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I was already taken with the idea that Burt Reynolds was going to star in an upcoming theater film called A Bunch of Amateurs, which I told you about earlier this month. The film focuses on aging action star from Hollywood (Burt) who joins a Shakespearian theater company thinking that its the Royal Shakespeare Company. Instead, he's surprised to discover that it's a group of amateurs in Stratford St. John. Due to marketing and charity, he has to stick with it and be King Lear on the amateur stage.

Now the film has just gotten 100% irresistible. Variety reports that Charles Durning (who got a hugely-deserved lifetime achievement award from SAG recently) has joined the cast as "a sleazy Hollywood agent" who tricks Burt's character into the theatrical company. I wish he was going to be one of the players, so we'd get more screen time and Charles doing Shakespeare, but I'll take what I can get.

The character actor is a total scene stealer, as Jette Kernion blogged about back in 2006. He has been in a slew of great films, but to me, he'll always be the angelic Charlie from Two of a Kind. Yes, I realize I have weird tastes sometimes. So... What's your favorite Durning role?

I have an embarrassing confession to make: I have never watched a Pixar movie from start to finish. The closest I ever came was 1999's A Bug's Life, but I've been told often enough that Life was hardly the best of the bunch. Maybe I'll have better luck with their latest (following WALL-E), Up! The first image released seems to be concept art that is reportedly on display at Disney's Hollywood Studios. Luckily, some intrepid tourist snapped some pics and we can get our first look up above; you can also sneak a larger version of the photo here.

The film will mark Pixar's 10th animated feature film, and the story has been compared to a re-telling of Don Quixote. It centers on a man in his late 70's who joins up with a befuddled park ranger for some sort of adventure. The official description from Pixar describes our hero as the kind of guy who 'travels the globe, fights beasts and villains, and eats dinner at 3:30 in the afternoon' -- aww, I'm sold on the cuteness already. But then again, I guess I'm not the best judge when it comes to Pixar.

Pete Docter is already set to direct the "coming-of-old-age story", but so far there is no word on a cast. Docter is a long-time Pixar collaborator; he helped write the scripts for both Toy Story films, as well as directing Monsters, Inc. in 2001. But I wouldn't worry, judging by some of the big names that previous Pixar flicks have been able to get, I don't think Docter will have much trouble getting some solid voice talent. Up! is scheduled for release on June 12th, 2009.

[via Coming Soon]

In one of Smart People's many funny (yet real) scenes, several beers have loosened the inhibitions and tongue of bright, highly motivated teen Vanessa Wetherhold (Ellen Page). As she staggers out of the bathroom, she pauses to ask a bottle-blonde, denim-clad woman "How's it feel to be stupid?" The woman snaps back: "How's it feel to eat lunch alone every day?" Vanessa's drunk enough to be honest: "It f***in' sucks." And that scene, in a nutshell, is what Smart People is about -- how it's one thing to be bright and aware and clever and perceptive, but it also sucks to eat lunch alone. Vanessa's dad Lawrence (Dennis Quaid) is a burly, bearded professor in the English department at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University - sluggish and surly and sleepwalking through his days. It's established -- carefully and well -- that Lawrence lost his wife not that long ago. His son James (Ashton Holmes) is attending Carnegie; his daughter Vanessa busies herself as Lawrence's right hand woman -- preparing meals, thinking of new titles for his book, advising him on office politics. This has two advantages for Vanessa; she gets to help her dad with his problems, and it keeps her too busy to think about her own.

The Wetherholds don't have much of a life, but at least it has some order to it -- order that's disrupted by the arrival of Chuck (Thomas Haden Church), Lawrence's adopted brother. Chuck is a slow-motion wreck of a man, a financial and professional failure, but he knows things his brainy brother and niece don't. Chuck wants to crash with Lawrence for a while, but Lawrence isn't very interested in that; when Lawrence has a seizure that means his driving license is revoked for six months, Chuck leaps in that window of opportunity headfirst. Chuck, by his very presence, destroys the status quo at the Wetherhold home. What we come to grasp is that maybe that status quo needs destruction.

It's not a bad idea for an indie film: Two sisters, still dealing as adults with the aftermath of their mother's suicide when they were children, are stuck in dead-end jobs. Then one of them gets the idea to stop cleaning rich people's houses for a living, and to start a business cleaning up crime scenes instead. That's the basic idea behind Christine Jeffs' Sunshine Cleaning, starring Amy Adams, Emily Blunt and Alan Arkin.

Adams plays Rose, head cheerleader back in the glory days of high school, now stuck raising her son Oscar (Jason Spevack) alone. Rose cleans houses for a living, a job she's not crazy about, and she's having an affair with her high school boyfriend, Mac (Steve Zahn), who likes Rose enough to have sex on the side, but not enough to leave his wife for her. Her sister Norah (Blunt) lives with their father Joe (Arkin), who's always got a scheme going for finally getting rich. When Oscar keeps getting in trouble in school, Rose decides she needs to make more money so she can put him in private school, and cleaning houses for a living isn't going to get her there.

My top indie pick of the week is Seth Gordon's The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, a terrific documentary that goes far beyond video games to examine the perils of winning and losing; check out Erik's extended review.

I also enjoyed Ira & Abby, a neurotic relationship comedy that transcends its premise for much of its running time before falling back to earth. Jennifer Westfeldt (Kissing Jessica Stein) wrote the script and stars as Abby, the kind of supernaturally friendly woman you either want to marry or leave deserted in the outback (don't worry, she'll befriend the natives and find her way back safely). Ira (Chris Messina) chooses to accept the former option when Abby proposes after six hours of intense conversation. The film is packed with one-liners and cameos from familiar faces, though I should mention that Christopher Campbell liked it far less than I did. Look for the DVD from Magnolia.

Not yet 30, Aaron Katz has written and directed two feature films, Quiet City and Dance Party, USA, which are paired on a new two-disc DVD edition from Benten Films. Quiet City follows a twenty-something woman who crosses paths with "a kindly stranger," while Dance Party, USA focuses on the growing relationship between two apathetic teenagers. The DVD set includes director and cast commentaries on each film, plus clips, interviews, alternative and extended scenes, short films and critical essays.

Chris Gorak's apocalyptic drama Right at Your Door premiered at Sundance two years ago; James Rocchi called it "a short, sharp shock of a film," and Ryan Stewart praised the performances by Mary McCormack and Rory Cochrane. The DVD from Roadside Attractions includes an audio commentary by Gorak, as well as an interview and tips on making an independent film from the director.

Other indie titles of interest this week include Rocket Science, The Yacoubian Building, King of California and Canvas.

I'm hardly describing Meet the Spartans as something to celebrate, at least on the grounds of the trailers -- leave Brittany alone, indeed. However, this week's unpreviewed satire represents the latest version of a film that's a gag, followed by a subsequent gag, followed by yet another gag, without any connective tissue. Now that they're so codified by sequels, it's hard to remember this kind of comedy as something that once seemed berserk and new. What did something like the Olsen and Johnson comedy Hellzapoppin' look like on its first go-round in 1941? Though it was a flop, It was influential, and for years it was synonymous for a certain kind of entertainment. As a kid I always heard my favorite show, TV's Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In described as a new Hellzapoppin'. Watching R and M's shtick today proves it as mirthless as any of these Stupid Movie-style franchisees of today, though I sure hope to do an After Images column on The Maltese Bippy some time. For that matter, which came first, W. C. Field's 70 minute long dazzler Never Give A Sucker an Even Break or Hellzapoppin'? It's the same thing either way: performers in vain search of a plot decide to make the movie anyway.

One of the many comedies debuting at this year's Sundance Film Festival, Assassination of a High School President is a school-set spoof of film noir, with school paper journalist Bobby Funke (Reece Thompson) going from outcast to in-crowd when he dopes out who's been lifting SAT papers from the administration's office. Funke hits the means, motive and opportunity triple play and pins the thefts on student council president and basketball star Paul Moore (Patrick Taylor); his article earns him a coveted internship with Northwestern's journalism program and the affections of Moore's ex, Francesca (Mischa Barton). It's all looking good. Until it isn't. Funke learns new facts that make his sure-thing story look shaky; Northwestern is calling to fact-check the story, and if they find holes, his internship's over before its begun. But Funke's ready to walk the mean halls of St. Donovan's and scour the Jersey suburbs to get the story right. ...

Many critics and observers have already pigeonholed Assassination of a High School President as"Brick played for laughs." And yeah, that's a fairly simplistic assessment; then again, Assassination of a High School President's a fairly simplistic film. Written by ex-South Park production assistants Tim Calpin and Kevin Jakubowski (and between this film and Hamlet 2, it's interesting how the road to Park City, Utah seems to have had an on-ramp in South Park, Colorado this year), Assassination never quite clicks as a total experience. Yes, it's amusing when Thompson, in his self-celebrating inner monologue, says he'll be on the case " ... like pink rubber bands on your sister's braces." And director Brett Simon finds lively, well-shot moments of visual excitement in the clichés of high school life: detention is shot like the big house, a party sequence moves and grooves with giddy chaos. But Assassination has a meandering plot line that dithers when it should drive forward, and lingers at times it should leap ahead. As Funke works leads, we get scenes that expand the running time instead of advance the plot. And yes, holding this film's central pitch up to the life-and-death stakes of Brick -- one of the best films I've ever seen in seven years of attending Sundance -- is going to make the funny-and-goofy stakes of Assassination seem slighter in comparison.

The ensemble cast for the highly-anticipated live-action G.I. Joe flick is starting to come together, and IESB reports that Arnold Vosloo has just landed the role of Zartan in the film, who's described as a "mercenary who works with Destro and Cobra. He is one of the main villains in the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero comic and animated series." The name might not automatically ring a bell, however you should remember Vosloo from his role as High Priest Imhotep (aka The Mummy) in The Mummy and The Mummy Returns. He's also starred in a number of films; most recently as Colonel Coetzee in Blood Diamond. Vosloo joins Sienna Miller (The Baroness), Ray Park (Snake Eyes), Marlon Wayans (Ripcord), Channing Tatum (Duke), Byung-hun Lee (Storm Shadow), Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Heavy Duty), Rachel Nichols (Scarlett), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Rex) and Said Taghmaoui (Breaker) in the film, which will be directed by Stephen Sommers (The Mummy) and is due out August 7, 2009.

I'm not very familiar with Zartan, but IESB says the character is "a bit of a chameleon and can imitate anyone to an exact physical and vocal likeness. In the cartoon and comics his chameleon-like abilities were done through a mix of holograms, illusions and hypnosis. Zartan is also fluent in twenty languages and dialects, a ventriloquist, an expert martial artist, master archer and the leader of the biker gang known as the Dreadnoks who also suffers from Paranoid Schizophrenia and Multiple Personality Disorder." I imagine this casting choice came from Sommers himself, who's worked with Vosloo on both Mummy films. The guy was creepy as all hell in those films, so I imagine he'll fit in well here. What do you think?

With Sundance wrapped, it's time for Robert Redford to get going on his next movie. According to Yahoo/Associated Press, his next project will be an adaptation of Bill Bryson's bestseller -- A Walk in the Woods. He will produce and star while Barry Levinson is planning on directing. Nothing like Into the Woods or Into the Wild, this book focused on Bryson's return to the U.S. after 20 years in England, and how he decided to reconnect with his homeland by hiking the 2100-mile-long Appalachian Trail with a college friend. The account details their struggles with self-reliance, and the people they meet along the way.

Redford says: "It'll be fun. I don't know when I've read a book that I laughed so loud. Also, it's a chance to take a look at the country... The backdrop is pretty terrific, if you stop to think of all the visuals that are possible as they go along that trail." It's about flipping time, I say. The family favorite Charlotte's Web aside (he was Ike the Horse), Redford hasn't acted in a comedy since 1996's Up Close & Personal. The last time he was in a good comedy, well...

Of course, the drama master can't go without some heavier fare as well. After hiking the Appalachians, Redford says he will take on the story of how Branch Rickey helped Jackie Robinson get into major league baseball in 1947. "What Rickey had to do, what Robinson had to go through, and the partnership they had to form, that's a story nobody knows. It's just a fascinating story."

So I know these aren't the first pictures to come out of Peter Berg's Hancock, but these are the first that capture Will Smith in full superhero gear. Cine21 is hosting two images of Smith in his 'tights.' Well, to be fair, they aren't tights. In fact, like most superhero costumes, it's kind of a spandex and body armor combo -- which really does make the most sense if you think about; comfortable and bullet-proof. Smith stars as Hancock; a superhero that is down on his luck. In desperate need of a PR makeover, he hires a new agent (played by Jason Bateman) in hopes of recapturing some of his former glory. Charlize Theron also stars as Bateman's wife and her involvement with Hancock causes some serious problems in her husband's working relationship with the scuzzy superhero.

I'll admit that I'm a little surprised that it took this long to get the first look at Smith in his 'Super' look. There have already been plenty of photos released from the set, a poster, and the first trailer was released back in December -- all of which featured the ordinarily dapper Smith looking like a bum. Now maybe it's just my Arrested Development nostalgia clouding my judgment, but I do think that this movie has a shot at being pretty funny. Say what you like about Will Smith, but he's got one of the best track records in the business. Plus, Berg has a knack with make comedies from unlikely premises. From a dead stripper in Vegas to a misanthropic superhero is not that much of a leap if you think about it. Hancock opens in theaters on July 2nd, 2008.

[via Empire]