Last Monday, I linked to a news story which indicated that Billy Graham’s son Franklin had not yet revealed what he thought of Billy: The Early Years, the upcoming movie about the beginnings of his father’s ministry. It turns out that Franklin actually posted a statement on the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association’s website sometime that day, distancing the organization from the film and complaining about unspecified inaccuracies within the film. CT Movies editor Mark Moring has written an excellent article... Read more

Religulous doesn’t come out until October 3, but it recently played in a couple of theatres near New York and Los Angeles, to qualify for the Academy’s award for Best Documentary Feature, and a few reviews and comments have begun to surface. Robert Koehler, Variety: Skeptics unite: You only have to lose your inhibitions. That, in sum, is the underlying message of Bill Maher and Larry Charles’ brilliant, incendiary “Religulous,” in which comedian/talkshow host Maher inquires of the religious faithful... Read more

It’s a remake of an Asian film, and it stars Nicolas Cage, who has starred in such critics-shunning films as The Wicker Man (2006) and Ghost Rider (2007). So it is not all that surprising to see Cinema Blend and other sites reporting that there will be no press screenings for Bangkok Dangerous, which opens September 5. AUG 27 UPDATE: The film opened in France today, so Variety has posted its review, and their critic, Jordan Mintzer, basically finds it... Read more

My review of The Longshots is now up at CT Movies. Read more

What do the biblical murder of Abel and the modern murder of Mitchell Siegel (whose son Jerry would go on to co-create Superman) have in common? Yeah, I don’t know either, but apparently the connection between these two incidents is explained in Brad Meltzer’s upcoming novel The Book of Lies — and to promote the book, Meltzer’s people put together the following viral marketing video starring Buffy and Firefly creator Joss Whedon, God Is Not Great author Christopher Hitchens, The... Read more

While reading David Bordwell‘s interesting piece on the various reasons for the recent wave of superhero movies, I came across a link to this article that Ken Tucker wrote for Entertainment Weekly in 2000, shortly before the first X-Men movie came out and proved that there was life in the genre beyond the obvious, iconic household names like Superman and Batman. It is fun to read Tucker’s list of recommendations, as he begs the studios to ditch the campiness of... Read more

The Guardian reports that about 50 “sneak peek” screenings of Billy: The Early Years are in the works, to help raise grassroots interest in the Billy Graham biopic before it opens October 10. The story also mentions that Graham himself, in “frail health” at 89, has not yet seen the film, but two of his children have: one, his daughter Gigi, is “publicly praising” the film and has been hired to help promote it; while the other, his son and... Read more

‘Tis the season for modernizing stories from ancient history, it seems. NBC is already developing Kings, a series based on the relationship between the biblical monarchs Saul and David. And now, says the Hollywood Reporter, Mandalay Pictures has picked up the film rights to Julius, a graphic novel by Antony Johnston and Brett Weldele that re-imagines Julius Caesar as “a London crime king who is beloved like royalty by the public. His generals, however, conspire against him.” F. Gary Gray... 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. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 — CDN $4,010,000 — N.AM $32,147,000 — 12.5%Mamma Mia! — CDN $13,430,000 — N.AM $116,415,000 — 11.5%Journey to the Center of the Earth — CDN $9,650,000 — N.AM $88,110,000 — 11.0%Step Brothers — CDN $9,600,000 — N.AM $90,888,000 — 10.6%The Dark Knight —... Read more

Given all the prequels, sequels and merchandising it has engendered, it is sometimes a bit strange to realize that Star Wars (1977) has been the #2 movie of all time, rather than the #1 movie of all time, for most of its existence. And today, it will lose even that distinction, as it becomes the latest film to fall behind The Dark Knight‘s record-setting run at the box office. A bit of history: At the time Star Wars came out,... Read more