Time to unload some more recent and semi-recent news items.<\/span><\/p>\n 1.<\/a> Jeff Bridges says he has been approached about appearing in Tron 2<\/a><\/i>. Woo-hoo! \u2014 Collider.com<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n 2.<\/a> Nikki Finke reports that Battlestar Galactica<\/a><\/i>, which was shooting its fourth and final season until the writers\u2019 strike got in the way, may be one of several series that ends up being cancelled altogether, now that a \u201cbrawl\u201d is beginning to brew between the studio and the actors whose careers have been put on indefinite hold without pay. \u2014 Deadline Hollywood Daily<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n 3.<\/a> Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker\u2019s Apocalypse<\/a><\/i> (1991), the documentary on the making of Apocalypse Now<\/a><\/i> (1979), is out on DVD now, and the reviews are middling. Apparently the master was taken from a 16-year-old videotape, and thus the DVD looks no better than the VHS version. \u2014 Hollywood Elsewhere<\/a>, DVDizzy.com<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n 4.<\/a> Films about adult brother-sister relationships are a rare breed, and somehow Laura Linney has managed to co-star in two of the better ones: You Can Count on Me<\/a><\/i> (2000), which prompted me to write this article<\/a> on cinematic siblings for the Vancouver Sun<\/i>, and The Savages<\/a><\/i>, which I saw at the local film festival a month or two ago; it begins its regular theatrical release November 28. So I was tickled to read that Mark Ruffalo and Philip Seymour Hoffman, her \u201cbrothers\u201d in those two films, were both on hand to pay tribute to Linney at the AFI Fest last week. \u2014 FilmStew.com<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n 5.<\/a> McG<\/a>, of all people, is still attached to direct Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins<\/a><\/i> for release sometime in summer 2009. A videogame is already being developed to coincide with that release. \u2014 JoBlo.com<\/a>, Moviehole<\/a>, Hollywood Reporter<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n 6.<\/a> Alexandre Desplat<\/a> is easily one of my favorite film composers these days \u2014 in the past 12 months alone, he\u2019s written some great music for The Painted Veil<\/a><\/i>, Lust Caution<\/i> and Mr. Magorium\u2019s Wonder Emporium<\/i> \u2014 so I\u2019m looking forward to the music he\u2019s whipped up for The Golden Compass<\/a><\/i>. A track listing for the soundtrack album is now online. \u2014 Play.com<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n 7.<\/a> The Confucius Foundation is teaming up with two Chinese media firms to make a series of 13-minute cartoons on the life and teachings of the legendary philosopher Confucius<\/a>, who is apparently \u201cundergoing a major revival in China these days.\u201d The first of a projected 100 episodes is set to air in 2009. \u2014 Variety<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n 8.<\/a> The Squid and the Whale<\/a><\/i>\u2018s Jesse Eisenberg and National Treasure<\/a><\/i>\u2018s Justin Bartha will play \u201cdrug-dealing Hasidic Jews\u201d in a \u201ccomic drama\u201d called Holy Rollers<\/i>. \u201cThe film, one of the first to emerge from the burgeoning \u2018Jewsploitation\u2019 genre, is ripped from true-crime headlines and follows an impressionable youth (Eisenberg) from an Orthodox Brooklyn community. He\u2019s lured into becoming an Ecstasy dealer by a friend (Bartha) with ties to an Israeli drug cartel.\u201d \u2014 Hollywood Reporter<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n 9.<\/a> Jean-Marc Vall\u00e9e, writer-director-star of the Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois hit C.R.A.Z.Y.<\/a><\/i> (2005), is now directing Emily Blunt in The Young Victoria<\/i>, a movie about the early days of the English queen who came to embody 19th-century Britain. Vall\u00e9e has brought a number of key production crew members from Montreal, and he says it feels like \u201ca French-Canadian invasion of Britain.\u201d \u2014 Globe and Mail<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n 10.<\/a> The crackdown on movie piracy has begun: a man in Montreal has been arrested under the new Canadian law<\/a> banning camcording in movie theatres. \u2014 Canadian Press<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n 11.<\/a> Violence in Baghdad has dropped as much as 77% since the \u201csurge\u201d began in February, so the locals are staging their first film festival in two years in mid-December. Most cinemas remain closed, but it is hoped that the festival will get people going to the movies again. \u2014 Variety<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n 12.<\/a> Sylvester Stallone explains again how John Rambo has lost faith in his country, God, and humanity in general when Rambo IV<\/a><\/i> begins: \u201cHe realizes his entire existence has been for naught . . . Peace is an accident, war is natural. Old men start it, young men fight it, everybody in the middle dies, and nobody tells the truth. He says, \u2018You think God\u2019s going to make it all go away? What has he done and changed in the world? He has done nothing. We are an aggressive animal and will never be at peace.\u2019 That\u2019s how he feels.\u201d The Christian missionaries who reach out to him for help \u201csomehow touch the last remaining nerve in Rambo\u2019s body\u201d. \u2014 USA Today<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n 13.<\/a> New Line Cinema has set February 13, 2009 as the release date for its remake<\/a> of Friday the 13th<\/a><\/i> (1980). That happens to be my 4th wedding anniversary, and the 6th anniversary of the second date I went on with my wife-to-be. I have only seen the original Friday the 13th<\/i> once, and it was with her. \u2014 ComingSoon.net<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Time to unload some more recent and semi-recent news items. 1. Jeff Bridges says he has been approached about appearing in Tron 2. Woo-hoo! \u2014 Collider.com 2. Nikki Finke reports that Battlestar Galactica, which was shooting its fourth and final season until the writers\u2019 strike got in the way, may be one of several series […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n