Keisha Castle-Hughes has a thing for angels. After starring in The Nativity Story — where she was visited by the Archangel Gabriel — Variety says she will now star in an adaptation of Elizabeth Knox’s The Vintner’s Luck. To quote the Publishers Weekly review: This imaginative story of the lifelong love between a man and an angel is the first of Knox’s five books to appear outside her native New Zealand. In Burgundy one midsummer night in 1808, Sobran Jodeau,... Read more

The new trailer for The Golden Compass doesn’t waste any time letting you know that this film is produced by the same studio that made The Lord of the Rings (2001-2003). I was thinking of posting a few comments about this, but family duties intervened, and I see that Jeffrey Overstreet has now written everything I was thinking of saying, and then some. So check it out. One thing I will add, though: Why do so many people say the... Read more

Hannibal Rising was a flop, but that evidently hasn’t stopped the producers of the similarly-titled and similarly-unnecessary prequel The Untouchables: Capone Rising from going ahead with their own project. A week or two ago it was revealed that the 43-year-old Nicolas Cage would play “the young Al Capone” — which, as Jeffrey Wells noted, was an odd bit of casting, given that the real Capone was sent to jail at the age of 32 and he was played in the... Read more

Just a quick update: Comments at the blogs for Barbara Hall and her sister Karen Hall indicate that CBS did not pick up Demons, the TV pilot that Barbara produced with Joe Roth. That’s the series which was initially going to be based on “the real-life experiences of Bob Larson”, until the main character was turned into an ex-Jesuit psychologist. (Hat tip to Jeffrey Overstreet.) Read more

… I am looking forward to this film, which has played a couple of festivals but, according to the IMDb, won’t get a regular theatrical release in North America until some time next year: SON OF RAMBOW is the name of the home movie made by two little boys with a big video camera and even bigger ambitions. Set on a long English summer in the early 80’s, SON OF RAMBOW is a comedy about friendship, faith and the tough... Read more

Take this with the usual grains of salt, but CHUD.com says it has heard from an insider on Indiana Jones IV: ‘Belloq’ also tells us that the opening action scene of the film will pit Dr. Jones against Russians agents in Area 51 – which is interesting, as this is a major similarity to the Frank Darabont draft that confirms my belief that much of what was in that script has made its way into what will be filmed this... Read more

I have always had a soft spot for 50 First Dates (2004; my comments), the romantic comedy in which Drew Barrymore plays a woman who has no memory of her relationship with Adam Sandler because she forgets each and every day’s events before she wakes up the next morning. So I was really intrigued to see this post by Carmen Andres at In the Open Space on the possible allegorical significance of one of the film’s key plot devices: Eventually,... Read more

Bill Maher and Borat director Larry Charles are currently making a movie about “the role of institutional religion around the world.” The foreign distribution rights are currently being sold at the Cannes film festival. But the presumably controversial film does not yet have an American distributor. Variety reports: Based on a 10-minute promo reel seen by about 200 buyers Friday, the pic promises a blend of comedy and reportage that could attract significant controversy. A one-page “statement of intent” by... Read more

Variety reports: When you have the Dalai Lama’s explicit blessing for your movie, the sky’s the limit. That is the unique trump card being played by telecom mogul B.K. Modi, who is readying “Buddha,” a $120 million English-language biopic of the Buddha through his M Pictures. Even more ambitious is “The Mahabharata,” another retelling of the epic tale that is a major tenet of Hinduism, which producer Bobby Bedi is pitching as a historical actioner akin to an Indian “Lord... Read more

Remember all those box-office records Spider-Man 3 set during its opening weekend? It won’t be setting any more, any time soon. As of today — the 17th day of its release, and the end of its third weekend in release — it has made less money than either of the previous movies had made at this point in their releases. That’s if we focus on the domestic charts, at any rate. Spider-Man 3 has, admittedly, already made more money overseas... Read more