I'm sure I've already told you how Youth in Revolt is one of my favorite books of all time. And I'm sure, since I last wrote about it, a bunch of you have gone out and picked it up. Right? Revolt tells the story of 14-year-old (though they've aged him up to 17 for the film) Nick Twisp; a story that follows him (through personal journals) going to the greatest lengths imaginable just to score his dream girl, Sheeni Saunders. Amidst the madness, Nick (who will be played by Michael Cera) jumps between his two divorced parents, one of which (the filthy, sex-obsessed father) will be played by the very awesome Steve Buscemi. Variety tells us Ray Liotta and Jean Smart have also joined the cast, and though they don't say, The Hollywood Reporter confirms that Liotta will play Nick's mother's psychotic boyfriend, while we assume Smart will play the poor kid's neurotic mom.

It's nice to see The Weinstein Co. have made this flick a priority; currently, they're at Cannes trying to secure foreign markets. Youth in Revolt is an incredibly hard book to adapt, and earlier this year I spoke to screenwriter Gustin Nash (Charlie Bartlett) a bit about the difficulties of adapting and trimming Youth in Revolt for the big screen. One thing we did touch upon was how the book's second greatest character was still yet to be cast: Sheeni Saunders. As Nick's love interest, Sheeni carries the combined traits of every girl you've ever had a crush on: she's pretty, she's smart, she's devilish and she knows just how to get what she wants, when she wants, how she wants it. Off the top of my head, I can't think of a good young actress for the role. You?

Having finished his porno, Seth Rogen is now getting ready for that mall cop movie I told you about back in March, Observe and Report. The actor will star as Ronnie Barnhardt, "a deluded, self-important head of mall security who squares off in a turf war against the local cops." This is a whole different project than Mall Cop, which has Kevin James facing a collection of thieves, and that makes it all the better.

The Hollywood Reporter now posts that Rogen will be joined by Anna Faris, Michael Pena, Jesse Plemons, and Ray Liotta. Faris gets to play a salesgirl at the mall that Ronnie lusts after, while Pena gets to put aside some of his meaty roles in films like Crash and Lions for Lambs and get funny as Ronnie's right-hand security man, and Plemons plays another mall guard. Liotta, meanwhile, will play Ronnie's nemesis, a police detective. There is, however, no word who will be fighting with the cop on his side of the turf war.

Even though there is no La Fours in sight, nor any flying fatasses, I think this, along with Zack and Miri, will be good for Rogen's career. Whether Judd Apatow continues his reign of comedy or not, Rogen should have a healthy selection of non-Judd work. That being said, I wouldn't be surprised if this film has at least a few brief cameos by some of Rogen's previous co-stars. Production begins this week.

With the news that Battle in Seattle will open the Seattle International Film Festival, and coverage of the recent Olympic protests on every channel, it couldn't be a better time to release the trailer for the protest drama. Movieset is currently hosting the full trailer for the film set during the infamous World Trade Organization riots in Seattle in 1999.

In 1999, the World Trade Organization (WTO) convened in Seattle, Washington for a global trade negotiation conference. Before anyone knew what had happened, over 40,000 protesters had amassed outside the conference buildings and the anti-globalization group, Direct Action Network, had total control over downtown intersections. Unfortunately, the protests erupted into violence and a state of emergency pitted demonstrators against the National Guard and local police.

Stuart Townsend's directorial debut has a huge cast including Ray Liotta, Charlize Theron, Michelle Rodriguez, Martin Henderson, Channing Tatum, André Benjamin, and Woody Harrelson. Judging by Eric's SXSW review it doesn't look like all that star power has helped the film all that much. Battle was originally scheduled to be released in March, but has been moved back to September. It makes much more sense to release this kind of 'earnest' political drama when everyone is finished with summer popcorn flicks and are ready for something with just a little substance, however heavy-handed it might be.

[via Coming Soon]

I never thought it would happen, but it looks like Tim Allen has finally gotten sick of his kid flicks and goofy entertainment, and is looking for a little variety. First came the half-family, half-adult Wild Hogs. Now he's got some older fare on the horizon that's being topped off with his feature directorial debut. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Allen will helm and star in Crazy on the Outside, an indie adult comedy that's looking to cast Ray Liotta, Carrie-Anne Moss, Julie Bowen (Boston Legal), and Kelsey Grammer in co-starring roles (they're all in negotiations).

Written by Judd Pillot and John Peaslee, the indie will focus on an "ex-con who finds his life outside of prison to be much crazier, especially once he enters his sister's world." There's no word on who will play who, but if Allen has the con role, he'll get to tap back into his bad-boy early days. Whatever the case, it'll be nice to see him without the Santa suit, and doing something indie with a fun cast. This could be his jump to more work behind the camera, but considering that his only other directorial credit is an episode of Home Improvement in 1999, I don't think this will be a career shift.

There's nothing like a good movie poster to pump up your Monday after weekend shenanigans and hours of Oscar coverage. Over to the right, you can see the poster for La Linea. MoviesOnline says that an anonymous scooper sent them the image, and I'm betting that they got it over at IMDb. Whatever the case, it's looking just as sweet as it sounds.

I first blogged about the movie back in September. While it isn't a recreation of that animated line drawing, it is a new drug movie that has one hell of a cast. Ray Liotta stars as Mark Shields, a veteran assassin who is hunting down Pelon (Esai Morales), the head of the Salazar Cartel, while also getting close to a local gal named Olivia (Valerie Cruz). Set in Tijuana, the film has got these men to back up the action: Andy Garcia, Armand Assante, Bruce Davison, the Machete himself, Danny Trejo, and last but certainly not least -- Joe Morton.

The movie is set to hit screens this October, and I imagine that we'll get a trailer soon. Or, at least, I hope so. Every time my eyes read "Welcome to Tijuana" on that poster, I get a head full of Al Pacino following that line up with: "Say hello to my little friend." Whether it will actually be comparable to Scarface, we'll have to wait and see.

Where could the Italian horror master go after The Mother of Tears? Our Scott Weinberg called it "the master's best flick since ... hell, since at least the mid-'80s." That leaves a pretty big wake to fill, and Variety reports that Dario Argento is planning to follow it up with Giallo, "an English-language homage to the genre that made him a cult helmer." (Aside from meaning Yellow, Giallo is also the word given to pulp thrillers in Italy.) The flick is being produced by the LA-based Hannibal Pictures, and comes from a screenplay by Damned writers Jim Agnew and Sean Keller. But what of its stars? Take out the "i," and you've got one -- Vincent Gallo -- who will be joined by Ray Liotta and Dario's daughter, Asia Argento.

In usual horror form, the movie "will revolve around serial slashings of some very attractive women being investigated by a solitary cop, played by Liotta, who engages in a cat-and-mouse game with the psychopathic perpetrator," Vincent Gallo. Someone must've been watching Dirt last season and thought there was way too little blood when Vinnie came to visit. He's definitely the right sort for this role, and I wonder if his penile fixation will find its way into the flick in any way. It'd fit with the whole attractive woman angle. As for vixen Asia, there's no word on who she'll play -- perhaps a would-be victim that Liotta has to save.

When production gets underway this February in Turin (where he shot Tears), Argento aims to put together a movie that taps into the director's 70s thrills, like The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and Suspiria. Thoughts?

I suppose that reviewing an Uwe Boll film is a lot like having a fancy restaurant critic do a write-up on McDonald's new McGristle sandwich -- but I'm not "fancy" by any definition of the word, and I've grown madly in love with Uwe Boll's enthusiastically slipshod filmmaking techniques. So to those who thought miracles were actually possible, I have some disappointing news: Boll's latest, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, is every bit as consistently awful as the director's earlier offerings -- only it's 126 minutes long. And that's just not fair.

Also unfair is the stunningly blatant way in which Mr. Boll tries to rip off the Lord of the Rings trilogy in this chintzy little epic. Every other sequence has a musical cue, a costume, a bit of dialog, or a background character that just fell off the Hobbit truck. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Uwe Boll just spent 126 minutes telling Peter Jackson how thin, talented and gorgeous he is. To be completely fair, I did notice a few components (mainly the action scene editing and a few moments of strangely effective cinematography) that manage to improve upon films like Alone in the Dark, House of the Dead and BloodRayne -- but really, you could probably improve upon those three movies using only a cell phone camera and a powerful flashlight.

For a flick that runs two hours, the plot is distressingly skimpy: Villains are ransacking the countryside, so a farmer called Farmer takes up arms, grabs a few sidekicks, and heads out to destroy the evil and perpetually cackling Boss Villain. That's it, really. But we're not going to see an Uwe Boll video game adaptation for the plot, are we? No. We're usually watching his flicks for the sheer unintentional hilarity of it all, but King is even better because it's an ensemble piece! We've got...

Once you get mega-famous farting around with guns and people who talk funny, it's got to be tough to see your career get Swept Away in one fell swoop. Since then, Guy Ritchie has tried to go back to what he does best -- tough guys and crime. Although he's currently filming RocknRolla, his flick about London's criminal underworld, he had already returned to form a while ago with Revolver. It debuted at TIFF two years ago, and is finally hitting North American theaters in limited release this December. The delay could be due to rumors of its crappiness, although IMDb has it resting at 6.2/10, which isn't great, but isn't terrible.

Now we've got a trailer to check out, courtesy of Yahoo. While it starts off looking like this tough-guy chess movie, with dark, pouring rain and sliding chess pieces, it then jumps into typical criminal territory: the games, cons, and fun of Las Vegas. There's piles of money, bets, scantily-clad women, murder, and everything else you could imagine. Jason Statham stars, sporting lots of distracting facial hair, with the likes of Ray Liotta, Vincent Pastore, and André Benjamin. The trailer looks like your typical bright-lights crime caper, which should work well for it. That being said, I'm kind of wishing it was all about the dangerous life of chess players. That would be cool.

When Smokin' Joe Carnahan says he's gonna get someone for a part, you can usually take his word for it. Back in April, he spoke with Cinematical about prepping his two upcoming passion projects: an adaptation of White Jazz and a telling of the Pablo Escobar story, and during that interview he gave us the following dream casting choices. He said he wanted Javier Bardem to play Escobar, and we recently found out that's a done deal, and he said he wanted Charlize Theron to play Glenda Bledsoe, the female lead in White Jazz. He also said he was interested in having Ray Liotta play either Pete Bondurant or Welles Noonan in that film. Now, after half a year of waiting, Carnahan has let it be known to readers of his blog that the role of Bledsoe has been cast, although he's being coy about the name. He's also cast the role of Junior Stemmons, a young and crazy cop character. The Stemmons name came up during our interview, but he didn't have his sights set on anyone yet. The rumor mill tonight is saying that Chris Pine may have the role, but Joe isn't saying yay or nay.

Meanwhile, Joe is also fuming at the LA Times for writing that his movie Smokin' Aces was a turkey -- $150 worldwide from a $20 million budget -- and blogging about the fact that he just submitted the script for Smokin' Aces: Blowback to Universal Pictures. He says that with the anticipated strike on the horizon, Universal is anxious to ramp that one into production as soon as possible and he expects more news to develop as early as next week. Stay tuned for more.

First, I must disappoint some of you by warning: This film is NOT some strange remake of the classic line-animation La Linea. Remember that? It's the cartoon about a line that becomes a little guy who walks around, often walking into things and always either making requests of the artist, or yelling at him for something. While we won't see a big line on the big screen, this new La Linea incarnation is looking like it's worth the time. The Hollywood Reporter posted that Ray Liotta has signed on to star in the crime drama with Esai Morales and Valerie Cruz, and they've got one heck of an ensemble cast in final talks. There's two of my favorite actors, Joe Morton and Danny Trejo, as well as Armand Assante, Kevin Cage (the porn star, or did THR typo?), and Jason Connery. Plus: Andy Garcia is in early talks for a small role.

The film, loosely-based on the Arellano Felix drug cartel, is about a lieutenant of a drug cartel (Morales) who takes over business and becomes a loose cannon. (Garcia would play the ill kingpin of the cartel.) An LA-based assassin, played by Liotta, is hired to kill him. Cruz, meanwhile, will play a woman named Olivia, who is a meth addict in Tijuana trying to get clean for her kid -- how she fits into the rest remains to be seen. The feature was written by R. Ellis Frazier, who is also producing with Geoffrey Ross, and will be directed by James Cotten. Production is scheduled to begin next month in LA and Tijuana.