Multiple Sarcasms – May 7, 2010

Casino Jack and the United State of Money – May 7, 2010

Iron Man 2 – May 7, 2010

Just Wright – May 14, 2010

Robin Hood – May 14, 2010

Letters To Juliet – May 14, 2010

Daddy Longlegs – May 14, 2010

Shrek Forever After – May 21, 2010

MacGruber – May 21, 2010

Bit of a slow week for movie releases, in preparation for the Christmas blockbusters. This weekend does see the release of Disney’s The Princess and the Frog, featuring Disney’s first African-American Princess.

In Theaters This Weekend

Opening in Wide Release

The Princess and the Frog Walt Disney presents an animated female twist on the traditional Frog Prince fairy tale, set in New Orleans’ French Quarter.

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Invictus Morgan Freeman stars as Nelson Mandela in the true story of how South Africa’s underdog rugby team united a nation.

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Opening in Limited Release

Broken Embraces Penelope Cruz stars in a four-way tale of dangerous love, shot in the style of a hard-boiled 1950s American film noir.

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The Lovely Bones Peter Jackson directs the tale of Susie Salmon, a murdered girl who watches over her family — and her killer — from heaven.

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A Single Man After the sudden death of his partner, a man is determined to persist in his usual routine over the span of a single, ordinary day.

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Special Thanks to Yahoo Movies.

This weekend sees an interesting  batch of movies, from the magical stop-motion animated Fantastic Mr. Fox (starring the voice of George Clooney and based on the beloved Roald Dahl classic book) to the post apocalyptic tale The Road, starring Viggo Mortensen.  Despite a relative lack of hype surrounding this weeks releases, critical expectations are high. Which ones are you planning on seeing? Let us know what you think!

In Theaters This Weekend

Opening in Wide Release

Fantastic Mr. Fox George Clooney supplies the voice of the wily hero in director Wes Anderson’s animated adaptation of the classic Roald Dahl story.

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Ninja Assassin A skilled assassin engages in a deadly game of cat and mouse to take down the elusive secret society of killers-for-hire that trained him.

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Old Dogs Robin Williams and John Travolta are not-so-kid-savvy bachelors who are unexpectedly charged with the care of 7-year-old twins.

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Opening in Limited Release

The Road Viggo Mortensen stars in a post-apocalyptic survival tale of a father and son who journey across America after a mysterious cataclysm.

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Me and Orson Welles Zac Efron is an aspiring actor who gets thrown into the Mercury Theatre Company’s historic 1937 staging of Julius Caesar.

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The Princess and the Frog Walt Disney presents an animated female twist on the traditional Frog Prince fairy tale, set in New Orleans’ French Quarter.

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The Private Lives of Pippa Lee A dutiful housewife embarks on a bittersweet journey of self- discovery when her picture-perfect marriage is put to the test.

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Opening in Wide Release

The Twilight Saga: New Moon Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner star in the next chapter of the popular supernatural romance saga.

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The Blind Side Sandra Bullock stars as a well-to-do suburban mom who forms an unlikely friendship with a struggling teen from a broken home.

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Planet 51 The sudden arrival of an alien — an American astronaut — wreaks havoc among the little green inhabitants of a distant alien planet.

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Opening in Limited Release

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans Nicolas Cage stars as a drug-addicted rogue cop who play and fast and loose with the law in post-Katrina New Orleans.

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Broken Embraces Penelope Cruz stars in director Pedro Almodovar’s four-way tale of dangerous love, shot in the style of a hard-boiled 1950s film noir.

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Mammoth A successful New York family man goes on a life-changing business trip to Thailand, setting off a chain of dramatic events.

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The Missing Person A private detective investigates a man who turns out to be one of the thousands presumed dead after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

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Red Cliff John Woo directs an epic historical drama based on a legendary 208 A.D. battle that heralded the end of the Han Dynasty.

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Special thanks to Yahoo Movies

A Nightmare on Elm Street Poster

A cheerleader with the perfect life becomes the girl from hell when she gets possessed and begins killing boys in a small town.

Jennifer’s Body movie poster (click to enlarge) 

Jennifer’s Body is the follow-up to writer and producer Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman collaboration efforts on Juno. In October 2007, Fox Atomic pre-emptively purchased the rights to Cody’s script with Megan Fox in negotiations to star. Peter Rice, who oversees both Fox Searchlight and Fox Atomic, brought in the project as Fox Searchlight had previously distributed Cody’s film Juno. Mason Novick and Reitman’s producing parter Dan Dubiecki signed as producers in November 2007 with plans to produce the film under Hard C, which is housed at Fox Searchlight. Reitman commented, “We want to make unusual films, and anything that turns a genre on its ear interests Dan and I. Karyn Kusama was announced as director in January 2008.

In February 2008, a cease and desist was given to a writer at CC2K.com after they posted an advanced script review for the film. The Latino Review also posted an advanced review. At the time CC2K.com received their cease and desist order, questions were raised why Latino Review’s largely positive script review was allowed to stay posted while CC2K was being forced by Fox Searchlight to remove their mainly negative coverage. Although Latino Review was later asked to remove their review, numerous other websites and blogs have published their own critiques of the script.

Megan Fox was in negotiations to star as Jennifer, the perfect possessed cheerleader, since the film was announced in 2007, and was officially cast in October 2007. In February 2008, Amanda Seyfried was cast as Needy, the “plain Jane” best friend to Fox’s character. Chud.com reported on the casting of Nikolai that the filmmakers were looking at actual rock band members Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy and Joel Madden of Good Charlotte. Also considered was actor Chad Michael Murray. In March 2008, actor Johnny Simmons was reportedly cast as the male lead Nikolai Wolf. However, Adam Brody was officially cast in the role of Nikolai, while Simmons was then given the role of Chip.

In late 2007, Fox Atomic had plans to film Jennifer’s Body before a possible writer’s strike. However, when the Writers Guild of America strike began, shooting was then moved to March 7, 2008 in Burnaby, British Columbia, specifically at Robert Burnaby Park near Cariboo Hill Secondary School. Some of the scenes, particularly those situated in a school setting, were filmed in local Vancouver-area schools, such as Vancouver Technical Secondary School, Langley Secondary School and University Hill Secondary School.

The Princess and the Frog movie poster (click to enlarge)

The film, which began production under the working title The Frog Princess, will be an American fairy tale, Broadway-style musical set in the French Quarter of New Orleans. A prince named Naveen from the land of Maldonia is transformed into a frog by the evil scheming voodoo magician Dr. Facilier. The frog prince asks a waitress named Tiana to break the spell by kissing him. However, the kiss doesn’t break the spell, but instead turns Tiana into a frog as well. Together, the two of them must reach the good voodoo priestess of the Bayou, Mama Odie, while befriending a trumpet-playing alligator and a hopelessly romantic firefly along the way. The film is set to be released on December 11, 2009.

Disney had once announced that Home on the Range would be the studio’s last 2D animated film entry to their animated features canon, but after the company’s acquisition of Pixar in early 2006, it was reported that Ed Catmull and John Lasseter, new leaders of the animation department, were interested in going back to the Disney tradition of 2D animation. Ron Clements and John Musker, directors of successful 2D Disney films The Little Mermaid and Aladdin, will be writing and directing.

The film promises to return to the Broadway-style musical in the style of the successful Disney films like Walt’s classics, and the musical renaissance of the late-1980s and all of the 1990s. Rhett Wickham also reported that John Lasseter had personally asked Ron Clements and John Musker to direct and write the film, and had let them choose what form (both traditional animation or CGI) they wanted the film to be in. New and updated software will be used in the digital processing of the film, as the old CAPS system from Disney is now outdated.

Public Enemies movie poster (click to enlarge)

The crime drama is set during the Great Depression with the focus on the FBI agent Melvin Purvis’s attempt to stop criminals John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, and Pretty Boy Floyd. Christian Bale will play FBI agent Purvis, Johnny Depp will play Dillinger, Marion Cotillard will play Dillinger’s girlfriend Billie Frechette, and Channing Tatum will play Pretty Boy Floyd. Principal photography began in Columbus, Wisconsin on March 17, 2008 and wrapped in Chicago, Illinois; Oshkosh, Wisconsin; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Madison, Wisconsin; and several other places in Wisconsin until the end of June 2008, including the famous Little Bohemia Lodge in Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin, the actual location of a 1934 gun fight between Dillinger and the FBI. Some parts of the film were shot in Crown Point, Indiana, the town where Dillinger was imprisoned and subsequently escaped from jail.

FBI agent Melvin Purvis (Bale) sets his sights on American gangster John Dillinger (Depp) and others in an attempt to curb a rampant Midwest crime spree during the 1930s.

Public Enemies is based on Bryan Burrough’s non-fiction book, Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933–34. He originally pitched the idea as a miniseries to HBO and was made an executive producer, along with Robert De Niro’s Tribeca Films.Burrough was also asked to write the screenplay. However, he felt more comfortable writing it as a non-fiction book and spent two years working on it while the interest in the miniseries disappeared. Burrough’s book was set to be published in the summer of 2004 and he asked HBO to return the movie rights. They agreed and after the book was released, the rights were re-sold to production companies representing Michael Mann and Leonardo DiCaprio who was interested in playing John Dillinger. Burrough met with a representative and then heard nothing for three years. The actor eventually left the project to appear in Martin Scorsese’s Ashecliffe.

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A Christmas Carol movie poster (click to enlarge)

A Christmas Carol 3-D film will be produced through the process of performance capture, a technique Zemeckis has previously used in his films The Polar Express (2004) and Beowulf (2007).

A Christmas Carol began filming in February 2008, and will be released on November 6, 2009.

The film will be released in Disney Digital 3-D and IMAX 3-D.

A Christmas Carol is a Victorian morality tale of an old and bitter miser, Ebenezer Scrooge, who undergoes a profound experience of redemption over the course of one night. Mr. Scrooge is a financier/money-changer who has devoted his life to the accumulation of wealth. He holds anything other than money in contempt, including friendship, love and the Christmas season. But an encounter with the ghostly figure of Jacob Marley sets the stage for a mysterious and magical encounter with three phantasmic beings to help him realize the true magic of Christmas itself.

Zemeckis has stated previously that A Christmas Carol is one of his favorite stories dealing with time travel. Carrey has described the film as “a classical version of A Christmas Carol [...] There are a lot of vocal things, a lot of physical things, I have to do. Not to mention doing the accents properly, the English, Irish accents [...] I want it to fly in the UK. I want it to be good and I want them to go, ‘Yeah, that’s for real.’ We were very true to the book. It’s beautiful. It’s an incredible film.”

The Expendables movie poster (click to enlarge)

A team of mercenaries head to South America on a mission to stop a dictator who has caused destruction for the last 20 years. The government sets to plan the assassination to put an end to the violence.

Production began on March 3, 2009 and filming began on March 28 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and ended April 25. Filming continued later on May 11 in New Orleans, Louisiana and will conclude in Los Angeles, California in June.

Jean-Claude Van Damme was personally offered a role by Stallone, but turned it down. This reportedly led to Dolph Lundgren being cast instead. Kurt Russell also turned down the role of Mr. Church, the man who hires the expendables. The role accepted by Forest Whitaker was originally conceived as a role for Wesley Snipes but later rewritten for Whitaker. Due to a scheduling conflict prior to filming, Forest Whitaker was replaced by Curtis Jackson (aka 50 Cent) for the role of Hale Caesar, who was then in turn replaced by former NFL player Terry Crews due to negative fan reaction on Aint it cool News.

Stallone wanted Sandra Bullock to play the role of Agent Diane Lickson yet Bullock’s schedule did not work with the film, and she could not participate.

Ben Kingsley was offered the role of Monroe before Eric Roberts was cast. The role may be combined with that of Agent Will Sands.

The role of the man who hires the Expendables, Mr. Church, has been very difficult to cast. Initially offered to Schwarzenegger, he declined in favor of a smaller cameo in respects to his political career^. The role was then offered to Kurt Russell whose agent replied that he was not interested in “Ensemble acting at the moment.” Currently Stallone is looking covertly to find a big action name to Cameo as Mr. Church with rumors suggesting that the role has been offered to friend and fellow former Planet Hollywood Co-Owner Bruce Willis.