Foodfight Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The 18th annual Florida Film Festival ended a week ago last night, and do you want to know why our coverage of the fest is going up just now? Because I'm selfish and wanted to catch up with as many of the forty or so features as possible, even after the awards had been announced and everyone had gone home (for the record, I managed to miss each and every winning film -- Prince of Broadway, The Garden, Prodigal Sons, Neil Young: Don't Be Denied, and the exceedingly popular Poundcake -- and am kicking myself still).

However, between the appearances by Ken Russell, Glenn Close, and Jon Voight (oh, my!), I did manage to catch my fair share of world, regional, and local premieres at this celebration of Original Cinema, and you can see what we saw after the jump.

You know how they say the way to a man's heart is through food? Well, when you're an actor who's fallen from grace, then the way back into the hearts of your audience is through comedy. AND ... if you really want to go berserk, you choose a film that combines food and comedy! Wham! Welcome back to Hollywood Mr. Tom Cruise. Yup, The Hollywood Reporter tells us Cruise is enjoying all the buzz surrounding his scene-stealing cameo in Tropic Thunder and is now "loosely attached" (ie: the Oscar wind can blow and knock him right off) to the comedy Food Fight.

Should he remain this film's star, Cruise would play a snooty New York chef who, for some odd reason, is forced to cook in a school cafeteria. Steven Brill was originally in talks to direct the film, but they've since gone on to other candidates (one imagines Cruise wasn't too keen on working with the dude behind Without a Paddle and Drillbit Taylor). As of now, Adam Brooks (Definitely, Maybe) is attached to pen the script. Food Fight is just one of several projects Cruise is "loosely attached" to, as the world is still waiting to see what the man takes on following his stint as an eye patch-wearing Hitler assassin in Bryan Singer's upcoming Valkyrie.

It's not like I think Hillary Duff is a bad actress (although I think the NYT might have something to say about that particular statement), it's just that she's hasn't had the chance yet to break out of the 'Lizzie McGuire mode' -- unless you consider the mountains of gossip surrounding her over the last two years...very "un-Disney". Duff will get her first shot at a slightly more serious role in Greta. The Hollywood Reporter announced that Duff will star in Nancy Bardawil's drama about "a waitress who falls for an ambitious cook at the restaurant where they work. But as their summer romance heats up, she has to overcome the concerns of her grandparents about her boyfriend's criminal past". Joining Duff are Ellen Burstyn and Michael Murphy as Duff's overprotective grandparents and ATL star Evan Ross will play the cook with a shady past.

The film was written by Michael Gilvary, who is making his feature debut along with director Nancy Bardawil. A music video director by trade, Bardawil has made videos for The Goo Goo Dolls, Dixie Chicks, and Hole -- but no Duff appears on the list, so at least Bardawil wasn't playing favorites when choosing her lead. Duff is still working on being one of the voice talents in the CGI family flick Foodfight! But, along with her debut in War Inc. (a sequel of sorts to Grosse Point Blank with John Cusack) she has already signed to star in Safety Glass, yet another drama that surrounds the Challenger disaster. Aww, our little starlet is finally growing up.

Technology and film have an uneasy partnership. Sometimes it works (Sin City, Renaissance), sometimes, not so much (Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, The Polar Express). Since the beginning of the CGI revolution, critics have heralded the end of the flesh-and-blood-actor (those creepy commercials with Fred Astaire and the vacuum cleaner didn't help either), but there has always been one major roadblock. The people just didn't seem like real people -- in the words of Gertrude Stein "There's no there, there".

IMAGE Metrics, a British company started by three post-doctoral students from the University of Manchester who were initially researching image analysis for medical applications, may have finally cracked it. The company has developed software that can map a complex image onto any model. What was originally designed for spinal x-rays is being used to create a virtual Jack Bauer for 24 - The Game. The applications are endless, and the industry is buzzing. With IMAGE Metrics' software you can map any actor's performance onto well, anything. Even the most advanced animation can still require the animating of individual elements (eyes, mouth, etc.), but IMAGE Metrics gets the computer to mathematically map the whole image and transfer it anywhere. The effect is impressive, and it's only the beginning.

Right now, this technology is being shopped around Hollywood -- bizarre pairings of Bette Davis and Orlando Bloom dancing in studio executives' heads. The hope is to integrate the technology into not only animated films, but live-action as well. The first real test will be Foodfight! (2007), starring Charlie Sheen and Hillary Duff. But until it moves from animated vegetables to "real" people, it might be a little early to start burning SAG cards in the streets. I will leave you with one unsettling vision of our movie-going future though: "If we want John Wayne to act alongside Angelina Jolie, we can do that."

John Wayne and Angelina? You see what I mean now about an uneasy partnership? Still, it could be interesting. What long-gone stars would you like to see brought back to life using this technology?

(a thanks to Eugene for the tip!)

[via The New York Times]