Considering the amount of flack Nicolas Cage received over his last time-bending flick, I am a little surprised that he decided to come back for Alex Proyas', Knowing. Coming Soon is now hosting some on-set photos from the sci-fi thriller starring Cage and Rose Byrne. Sources managed to snap the pics on location in Geelong, Australia, and while there are no shots of Cage or Byrne, at least we get to see some stuff blowing up.

Knowing centers on a time capsule buried in 1958 that was chock full of doom and gloom prophecies. When the capsule is dug up 50 year later, it lands in the hands of a young boy and his professor father (Cage) who becomes obsessed with decoding the messages and preventing all-out destruction.

The production has had a long history in Hollywood, ever since the film was first set up over at Columbia. There have been a few directors attached over the years, notably Richard Kelly and Rod Lurie. Proyas came on board in 2005, and after a few rewrites, the film went into production in 2007. As if a long and troubled production history wasn't enough of an obstacle, it is no secret that Cage's 'shine' has been slowly diminishing over the years (thank you very much, Ghost Rider), so Knowing could be a hard sell to audiences who might still be ticked over shelling out their hard-earned dollars for Next.

Knowing is scheduled to arrive in theaters in 2009.

I need to come up with a new phrase for comedies like Just Buried. Something like "not exactly laugh-out-loud funny, but certainly amiable, clever and diverting enough to warrant some attention." (But something shorter than that wordy mouthful.) Chaz Thorne's Just Buried offers a novel concept, several winning performances, and a few amusing surprises -- but I certainly wouldn't call it a fall-down-on-the-floor laugh riot. And that's OK with me. Sometimes a big batch of small chuckles, a few strong performances and a quietly amusing concept are enough to keep a comedy afloat, and that certainly seems to be the case here.

Jay Baruchel (best known for his hilarious lead performance in the awesome Undeclared) plays a nervous little twitcher of a nerd who inherits his estranged father's funeral home. Our jittery sorta-hero is completely unprepared for the gig: He can't stand to be around corpses, his professional demeanor is lacking at best, and he has this strange habit of bleeding from the nose whenever he gets nervous. But hey, Ollie's still willing to give the old funeral home a shot. (The presence of a lovely mortician called Roberta (Rose Byrne) definitely factors into his decision-making process.)

The sun is dying in Sunshine, but the familiarity of Trainspotting director Danny Boyle's latest makes one think an equally dire death is the sci-fi genre's aptitude for invention. A gorgeously crafted intergalactic saga sorely lacking in originality or profundity, Boyle's film marries 2001 aesthetics with an Alien narrative to create a rather straightforward – and superficially entertaining – adventure devoid of much meaning. Talk of God, humanity and morality abound but Alex Garland's screenplay only lightly grazes such heady philosophical issues, instead investing most of its time and energy on decently drawn characters, an authentic sense of setting, reasonably taut set pieces, and custom-built showcases for dazzling CG sunscapes, twinkling light flares, and immense cascades of roiling fire hungry to fill the void of space. On a purely visceral level, Sunshine is never less than engaging, and frequently gripping. Yet the general emptiness of its head is frustrating given its pretensions of high-minded deepness, and the commonplaceness of its plot is ultimately dispiriting for a movie seemingly so in awe of the beguiling, near-incomprehensible mysteriousness of the vast universe.

Boyle's film charts the mission of those aboard Icarus II, who have been charged with traveling to the perishing sun and reigniting it with a nuclear bomb (dubbed the "Payload") in a last ditch effort to save Earth from the grip of a solar winter. Icarus II is a marvelously envisioned vessel, its interiors full of high-tech doodad-ery made raggedy after 16 months of use by its human inhabitants, and its exterior marked by a giant, circular solar-paneled shield that protects the craft from the sun's lethal rays. Less impressive is the standard-issue motley crew, comprised of a stoically heroic captain (Hiroyuki Sanada), a sensitive girl (Rose Byrne), an arrogant coward (Troy Garity), a nondescript nobody (Michelle Yeoh), an out-there shrink (Cliff Curtis), a cold pragmatist (Chris Evans), and a sympathetic hero (Cillian Murphy). Save for Evans, who finds himself stuck with the most thanklessly schematic of roles, the cast admirably infuses their sketchily conceived astronauts with a dollop of relatable personality. Their hopes, dreams, and quasi-religious musings, however, are mere specks on the cosmic windshield of Sunshine, whose primary focus always remains on its computer-generated intergalactic wonders.

Well, even though the last "Australian" to attempt a boxing film wasn't exactly a raging success, you can't blame someone else for wanting to take a swing -- and yes, that pun was intended, I couldn't help myself. The Australian newspaper The Age posted a photograph from the Australian noir The Tender Hook. Written and directed by Jonathan Ogilvie, the film stars Rose Byrne, Matt Le Nevez (who made a name for himself as a serial killer in the Australian made-for-TV film The Society Murders) and Hugo Weaving. The story is less a sports tale and more of a "noir-ish" take on a love triangle between a young boxer, an aristocratic Englishman and Byrne's romantic opportunist. The film takes place in 1920s Redfern, Australia, and was expected to shoot on location. However, some local controversy sprung up when the production moved to Melbourne for the sake of some "incentives" to the filmmakers.

The photo is the first look at Le Nevez as the soulful boxer, with plenty of sepia tones to remind you that this is a period piece. Production started in February and Ogilvie is still filming, so a release date might still be a way off. Ogilvie has claimed that he has been trying to make this film for over ten years now, so I'm pretty sure that he's going to take his time to make sure he does it right.

The only thing I know for sure about the casting situation with The Tender Hook is that it's an Australians-only affair. An article in this morning's Herald Sun is re-affirming most of what we've already known -- that Rose Byrne has replaced Radha Mitchell as Iris, a woman in a noir-stylized 1920s Sydney who is fought over by two opposing boxers. Hugo Weaving, Ray Winstone and Matt Le Nevez are also still attached to the project, although official announcements have yet to be made. The project is being written and directed by Jonathan Ogilvie, whose last film, Emulsion, was unseen by me. Still, I have high hopes for any film that self-identifies as film noir, one of my favorite genres.

Byrne, who was the Duchesse de Polignac in last year's Marie Antoinette, has a full slate of high-profile films for 2007, including the sequel to Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later and the starring role in Boyle's highly-anticipated 'the sun is dying, what do we do?' science-fiction film, Sunshine. The paper also reports that The Tender Hook is set to be shot in Melbourne, which has recently become one of the hottest filming spots in all of Australia.

We hear it on the news twice a week, it seems: A young dead woman has been found on the road, in a ditch, back behind someone's barn, etc. We give the news a casual listen, perhaps offer a brief bit of sympathy to the girl's family, and then throw our focus back into our own lives. The world can be an ugly place; best not to dwell on the more horrific aspects of it ... until we have to.

Karen Moncrieff's follow-up to 2002's Blue Car is a decidedly unique take on the "serial killer movie." The Dead Girl is not a mystery, nor is it really a thriller. It's more of an anthology piece that introduces us to a collection of people on the periphery of a horrible murder. It's not a movie about the killer, per se, nor is it a character study of the victim ... except when it is. It's a tough movie to describe, a tougher movie to "enjoy," but an easy one to recommend -- provided you don't mind a little darkness, gloom and sobriety mixed in with your indie-style ensemble pieces.

We thought she was going to be the new Bond girl, but don't worry about Rose Byrne; she's been pretty busy since not being picked off the massive list of potential Bond girls. Up until now, her film credits included Troy and Wicker Park -- neither much to brag about, but despite being passed over for Casino Royale, Byrne seems to be picking up projects right and left.

The Hollywood Reporter announced that the Australian-born actress has signed on for the black comedy, Pushing Up Daises, with Jay Baruchel (Million Dollar Baby). The film was written and directed by Chaz Thorne and revolves around a local funeral parlor that is having a severe customer shortage. Baruchel's character inherits a failing small town funeral home and hires a new embalmer (Rose Byrne) who has some unconventional ideas on how they can drum up some new business. So while this is a comedy, it's obviously a black comedy -- my guess is that the body count could get pretty high.

The film is currently shooting in Halifax, Canada, and there is no word of a release date. Byrne also has the upcoming Danny Boyle sci-fi flick, Sunshine, which is wrapped and set for a 2007 release. Keeping busy, she's also working on the sequel to Boyle's 28 Days Later, (28 Weeks Later) which is still in production.

[via Empire Online]

Rose Byrne and Thandie Newton just won't do - and the problem is their hair color. This, at least, is the latest word from the breathless tabloid search for Casino Royale's Vesper Lynd. See, the villain's woman (to be played by Caterina Murino), has dark hair, and contrast between the ladies is a must. (And apparently the film's budget is so low that hair dye is not an option.) According to the most recent rumors, the new It Girl is Lana Antonova, a Russian actress best known for, well, nothing. She does, however, appear in the forthcoming The World's Fastest Indian (as "Sexy Woman in Pink" - keep your eyes peeled), if you want to confirm that her hair is in fact blonde.

If nothing else, her name is tantalizing close to the old school, dirty names that used to be assigned to Bond girls - remember Xenia Onatopp?