Variety and the Hollywood Reporter both announced today that Zoe Saldana is in final negotiations to play Lt. Uhura in the upcoming Star Trek movie. Saldana is 29 years old, which is only four years younger than Nichelle Nichols was when she created the character for the original TV series way back in 1966. Read more

Yet another pregnancy movie! And this one is directed by Jason Reitman, who also directed Thank You for Smoking (2005)! And it stars Michael Cera of Superbad! And it’s been getting great buzz! I can hardly wait for December, which is when Juno comes out. Click here if the video file above doesn’t play properly. 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. Mr. Bean’s Holiday — CDN $6,010,000 — N.AM $28,474,000 — 21.1%Shoot ‘Em Up — CDN $1,480,000 — N.AM $10,342,000 — 14.3%Superbad — CDN $12,680,000 — N.AM $111,336,000 — 11.4%The Nanny Diaries — CDN $2,510,000 — N.AM $23,987,000 — 10.5%The Bourne Ultimatum — CDN $21,750,000 — N.AM $216,193,000 — 10.0%Mr. Woodcock... Read more

The press screening for David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises started almost an hour late, so I saw the first 71 minutes but had to skip the last 25 due to a prior commitment. Apparently I missed “the scene everybody is talking about”, in which Viggo Mortensen fights a man to the death — in the nude. Ah well, maybe one day I’ll get around to seeing the rest of this movie, though I’m not particularly keen on revisiting the hour-plus that... Read more

There have been a lot of movies about the Iraq War at the Toronto International Film Festival, apparently, and Variety‘s Todd McCarthy, for one, is getting tired of this mini-genre: TORONTO — During the Vietnam War, the only Hollywood picture to directly broach the subject for many years was John Wayne’s “The Green Berets.” Unlike that era, important directors have been rushing to get their Iraq projects made and released in a timely way. But based on what I’ve seen... Read more

Thanks to my colleague Christian Hamaker for alerting me to the fact that the Washington Post, in an article on the duds of the summer movie season, quotes a line from my review of License to Wed, though without linking to it or mentioning me by name. Incidentally, I was reminded of License to Wed while watching Mr. Woodcock, but I didn’t mention this in my review of that film. Both movies feature a male protagonist who tries to dig... Read more

My review of Mr. Woodcock is now up at CT Movies. UPDATE: Entertainment Weekly looks at how the movie was shot over two years ago and was then sent back for reshoots under another director after test audiences failed to respond positively to the first cut. Meanwhile, the original director, Craig Gillespie, has been getting pretty good notices for his newest film, Lars and the Real Girl, which just played the Toronto film festival. Read more

I’ve been meaning to link to this for a few days: Chris Knight at the National Post had a report from the Toronto film festival on Encounters at the End of the World, the new documentary from Werner Herzog, that had me laughing on the bus: Encounters is essentially Herzog’s home movie of his trip to Antarctica last summer. Laced with dry Germanic humour, it follows the filmmaker as he ambles across the bottom of the world interviewing some of... Read more

Last week, it was announced that Steven Lisberger, the writer and director of Tron (1982; my review), was working on his first new movie in years. Then, today, it was announced that he would produce — though not direct — a sequel to Tron itself! Quoth the Hollywood Reporter: Commercial director Joseph Kosinski is in final negotiations to develop and direct “Tron,” described as “the next chapter” of Disney’s 1982 cult classic. Sean Bailey is producing via the Live Planet... Read more

ComingSoon.net reports that John Rambo, also known as Rambo IV, will come to theatres on January 25. This does not bode well for the movie, since January is traditionally a dumping ground for films that studios don’t have much confidence in. For comparison’s sake, Sylvester Stallone’s other recent franchise revival, Rocky Balboa, opened a few days before Christmas — a much more auspicious release date. Incidentally, the film has a new, “restricted” trailer — and while it adds to the... Read more