What's the definition of a "Christmas movie?" Is it a simple matter of setting in time, a more complex question of tone, an ineffable connection to the Christmas spirit? I can't answer that, but I can tell you one thing.

Die Hard is a Christmas movie.

It's bloody, brutal and base; it's punchy, puckish and profane ... and it's unequivocally a Christmas movie, or it wouldn't be in the rotation at my house -- and, I suspect, some of yours -- every December as reliably as it is, nor would that annual process of returning to my mind seem as welcome as it is. Normally, in a piece about a film, here's where I'd recap the plot, but seriously, do you need one here? Have you been in cryogenic suspension? Are you leaving the Amish faith after 20 years and figured you'd turn to the internets to catch up? It's Die Hard. You know the plot. And if you need a refresher, go watch it. Right now. We'll be here when you get back.

I love reading about who was supposed to be in roles, especially those roles where you can't imagine any other actor doing it justice. Sometimes the casting changes are a positive change, and sometimes they're just teamed with actor's wrong choices. This story is one of the latter. While talking to MTV, Tim Roth discussed how he was tapped to play Professor Severus Snape in the Harry Potter series, the role that became famous because of Alan Rickman. Why didn't he take the role? He wanted to be in Planet of the Apes. Ouch. Bad choice!

Roth said: "I was going to do both films. We rigged it so that I could fly back and forth. They figured out the schedule, but it just got to be overwhelming in my mind. my kids really liked the books. They were really into me doing it, but the idea of being an ape with Tim was too good." I wonder what his kids think about this decision, or if he regrets it at all, but isn't admitting it. If he had taken the role, he'd be closer to Snape's age in the books, which was late-30s. Instead, they went the Interview with the Vampire route (the super-old Armand) and got Rickman, who is currently 61.

Roth says he would have made his Snape "a very different guy." For sure! Can you imagine Roth as Snape? Would he have done an ever better job, or was the scheduling conflict a great gift to the series?

Even though I know he has sung before on screen, I've got to tell you -- I'm not accustomed to listening to Johnny Depp sing Sondheim. The official website for Tim Burton's big-screen version of Sweeney Todd has undergone a makeover and is now packed with musical clips, downloads, and the behind-the-scenes featurette that was making the rounds on the net recently.

The film stars Depp as the murderous Barber of Fleet Street and Burton's latest muse (and wife) Helena Bonham Carter, as Todd's partner in crime, Mrs. Lovett. Based on the musical by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler, the story follows Sweeney Todd, who returns home to London after escaping the life imprisonment of Benjamin Barker only to find his wife and daughter Johanna have suffered at the hands of the man who had him falsely imprisoned (Alan Rickman). With the help of his former landlady (Carter), Sweeney launches a plan for revenge.

So if you are like me and aren't quite used to the idea of a musical Johnny Depp, then this is your chance. Because unlike most of the TV spots for the film, the web site is all about the music; in fact, you can't get away from it even if you wanted to. Depp has been quoted as saying that he took a "punk rock approach" to his singing parts in the film, and you can definitely hear a little Johnny Rotten mixed in there along with the Broadway stylings. So even though I'm not a huge fan of musicals, the combination of Burton, Depp, and Carter (who has always been one of my favorite actresses) is perfect for the black humor needed to make this film work. I'll keep my fingers crossed when Sweeney Todd hits theaters on December 21st.

Most of the time when you interview a director, you're talking with them about their latest film; interviewing Mike Binder about The Search for John Gissing, a comedy about corporate backstabbing as an American executive (Binder) arrives with his reluctant wife (Janeane Garofalo) in London to smooth over a multinational merger with soon-to-be-outcast fellow executive John Gissing (Alan Rickman) sabotaging his every move, is a different story. It's not a recent film -- it was shot in early 2001, before Binder released The Upside of Anger or Reign Over Me -- but it's just coming to DVD now; the other thing is that The Search for John Gissing is, in fact, Binder's movie -- he's releasing it himself, selling it via the website www.thefreebird.com, and doing so without any studio involvement. Binder spoke with Cinematical about making The Search for John Gissing, working with star Alan Rickman, The Search for John Gissing's long road to release and his dream of what he calls "a big-ass pipeline" that gets his movies directly into the hands of fans.

Cinematical: The Search for John Gissing has taken a little while to get out there; let's talk about that gap between the making of the film and it being available.

Mike Binder: Well, it's a long story, but what happened was: I made the movie, and I cobbled together the money – I put up a lot of my own money, and some family and friends money, and I really just made it on the cheap. And we started playing it, and we got in a lot of festivals, and it played really well to audiences – but the only deals we could get were from people who wanted to own it. Forever. For doing nothing. And I also started, it was the type of thing where I felt, 'Boy, if I could go back in there for two more weeks, I could really open this up a little, do a little more work to it." So I thought I was going to do that, and I did some re-writing, and I was going to do two more weeks of shooting., and then I started doing The Mind of the Married Man; and then I started planning to the other two weeks of shooting, and I got the second series of The Mind of the Married Man, so I didn't do it then ... And then I went into The Upside of Anger, and it became too long, you know? And I owned it, and had lost all this money on it ... and I ultimately sat down one day and re-wrote the whole script. And I called it The Multinationals and really started over, and I thought "Okay, I want to do this without me and without Janeane (Garofalo) and maybe still with Rickman; I want to re-cast it and start over." And when I went back to the people who wanted to buy it, they wanted the rights, to do that, and I couldn't give those rights away. ...

Cinematical: Couldn't or wouldn't?

Too bad for fans of the book Judgement of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tastings That Revolutionized Wine. Its adaptation might be overshadowed in the same way that Infamous was overshadowed by Capote. Of the dueling films about the 1976 Paris Tastings, Bottle Shock seems to be taking the lead. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film begins shooting August 1 and it has just announced its principal cast. Meanwhile, I haven't heard much about Judgement in six months, despite the fact that it is supposedly the 'official' film about the event and had originally appeared to have the higher profile. However, according to Decanter.com, which has been following the clashing projects, Judgement producers Elizabeth Fowler and Clark Peterson are looking into suing the makers of Bottle Shock. So, maybe it is still too early to tell which film will hit theaters first.

Bottle Shock is not based on any book, but the project was commissioned by Jim and Bo Barrett, who own the Napa property Chateau Montelena. Montelena surprised many by coming in first in the blind Chardonnay tasting in 1976, which really put California vineyards on the map. The film will feature a varied ensemble of actors, including Bill Pullman as the owner of Montelena and Chris Pine as his son, who saves the winery by entering it into the tasting event. Alan Rickman has been cast as Steven Spurrier, the English wine merchant who organized the event, though his character could have a different name if Fowler and Peterson do in fact own all rights to the man's life story. Also in the cast are Elisha Eliza Dushku, who will play a bartender, and Transformers' Rachael Taylor, who will play an intern at the winery. The original script for Bottle Shock, by Ross Schwartz, has been rewritten by Randall M. Miller and Jody Savin, and Miller will be directing the film.

As an enormous fan of both Tim Burton and musicals, I can't wait for Sweeney Todd. Coming to theaters this holiday season, Todd is an adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's musical thriller about "the demon barber of Fleet Street." Aside from Burton's involvement, the most exciting aspect about this movie is the cast. Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Alan Rickman are just a few of the names attached, and Dreamworks has confirmed that "All the stars will do their own singing from Stephen Sondheim's music and lyrics." When I reported on the film a few months ago, I mentioned that Burton regular Christopher Lee was a part of the cast. He was to play a "Gentleman Ghost," a character not in the original show. Sad news -- the "Gentleman Ghost" has now been cut from the film, along with several other characters.

The worst part is that the scenes were cut before reaching the shooting stage, so all of the Lee fans won't get to enjoy them on a future DVD release. Says Lee, "It would have been worse if I had done the scenes, but I never got to film them. It's a shame as the lyrics were wonderful, but these things happen." This would have marked Lee's fourth collaboration with Burton -- the others being Sleepy Hollow, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Corpse Bride. Todd tells the story of "a wrongfully imprisoned barber in Victorian England who sets out to seek revenge on the judge who imprisoned him." "I've always wanted to do a musical and Sweeney Todd is my favorite," says Burton. "Stephen's blend of humor, horror and emotion is something that has always connected with me." Sondheim shares the admiration, saying "I'm excited as well as confident that it will be a first-rate and startling movie." Sweeney Todd will get a limited release on December 21st, presumably for Oscar consideration. It goes wide on January 11th, 2008.

Despite rumors about delays, Dreamworks has given Sweeney Todd an official release date of December 21st, 2007. And really, what better time than Christmas for a story of grisly murders, revenge, and meat pies? Sometimes a release date is just a release date, but when a film with this pedigree is placed into theaters at that time of year, odds are it's angling for some little gold statues. Here's hoping it warrants them! The film stars Johnny Depp, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Laura Michelle Kelly, Christopher Lee, Timothy Spall, and Anthony Stewart Head of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame. John Logan (Gladiator, The Aviator) is adapting Stephen Sondheim's beloved "musical thriller" for the big screen.

The story of Sweeney Todd has been filmed many times before, the most well-known probably being a 1982 televised version of the stage play, starring Angela Lansbury. I saw the most recent stage revival of the show on Broadway, and was pretty impressed. I'm eager to see Burton's take on it. Sweeney Todd is an extremely icky, pitch-black affair, and I couldn't imagine a better pairing of director with material. The show's blend of dark humor and grisly thrills fits squarely into Burton's Sleepy Hollow wheelhouse. Sweeney marks the sixth time Depp and Burton have worked together. Their collaborations have brought us three truly excellent films: Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, and Sleepy Hollow, as well as the pretty cool Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Corpse Bride, for which Depp provided a voice. I can't wait to see where this new one ranks. I don't know about you, but hearing Borat, Donnie Brasco, and Hans Gruber sing sounds like a pretty sweet Christmas present to me.

Oh, and if you want to see what Mr. Depp will look like as "the demon barber of fleet street," head here. Looks like he's got kind of a Cruella DeVille thing going on with the hair.

I posted several months ago about the first, tension-filled teaser for Tom Tykwer's Perfume. For those of you who, understandably, haven't been following along, the movie is based on a German novel (For what it's worth, it's been "hailed as one of the most influential works of German literature in the past two decades" -- are you suitably impressed?) about a guy with the earth's best sense of smell but also, sadly, no personal aroma whatsoever. Ah, irony. He becomes obsessed with bottling the scent of a virgin and, while it's unclear whether he's got a specific virgin in his sights or is after a more general smell, the trailer makes it clear that some of the ladies don't live through the extraction process. (Of course, given that the novel's full title is Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, the deaths aren't exactly shocking.)

Though the movie doesn't come out in Germany until September, the first full trailer has emerged and, despite the fact that I understand not one word (it's in German, you see), it retains the eerie intensity of that early teaser, and does nothing to reduce my (fearful) eagerness to see the film. There's a lot more to see here than in the teaser -- we get a greater sense of the supporting characters (including Dustin Hoffman, who I think plays a non-violent perfumer, and Alan Rickman, who seems to be involved with one of the unlucky ladies, and looks very funny in a period wig), as well as further confirmation that the movie is going to be creepy as hell (was that a girl in a life-sized test tube?).

Perfume comes out in the US in December.

[via AICN]

According to Production Weekly, the great Alan Rickman will star alongside Kristin Scott Thomas in a screen adaptation of Piers Paul Read's psychological drama, The Villa Golitsyn. The novel sounds incredibly complex and warped, which is just the sort of thing you might expect from director Peter Medak on his best days (The Krays being the shining example of those times). Apparently Rickman's character, Willy Ludley (Yikes. Is any man on earth less fitted to the name "Willy" than Rickman?) is drinking himself to death with his lovely wife (Priscilla, played by Thomas) by his side. He also might be some sort of war criminal, which is what old pal Simon (not yet cast) has come to find out. The three are joint in the Ludleys' French villa by an assortment of other characters, "and as events lead to a startling and incredible revelation, there is nothing that any of them can do to avert the awaiting tragedy." Great, yet another book I'm going to buy because of this job.

The movie will have a two-month shoot this summer, starting in June, and will hopefully show up in theaters on this side of the ocean sometime in early 2007.

We haven't heard much about Tom Tykwer's Perfume: The Story of a Murderer since the cast was announced last March. Starring Dustin Hoffman, Alan Rickman, and Ben Whishaw, the film is an adaptation of a German novel of the same name that has been "hailed as one of the most influential works of German literature in the past two decades." The novel tells the unendingly bizarre story of an 18th century man (Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, played by Whishaw) who has remarkably sensitive sense of smell but lacks any discernible personal scent. His career as a perfume artist "take a dark turn" when he becomes obsessed with bottling the scent of "a young virgin." I don't want to spoil anything here, but what with the title and everything, I'm a little worried about the virgin's lifespan.

Out of nowhere, a German teaser for the film has emerged, and it's creepy as hell. Something about the way she pauses before screaming makes it much, much scarier than the normal shrieking any woman would do when she finds she's being sniffed by a random guy she didn't even know was there. Yikes.

The movie opens in Germany in September and in other European territories in the late fall and early winter. There is currently no US distributor.

[via AICN]