CharlotteRampling Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Three casting bites, courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter:

She may have wowed us all with her kickass teen detective on Veronica Mars, but her big-screen work continues to lack the same verve. On the heels of When in Rome and Couples Retreat, Kristen Bell has signed on to Andy Fickman's You Again. She'll play a woman who finds out that her brother is gearing up to marry the evil girl who made her years in high school a living hell. Not happy with the idea, she tries to find a way to reveal the girl's true evilness to her brother. Aren't there any mysteries to solve? Joel Silver, let Rob Thomas make the film. Bell needs better!

Meanwhile, the wonderful Sally Hawkins, the woman behind Happy-Go-Lucky, has grabbed herself a sci-fi gig. Hawkins, along with Charlotte Rampling, Nathalie Richard, and Andrea Riseborough, have signed onto Mark Romanek's Never Let Me Go. This is that sci-fi drama that Keira Knightley signed onto last month, which focuses on three boarding school friends who get a rather shocking surprise as young adults. Unfortunately, there's no word on who these newest cast members will play. Boarding school teachers? The people behind the sci-fi twist?

Lastly, Emily Blunt might not be signing on for a little Russell Brand and Jonah Hill, but Elisabeth Moss, Sean P Diddy Combs, and Rose Byrne sure are. They're the new castmembers added to Get Him to the Greek -- the flick where Hill has to get the wild rocker Brand from London to LA, "becoming introduced to an out-of-control life of hookers and blow along the way." Yay. More hookers. Hollywood definitely doesn't have enough of them. Moss will play Hill's repressed doctor girlfriend (not the kind with Calamitous Intent), Combs will be Hill's record company boss, and Byrne will be Brand's ex, "a Courtney Love-type rocker." Loved Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but this pic has yet to wow me.

The lovely Lena Headey is a favorite with just about everyone here at Cinematical -- click on her tag and you'll see many love letters devoted to her films both past and upcoming. Now she's adding a new credit to her resume, as Headey will be taking the director's chair for her film Kill Drug.

Formerly titled Retribution, it's a project Headey has been attached to for some time ... and when you want to get a movie done, you tackle it yourself. Starring Headey, the formidable Charlotte Rampling, and Jason Flemyng, it centers on an underground group of Longon vigilantes. Headey will star as Sally, a woman recruited into by its founder ... who just happens to be her mother, Sue, who murdered her abusive husband back in the 1970s. However, Sally discovers that all is not as it seems, and that absolute power corrupts absolutely ... and probably that working with your mother is a really bad idea.

"My ambition to direct has been fuelled over the last fifteen years, by working alongside great directors. It has also been my film education," Headey told Empire. "Kill Drug is smart, articulate, compelling, sexy, fun, dark, deeply poignant and not afraid to laugh at itself. Above all it is a gripping and compelling journey, a study of humanity's darkest flaws and purest innocence."

Headey has been slowly making her mark as one kickass chick in films and television -- and it's pretty darn cool that she's going to join the rare, elusive breed of female directors. Hopefully Kill Drug will be the first of many on her resume.

Bit by tenuous bit, Todd Solondz's next film is coming together. It started brewing in June of 2007, then stalled due to money issues, and then got cooking again in August with the help of Werc Werk Works. But now, oh now, the film has got its superstar.

The Hollywood Reporter posts that Paris Hilton has signed onto the dramatic comedy, along with Allison Janney and Charlotte Rampling. (In addition: "Ciaran Hinds, Shirley Henderson, Renee Taylor, Michael Lerner, Michael Kenneth Williams, Chane't Johnson, Eric Wareheim, and Chris Marquette are among the other actors that Werc Werk Works announced as joining the project. ")

Once called Life During Wartime (there's no title attached to the current news), the film still stars Paul Reubens and focuses on a family during wartime. If nothing has changed, it brings together characters from Welcome to the Dollhouse and Happiness with different people playing the roles. I first imagined Reubens as Dawn Wiener, but maybe it's Paris?

This could be terrible, and help along Solondz's cinematic decline, but I wonder if this could have House of Yes potential -- in other words, could Paris pull off something Tori Spelling-esque? If anything can make her interesting, I'd think it'd be screen time with PeeWee and Janney. Thoughts?

I'll admit it; I have a soft spot for Vin Diesel. Feel free to laugh at me, but I can't help myself, it's something about that voice. So you might want to keep my personal bias in mind when I say that Babylon A.D. really doesn't look all that bad. Silly? Yes, but entertaining none the less. Ropes of Silicon found the latest poster for the sci-fi flick from Gothika director Mathieu Kassovitz and if nothing else, it's a step up from the first one-sheet/Oakley ad we saw a few months ago.

Diesel stars as Toorop, a mercenary who takes the job of escorting a woman from Eastern Europe to New York. But if you have seen the trailer, you know that there is a lot more to this lady than meets the eye. Say what you will about the film, but you have to admit, some of those 'Bladerunneresque' shots of the city were pretty impressive. Starring alongside Diesel is the criminally underused Michelle Yeoh as an a**-kicking nun, as well as, Gerard Depardieu, and Charlotte Rampling.

Babylon has had rough time throughout production. The project started back in 2005, when Kassovitz was hired to adapt the novel, Babylon Babies. Originally the French actor Vincent Cassel was expected to take the lead, but Diesel decided to drop out of Hitman (probably not a bad idea all things considered) to lobby for the role. It was even speculated that the move caused bad blood between Cassel and Kassovitz, and ruined a long standing friendship. As if that wasn't enough stress; there were also delays from weather and talk about the film running over budget.

Hopefully all these problems won't be showing up on the screen when Babylon A.D. opens in theaters on August 29th.

It's been a long time since we saw the first trailer for The Duchess, an historical period piece starring Keira Knightley as the real-life 18th century Georgina Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire. But the film opens in September, so it's time to start the onslaught of more trailers and clips. First, we have one from the UK (via Empire), which is a little longer than that first U.S. version. One thing that's added in is a nice shot of Knightley's bum.

Another addition is a strange title card connecting Georgina to Princess Diana. It's true that the two ladies were related, though somewhat distantly (Diana was descended from Georgina's brother, George, who doesn't seem to be portrayed in the film), and I guess they were both celebrated as fashion icons. But I have to agree with Empire that pushing the connection "might be considered more than a little crass."

Also, I'm not sure I understand the title card that says "History Repeats Itself." Does it mean that portraying historical events on film is a repeat of those events? Because, to me, it seems more a confirmation of my feeling that we've already seen this movie a million times before.

The Duchess also stars Ralph Fiennes and Charlotte Rampling and will open in the States on September 19.

To be honest, after watching some of that teaser footage for Vin Diesel's latest foray into science fiction, Babylon A.D., I kind of got the impression that the actor's career could be on a downward trajectory. Now, First Showing.net has gotten a first look at the poster for the film during ShowEast ... and in my opinion? Let's just say it's not helping -- to me there is nothing less futuristic-looking than "futuristic sunglasses." I know it's a small thing, but there isn't much else going on in the poster so it's not like I can ignore it. This probably won't be the final poster for the film, and there have also been rumblings about a teaser making an appearance some time in December.

Directed by Gothika's Mathieu Kassovitz, the story centers on Diesel as a veteran-turned-mercenary who signs up to transport a young woman from Russia to China. Of course, in a dystopia nothing is ever that simple, and it turns out that the woman is "host to an organism that a cult wants to harvest in order to produce a genetically modified Messiah." Joining Diesel are Michelle Yeoh, Charlotte Rampling, and RocknRolla's Mark Strong.

Even though Babylon hasn't been getting much press, fans are still holding out for the "return of Diesel." Of course, there is still the possibility that Diesel will be taking over in Terminator 4 -- lord knows he has the emotional range for it. Plus, Fast and The Furious 4 is still on track with Diesel back in the driver's seat. So at least he is going to have a couple more chances at redeeming himself for The Pacifier. Babylon A.D is set for release on February 9th, 2008.

Actor Giovanni Ribisi chose Tuesday's press junket for the upcoming thriller Perfect Stranger to announce that he has been cast as a young Albert Einstein in an upcoming biopic to be helmed by Italian director Liliana Cavani. "I don't know if I should say, but I will, finally, talk about it," Ribisi said. "Einstein. I'm going to be doing Albert Einstein, with Liliana Cavani, who did the Charlotte Rampling film from the 70s, called The Night Porter. It's great and the script is really great, and I'm really excited about it." Ribisi said the film will begin shooting "in July, I think, and there's another movie called The Stanford Prison Experiment after that." The Einstein biopic will be shot in Italy and in Barcelona and "at Princeton, of course," Ribisi said.

"It's a movie that focuses on his relationship with his first wife, Mileva Maric, and I guess it's from the inception of that relationship to the end of his life," Ribisi said, adding that the role of Mileva had not been cast yet. "It's still sort of at the incipient stage," he noted. When a reporter asked, jokingly, if Ribisi's Einstein would be played as "twisted," Ribisi joked back "Yeah, he's gonna be a weirdo, dude. Einstein The Weirdo. I suggested that, and they were like, 'no, just Einstein.'" No further details on the project emerged, but with the start of filming already apparently approaching, expect more details very soon. Cinematical will keep you posted.

According to Screen Daily, French director François Ozon finally has a British project in the works. Ozon, whose recent work includes the much-discussed Swimming Pool (which, though it centered around British characters, was set in France), is already shooting the film in London. Entitled Angel, it is centered on a social climbing woman in early 20th century London "who climbs the social ladder by becoming a famous novelist." Rather disturbingly, the film stars Romola Garai, who shot to international fame with her starring role in Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, as Angel Deverell. Yikes. Around to prop her up will be Ozon regular and Berlin jury chair Charlotte Rampling (who happens to have played a novelist in Swimming Pool) and Sam Neill, as well as a couple of young Brits for whom Angel could be a big break.

Though the rights to the film are currently being shopped in Berlin, there's no word on when Ozon hopes to have it ready for release.