Cinematical

Even though I still haven't completely wrapped my head around some of the participants on the New Moon soundtrack (really, Thom?), worry not because this isn't about to turn into one of those Twilight bash-fests since I've already made my peace with this particular franchise. But I wanted to get that out there because you should probably know that I'm not exactly dedicated to the love story of Edward and Bella, or the Emo poster boys Death Cab for Cutie, which might not make me the best audience for the new music video for the first official release from the soundtrack, Meet Me on The Equinox. That said, I do have to admit that, no, I don't hate it.

The song might not be anything out of the ordinary for the band, and it has that trademark Death Cab vibe of slightly mopey and chock full of ennui, but it's a pretty little track nonetheless. Now, as for the video itself, it's mainly just footage of the band (after breaking into Bella's Forks home by the looks of it) but there is some additional footage from the movie peppered into the clip -- though you would probably have to have committed the first trailer to memory (and I'm sure some of you have) to spot the differences. But one thing that should thrill Cullen-lovers everywhere is that you do get a much longer shot of a shirtless and sad Edward -- and isn't that the bread and butter of the Twilight franchise, after all?

The official soundtrack will go on sale on October 20th, and you'll have one month to learn these songs by heart before New Moon arrives in theaters on November 20th.

After the jump: Death Cab emoting all over the place...

The hooker with a heart of gold is a Hollywood staple, but usually when we're talking about the 'pay to play' types, we're dealing with the female species. So who better to take a role as 'man candy' than Chris Evans? I mean, just look to your right -- is it any surprise he's the crush of girls and guys everywhere? In an interview with Prestige, Sharon Stone told them she would be working with Evans in the somewhat poorly named drama, Satisfaction, where Evans will play a male prostitute whose career has hit the skids.

According to Stone, the story will center on Evans' character as he's beginning to lose his cache with his agency, but when he hooks up with a new client (played by Stone), his career soon begins to take off again. This is no Pretty Woman tale, though, because what starts off as a partnership between the two turns into a vicious battle of the sexes ... with plenty of, ahem, sex.

Evans is still filming the comic book adaptation The Losers, but then it's off to start work on Satisfaction which will start shooting this January on location in Europe.

After the jump: Evans joins the ranks of these famous Hollywood hustlers...

The complicated story of Roman Polanski and his flight from the US over 30 years ago is starting to get very, very simple – at least when it comes to the law. The NYT reports that Polanski (and his legal representatives) have lost the appeal to have the director released from a Zurich jail following his arrest for a 2005 international warrant. The appeal was rejected by the Swiss Justice Ministry and a spokesperson for the ministry was quoted as saying the reason they rejected the request was that they felt "there is a high risk of flight" -- and it's not like you can blame them, the man does have a habit of disappearing when in the middle of a sticky situation.

That hasn't stopped his legal representatives from asking Switzerland's highest criminal court to free Polanski, but representatives from the Justice Ministry even submitted letters explaining their opposition to freeing the director. However, there is still a chance the director could be freed, and according to the NYT, "The Federal Criminal Court has said it will rule in the case in the "next weeks," and a verdict in either direction can be appealed to the country's highest judicial body, the Federal Tribunal."

The battle of the undead on the big screen has been under way for some time now, and after months of hearing that vampires are taking over pop culture, it seems like we shouldn't quite put our friends the zombies (no, not those ones) down for the count. Over at Newsweek, Sarah Ball put together a few reasons as to why zombies will never beat vampires in a pop-culture zeitgeist-off thanks to our long-standing love-affair with the pale tortured types. But just this weekend, audiences proved that when it comes to the walking dead, the zombies still have what it takes to bring in the crowds.

Everybody has their personal preferences (and man I love those bloodsuckers), so even though I've watched more vampire content than I care to remember (I even sat through the pilot of The Vampire Diaries), and I'll always be a dedicated 'fan of the fang', I think that sometimes those drooling bumbling walking corpses might be better suited (at least these days) to the world of horror. Here's why:

After the jump: my top 3 reasons Zombies (might) make better horror movies.

I bet you never thought in a million years that you would see the words Scenes We Love and Basic Instinct in the same headline, did you? But here we are, so before you swear off this feature for ever more, keep in mind that this particular edition of Scenes We Love is going to be for the music (because, frankly, if we're talking about quality filmmaking we need to look elsewhere). Basic Instinct is a guilty pleasure of mine and there is plenty of cheese to choose from. You've got the laughable sex, ridiculous plot and dialog, and really, when did you ever think you would see Michael Douglas try and get down ... in a V-neck no less?

Now for most audiences, we were supposed to be titillated and shocked by the sight of Sharon Stone getting it on with Roxy (played by Leilani Sarelle), and even though it was pretty risqué at the time, it's almost quaint if you think about it now. But I wasn't that shocked or titillated by what I was watching, so I was left listening to that kick-ass song: Blue, by Latour.

I've been known to have a bit of an obsessive personality when it comes to tracking down a song used in a movie, and music is a big part of my life ... really, I can't help myself. So, for a long time, Blue was my 'White Whale', and even Napster (remember, this was the 90's) couldn't help me out. That is until one night in a Quebec City nightclub when I'd had a few too many cocktails and that tune began to pump out of the sound system. So I ran (OK...stumbled) to the DJ booth, and begged him to tell me what he was playing, and he handed me a mix tape. So thanks to that kindly Francophone, this track has been in my nostalgia play list ever since.

After the jump: Girl-on-girl action, 90's style...

I wasn't much of a collector when I was a kid. I could never keep a toy in it's package perched high on a shelf. In fact, usually the packaging would last about as long as it could take me to wrench my new She-Ra, Jem, or Barbie from their cardboard cage. But the one thing I did collect were trading cards, E.T. trading cards to be exact. But that was a long time ago, and those cards have long been misplaced (and I won't even dwell on the fact I had the complete set), so you can imagine the overload of nostalgia I experienced when I saw The Improbably Movie Cards over at Automatic Lifestyle Dispenser. Because, what these fine folks have done is made movie collector cards in that classic 80's style, but the catch is that these cards are for films that no person in their right mind would want to collect, and the results are pretty funny -- if not a little bizarre.

So how bad it could it be? Well, if you thought a Silkwood card might be in 'dubious' taste, wait till you get a look at the Schindler's List "Nazi's on The Move" card. Dispenser also made collector cards for good old Alvy and Annie, Sara Goldfarb, and even Charlie Meadows. But no trading card pack would be complete without the stickers, and luckily they have thought of that too, and we get collectible stickers of Colonel "The Horror" Kurtz, and Anton "Friendo" Chigurh. Unfortunately, these cards only exist online, but I don't think I would be the only one out there who would kill for their very own set of Annie Hall trading cards.

If you've been arguing with your friends and family about the arrest and detainment of Roman Polanski in Switzerland last week, don't feel bad -- you're not the only one with an opinion. There's a debate brewing in Hollywood over the acclaimed director and his current legal predicament, and everyone has jumped into the fray. Polanski fled from the US after a conviction for unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor back in 1978, and with his recent arrest some of the biggest names in Hollywood have been publicly showing support. Recently, filmmakers like Michael Mann, Darren Aronofsky, Terry Gilliam, and Woody Allen (ahem, yes, even Woody Allen) signed a petition demanding the filmmaker's release from a Zurich jail. On the other hand, there is a very real possibility that not everybody is on board the love train, and the problem is that those people aren't talking.

Hollywood is a business, and just like in any other business, reputation can be everything. If you think of Hollywood as the world's biggest high school, then you can see how nobody wants to be excluded from the 'cool table' -- and it doesn't help that the pro-Polanski faction has Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese, and the opposition has Sherri Shepherd and 'Nellie Olsen'. In a piece for the LA Times, writer/blogger Melissa Silverstein said, "I think people are afraid to talk in Hollywood. They are afraid about their next job." Sure, that might sound slightly paranoid, but power players like Harvey Weinstein are writing op-eds in support of the director, so maybe she's not completely off the mark.

After the jump: making excuses and Hollywood vs. Middle America...

If you are a regular around these parts, then you have probably noticed that I have a streak of feminism in me a mile wide, and while I've read all the great tomes on equality, most, if not all of my 'girl-power' tendencies can be traced back to Dolly Parton. So for today's installment of Terrific Trailers, I went back all the way to 1980 to bring you the trailer for the greatest feminist film ever made, 9 to 5. Colin Higgins' comedy was the story of three working women (played by Parton, Lily Tomlin, and Jane Fonda) as they banded together to bring down their pig of a boss, and was the first time the idea of a 'gender divide' made it's way into my kiddie consciousness...and I've been a card-carrying little feminist ever since.

It's strange to see a trailer that looks nothing like what passes for a quality trailer or teaser these days. There is no star power, no "In a world without...", in fact, we don't even glimpse the principal players until the end of the clip. But what is truly funny is that considering the huge social and political point the film is trying to make about women in the workplace, the trailer seems content to treat it all as a silly joke -- "Oh that wacky boss who steals your ideas and grabs your ass..." But, I'm realistic enough to know that if you aren't trying to scare people off, you have to make sure you don't use the dreaded "F" word -- which I guess means not much has changed since 1980, after all.

After the jump; the personal gets political...

Now that we've all had enough time to get used to the idea that Spielberg is about to remake one of the most respected films in history, maybe it will help a little to know that it might star Robert Downey Jr. According to the LA Times' Hero Complex blog, the announcement is imminent that Downey will be starring in Spielberg's update of the classic film, which marks a change from some of the other names that had been attached, including the obvious heir apparent to Jimmy Stewart (and long time Spielberg cohort) Tom Hanks and Will Smith.

Harvey was the story of a gentle soul by the name of Elwood P. Dowd, and his best friend, who happens to be an invisible six-foot rabbit named Harvey. The original play won the Pulitzer Prize, but most of us probably remember the 1950 film starring Jimmy Stewart as Dowd. News of the remake hit back in August, and according to Complex, during a set visit to Iron Man 2, "the actor spoke with affection and awe about the late Stewart's nuanced timing and camera sense."

A while back I wrote a little post about a movie that I would never see, and plenty of folks lined up to tell me that it was impossible to make a decision about a movie through word of mouth or what I had read on the Internet. Of course, I disagreed, because frankly how else can I make a decision about where to spend my hard earned time and money? But if I had to blame anyone for keeping me away from the movie theater that day, I'm going to have to blame the Internet. Yup, it was thanks to those sneak peeks and early screenings described in detail online that helped me make my decision before those battling robots ever took the stage. People are talking about movies more now than ever before thanks to social networking tools like Twitter and Facebook, and a new study from New Line's Web guru Gordon Paddison has proven that when it comes to movie marketing, all the action really is on the web.

What the report seems to be saying is that you need to know your audience if you want to sell your movie. Now, there are some daunting statistics that prove the power of the Internet when it comes to going to the movies, and if you aren't buying the effect the net can have on a film's success, keep in mind that 94% of all moviegoers are online, and 73% of moviegoers surveyed have profiles on a social networking site -- and if people are talking, you want to make sure it's positive because as the old commercial goes, they tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and before you know it, you have a flop on your hands.

After the jump: so what does this all mean for movie marketers?