Despite having a 2006 release tagged on to the film’s title on IMDB, the latest work of art from Indian born film-maker Tarsem Singh is finally making it’s way to the U.S. on limited release this May (but not in the U.K.)

Tarsem Singh was the director who brought us the Jennifer Lopez vehicle The Cell, a movie full of haunting, creepy and beautiful imagery. I know it’s looked down upon now and hell I don’t like it because of it’s hammy psychological plot, often confusing and self indulgent film-making but man for a directorial debut, it was a stunningly bad movie.

Much like Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain. I would rather sit through that kind of film than something as dull as The Other Boleyn Girl.

Singh’s long awaited follow-up is The Fall. This time the plot follows a little girl with a broken collar bone who meets a bedridden man in hospital who starts to tell her his fantastical life. It’s yet another psychological and fantasy mind-bender, this time shot in India but in the English Language.

The movie stars no-one you are likely to have heard of but that doesn’t matter because the film is most certainly going to be sold on Singh’s wonderful imagery…

Love the poster!

Not sure how much David Fincher or Spike Jonze had to do with the movie being exported to the U.S. but I like how Roger Ebert calls it “magnificent”. Then again he was one of the few critics who actually gave The Cell a glowing review and didn’t really venture into it’s misguidance’s or shortcomings.

Singh gets another shot with me here, maybe like Fincher he can overcome a visually beautiful but crap first movie?

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Daniel Plainview being the character Daniel Day-Lewis portrayed in his second Academy Award winning performance last year. All will be revealed below, as CHUD explain to us what they heard from a press junket for Forgetting Sarah Marshall where duo Peter Segel (writer) and Nick Stoller (director) were inevitably asked about their intentions for The Muppets...

Apparently their Muppet film is going to be incredibly old fashioned, with the familiar Muppet characters putting on a show to save an old theater (the theater from The Muppet Show?). The danger? An evil character wants to tear the place down to get at the oil underneath.

Cool and no, Day-Lewis isn’t really going to make an appearance in this flick. That would be fascinating though.

I’m still hoping Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a knock-out from these guys but from what I hear from Michael (our most consistent reviewer) he didn’t like this movie at all. I think he loathes the cinema of Judd Apatow though if that makes any difference?

The duo seem like real fans of the Muppets which can’t be said for some of the creative teams they have had working on these characters in the past. We should have a better opinion of this movie in a few weeks time when Marshall opens and we get to see just what the pair can do.

A decent trailer (well I thought so anyway) and some star power with Kevin Spacey has helped the casino thriller 21 top the box office charts for the last weekend of March with a $23.7 million opening. It’s a decent opening considering it was made for $35 million and I don’t think Sony/Columbia will be worried at this stage about it’s return.

For director Robert Luketic, it’s his third opening at around this range after Legally Blonde and Monster-In-Law, showing his ability to consistently find an audience with simple plots and his success has come here because it looked to carry some of the same fun attitude as Ocean’s Thirteen and Catch Me If You Can.

FINALLY, American audiences played it smart this weekend and didn’t waste their money on Superhero Movie. The latest in the long line of spoof movies is actually the first to be a notable flop taking in $9.5 million, only half of what Meet the Spartans earned and the decision to parody mostly just the original Spider-Man movie (which is six years old now) might have been to it’s determent.

Although it probably did result in a more coherent picture (which makes a change for this genre, though I haven’t seen this film) it was never going to get the mass appeal of Spartans because it didn’t parody 300, POTC and the like.

A new year brings the same audience trepidation when it comes to movies about the Iraq war. Stop-Loss mega flopped to a $4.5 million opening and personally, it looked just like another lecture movie like the ads for Lions for Lambs. It’s not particularly something I want to put my money down to see let’s put it that way and Paramount will have a hard time making a return on it’s $25 million budget.

Elsewhere Simon Pegg proved once again he has absolutely no draw in the U.S. what-so-ever as the awful Run, Fatboy, Run failed to even hit the top ten and opened with $2.5 million. And staying strong is Horton Hears A Who, the first film to pass the $100 million mark in 2008 and the highest grossing film of the year so far. Most people who have seen it would say it’s deserved too…

source - box office mojo

Sorry for the obvious false headline which I tried to catch you out with.

The Hollywood Reporter say it will be Henry Lee Hopper (who is actually the son of Dennis) and Denzel Whitaker (no relation to Forest, despite some resemblance) who will co-star along with Shareeka Epps and Emily Meade as the foursome of unknowns in Wes Craven’s new horror movie 25/8.

Craven’s idea is to go with unknowns for the main players so that no star power will suggest who lives or dies. It’s not a new horror trait and he of course has used this technique himself with the castings of both Scream and A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Hopper, the son of Dennis Hopper, will play the lead role of Bug, one of seven teens haunted by a serial killer who supposedly died when they were born 15 years earlier. The film takes place over the course of a day as the mystery of who (or what) is stalking the small-town high schoolers unfolds.

Sounds an awful lot like Scream and the whole movie has that sense about it. The sense that Wes Craven is going to reinvent the genre again, that he’s going to get back to his best and embarrass his peers and show them how these movies should be done. Craven has a keen knack for coming out of nowhere will a killer horror concept once every decade. We haven’t had one in the 00’s yet.

And after all this is his first original script since New Nightmare (which was cool) and his first 100% original setup (i.e. not continuation of a franchise) since The People Under the Stairs in 1991. Something feels exciting about this.

Do you share my optimism or am I setting myself up for a failure here. Are you at all worried that only one of these cast members was actually born in the 80’s?

The most burnt out disc in my girlfriends DVD collection is without doubt the fluff 1991 comedy Father of the Bride which starred Steve Martin and Diane Keaton as a couple who had to cope with sending their daughter off from their home and into the big wide world as she was to marry the love of her life.

Steve Martin’s performance and whole persona in that movie (it’s pretty much a star vehicle for him) was excellent and I think it’s that which draws her back time and time again. And probably Nancy Meyers (& friends) script which really does well playing with the heartstrings of young females who like the idea of weddings.

Variety say Keaton & Martin will be looking to replicate the same kind of commercial success as that first Father of the Bride movie ($89 million domestic) with One Big Happy, a Paramount Pictures comedy born out of the minds of Party of Five creators Amy Lippman and Chris Keyser.

Concept is being kept under wraps, but sources describe “One Big Happy” as a family comedy about a couple and a family reconnecting amid various obstacles.

Could it then be turned into a Father of the Bride Part III?

The plot would certainly suggest it could but after 13 years since Father of the Bride Part II, I’m not sure if anyone will even care to see that series continue. And it’s not even from the same studio, so it probably couldn’t even be possible anyway.

One criticism I always felt about the Father of the Bride films was that they didn’t really give Diane Keaton much to do. I wonder if she will actually get a rounded character this time around?

I was always wonder if this is news because although of course it is very important to know who the man behind these big monster characters are, you probably won’t know who he is anyway even if I tell you his name and show you a pic!

AICN say Derek Mears will play Jason Vorhee’s in the Platinum Dunes remake/re-imagining of the Friday the 13th series which looks to begin at Vol. II and focus around the iconic serial killing monster.

Mears has made a career out of bit part roles (usually as Thug No. 4 etc) and for working on films stunts as he did for the first two Pirates of the Caribbean movies and the upcoming Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Apparently this guy is a huge geek so he was pretty honored when this opportunity worked out for him.

It’s a real shame they have decided to ditch the first movie as part of their re-imaging. I’m sure I said this in my post about the movie but I think if they had thought about what they were doing a little more and really slow built towards a Jason appearance in the second or third movie, then we would feel the benefit of it.

If the Saw franchise is the success that these remakes are trying to replicate then they should really take note of the character development of that series and really tried to bring a sense of longevity to it instead of doing what Rob Zombie did with Halloween, and hack jobbing a selfish movie together to appease his fanboy urges to reinvent a film he loved.

And I would certainly advise them to actually create some likeable characters and have some of them survive for sequels. Your franchises will benefit from it.

Written & Directed by: Garth Jennings

Starring: Will Poulter, Bill Milner, Jules Stiruk, Charlie Thrift, Jessica Stevenson, Neil Dudgeon, Adam Godley

Distributed by Optimum Releasing

Film will be released in the U.K. on April 4th 2008 and on limited U.S. release beginning May 2nd 2008.

Review by Michael Edwards

Son of Rambow is a much acclaimed British film about childhood, friendship, faith and the magic of movies. It’s 1982, it’s summer, and we’re in the English suburbs. 10 year-old Will (Bill Milner) is a sheltered boy, born into a religious life in a puritanical Christian community which has precluded his engagement in the usual childhood inductions to popular culture through TV, movies, music and generally any form of fun and self-expression. His only outlet has been the creation of colourful doodles on the pages of his Bible. One day whilst sitting outside his classroom as the other children watch an educational film, he encounters his exact opposite - Lee Carter (Will Poulter). Lee is a kid who has everything, except for parents. In their absence he is left under the care of his rebellious older brother who has little interest in his charge. Armed with the tools of his worldly wealth Lee Carter has decided to make his own movie. When Will goes round to Lee’s house and witnesses a pirated copy of Rambo: First Blood, Will has an epiphany, and his enthusiasm is soon harnessed by Lee who ropes him in to perform the stunts for his film.

We follow the boys on a brilliantly engaging journey which can’t help but suck in even the most cynical of viewers. Their labour of love is a triumph of childhood joy, and encompasses the heady mix of media influences that bombarded the impressionable young minds of the time. Lee’s vivacious, carefree and gung-ho approach fuel scene after scene of mayhem which see Will take on a marvellously wide array of dangerous stunts without batting an eyelid. This portion of the film culminates in a beautiful scene in which Will leaps onto a rope swing to hurl himself across a river, only revealing to Lee that he can’t swim as he plunges from the rope swing into the murky depths below. Lee’s rescue and the subsequent decision to bond as blood brothers caps a lovely piece of sentimental nostalgia. The plot thickens when French exchange students arrive, among them the aloof and painfully trendy Didier (Jules Sitruk) who acts as a comic commentary of the cinema du look of the period, as well ably providing some comic relief and emotional tension between the two leading lads whose friendship is severely strained by Didier’s arrival on the film set.

Among the many funny and heartfelt moments of the film there are also moments of cinematic genius. The way filmmaking literally allows Will to visualise his drawings come to life in all their vivid glory not only makes for captivating viewing but is a beautifully innovative way to illustrate the power of film on a developing young mind. And lets face it, we hear sanctimonious preaching about the dangers of media influences on a daily basis so it’s a breath of fresh air to see a filmmaker so succinctly and so entertainingly argue the case for the beneficial aspects of film on a burgeoning young imagination. We see the uniting effects of a shared passion, the therapeutic effects of escapism, and the development of an individual identity all manifest themselves through the wonder of filmmaking.

But I can’t reach the end of commentary on Son of Rambow without mentioning the performances. Milner and Poulter ooze charisma and exude the youthful energy demanded in this piece. There are none of the occasional issues of hammed acting or lightweight scenes, each moment is tackled with an enthusiasm and sincerity demanded of such a buoyant film.

This film shows the fun side of childhood. A joyful retort to Shane Meadows This is England and a playful accompaniment to the resurgent interest in the heady destruction of the 80’s action movies, Son of Rambow is a pleasure to watch from start to finish and to my mind has proved that Garth Jennings can shed the shadow of the mediocre Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and make truly great films.

Son of Rambow is out across the UK on 4th of April.