Joblo reports: “Harrelson takes over in a role once meant for Jake Gyllenhaal, a mentalist who’s ‘known for his Jedi-style mind tricks.’ Once a performer for the Queen of England, an accident forces him to leave the UK and head to Vegas where he takes up with the Four Horsemen, a group of thieving illusionists.”

Now You See Me will also star Morgan Freeman, Mark Ruffalo, Isla Fisher, and Melanie Laurent, and will start filming later this year.

Source: JoBlo

Synopsis: The Hunger Games is a worldwide fan phenomenon, the novel having been on the New York Times best seller list for over 130 consecutive weeks. The film chronicles Katniss Everdeen’s defiant struggle to survive in a future dystopia where The Capitol requires its twelve subjugated districts to atone for their onetime insurrection through the annual “Hunger Games,” a fight-to-the-death event held in a fantastical man made arena. Although persevering through extreme hardship is commonplace for the audacious heroine, she is forced to make choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love in order to win the games and return home to District 12.
The Hunger Games will be directed by Gary Ross, and produced by Nina Jacobson’s Color Force in tandem with producer Jon Kilik. Collins’ best-selling novel, which has over 3 million copies in print in the United States alone, is the first in a trilogy of science fiction/action novels which have developed a global following.

Source: Heat Vision

The Film:

A few years back, there was a boom of war films dealing with the Iraq conflict, but they didn’t do well at the box office. Some claimed “too soon”, others claimed that they weren’t that good to begin with, yet did anyone consider that they felt like agenda films? Republicans and Democrats are going to be at odds until this mess in the Middle East wraps up, if it does, and it’s hard to separate politics from a war film, especially since everyone has a political idea on what’s going on with the war.

The Messenger is a smart, powerful film. After seeing it, you feel like you just crashed into a brick wall.

Stripping politics and the nature of war away, we follow a soldier (Ben Foster) who is assigned to be in the Army’s Causality Notification Service, with Captain Stone (Woody Harrelson). The film is a raw, emotional look at the effects of war. Harrelson’s character comments on people who fail to realize what war is, as he talks about how people wave their little American flags, thank soldiers for their service, all of that patriotic stuff, but become shocked when he shows up to their door. If you didn’t know, the Causality Notification Service are the two soldiers who knock on the door of the next of kin, to regretfully tell them their loved one has died in combat. It’s a bitch of a job, something that can be easily manipulative in a movie.

Director Oren Moverman handles these emotionally charged scenes with restraint. Each person reacts differently to the news, but Moverman builds the sadness up with the dilemma Ben Foster’s character feels. There’s pain and guilt in his eyes, and at any second he could explode. Moverman reveals characters slowly, peeling back layers when needed, and it all works. I recall the scenes in We Were Soldiers when Madeline Stowe chooses to tell the families herself. It was your typical Hollywood phoniness. The Messenger is a stunning debut film from Moverman, a film that shows the tough job in the services might not be on the front lines.

The film has a subplot involving Ben Foster who strikes up a relationship of sorts with a widow (Samantha Morton) that doesn’t work as well as it should have, but one can forgive it, due to the superb acting and the intensity of the scenes when Foster and Harrleson are walking up to a house to deliver the news. The Messenger asks questions we have rarely asked ourselves when it comes to war: are we really ready for the true consequences of war? Raw, sad, real, and a few hundred adjectives later, The Messenger will leave you trembling; a film you won’t soon forget.

The Blu-ray:

Audio/Video: The details are extremely high, with the only flaw of the transfer is the bleeding of blacks into grays as the picture tends to get lost with no shadow detail, but this could be a production thing and not a transfer issue. Overall, the film’s lack of color actually looks quite bold in HD, far superior to the included DVD. The audio track is quite front heavy, which is the intended nature of the sound design, and is quite good. Being an early Blu-ray from Oscilloscope Laboratories, the results are quite good.

Commentary: Director/Co-writer Oren Moverman, Producer Lawrence Inglee and Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson are present for a soft, sometimes dry, but always interesting chat. We get some really good insights from the actors, as they say what in the film is improvised. Moverman is very articulate and while at times, the track has some dead air, what we get is highly engaging as a listen.

Notification: This is a wonderful documentary that features interviews with real Casualty Notification/Assistance division members as they reflect on the job and their worst experiences. It’s a powerful 25 minutes, filled with heartbreak and honor, but it serves as a fine backbone to the film. In SD.

Going Home: This is a traditional making-of that’s still really good as a watch. Military liaisons and members of the cast and crew talk about the film’s plot, production, and even some political messages, something of interesting importance. I can’t disagree, but I obviously felt that the film was rather neutral. In SD.

Variety Q&A Session: The only HD extra is a 27 minute panel discussion on the film with cast and crew, that serves as a visual commentary, as much is known already after you watch or listen to this, compared to the commentary.

All of this is housed in a fancy recycled packaging from Oscilloscope Laboratories that finishes out the extras with a short essay from Anthony Swofford, writer of Jarhead, the film on DVD on a separate disc, and a .pdf file of the film’s shooting script (viewable only on your DVD-ROM drive).

Conclusion: Emotionally draining, yet one of the best films from last year, gets a chance to further my recommendation via this wonderful Blu-ray set.

The Film: Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

The Blu-ray: Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

The Film:

Remember in The Dark Knight when Batman apprehends the copycat Batmans, and one questions: “What gives you the right? What’s the difference between you and me?” Batman calmly puts it: “I’m not wearing hockey pads!” That scene and verbal exchange struck me when I watched Defendor. In this film Woody Harrelson (2012, Zombieland) plays Arthur Poppington, a man who is sick of crime and the filth, and decides if no one else will clean up the streets, he will. It’s a black comedy, a deep satirical look at comic books and the heroes who occupy the pages, but it’s also an interesting character study of the character of Arthur, who in the film, just might not be all there in the head.

Defendor is sort of brilliant. Seriously. Throughout all of the costume changes, the tough guy-comic book hero talk, the spin on the genre, it also has a serious tone, that really echoes through the plot. It gives us weight, and even though poor Arthur might just be disillusioned, we care for him. The film defiantly has to be good at its balancing act, because Arthur is a cheeseball; when he is Defendor, he proclaims big talk, like Adam West in the 1960′s Batman TV series, but there are key moments of sympathy and turmoil in his eyes, that really flip the film back from just a send-up of the comic book genre.

Periodically, Arthur listens to a radio show, and in voice overs, the host tells about the crime in the city, the drugs and prostitution, and a caller chimes in saying why does he talk about it all the time. The radio host, says even if he does stop, the crime is still going to be there, and by not talking about it, it won’t get cleaned up by itself. This is the hook of the film. There are so many instances in our city’s news, where citizens look away. We don’t want to get involved. Do you remember when you saved Jack’s life? I’ll never forget what you did that day. You were just a regular guy doing something remarkable. You don’t need a costume. Ordinary people, they do extraordinary things all the time. You’re always going to be that hero, Arthur, just by being yourself. Arthur is told that, and even though he might be “not-all-there” in the head, his intentions speak loudly, and resonates with us, especially when we flip through our newspaper this evening.

The world needs a hero, and I would be glad if Defendor was there. Don’t judge it by the DVD cover art, this is a hidden gem, that should have been given a decent theatrical release. Defendor is what Kick-Ass wanted to be, but wasn’t.

The DVD:

Audio/Video: Sony delivers a sweet disc. The film has a gritty, real world New York feel to it, and the transfer perfectly recreates this. It’s a detailed standard definition transfer, with nice facial textures and some blacks. The audio is lively as well, with nice bass and urban atmospherics in the surround speakers.

Commentary: Everyone is here, the director Peter Stebbings, producer Nicholas Tabarrok, and actors Woody Harrelson and Kat Dennings, for a solid chat. It’s a fun listen, but also informative with plenty of good tidbits.

Featurettes: Broken up into five parts, we get nearly an hour of behind-the-scenes footage with set visits and interviews. It’s a decent watch for the earnest look at low budget film making.

Deleted Scenes that actually offer up some good material and Outtakes round out the extras.

Conclusion: A diamond-in-the-rough is Defendor, so see it now.

The Film: Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

The DVD: Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

The Messenger

“Rampart” is focused on a single police officer during the scandal and based on a story by James Ellroy. More than 70 officers were implicated in misconduct including unprovoked shootings, beatings, planting of evidence, framing of suspects, stealing and dealing narcotics, bank robbery, perjury and covering up evidence (Variety).

Production Weekly also reports that The Messenger stars Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson are circling around this picture, possibly re-teaming with Moverman.

Moverman is already attached to go and put together the yet to be titled Kurt Cobain biopic, set not only to pen the story but to direct once more. Keep an eye out for the DVD and Blu-Ray release of The Messenger, set to hit stores on May 18th.

Justice has a new name in the action-packed superhero dramedy DEFENDOR, releasing on DVD April 13, 2010, from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Woody Harrelson (2009 Golden Globe® Nominee) suits up for adventure and laughs in the story of a regular man who takes on a superhero persona in order to combat crime in his local city. A hip, smartly comic cast, including Sandra Oh (TV’s “Grey’s Anatomy,” Sideways) and Kat Dennings (Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, The House Bunny), add to the fun in a laugh-filled movie that boldly satirizes the popular comic book hero genre while creating an unforgettable new superhero of its own.

This is not the only animated picture that the up and coming studio is handling. Among those on their development list are Rats of NIMH, A Wrinkle in Time and Dinosaur Bob.

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has announced 1-disc DVD ($28.96) and 2-disc Blu-ray ($39.95) releases of 2012 for the 2nd March. Extras on the 1-disc DVD will include commentary with Writer/Director Roland Emmerich and Co-Writer Harald Kloser, deleted scenes, an alternate ending, a Roland Emmerich: The Master of the Modern Epic featurette, and a “Time For Miracles” Music Video by Adam Lambert. The Blu-ray release will include all that, along with additional featurettes (“Designing The End Of The World”, “Science Behind The Destruction”, “The End Of The World: The Actor’s Perspective”, “Making the Music Video “Time For Mircales” with Adam Lambert”), a Picture-In-Picture function including Pre-Visualization, storyboards and behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with filmmakers, cast and crew, and an Interactive Mayan Calendar.

The Messenger is a smart, powerful film. After seeing it, you feel like you just crashed into a brick wall.

Stripping politics and the nature of war away, we follow a soldier (Ben Foster) who is assigned to be in the Army’s Causality Notification Service, with Captain Stone (Woody Harrelson).  The film is a raw, emotional look at the effects of war. Harrelson character comments on people who fail to realize what war is, as he talks about how people wave their little American flags, thank soldiers for their service, all of that patriotic stuff, but become shocked when he shows up to their door. If you didn’t know, the Causality Notification Service are the two soldier who knock on the door of the next of kin, to regretfully tell them their loved one has died in combat.  It’s a bitch of a job, something what can be easily manipulative in a movie.

Director Oren Moverman handles these emotionally charged scenes with restraint. Each person reacts differently to the news, but Moverman builds the saddness up with the dilemma Ben Foster’s character feels. There’s pain and guilt in his eyes, and at any second he could explode. Moverman reveals characters slowly, peeling back layers when needed, and it all works. I recall the scenes in We Were Soldiers when Madeline Stowe chooses to tell the families herself. It was your typical Hollywood phoniness. The Messenger is a stunning debut film from Moverman, a film that shows the tough job in the services might not be on the front lines.

The film has a subplot involving Ben Foster who strikes up a relationship of sorts with a widow (Samantha Morton) that doesn’t work as well as it should have, but on can forgive it, due to the superb acting and the intensity of the scenes when Foster and Harrleson are walking up to a house to deliver the news. The Messenger asks questions we have rarely asked ourselves when it comes to war: are we really ready for the true consequences of war? Raw, sad, real, and a few hundred adjectives later, The Messenger will leave you trembling; a film you won’t soon forget.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Believing the “genre really lends itself to [3-D], and convinced – via what we’re hearing and seeing of “Avatar” – the technology is now there. Fleischer’s very keen to throw a few zombie gizzards in our direction. “Dead” cool, right!?

(As for where the sequel will be set, Fleischer didn’t say, but when we chatted to Woody Harrelson a few weeks back he said he’d like to see it either set in Paris… or on Broadway. Assuming it’ll be none of those locations– but somewhere just as surprising).

So when will “Zombieland 3D” happen? Whenever “we crack it”, says the filmmaker, indicating that they haven’t decided on the storyline yet.

Rumor has it that a majority of the cast is possibly willing to sign back on. That means that Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, Jesse Eisenberg and Abigail Breslin would all be re-teaming up for the sequel. Do you think that it’d be a pretty damn good idea not only to have a sequel to this but also for it to be in blood gushing 3D?

Zombieland opens October 9th and stars Emma Stone and Oscar nominees Bill Murray, Abigail Breslin, and Woody Harrelson.

Source: Fangoria

The film is: is a romantic comedy that chronicles a chance meeting between Mike Cranshaw (Steve Zahn) and Sue Claussen (Jennifer Aniston). When Sue checks into the roadside motel owned by Mike’s parents in Arizona, what starts with a bottle of wine “compliments of MANAGEMENT” soon evolves into a multi-layered, cross-country journey of two people looking for a sense of purpose. Mike, an aimless dreamer, bets it all on a trip to Sue’s workplace in Maryland – only to find that she has no place for him in her carefully ordered life. Buttoned down and obsessed with making a difference in the world, Sue goes back to her yogurt mogul ex-boyfriend Jango (Woody Harrelson), who promises her a chance to head his charity operations. But, having found something worth fighting for, Mike pits his hopes against Sue’s practicality, and the two embark on a twisted, bumpy, freeing journey to discover that their place in the world just might be together- per official film synopsis.

Management opens in theatres May 15th!

Source: Variety

When I first got a peep at the trailer for  Seven Pounds I was intrigued.  The trailer itself gave away only small nuggets of the film’s plot, but never revealed its secrets.  This was a tactic that I thought was dead in the world of movie advertising, so as soon as the flick made it’s way into theaters I rushed to see it, and for the first time in a long while, I was impressed with a Hollywood drama.  

Ben Thomas (Will Smith) is an IRS agent carrying around some serious demons.  He walks through life carefully observing the world around him, picking out the good in people, but never able to detach himself from his own internal pain.  What is he doing?  Why gift does he want to give these strangers that he has found to be good people? These are all questions raised by the film, but none of them are answered until the end of the last act.  A huge achievement pulled off with style by director Gabriele Muccino (The Pursuit of Happiness).  

I was blown away by Smith’s performance from the very first frame of the film.  When working with a talented director like Muccino, Smith is a force to be reckoned with.  He shows a huge array of emotions in the film, and none of them seem forced, I was curious about his actions, but confused by his motives.  But it wasn’t only smith that shined here.  The entire cast is worthy of an Oscar nomination.  Rosario Dawson was extremely impressive as Emily Posa, a woman with congenital heart diseaase.  Emily could have come of as pitiful if played wrong, but Dawson’s Emily was a strong woman doing her best to drink up every last drop of life she has left, yet still able to show her vulnerabilities.  Woody Harrelson was also solid as Ezra Turner, a blind musician with a good soul.  And Barry Pepper is strong as Ben’s best friend Dan.  

It’s not often a film can move me the way that this one did.  Muccino is a master of cinematic timing, and a solid director that makes informed decisions instead of monetarily influenced ones. This film is a beautiful and harrowing drama that, never once questions the intelligence of its audience.  If your looking for a drama that lets you in on the secret from the outset, then this is not the film for you, but if your looking for a film that offers so much more than just a predictable plot, look no further than Seven Pounds.  Seven Pounds is most definitely a killer film.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars