Going to the Dogs (Film News - 25/09/10)

What is the best way to kick off this weeks film news? Should I just pass directly into the plethora of delightful stories that have filtered through and thereby ignoring the gaping chasm since my last entry? In fact it's been 21 days since I last mentioned any news - that's two entries missed. So here are my excuses. The first week (11 September) there was nothing that interested me, not a single news story that made me read the article in full and last weekend I couldn't access my computer. So now I have two very busy weeks of news to get through. In fact there's so much news I can't even put them all in the labels... Anyhoo I'd better just get on with it, don't you think:

Darling Companion

Certainly the most intriguing story is Lawrence Kasdan's third entry into his loose collection of films focussing on the outlook of his generation. This will centre around the stale marriage between Kevin Kline and Diane Keaton, and their dog (of the title) who runs away during a wedding. A bunch of late 50 somethings will then join the search and will find their lives permanently affected for btter or worse.

I'm a big fan of The Big Chill so if this works in a similar way then that will be really interesting - catching up on similar characters some thirty yeas on. I also like the idea of the action being kicked off by a runaway dog. Indeed the title indicates the dog will feature quite heavily, either in terms of it's presence or it's escape. The dog lover in my likes that concept a lot...

The Big Chill used music to evoke emotions, as thie hits listed at the top of the album cover illustrates.

Read on for crime dramas, beauty pageants, hired killers, television adapatations and the end of the world as well as masses of casting news.



Killer Joe

Hired killers are usually reasonable box office successes, so it was a surprise to few people to learn that Tracy (writer of August: Osage County) Letts' morality tale about two siblings who hire an assassin to kill their mother. Emile Hirsch is rumoured to play the murderous son with the female half of the pair yet to be cast. What is unlikely is the casting of Matthew McConaughay as the man they hire. o that is weird.

Robopocalypse

Following the disappointing box office run of Terminator: Salvation you would have imagined that further movies that explore robots rising up against humanity wouldn't get aything close to a greenlight. Well, we were wrong as this robot-apocalypse movie based on the novel by Daniel H. Nilson (what, really?) is under development with Steven Spielberg involved. That name alone should make you think that the project may just make some money, although given the rate that Spielberg starts and drops projects I wouldn't try to hold breath for this one.

Wicked Lovely

Beauty Pageants have really been portrayed on film, usually as the butt of a joke like in Miss Congeniality or Little Miss Sunshine Now I wouldn't normally dare to make any judgements about the rights and wrongs of these events, but I am certainly interested in seeing a story based around evil faeries at these events. Wicked and Lovely indeed.

Untitled Crime Drama

Casey Affleck has been talking about an upcoming almost Boston set crime drama - in that the book it's based on is set in Boston but the film adaptation won't be. That's an intriguing option as Boston appears to be becoming the crime city du jour for modern films (see The Town, The Departed et al). Andrew Dominik, of Jesse James fame, is set to write and direct.

Untitled Barry White movie

It's rare for a film based on a television show to work, but this latest idea from Joel Schumacher is based on a running joke from a TV series so you have to doubt whether it will work. The running joke in question comes from Ally McBeal where Barry White would occasionally cameo as himself in order to dispense love advice to the main characters in the office toilet. Shocking.



Casting news - I'm getting tired and bored now (I've spent 6 hours at my computer this morning trying to remove a virus, so please forgive me this) so here is a catch up in the quickest way possible. Elliot Gould is the latest extension to Contagion, Tim Burton will use Winona Ryder and Martin Landau to voice Frankenweenie, Roman Polanski's Gods of Carnage has picked up one of the most extraordinary casts with Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Matt Dillon and Christoph Waltz, Joaquin Phoenix will be Leonardo DiCaprio's lover in Hoover (which is nice), Al Pacino and Joe Pesci are both in talks to join Bobby De Niro in I heard they Paint Houses (definitely worth celebrating that), Josh Brolin will be in Labor Day and not Young Adult as originally rumoured, Jennifer Garner and Mark Wahlberg (or is it Joaquin Pheonix) are in The Odd Life of Timothy Green, Sigourney Weaver is up for Rampant and, finally, Rachel Weisz will be sexually adventurous in 360.

I'll do the release date updates next weekend, along with mentioning any new films that have lumbered into production.

Stay safe.

Ben