check out their website and listen in!
• A big thanks to our sponsor, Bonaroo.co.uk (use the code “filmcast” for free shipping to the U.S.!)
• Our music comes from Point 22 courtesy of the Podsafe Network, and Brad Sucks
• If you’d like advertise with us or sponsor us, please e-mail slashfilmcast@gmail.com.
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• Richard Kelly Talks Box Release Shift and Soundtrack
• Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours To Have Over An Hour of No Dialogue
• The /Filmcast: After Dark - Ep. 74 - Interpreting Donnie Darko, Responding to S. Darko, and the Southland Tales Saga (GUEST: Richard Kelly, Director of The Box)
• Danny Boyle’s Next Confirmed to be Tale of Mountain Climber Aron Ralston; Film is Now Titled 127 Hours
• /Filmcast Ep. 74 - A Serious Man (GUEST: Richard Kelly, Director of The Box, Southland Tales, and Donnie Darko)
• New Clip from The Box Features the Strangest Car Ride Ever

With Paranormal Activity turning out to be a massive success, all eyes are on director Oren Peli’s upcoming project, Area 51. Obviously, the film will likely deal with the titular American military base which has been home to all sorts of conspiracies, in particular aliens. Up until now, we’ve heard murmurs that the film was about three teenager exploring Area 51, and that it will employ a similar narrative to Paranormal Activity. Further details remained tightly under wraps–that is until our friends over at Latino Review landed a look at the film’s script/outline.

Potential spoilers for Area 51 after the break.

The script was reviewed by LR source “LEVLE”, whose observations make it seem like Area 51 is basically Paranormal Activity with aliens. The film apparently centers around three guys—Chris, a geek into astronomy and aliens, Paul, a skeptic, and Rob, a follower. There’s also Natalie, a woman whose father claims that he was abducted by aliens. The three guys set out on a trip to Vegas, but it turns out that Chris has arranged a meeting with a former Area 51 employee. Needless to say, the three eventually set out on breaking into the facility with Natalie in tow, with the ultimate goal of getting video evidence of extraterrestrial contact.

And yes, apparently the film begins with Chris testing out his new video camera. We can assume from this that the film will look and feel like Paranormal, except perhaps for those creepy nighttime fast-forward sequences. I’m not knocking Peli for trying to use the same formula once again, I just hope that he’ll be able to show us more variety down the line.

As someone who was practically raised on UFO, alien, and Area 51 mythology, Peli pretty much already had my ticket with the title—especially since I also loved Paranormal Activity. He did well with establishing the characters in that film, which made the supernatural aspects all the more effective. Hopefully he’ll continue that trend in Area 51 and give us another original stab at a seemingly overdone subject.

Read the full review over at Latino Review.

• Saw Series Dethroned At Box Office, Paramount Now Considering Paranormal Activity 2
• Paranormal Activity Director Goes To Area 51
• Paranormal Activity: Spielberg’s Haunted Screener, Remake Madness, and Area 51
• Paranormal Activity Director Oren Peli’s Area 51 Gets A Completely Unknown Cast
• Paranormal Activity Finally Gets a Release Date
• Sanchez and Myrick Discuss Possibilities For Blair Witch Project 3

I keep thinking that the idea that J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof would be adapting Stephen King’s epic Dark Tower series was commonly understood as a dead deal. The last time Lindelof spoke about the project, in October, seemed pretty definitive: “My guess is they will get made because they’re so incredible. But not by me.” Now J.J. Abrams has weighed in on the subject with his own statement that is sure to crush the hearts of hopeful King fans everywhere.

MTV spoke to Abrams, who said “The Dark Tower thing is tricky. It’s such an important piece of writing. The truth is that Damon and I are not looking at that right now.”

I’ll take issue with ‘important’, but ‘tricky’ is definitely right. This is a story that very much lives on the page, and to put it on screen would have required an insane commitment, either to make multiple films or a long television show. I would have been intrigued to see how that worked out — I’m always fascinated by super-ambitious adaptations — but not all that optimistic. Creating a successful movie or television series on the scale The Dark Tower, even with King’s large readership to (possibly) rely on, seems like a real long shot.

This whole thing is amusing, because even when the project seemed like a theoretical possibility Lindelof was hedging his comments. Reading between the lines of comments he made a year ago, it seems like there was no real idea of how to make the thing work.

Almost makes you wonder if King sold the option to these guys just so it would be off the table for everyone else and he could get a break from hearing bogus pie in the sky offers. Unlikely, I know, but that’s the sort of thing I’d expect someone to do if they knew a project was basically hopeless from the start.

• Damon Lindelof Updates The Dark Tower
• Stephen King confirms The Dark Tower Movie
• JJ Abrams to direct movie version of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower?
• Video Blog: The Future of Star Trek
• Star Trek Sequel Announced
• New Star Trek Featurette Shows Nothing New

Fanboyz have scored a scan of the first three official photos from Disney’s live-action film The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. I’m guessing that the photos appeared in the same AMC catalog that the Alice in Wonderland photos were scanned from over the weekend. Click on over to Fanboyz to see the uncropped images in larger resolution.

Loosely adapted from the classic story from Fantasia, and based in modern-day Manhattan, Nicolas Cage plays Balthazar Blake, a sorcerer who recruits and trains a young protege (Jay Baruchel) to help fight the forces of darkness. Celebrity illusionist Drake Stone (Toby Kebbell) joins forces with an evil sorcerer named Horvath (Alfred Molina), to “gain ultimate powers.” The film, also features Teresa Palmer (Bedtime Stories) as Baruchel’s love interest and Monica Bellucci (Passion of the Christ, The Matrix Reloaded) as Veronica, a sorceress and the long-lost love of Cage’s character. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is set to hit theaters on July 16th 2010.

• First Look: Nicolas Cage, Jay Baruchel and Teresa Palmer in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
• Jay Baruchel is The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
• First Look: Monica Bellucci in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
• Alfred Molina Cast in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
• Latest Nicolas Cage Career Blunder: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
• Kick-Ass Teaser Trailer

There’s clearly some heavy auditioning going on down at the Spider-Man 4 big-shot hang out, with Sam Raimi reportedly turning over both Rachel McAdams and Romola Garai during his trawl for a potential female lead. What has been less clear, but I guess only marginally, is just what character the lucky lady to eventually be handed this key role will get to play.

According to new information, however, it would seem beyond doubt and now a dead cert that Felicia Hardy, the Black Cat, is in. Better still, there’s some basic information about her story arc bubbling up…

I’ve verified with Hey U Guys that their sources are 100% legit, and am pleased to confirm that they’ve passed the sniff test easily. This is still just a rumour, sure - but it’s a very nice smelling one. Have a quote:

According to our friendly neighbourhood spider-source there are a number of actresses currently being considered for the role, but this at least confirms that Hardy is going to be in the film. We were also given a rough outline of the character’s story arc.

Their report goes on to tell us that the big screen Felicia Hardy is not the daughter of a cat burglar, as per the original, but that her old man is, for some of the film at least, the new man in charge of the Daily Bugle. This is presumably how she first meets Peter Parker, who she then goes on to fall in love with and discover the secret identity of - which will, as was inevitable, put both of them in danger. Jeez, Pete - can’t you just keep it in your pants mask?

Hardy’s father is not only a newsman but also reportedly a villain in some sense, though possibly not a costumed one. On the other hand, Hey U Guys tell us that their source were calling this chap a “viper”, over and over. It doesn’t really add up that they’ve confused “lizard” and “viper” but how about “vulture” and “viper”? There’s also an outside chance that the word was “venom” and there’s some cross-over between Spider-Man 4 and the touted Venom spin-off on the cards. Vulture seems most likely to me… or Hardy senior might just be a ticked off news man with no animal alias.

Here’s a little potential spoiler - the Hey U Guys story suggests that it’s the death of Felicia’s pop that provides the catalyst for her change of heart. Does Mr. Hardy die because an out-of-costume Peter feels he can’t act to save him? Again, that seems to be the strong implication but only time will tell. I definitely see the comments Raimi has made about needing a villain and a dilemma specific to Peter’s new circumstances marrying up very nicely with a plot line about Spider-Man’s need for a secret identity.

By the way… where do you think MJ will factor in all of this? Is Raimi really going to kill her off? Wow. Seems more likely by the day.

I’ll bet my house on the inclusion of the Black Cat and stack yours on the Vulture. Watch this space, because some interesting lines of inquiry are just starting to open up…

• Bruce Campbell: Next Spidey Shooting in January, Bigger Part For Him
• Cameron Diaz In Talks For Green Hornet; Gary ‘Seabiscuit’ Ross Rewrites Spider-Man 4
• Spider-Man 4 To Feature New York City Centric Villain
• Sam Raimi Teases Morbius as Villain For Spider-Man 4
• Sam Raimi Has Something to Prove with Spider-Man 4, Hopes to Begin Shooting in February
• Spider-Man 4 In 3D?

Lionsgate has officially released the first teaser trailer for Matthew Vaughn’s big screen adaptation of Mark Millar’s comic book Kick-Ass. For those of you who haven’t been following this project, the film was produced independently and the first footage won over the thousands of people packed into Hall H at Comic-Con. The story is essentially about an average teenager named Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), a comic-book fanboy who decides to take his obsession as inspiration to become a real-life superhero.

As any good superhero would, he chooses a new name — Kick-Ass — assembles a suit and mask to wear, and gets to work fighting crime. There’s only one problem standing in his way: Kick-Ass has absolutely no superpowers. His life is forever changed as he inspires a subculture of copy cats, is hunted by assorted violent and unpleasant characters, and meets up with a pair of crazed vigilantes, including an 11-year-old sword-wielding dynamo, Hit Girl (Chloë  Moretz) and her father, Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage).

The trailer is essentially a few of the bits shown at Comic-Con edited together. The opening sequence is brilliant, and works as well in short form as it does on the big screen. Some of the rest of the trailer doesn’t play as well. I think Lionsgate is going to need to release a red band trailer for audiences to see the full appeal of hit girl, and the flashy character intro screens seem a bit too Nickelodeon to me, especially considering the kind of movie this really is. Overall I think the trailer accomplishes a lot with the restraints of  the green band opening. I’m also glad they were able to keep some of the music from the temp cuts. Watch the full trailer after the jump, and leave your thoughts in the comments below.

• First Look: The Cast of Kick-Ass
• Comic-Con Video Blog: Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass
• New Photo: Chloe Moretz as Hit Girl in Kick-Ass
• First Official Kick-Ass Photos
• First Look: Nicolas Cage in Kick-Ass; Millar Talks Day 1 and 2
• Early Buzz: Is Kick-Ass The Best Superhero Movie Ever Made? Trailer Coming Soon

Warner Bros has released the first teaser trailer for Louis Leterrier’s remake of Clash of the Titans. With speed ramp, heavy guitar riffs, and fast paced edits, this definitely isn’t “your father’s Clash of the Titans”. And I’m not really a fan of the “Titans will Clash” slogan. I know a lot of you will probably be impressed by this trailer, calling it “bad ass”. But for me, much of the low-fi magic that made the original special appears to be missing from this version, instead replaced with loads of CG and Lord of the Rings-style flyby shots. It could just be the “lets appeal to the mainstream Mountain Dew drinkers” edit. Who knows what the actual film will look like… We’ll see. Watch the trailer for yourself after the jump. And leave your thoughts in the comments below. I look forward to a lot of you explaining why I’m wrong. Bring it on…

Watch the trailer in High Definition: 480p, 720p, 1080p

In “Clash of the Titans,” the ultimate struggle for power pits men against kings and kings against gods. But the war between the gods themselves could destroy the world. Born of a god but raised as a man, Perseus (Sam Worthington) is helpless to save his family from Hades (Ralph Fiennes), vengeful god of the underworld. With nothing left to lose, Perseus volunteers to lead a dangerous mission to defeat Hades before he can seize power from Zeus (Liam Neeson) and unleash hell on earth. Leading a daring band of warriors, Perseus sets off on a perilous journey deep into forbidden worlds. Battling unholy demons and fearsome beasts, he will only survive if he can accept his power as a god, defy his fate and create his own destiny.

“Clash of the Titans” is being directed by Louis Leterrier (“The Incredible Hulk”). Leading the international cast is Australian actor Sam Worthington (“Terminator Salvation,” the upcoming “Avatar”) as Perseus, the mortal son of Zeus, king of the gods. Academy Award® nominee Liam Neeson (“Taken,” “Schindler’s List”) takes on the role of the mighty Zeus, and Academy Award® nominee Ralph Fiennes (the “Harry Potter” films, “The English Patient”) plays the role of Hades, god of the underworld, who feeds on human fear. Rounding out the cast is Gemma Arterton (“Quantum of Solace”) as Io, Perseus’ mysterious spiritual guide throughout his journey; Mads Mikkelsen (“Casino Royale”) as Draco, who takes up his sword to join Perseus’ quest; Jason Flemyng (“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”) as Acrisius, a one-time king turned hideous beast; and Alexa Davalos (“Defiance”) as Andromeda, a princess doomed to lose her life if Perseus does not succeed.

“Clash of the Titans” is directed by Louis Leterrier from a screenplay by Travis Beacham (“Dog Days of Summer”) and Phil Hay & Matt Manfredi (“Aeon Flux”), and based on the motion picture “Clash of the Titans,” directed by Desmond Davis and written by Beverley Cross. The film is produced by Basil Iwanyk (“We Are Marshall”) and Kevin De La Noy (“The Dark Knight”). The executive producers are Academy Award® winner Richard D. Zanuck and Legendary Pictures’ Thomas Tull, Jon Jashni and William Fay.

• First Look: Clash of the Titans Set Photos
• Louis Leterrier’s Clash of the Titans Begins Production
• Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes Cast in Clash of the Titans
• Tarsem Singh’s War of Gods vs. Louis Leterrier’s Clash of the Titans
• Photos: New Shot of Tony Stark in Iron Man 2; First Look at Liam Neeson’s Zeus in Clash of the Titans
• The First Avenger: Captain America Described As “Raiders meets Rocketeer and Saving Private Ryan”

We love movies with ambiguous endings, but sometimes you just want to see a definite conclusion. The guys at CollegeHumor have decided to resolve some of the biggest movie and television endings in history, including: The Wrestler, Lost in Translation, No Country For Old Men, The Graduate and The Sopranos. Watch the video after the jump.

• VOTD: The Wrestler [Grindhouse Version]
• Movie Playlist: Quentin Tarantino’s Top 20 Movies To Be Released Since He Became A Filmmaker
• This Week in DVD: The Wrestler, Frost/Nixon, Notorious, Caprica
• Mickey Rourke Steps Into the Ring at WrestleMania 25
• VOTD: Bruce Springsteen’s Sequel To The Wrestler - “One Thinged Guy”
• The Making of Wrestle Jam

Since no one on the Internet is discoursing on the season three finale of Mad Men, the show’s creator, Matthew Weiner, has decided to do just that in a new interview. After the jump, we’ll dive into Weiner’s candid explanations for the massive changes that went down last Sunday and how they may or may not bleed into season four. We also intertwine our thoughts on the finale and our opinion of the entire season.

Before we get into that, the trades report that Weiner’s directorial movie debut, You Are Here, has been delayed until 2011. The primary cast for the romantic comedy, which includes Jennifer Aniston, Zach Galifiankis, and Bradley Cooper, is said to still be aboard the project. Though no further details are given on a time frame, Mad Men’s fourth season is cited as the reason for the production’s delay. Weiner also has a very-active film deal set up at Lionsgate.

But what of Sunday? Make no mistake, Mad Men is a great series, but we did find the finale, while exciting and epic, to underscore a problem observed throughout this season: Weiner’s ambitious decision to explore Don Draper’s adulterous domestic life and his need to load up on peripheral characters outside of Sterling Cooper has dulled our connection to the actual Mad Men. It’s not that they’re exceedingly selfish bastards—we’re cool with that—but some of them now border on office dressing. Blasphemy you say? “Shut the Door, Have a Seat,” and let us know your opinions in the comments. Spoilers below and my comparison of Mad Men to The Office…

The Drapers and Henry Francis: In the only post-finale chat he’s conducted thus far, Matthew Weiner shared with Jace Lacob at The Daily Beast that the marriage between Don Draper aka Dick Whitman and Betty Draper aka Betts aka “Whore” is toast in his eyes. Sure, this may seem like a given following Betty’s “I’m off to Reno” divorce scene in Sunday’s ep, but as critic Alan Sepinwall pointed out before Weiner’s interview: the planned divorce does not cancel out a reconciliation down the road or sooner. Moreover, Weiner’s affinity for the actress who plays Betty, January Jones, is often reiterated in the press. One has to wonder the extent to which Jones’s involvement will be reduced next season per the creative decision; also, may so much focus and emphasis on Jones’s character this season (resulting in countless mag covers) partially be due to the fading exposure of Betty in future seasons? Just an idea. Well, regarding the marriage itself, Weiner doesn’t hesitate to clarify…

It’s so unambiguous to me that this marriage is over, but the audience seems to cling to the idea that they should be together because we want to believe in those things. The marriage was not good. It was built on a lie and the lie was exposed. …I do believe when he says his mother was a 22-year-old prostitute that Betty is looking at something that is very far from what she had planned for herself…

One character that has really boggled viewers, especially in the penultimate JFK-and-Oswald-got-popped episode, “The Grown-Ups,” is Henry Francis, Betty’s politically connected, silver-fox pursuer. What’s drawn the most questions about this accelerated, secretive relationship is at what point, if ever, the two characters became certain enough and intimate enough to get married. Until now, their relations are implied to have grown fonder through letters. And, even stranger, when did Betty become so assured by this guy’s loyalty as to consider his foreboding advice not to ask for any alimony from Don? What?!

In the interview, Weiner doesn’t discuss Francis’s motives or feelings—there is a simmering sense of desperation to him, no?—but he does add that, “it’s almost more flattering to have a man be that attached to you who doesn’t know you. I think [Betty's] very susceptible to that.” The key word to me: susceptible. With her biological clock ticking and model looks sliding, not to mention three kids (well, one kid, the other two she probably considers “things”), Betty’s vulnerability is obvious. Without alimony from Don, it’s a tightrope strut to the perfect life she has always desired; and like the American Dream, it may or may not exist. When Don tells her that, “I hope you get what you’ve always wanted,” it’s a genuine sentiment but still double-edged with real world truths.

New Era, New “Company”: As the finale’s title hinted, the ep was a game-changing event consisting of three simultaneous and sharp separations: the looming divorce of Betty and Don; the overly submissive Lane Pryce from his ridiculous, flabbergasted British higher-ups; and the forever awesome move of Roger Sterling, Bertram Cooper, Draper, Peggy Olson, Pete Campbell, and Harry Crane from Sterling Cooper over to–tada!—Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Oh, and of course Sterling placed a “discreet” phone call to Joan Holloway, who arrived shortly thereafter on the scene in a pair of pants. Without so much as a prolonged blink, Joan dished instructions out like a hyperbolic ’60s comic book version of herself. (More on the surreal tone of this later.)

In case any ’80s babies forgot, divorces tend to leave bright-eyed casualties strewn alongside the warpath. Betty and Don’s divorce came as a tearful shock to the ever-brooding, lispy and mature, Sally Draper, and the ever-clueless Bobby Draper (”…cufflinks,” really dude?). And in in a finer example of the occasionally heavy-handed and impersonal symmetry that Weiner is obsessed with, the formation of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce left employees like the do-gooder Ken Cosgrove and huffy Paul Kinsey in the dust of a traditional office. Will those characters be included next season? The same can be asked of the completely fired, M.I.A. and A.W.O.L. Salvatore Romano. Weiner confesses…

I am going to say something that I don’t always say: I don’t know.

Should They Stay or Should They Go: But the more pertinent observation from a viewers’ standpoint is: I don’t know if I care. With the exception of Romano, whose arc is culturally relevant to times past and current, season three failed to develop Kinsey (he’s an entitled, scruffy beatnik, okay…and?), and Ken Cosgrove arguably suffered the most. He was basically an office shadow that beamed with signature hair gel and a perma-grin all season.

Even with Cosgrove’s promotion over Pete Campbell, as unveiled by a friendly but smug Pryce, not to mention his infamy as the guy who introduced New York City (and a foot) to John Deere, three seasons later, who the hell is Cosgrove? Is he still beaming from having a piece published in The Atlantic Monthly? Does he still write? No idea. You? The tinge of betrayal and sympathy and shock that should have spined out in the “Sterling Cooper’s been robbed!” scene, merely imploded with: “Well, these characters are surprisingly kind of disposable.” At this point, we know what makes Sally Draper tick arguably as much as these guys. Would more fans miss the hypothetical absence of Sally next season than both Kinsey and Cosgrove? And if so, is that a sign of so many peripheral characters weighing down on the premise and setting that hooked everyone in the first place?

Office Life: In a way, it makes sense that Weiner, after venturing so far away from the day-to-day of Sterling Cooper, would literally rein its key players into a smaller, far more personal working environment at season’s end. The immediacy of this decision leaves season four opens to the fresh possibilities and character insights that occurred when Michael Scott started The Michael Scott Paper Company on The Office. Recall that Michael also recruited his best, semi-disgruntled employees: exchange Pam for Peggy and Ryan for Pete (even down to Pete likely ending up on his ass if he chose to leave the company). I get that sense that Weiner may have been keeping his distance in terms of growing these relationships because, like so many real offices, the environment and emphasis on real goals had grown stagnant.

But continuing with this comparison, even though Kevin and Creed play less active and scripted roles in The Office, many fans would go apeshit if they permanently left the show (given, more seasons have passed, but still). Furthermore: Would it not have been interesting if Weiner had laid off the lays and given Hollis the Black Elevator Operator (goodbye!) a minor yet interesting subplot not unlike Darryl the Black Warehouse Foreman on The Office?

At Your Service: Viewers who feigned serious concern over the topic of Joan Holloway’s non-return to the show late in the season were becoming annoying. In almost flamboyant fashion, Weiner reintroduced Holloway in the finale to the life and career she knows better than anyone. And as the realities of Roger Sterling’s Summer-Winter marriage to Jane become apparent—she drunkenly blacks out more than girls at Duke University—Joan has once again become an affair-prospect for Roger. It’s notable that the last time we saw Jane—in the previous episode—she was passed out with one hand on Roger’s leg as he made a friendly phone call to Joan. With season four, perhaps more? Weiner admits…

I am not big on giving the audience what they want but I am big on giving Roger and Joan what they want, if they can get close to it.

As Bertram Cooper informs Roger—who uber-briefly entertained a life of golf and retirement in the finale—he’s not getting any younger. Work is what keeps Bert going, and he tells Roger it’s the same for him: New York competition and “the hunger.” But this seems more true for Bert—who appeared more eccentric and scatter-shot this season than in the past—and Don, who thrives on independence and a steely confidence maintained by “moving forward.” What really keeps Roger going, in my opinion, is companionship and love affairs that are less serious but deeper than Draper’s flings. (Including Don’s latest with the hippy-dippy teacher, a character sure to return next season.) Perhaps, after decades of sampling behind previous wife’s back and in face of an evident maturity-fissure with Jane, Sterling has set his bulls-eye on that ginger broad for good. (We all forecast Weiner issuing Joan’s incompetent, rapist husband, Greg, off to to die in VietNam, right?)

Duck, Duck, Gross: There was no shortage of predictions that pegged Herman “Duck” Phillips swinging in and playing a role in a bid on Sterling Cooper in the finale. After all, Duck’s rather gross “nooners” with Peggy in various hotel rooms have left an icky, business-is-war anticipation. When Duck attempted to recruit the top employee(s) and protege(s) of Don, his much stronger adversary, by playing to her weaknesses, it recalled a lesson from How to Win Friends and Influence People; when Duck proceeded to bang said protege multiple times as an expression of dominance over said adversary, it recalled a questionable lesson from The 48 Laws of Power.

In a season that saw Don Draper rediscover his identity by being forced to (and subconsciously allowing himself to) shed the Draper facade, the finale brought into focus the meaningful symmetry of Betty Draper and Peggy Olson. With the exception of Sally Draper, these are the two most important and vital females in Draper’s life (for now), and he has left both of them in states of uncertainty and loneliness for the entire season, even as he continued to dish out harsh reprimands and reality-checks.

His failure in this regard led to the manifestations in secrecy of Betty’s relationship with Henry Francis and Peggy’s with—and far more quizzically—Duck. Both of these women sought the comfort, compliments, and father-like guidance of an older man with power equal to Don’s (though Duck’s may be illusory; he operates out of hotel rooms) and attention and affection that far surpassed his. Matthew Weiner explains…

Don does identify with Peggy; she’s more like Don than anybody else, whether she realizes it or not… Don is hard on her the way he’s hard on himself… That speech to me is about him—about losing his marriage and the way he saw himself—it’s about her and her past…

I’ve read PG-13 fan discussions pertaining to whether Don and Peggy would ever bang. As Weiner states, it’s more of a brother-sister relationship, though one couldn’t help notice the similarities between Don promising to “spend the rest of my life trying to hire you,” and Henry Francis forever offering Betty everything she ever wanted in life. When Don tells Peggy, after visiting her at her semi-new apartment, that he doesn’t know if he can make it without her, the similarity to Henry’s line about eternity is obvious. If Draper really cared about saving his marriage, this is the type of selfless confession he’d have to make to Betty. Whether she would accept it (probably not) is beside the point.

What’s unfortunate about the finale is that the urgency of Peggy coming aboard Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce didn’t sing the way it should have; Peggy’s teary eyes as she sat across from Don left me wondering if, like with Henry and Betty, more had occurred between Don and Peggy on a platonic level than the season illustrated. Peggy simply hasn’t been present enough this season to make her anger and sadness palpable; when she asked for more credit and respect from Don earlier this season, his refusal mirrored, in an agreeable fashion, that of Conrad Hilton’s bluntness to Don in the finale: earn it, tooth and nail.

It’s also odd not so much that Duck failed to appear in the episode but that Peggy did not consult with him per his earlier offer in face of Don’s makeshift extension of camaraderie. Drawing these two adversaries closer is the fact that Duck has likely sat on the same couch that Don was sitting on as he reiterated his offer. (Viewers may or may not recall that Peggy’s roommate recently remarked that Duck had been sleeping over.) What ultimately sucks some power out of the episode is that fans know, not unlike Joan’s detour, that Olson is too vital a character (and Moss too vital an actress) to not rejoin with Don (as it happens, this occurs in the finale, but rejoining him in season four would be no more the surprise).

In season four, how will Weiner and his creative team up the ante beyond the critically dissected production design and fashion?

[Getting rid of Sterling Cooper] was very scary but I knew in my heart it was what I had to do. I have to believe that if Don is as good as he says he is, there’s no way he’s going to go through the ’60s working at a firm like Sterling Cooper. It’s got to be something different… Life is change.

The above still—and the coinciding scene—offers a surreality that is almost dizzying. With no walls and no barriers, and no closed doors, there is almost a randoms-off-the-street-pose-for-painting air to it. Screw cleaning the carpets, Weiner aspires to place all of his characters into a box, shake them up, and place them back into a masterplan where “Life is change.” And one can be sure, based on all three seasons, that this motto carries darker lows to level out the exhilarating highs (which the show, frankly, needs more of).

But unlike The Sopranos, where Weiner sharpened his teeth, or AMC’s Breaking Bad (which, in my mind, had a better season, but with a dreadful finale), I can’t shake the feeling that I don’t really know this ensemble of characters. Not in the existential way, either. Too often this season of Mad Men was akin to knowing and understanding well-calculated, animated, and intelligent chess pieces. Mad Men is still one of my favorite shows and deserves all of the ratings and awards it can get, but this is the season where I paid more attention to Weiner’s strings, manipulations, and alignments of traits and events, than to any genuine character investment as a fan. And not by choice.

Now that that Ice Bitch, Betty Draper, is out of the way, I look forward to watching a newly sideburned Don Draper sit on a carpet inside his sure-to-be-cool bachelor pad and play Beatles records to his attentive kids.  But hopefully, only on weekends. Don Draper declared in the finale that he wants to work; now that his family life has fragmented, I hope that season four sees his renewed professional life placed front and center.

Best Actor of Season Three: John Slattery

Best Jokes of Season Three: John Slattery (duh)

Best Actress of Season Three: Christina Hendricks

Best Episode of Season Three: “The Gypsy and the Hobo”

Best Scene of Season Three: Lawnmower accident, “Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency”

Special Season Three Raise Recommendation: Carla (Deborah Lacey)

Season Three Finale /Film Rating: 8/10

Season Three /Film Rating: 8.5/10

For /Film’s previous recap of Mad Men’s third season, click here. Hat tip to @mfiege for a quick answer per this article.

Hunter Stephenson can be reached at h.attila/gmail and on Twitter.

• Mad Men Collects Emmys and Delivers the Season’s Most Shocking and Horrific Episode
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• /Filmcast Ep. 75 - The Box (GUEST: Matt Singer from IFC News)
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I know it’s one of the more pointless award shows of the year, but since it kinda, sorta but not really signals the beginning of award season nominations, I thought I’d post a rundown of the nominees announced for the 2009 People’s Choice Awards. As you can guess from the title, the fans vote for this award show, this year casting more than 18 million votes. Check out the full listing of nominees after the jump.

TV drama:

• CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
• Grey’s Anatomy
• House
• Lost
• NCIS

TV comedy:

• Desperate Housewives
• How I Met Your Mother
• The Big Bang Theory
• The Office
• Two and a Half Men

TV dramatic actor:

• Hugh Laurie
• Kiefer Sutherland
• Mark Harmon
• Matthew Fox
• Patrick Dempsey

TV dramatic actress:

• Anna Paquin
• Blake Lively
• Jennifer Love Hewitt
• Katherine Heigl
• Mariska Hargitay

TV comedic actor:

• Alex Baldwin
• Charlie Sheen
• Jim Parsons
• Neil Patrick Harris
• Steve Carell

TV comedic actress:

• Alyson Hannigan
• America Ferrera
• Amy Poehler
• Eva Longoria Parker
• Tina Fey

TV obsession:

• Dexter
• Gossip Girl
• The Hills
• The Secret Life of the American Teenager
• True Blood

TV talk show:

• Chelsea Lately
• Live with Regis & Kelly
• The Ellen DeGeneres Show
• The Oprah Winfrey Show
• The Tyra Banks Show

TV sci-fi/fantasy:

• Heroes
• Lost
• Supernatural
• The Vampire Diaries
• True Blood

TV competition show:

• American Idol
• Dancing With the Stars
• Project Runway
• So You Think You Can Dance
• Survivor: Samoa

Animal show:

• Animal Cops
• DogTown
• Dog Whisperer
• It’s Me or the Dog
• Rescue Ink

New TV drama:

• Eastwick
• FlashForward
• Melrose Place
• Mercy
• The Forgotten
• The Good Wife
• The Vampire Diaries
• Three Rivers
• NCIS: Los Angeles
• V

New TV comedy:

• Accidentally on Purpose
• Brothers
• Community
• Cougar Town
• Glee
• Hank
• The Cleveland Show
• The Middle
• Modern Family

Movie actor:

• Brad Pitt
• Hugh Jackman
• Johnny Depp
• Robert Pattinson
• Ryan Reynolds

Movie actress:

• Anna Hathaway
• Drew Barrymore
• Jennifer Aniston
• Kristen Stewart
• Sandra Bullock

Action star:

• Christian Bale
• Gerard Butler
• Hugh Jackman
• Shia LaBeouf
• Vin Diesel

Comedic star:

• Adam Sandler
• Ben Stiller
• Jim Carrey
• Ryan Reynolds
• Vince Vaughn

Breakout movie actress:

• Anna Kendrick
• Emily Osment
• Ginnifer Goodwin
• Miley Cyrus
• Zoe Saldana

Breakout movie actor:

• Chris Pine
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt
• Sam Worthington
• Taylor Lautner
• Zachary Quinto

On-screen team:

• Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”;
• Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds, “The Proposal”;
• Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner, “The Twilight Saga”;
• Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox, “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”;
• Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Ryan Reynolds, will.i.am, Dominic Monaghan and Daniel Henney, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”

Family movie:

• Hannah Montana: The Movie
• Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
• Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
• Up
• Where the Wild Things Are

Independent movie:

• (500) Days of Summer
• District 9
• Inglourious Basterds
• Paranormal Activity
• Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail

Franchise:

• Harry Potter
• Star Trek
• The Twilight Saga
• Transformers
• X-Men

Comedy movie:

• 17 Again
• Bride Wars
• He’s Just Not That Into You
• The Hangover
• The Proposal

Favorite movie:

• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
• Star Trek
• The Hangover
• The Proposal
• Twilight

Male artist:

• Eminem
• Jason Mraz
• John Mayer
• Keith Urban
• Tim McGraw

Female artist:

• Beyonce
• Britney Spears
• Carrie Underwood
• Pink
• Taylor Swift

Country artist:

• Brad Paisley
• Carrie Underwood
• Keith Urban
• Rascal Flatts
• Taylor Swift

Breakout Music Artist:

• Adam Lambert
• Demi Lovato
• Kris Allen
• Lady Gaga
• Susan Boyle

Hip-hop artist:

• Eminem
• Flo Rida
• Jay-Z
• Lil’ Wayne
• T.I.

Rock band:

• Daughtry
• Green Day
• Kings of Leon
• Muse
• Paramore

Music collaboration:

• Cobra Starship & Leighton Meester, “Good Girls Go Bad”;
• Jason Mraz & Colbie Caillat, “Lucky”;
• Jay-Z, Rihanna & Kanye West, “Run This Town”;
• T.I. & Rihanna, “Live Your Life”;
• The Lonely Island & T-Pain, “I’m on a Boat”

R&B artist:

• Alicia Keys
• Beyonce
• Jennifer Hudson
• Mariah Carey
• Usher

Pop artist:

• Britney Spears
• Katy Perry
• Lady Gaga
• Taylor Swift
• the Black Eyed Peas

Web celeb:

• Andy Samberg
• Ashton Kutcher
• Miley Cyrus
• P. Diddy
• Will Ferrell

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UP
(Available as single-disc DVD, 2-Disc Deluxe Edition DVD, and 4-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo)
Pixar is not a boon to cinematic originality. Their formulas are just as heavily recycled as any simple-minded rom-com, or any trashy horror flick. Pixar’s success lies not in the bare story arcs of their films, but in the way they tell the story. This is what differs them from so many of Dreamworks’ past efforts: they respect the art of storytelling. Up exemplifies this notion perfectly. The film displays a comfortable familiarity in its conflicts and character arcs, from the bitter protagonist seeking redemption to the boy in desperate need of a father figure to the idol-turned-villain ‘twist’ (if you can call it that), and so on and so forth. While in a lesser film, plot beats like these might act as a detriment, Pixar’s usage of formulas is actually one of its greatest assets. Rather than break free from the mold established by countless classic tales before it, they embrace those elements. Doing so not only provides their films with a rewarding accessibility that the whole family can enjoy, but by taking those ubiquitous movie tropes and making their inclusion feel organic to the story, the process also allows them to illustrate just why exactly those formulas work so well. It feels new to us because Pixar makes it feel new, as every familiar plot point is treated with only the utmost heartfelt sincerity and intelligence. Instead of Carl Fredricksen’s loss toward the beginning of the film acting as merely a way to facilitate the adventure that later ensues, Pixar takes the time to show us why we should care. And holy hell does Pixar know how to make you care. If you’re not choking back tears in the first 15 minutes, you’re probably not watching the right movie. When the film isn’t busy leaving you an emotionally devastated wreck, it captivates your senses with the pure winsome wonder of its visuals, and then thrills you with some of the most exhilarating action sequences to grace the screen since Raiders of the Lost Ark. Not to mention, you’ll likely spend most of the experience grinningly stupidly due to the non-stop hilarity of the film’s wonderful band of characters (Dug the dog is an obvious highlight, but it’s Kevin the bird who truly won my heart). There’s a rhythm and pace to the film that’s simply flawless, resulting in the rare film that will have you glued to the screen for every second of its runtime. It may be formulaic, sure, but you’ll be too busy loving the film to care.
Blu-ray? Yes.
Notable Extras: 2-Disc DVD – Commentary by director Pete Docter and co-director Bob Peterson, “Dug’s Special Mission” short film, “The Many Endings of Muntz” featurette, “Partly Cloudy” short film, “Adventure is Out There” documentary, and a digital copy. Blu-ray – Includes everything on the DVD, as well as Cine-Explore, Geriatric Hero, Canine Companions, Russell: Wilderness Explorer, Our Giant Flightless Friend Kevin, Homemakers of Pixar, Balloons and Flight, Composing for Characters, Married Life, and the single-disc DVD.

*Does not include 2-Disc Edition, which costs $19.99 at Fry’s and Amazon, and $22.99 at each of the other listed stores.

EXCLUSIVE DEAL:
What? Free 150-page journal when you buy either the 2-Disc Deluxe or Blu-ray editions of Up.
Where? Target.

EXCLUSIVE DEAL:
What? Save $10 when you purchase both Up and Monster’s, Inc. ($23.77) on Blu-ray.
Where? Fry’s.

WATCHMEN: THE ULTIMATE CUT
The effort is appreciated, Zack. I imagine there are plenty of diehard Watchmen fans out there who are eager to pick up this “definitive” cut, and specifically held off on the Director’s Cut for that very reason. As a direct translation of the graphic novel, this is as close as you’re going to get. All of Tales of the Black Freighter scenes have been restored, and that includes the transitional material involving Bernard and Bernie. On the one hand, these scenes play a vital role in the effectiveness of that final shot between the two characters, which in alternate versions didn’t leave much of an impact (if any). On the other hand, these scenes also demonstrate Alan Moore’s point about utilizing the freedom of the graphic novel medium to do things no other form of media could accomplish, including film. With the restrictive confines of a set running time, Watchmen: The Ultimate Cut suffers vastly in comparison to the graphic novel in that it doesn’t let you move at your own pace. Instead of the Tales of the Black Freighter acting as an interesting complementary piece to the central storyline, it merely interrupts the flow of the story, and forces you to wait through a series of out-of-place animated sequences until you can get back to the actual film. For this reason, my personal “definitive” version of the film will always remain the Director’s Cut, but The Ultimate Cut still remains worth watching as a nice albeit slightly gimmicky bit of fan service.
Blu-ray? Yes.
Notable Extras: DVD & Blu-ray – 2 all-new audio commentaries with director Zack Snyder and illustrator Dave Gibbons, over 3 hours of special features (”The Phenomenon: The Comic that Changed Comics”, “Real Super Heroes, Real Vigilantes”, “Mechanics: Technologies of a Fantastic World”, “Watchmen: Video Journals”, “My Chemical Romance Desolation Row”, “Under The Hood”, “Story Within A Story: The Books of Watchmen”), a digital copy of the theatrical version, and Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comics.

INK
I am continually amazed at what budding filmmakers can achieve without the aid of studio financing. When I see a trailer for a movie like Ink, my immediate assumption is that the movie is all flashy FX and style, with little in the way of substance. It’s very rare that enough indie talent will come together to deliver in all of the respects that you’d hope for in a film, so the most I usually hope for in a truly independent effort is a strong script. A strong story costs nothing. Finding a way to get that story filmed and edited costs a lot. So if I see a $250,000 movie that has a strong focus on visuals, the first thought that pops into my head is that the film was made by somebody who’s concerned primarily with the technical side of filmmaking and has spent their time mastering how to work on the cheap, and as such, is probably less experienced when it comes to screenwriting and, simply put, telling a good story. …And then I saw Ink, a movie which confidently told me to blow all of my assumptions out my ass. While this isn’t a movie that’s likely to impress the casual viewer who isn’t familiar with (or doesn’t care about) the hardships of making a film without studio backing, those with an appreciation for indie cinema are guaranteed to be wowed. With a fantasy world that calls to mind what you might expect if Terry Gilliam re-envisioned The Matrix, the story is as engaging as the visual design is inventive. Though intricate and occasionally puzzling, the creative dreamscape that’s been created stays grounded thanks to the father/daughter relationship that anchors the story. Impatient viewers may grow irritated by the lack of explanation early on, but I appreciated writer/director Jamin Winans’ eagerness to convey the story through showing instead of telling (even if there is some needless plot exposition later on). The film also has a few solid moments of action, and an impressive score that calls to mind elements of the Sunshine soundtrack. While there are also some minor problems that plague the film, such as moments of iffy acting and frenetic editing, as well as an obvious attempt to hide the film’s low budget through excessively luminous video filters, these are all forgivable given how little the filmmakers had to work with. If this is what the Winans siblings can do with $250,000, I’d love to see what they can accomplish with, you know, an actual budget.
Blu-ray? Yes, on November 24.
Notable Extras: Director commentary, 10-minute behind-the-scenes featurette, Coffee with Chris and Quinn, and a deleted scene.

THE MERRY GENTLEMAN
Appropriately moody and sometimes even meditative, The Merry Gentleman marks Michael Keaton’s directorial debut, and it’s an impressive enough effort to get me interested in seeing what else the actor can do behind the camera. The film is a minor work, to be sure, but that’s not a bad thing. As yet another movie about a hit man suffering from some severe problems (others that come to mind are In Bruges, The Matador, and You Kill Me), The Merry Gentleman wisely steers away from the intricacies of Keaton’s character’s job, and puts the focus more on being a character study of the three leads, the standout being Kelly Macdonald. Bruised and alone, Macdonald manages to maintain an underlying sense of unbearable sadness even when she’s smiling, and looks on the verge of tears in every scene. She remains the film’s emotional base, while Keaton—as a director—brings a quiet desperation to the film that suits the slow-burn quality of its narrative. Worth a watch.
Blu-ray? No.
Notable Extras: None.

THE UGLY TRUTH
A by-the-numbers romantic comedy that builds its romance through exploring the “ugly truth” about men, women and relationships… Talk about a self-defeating premise. Gerard Butler and Katherine Heigl certainly give it their all, and both come out of the film unscathed, but the film seems to confuse reality with crudeness, and in doing so takes what could’ve been a refreshing twist on rom-com conventions and turns it into nothing more than an R-rated version of the same stupid, stereotypical, unfunny bullshit that gets released a dozen times every year.
Blu-ray? Yes.
Notable Extras: DVD & Blu-ray – Select scenes filmmaker commentary, deleted and extended scenes, alternate endings, 2 featurettes (”The Truth Is Ugly: Capturing the Male & Female Point of View”, “The Art of Laughter: A Making of Hilarious Proportions”), and a gag reel.

EXCLUSIVE DEAL:
What? Free $5 Gift Card with purchase of DVD or Blu-ray.
Where? Fry’s.

Other noteworthy DVD (and Blu-ray) releases this week…
Ballast [DVD / Blu-ray] – Xavier: Renegade Angel (Seasons 1 & 2) – The Accidental Husband – Spread [DVD / Blu-ray] – Justice League (The Complete Series)

Other noteworthy Blu-ray-specific releases this week…
Monsters, Inc. (4-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo) – Heat – Godzilla

NOTE: Some deals may be in-store only.

Exclusive Retail: My One and Only ($14.99), starring Renee Zellweger. Includes behind-the-scenes footage and six “making of” featurettes.

$14.99 – DVD or Blu-ray: Weeds (Season 4)
$19.99 – Californication (Season 2), DVD or Blu-ray: Mad Men (Season 2)
$24.99 – Sons of Anarchy (Season 1)

$15.99 – The Simpsons (Season 1 – 9)

• Up DVD/Blu-Ray Release Party To Be Held At Ice Cream Store Featured In The Movie
• Cool Stuff: Retro Up Posters
• Watch One Minute Of Pixar’s New Short Film Dug’s Special Mission
• Cool Stuff: Watchmen: The Ultimate Cut
• Cool Stuff: Pixar’s Up Luxo Jr. Limited Edition Collector’s Set
• VOTD: Snoop Dogg Faced With Watchmen Question on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire

I have a hard time calling this sort of thing a television spot, even though that’s technically what it is. But when you go over a minute and and half in length, I call it a trailer. Maybe we should term this new kind of commercial a “TV Trailer”. Anyway, this new TV Trailer for Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air premiered during the season finale of Mad Men, a show I desperately need to catch up on. Entitled “Everyone Needs A Co-Pilot”, this ad focuses more on Ryan Bingham’s relationships.

If you’re already sold on seeing this film, I would recommend staying away from this, or any other trailers for the film. I feel they are getting progressively worse in terms of showing you story points which occur in the second half of the film. Having the main character speak the lesson that you hope he might learn during the two hour cinematic journey is a bit too revealing for me, regardless of the fact that he could just be saying it to someone else, regardless of the fact that you don’t know how this film ends (and trust me, you don’t).

For those of you, like me, who didn’t see Mad Men this week…. or those of you with DVRs or itunes/torrent downloads, both of which bypass commercials, you can watch the new tv trailer embedded after the jump.

From Jason Reitman, the Oscar® nominated director of “Juno,” comes a comedy called “Up in the Air” starring Oscar® winner George Clooney as Ryan Bingham, a corporate downsizing expert whose cherished life on the road is threatened just as he is on the cusp of reaching ten million frequent flyer miles and just after he’s met the frequent-traveler woman of his dreams.

Watch the trailer in High Definition on Apple.

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• Exclusive: US Poster and First Official Photo from Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air
• Vera Farmiga Joins Jason Reitman’s Up In The Air
• Anna Kendrick Cast in Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air

Clint Eastwood works fast. He had two films out last year, Changeling and Gran Torino. He’s got Invictus opening next month, but is already shooting his next picture, called Hereafter. That one, written by Peter Morgan, is one we haven’t reported on too much yet, but features Matt Damon in a story of “of three people who are touched by death in different ways.” We’d heard but hadn’t reported that Cecile de France, the violent lead from High Tension, would be part of the film as well. Now that’s confirmed by the trades, so I’m using the report as an excuse to bring us all up to date on the film.

Variety has the casting report. The Playlist had actually pegged that last month, along with the casting of Thierry Neuvic (Tell No One) and Mylène Jampanoï for the French part of the production. The story has three components, two of which are bridged by Damon’s character. David wrote a piece about the film back in September where he hedged around some of the plot revelations. I’m going to lay those out in the next paragraph, as they’re being more widely batted around now, so skip the rest of this article if you want to avoid spoilers.

de France will be Marie, a French journalist who is nearly killed in the 2004 tsunami. At the same time, 12-year old Marcus loses his twin brother in London. Those parallel instances of near-death lead each character to Damon’s psychic, a factory worker named George, who can talk to, and perhaps see the dead. He’s not much interested in using his abilities, and the script becomes a story about those three primary characters interacting and trying to figure out what happens after death. Not really a thriller, and only supernatural in a fairly superficial sense of the word. Easy to look at this one as Eastwood’s acknowledgement that he’s coming close to the end of his own run (the guy is 79!) and that’s fine, as long as he doesn’t go too maudlin with it.

• Clint Eastwood and Matt Damon Re-Team for Hereafter
• Clint Eastwood’s Invictus Movie Trailer
• First Look: Clint Eastwood’s The Human Factor with Matt Damon
• Clint Eastwood to Direct and Star in Gran Torino
• Must Watch: Green Zone Domestic and International Movie Trailers
• Hell Yes: Damon and Brolin Join the Coen Bros. True Grit

Just Sunday night Peter reported a couple of great cast additions to Black Swan, the next film from Darren Aronofsky. In the same article he noted that Fox Searchlight was reportedly close to picking up the project. Now the deal is done and the studio is indeed on board.

Reuters updates a THR report that parroted Peter’s info without crediting him. The distribution deal isn’t any big surprise, as Fox Searchlight has been the most likely distro for the film since it was announced as having come back to life a few months ago. (It was put into turnaround by Universal a couple years back.) They released The Wrestler, and I would have been quite surprised to hear that Searchlight had passed on this. It was just a matter of time. Still, knowing that the film is sorted for distribution is a good thing. Now if Aronofsky could just get to shootin’. We’ve heard from the beginning that the film would shoot this fall in NYC, and Reuters is saying it will go ‘before the end of the year’.

(Don’t take the delay as a bad sign. Black Swan was previously financed by Overnight Films, the same company that financed Machete. But there’s been a little bit of turmoil within that company, and while Overnight’s Rick Schwartz is still working on Aronofsky’s film, the project will now be co-financed by Fox Searchlight and Cross Creek Pictures. Hopefully with that locked down, the film can set a schedule.)

To recap: Black Swan stars Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Winona Ryder, Vincent Cassel and Barbara Hershey. Portman is Nina, a veteran ballerina who finds herself locked in to a competitive showdown with a rival dancer named Lilly (Kunis) “with the stakes and twists increasing as the dancers approach a big performance.” Mark Heyman, co-producer of The Wrestler, has done a rewrite of the original script by John McLaughlin.

• Exclusive: Vincent Cassel, Winona Ryder, and Barbara Hershey Join Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan
• Script for Aronofsky’s Black Swan is “Very Intriguing…With a Quiet Slow Burn”
• Mila Kunis Joins Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan
• MGM Looking For A New Robocop Director? Searchlight Wants Aronofsky’s Black Swan
• /Filmcast Ep. 56 - Year One (GUEST: Matt Singer from IFC News)
• Natalie Portman Cast in Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan

Now that the Smith / Spielberg version of Oldboy has reportedly died a well-deserved death (it’s like there’s a real version of The Box out there and some lucky Park Chan-Wook fan pushed the button — do something good with your million bucks, buddy, you earned it!) Will Smith will have to look for other ways to bridge the gap between mainstream success like I Am Legend and the critical praise one suspects he really desires. So, it’s come to this: Smith is reportedly looking to star in Flowers for Algernon.

The Playlist already took the obvious headline here (”Megastar Goes Full Retard”) so I’ll have to settle for relating the deal. Pajiba says that Smith is setting up an adaptation of the novel at Sony, where he’ll produce and star. Gabriele Muccino, director of Smith’s last two awards plays (Seven Pounds and The Pursuit of Happyness) may direct. If you’ll recall, the book started out as a short story in the late ’50s, and eventually spawned a film, Charly.

The story is a fairly serious bit of sci-fi on one hand, in which researchers have come up with a way to increase the intelligence of test subjects. On the other hand, it’s a fairly determined and unsubtle tearjerker. The mentally disabled Charlie becomes the first human test subject. (Don’t read the rest of this paragraph if you’re touchy about knowing what happens in a 40-year old novel you should already know the synopsis to.) Charlie’s intelligence increases massively, but then he realizes that the change will not be permanent. His life changes quite a lot thanks to his new intelligence — he loses his job and finally has experience with women, among other things — but eventually he’s right back where he started.

I just hope this new version retains both the sexual assault scene from the film Charly, and the couple of montages where the main character discovers freedom, sexuality and love. Those would be a good place to throw in a couple of songs to appeal to the cynical 20-somethings out there, so the movie can cover all the bases.

• Steven Spielberg and Will Smith’s Old Boy is No More
• /Filmcast Ep. 67 - Shane Acker’s 9 (GUEST: Christopher Stipp from Quick Stop Entertainment)
• Peter Berg Says Charlize Theron and Will Smith Are Confirmed For Hancock 2
• Bad Boys 3 In Development
• Earth vs. Moon Details Revealed
• The Karate Kid Remake Officially Retitled The Kung-Fu Kid, Begins Filming

What if The Matrix was made in 1905 as a silent comedy starring Charlie Chaplin? It would probably look something like this 7-minute Russian television skit, embedded after the jump.

via: io9

• Movie Playlist: Quentin Tarantino’s Top 20 Movies To Be Released Since He Became A Filmmaker
• Cool Stuff: Futuristic Movie Timeline
• Question: Is The Man vs. Terrifying Machines Movie Concept No Longer Scary?
• Cool Stuff: Olly Moss’s Shoot The Baddies T-Shirt
• GeekBomb: Telekinetic Powers On The Big (and small) Screen
• VOTD: The Matrix Runs on Windows

This has to be a first. Uber popular Twitter account shitmydadsays has already landed 29-year-old writer Justin Halpern a book deal, but today we’ve learned CBS also wants to make a sitcom out of the musings of Halpern’s kooky father. The show will be exec produced by former Will and Grace alums, and Halpern will write and co-exec the script along with Patrick Schumacker. And yes, the title will be changed for television.

Halpern started the feed after moving back in with his parents in San Diego, and he quickly learned that people think has father is hi-larious. Some recent gems include:

Son, no one gives a shit about all the things your cell phone does. You didn’t invent it, you just bought it. Anybody can do that.

Nobody is that important. They eat, shit, and screw, just like you. Maybe not shit like you, you got those stomach problems.

I like the dog. If he can’t eat it, or fuck it, he pisses on it. I can get behind that.

Since Halpern is also a senior-editor at Maxim.com, I would assume he actually has the capability to write a script. If this concept can actually be translated into a sitcom is an entirely different question. I assume it’s going to feature an old man that just spouts out crazy zingers every episode, but I’m not sure that can actually sustain a show.

That this Twitter account has risen in popularity so quickly is somewhat terrifying. Halpern has only posted once a day since August, accumulating a grand total of only 72 tweets. And if you want to see something truly crazy, just go to the twitter page, reload every few seconds, and watch the followers climb. Insanity.

[Source: Variety]

• No Related Post

Could it be? Have our prayer’s been answered? Latino Review is reporting that Steven Spielberg’s Old Boy starring Will Smith is dead in the water. Apparently Dreamworks and original Korean production studio Mandate were working together to get the rights to the manga, but the two couldn’t reach an agreement, and Dreamworks simply walked away. Spielberg’s film was to be an adaptation of the original manga by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi, and not a direct remake of Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy.

I honestly loathed this project a lot less when we learned that they were looking at the manga more than the film, but at the same time it would have been impossible not to compare Spielberg’s vision to Park’s. Had Spielberg tapped a more compelling actor for the role, I probably would have even been excited for this project. It’d be like Scorsese remaking Infernal Affairs as The Departed—it’s sometimes fascinating to see how Hollywood masters tackle the same material as foreign directors.

Since Mandate couldn’t agree on terms with two huge Hollywood names behind the project, I’m not sure if we’ll see anyone else attempting to do another American Oldboy project anytime soon. Then again, if it was just about Dreamworks wanting more of the pie than Mandate could tolerate, perhaps a smaller studio with less clout would actually be more agreeable for Mandate.

With Old Boy out, I wonder what Spielberg will be spending his time on next. His next listed project on IMDB is Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, but that has a depressingly distant release date of December 23, 2011. Perhaps Christmas will come early and we’ll see it even sooner?

Discuss: Were you looking forward to Spielberg’s Old Boy, or are you glad that it’s dead?

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It has been over a year since I boarded a plane to London to visit the Pinewood Studios set of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Disney’s big screen adaptation of the popular video game. It’s a one hour ride from our hotel near downtown London to Pinewood Studios. Prince of Persia has taken over the UK-based production studios, currently occupying eight out of ten of the sound-stages on the lot. Our shuttle driver drops us off on Goldfinger Ave, and we enter a building numbered Building Seven. Posters line the walls of every building in Pinewood, showing some of the many movies that have been filmed at the studio. In the lobby of Theater Seven, the posters include Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Hellboy 2, The Mutant Chronicles and Quantum of Solace. It is in this lobby that we meet with Michael Singer, the unit publicist for the production, who has been working for Jerry Bruckheimer for years.

It’s November 3rd 2008, and the production is now in its 75th day of first unit shooting, and they still have another month to go. The production began in Morocco, where they shot a lot of the exteriors for a battle the opens the beginning of the film. The Unit Publicist Michael explains that he would have loved to have us visit during that shoot but the temperature was 130 degrees, and it would have been miserable. Apparently they shot around an existing castle, adding on physical extensions when needed for certain stunt and fx shots. They will even further extend the property using visual effects. One of the things that quickly became obvious during this visit is that most of the computer generated effects are used to enhance backgrounds and extend physical elements, instead of replace objects of locations in the foreground. This seems to be a growing trend in Hollywood as they struggle to find the proper balance of CG effects.

We’re handed our visitor badges and escorted into a movie theater where they showed us a sizzle reel for the production. I had previously seen the sizzle reel at the Walt Disney Showcase in early October. It’s a three minute package of clips from the Morocco shoot, combined with interviews with the cast and crew, and a few animatics to show us what some of the action sequences will look like. The biggest thing I took away from this presentation is the large scale and epic nature of the production. This isn’t just another crappy video game adaptation, this is a Jerry Bruckheimer production. The second thing I noticed is that a group of baddies called the Hassassians are mentioned, which were not in the early draft of the screenplay that I had read on the plane ride over.

I had come across the June 2006 draft of the script a while back, but had never found the time to read. And as you  would assume, on a Saturday night airplane flight from San Francisco to London, all you have is time. The opening is an epic Lord of the Rings / Braveheart set in the ninth century. Dastan is the fourth royal son, but would rather people not treat him like a prince, and instead judge him on his own accomplishments, not last name.

Framed for the death of his Father, King Shahraman, Dastan makes his escape with Tamina, daughter of Sarkander, King of Alamut. The Princess is in possession of a ceremonial dagger which contains a glass handle half full with a glowing white sand encrusted with precious stones. It is described as something that looks not made by man. When you press a jewel on the handle, a trickle of white sand spills out and time rewinds. When the jewel is released, time goes back to normal speed. The dagger only has enough sand to rewind for about a minute, which I’m sure will come to play later in the story.

This device isn’t just used to correct action, but the use of the dager results into some interesting story points. For instance, Tamina reveals her true identity to Dastan in a segment of time which has now never happened. And now Dastan knows her true identity, but she believes otherwise. That’s as much as I’ll say as anything more of the plot might be giving away more than you’ll gather from the trailers that will lead up to the film’s eventual release.

We were then taken to the 007 Stage to watch the second unit set up a sequence. The first and only word that comes to mind is HUGE. We climb up a set of wooden stairs which look like they were built a few weeks earlier (probably because they were) and are magically transported to the city of Alamut. The 007 Stage houses the exterior of the Alamut castle, and a courtyard in between the first and second gates of the East entrance, which is referred to as “the kill zone”. The whole thing took 12 weeks to build.

The exterior of the castle is filled with palm trees which were flew in from Morocco. Right now they are shooting a sequence from the opening battle of the film, when the Persians invade Alamut. In the story, the Persians believe Alamut is providing weapons to their enemy. As I said before, they shot most of the Alamut exteriors in Morocco, but some of the sequences they held for the stage so that they could have better control with the rigging and lighting.

We’re on the third floor, which overlooks the small courtyard inside the castle walls, in between the first and second gates. We watch for almost a half hour as they set up the next shot, which involves Mark Fichera, Jake Gyllenhaal’s stunt / Parkour double, jump from the third floor castle wall to a second floor perch, in the process kicking two Alamutian archers who were firing arrows towards us. To our right is a small group of Dastan’s commandos, who throw ropes over the railer and repel to the ground. The plan is to shoot this 8 second sequence with three different cameras. One is on the ground, another on the opposite castle perch, and a third camera is attached to cables above us, being shot down the cables across the sky.

A production member lights the torches that line the castle walls with a blow torch. Another guy sprays down the top floor of the opposite tower so that it reflects slightly in the lights. Between the first and second production units, there are over 300 people currently working on the film. If you include the Morocco shoot, that number jumps to over 3,000.

A loud bell goes off. Someone yells for a sound check. Another crew member calls the slate, and “Action”. Everything goes as plan, and while the set and production is incredibly impressive, the extremely short sequence is underwhelming. Second unit photography can be really slow. It’s a lot of small takes of shots which will eventually make up one of the film’s many action sequences. Some days only have 4-5 set-ups, and its not unusual for them to shoot less than 4 minutes of dailies on a action centric day.

They prep the shot for over 30 minutes and do two takes, before we get ushered off to interview Gemma Arterton. We are brought up to a room in the production offices which is decked out with set decoration from the film. The walls are lined with beautiful production photos from the on-set photographer. And if the still shots are any indication, this film will at least look epic. We spent some time in this room over our two day set visit, and some crew members and co-stars dropped by unannounced to check out some of the new production photos. You could tell they are excited about this production.

Next we made our way over to the Kubrick Building, named and dedicated to Stanley Kubrick who had shot a bunch of films at Pinewood. As expected, posters of those films lined the hallways.

We made our way into the office of the costume designer Penny Rose. We could instantly tell that Penny is a no nonsense type of woman. As we enter he studio she is doing a middle eastern hat fitting, and apparently it looks too big. “Would would you like to know,” she asks, before starting at the beginning. Before the production they spend six weeks researching the clothing of the year 500. The result is a big board filled with clippings of many different drawings, paintings and photos showing “the flavor of the period.”

Adjacent is another board, slightly smaller, showing some of the head gear that might have been worn during the period. She explains that on a film production like this, head gear is extremely important, and not just from a visual standpoint. She points to the shoot in Morocco where temperatures varied from 100-130 degrees as a reason why the actors needed head wear.

She then goes out and buys ton and ton of different textiles that she thinks could be used in the production. She almost never buys anything specifically for a character, but instead Rose’s process is to gather a stock of material and to search to complete the puzzle from those pieces.

She shows us a patterned silk textile that she used for one of Tamina’s outfits. She didn’t have enough material to produce the multiple outfits needed for a lead character, so they reproduced the pattern using a computer scanner and laser machine. Six of more of the same outfit are created for most of the lead characters, just in case. The female characters usually have more delicate materials, which more often will rip, tear, and get dirty. So they will usually reproduce more copies of a Tamina costume than a costume for one of the male leads.

The production employed 80 people to produce the 7,000 + costumes used in the film, which Rose says is about double the amount of costumes they produced for the Pirates of the Caribbean films. Apparently they rented some of the outfits for that film, and were charged when they were returned in used condition.

They have already planned to put most of the costumes created for the production in storage, with hopes to use them in possible sequels. She says that they could probably reuse the crowd-worn outfits in a sequel, if one if given the greenlight.

Each and every one of the outfits created for the background actors were fitted individually. They would buy 20 yards of specific fabrics, create outfits, and dye pieces of the textile differently so that the background characters would all have a different look.

The costumes in Prince of Persia look on level with a big screen period piece. Everything is worn and realistic, and not overly colorful. You can ell that a lot of attention to detail was given on everyone of the costumes, so much so that I don’t think you’ll be able to notice half of it on the big screen. I wouldn’t be surprised if Penny Rose got a Oscar nomination for her costume work on this production. It’s really incredible.

We are then brought over to to another stage which houses the interior of the Alamut palace. The architecture is heavily influenced by Indian and Himalayan, as Alamut is, of course, a fictional city. The room has pillars with curving arches, and is filled with a lot of gold props - golden chairs, golden elephants. Ethnic snack food is scattered around the room for the scene they are currently shooting. This is the first unit production, a sequence involving Jake’s character which we are not allowed to watch because it’s considered to be a heavy spoiler. We see a fight choreographer working with one of the Hissanson’s, who is throwing around a double edged axe like weapon.

In another room of the same building we see the King of Persia’s throne room. More influenced by Persian and Middle Eastern architecture. It’s a more dull look, intricate molding and patterns everywhere.

We were then ushered back to the interview location, which we have now dubbed “the war room”, although I’m not exactly sure why. Our next interview was with Reece Ritchie, who play’s Dastan’s servant Biss.

Next up, we went to a medium sized workshop dubbed “The Armory”. The first thing I noticed was shelves and shelves filled with hundreds and hundreds of shields. This is where we met with Richard Hooper, the guy in charge of almost every weapon used on this production. Hooper has over 35 years experience creating armor for movie productions.

Hooper shows us a table full of various weaponry used by the Hissassins, the assassin-like group which is after Dastan and the dagger of time. It is explained that each member of the group is a specialist in a different type of weaponry. The leader was the guy with the double edged axe-like sword we saw practicing on the first-unit set. Another member uses brute fire - nathaleen filled grenades that he lights by scratching the tips on a strap on his vest, much in the same way you would ignite a match. Another one of the Hissassins uses a series of whips that have steel claws and a metal spike at the end. Another one of the members has a hand beaten brass spring loaded trident. Three metal claws shoot out almost like Wolverine. His other arm has an arm guard that shoots out steel darts.

We were then showed some of the hero swords, including Dastan’s various swords and daggers. They created 100 different swords and daggers for Dasdan alone. The swords are inspired from the game, but not actual reproductions of the swords featured in the game. The main characters have screen close-ups as well as rubberized versions for fighting and action sequences. But everything is still heavy. Hooper estimates that Jake adds 6 kilos of weight with all the weaponry.

The Persians and Alamutian weapons are styled differently, which will help audiences differentiate the two cultures in action sequences. The Persian shields use red and gold, and are primarily oval, while the Alamutian shields are either square or rectangle, blandly colored, and are styled based on indian designs.

Over 5,000 pieces of weaponry was created for the production. Hooper pointed to a shelf of 150 shields which he says took Morocco workers 4-5 hours to produce each.

We are escorted back to the war room where we are shown some of the key props from the film. The Dagger of Time, which is the result of hundreds of concept drawings and months of development. The handle is made out of crystal. This is where the sands of time is held. We are told that the sand isn’t actually sand, but instead small finely grinded stones. There is a botton at the top of the handle that is depressed in the movie to release the sand of time. The button on the hero prop that I held in my hands did not depress. Exquisitely crafted and beautifully engraved, in the film the sand flows out of gill-like blades that run along the blade. Another thing that was notable is how extremely heavy this prop is. This is not a cheaply produced plastic blade, this is the real thing. After seeing the film, moviegoers will want to own a replica of this dagger, and I’m sure Disney will produce licensed replicas for collectors.

I also got to inspect Tamina’s amulet, which is also filled with the sands of time. It is explained that time does not rewind if Tamina were to pour the sand out of her amulet. The power is in the dagger.

We are then taken to check out some of the other sets. First up is the Alamut laundry room, which is a small room (at least compared to the rest of te sets on the production).There is a laundry pool where all the women wash the laundry. Clothing hangs all over in various stages of drying. The area is dirtier than other areas of that Alamut temple, clay brick throughout. There is a blue screen above where a part of the temple will be added later using CG.

Around the corner and up a set of wooden stairs, and now we’re in a sequence set near the end of the film, underneath the Alamut palace, out route to the hidden chamber with the giant hourglass that houses the Sands of Time. The walls are very cave-like, cast from a quarry in Gloucester. Some of the Amautian architecture extrudes though.

On Stage B there is a smaller room filled with more palm trees imported from Morocco. The walls are painted as a panorama, water on one side, a city far in the background of another. But it doesn’t look all too real. It actually looks like one of those cheesy prints you use to see on the wallpaper of your dentist’s office. They are using this small stage to shoot a night scene, the one that was showed to us in the sizzle reel, where the hisassins show up, snakes are used as weapons, and for one reason or another time is reversed. They chose to film this scene on stage instead of on location in Morocco because they needed a controlled environment. Prop snakes are rigged to come out from below the sand. Lighting for night sequences is always tricky, and add onto that the extensive setup required for the dagger of time sequence. The sand has just been installed a few days back and is still kinda wet. They have brought some kind of blow heater into the room to try to restore the sand to a Morocco like consistency and look.

On Stage C we see many buildings in various stages of being built. We’re told that the set is being created for a new sequence that was just invented. From what I gather Dastan will be running along the roofs of some of the buildings, doing some cool parkour stunts along the way. The set designer tells us that it will take 6 weeks to build the set, they are currently 3 weeks in when we saw it. The production will end up shooting on the set for only 3 days.

On the E Stage, a bunch of crew members are building a huge rock structure out of foam blocks. We’re explained that this will be the sandglass chamber. They were originally supposed to shoot that sequence earlier, and have it completely built, but were forced to take the whole thing apart because they ended requiring the stage for another sequence. So now they’re putting the pieces back together, hoping everything will fit. The set designer explains that the sandglass chamber was not meant to be disassembled, but stuff like this happens all the time on a movie production - making the impossible possible.

We walk by another bigger room, covered with sand and surrounded by a huge blue screen. And it is then that we walk by this huge metal gate in one of the hallways. Michael explains that it was used as part of a sequence which involved Ostrich races. At the time we thought he was joking, but we later learned that the film does feature an Ostrich race, which was filmed with real live Ostrichs.

Part 2 of the set visit will be published next year. The interviews mentioned in this set visit piece will be published at a later time.

• New Photos From Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time
• Prince of Persia Movie Posters
• Prince of Persia On Set Interviews: Jake Gyllenhaal and Gemma Arterton
• Footage from Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
• ET Visits the Set of Prince of Persia
• Prince of Persia Pushed Back to 2010

While on the set of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, we had a chance to talk to some of the cast. Below you will find our roundtable interviews with  Jake Gyllenhaal and Gemma Arterton:

You’ve done big movies like The Day After Tomorrow and you’ve had some opportunities to do a franchise movie, so what was it about this particular franchise that made you want to be involved in it?

Jake Gyllenhaal: I think just on a personal front, it was just so unlikely and so unlike anything I’d ever played really, and any type of movie that I think anyone would expect, that I just kind of wanted to do it. (laughs) It felt like that personally, but also, more than anything, when I talked with Mike Newell about it, it wasn’t just like your normal video game adaptation. It was an actual massive epic that they had in the works. They had a real classic story that was emotional and real and filled with just ridiculous turns and twists, I mean, all over the place. Every day, when we work, is filled with keeping in mind where you were and how you got there and what’s happening here and who fooled whom. It’s like The Usual Suspects every single day, and that makes it intriguing to me, just on a story point. Also just the fact that these movies, if they’re going to get done, they should be done by the best and I think that Jerry Bruckheimer in particular is the one to make them.

Had you ever played the game before and do you feel any sort of responsibility playing such an iconic character?

Gyllenhaal: I feel a responsibility because I think the prince in the video games, he has a personality and you know his story, but I think a lot of video games as an actor, just putting that kind of expression onto a character. You get to make a new path for what the character is as opposed to being nervous you’re going to screw up that’s already there. That to me I like and I think is fun. I’ve played a lot of real people in my life… Actually, there’s equal pressure in real people than video game characters, which is sort of strange. Yeah, I’ve played the game a lot more when I was really young, and I know the game in its Atari-like version. I went online when I first started researching stuff for the role. What was really important was for me personally to bring some sort of realism into this world that is not always fully based on reality. So often you can hide in all that stuff so easily, and to look at what say a real Persian prince would look like and then who the Prince of Persia is in the video game and then a whole slew of inspiration in between there.

How did you develop the character or what did you bring to the role?

Gyllenhaal: 40 days and 40 nights of misery. (laughs) The most important thing for me always is just somehow playing against what’s there. The development of the character was massively physical at first, just getting in shape and doing all that stuff and learning Parkour, learning how to swordfight, learning how to get into the mentality of a warrior, somebody who as written is someone who can really fight. That was a big part of it for me, and I knew that if I got through that, then I knew I’d be halfway there. And then the rest of it is just being able to… we worked on dialect and I have a British accent in the film and everyday on set, I’m in my accent and I very rarely bring it out only for special occasions, my real accent. All of those things. I could go into really pretentious crap for you, but I don’t like doing that. I’m going to lay off of it, but there’s just a lot of it.

We heard that you went through some massive training, so can you talk about what your regimen was?

Gyllenhaal: God, there’s so many jokes I can make right now (laughter)… but we only have ten minutes? Really, it’s basically just a lot of training, working out with a lot of running and all different kinds of sports. I’m someone who really doesn’t love to be inside so just being outside and running around and training as if I was going to battle, but it also happens to be based on a video game so he has to very agile in a lot of other ways then you would normally… it’s not just gladiator-style fighting although we have all of that. It’s also having to be able to jump up walls and climb up walls and run on walls and all of those things. Basically, simulating all that through training, so when I get to the day and someone comes up with an idea and they’re like, “Hey, I think it would be a really great idea if you ran up that wall,” I say, “Okay.”

What has been the most fun part of making a movie like this? Is it the battles? Is it riding the horse across the desert in 103 degree heat? What’s the best part?

Gyllenhaal: The best part of the movie I think is… God, I mean, you play like this when you’re a kid. This is how you play when you’re a kid, and you go outside and I remember specifically many times I would go outside and be like, “I play him and you play him and let’s fight!” And we’re just like doing that every day. (laughs) So the best part of it for me is because I’ve never done a lot of fighting—sword fighting, hand-on-hand, any type of combat that there is and any type of evasion and persuasion. More than that also I find really fun is being able to get humor and performance in the middle of it all, which I find so difficult. I have utter respect for people who can put that kind of thing, a performance or any type of feeling while you’re battling someone, because that’s like chewing gum and walking at the same time and that’s really tough for actors. (laughs) It really is difficult, and it’s a fun mindwork to say, “Okay, at this point, we can put that piece in.” That’s what I enjoyed the most. I actually enjoy the heat, so I did enjoy that and I think Morocco was unreal. We were shooting as if we were shooting an independent film. You know we were moving, moving, moving and I just love to move quick, so we were running around and picking it all up really quickly.

So you weren’t complaining about the 130 degree heat?

Gyllenhaal: The one promise I made to everybody on this film, ’cause most of them are British and I’m from Southern California, is that I would not be complaining on this film about the heat. And I didn’t. I do, I enjoy it. I think the desert is actually a place of clarity. It’s a wonderful place to be I think, when you’re equipped with lots of water and food and making a massive big budget movie. (laughs)

You talked about the humor in the film and we were just watching Mike direct and he seems like a funny guy. What’s it like working with him and watching him trying to keep all this together?

Gyllenhaal: It’s really funny actually. No, it’s great working with Mike. I think it’s such an unlikely cast of characters in this movie, which I think is so f*cking great. That’s a part of it that I think is fun. No one’s out to prove anything. Everyone’s out to discover something, and that’s the difference between this movie and so many movies like it. The type of ego on this movie is about working together as opposed to everyone for themselves, and Mike is… to think about the guy who directed “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and is directing this movie. Obviously, he’s done “Harry Potter” and other big films, but to think about that sensibility within this is what… it’s been great. Every day is bigger, faster, funnier. But like not funny in a laughable kind of way, but always finding the reality of the situation, ’cause these movies can really get into (puts on a serious voice) “I’M GOING TO DO THIS NOW” You know what I mean, and that’s just not what we’re doing here. We’re trying to find real in it.

So are you looking forward to shooting one or two more of these films assuming the first one does well?

Gyllenhaal: Yes, the truth is after doing this it’s going to be hard… well, I don’t know if it’s going to be hard, but it’s definitely going to be a different mentality to go back and do much smaller types of movies. There’s type of high when you make a movie like this, a type of excitement every day that is infectious. There are days that you get tired and some of the people I work with say to me, I’m like, “Man, I’m going to be exhausted. I’m going to need rest when I get done with this movie,” and they’re like, “You’re going to rest for two weeks and you’re going to want to make another one like it.” (laughs) And it’s kind of true. On my days off, I worked out twice on my Sunday off, because that’s where my head is. I’m prepared for whatever comes our way.

I wanted to ask about the parkour stuff, because we’ve seen a few guys dressed as you doing some of the stunts

Gyllenhaal: A few of them? 14 guys.

Its a sport that’s very difficult to learn and master, so I was wondering how much of that stuff you’re able to do and how you learned how to do it.

Gyllenhaal: Well, I worked in L.A. for a few weeks before I left for London. We had a month of rehearsal in London, and I worked in L.A. with just Parkour guys and obviously, David Bell has been on set with us and he’s been working… I haven’t been working directly in terms of technique, but he’s designed a lot of stuff, and surprisingly, a lot of the things they taught me and asked me to do, just start to come easily when you start isometric type of workouts, a lot of hanging and a lot of training your body to move precisely and landing in the right away. A lot is about landing. Anybody can run and jump as far as they can but landing it is the hardest part, which is why you have the four guys outside looking like me. (laughter) I mean, I just learned it. If there’s one thing on this movie I’ve learned so fast is that when someone asks you to do something, you have to try it and see if you can do it, and if you don’t do it the first time, then you have to try again. If you miss it three times then somebody else has to do it, but if you don’t try to do it, then you’ll regret it for the rest of the time, because that’s what these movies afford you, an opportunity to do crazy sh*t that you wouldn’t normally be able to do. (laughs) I remember there’s a whole scene with ostriches in the movie and there are real live ostriches, not CG ostriches. There’s not a CG’ed ostrich in this movie. They’re all real ostriches, highly paid, and we were all briefed on them for weeks before like “They’re these massive destructive creatures that can tear your heart out with their claws.” (laughs) I swear to God I never thought of an ostrich this way! And I was shaking in my boots when they finally brought them out and they’re (does an ostrich impression) and I walked up to it and one of my stuntmen was in the ring with them, and finally, I was like, “When am I going to be in a f*cking cage with ostriches again in my life? I gotta get in here!” So I got in there and they were the sweetest things. I did everything with them, I eventually did that, but every day is like that. You gotta get in there and you gotta do it and that is an experience I’ll never be able to… well, hopefully ostriches will come back again… either in reshoots or hopefully in a second one. That sort of sums up the movie. (laughs)

How is it going from being a Bond girl to doing this, back-to-back?

Gemma Arterton: I did a job in between which was completely detached from anything that was action or “fairy taley” which was nice and then I went back into it, but in Bond, my part it doesn’t really have any action, whereas in this, I have a lot. It’s sort of a full-on action role, although she’s a high priestess so she’s not a typical kind of gun-wielding knife… she’s very spiritual, so it’s an interesting take to have someone that’s action-driven but has got religious beliefs, it was an interesting character.

You look so different now than you did in the Bond movie, so which is closer to your actual look?

Arterton: Well who knows? It’s all a front. No… probably this is. I’m not as tanned as this usually, but I’m dark naturally. With the Bond film, they made me look completely different. (laughs) I don’t even recognize myself in it but yeah, ’cause the other day I was looking at a kind of line-up of all of the roles I’ve played and I just don’t recognize myself in any of them, which is great.

Is it inspiring or intimidating to work with so many experienced actors like Daniel Craig and now Ben Kingsley?

Arterton: Absolutely inspiring. I tend to go into things head first, not really thinking about what I’m doing, which is sometimes better, then going, “Oh My God, I’m about to act with Ben Kingsley!” because then you’re all yourself, and that’s what they want ultimately anyway, and you’re just another actor working with them on this film ultimately, so that is brilliant, but I don’t really get to worry about it. I probably should. (laughs) I probably should when I’m being all cheeky and campy with Sir Ben Kingsley, but no, it’s brilliant and an honor.

We heard how hot it was when you were shooting in Morocco.

Arterton: Well, it got sort of progressively hotter as the shoot went on and we got further into the desert. At one point, it was 58 degrees, which is 100 odd, something like that but I was alright because I’m wearing clothes that were suitable but the boys were all wearing… you’ve seen some of the costumes. Leather and loads of black, and it was unbelievably hot, but alright. I quite like the heat, so I was okay. We were really sort of grateful to come home and be in a kind of controlled environment again, because we were also filming when Ramadan was on so all of the poor Moroccans that were working on the film, not being able to drink water in that heat and stuff. So it’s incredible but it was an experience. (laughs)

To prepare for this, did you play the computer game at all or read a lot of Persian fairytales? What did you do to prepare for this role?

Arterton: (laughs) I didn’t play the computer game. I’ve done sort of research on where it came from, but the story’s quite different to the computer game. The character’s a little bit different as well. I’d sort of read up on Persia and the history, but this film is completely sort of fantasy. You can’t really place it I don’t think or compare it to anything else, so I thought the best thing to do was just to approach it with a fresh mind and just your own intuition, and so that’s what I did.

Were there any particular kind of skills you had to learn for this film, like any type of fighting?

Arterton: Yeah, I, well I had to learn how to horse ride ’cause I’d never done it before in my life, and it’s kind of become a real new sort of passion for me. Pretty much the whole cast went to Spain and learned to horse ride for 2 weeks, which was incredible to have that opportunity and then we all kind of continued it. Then I have to do loads of fighting but there isn’t a particular style to my fighting. It’s quite wild ’cause she’s never really been trained to fight so it’s just kind of go “aaaagh!” like that, but just doing it with some sort of skill. Where I went to drama school I trained in stage combat quite heavily so I had quite a bit of experience before.

What’s your favorite part of shooting the film so far?

Arterton: Oh, God… I love all the action stuff. I think I should have really been a stuntwoman. I really enjoy it even though sometimes you think, “Oh, God, there are actually people that are trained to do this and they’re trained to get battered and bruised” but I’ve loved doing all of that and the fighting. It’s gobsmacking the sets and the costume and the sheer scale of this film and then you’re kind of put into into this completely different world and that is really, really fantastic. You don’t have to really imagine much ’cause it’s there designed right in front of you, and so that’s been brilliant as well.

Can you talk about the relationship between your character and Jake’s character?

Arterton: Yeah, so I play Tamina, who’s the princess of Alamut, which is a city that the Persians invade. I’m kind of kidnapped so I hate the Persians, although my character doesn’t really feel hate. She’s very spiritual so she just dislikes them (laughs) and they have this real kind of love-hate kind of relationship. It’s very full of banter and I like to compare it to Beatrice and Benedict in “Much Ado about Nothing.” Obviously, they fancy each other but they don’t show it. They find out all this stuff about the bad things that are happening in Persia, and so they kind of join forces and learn from each other and the film kind of like a journey. It follows them a lot, mainly Dastan, but she’s kind of like his right-hand girl and they have their own journeys which is to find themselves in a new light through each other’s upbringings. So there’s a lot of wit and banter, there’s also a romance there, there’s a lot of comedy but also a real seriousness as well, which is a really great thing about this film. It’s not just an action-adventure, it’s not just a romance, it’s not just this or that. There’s loads of drama, and it takes you in loads of different directions all the time. You think it’s gonna be like this and then it completely changes and becomes really dark or really light. So the relationship between Dastan and Tamina has got all of that.

Do your powers involve a lot of special effects and did they have to explain to you what they would look like later?

Arterton: Well, the main power I suppose is the Dagger of Time, which is kind of what we’re all fighting over in this film and it has the ability to turn back time, so that’s the kind of main thing, but nobody apart from Dastan really has this kind of aura of magic about him. Nobody really has magical powers. You’ll see when the film comes out that all of the magic comes from the Dagger of Time.

Were you conscious of the stigma that’s attached to movie adaptations of video games? Do you think this is gonna be the one that finally kind of breaks that cycle?

Arterton: I don’t know. I think they have got huge stigmas attached to them, haven’t they? Who knows? I don’t think so. Again, I think this one it’s loosely based. The idea and the kind of characters and the ideas are from the computer game, but it’s got such brilliant actors in it and it’s brilliantly directed and it’s got a brilliant team behind it that I think we kind of can make it into something really brilliant. But it’s one of things, you have to wait to and see. For me, I’ve been on this film and I kind of doing it and sometimes it’s so huge I don’t really know what I’m doing but that’s quite exciting and just to kind of wait and see what happens, but yeah, well I think it’s got something else to it but we’ll see.

It seems like there might be some political undertones to the story, because there’s an invasion, which might be… suspect. Can you talk about that?

Arterton: Yeah, there’s kind of a looking for weapons that don’t exist kind of thing. (laughs) With the target audience, it’s not to make that a huge thing, but it’s definitely there which makes it an interesting tale to tell and I think it’s fairly relevant for the times that we’re living in now, but there are lots of things like that so I think it’s interesting for many, many different sorts of audiences.

Do you feel that everything is going very fast for you right now?

Arterton: Yeah, absolutely. Actually the Bond film came out last week and everything’s kind of happened very quickly now. I’m really starting to feel it. Things have changed very quickly. Usually, I can kind of get on with my work and not think about it but it’s actually having an effect on my life now and that’s fine. I just have to kind of get used to it I suppose but it has been really, really quick and hey, why not, you know? If it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen and just deal with it, but yeah, it’s mad what’s happened. In a year, I think I’ve done eight films or something. I don’t know how I’ve done it. (laughs) I don’t know how I have the energy but I do somehow.

What are you gonna do next?

Arterton: Well… at the moment, I feel like I wanna go and do some theatre, because I’ve been doing quite a lot of film work and big films as well, but there’s lots of new doors that have opened, which is very exciting so we’ll see but I wanna do something completely different ’cause I try and do that with every part, do something completely different so maybe I’ll play some fat old drug addict or something next. (laughs)

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