Film News (07/03/09)

It's been a pretty odd week for news, nothing on Monday or Tuesday. Loads on Wednesday then 2 more days of nothing. What's going on? Have all the Hollywood PR chaps on parttime hours to help the studios during the credit crunch. Anyhoo here we go:

Downsizing



Now this is strange, but hopefully in a good way, Alexander Payne (Election, About Schmidt, Sideways) has settled on Downsizing as his next film and will be working with his stars from two of those: Paul Giamatti and Reese Witherspoon. The weird this about this is the somewhat unusual plot - Giamatti, in a bout of depression regarding his debt, decides to shrink himself. Now Payne's films have in the passed looked at extreme characters in a Universe we understand, so this sort of wacky premise may just be fascinating, or it may just flop.



In the Heart of the Sea

Ed Zwick is following Defiance with this historically accurate story of a whaling ship that gets stalked by a sperm whale, apparenly the basis of Moby Dick. Who's betting there will be a scene where the whale appears through the fog?

Inception

The 2010 summer tent pole (sci-fi genre bender from Christopher Nolan) has gained Leonardo DiCaprio, alledgedly, and (and this really is just a random rumour) Ellen Page. Great cast, great director, will flop I expect.

Ultima, Bless Me

This film (which involves a growing pains of a boy growing in a New Mexico during the sceond world war) is only really interesting because it's being bankrolled by Walmart, the massive supermarket chain in America. This is an odd one because I hate everything Walmart stands for (locking their staff in at night, making staff work in all departments to put off the fatties) however the central relationshiop in the film is between the boy and an Elderly Medicine woman - so that's got to be worth seeing, right?