I invited my brother to join me and some friends for the preview screening of Sunshine, which happens to be taking place on his birthday. He declined the invitation, and this was his reason why: Gah, this one, I’ve heard about it… Sol’s power output is roughly equivalent to 100 billion thermonuclear warheads detonating every second (or 10 trillion nuclear warheads of the type dropped on Hiroshima). Asking me to suspend my disbelief that anything we could possibly send would... Read more

As I have been saying for months now, Matt Damon is simply too old to play “the young Kirk” in the new Star Trek movie. He is, in fact, older now than William Shatner was when the series began. Thankfully, Damon has now finally put that rumour to rest. Click here if the video file above doesn’t play properly. Read more

Bill Maher talks to Entertainment Weekly about that documentary on religion he recently shot with Borat director Larry Charles: What about the documentary about religion you’ve shot with Larry Charles? People are already talking about it.It’s funny that everybody wants to know about this and there isn’t even a movie made yet. [Larry’s] cutting it right now. The 10-minute reel that we showed at Cannes caused such a stir there, [the movie] immediately sold to 20 different countries. And Lionsgate... Read more

Lou Lumenick at the New York Post reports that I Know Who Killed Me, starring Lindsay Lohan as a stripper, will not be screened for critics before it opens next week. Read more

Karina Longworth at SpoutBlog has some interesting comments on Knocked Up and the alleged lack of realism therein: Stepping away from Denby and Emdashes for a moment, this brings us back to the elephant that’s always in the room when talking Knocked Up: the idea that Katherine Heigl’s character is poorly written, because someone like that would never get involved with someone like the character played by Seth Rogen. I know it’s a stretch to ask anyone whose natural analysis... Read more

X-Men (2000) and X2: X-Men United (2003) were directed by Bryan Singer — who, at the time, was best known for directing the Oscar-winning cult classic The Usual Suspects (1995). For X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), the producers took a step down the quality ladder and turned to Brett Ratner — a hack best known for directing the Rush Hour movies (1998-2007). And now, the upcoming spin-off Wolverine seems poised to take a step back up the quality ladder —... Read more

Two months ago, I noted that the Halcyon Co. had bought the rights to the Terminator movie franchise and announced its intention to make a whole new trilogy of sequels — but I also said it was unclear whether MGM was still involved in the series. Looks like it’s still unclear — Halcyon is suing MGM and accusing the studio of interfering with its distribution plans. Variety and Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood Daily have the details. Read more

Janet Batchler at Quoth the Maven says Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is “a disappointment” as a movie with a story to tell but “a complete triumph” as a trailer for the book. Among her observations: If one were to translate the 850 page book into screenplay form without any but the most obvious of cuts, my guess is the screenplay would run about 1200 pages. That’s a 20 hour movie. So if you want, think of... Read more

The Chicago Film Critics Association is fed up with 20th Century Fox, the studio that has of late been refusing to show movies to critics until the last possible minute — assuming it bothers to let critics see those movies at all. Now the critics are boycotting the studio’s films — to a point, at least. Radar Online reports: According to the Chicago Film Critics Association, 20th Century Fox has instituted a policy of favoritism in the Windy City, providing... 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. Sicko — CDN $1,640,000 — N.AM $15,830,046 — 10.4%Knocked Up — CDN $12,810,000 — N.AM $138,217,270 — 9.3%Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix — CDN $12,170,000 — N.AM $139,715,157 — 8.7%Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End — CDN $26,410,000 — N.AM $304,454,423 — 8.7%Live Free or Die... Read more