Nicolas Winding Refn featurette

Ryan Gosling featurette

Carey Mulligan featurette

Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn throttles into the Hollywood fast lane with the precision-crafted action caper Drive.

Ryan Gosling stars as a Los Angeles wheelman for hire, stunt driving for movie productions by day and steering getaway vehicles for armed heists by night. Though a loner by nature, Driver can’t help falling in love with his beautiful neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan), a vulnerable young mother dragged into a dangerous underworld by the return of her ex-convict husband Standard (Oscar Isaac).

After a heist intended to pay off Standard’s protection money spins unpredictably out of control, Driver finds himself driving defense for the girl he loves, tailgated by a syndicate of deadly serious criminals (Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman). But when he realizes that the gangsters are after more than the bag of cash in his trunk-that they’re coming straight for Irene and her son-Driver is forced to shift gears and go on offense.

The movie was written by Oscar nominee Hossein Amini,The Wings of Dove, and adapted from the eponymous novel by James Sallis. The Wings of Dove is such a different movie than Drive. It’s hard to image they both were written by the same person.

Motion posters are cool to look at and great promotional pieces as well. The last motion poster I saw was for SAW 3D, so I am very happy to see Conan’s motion poster. It looks awesome, and I love the colors. Jason Momoa adds a lot to the poster as well, standing on a mountain of skulls.

Conan the Barbarian 3D is based on Robert E. Howard’s classic character. The movie is being promoted as a remake from the two earlier films. Directed by the Marcus Nispel the movie also includes Ron Perlman and Stephen Lang.

I am sure we will see a trailer soon. The movie opens in theaters August 2011.

I admit, going into the opening show of Nicholas Cage’s new movie Season of the Witch had me nervous. Between the fact that the movie had been delayed as many times as it had, and Nic Cage was in it (and let’s face it, Nicholas Cage can really only do a good movie maybe one time in every, oh, three or four), there was reason for concern. But Season of the Witch gave me a surprisingly good time.

Season of the Witch follows a pair of knights, recently enrolled in the service of the Catholic church to go off and kill people in the Crusades. But after a particularly disastrous romp involving the killing of women and children, knights Behmen (Cage) and Felson (Ron Perlman) decide to turn deserter instead. They’re quickly found and pressed into service to escort an accused witch to a monastery where, hopefully, killing her will put an end to the Black Plague. The knights agree to do this, on the condition that the accused witch be given a fair trial (which, back then, usually ended in death regardless of the verdict) and that’s where the whole thing goes wildly off the rails.

I was actually pretty surprised by this; it’s not every day you get a 14th-century (give or take) period drama mixed with a buddy movie and then put on the road. And anything that even smacks of originality these days gets bonus points by my standards, and Season of the Witch at least smacks of originality.

It does a pretty fair job of keeping up the suspense–there’s a nice sort of “is she or isn’t she” interplay going on in here, and while it certainly could have done a better job than it actually did, it didn’t completely drop the ball. And for a Nic Cage movie, “didn’t completely drop the ball” is about the same as “incredible super-great achievement” for some movies. There are a couple other ways this could have gone, and frankly, I would’ve liked to see them instead of the relatively predictable romp we got here. But still, what’s done is done, and this is done halfway decently.

So I was left pleasantly surprised, and had a good time out of this low-rent, heavily flawed popcorn muncher that still did at least a passably good job of putting up a passably good story. Cage and Perlman do serviceable work here, and frankly, if you’re comparing this to Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, as some did, you’re overthinking this by a factor of way too damn much.

It’s not every movie, after all, that will bring you zombie monks and flying demons–all I could think toward the end was how awesome it was that someone had actually filmed Berke Breathed’s “Nun Munchers From Hell”, as he once suggested in a Bloom County strip. I would have liked more originality, and it certainly could have happened, but this could have been much worse than it was.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives Season of the Witch a thoroughly passable six out of ten for being strictly passable on most every level. Enjoy your gentleman’s C, Nic Cage, because for your filmography, they don’t seem to come around too often.

Pretty bold statement, I’d say, but considering that it’s supported by no less a personage than Guillermo del Toro, it’s got a lot of weight behind it.

See, there’s basically two problems behind any more Hellboy:

1. Money. Neither Hellboy bombed, no mistake, but returns could be described as somewhat anemic, even when international returns were factored in.  And if two movies in a series can’t make some bank, it doesn’t bode well for a third movie to get made, even with a name like del Toro behind it.

2. Passion. Would you believe that neither del Toro nor creator Mike Mignola want to see a third Hellboy?  See…they both pretty much know what would happen in a third.  Basically, let’s just say that there wouldn’t be a fourth…for Hellboy. And even if they were inclined to continue–Mignola would be left doing the comic even though in the movies Hellboy’s dead–getting Ron Perlman off his Sons of Anarchy role would be nigh-impossible, by some reports.

Thus, it doesn’t look at all good for a third Hellboy, and that’s actually pretty sad in its way.

I think we all know that Ron Perlman is most famous for his Hellboy role, but he’s about to play another role as the father of an icon: Conan.

I’m not talking about Conan O’Brien, but Conan the Barbarian, a franchise that is about to be rebooted. The film is in the process of being filmed, with Jason Momoa as the leading man. I have no idea how much Perlman will have as Conan’s father, Corbin, but I believe that the legend of Conan had Corbin cutting his son out of is mother.

Well, we’ll see how that works. The film is said to be out this year, presumably by the holiday.

Source

Nicolas Cage stars as a 14th century Crusader who returns with his comrade to a homeland devastated by the Black Plague.

A beleaguered church, deeming sorcery the culprit of the plague, commands the two knights to transport an accused witch to a remote abbey, where monks will perform a ritual in hopes of ending the pestilence.

When I first read about the idea that there would be a Marmaduke movie I wasn’t sure what the proper reaction to such news was.  I had a sneaking suspicion it involved projectile vomiting and lots of giggling along with vague allusions to the monsters in my closet that were finally coming to get me.

And then I took some deep breaths and drank about a quart of whiskey and woke up three hours later feeling just fine–fine, I tell you!–and ready to talk MARMADUKE.

It has a voice cast, and it’s a doozy: Amanda Seyfried as Mazie, Jeremy Piven as Bosco, Ron Perlman as Chupadogra, Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Guiseppe, Stacy Ferguson (as in Fergie, the singer from Black Eyed Peas) as Jezebel, Steve Coogan as Raisin, George Lopez as Carlos and Damon Wayans Jr. as Thunder.

And now I want to vomit and giggle again.

One, who let Fergie voice act?  Two, George Lopez, seriously?  Can you do anything that isn’t just a caricature of your own heritage?  No, guess not….and I don’t know who or what a “chupadogra” is, but…actually, Ron Perlman probably IS a good choice for it.

Anyway, all I know is that this massive failure in waiting will hit theaters June of 2010–a SUMMER MOVIE??  This one IS going to tank–and we should all get our popcorn now for the inevitable screaming of the executives who just realized they lost like thirty million dollars making this drivel.

Today we’re talking The Devil’s Tomb, a movie that asks some downright unsettling questions.  The really interesting part is, only a handful of them are actually related to the movie.  I know—I’m being all cryptic again, but that’s what keeps you guys interested!  I’m willing to CHALLENGE you!

Anyway, The Devil’s Tomb is a movie about a small squad of elite military sent in to ascertain what happened to an archaeological project that went silent out in the Middle East.  As they plunge into the depths of the project facility, they steadily learn more about what was taking place there—including a special sub-branch that was dealing with an evil more ancient and more powerful than anything ever before seen by man.

I know, the plot sounds pretty simple, but one thing is abundantly clear—there’s more horror and action and thrills and terror in here than I’ve seen generated by one movie in a good long time.

Part of it comes from a slew of actors easily at the top of their game in this kind of affair.  For instance, we’ve got Zack Ward, who was just in this kind of thing with Postal.  We’ve also got Ray Winstone, Ron Perlman, and punk rock legend Henry Rollins.  But that’s not the end of the list; for some strange reason that I wouldn’t even want to speculate on, they’ve got Cuba Gooding Jr. in here.  Yeah, Academy Award winning Cuba Gooding Jr.  Of course, this is the same Cuba Gooding Jr. that was in Snow Dogs, so take that for what it’s worth.

The rest comes from a solid, basic appreciation of horror convention interspersed with action.  This is an excellent—one of the few such, really—example of an action / horror hybrid.  It’s just that good to watch.  The effects are highly realistic, if a bit on the gooshy side as is standard for this sort of affair.  The plot is straightforward, if simplistic, and the performances are all at the very least solid.

But like I said before, it raises questions.  I know this is a Sony project, but still—how did they get this many choice actors this interested in a direct to video project?  And how they got an Academy Award winner to star in a direct to video project isn’t the biggest one.  No, the biggest one is its possible, suggested connection to a video game, Clive Barker’s Jericho.  If you take a look at the two, you start finding a whole lot of similarities in characters, plot and setting.  In fact, if you start changing a few small details around in one, you actually start getting the other.  But this is little more than a nifty aside—the movie is significantly better than the game could ever hope to be.

Basically, The Devil’s Tomb is a tense, hyperkinetic affair with plenty of thrills and action for all.  If you like just one of the two, then this will make an excellent bridge to discovering the other.  Eminently watchable and plenty of fun, The Devil’s Tomb is, in this sense, worth checking out.

Ron Perlman (Hellboy) joins Nicolas Cage in Season of the Witch, a supernatural thriller, directed by Dominic Sena.

Season of the Witch is a tale of 14th century knights transporting a girl suspected of being a witch who is the cause for spreading the Black Plague.

Other cast members include Stephen Campbell Moore, Claire Foy and Robbie Sheehan.

Filming is set to start in Austria and Hungary in the early part of November.