solace in cinema : A vast wasteland of movies

The news all over the net this morning is that John Favreau, the slated director for the upcoming Iron Man movie, has confirmed Robert Downey Junior will be playing Tony Stark AKA Iron Man.

The news first appeared as a tip over at aintitcool, and was then confirmed by Favreau on his myspace blog. Its an interesting choice and signals that Downey Junior is officially back in the Hollywood fold. He's been back on the screen for a couple of years, after what will only be described as his 'lost years'.

So come 2007 we should see Junior sporting a moustache (Tony Stark, one of the few moustached-super heroes, therefore one of the most awesome-est) and tearing up the screen in a stark-industries Iron Man suit. That is, as long as Downey doesn't get coked out of his mind and kill a prostitute inbetween now and then.

This clip has been around for about a week, but i've only just got the chance to take a proper look at it. I had already stated that I thought the early poster for 'Hot Fuzz' was just a quick mock-up for comic-con, and the latest video diary/podcast proves my theory. 

The new video shows Simon and Nick jumping around on crash mats, doing a lot of John Woo sideways-jumping two-gun moves while being photographed, we even see Edgar looking at rough mock-ups of what the poster might look like, including one with the tagline 'Crime won't know what's hit it!'

Still no sign of a trailer on the net, but If you dying to see it you can go and see it in the cinema.

Check out the 'Making the Poster' clip over at working title here

(via film-ick) 

The smallest poster EVER. This is the first i've seen of this, If there's a bigger version out there, I couldn't find it.

The Original Black Christmas AKA Silent Night, Evil Night was an interesting horror film, and was genuinely quite creepy in parts, if a little slow. The story of a sorority house that is terrorised by a stranger that makes prank phone calls and eventually starts hiding in and around their house might not sound that fresh now, but back in 1974 that was an original concept. The original was a one of the first slasher films back in the mid 70's, and so it appears there actually isn't ANY films left to remake. Looks like we might be going full circle again.

Glen Morgan is directing the remake, with low-budget horror 'Willard' already under his belt, who know's, something good might come out of it. The Director of the Original, Bob Clark (from looking at his imdb credits) is now making films like 'Baby Geniuses'  and 'Karate Dog', I hope Morgan has better luck.

Poster via pathe.co.uk

A couple of quite brief clips from 'The Texas chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning' have cropped up on yahoo movies.

I was one of the few proponents of the original remake, A film that is very dependent on the circumstances in which you watch it. If you're sat on your own at home… the films flaws are all too obvious, watch it with a big group of your friends it becomes a really fun experience.

The reports coming through about 'The Beginning' all seem really positive. I read a review over at 'Aint it cool' a while back that was positively glowing, and now another review has shown up over at bloody-disgusting. From the sounds of it, the director Jonathan Liebesman, who's only other credit is the shitty 'Darkness Falls' has really kicked it up a notch and done the 'Texas' series proud. 

The limbs will be hacked, salted and covered in butcher's paper stateside on October the 6th, and October the 12th in the UK 

Check out the clips on yahoo here

Check out the clips on IGN here

Read an early review at bloody-disgusting here 

In no way do I claim to be any kind of expert on anime, i've watched bits and pieces but my knowledge doesn't spread much further than 'Akira' and 'Ghost in the Shell'. That being said, I know what I like and the new film from Satoshi Kon 'Paprika' looks like the anime version of 'The Cell'… visual eye sex.

Satoshi Kon is actually somebody i've heard of, he directed a really great anime series called 'Paranoia Agent' that, if you haven't seen, you should check out and also a great, if mildly pornographic film called 'Perfect Blue'

Here's a little synopsis for Paprika
When a machine that allows therapists to enter their patient's dreams is stolen, all hell breaks loose. Only a young female therapist can stop it: Paprika.

I have no idea what that means. It sounds awesome. Click the image to the left to see a bigger version of the poster.

I have dumped a bunch of stills in our flickr account here (mostly gathered from links at Twitch)

Check out the Paprika trailer here, trippy stuff

While you're at youtube check out a bit of Paranoia Agent 

'30 days of night' certainly seems to be progressing, they haven't started shooting yet, but In this little clip over at the ghosthouse pictures site you can check out David Slade and his storyboard artist talking through some of the work they've done so far on the film.

That link again

A couple of my older posts about '30 days' here, here and here

The man behind 'Oldboy', 'Sympathy for Mr Vengeance' and 'Sympathy for Lady Vengeance' is making a kids film. Who would have thought it. Click on the poster to the left to see a bigger version.

The story for 'I'm a Cyborg and That's Okay' goes something like this
A girl who thinks she is a combat cyborg checks into a mental hospital, where she encounters other psychotics. Eventually, she falls for a man who thinks he can steal people's souls.

I haven't heard enough about this film to make any judgements, but it's Park Chan Wook so i'm excited to see more. The good people over at Twitch have all the info. Check it out below… 

The source of the poster, and some production stills can be found here (via Twitchfilm)

Read an interview with Park Chan Wook over at Twitch here 

I've been really keen to see the trailer for 'Red Road' for a while now. After it won the Jury Prize at this years Cannes film festival it continued doing the festival tour, Toronto and now the London film festival.

Jackie (Kate Dickie) works as a CCTV operator. Each day she watches over a small part of the world, protecting the people living their lives under her gaze. One day a man appears on her monitor, a man she thought she would never see again, a man she never wanted to see again. Now she has no choice, she is compelled to confront him.

Watch the trailer at the LFF site here

Check out some stills in our previous article here 

*UPDATE* TAKEN OFFLINE BY WARNER BROTHERS *UPDATE*
The quicktime version was taken offline by Warner Brothers, but you can still see the video here, and here

There's nothing to say, It looks amazing. There were some other stories I was going to post today, but this has dwarfed them all.

I already mentioned 300 as the film i'm most looking forward to next year. bring it on.

Thanks to Khanitez for the heads-up

Neil Marshall, the new master of british horror is set to start pre-production on his new film 'Doomsday' on September the 25th, the production scheduled for February the 12th. Somebodies going to have a busy christmas.

The plot of 'Doomsday is still patchy at this point, but apparently focuses on a group of people trying to prevent a disaster of global proportions and save the human race from extinction

mmmm vague.

The film was originally set to be filmed in and around northern England and Scotland, but will now be shot in Cape Town, South Africa with a final two weeks of shooting in the UK, how much of this shooting will be locations rather than just studios though remains to be seen.

Hopefully when Marshall is done with this he'll get back to 'Outpost' his "zombies on an oil rig" film that was slated to start straight after 'The Descent' but obviosuly never got going.