It has been a number of months since Matt Damon was first cast in Paul Greengrass' adaptation of Rajiv Chandrasekaran's book, Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone back in June of last year. Months went by until Amy Ryan and Greg Kinnear joined the feature back in January, and then Jason Isaacs earlier this month. Now, finally, Variety reports that the last leading role has been filled by another Harry Potter co-star -- Brendan Gleeson -- who you might also recognize as Harry Potter's Mad-Eye Moody, Beowulf's Wiglaf, or New York gang member Monk McGinn -- to name a few. He'll play an American soldier.

The still untitled film, written by Brian Helgeland, centers on "the dichotomy between the Green Zone, where troops are housed, and the streets of Baghdad after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein." The feature is sure to tick off those who are already sensitive to the themes of recent Iraq dramas -- it "posits that bureaucrats are making policy decisions about the country's rebuilding even though they're in a sheltered enclave without a clear view of all that is happening." Since Baghdad itself isn't the most desirable filming location out there, the project is currently in production in Spain of all places.

*Titled Edited

From a magical private school to the heart of the Iraq war is quite a jump. Luckily, Jason Isaacs is just the kind of versatile actor to pull it off. (If you don't believe me, take a look at the man's IMDB page -- talk about well-rounded!) Variety reports that Isaacs (aka Lucius Malfoy of Potter fame) has signed to star in Paul Greengrass' military drama, Green Zone. Isaacs will play an American officer in Iraq in the days following the fall of Saddam Hussein. Matt Damon stars as an investigator searching for weapons of mass destruction, Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone) plays as a foreign correspondent from the NYT, and Greg Kinnear makes an appearance as a CIA agent.

Zone is based on the non-fiction book by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, titled Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Baghdad's Green Zone. For those of us who maybe don't watch the nightly news as much as we should, here is a little reminder: "The Green Zone, (the common name for the International Zone of Iraq), is a 10 km² (4 mile²) area in central Baghdad that was the center of the Coalition Provisional Authority and remains the center of the international presence in the city." Chandrasekaran's book highlighted the "absurdities, incompetence, and bureaucratic failings which prevented a timely transfer of power to the Iraqis and bred the growing insurgency" -- you know, just your usual fun bedtime reading.

Greengrass wrote the original script for the military thriller, but eventually L.A. Confidential scribe Brian Helgeland was brought aboard to help smooth out some of the rough edges. Green Zone started filming in Spain last month, and will then move to Morocco (the two locations have served as stand-ins for Iraq, since the production could obviously not work in the actual area). The film has yet to secure a release date, but is scheduled to arrive in theaters sometime in 2009.

Frankly I'm amazed that the announcement for a fourth Bourne movie wouldn't get a little more fanfare than buried half way down an article. In a press release in Variety, Universal announced that Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass will be returning for a new installment of the Bourne franchise. Originally, when the two were peppered with questions about a fourth film, they had the stock answer that Damon would only reprise his role if Greengrass returned to direct, and Greengrass would only return to direct if Damon was willing to star. Confused? Don't be, it was basically the PR equivalent of keeping the idea of a film on the back-burner without promising anything too specific.

Universal released the info in a release about their upcoming slate of films, and according to them both Damon and Greengrass are definitely returning to work together on the spy franchise. There are two books left in the Bourne series, so at least there would be some source material to start with. The two are currently working on the Iraq drama, The Green Zone, and Damon has already signed to star in The Informant for Steven Soderberg and is also in talks to star in The Human Factor for Clint Eastwood. Greengrass is also going to be busy with his upcoming Vietnam drama, They Marched into Sunlight. So it could be as late as 2010, before the two can even get started on making another Bourne flick, let alone get one into the theaters. However, with Bourne Ultimatum taking home three Oscars last night (three!), I imagine the fourth flick might be made a priority. For Universal's sake, I hope this one is a done deal. I can't help but think how embarrassing it must have been for MGM's Harry Sloan when his studio got a little overzealous about a certain spy franchise.

[via Empire]

I get very excited about the upturns some actors and actresses' careers take following awards season, especially when those performers end up Oscar winners. I always enjoyed reading the post-Oscar write-ups on "What's Next for ____?", though it's less of a thrill nowadays because I typically already know what is in their pipeline. For example, thanks to Variety, I now know that Amy Ryan will be co-starring in Paul Greengrass' "untitled Iraq war thriller". She joins the movie, along with Greg Kinnear, which already starred Matt Damon (who has worked with Greengrass on two Bourne films) and which reportedly began filming in Spain yesterday. While Kinnear and Damon will both play CIA agents involved in the search for Weapons of Mass Destruction, Ryan has been cast as a New York Times correspondent investigating the WMD investigation.

A front-runner for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress (for Gone Baby Gone), Ryan has already had one heck of a year (she also appeared in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead and Dan in Real Life). In fact, I'm sure I'm not the only one to admit I'd never heard of her until 2007. But she may still not be a household name, and that should surely change following her expected win (she's also the best bet for the Golden Globe this Sunday). The supporting actress category is sometimes a bit of a joke, as it was throughout most of the 1990s (starting with Whoopi and ending with Angelina, with a Mira in the middle), but Ryan is hopefully going to be one of the few actresses that shows us how much she deserves the accolades by continuing to take respectable roles. In addition to Greengrass' film, Ryan will be co-starring in Clint Eastwood's The Changeling, which also stars Angelina (whose "What's Next ... " in 1999 included Gone in 60 Seconds and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider). By the way, for those not keeping track, after making The Changeling, Ryan will have worked with four of the ten 1990s supporting actress Oscar winners (Marisa Tomei is in Before the Devil; Juliette Binoche and Dianne Wiest are both in Dan). Perhaps Greengrass can find a part in his new film for Anna Paquin?

Unlike the film critics in American cities, who this week have been naming their year-end award winners, the folks across the pond are waiting until February 8 to reveal their favorites. But they have at least announced the nominees for their awards, many of which distinguish the importance of British filmmaking. See, the London Film Critics' Circle gives two separate awards each for the categories of best film, best director, actor and actress, so that one award is given to the best British film, director, actor and actress. Sometimes this leads to an overlap, as in the case of last year, when both Helen Mirren and Judi Dench were nominated for best actress and best British actress and The Queen was nominated for best film and best British film.

This year's nominees don't appear to have that overlap problem (see the full list here), which could very well mean the Circle has changed its rules since last year. Either that or there really is no clear enough front-runner this year in any of those categories. Or maybe the Circle just felt there were too many non-British films, directors and performers worthy of notice and didn't need to exclude any of them just to spotlight their own movies more than necessary. The one interesting thing is that while Daniel Day Lewis could be considered a British actor, he is only nominated in the more general Best Actor category. Also, it is interesting that Paul Greengrass is nominated as best British director for The Bourne Ultimatum, a movie nominated only in the more general Best Film category.

The best thing about having the British-only categories is the recognition the LFCC gives to terrific films like Control and This is England, which aren't on the radar enough in America to be given notice here. Also, the British-only directing category allows for the general best director nominees to include other foreign (non-American) directors like Cristian Mungiu (4 Months, 3 weeks, 2 days) and Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (The Lives of Others).

Alright, all you movie hounds. We know you've spent all summer watching the endless slew of sequels, from Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End to Shrek the Third, from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix to The Bourne Ultimatum, from Spider-Man 3 to Rush Hour 3 -- it's been one long, hot, summer. But how well do you know your movie sequel history? Over at the Guardian, they have a nifty little quiz up with questions that will test your sequel mettle. I scored 70% on the first pass, not too bad, I guess (hey some of the questions are a little tricky, I'm not that up on my Leonard Part 6). Go check it out, then let us know how you did.

Now here's a little movie sequel pop quiz for you: Can you put the three stills of each of these series in order?



More after the jump ...

Can an action film also be a work of art? That's one of the questions raised by The Bourne Ultimatum, Paul Greengrass's third installment in the thriller series starring Matt Damon as Jason Bourne, an ex-assassin on a mission to discover a personal history obliterated by amnesia and clouded by years on the run. Bourne's past memories are fragmentary; his present-tense instincts are rock-solid. He can't tell you his real name or hometown, but he can field-strip a gun without looking at it, find a way out of any trap, hotwire a car with less effort than it would take the owner to find, insert and turn the key. But these killing skills can't get him to the center of his shattered life -- who he was, what he did.

And The Bourne Ultimatum does have elements of art: Political and social resonance, visual and linguistic symbolism, references to the world the films have shown us and the world outside of it, rich characters with fully-developed personalities. It also has all the elements of the modern action thriller -- how'd-they-do-that stunt work, crazy-fast fight action, tautly-wound scene construction that culminates in moments that leave you breathless. The Bourne Ultimatum picks up precisely where The Bourne Supremacy (also directed by Greengrass) left off -- Bourne, wounded and alone, is in Moscow. He's just atoned to the daughter of two of his victims -- killed not in the name of national security or the public good, but rather for private gain. Bourne's work was a secret -- but Simon Ross (Paddy Considine), a journalist for The Guardian has been running pieces about Bourne's work and Treadstone, the black ops group he worked for. Bourne would like to know who Ross's source is. So would the people who are trying to re-start Treadstone under the new name Blackbriar, to make it "... the sharp end of the stick ..." in America's arsenal.

In franchise-mad modern Hollywood, it's become a tradition unto itself: Whenever you have a new installment of a series coming to theaters, the prior films will be re-released on DVD. With The Bourne Ultimatum hitting theaters August 3rd, Universal's released a three-disc set, The Bourne Files, that collectively packages The Bourne Identity (2002) and The Bourne Supremacy (2004) along with a new disc of extras. There are two questions raised by any set like this -- namely, 'Do the films hold up?' and 'Are the extras worth it?'

The first question's easily answered: Yes. The Bourne films were perfectly-timed: James Bond, our number-one screen icon of espionage action, had descended into a sickly morass of high-tech high camp that made his adventures closer to the high-flying exploits of Batman or Wonder Woman (Die Another Day's invisible car, for example) than the down-to-the-ground espionage action of the character's roots. Directed by Doug Liman from a script by Tony Gilroy, The Bourne Identity was so grim and gray and wrapped in cynicism that it immediately stood out in contrast against the bright, light gloss of the Bond series. The Bourne Identity started with a hook that stuck for the duration of the film: A man is pulled from the sea. He has no memory. He wants to find out who he is. He learns that he was not necessarily a good person -- and that others want him dead. Played by Matt Damon, Jason Bourne wasn't a bulletproof superhero; he was a human being with armed with instincts and training and pure will, capable of doing whatever was required to survive.

This summer seemed like the end of an era for a lot of the big franchises. Sure, some might be back, but I just don't think they'll be the same. For one of the last big summer releases, The Bourne Ultimatum, Universal has launched an online game, according to The Hollywood Reporter. It was announced that studio has teamed with Google for a promotional game with the somewhat lame title The Ultimate Search for Bourne with Google. Players try to hunt down the elusive rouge agent, and at the same time the game takes you on a tour of You Tube, Google Maps and web searches. Participants will have to answer trivia, and find random clues buried on the net to compete for the grand prize of a 2008 Touareg 2.

So far, the marketing for the movie has been pretty typical; just a few posters and a couple of trailers, and of course the Bourne game is another attempt to fully integrate the web as a way of engineering some buzz. You can't blame the studio for wanting to cash in on a little hype, especially when you consider all the hoopla over those Cloverfield sites. The highly anticipated final film -- and it turns out it will be the final one in the series -- is bringing Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, Brian Cox, Joan Allen, and Chris Cooper back for one last hurrah. Back in June, Jennifer had reported that instead of going back for more Bourne after this one, Damon was going to be working on the film version of Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran with Bourne director Paul Greengrass. Bourne doesn't open for a few more weeks, so if you can't wait until August 3rd and you have a way with Google, you could always take a crack at winning that car.

In a summer laden with big-budget, CGI-heavy action movies, there is only one film whose protagonist can say, "I beat the crap out of a man using a rolled-up magazine." As you may have guessed, that man is Jason Bourne (Matt Damon), the impossible-to-kill hero of this August's The Bourne Ultimatum. We have an exclusive first look at the brand-new poster below (click on the image for a larger version).

Directed by Paul Greengrass (United 93, The Bourne Supremacy), this is likely to be the last chapter in the already legendary Bourne saga. This time around, expect another kickass car chase (the franchise is known for them) and a whole lot more of the visceral, gritty, realistic action that sets the Bourne movies apart from so many other films in the genre. As the poster's tag line suggests, Ultimatum will also see everyone's favorite amnesiac spy experience a little something known as "total recall." And from the looks of the trailer, that is not going to be a good thing for the bad guys.

Matt Damon may have said no to the fourth installment of the Bourne legacy (good for you Matt, no need to beat a dead horse!), but he has definitely said yes to working with director Paul Greengrass again on an entirely different endeavor. This time, Damon and Greengrass will create a film based off of the book Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone (which we first told you about here), written by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. The film will drop the last part of the previous title but will deal solidly with the very political subject matter.

It doesn't seem unusual at all lately for either artist to choose work that has close ties to what's going on with the world at large. Politics, war and corruption in all the world's 'systems' has been a common thread for both -- Damon's portrayal as an undercover criminal FBI agent in The Departed gave me a new level of appreciation for his work. Greengrass is responsible for bringing us last year's fresh and catastrophically brilliant United 93. Whether the world was ready to see it or not Greengrass didn't hesitate to capture his perception of the real-life events and project them on the screen for the world to see.

Imperial Life in the Emerald City deals with the actual happenings inside Iraq's now insurgency ridden infrastructure. The book discusses and presents reasons for the prolonged troops in Iraq and instability and negligence with rebuilding a thriving government. Greengrass will adapt the screenplay himself, dealing unapologetically with the (unfortunately) non fiction material -- making a terribly interesting picture at the very least and perhaps another gifted and strangely familiar role for Matt Damon.

The only award Casino Royale picked up Sunday at the British Academy Awards (BAFTAs) was for Best Sound. It was nominated in nine categories -- ten if you count the publicly voted Rising Star Award, which did go to Casino Royale actress Eva Green. But it would have been very shocking if the 007 movie had beaten The Queen for the Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film. Oh wait; The Queen didn't win it either. Surprisingly, The Last King of Scotland won Best British Film, as well as Best Adapted Screenplay (for Jeremy Brock and Peter Morgan, who also wrote The Queen) and, of course, Best Actor for Forest Whitaker. The Queen did win for Best Film, though, and also took the obvious prize for Best Actress for Helen Mirren.

Some of the other unexpected wins were Paul Greengrass for the David Lean Award for Direction and Alan Arkin for Best Supporting Actor for Little Miss Sunshine, which won for Best Original Screenplay. Other prizes went to Pan's Labyrinth for Best Film Not in the English Language, Best Makeup & Hair and Best Costume Design, Children of Men for Best Cinematography and Best Production Design and Babel for the Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music. For the most part, the British Academy disagreed with last week's London Film Critics Circle Awards, which gave added honors to specifically British performers like Emily Blunt, Toby Jones, Michael Caine and Leslie Philips. However, Casino Royale fared badly with the critics' choices too.

Now that Paul Greengrass has won the hearts of American audiences and critics with United 93, he could easily keep hidden his political criticisms of the U.S. and hope for a prolific career in Hollywood. But he doesn't seem to want the easy life. Once the director finishes post-production on The Bourne Ultimatum, he is set to begin work on a film about the aftermath of the Iraq War. He will write a script based on Rajiv Chandrasekaran's non-fiction book Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone, and then direct the film for Universal.

Greengrass is no stranger to Iraq. Ten years ago he made a movie for British television called The One That Got Away, about an operation during Desert Storm. His hand-held documentary style is perfectly suited for the discord of the region and its post-invasion events, though he will probably bring something original to the project that hasn't yet been seen in the actual documentaries coming out of the Iraq War.

Despite his putting out mostly apolitical work since arriving in Hollywood, he is typically a political filmmaker and we can probably expect a very critical position from him here. Chandrasekaran's book apparently reveals the failures of the U.S. occupation and presents the whole thing as a major historical disaster. The Washington Post journalist does depict some involved individuals in a good light, though. If Greengrass can keep it as honest and balanced, he might be able to keep some of his patriotic audience.

On the night of September 11, 2001, I got online and shared a few conversations with pals from around the world. I'm sure those discussions were a lot like the ones you had with your friends and family: The shock, the fury, the overwhelming helplessness, the heart-wrenching sympathy for the victims and their families. But since I'll often use humor as a defense mechanism (yes, even in the very bleakest moments), I remember asking a few of my film critic colleagues: "Hey, how long do you think it'll be before Hollywood decides to make a few biopics about what happened today?"

And now here we are, just over five years later, and 2006 has yielded not one but two rather distinctive takes on what went down during the blackest day in our nation's history. Universal's United 93 was the first one out of the gate, focusing on the final hours of some stunningly heroic "average Joes" who chose to fight back -- even as they knew it was probably the last thing they'd ever do. Fortunately, it was every bit the sobering and respectful film we all hoped it would be. A few months later came Paramount's World Trade Center, which told the tale from the perspective of two NYC Port Authority police officers who became trapped under tons of concrete rubble. Again, the filmmakers took a heartfelt and admirably sincere approach to the story, giving us a look at a massive tragedy through the eyes of two normal American families.

Aside from the events that inspired their creation, the two films couldn't possibly be more different -- and now that Oscar season has rolled around yet again, the experts are extra-busy handicapping which movie should win what and which movie doesn't deserve squat. So I thought it might be interesting to do a little "compare & contrast" on the films, focusing mainly on which sections might be considered most Oscar-worthy ...

Director Paul Greengrass has taken the story of the fourth plane hijacked on 9/11 and made it into United 93. Departing from Newark, New Jersey and bound for San Francisco, California, this was the plane where a flight delay gave the passengers enough time to hear about the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, realize what was happening and rise up to fight back until the plane crashed short of its intended target in Washington, D.C.. From the moment United 93 was announced, the question that was most often asked was "Is it too soon?" Walking out of United 93 -- and even now -- I couldn't answer whether it was too soon or not. Another question I couldn't answer stuck with me much more intensely: What is a film like United 93 for? What's its purpose? Greengrass himself has suggested that the film is a tribute of remembrance, and perhaps that's enough.
 
It's certainly hard to not admire the technical skill brought to bear in making United 93; director Greengrass may be best-known for The Bourne Supremacy, but he's also crafted a series of rich, gripping films like Bloody Sunday and Omagh. Those films sprang out of a very British style of filmmaking, one you could call fiction documentary -- a tradition best practiced by Peter Watkins, whose Culloden, The War Game and Punishment Park are well-known in England and almost totally unknown in America. United 93 is in that tradition; the camera itself shakes like it has an adrenaline-jacked pulse, the pans and rotations and zooms of the lens fluid and unceasing, as if a thin sheen of sweat oiled every move. The actors are mostly unknown; many of the real military and aviation officials who witnessed terror and still made decisions on that tragic, chaotic day play themselves.