Is no one else creeped out by how Jeff Bridges looks like the perfect combination of Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson? Here, he plays Bad Blake, a once famous country singer who has fallen from grace and is trying to claw his way back up to relevancy. Maggie Gyllenhaal plays a young reporter who falls for our hero, despite the fact that he is freakishly older than she is. Robert Duvall gets a small trailer mention as Blake’s dear ol’ dad. But what’s crazy here is that Colin Farrell is slated to play the hot young thang country singer but he doesn’t get any type of billing here, not even trailer face time. What does that mean? Has he fallen from grace to the point where even his chiseled visage won’t attract theater goers? Or is his part simply so small that giving him a mention would be superfluous? Mos Def got tons of pimpage in the Next Day Air trailer and, while he was the best part of the movie, he’s in it for about ten minutes cumulatively.

What do you think the deal is?

I love movies about country music. Nashville, Tender Mercies, Sweet Dreams and my ultimate favorite: Coal Miner’s Daughter, about Loretta Lynn, played expertly by Sissy Spacek. I don’t know if it’s the music, the oft-alcohol soaked stories or the genre’s penchant for melodrama but I eat them up.

Crazy Heart is scheduled for a December 16, 2009 release.

So here’s the deal with Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass: Vaughn, who directed the super fun Layer Cake and Stardust, wanted to make a movie about the titular comic series by Mark Millar, about an average kid who decides to become a super hero (of course, he would call himself Kick-Ass). But there was a problem. No studio in their right minds would take on an R-rated movie where a bunch of kids, including a young girl (Hit Girl), cuss a bunch and kill a lot of people in various violent ways. Do it up as a kids’ movie and it’s bound to suck. Do it as a movie for adults and the demo may be turned off by the child actors.

So what’s a director to do? Do it up his own damn self is what he does.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is only a teaser and you don’t get much of a feel for story but this minute-long clip from Louis Leterrier’s Clash of the Titans is rolled out and ready to be judged. Leterrier, who directed the Hulk reboot starring Ed Norton, looks as if he’s diverging from the original’s old school look and feel — but we’ll get to that later. I’m still on the fence about Sam Worthington, who takes over for Harry Hamlin as Perseus. He was clearly the best part of the dreadful Terminator: Salvation, running circles around ostensible lead Christian Bale, and James Cameron fought hard for him in Avatar. And considering Cameron succeeded in having a comparative unknown star in a $300 million+ movie, I’ve got to have some faith in him. But every interview with him I’ve read makes him (like this one in Esquire) seem like a giant douche. Sure, that has little baring on how good he can act in front of a green screen, you can ask Russell Crowe why his last two movies bombed at the box office and see what he says.

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While it’s ostensibly a by-the-numbers spy thriller, I’ve been fascinated by Salt since they started discussing it in the trades earlier this year. It simply looks like Angelina Jolie in yet another bid to show that she can simultaneously be a serious actress, shoot stuff and have lips so pillow-y you could Rip Van Winkle-it on them and not really give a shit that you slept through the last century (plus, when you wake up, there could possibly be flying cars. While a definite plus, that’s not the point). That’s not why this is an interesting movie: The role of “Evelyn Salt” was originally written as Edwin Salt with Tom Cruise slated as the lead. Look, movies often drastically change from script to screen. Annie Hall was supposed to be a murder mystery but a gender switch in an action movie seems like an even farther leap than that.

I would love to get my hands on the original Salt script and see how it changed. Sexuality isn’t a huge component to the persona of the male action role. He can take it (James Bond) or leave it (Rambo). But action roles written for women always have a sexual component to them, whether that chemistry is ultimately with a love interest or a villain. Click For More »

Amorosi on the news, nightlife, gossip and bitchiness beats. Right now.

CREDI© Scott Weiner / Retna Ltd.

50 Cent after screening his directorial debut, Before I Self-Destruct at the AMC Neshaminy 24 on November 3, 2009.

Curtis James Jackson III, aka 50 Cent, was at the Neshaminy Mall in Bensalem, PA yesterday stomping for his new movie, Before I Self Destruct. But I’m not here to review the Jamaica, Queens-native’s directorial debut or his album of the same name that comes out this month, both of which have faced crazy delays (”Get Up,” the first single featured in the trailer below and produced by native son Scott Storch, first came out in 2008). I just give you the facts.

Fiddy wasn’t there to say much about the murder-fueled, revenge-heavy flick or his anger-pumping performance in it. 50 was there to pretty much get out of the limo and back into it. Check out the trailer below:

But, topped with a Phillies cap and a smile, he did stop for a snap from my pal, rawk photog Scott Weiner. This First Friday, Weiner will have an exhibition and sale of his work in Old City at Patou (312 Market St., 215-928-2987), with musical accompaniment from Caterpillar and Sweetie. Rock on.

Read more celebri-gossip at citypaper.net/icepack.

Holy tentpole release, Batman! In what crazy, fucked-up universe are we to believe that the very anglo Jake Gyllenhaal and Gemma Arterton were born in a thousand-mile radius of Persia/Iran? Also, why is that in historical epics — terribly fake looking (i.e. this one) or not (i.e. Gladiator) — everyone feels the need to speak in a British accent? I think I would rather watch the computer game on the original 1995 PC my parents had then this movie. Sigh, Jake. What happened? You spent so long building up all that cred, stayed away from romantic comedies and garnered critical acclaim. Sure, Ben Kingsley’s in this but he’s allowed to be because he holds ultimate badass status. You don’t. You’re just not that kind of guy. Must I remind you of Bubble Boy …

New York Mag’s excellent Vulture blog has a hilarious dissection of Dana Goodyear’s New Yorker profile of uber-director James Cameron, where they break up the piece a la Chuck Norris Facts. It works surprisingly well. My favorite is this one:

• James Cameron signs all correspondence “Jim out.”

I haven’t read the New Yorker piece yet, but Goodyear is characteristically excellent and I love James Cameron (he can’t write for shit — hello, Titanic — but you can’t argue with the dude’s vision) so I look forward to it. But it all got me thinking about Avatar, Cameron’s impending epic, which opens nationwide on December 18, just in time to score that visual effects Oscar (although, Where the Wild Things Are will certainly give it a run for its money).

Cameron is known for essentially creating new technology in order to realize what he sees in his head and I still think Terminator 2: Judgment Day looks amazing, despite being made some 18 years ago.
But what about Avatar? Reports had the budget ballooning to $300 million so Cameron could create the necessary technology but when the trailer was released a couple months ago, the Internet blew up with a lot of “WTF? Cameron’s first narrative feature post-Titanic is this?” Judge for yourself below:

I gotta agree with the Internet on this one. What’s up with the cat people? Granted, most of us are viewing this on computers and a big screen experience means it will look different but this is no plasma-people like T2 or no epic proportions, like Titanic. In short, it looks stupid.

What worries me most of all, though, is that Avatar seems as if its one of those Cameron movies that lacks his trademark wit (to say it once more, Titanic) and half of Cameron’s affability comes from his humor (i.e. the glory that is True Lies). But on the bright side, Sam Worthington was the only reason to see McG’s godawful, decidedly humor-less Terminator: Salvation.

Still … cat people …

What do you think about the Avatar trailer? What do you think about Cameron in general? Hate him and want to go to toe-to-toe with me on it? Love him and want to discuss how you always have to watch True Lies when its on TV (cough, cough)? Post your thoughts in the comments.

Molly out.

So, here it is: The final bow of an actor taken before his time, aka, Heath Ledger’s last role. Posthumous movie releases can be both a blessing a curse, although they usually never tarnish the reputation of the deceased celeb. James Dean did the most iconic work of his career in Rebel Without a Cause and Giant, released a month and 13 months after his death, respectively. While Raul Julia’s last bash on the screen before succumbing to cancer was in Street Fighter.

But Ledger doesn’t interest me so much. The Dark Knight will always be Ledger’s swan song and whether he’s good in this or not is not the point. I’m interested in both Tom Waits as the devil (AMAZING casting) and model-turned-actor Lily Cole, who looks like she should be in a Henry Selick movie. Or a Terry Gilliam one.

White doves!

John Woo returns to China after essentially teaching Quentin Tarantino how to direct an action sequence before coming stateside, making his directorial debut with world’s-greatest-actor Jean Claude Van Damme, helming one of the most poetic action movies ever (Face/Off) and then taking point on some of the worst (Windtalkers? Hostage? Sigh). Red Cliff look positively epic, telling the story of the 208 A.D. titular battle in which two vastly outnumbered armies align with each other in order to defeat the Han Dynasty who are unused to fighting by sea (hence the whole cliff thing). Not only is this Woo’s homecoming, but it also marks a reunion with Tony Leung, who previously worked with Woo on the incredible Hard Boiled.

But out of all of these return-to-forms, I’m most pumped about the revival of the battle epic. I give Zack Snyder props for making 300 on a shoestring with a cast of no A-listers, but half the reason 300 is entertaining is the homoerotic campiness of it all, not necessarily the direction, as Watchman proved. Because of movies like 300, studios think they can forgo bigger, traditional epics like 300 for a lower price tag, especially in this economy. But I love a good epic. Sure, for every terrible epic (Alexander, Australia), there are mind blowing ones (The Godfather I & II, Once Upon a Time in the West), and while they have a tendency to feel bloated, I think Woo is an economical enough filmmaker to pull this off.

Although, this reportedly 148-minute movie is just the first half. Red Cliff II already received its Chinese domestic release this year. Now, that’s fuckin’ epic.

Red Cliff premieres locally at the Philadelphia International Film Fest. Interestingly enough, it’s being released theatrically in the States by the second volume of Six Shooter Film Series — that seemingly deals in that-looks-fuckin’-awesome foreign films, two of which are playing at the Fest: District B13: Ultimatum (the original is awesome, but apparently this one stands alone) and Bronson (you may remember it from the Trailer!).

Related: 18 1/2 Philadelphia International Film Festival announces line-up

Last week, I sat with a bunch of friends for an impromptu Denzel Washington festival. No one meant to gather for Denzel, but on three separate channels, there were three separate Denzel movies: Crimson Tide, Remember the Titans and Training Day. Unknowingly, we were presented with the body of work of a well-rounded (and critically acclaimed) star: Denzel the Hero, Denzel the Inspiration and Denzel the Villain.

Now, we have Denzel the Badass.

It’s a departure for Denzel who, in movies like Man on Fire and Deja Vu, played the saves-the-day kind of guy has never taken on this kind of big budget, fantasy heroism (sure Deja Vu had those whack, outta-this-world plots but I thought it was stupid so I’m not going to count it). What does this mean for a guy like Denzel? He’s getting older so, like Bruce Willis in Live Free or Die Hard/the in-theaters Surrogates, need to prove his still bountiful virility in the face of graying hair? Or is he just trying on some superhero shoes to see if they fit? (Sigh, in his younger days, that smile would have looked fantastic under a Captain America mask.)

It also marks the return of the Hughes brothers: The twin wunderkinds who premiered at Cannes as mere 20-year-olds with Menace II Society but stumbled with Dead Presidents, got up again with American Pimp and face-planted with Alan Moore adaptation From Hell. Their first feature since the latter’s 2001 release, The Book of Eli is a road picture in the post-apocalypse. The trailer certainly picks up the religious undertones, most likely stemming from the titular book that the sun-bespectacled Denzel protects.

I’m pumped to see Denzel as a Mad Max-type gunslinger and I already like the washed out color palette. But what’s better than all of those things is the return of batshit Gary Oldman. I love it when he gets down, dirty and crazy. I was worried that Commissioner Gordon had softened Oldman but he still likes to play it nuts.