Hilary Duff Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Let me make this clear: when I say that I'm compiling a list of the most contrived rom-com scenarios, I'm not saying that they're automatically the worst -- although a glance at the titles doesn't exactly stray far from that correlation. Tomorrow's The Proposal finds Sandra Bullock forcing Ryan Reynolds into marriage for the sake of holding off immigration authorities and keeping her/their jobs (I guess it's not too soon to remake Green Card and Picture Perfect after all), so we're talking about seven plot points along those lines of high-concept, close-quarters thinking, with some (dis)honorable mentions along the way...

The Tribeca Film Festival has been in the news lately for significant personnel changes, but what about the movies? This year's edition gets underway on April 22, and Cinematical has received a list of the first 38 of the 86 feature films that will be screened. A few titles that jumped out at me:

The Eclipse. The great Ciaran Hinds stars in an "atmospheric drama about a widower who sees and hears strange things in his house." Hinds was fairly magnificent in the TV series Rome and stood out in Steven Spielberg's Munich. Add to that Iben Hjejle and Aidan Quinn as writers the widower encounters at a literary festival, and this is a drama that I want to see.

The Fish Child. Lucia Puenzo made the well-regarded XXY and now comes a "a passionate love story in the arms of a pulsating thriller." I love the idea that for her sophomore feature, the director has made what is evidently a very different type of movie than her quieter debut drama.

Stay Cool. The Polish Brothers (Northfork) return with a "charming comedy" about a high school reunion of sorts, with Winona Ryder and Hilary Duff. Manure was sharply criticized at Sundance just a couple of months ago; could Stay Cool possibly be any good? Winona Ryder doesn't get seen enough, and Hilary Duff has made interesting choices, so this could be surprisingly good -- or another train wreck.

Outrage. Documentarian Kirby Dick, who made the terrific This Film is Not Yet Rated, turns to the subject of "the hypocrisy of closeted politicians who actively campaign against the LGBT community they covertly belong to." I'm hoping it's as sensational as it sounds.

After the jump: The complete announcement. Browse away, and tell us what looks good to you!

If you ever wanted to see more of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow's life on the big screen, and thought that the Oscar-winning Bonnie and Clyde wasn't enough, your wishes are about to be granted, although maybe not as you expected.

Variety reports that Hilary Duff and Kevin Zegers have signed onto Tonya S. Holly's indie feature, The Story of Bonnie and Clyde. But this won't be a remake. It seems that Holly became intrigued by the story because the infamous gangster duo had been in a abandoned house on her family's property. The film will follow the adventures we've come to know, plus "times in their lives that have never before been seen on the big screen." According to the film's MySpace page (beware, it's busy and hard-to-read), the indie will follow their youth and love, as it morphed from a wanna-be actress or poet and poor gun-lover, to one of the most infamous and dangerous duos.

Duff has definitely been increasing her range lately, and Zegers has done everything from Transamerica to The Jane Austen Book Club, but so far, I can't imagine them as the duo -- at least not in a way that rivals Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty. But considering how interesting the story is -- from how the duo came to be, to the sensational aspects of their death (like people grabbing "souvenirs" from the bodies), to questions of Bonnie's responsibility -- I'm hoping for the best.

She might be headed back to high school, but Hilary Duff is certainly not headed back to high school men. The Hollywood Reporter posts that the actress has joined the ranks of Stay Cool -- one of those Polish brothers projects that Eugene discussed back in May.

By signing on to the feature, she's joining the strange yet irresistible cast which already includes Winona Ryder, Mark Polish, Sean Astin, Chevy Chase, and Jon Cryer. It's an '80s explosion across the board! I'm sold just on the combination of Ryder, Astin, Chase, and Cryer.

Anyhow, the film is being described as a "knowing-your-age comedy," which focuses on a successful author played by Polish. He returns home to give a commencement speech at his old high school, and has to confront his unrequited high school crush (Ryder). But while he's remembering past lust, he becomes the object of Duff's affections. She will play "Shasta O'Neil, a sexy high school senior who flirts with the visiting author and invites him to the prom."

The film will shoot in Santa Clarita, California next month.

"You know what, Ted?"

"What, Frank?"

"There's been a whole bunch of them sequels lately - we got that Hulk and another Narnia, heck, even another Indiana Jones movie..."

"Yep."

"...and you know what I've been waiting for another one of?"

"What's that, Frank?"

"A Cinderella Story."

"Huh?"

Cinematical was just handed this exclusive poster for the film War, Inc. (click on the image to enlarge), starring John Cusack, Hilary Duff, Marisa Tomei, Joan Cusack, Dan Aykroyd and Ben Kingsley. Now is that one helluva cast, or is that one helluva cast? Word has it this one is in the vein of Grosse Point Blank, which was another fun little flick starring the male Cusack. From the synopsis: "War, Inc. is a a political satire set in Turaqistan, a country occupied by an American private corporation run by a former US Vice-President (Dan Akroyd). In an effort to monopolize the opportunities the war-torn nation offers, the corporation's CEO hires a troubled hit man, played by John Cusack, to kill a Middle East oil minister. Now, struggling with his own growing demons, the assassin must pose as the corporation's Trade Show Producer in order to pull off this latest hit, while maintaining his cover by organizing the high-profile wedding of Yonica Babyyeah (Hilary Duff) an outrageous Middle Eastern pop star, and keeping a sexy left wing reporter (Marisa Tomei) in check."

War, Inc. arrives in theaters (in limited release) on May 23.

At first, I mistakenly thought that War, Inc. was a re-named version of Talking to Dog, that Children of Men rip-off I wrote about last year. (It's actually a re-named version of Brand Hauser: Stuff Happens.) War stars John Cusack and Hilary Duff, just like the other one was supposed to. Now Talking to Dog seems to have fallen off the face of the earth, so did the movie studios consider the rip-off angle and go in a new direction? Or did Hilary just follow John to this new endeavor? Or, did my attempts at weird mental mojo* work and make that other project die for good?

Whatever the case, Hilary and John are starring in War, Inc. with sister Joan, Marisa Tomei, and Ben Kingsley, and Rope of Silicon has your first look at the action, and John Cusack's furrowed brow (which you can see a bit of to the upper right). This should be tons better than the other option for a number of reasons, but mainly because the unique, surreal voice of Mark Leyner wrote this puppy. (He's written great novels like The Tetherballs of Bougainville and Et Tu, Babe?)

The film once again puts John in the assassin role, and this time he's contracted to kill an oil minister from the Middle East (Ben Kingsley). Instead of high school reunions, however, his cover is "producing a big trade show that includes a wedding between a local pop star and a politico, but complications ensue." The pics don't show too much, but it is strange to see Hilary Duff looking like a cross between a pop star and tough-ass scorpion tamer in one of them. The film is set for a limited release this May.

*I was so against this project, that I figured if I can make new DVDs pop up by buying the old VHS or bare-bones disc version, or off-handedly talk about celebrity deaths right before they happen, maybe I could will Dog into cinematic death.

Once he's finished playing John McClane for a fourth time, Bruce Willis will be going back to school ... as a high school principal, that is. The Los Angeles Times tells us that Willis has signed on to play a supporting role in Assassination of a High School President, based off a script from newbie scribes (and former South Park assistants) Tim Calpin and Kevin Jakubowski. Pic, which the Times describes as "a riff on JFK, All the President's Men and Robert Towne's neo-noir classic [Chinatown]," apparently revolves around a bullied high school journalist who's investigating the theft of the school's SAT exams.

Of course, this SAT controversy will most certainly lead to conspiracy theories and, I imagine, the assassination of the school's class President. Says Jakubowski, "Everything mattered so much when you were in high school - that's your world. And something that would happen to a student council president is as big as if the actual president was assassinated." Willis will play a Desert Storm veteran-turned-Catholic school principal -- the kind of guy who refers to his students as "filth." Picture the first half of Full Metal Jacket set in a high school, and you get the idea. Though it was one of the "most-liked screenplays late last year," the plot obviously delves into some sensitive territory, what with the recent Virginia Tech tragedy.

Right now, there's no word on whether the two writers will have to alter their script because of the shooting that took place on that campus (God knows rushing to greenlight a school shooting-type flick wouldn't exactly be the PC thing to do), but here's hoping they weather the storm and stay the course. Apart from Willis, ladies like Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lohan are showing interest in the film's "femme fatale," Francesca. Music video helmer Brett Simon will make his directorial debut, and the Yari Film Group (who optioned the script last fall) plan to begin production this July.

Okay...there are times when I can excuse the lack of originality in Hollywood. Scratch that. There are times when I can turn a blind eye to rampant repetition. But this news is 100%, undeniably, certifiably stupid. It's one thing to make a movie that follows a similar occasion or time period, or hell, even a person. It's another thing to take an interesting, unique idea, and nab it when the original has only been out for mere months. I don't know where to begin, other than I hope that this is a complete joke. But we're still a few months away from April Fool's Day.

Moviehole has reported that John Cusack and Hilary Duff will be starring in writer and director Mark Roper's new flick, Talking to Dog. Who is Roper? He's the man behind such films as Operation Delta Force 3 and City of Fear. Firstly, the movie is being described as a cross between Mad Max and Blue Velvet, which is like equating Jessica Simpson with Helen Mirren. Secondly, it deals with a post-apocalyptic future where global warming is spreading its wrath and women are infertile. At the absolute, very least, you think they'd mix it up a little -- make the men impotent or something. Nope. I will leave you with a quote of the reported synopsis, because I really couldn't word it any better:

"Time has stood still for two, small communities. The consequences of Global warming, the lack of fuel, power and communication, have left them in isolation. Dying has become an industry, a woman able to give birth, now only a dream. Into this environment, a young man arrives. He is able to communicate with the dead, able to learn secrets of the past. Because of his presence, the two communities learn that love, in a dying world, is still alive and that there is always hope, even over greed." Is this the last frontier of idiocy? A terrible rumor? A stroke of genius? Discuss.

It's that festive holiday time of year, and somehow this makes it difficult for me to focus on the usual types of gossip tidbits as much as I normally might. And you know I am not all that focused to begin with. I stare at a photo of Mel Gibson with food on his shirt, and wonder, "Why should I care about this?" as my mind wanders off to thoughts about whether I need to buy more gift wrap. Besides, I am sometimes a messy eater too, so I can't really pick on Mr. Gibson. And I can't think of anything the least bit cutting to say about director Gus Van Sant being arrested on a DUI charge; I just feel a bit sad. Meanwhile, the gossip world rolls on, at all times of the year, so this week's roundup includes marriage, birth, paternity tests, birthday gifts, and celebrity tattoos.

• It's been a big news week for Britney Spears. Not only did she get a hand tattoo, but was also voted World's Worst Celebrity Dog Owner in an online poll. At least it looks like Santa has brought me my special Christmas present of not ever having to see certain bits of Spears again.
  
• In case you're interested, Defamer provides us with a glimpse of Jake Gyllenhaal's birthday gifts. Or were they gifts for Hanukkah? It's so hard to tell with socks.