If an ice-skating Jon Heder wasn't enough to appease your Hederistic impulses for the year, you're getting another shot. indieWIRE has posted that First Independent Pictures will be releasing his next comedy, Moving McAllister, on September 14. The movie's star, Ben Gourley of Pride and Prejudice, wrote the indie screenplay, and the film was helmed by the man who directed him in the Jane Austen film, Andrew Black. It's looking like a cross between Three for the Road, Stranger than Fiction, Road Trip and even some Planes, Trains & Automobiles -- the quest, the uptight hero, the seemingly insane sidekick and some saucy bed shenanigans.

Gourley plays Nick -- a rather anal intern at a law firm who dreams about making partner. To impress the firm's top lawyer McAllister (played by Rutger Hauer), he agrees to transport the lawyer's niece (Mila Kunis) across the country only a few days before he has to take the bar exam. Along the way, they pick up a hitchhiker (Heder) and as with any road trip full of crazy mishaps, Nick begins to reevaluate things. You can check the trailer out here, and even delight in the wonderful scene where Nick pops a rather large pimple on Heder's back. If the initial votes over at IMDb are any indication, it should be worth the time -- out of 32 votes, it's scored 8.9/10.

If there's one thing on my must-buy list this holiday season, it's the mega-multi disc version of Ridley Scott's classic Blade Runner. They've crammed everything except for an actual Replicant into this set, and with any luck it'll be sitting on my shelf soon. That is until they release the Ultra 3D High-Def Download Only Version, Complete With Harrison Ford Commentary. Until then, I can dream.

Ridley's vision, complete with the legendary work of Syd Mead, helped turn this science fiction classic into a look at a dystopian future that still influences the look and feel of science fiction films to this day. As far as my lack-of-sleep-addled brain (Comic-Con really saps your strength, like Kryptonite) can tell, this is the first time Ridley has ever been to a Comic-Con. We were lucky to talk to him about Blade Runner, and the massive amount that's gone into this edition.

While he's calling it more "correcting" than "revising" the film, he does make a few key changes like making Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) tell Tyrell (Joe Turkel) "I want more life, father" rather than the burned into your brain "I want more life, f**ker." Sure, it's a minor change, but it really changes Batty's tone in that scene. Thankfully they didn't mess with the "tears in the rain" speech, or there would have been a massive fan uprising, the likes of which haven't been seen since the whole "Han shot first" incident.

Just because everyone here at Cinematical loves The Hitcher, that hasn't stopped us from covering the hell out of the upcoming remake -- which is now opening on January 19th, just so you know. My take on remakes is simply this: Some of 'em work, most of 'em don't, and none of 'em can take the shine off a really classic flick. And while Joe & Jane Movierenter might know nothing of The Hitcher, that hasn't prevented the flick from becoming a cult classic genre flick of the highest caliber. Hell, even my mother loves The Hitcher, and she usually watches movies starring Sally Struthers and/or Lindsay Wagner.

So yeah, the remake is afoot. And if you can get this new-fangled doo-dad over at MSN to give up its wares, you can finally settle in and watch the all-new trailer for Platinum Dunes' new and improved The Hitcher. I think I've been pretty even-tempered toward this project so far, but I gotta say the trailer does next to nothing for me. Aside from the prospect of seeing Sean Bean play a psycho (which he's never done before), I feel rather ambivalent about the new Hitcher. Disinterested, one might say, but I've been wrong before.

Just so you know the score, the original was written by Eric Red and directed by Robert Harmon. The remake comes from screenwriter Jake Wade Wall and director Dave Meyers. The shrieking screamers, previously played by C. Thomas Howell and Jennifer Jason Leigh, will now be portrayed by Zachary Knighton and Sophia Bush. And I'm sorry but, as cool as Sean Bean is (and he really is a very reliable and watchable character actor), nothing will be able to match what Rutger Hauer did with the role back in 1986. (According to completely fabricated rumors that I just now made up, Mr. Hauer actually killed 17 real motorists while preparing for the role of The Hitcher.)

[Thanks to BD for the tip!]

The trades reported this morning that leather-faced, hitchhiking replicant Rutger Hauer is about to make his feature directorial debut with a film entitled Changing Fortunes, in which he'll also appear (but not necessarily star). The movie will tell the true-life story of Dutch banker Walraven van Hall who, during World War II, "created an ingenious funding scheme to support tens of thousands of people -- irrespective of race, creed or political leaning -- in Nazi-occupied Holland." (And then was discovered and shot to death by Nazis. Just in case you were hoping the movie wouldn't be incredibly depressing.)

According to Hauer, Changing Fortunes is not about the war, it just happens to be set during that time. Instead, the film's primary concern will be to explore "how an individual can truly change the world for the better, and [show] the sacrifices that a person is prepared to make to realize such a change." The film, a Dutch/UK/Belgian coproduction, has a budget of just over $11 million and will head into pre-production early next year.

Whenever a new horror remake begins production, I get this huge dose of inner turmoil that's actually quite sad and geeky. On one hand ... why freakin' remake The Hitcher??? On the other ... it could be good! Plus, truth be told, if a producer came to me and said "Go on, here's a check. Remake a horror flick," you can bet your gills that "Scott Weinberg's Humanoids from the Deep" would be hitting your multiplex next summer. So there's that ...

Anyway, through the magic of a Rogue Pictures press release, we now have the pretty-full skinny on what to expect from Platinum Dunes' re-imaginivisadaptaion of Robert Harmon & Eric Red's The Hitcher. Relative newcomer Zachary Knighton* will be stepping into the C. Thomas Howell role, joining Sophia Bush (in the Jennifer Jason Leigh role, only this time she's a college kid and not a waitress) and Sean Boromir Bean in the villainous role made infamous by the feral Rutger Hauer.

Screenplay by Eric Bernt (Highlander: Endgame) & Jake Wade Wall (When a Stranger Calls); director Dave Meyers is a first-timer, unless you count the 1999 flick Foolish, which Mr. Meyers would probably prefer you didn't.

Plus there have been some rumors that Hauer himself would make an appearance somewhere in the flick, which might be fun. Or it might not. Ah yeah, the *asterisk* ... Zachary Knighton is someone you might recognize from TV's Life on a Stick, Related, or Love, Inc. Or you might not.

A couple of weeks ago when Sean Bean was cast in A Woman of No Importance, I mentioned how nice it was to see him in a non-glowering role, at least on this side of the Atlantic. The guy really got his start as a romantic lead, and has done a lot of great work in the same vein for British TV. Over here, though, ever since Jack Ryan killed his baby brother, it's been hard for him (apart from when he's hobnobbing with hobbits) to play anything but a baddie. And it looks like our Sean actually gets antsy when he's not making somebody's movie life miserable, because he's going back to his villainous Hollywood roots with a doozy: Bean is taking over for Rutger Hauer in the upcoming remake of The Hitcher. 

A stroll around the internets suggests that, in something of a miracle for a remake, fans are thrilled by this casting news -- hey, if nothing else, Bean's got the same color hair as Hauer, right? What say you, Hitcher fans: Is Bean the right guy to scare the bejesus out of Sophia Bush?

Mentor is the debut feature from David Carl Lang (or David Langlitz, as he appears to be known in his movie life), a man who happens to have spent the last two decades as the principle trombonist for New York’s Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, a position he still holds. In 1998, Lang’s short, Angel Passing, about a concert pianist, was shown at Sundance and other festivals and won a handful of awards, but Mentor is his first work since. Starring Rutger Hauer as Sanford Pollard, a professor who grows too close to two of his students, Mentor is also pretentious and self-indulgent.

From its opening moments, you sense that Mentor is doomed. That first scene begins with a close-up of Hauer’s unshaven face, as he tells someone -- obviously a student -- that he doesn’t like the work he’s just read. In response, the student angrily begins talking about personal motives, and love, and it’s obvious that the two have a relationship that goes beyond traditional mentorship. It’s also obvious, however, how trite and contrived the screenplay is, and that the acting is not good enough to rise above its weaknesses.