A Wednesday chock full of fun news

There's a lot of movie stuff that caught my eye this morning, but the two best bits come from Fox's fall TV schedule, so let's just start there.

Along with killing off five shows that I never bothered to tune in for, the network also added two that I'll definitely give a chance to next fall at its upfronts.

First up is "Alcatraz," which comes from J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot company and is a crime drama revolving around a team investigating the mysterious reappearance of the prison's 1960 inhabitants in the present. Sounds like a pretty serious mindf%$#, and it will star Jorge Garcia of "Lost."

Perhaps even better, Fox has also picked up something called "The New Girl," a comedy starring Zooey Deschanel, who I'll certainly watch in just about anything. This show is about a "quirky female teacher" (Zooey, natch) who becomes roommates with three guys: A man-child, a player and a cynic. Bring it on.

And in one final bit of TV news, I saw a few reports this morning that led with the headline "Martin Freeman leaving 'The Hobbit'," but reading into it just a bit revealed it's just for a short while and so he can work on more "Sherlock" with Benedict Cumberbatch. Bully, because the three episodes they showed a short while back on PBS with Cumberbatch as the titular detective and Freeman as his pal Watson were fantastic.

OK, like I said, a pretty busy day of good movie news, so I'll just get to it briskly before some fun videos, and at least one that's simply bizarre.

First up, now that, thankfully, Darren Aronofsky won't be wasting his time on yet another movie about "The Wolverine," he's now hitched up with George Clooney for something that sounds much more interesting.

According to Vulture, he's now at work on a science fiction movie titled "Human Nature," which will star Clooney as a man who is cryogenically frozen, only to wake up in a future where humanity has become pets to another species. That's all I know about that, but it certainly sounds like a perfect Aronofsky mind-bender.

In other news, Niels Arden Oplev, who made one of my favorite recent thrillers with his take on Stieg Larsson's "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," has now set his sights on a genre thriller with a great cast.

The movie, called "The Last Photograph," is a revenge story starring one Sean Penn as a special ops soldier who goes to Afghanistan to track down who murdered his brother, and Christian Bale as a photographer who documented the killing. Sounds like juicy stuff.

Moving quickly (I do have an actual job that still pays me something, after all), there are few genres of movie I love more than boxing flicks, and it sounds like "The Devil and Daniel Johnston" director Jeff Feuerzeig is putting together a potentially sweet one.

Naomi Watts, Liev Schreiber and Christina Hendricks will star in "The Bleeder," based on the true story of former New Jersey heavyweight boxer and womanizer Chuck Wepner, who boxed 15 rounds with Muhammad Ali and apparently inspired Sylvester Stallone to pen 'Rocky.' " Fun stuff, that, and I assume Schreiber would play the fighter.

And in a final bit of news before we move on to the videos, it's already known that, in a more-than-slightly odd change up, Tyler Perry will be playing Alex Cross, the role already played twice by Morgan Freeman, in "I, Alex Cross." And now comes very welcome word that Frenchy Jean Reno is joining the cast too.

This time out, James Patterson's creation is squaring off against a psychotic mob hitman to be played by Matthew Fox. No word yet on what role Reno will play, but he can class up just about anything except that remake of "The Pink Panther," so this could be fairly great.

OK, now on the videos. Not surprisingly, what Pedro Almodovar has cooked up now looks as bizarre as it will hopefully be entertaining, as I almost always find his movies to be. "The Skin I Live In" reunites the director with Antonio Banderas, and is a revenge tale that tells the story of a plastic surgeon (Banderas, I have to assume) on the hunt for the men who raped his daughter. It's in competition this year at Cannes, but for now enjoy this very short clip to whet your appetite.



Next up comes a bit of fun courtesy of MTV News. As everyone probably knows, there's another pirate movie starring Johnny Depp coming out soon (May 20), called "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides." I'm still on the fence about seeing it, although the presence of Penelope Cruz cutting up is certainly a plus. What I did like, at least, was this bit of Legos fun. Enjoy.

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

I assumed that this week's "South Park" would be all about Osama Bin Laden, but it seems I'm wrong once again (don't worry, I'm used to it). Instead, in something that could be wickedly funny, they take on the royal wedding, which in Trey Parker and Matt Stone's warped minds actually involves a Canadian princess. By the way, NPR is streaming the "Book of Mormon" soundtrack here, and it's just perfectly profane entertainment. Enjoy that and this brief clip from tonight's episode.

Royal Pudding
Tags: SOUTH
PARKIke Broflovski,Terrance,Phillip,more...

And finally today, how better to start Wednesday than with a free movie? I know it has its detractors, but "O Brother Where Art Thou" is still my favorite Coen Brothers' movie, and you can now watch it in its entirety on YouTube. This looks good at full frame, and watching it certainly sounds like a lot more fun than working. Enjoy, and have a perfectly passable Wednesday. Peace out.

Of Bouncing Cats and a lot of other fun stuff

There are many things that make the Atlanta Film Festival 365 a thoroughly fun experience, but its international offerings each year may be the very best one.

This year, the focus has been on Africa (with other movies from all around the world, too), and after the engrossing documentary "An African Election," I followed that up last night with "Bouncing Cats," a genuinely unique movie experience.

The flick's title comes from the words that Ugandan kids use to make a beat when they have no music to dance to (try it, "bouncing cats, bou-bouncing cats"), and it chronicles the work of Breakdance Project Uganda. And though it never shies away from depicting how tough life is in the war-torn country, it's truly uplifting to see the joy these kids get from simply dancing (and they're really good, too.)

The hero here is Abramz Tekya, who started the group and travels the country spreading his b-boy gospel. As the movie begins, he brings breakdancer extraordinaire Richard "Crazy Legs" Colon of the Rock Steady Crew to tour the country and teach the kids some new steps. Along the way, you meet several of them and hear their stories, and its often as moving as it is simply infectiously fun.

My only real beef was the sometimes blatant product placement (the movie was financed at least in part by Red Bull, something I've never had the need to try), but director Nabil Elderkin's movie nonetheless pulses with the beat that drives these kids (and as a plus, it also features great African music by K'naan, Amadou and Miriam, and others), and even manages to capture a few genuine moments of grace in a land that sorely needs some. Highly recommended if you can ever find this at a film festival or surely soon on DVD. Enjoy the trailer, and then stick around for what else caught my eye this morning in movie news.

Bouncing Cats Trailer from Bouncing Cats on Vimeo.

OK, now on to what I found on the interwebs this morning, starting with the fact that it's good to be either lucky or good, but best of all both. "The Hurt Locker" director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal had already been at work on a movie about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden before, well, we all know what happened last Sunday.

So, with that rather fortuitous development, they're of course going to change the ending, and Australian actor Joel Edgerton has just signed on to play one of the special ops soldiers who carried out the operation. The only downside to all this (well, there could be several, but let's just stay positive here), is what is apparently the working title: "Kill Bin Laden."

Really? Sheesh. I suppose "Slay the Bastard" must have been taken.

And in better news, as a fan of stop-motion animation and an even bigger one of Aardman's version of it, this news about the studio rising, quite literally, from the ashes is just all-around excellent.

The company's Bristol, England, main studio was destroyed by fire in 2005, but now, with help from Sony Pictures Animation, company co-founder Peter Lord (co-director of "Chicken Run," too) is going to direct a stop-motion flick titled "The Pirates! Band of Misfits," set for release in March 2012.

So, what's it about? Here goes, per Aardman.

Hugh Grant provides the voice of Pirate Captain – a boundlessly enthusiastic, if somewhat less-than-successful, terror of the High Seas. With a rag-tag crew at his side (Martin Freeman, Brendan Gleeson, Russell Tovey and Ashley Jensen), and seemingly blind to the impossible odds stacked against him, the Captain has one dream: to beat his bitter rivals Black Bellamy (Jeremy Piven) and Cutlass Liz (Salma Hayek) to the much coveted Pirate Of The Year Award. It’s a quest that takes our heroes from the shores of exotic Blood Island to the foggy streets of Victorian London. Along the way they battle a diabolical queen (Imelda Staunton) and team up with a haplessly smitten young scientist (David Tennant), but never lose sight of what a pirate loves best: adventure!

Sounds incredibly silly, but hopefully really fun, too, and any news about the studio that created Wallace and Gromit coming back to life in grand form is just nothing but great to hear.

OK, I had some more planned today, but I'm gonna try and catch "Thor" this morning (yes, it's great to be on vacation), so I'll just close with a couple of videos. First up comes a trailer of sorts for "X-Men: First Class" which shows us some more about Hank McCoy/Beast, being played by Nicholas Hoult of the UK "Skins" fame. And yes, it also features Jennifer Lawrence as Raven Darkholme/Mystique, and as anyone who's been here before knows, I never consider that a bad thing. Enjoy, and of course, keep an eye out for Matthew Vaughn's flick June 3.

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

And finally, in a definite case of saving the very best for last, this is the first trailer I know of for "The Trip," a new flick from Michael Winterbottom starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon as, well, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon being, as usual, very funny. The movie, being released in at least a few theaters by IFC on June 10 and then quickly to VOD on June 22, pretty much just follows the two of them on a tour of posh eateries as they discuss their careers, impersonate just about every actor they can think of, and just generally just give each other a lot of good-natured hell. Sounds like exactly my kind of thing. Enjoy the trailer, keep an eye out for this if you can find it, and have a great weekend. Peace out..