FilmRoar

Writer Barrie Keeffe in his only produced film script delivers an intelligent and engaging gangster film in The Long Good Friday (1980). The movie, best known for bringing film notoriety to then TV actor Bob Hoskins (Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Nixon (1995), Felicia’s Journey (1999)) spans a period of two days during which London crime boss Harold (Hoskins) is trying to secure a business deal with backing from the American Mafia. His efforts to woo his New York counterpart, Charlie (Eddie Constantine (Europa (1991))) are put into jeopardy by the unexplained assassination of Harold’s right hand man Colin (Paul Freeman (Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981))) and bombing of one of his restaurants. Eager to not loose the business opportunity and to find and punish those responsible for the attacks on his organization. To make matters worse one of the bombs has exploded in the car that took Harold’s mother to Good Friday mass leaving her traumatized and in the hospital. As Harold states later in the film “You don’t crucify people! Not on Good Friday!”

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A news article in Dark Horizons reports that:

The Jim Henson Co. has set animated series creator Genndy Tartakovsky (”Samurai Jack”, “Star Wars: The Clones Wars”) to direct “Power of the Dark Crystal,” sequel to 1982 fantasy film “The Dark Crystal”

The sequel will place the Brian Froud designed characters in CG background and is set to start production summer of 2006.

Apple has posted a movie trailer for The Notorious Bettie Page (2005). The lead role had originally been ear marked for Liv Tyler but went to Gretchen Mol. I have respect for Ms Mol and wish her success in the role, but I must admit disappointment at the casting change. I would really have loved to have seen Liv Tyler give the performance the devotion and enthusiasm she expressed in early interviews.

It has only been two days since Steve Jobs sold Pixar to Disney and the merger is already having healthy effects. Disney, which had previously announced they were going to make “Toy Story 3″ without Pixar (read as in ‘milk the franchise for all the money they could get out of it’) has reversed itself. Disney employees working on the project were recently told that:

the ‘Toy Story 3′ production will end effectively [Tuesday]. They said that sequels should only be made if there is a really great story that demands it, and should be the domain of those who created the original film.

Thank you Steve. God bless you for saving us from a direct to DVD crappymation version of Toy Story.

I dont think a trailer could make me want to watch a movie less than the trailer for Bubble. The movie sounds interesting but the trailer makes it look… well.. unwatchable.

The first Teaser Trailer for X3 (2006) was posted today. I am a big fan of the X-Men movies and was worried when Bryan Singer bowed out of the second sequel (in order to direct Superman Returns (2006)) and became really worried when I head Brett Ratner (Rush Hour (1998), Red Dragon (2002), After the Sunset (2004)) was chosen to pick up the franchise. Recent production diaries, set reports and now the good looking trailer have raised my hopes.

Today Yahoo! Posted a teaser trailer for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006), the first of two sequels for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) coming in the next few years. Dead Man’s Chest has a release date of July 7th. Scenes for the third, as of yet unnamed third movie, were shot during production for Dead Man’s Chest but a release date has not been announced yet.