Mike White, writer and director of the funny, unsettling, thought- provoking Year of the Dog, talks to the National Post: In the case of Year of the Dog, the ultimate message revolves around the need for control and structure, but also the need people have to devote themselves to something in order to find happiness. “You get to a certain age and suddenly your life choices have become your religion in some sense,” he says, “and you invest so much... Read more

If you can handle a few f-words, watch the video below, then read Mike Daisey’s account of the incident and its aftermath. Click here if the video file above doesn’t play properly. FWIW, James Urbaniak posted some interesting thoughts on the incident, and then had some fun with the whole controversy. Read more

Here are the figures for the past weekend, arranged from those that owe the highest percentage of their take to the Canadian box office to those that owe the lowest. Hot Fuzz — CDN $696,628 — N.AM $5,848,464 — 11.9%300 — CDN $22,169,253 — N.AM $204,644,259 — 10.8%Perfect Stranger — CDN $1,838,479 — N.AM $18,072,926 — 10.2%Fracture — CDN $993,877 — N.AM $11,014,657 — 9.0%Blades of Glory — CDN $8,932,530 — N.AM $100,951,439 — 8.8%Disturbia — CDN $3,095,603 — N.AM... Read more

Well, they didn’t say so in so many words. But that would seem to be one of the logical ramifications of this: American commanders cite al-Qaida’s severe brand of Islam, which is so extreme that in Baqouba, al-Qaida has warned street vendors not to place tomatoes beside cucumbers because the vegetables are different genders, Col. David Sutherland said. That’s right, Roberta the Tomato has been lying to us all along. Read more

Seriously, that’s the official website for Dudleytown, a “Christian teen horror film” that is due to be filmed next month by Good News Holdings. That’s the same company that plans to shoot Anne Rice’s Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt in Israel later this year. They are producing these films as part of their mission to create what they call “Spiritainment™“. Only time will tell if their efforts result in anything better than such secular fare as, oh, The Reaping. Read more

From today’s Brisbane Times: In the scraps of pre-publicity released to date, Daniel Craig says he is clinging to Pullman’s original text “by his fingernails” and working especially hard not to have the author’s religious views watered down. “The thing is,” Craig says, “having spoken to Philip at length – there’s nothing anti-religious about this film. It’s anti-establishment in a big way and anti-totalitarian and anti-controlling. But essentially it’s a film about growing up and how difficult that can be.”... Read more

Variety and the Hollywood Reporter both insist this is for real. So long as they stay far, far away from that lame song that Chad Kroeger and Josey Scott recorded for the first movie … And now I’m beginning to wonder what would happen if Bono and the Edge spun their theme song for GoldenEye (1995) — sung by Tina Turner — into a full-fledged James Bond musical. Read more

They’re remaking The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). So hey why not remake Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970), too? Quoth Variety: Universal and Imagine Entertainment will remake the 1970 sci-fi saga “Colossus: The Forbin Project” as a potential directing vehicle for Ron Howard. Brian Grazer will produce. Jason Rothenberg has been set to write the screenplay for a pic to be called “Colossus.” Based on a book by D.F. Jones, the original film was a forerunner of movies like... Read more

Ain’t It Cool News is reporting that Michael Apted — director of Amazing Grace (2006), the James Bond movie The World Is Not Enough (1999), and the Seven Up! documentary series (1964-2005) — has been tapped to direct The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Discuss. Read more

Lou Lumenick at the New York Post reminds us that two movies that went into wide-ish release last week — Redline and Slow Burn, both of which opened on over 1,100 screens — were not screened in advance for critics. If I neglected to mention those here, it is probably because neither film made the North American top ten, and neither film was released in Canada. In fact, there was going to be a press screening for Slow Burn in... Read more