I haven't seen this weekend's The Incredible Hulk yet, and will do so a little begrudgingly because it's an implicit (or explicit, depending on whom you ask) diss of Ang Lee's Hulk, a film I admire. But to the extent my interest in the Louis Leterrier version is piqued, it's mostly because of the casting of Edward Norton as the title character's alter ego. It's such an interesting choice -- partly because Norton usually stays away from projects like this, partly because he's so uniquely gifted, and partly because my mind just reels at hearing "you wouldn't like me when I'm angry" coming out of his mouth. I'll watch The Incredible Hulk less because I want to see another movie about Bruce Banner than because I'm curious to see Norton's interpretation of him.

All of which got me thinking about superhero/comic book casting in general. It's a subject that attracts a lot of breathless speculation every time a new movie is in the works, and there's rarely consensus on anything. In this edition of Cinematical Seven, I take a look back at what I think have been the most inspired, interesting, or appropriate superhero (and villain, because why not?) casting choices in recent history -- not so much the resulting performances (though it can be hard to distinguish in hindsight) but the initial casting decisions.

As I like to do with these lists, I tried to mix the obvious with the out-of-the-blue, so feel free to weigh in with what I unjustly left out. In no particular order:

I know, I know: it's horribly unfair to compare every movie that uses multiple personality disorder as a plot point to The Three, Donald Kaufman's fictional screenplay in Adaptation. And I quite liked Identity, which was basically The Three made flesh. But I can never resist.

The Three, you'll recall, involved a police detective, a serial killer, and the killer's female hostage, who later turn out to be the same person. Frankie and Alice, a psychological thriller that Halle Berry will produce and headline, is more like "The Two": according to Variety, Berry will play "a young woman struggling with multiple personality disorder and torn between who she is and a racist Caucasian alter-personality that preys upon her mind." It's not clear whether this is supposed to be pure schlock or an attempt at metaphor. Either way: oh dear.

Variety has no word on who is writing or directing, which could have given us a hint of what to expect. I feel like a script has to exist, because I can't imagine anyone shelling out money for this project based solely on that goofy logline. I missed Halle Berry's last dramatic offering, the fairly well-reviewed Things We Lost in the Fire. But Frankie and Alice seems more in the vein of Perfect Stranger, anyway, and unfortunately I did see that one. It's hard to know what to make of this project, but there's a distinct possibility of a fascinating train wreck.

If you're old and boring like me, chances are you're not heading out to some paradise for Spring Break this year. It's cool, though, because Moviefone has got you covered. They've had the unfortunate job of combing through thousands of photos, searching for the top shots of our favorite female AND male movie characters wearing their most beloved, adorable swimwear.

On the girls side, we have one of the more geek-famous shots of Princess Leia rockin' her slave bikini. (A personal favorite, if I may say so myself.) There's Halle Berry, Jessica Alba, Elizabeth Hurley, Ursula Andress -- trust me, you'll want to check out this gallery. The men also get their time in the spotlight (though none of them beat my rock-solid abs). Let's see, we have dudes like Matthew McConaughey (who takes his shirt off in every film just so he can wind up on a list like this later in the year), Jesse Bradford, Sean Connery and, of course, Daniel Craig. You be the judge of which Bond looks better in a bathing suit.

Head over here to check out the ladies, and over here to check out the guys. And make sure you vote for your favorites at the end.

It's Insert Caption craziness this week on Cinematical. On Monday, we posted not one but two photos, doubling your pleasure with hotties Halle Berry and Frances McDormand (yeah I said it) modeling MGM's summer and winter lines. At stake: Four boxed sets for four lucky winners. Congrats to our victors below, and special shout out to William G. for entering a single caption that applied to both photos, you're our Mickey Rourke Rebel of the Week.

1. "No I can't stir them; I can only shake them." -- Kurt M.

See full images and all captions

1. "I got his keys! His wife and kids are about to get Punk'd!" -- Max R.

2. "Duck...Duck....Duck...GOOSE!
-- Adi B.

3. "Hurry up with that coffee. And bring some of those donuts! I think somebody slipped Ed here some decaf, but yah, we're not too late he's still breathin." -- Chaz K.

This week we're giving away more lavish prizes, with a photo from the indie sleeper Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, starring Johnny Depp, Keira Knightley and an incredibly cute monkey. Our grand prize winner will take home the DVD (available on Dec. 4), plus all sorts of amazing Pirates goodies (a Gentle Giant Jack Sparrow Animated Maquette, Gentle Giant Elizabeth Swann Animated Maquette, Flying Dutchman Dual Deck playset and more) that totals up to almost $600. Our first runner up gets a DVD, a Barbossa porcelain structure and Pirates action figures, while our third-place winner gets the DVD. Got that? Good.

On a personal note -- this will be my last week posting Insert Caption contests as increasing responsibilities on the Moviefone side will limit my blogging action, so I'll be passing the caption-master torch to Erik Davis. But thanks for playing along with me! We'll always have India. And Finland. And Mr. Woodcock hats.

Read the official rules for this contest

If you were looking for a demonstration of how skillful execution can elevate a cliché pitch into a strong film, you couldn't do much better than Things We Lost in the Fire, Danish director Susanne Bier's American debut. Things We Lost in the Fire follows Audrey Burke (Halle Berry) a wife and mother whose world changes when her husband Brian (David Duchovny) is slain in a random moment of brutal violence. In her grief -- and desperate to maintain a sense of connection to her dead husband -- she reaches out to Brian's life-long fallen friend Jerry (Benicio Del Toro), a recovering heroin addict. She offers him a place to stay; the better question is, what does Jerry offer Audrey?

Bier's 2006 After the Wedding was an Oscar Nominee for Best Foreign Film; her 2004 release Brothers followed two siblings -- one as he adapted to life outside of prison and the other as he dealt with his military posting in Afghanistan. (A remake of Brothers, slated to star Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal and Natalie Portman, was recently announced.) Cinematical spoke with Biers in San Francisco about working with her acclaimed cast, adapting to working with American crews and studios, child actors, shooting people you like, and more as part of a roundtable interview; Cinematical's questions are indicated.

Cinematical: Watching Things We Lost in the Fire, I felt a strong sense of thematic parallelism with Brothers -- these two separate films, but at the same time they're about these families remaking themselves in the light of tragedy. Was that something that you consciously thought of when you read the script for Things We Lost in the Fire, something you wanted to explore again?

Susanne Bier: Actually, I read the script and I thought '"Ooh, there are some parallels to Bothers: Do I want to do that?" And then I kind of felt that ... firstly, in Brothers, I kind of felt the female part was slightly unexplored; I mean, she could have been the main character, but that was not the story in Brothers. And I all the time had the feeling that there was another kind of story to tell, about her. And suddenly, I had a script, where this story was told, and I felt it was really compelling. And secondly, I've never ever dealt with a drug addict (in film) and I don't have any personal experience with that, and I'm not an addictive personality; I don't really have a sense of it, But I was really fascinated by it. And part of moviemaking is also sort of stirring up your own curiosity; at least, it is for me. I have to be really curious about stuff, and really kind of fascinated by it. And I was really fascinated by the notion of these two highly unlikely people who were going to somewhat save each other; this very unconventional love story. So even if there were parallels, there were a lot more things that weren't the same, and that really drew me to (Things We Lost in the Fire).

Audrey (Halle Berry) has a pretty good life. Or, rather, she did. We only see how great it was in the rear-view mirror: A rich-but-real marriage to Brian (David Duchovny), two great kids (Micah Nicolas Berry and Harper Burke); a beautiful home. But Brian's dead – horribly, suddenly, because someone angry had a gun – and we see Audrey wandering through her crowded, empty beautiful home, absently comforting her children, preparing for the wake, trying to understand that Brian is gone. The past and present mingle for us, as they do for Audrey; we're pulled into the dislocated murmur and hum of her grief. But something snaps Audrey to attention: She didn't invite Jerry. Audrey doesn't really know Jerry (Benicio Del Toro); he's one of Brian's oldest friends, a lawyer who got addicted to heroin and pretty much fell out of the world. She doesn't really like Jerry, either; we witness past fights and skirmishes between her and Brian about her husband's bond with this lost man. And yet, it becomes very important that Jerry be invited to the funeral and the wake – in part because Audrey would rather think about anything other than what's actually happening, in part because she's trying to hold on to even the smallest fragments of the life that's been lost.

Things We Lost in the Fire could very easily have played at the shallow, simplistic level of a TV movie, or as a lightweight weeper destined to being watched only in rainy-Sunday re-runs on cable. But somewhere along the line, a few interesting choices were made, and Things We Lost in the Fire is all the better for them. Dreamworks chose Denmark's Susanne Bier (After the Wedding, Brothers) to direct Allan Loeb's screenplay; Del Toro and Berry were signed to star. And the end result of those decisions is up on the screen – and far better than it could have been. This is a film that, essentially, earns what it does, one that's not manipulative but rather simply effective, one that confounds or exceeds your expectations as often as it meets them. And, thanks to Del Toro, it's defined by a completely brilliant, wholly absorbing performance from one of our best actors, a piece of acting so good you can feel the entire movie reaching and working to try to come up to his level.

In case you haven't noticed, I can get pretty vocal about my skepticism. One thing I often complain about is the immigration of talented foreign filmmakers, who come over and make disappointing English-language debuts. I won't name names this time around, but you know it is common. Now, the great Dane Susanne Bier announced her own debut long ago, and the film, Things We Lost in the Fire, is actually due next month and it could actually be decent (even with Halle Berry). Then there's her English-language screenplay debut (co-written with Jeffrey Hatcher), The Duchess, which is being directed by Saul Dibb and which stars Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes. That will probably be pretty good, too. But her newly announced second film in English, well, that could be awful.

According to Variety, Bier has signed to helm Lost for Words, a romantic comedy or something about a movie star who falls in love with a Chinese actress and her female translator. I'm not sure if its a love triangle thing or a threesome thing or what, but it was scripted by Jamie Curtis, who co-wrote Spice World, so it is sure to be hokey. Now, I make no secret of the fact that I love Spice World. Doesn't matter, I still think this is going to be bad, if only because of my skeptical prejudice. The movie has some more British talent involved, too; it will be produced by Love Actually writer-director Richard Curtis, along with Mr. Bean's Holiday (and Hot Fuzz) producers Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner.

In her native Danish language, Bier last gave us After the Wedding, which was nominated for an Oscar earlier this year. She's also the director of festival hits Open Hearts (aka Dogme #28) and Brothers, both of which are being remade into English. Zach Braff (Garden State) is tackling the former while Jim Sheridan (In the Name of the Father) is helming the latter. We'll just have to wait and see what translates better, her films or her filmmaking skills.

My first thought should be to congratulate Halle Berry on her pregnancy, which she finally, officially announced on Access Hollywood Tuesday. But instead, I'm thinking primarily about John Singleton, who stands to lose by the news. The Boyz n the Hood director is having some bad luck of late -- in case you didn't hear, he accidentally killed a woman recently -- and Berry's bun in the oven has unfortunately affected Singleton's latest project. He was set to direct Tulia, a Southern courtroom drama with Berry and Billy Bob Thornton, but now, thanks to the actress' unavailability for the next six months or so, the film has been postponed -- if not canceled. According to TMZ, Lionsgate has definitely halted production, which was scheduled to begin shooting in October, with no word on when it would resume. The gossip news site did learn, though, that the project hasn't been shelved entirely.

I had been excited for Singleton when he took over Tulia from Carl Franklin. Here, I was thinking he could work with the reunited Berry and Thornton, who paired up on Monster's Ball, and direct the actress to another Oscar nomination (she won for Ball). And then his career would pick up again, proving that his status as youngest director to ever be nominated for the directing Oscar was not a fluke. Maybe it wouldn't get him another nomination, but it would hopefully get him enough respect to finally get him his Luke Cage greenlight. Now, even if Singleton does remain attached to Tulia, it won't be bringing him to any Academy Awards until at least 2010. Currently, Singleton is also having trouble as a producer. He worked with filmmaker Franc. Reyes on the new release Illegal Tender, which has only made $2.5 million in its first two weeks -- most of it earned opening weekend before a near-60% drop. Considering Reyes' previous film, Empire, grossed seven times that amount, Singleton could be blamed.

[via WENN]

The new trailer for Things We Lost in the Fire has popped up online, and I have to say it's pretty disappointing. It breaks two rules of Good Trailer Making: first of all, it tells the entire story, about a woman, played by Halle Berry, who loses her husband and then gains his best friend, played by a straight-laced-looking Benicio Del Toro. Once you've seen this trailer, you know you've pretty much seen how the dynamic between them is going to play out, and where it's going to lead. I'm not suggesting it gives as much away as the trailer for Before the Devil Knows Your Dead, which we recently brought you and which almost gives away even the third act, but it's still pretty all-encompassing. The other rule this trailer breaks is that it tries very hard to make us feel uplifted, which is something no trailer should ever attempt. There's nothing worse than a trailer that 'send me away smiling,' like I've just had some great experience from watching it, and that alone bodes ill for the promise of the film.

Del Toro's character is a heroin addict, which gives us some hope -- surely director Susanne Bier won't pass up the opportunity to give him some great 'strung out' scenes here and there. Bier is a well-known Danish director whose most recent films, unseen by me, are After the Wedding and Brothers. Things We Lost in the Fire is set to hit theaters on October 27. By the way, am I the only person who keeps confusing this film with How to Survive a Hotel Room Fire?

Now that Carl Franklin has chosen The Maintenance Man as his next project, he is no longer attached to Tulia, the project reuniting Oscar-winner Halle Berry with her Monster's Ball co-star Billy Bob Thornton. Too bad, since it also would have reunited Franklin with his One False Move screenwriter/actor -- again, Thornton. Filling in for Franklin, according to Blackfilm.com, is John Singleton. While this isn't officially confirmed yet, it does make sense for the Boyz n the Hood director to take over a ready-made production while he waits and waits for that Luke Cage greenlight. If it is true, I wonder if Singleton will do another re-write of the screenplay, which was originally adapted by Karen Croner (Franklin's One True Thing) and then supposedly rewritten by Franklin.

As we told you back in March, Tulia is based on Nate Blakeslee's book Tulia: Race, Cocaine and Corruption in a Small Texas Town, which tells the true story of 46 racially profiled men arrested in a drug-less drug bust in Texas in 1999. Berry will play the lead attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense, a character Blackfilm.com notes is Indian, not African-American (it's true). Thornton also joined the project back in March, but we still don't know his role (Erik imagines he'll be the racist cop who aids in the conviction of the 46 men) and Blackfilm claims that Columbus Short (Stomp the Yard) may be added to the cast. The film was set to begin shooting back in April, but Thornton supposedly had a scheduling conflict. Hopefully Singleton, who is no stranger lately to race-based legal battles, won't need too much time to become acquainted with the project and it can start lensing soon.

In yesterday's review of A Mighty Heart, filed from the Cannes fest, James brought up a topic that I haven't given much thought to, but other people apparently have. Angelina Jolie's portrayal of Marianne Pearl in the film, for whatever emotional and preparational challenges it presented, also required Jolie to curl her hair and 'brown' her skin in order to accurately reflect Pearl's Afro-Cuban/French heritage. Most reviews being filed from the fest seem to reflect what James pointed out -- that it's not considered a big deal. As James wrote, "there's nothing insensitive or overdone in the mild make-up artistry of the part; the inner performance is what shines out." The press also realizes, I'm sure, that Jolie had a lot to do with shepherding this project into production and is the film's biggest selling point, so they wouldn't raise the pointless question of 'Couldn't the producers have found someone else to play Pearl?' I wonder, though -- would the press reaction be different if this were a fictional character? What if someone considerably fairer than Jolie, like Nicole Kidman, had taken the part and gone through the same make-up job?

There's also a sort of flip-side to the coin. During a recent press junket for her latest film, Perfect Stranger, Halle Berry talked candidly about her upcoming project, Class Act, a true story about a teacher who runs for congress. The teacher is white. "She's just this teacher who ran for public office," Berry told the press, "and that's a step in the right direction for me, because I've been fighting to just be seen as a woman and not always have my color precede me, so when [the producer] said 'wouldn't this be a great role for you?' I said 'you should ask her. Maybe she doesn't want her story portrayed by a black woman.' And she loved the idea."

These are weighty issues that can only be hashed out by the Cinematical readers, so I'll leave it to you -- what do you think about actors using makeup to alter their race for films, or simply taking on the roles of real people who are of a different race and not doing any makeup work?

If your favorite scenes from The Last Boy Scout are the ones between Bruce Willis and Halle Berry, and you've been waiting patiently for 16 years for the two of them to be reunited on screen, then your prayers have been answered! Berry and Willis are co-starring in Perfect Stranger, a suspense thriller opening this weekend, and we recently had a chance to sit down with some of the main players from the film during roundtables at the Manhattan press junket. Willis was a no-show, but Berry, director James Foley, and Giovanni Ribisi were on hand to answer questions and talk about the project. You may have noticed that we already ran the news that Ribisi used the junket to announce his upcoming turn as Albert Einstein in a biopic, and a few other bits of news also emerged during the day as well. Here is a sampling of the questions and answers, with Cinematical's questions credited. This piece is relatively spoiler-free, but if you want to go into the movie with a clean slate, you might want to think twice about reading -- otherwise, enjoy!

Halle Berry


Cinematical: This is a movie where you're acting and the character you play is sometimes acting -- what's the process for keeping all of that straight? "I think about it all the time. Which is why I was scared of this role, because I saw all of the nuances and all of the layers and I knew that my character was never really herself, ever -- maybe a few moments in the movie do you get to see the real character that's not pretending to be somebody else. The challenge for me was to act as these other people and have the other characters in the movie believe what she was saying, but still not act so well that the audience saw through it. When I wanted the audience to know that I was acting, like with Catherine Pogue, I had to act well enough so that Bruce Willis' character would buy it, but not so well that the audience forgot that she was really Ro acting as Catherine. Those were like ... I remember James Foley would sometimes say 'cut!' and I'd say 'what, wasn't that good?' and he would say 'Ro does not have an Academy award. You have got to do that over.' So that was always my sort of balance that I tried to walk."

Memo to Hollywood: no more instant messaging in movies. Aside from the phoney-baloney software layouts that always strike the eye as odd, the message boxes are invariably blown up big enough so that Stevie Wonder could read the text, and the chatters still feel compelled to verbalize their every keystroke for the benefit of the audience. It all comes off as incredibly fake, which actually makes it a good thematic match for Perfect Stranger, where everything comes off as fake. This is one of those mechanically-minded thrillers that sacrifices logic, character and common sense in order to lay 90 minutes of groundwork for a last-minute twist. I'm perfectly willing to admit that I didn't guess the ending, but I think it's fair to say the movie cheats to get there. I don't think it cheats in the classic plot-hole sense so much as it cheats in the psychological sense. To say more would give too much away, but let me say this -- people suffering under profound emotional stress can't possibly 'conceal' it to the extent that occurs here.

Perfect Stranger, a James Foley film, follows the character of Rowena, an urban newspaper reporter played by Halle Berry whose journalistic calling card is apparently forging false identities. When we first meet her, she's posing as (I think) a public relations expert in order to dupe a crooked congressman into confessing to an illicit affair. Later on in the film, she'll take on the identity of an office temp in order to get close to a suspect in the murder case the film revolves around. Is that what they're teaching in journalism school these days -- how to cook up phoney resumes in order to get a scoop that no newspaper in the country would publish after the reporter explained to the editor how the information was dubiously obtained? Yeah, I know -- shut up, Ryan. Anyway, the kickstand on the plot goes up when Rowena's childhood friend, Grace, shows up in town, drops some hints that she's in trouble with powerful people and then quickly turns up murdered. Needless to say, Grace sets out to find the killer of her friend.

Over the past couple of months, we've brought you all the rumblings about a possible Justice League movie in the works, based around the DC Universe superhero squad that includes Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern and others. We brought you the scuttlebutt about Batman being supposedly too big to waste on the project, and then a counter-rumor developed that Batman would definitely be involved. We also heard rumors that the Justice League film might be used as a sort of substitute for the complicated sequel to Superman Returns. So far, there hasn't been much word on who exactly would be opposing the JLA, but if it's going to be the Injustice League -- a DC Comics supervillain team, of which Catwoman is a charter member, don't expect Halle Berry to be cracking the whip.

At Tuesday's press junket for the upcoming thriller Perfect Stranger, Cinematical asked Berry if she could be persuaded to pick up the character again, for a Justice League film. "No, no," she said, forcefully. "You guys didn't like Catwoman the first time, and I'm not a masochist." When we pointed out that she has said she enjoyed the Catwoman role, Berry responded, "I love it, but my ego is in check, and I'm not just gonna do it for the sake of, you know, doing it for myself. I make movies for people, and if people don't really want to see that, then I wouldn't make the same mistake twice, obviously. I wouldn't choose to do that."

Another tidbit during the press day: Berry threw cold water on Billy Bob Thornton's supposed casting in Tulia. When asked when she would start shooting the movie with Billy Bob, Berry responded "Well, he might not actually be in it. That's been a little bit of misreporting. Carl Franklin is directing, but Billy Bob is ... we don't even know if we're going to start right away. We're still working on getting it together, and Billy Bob might have a scheduling conflict." We'll have the rest of the news from the junket in a later report, so stay tuned to Cinematical.

Itching to take a page out of her own book, Halle Berry is once again looking to perform one of those big-screen career revival stunts -- this time, however, instead of showing us her bare breasts, she'll be donning a shaved head. Back in 2001, Berry made waves by going topless in the film Swordfish. The scene itself was totally gratuitous and had no business being in the film, but it probably helped boost box office sales for a flick that wasn't that good in the first place. Of course, once the clothes were off, Berry opened herself up to other roles in riskier films -- Monster's Ball (in which she won an Oscar for best actress) being one of them.

This new film, Nappily Ever After (which, thankfully, isn't a sequel to Happy N'ever After), is being labeled a romantic comedy and will follow a woman who decides to shave her head bald when, for some reason, her hair begins to fall out. Of course, there will be this whole "real beauty comes from the inside" theme running throughout. Thanks for the life lesson Halle -- I guess I'm the only one who thinks bald women are beautiful and sexy too (I'll take a bald Natalie Portman over a full head of hair on Cameron Diaz any day). To make things even more "real," Berry will shave her head in the film instead of wearing some sort of cap. However, filming won't begin until at least next year; a new draft for Nappily Ever After was just turned in.