Just a note to say I’ve updated my Thank You for Smoking post to link to another interesting Jason Reitman interview. Read more

Cinematical reports that Patrick Stewart thinks there might be more X-Men movies, even though the upcoming third installment is called X-Men: The Last Stand. Apparently Stewart speculated on the British TV show Richard & Judy that “labeling the third film as ‘the last one’ could be just a tease to draw audiences to the theater.” Well, I wouldn’t take this too seriously. For one thing, it has been public knowledge for months now that Hugh Jackman is developing a Wolverine... Read more

It has been nearly three weeks since Ultraviolet came out — that’s the longest we have gone so far this year without a new major theatrical release that had not been screened for critics in advance — so the studios are apparently making up for this by releasing two films this week without any sneak previews. The Hollywood Reporter says Stay Alive and Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector were not screened for the media even though they both stand... Read more

The trailer for Thank You for Smoking is one of the funniest I’ve seen in a while, so I was looking forward to this movie even before I saw this profile of director Jason Reitman in today’s National Post. It’s a fascinating read. The film — a satire of the tobacco lobby starring Aaron Eckhart, Robert Duvall, Maria Bello, William H. Macy, Sam Elliott, J.K. Simmons and others — is directed by the son of a famous director (Ivan Reitman)... Read more

Mike White, son of evangelical ghost writer turned gay activist Mel White — and writer/co-star of several movies including The School of Rock, The Good Girl and the upcoming Nacho Libre — is about to make his directorial debut, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Year of the Dog will star Saturday Night Live alumnus Molly Shannon as Peggy, “a happy-go-lucky secretary who lives alone with her beloved dog Pencil. But when Pencil unexpectedly dies, Peggy embarks on a journey of... Read more

Just a few quick newsbites here. 1. More casting news from the makers of Nativity (which seems to have dropped the “The”). The Hollywood Reporter says Shohreh Aghdashloo, an Oscar nominee for House of Sand and Fog (2003) who also had a small role in The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005), will play Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. The article describes Elizabeth as Mary’s “sister”, and therefore Jesus’ “aunt”, but that might be a mistake on the reporter’s... Read more

My interview with Katherine Orrison, who provides commentaries on the new Ten Commandments DVD, is now up at CT Movies. I might put a slightly longer version up here in a few days. MAR 27 UPDATE: And here it is! – – – From its annual television broadcasts to its regular repackaging on home video, The Ten Commandments is not only one of the biggest hit movies of all time, it is also one of the most enduring. But what... 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 Shaggy Dog — CDN $4,041,121 — N.AM $35,882,000 — 11.3%Eight Below — CDN $8,074,203 — N.AM $73,147,000 — 11.0%She’s the Man — CDN $1,155,204 — N.AM $11,012,000 — 10.5%The Pink Panther — CDN $7,740,127 — N.AM $78,611,000 — 9.8%16 Blocks — CDN $2,861,060 — N.AM $30,175,000 — 9.5%Curious George... Read more

Time magazine has an interesting article up now on Mel Gibson‘s mysterious upcoming movie Apocalypto — and given how Gibson’s previous movie, The Passion of the Christ, was promoted heavily through the right-wing media, it is interesting to see Gibson take aim at both sides of the political fence, here: The Passion experience–especially the part in which critics hurled anti-Semitism charges at Gibson, an ultraconservative Roman Catholic whose father has questioned whether the Holocaust happened–thickened Gibson’s hide along with his... Read more

I’ve been interviewing actors and directors for years, but it wasn’t until just over a year ago that I went on my first-ever press junket — for a talking-zebra movie called Racing Stripes (2005; my review). And possibly the first person to be interviewed in “the God room” (Peter Jackson’s name for the room where all the religious-media reporters congregate) was comedian Steve Harvey. I had first come across his work when he was one of the four stand-up comics... Read more