Just the other day, I shared the new trailer for the bloody, music extravaganza known as Repo! The Genetic Opera, and I noted that the flick was still without a release date. If Ace Showbiz is to be believed, the opera has found itself a new tentative square on the calendar -- November 7, 2008. That puts it face to face with the next James Bond film, Quantum of Solace.

Spies. Genetic repossessors. Gadgets. Song and dance. Bond girls. Paris Hilton. Okay, going back and forth between the perks of each feature isn't going to win this battle. These are certainly different films, but I wonder if it's wise to put them head to head. But even more to the point -- why the 7th? Heck, seeing that it's only one week after Halloween, it would make more sense to zip it into theaters a week earlier -- it might have to go up against Kevin Smith, but it would have the Halloween creepiness on its side.

Stay tuned to see if this release date sticks.

They say truth is stranger than fiction. To that I say "you obviously haven't seen Naked Lunch," but reality is certainly a fertile ground for film makers and today we've got five trailers for films based, to varying degrees, on real events.

The Perfect Game
I've never enjoyed watching sports so baseball movies usually leave me cold, but this one has a couple of things going for it: a true tale of a bunch of kids rising up from poverty to become world champions, and former drug culture icon Cheech Marin playing a priest. Based on true events, a former coach for the St. Louis Cardinals (Clifton Collins Jr.) takes a group of poor Mexican kids under his wing and teaches them the fine art of baseball, which ultimately leads them to the 1957 Little League World Series. There are the usual sports metaphors: "Love ain't like baseball," says Collins' character. "Yes it is," replies one of his bright eyed proteges. I'm teetering between cute and cringe-inducing on that one, but this kind of rags to riches story is pretty appealing and the period setting is pretty cool. The Perfect Game hits theaters on August 8.

It would be easy to offer you appropriately themed movies for the Fourth of July. There is, of course, Independence Day, plus flicks like Yankee Doodle Dandy, or on a more serious note, Born of the Fourth of July. But what's the fun in that? You could come up with those yourself. I could be snarky and offer only British fare, which is actually very tempting, but I have something else in mind: Independence-themed chills.

The two films for this double feature are not centered specifically on the Fourth of July, but the date is important to both stories -- whether it's the tale of tourists and teeth, or parades and creepiness. Do you see where I'm headed? For this double feature, in honor of the Fourth of July, I give you: Jaws and Cape Fear.

"If you don't make it yourself, it isn't fun. It's entertainment."

I apologize to my colleagues and readers, because most film critics, reviewers and cinephiles have been known, at least at one point in his or her life, to call a movie "fun." I certainly am guilty of it somewhere, in some review or blog post or whatever. But I'm here to finally set the record straight, even though David Mamet clearly already informed us via the quote above, which is spoken by his wife, actress Rebecca Pidgeon, in his 2000 film State and Main. A movie can not be fun, it can only be entertaining. That is, if we're merely watching it on the screen and had no involvement in its production. Actually, even if we make a film ourself, watching it afterwards should technically still be considered entertaining rather than fun.

Of course, a movie experience can be fun. I have fun at a lot of movies I attend, but not because of the movie I'm watching. Like in the case of my recent experience with The Strangers, the movie was not what was fun, not even my observance of the audience was officially fun. But for me, the ticket buying, the popcorn eating, the sitting in the dark is all fun. And the movie was entertaining, as was the crowd. I guess that the experience of watching a movie at home or on your iPod can also be fun, but still in any scenario, the actual movie itself is never fun; it's only entertaining.

As an admitted Admirer-And-Not-Much-More of Stanley Kubrick's 1980 horror classic, The Shining (I know, I know, blasphemy and such), I still got a genuine kick out of this Channel 4 promo for their upcoming month-long Kubrick retrospective.

Hosted on UK newspaper The Guardian's website, the ad consists of a single minute-long tracking shot and takes the view of the Academy Award-winning filmmaker as he dashes about the quite meticulously recreated set. The twins, the axe, the maze, each and every last iconic touch -- it's almost like they Overlook-ed nothing... (No? Too much? Apologies all around then.)

I'm having trouble ascertaining whether or not Channel 4 was also responsible for this live-action opening to 'The Simpsons' that popped up a few years back. Even if it's not, the fact still remains that precious few American commercials can claim to be their equal in both fondness and dedication. Alas, until Spike someday hosts a Joe Eszterhas tribute marathon...

[by way of AICN]

Empire has been given an exclusive new photo from the highly anticipated remake of The Wolf Man. Click the photo to the right to see the whole thing, and then feel free to begin eagerly anticipating April even more than you already are. (Woohoo, April!) The pic respresents the first official non-lupine look at Benicio del Toro as Lawrence Talbot. And, costume nerd that I am, I'm in love with his Gothic cloak. This movie promises to make me drunk on Victorian drapery.

It also provides the first look at Emily Blunt and Anthony Hopkins, both of whom are nearly unrecognizable. Blunt is so stripped of make-up that she looks straight out of a tintype. She plays Gwen Conliffe, the fiancee of Talbot's recently deceased brother, whom the werewolf-to-be begins developing an affection for her. Hopefully, it's for her personality, and not as a late night snack. Wait, that didn't sound right.

Hopkins, of course, plays the senior Talbot, who is estranged from Lawrence long before he turns lycanthropic. If Empire and IMDB didn't tell me otherwise, I would argue that it was Richard Briers in the photo and not Sir Anthony. Really, everyone but del Toro is unrecognizable in this photo, so kudos to the make-up and hair department.

The Wolf Man is set to be released April 3rd, 2009. I still wish they would release this in the fall, but perhaps a copious amount of bloodshed is just what springtime needs.

According to TheGoon.com, Eric Powell's endlessly inventive series has just been optioned by David Fincher, who plans to turn it into a CGI movie. (Is this the first movie to be announced via its character's official domain instead of the trades? I'm sure it isn't, but I find it awesome and worth mentioning nonetheless.)

The Goon is a everything-but-the-kitchen-sink (and probably that too) comic that draws comparisons to (and appearances by) Hellboy. I'm ashamed to say I haven't read it, though I don't seem to be alone in that. The series follows the deformed brawler of the title, who claims to be the enforcer for a mobster named Labrazio. The Goon and his sidekick, Franky, are frequently trading punches with all manner of otherworldly creatures, from zombie armies to aliens -- and from what I'm looking at on Dark Horse, it never gets boring. And it's hilarious. Check out the preview of issue #8, and tell me I'm wrong. (There's lots of Goon previews up on Dark Horse's page, spend the holiday weekend checking them out! I'm going to. Fireworks are overrated.)

While CGI would be the best way to capture the top-notch art, I can't help but wish this was in live action. I would love nothing more than to see a real live Goon beat down some lame vampires, or get omens interpreted by a psychic seal. But already, this is gearing up to be one of the best comic adaptations this side of The Dark Knight -- a top notch director in Fincher, and hilarious source material.

[via CHUD]

Call me crazy, but 90 minutes of Milla Jovovich doing anything is worth watching -- doubly so when her activities deal with zombies, monsters, and ridiculous high-tech weaponry. Yes -- deep sigh -- I'm a (slightly) reluctant fan of the Resident Evil series. (Yep, there's even some stuff I like in Part 2. Like Sienna Guillory.) When I'm writing or net-browsing or playing hours of Zuma, I often like to have a familiar movie playing in the background (like most people do with, um, music) and the Resident Evil flicks fit the bill quite nicely sometimes. (Depending on my mood, of course. Last night my relaxation movie was The Mask of Zorro.)

So it's my relative fandom for the series that leads me to share this half-piece of semi-news: According to the always-fun MTV Movies Blog, series master Paul W.S. Anderson has started speaking to Sony about a Resident Evil 4. And don't even dare act surprised when a series that grossed this much money moves forward on another adventure. How many Police Academy movies were there? (OK, bad example that isn't exactly helping my argument, but I seriously lost count. There were about 28 Police Academy movies? Or it only felt like that many.) Mr. Anderson doles out the reliable "Oh, once we get a good script ... We're not gonna do it just to do it" schpiel, which means he's probably about three weeks away from hiring a writer.

Not three weeks ago, I made first mention of a brief and bland teaser for the forthcoming horror film, Mirrors. Now, along comes IGN Movies with a red-band trailer that, at first, didn't do much for me. Blah blah blah, Jack Bauer as security guard for old department store, blah blah, former guard grew obsessed with surrounding mirrors, blah blah -- look, even Amy Smart is yawning after all that exposition.

Oh, did I say 'yawning'? I meant 'tearing off her own jaw'. Yes, while we still seem to be saddled with a fairly ridiculous premise that's seen better and worse days, there's modest comfort to be taken that the R rating ain't exactly being shied away from. Let's face facts here, people: all it takes sometimes is a couple of nifty death scenes to make movies like this that much easier to stomach (well, some might argue the opposite).

Directed by Alexandre Aja and starring Kiefer Sutherland, you can see Mirrors (bah-dum-cha!) on August 15th.

While the text accompanying the images might be in Italian (any readers want to lend a hand and translate?), the pictures that Dario Argento threw up for his new film Giallo speak for themselves. You can see one above, plus lots more on Argento's site of Adrien Brody (who plays Inspector Enza Avolfi) -- both doing his thing and chatting with Argento, plus a little bit of blood and death, and a few shots of Emmanuelle Seigner (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), who plays Linda. The pair team up in the film to find her sister, who has been grabbed by a serial killer named Yellow.

While this is sure to be eerie, the whole back story to this flick amuses me. Vincent Gallo signed on in January to play the killer to Ray Liotta's Inspector. Then Gallo backed out because he didn't want to work with Dario's daughter, Asia. But now Ray and Asia are out, Adrien and Emmanuelle are in, and good ol' Vinnie should've waited it out (Yellow is now being played by newcomer Byron Deidra).

Giallo is due out next year.

I haven't seen Jonathan Levine's The Wackness yet (I know, I know), but I have seen his long-in-limbo All the Boys Love Mandy Lane -- almost a year and a half ago now, at SXSW 2007. It's a smart, expertly made horror film that's been mistreated in a way that Levine, who now has a career despite his debut's fate, should never forgive. As Sony Classics prepares The Wackness for a nationwide release, Levine has lined up two more projects that will take him through 2009.

The first, Positive, is a thriller about a young man who visits his fiancee's family in Martha's Vineyard but winds up being seduced by the woman's sister. The second, currently (though I'm guessing not for long) titled Echelon Vendetta, will be an adaptation of David Stone's spy novel about a CIA "cleaner" (think a superspy version of Michael Clayton) who investigates the death of a friend and colleague and stumbles upon something more nefarious. Levine, who wrote the screenplay for The Wackness but not Mandy Lane, will write both projects, and direct at least Positive. More at The Hollywood Reporter.

Horror, character comedy, romantic thriller, spy actioner... That'll be quite a resume. Now if he can actually convince -- who is it now? Senator Films? -- to put All the Boys Love Mandy Lane into at least a few theaters...

You know, sometimes you just want to get your hands on a studio executive and shake them until they see sense. Straight from the 'why bother?' files, Bloody Disgusting has received a tip that Hostel producer Scott Spiegel has been tapped to direct the third installment of the horror series. Not only would Spiegel be behind the camera for the flick, but he would also be in charge of writing the script. Even though I might not be the biggest fan of Eli Roth or Hostel, I do know one thing: if you aren't going to do something right, don't do it at all.

After the release of Hostel II, it became clear that Roth had no plans on torturing tourists again in the near future, and fans of the series were given the bad news that a third film could be a straight-to-DVD affair. At least fans can take solace in the fact that Spiegel produced the first two films, and has solid horror cred, so at least he knows his way around some blood-spatter. Spiegel's deal has not been confirmed yet, so stay tuned to Cinematical for any updates that come our way.

What do you think? Should Hostel continue without Roth? Or, is the series better off as the sole property of Roth's sick imagination?

I first discovered this slasher satire (recently released to DVD by Legend Films) during one of its many runs on cable in the early '80s. I recall liking it at the time, but I was a college kid with a fondness for beer, so I probably watched it through a hop and barley flavored filter. There's an obvious Airplane influence, though the laughs never flow as freely and the premise runs out of steam early on. The film's nostalgia appeal is probably its biggest selling point these days, and viewers watching it for the first time will probably wonder what all the fuss was about. Still, I'm glad I had a chance to reacquaint myself.

Since it was released in 1981, it's interesting to see how many of the sub-genre's cliches were already in place. The horror begins on Jaime Lee Curtis's birthday, as a randy young babysitter named Judy receives threatening phone calls from an asthmatic-sounding character who calls himself The Breather (voiced by Richard Belzer). Soon her boyfriend arrives and both of their fates are sealed when they decide to have sex (this IS a slasher film after all). The two are done in by the clever and deadly application of a paper clip and a garbage bag. Like all good slashers, The Breather has a trademarked look, though the green rubber gloves and galoshes just don't have the same impact as a goalie mask.

This week, I don't want to talk about anything new. I don't want to discuss the good news about studios and European exhibitors finally agreeing on a virtual print fee. I don't want to comment on Nielsen's research showing the strong consumer appetite for 3-D films (I'll be talking enough about 3-D next week in anticipation of Journey to the Center of the Earth). I don't want to even get people's hopes up about Microsoft's supposed "manners device" that silences cell phones instead of blocking them (signal blocking was recently found to be illegal in the U.S.). I really don't want to comment on Mark Gill's "The Sky is Falling" speech from the L.A. Film Festival loosely concerning the state of art house cinema (the speech is more related to film making and financing, plus I already played Chicken Little last week).

As someone who's only grown decreasingly fond of the Saw franchise (at least since the second one) and still marvels at the fact that we as a world find ourselves facing the prospect of a fifth (and possibly sixth!) one this coming Halloween and the next, I must attest to being weirdly admirable of how creatively macabre the series' marketing campaigns have been.

Case in point: the first revealed poster for Saw V, included in full after the jump and courtesy of IMP Awards. Following up the magically MPAA-approved acts of amputated limbs, dislodged teeth, and bent fingernails is the face of actor Tobin Bell acting as a mask on another body entirely, in spirit with the films' perpetual acknowledgement that Bell's character, John Kramer/Jigsaw, kinda died at the end of Saw III and sorta went through an autopsy at the beginning of Saw IV.

As Bell remains flaunted and credited in equal measure - as does the similarly deceased Shawnee Smith - I think it's safe to expect A) more flashbacks, a la #4, and B) more exceedingly gruesome demises, a la #1-4. However, at a combined worldwide gross of $553 million to date, it's also safe to say that there are many who'd hope -- who'd pay -- for nothing less.