Joseph Gordon-Levitt Casts Scarlett Johansson in Directorial Debut

Joseph Gordon-Levitt has graced the big screen for some time and now the 30-year-old actor will be making his feature directorial debut.

Gordon-Levitt wrote, will direct and star in the untitled comedy. Additionally, Scarlett Johansson will co-star.

Production is set to begin in mid April.

Although plot details are under wraps, Gordon-Levitt says the film is “a sexy comedy about about a modern day Don Juan, and his quest to become less of a ‘selfish dick.’”

Are you excited to see the film? Sound off in the comments!

Edited: February 8th, 2012

DVD Review: Drive

It’s shocking that a film like Drive, which featured an outstanding cast, incredible performances and remarkable directing and cinematography did not get as much acclaim as it deserves during awards season.

Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn has seen success over the last 15 years of his career, but with Drive he takes it to another level and brings an intensely thrilling, violent and captivating adaption of James Sallis’ pulp crime novel to the big screen.

Drive follows “Driver” (Ryan Gosling), a Hollywood stuntman who moonlights as a getaway wheelman for criminals.

Driver makes a connection with his next door neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan) and her son. But things go south when Irene’s ex-con husband Standard (Oscar Isaac) returns home from prison and the entire family is threatened by the mobsters.

Driver helps Irene and her son stay out of danger by helping Standard. However, from there things get bloody when Driver, Irene and her family are caught in the crosshairs of local mobsters Bernie Rose (Albert Brooks) and Nino (Ron Perlman).

For those that are looking for an action film filled with car chases, be advised Drive is not that film.

Drive is the opposite – a serene and quiet thriller. A film that packs a bigger punch with less dialogue.

Gosling and Mulligan shine onscreen and the supporting cast – Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston, Brooks and Perlman give amazing performances.

Disappointing that academy members didn’t take notice.

Edited: February 8th, 2012

Julia Roberts and Alec Baldwin to Star in The Normal Heart

Julia Roberts and Alec Baldwin have signed on for Ryan Murphy’s adaptation of the Tony Award-winning play The Normal Heart.

The film chronicles the rise of HIV/AIDS among New York’s gay community in the 1980s.

Roberts will play Emma Brookner, a wheel-chair bound doctor and one of the city’s few physicians who acknowledges the severity of the disease.

Baldwin will play the brother to Mark Ruffalo’s Ned Weeks. Additionally, White Collar’s Matt Bomer and Big Bang Theory’s Jim Parsons also have roles in the film.

Bomer will play Felix Turner, Weeks’ boyfriend and gay fashion journalist who unfortunately contracts the deadly disease. Parsons will reprise his role from the Broadway version as a Southern activist for gays and member of a gay men’s health crisis group.

Edited: January 23rd, 2012

Reese Witherspoon Has Big Eyes for Ryan Reynolds

Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Reynolds have signed on to star in the indie drama Big Eyes.

Reynolds will play Walter Keane, a national celebrity and talk show fixture in the 1950s who pioneered the mass production of prints of big-eyed kids and used his marketing savvy to sell them cheaply in hardware stores and gas stations across the country.

Although Walter claims to be the artist, he is not. It is actually his shy wife Margaret (Witherspoon) who generates the paintings from their basement, while Walter’s simply contributes by adding his signature to the bottom.

Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski will pen the script, as well as direct the film and Tim Burton will produce.

Edited: January 23rd, 2012

Chris Evans In Talks to Star in Snow Piercer

Captain America actor Chris Evans is in negotiations to star in Snow Piercer, a film that’s set in a world covered in snow and ice and follows a train full of travelers who struggle to co-exist.

Bon Joon-ho is said to direct the film, which he also co-wrote with Park Chan-wook.

Additionally, Tilda Swinton and Jamie Bell are also in talks to join the film.

What do you think of the plot? Something you would watch?

Edited: January 20th, 2012

Puss in Boots Blu-ray/DVD Release Set for Feb. 24

Paramount today announced that Puss in Boots will be released on Feb. 24 on DVD and Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack.

Additionally, the DVD and Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack will include features such as the Purr-fect Pairings: The Voices Behind The Legends and deleted scenes, including Humpty Plots With Jack & Jill, Humpty Repays His Accomplices & Puss In Boots Fights The Giant.

For those not familiar – or living under a rock – Puss in Boots stars Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek and Zach Galifianakis and centers around the events leading up to the sword fighting cat’s meeting with Shrek and his friends.

Edited: January 20th, 2012

Liv Tyler to Star in The Side Effect

Liv Tyler is set to star in Ti West’s upcoming sci-fi thriller The Side Effect.

The film follows a woman who spends several months alone in space as an experimental subject for a global pharmaceutical company, and finds herself inexplicably pregnant.

Although the film is pegged as a thriller, West assures that it will stay in the horror genre.

He told Deadline: “Although it is still somewhat of a horror film, it is much more psychological than any of my previous efforts. It was essential that I find an actress who could portray a wide range of emotion and always earn the audience’s sympathy no matter what the situation. As soon as I sat down with Liv, it was obvious she was the one.”

Edited: January 20th, 2012

Kristen Wiig: No Bridesmaids Sequel in the Works

Although Universal Pictures was in talks to develop a Bridesmaids sequel after the success of the original, Kristen Wigg is setting the record straight – she is not interested in doing a sequel.

“We’re not planning on doing one. We had a special time making the first one, but we’re really excited to try something else,” she said during a recent interview with E!

However, Bridesmaids fans worry not, Wiig’s Bridesmaids co-star Wendi McLendon-Covey has said that Wiig may do the sequel, and had never turned it down flat.

Wiig is currently writing another film with her Bridesmaids co-writer Annie Mumolo.

Edited: January 20th, 2012

First Look: Johnny Depp in Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows

Check out the first official image from Tim Burton’s anticipated adaptation of Dark Shadows.

Here’s a synopsis of the film: The film takes place in 1752 where Joshua and Naomi Collins, with young son Barnabas, set sail from Liverpool, England to start a new life in America. But even an ocean was not enough to escape the mysterious curse that has plagued their family. Two decades pass and Barnabas (Depp) has the world at his feet—or at least the town of Collinsport, Maine. The master of Collinwood Manor, Barnabas is rich, powerful and an inveterate playboy…until he makes the grave mistake of breaking the heart of Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green). A witch, in every sense of the word, Angelique dooms him to a fate worse than death: turning him into a vampire, and then burying him alive.

Two centuries later, Barnabas is inadvertently freed from his tomb and emerges into the very changed world of 1972. He returns to Collinwood Manor to find that his once-grand estate has fallen into ruin. The dysfunctional remnants of the Collins family have fared little better, each harboring their own dark secrets. Matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer) has called upon live-in psychiatrist, Dr. Julia Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter), to help with her family troubles.

Dark Shadows also stars Chloe Moretz, Gulliver McGrath, Bella Heathcote, Ray Shirley, Jackie Earle Haley, and Jonny Lee Miller.

Edited: January 20th, 2012

DVD Review: Midnight in Paris

Midnight in Paris is Woody Allen at his best – quirky, funny and overall entertaining.

The film is different than what Allen has done in the past years, but different in a good way.

Midnight in Paris follows Gil (Owen Wilson), a screenwriter who’s having a hard time finishing his novel.

Gil is in Paris with his fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams), who pays more attention to her friend Paul (Michael Sheen) then she does Gil.

One night, Gil wanders the streets of Paris at midnight and a vintage motor carriage comes and offers him a ride to a party. At the party, Gil finds himself in the presence of F. Scott Fitzgerald, his wife Zelda and Cole Porter.

After realizing that he’s in somehow been transported to the 1920s, Gil takes a midnight stroll every night and socializes with Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. Things become complicated when he falls for Adriana (Mario Cotillard), a costume designer, as well as a muse for Hemingway and Picasso.

Allen does a superb job of bridging the present with the past. He does for Paris what he has done for New York. The director brings out the liveliness and culture of the city of lights.

If getting people to book a trip to Paris the second they finish watching the film, then Woody has succeeded greatly.

Edited: December 28th, 2011

New Images from The Amazing Spider-Man

Although there is no official trailer for Marc Webb’s much-anticipated The Amazing Spider-Man film, Columbia Pictures is strengthening its marketing strategy for the film with new images.

The new stills capture Webb’s own version of the upcoming film and give us a glimpse of what to expect.

The film, which stars Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Denis Leary, Martin Sheen and Sally Field opens in 3D on July 3, 2012.

For those unfamiliar, The Amazing Spider-Man follows teenager Peter Parker (Garfield) as he grapples with both human problems and amazing super-human crises.

Are you excited for the film? Sound off in the comments!

Edited: December 27th, 2011

First Look: Channing Tatum, Matthew McConaughey in Magic Mike

Check out the first official image that Warner Bros. released from its upcoming film Magic Mike.

The film, which is directed by Steven Soderbergh stars Matthew McConaughey, Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, Matt Bomer, Joe Mangianello, Olivia Munn, Riley Keough, Cody Horn and Adam Rodriguez.

Magic Mike is actually based on Tatum’s real life experiences as a 19-year-old stripper.

“When Channing talked to me about this, I thought it was one of the best ideas I’d ever heard for a movie. I said I wanted in immediately. It’s sexy, funny and shocking. We’re usingSaturday Night Feveras our model, so hopefully we’re on the right track,” said Soderbergh.

Magic Mike is slated to hit theaters on June 29, 2012.

Hit the jump to see the full image!

(more…)

Edited: December 27th, 2011