New Feature: Movie News

First of all, I need to start coming up with cleverer names for these features. I am open to suggestions, preferably involving some sort of horrible pun.

At any rate, I figured it would be a good idea to, instead of just posting reviews, to post news items regarding film since that's pretty much all I look at for 90% of my day. So let's get to it.

- In what is perhaps my most exciting discovery, Freida Pinto of Slumdog Millionaire fame has signed on for Tarsem's upcoming big-budget epic War of the Gods, starring Henry Cavill as a young Theseus. According to Tarsem, the look of it is "Italian Renaissance painting style meets Fight Club" so...awesome. Not only is this big news because a. it means another great part for Pinto but also b. it means something is finally happening with this movie, the progress of which I've been monitoring for about a year. Part of the drag with Tarsem is that it takes him VERY long to make a movie due to his rejection of CGI. Not sure if that will hold up with this film, but I know that The Fall is pretty much entirely shot on location and took 4 years to make.

- Not sure how 'recent' this news is, but I only just found out about it so I'm going to report on it. Evidently, Gwyneth Paltrow is signed on to star in an upcoming Marlene Dietrich biopic, a role for which she was specifically chosen by the Dietrich family. However, Hollywood studios are hesitant to greenlight it because of Paltrow's attachment. Not sure if it's because they don't like Gwyneth, or they, like me, do not see any remote resemblance between her and Dietrich. I like her as an actress, so I'll be interested to see if she pulls it off, but if you ask me, it should be Diane Kruger.

- In other 40s German film star biopic news, it looks like Jodie Foster's long-awaited Leni Riefenstahl film might just have gotten the go-ahead. It's listed on imdb as in development for a 2011 release, but as it's on imdbPro, that means it is WAY early in development meaning all information is subject to change. I really hope this works out, she's been trying to make it since the mid-90s but naturally there is some controversy about how to portray Riefenstahl, as the artist or the Nazi, ideally, it would be some reconciliation of both. We'll see.

- Just continuing with the German theme (I swear this is not intentional), a new movie is in development that I am VERY excited about. It's called The Talking Cure and depicts a fictional (I think) story of Sigmund Freud, Karl Jung and a young Russian woman whom they are treating and with whom Jung begins to fall in love, much to Freud's professional frustration. The casting is PHE.NOM.EN.AL. Sigmund Freud is going to be played by Academy Award Winner Christoph Waltz, Jung by his Inglourious Basterds costar Michael Fassbender, with Keira Knightley as the patient. I will definitely keep checking updates on this.

- Straying from Germany, but not from the 1940s, there are finally some updates on the upcoming Mildred Pierce revamp with Kate Winslet as the Joan Crawford title role. It will be produced by HBO as a five-hour mini-series later this year, and other cast members include Guy Pierce and Evan Rachel Wood. It is being written and directed by I'm Not There director Todd Haynes.

- In other projects-that-I-though-were-dying-but-aren't news, we have also gotten some news about the upcoming Jane Eyre adaptation that was originally supposed to star Ellen Page but after the writers woke up from their Juno-hyped stupor, wisely recast with Alice in Wonderland's Mia Wasikowska as Jane and Michael Fassbender (this guy is cleaning up) as Rochester. Other cast members include a number of British actors I adore such as The Dench, Sally Hawkins, and Jamie Bell. This is substantially more promising than the developing Wuthering Heights reboot starring Gemma Arterton and Gossip Girl's Ed Westwick. What has Twilight done to this novel? If you want to watch a good Wuthering Heights adaptation, I recommend Masterpiece Theater's 2009 version with Charlotte Riley and Tom Hardy.

- To wrap this up, here are some new titles out on DVD that I highly recommend:

Broken Embraces
Precious
An Education (EDIT: Not on DVD yet, coming out on March 30th, but imdb just likes to be wrong about things I guess.)