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Angelina Jolie's pet project The Tourist might finally have a director, according to Variety. Internationally acclaimed director and writer Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck "hasn't formally entered into negotiations," but it's looking likely that the man behind the critically hailed film The Lives of Others will be hopping behind the camera for this 2011 release.

Jolie reportedly turned down the sequel of Wanted in favor of The Tourist (although the rumors of her return of the sexy tattooed assassin remain at large) but she was holding out on officially signing on to The Tourist until Spyglass found a director she approved of.

Strangely enough, Tom Cruise was originally set to costar but dropped out in favor of Knight & Day with Cameron Diaz. Jolie's latest film, Salt, was originally set to star Tom Cruise, but then he backed out, the writers did a quick fix-me-up on the script, and voila -- here's Evelyn Salt!

In any case, this remake of Anthony Zimmer is about an Interpol agent hot on the trail of a former paramour and criminal; the spy makes use of an American tourist to help find her. Sam Worthington (Avatar) costars as the tourist, and according to /Film, Jolie plays the ex. On the other hand, Variety is reporting that she plays the Interpol agent. Hollywood Reporter is taking the safer route and not saying what Jolie's role will be. Yikes!

2011 sounds like one of those things where the movie keeps getting pushed back more and more until the stars and director are all like, "Whatever, I have no idea what's happening with that any more." But remember when Angelina Jolie provided us guilty pleasure movies like The Bone Collector? I would be happy to see her as the spy or the criminal; what do you think?

Click image below for full poster

Cinematical has just received this exclusive poster for Law Abiding Citizen, the latest action film from Set It Off and The Italian Job director F. Gary Gray. Starring Jamie Foxx as a jaded public defender who cuts a deal with the murderer of Gerard Butler's wife and child in exchange for a testimony that will fry bigger underworld fish. Not satisfied with the swift indifference of the justice system, Butler then decides to go on a city wide rampage against both the criminals and the complacent bureaucrats that ruined his life.

Only Butler's plan for due justice is more complicated than any of the clueless courtroom regulars can imagine, and it isn't until the titular Law Abiding Citizen intentionally allows himself to be arrested that the full extent of his wrath comes to scale.

If the trailer is any indication, F. Gary Gray's return to action films (after the regretful diversion that was Be Cool) looks to set the bar for revenge films in Hollywood. Not only is the cast great (which includes Leslie Bibb and Josh Stewart in addition to Foxx and Butler), but the sheer breadth of its explosiontastic search for justice - which looks like Die Hard: With a Vengeance swallowed Ransom, Death Sentence, and Se7en - is enough to draw a new line in the vigilante sand.

Law Abiding Citizen hits theaters October 16th from Overture Films.

Crank: High Voltage comes out this weekend, which sends Jason Statham back into a frenzied pinball movie world that has his sweaty bald head running at top speed to keep himself alive ... again. So if you want to keep your levels pegged at 11 this weekend, you might want to consider one of these other movies that have pure Russian racehorse levels of adrenaline pumping through their veins. When we say adrenaline fueled, we don't just mean hyperkinetic, no-attention-span-editing and lots of boring action sequences. That might even qualify Hannah Montana: The Movie for this list.

No, we mean you're on the edge of your seat, neck and shoulders tense, and eyeballs propped open like Malco McDowell in A Clockwork Orange. Cinematical urges you to try this at your own risk, and does not recommend any artery-clogging snacks in the midst of your movie madness. You'll need those suckers wide open to keep the heartpump chugging away, and you can consider yourself exercised for the month of April if you make it through at least three of these movies by Sunday.

Crank

Before writer-directors Neveldine and Taylor concocted another way to brutalize Jason Statham onscreen, they originally did it in this underrated film from 2006. I went into Crank with zero knowledge of the movie, other than the fact that the guy from the Transporter movies, Snatch, and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels was in it. I'd hated the Transporter series, but loved the other two so I thought I'd give this a shot. 87 minutes later, I peeled my sweat-soaked back from the theater seat and staggered out to the car. This is non-stop, pure over the top action, and it's well worth seeing. Just take your meds before watching.

I don't pretend to be any sort of scholar where film noir is concerned, but like most movies geeks of a certain age, I was bitten by the bug and went a little crazy. All of a sudden my Netflix queue was swollen with films by Jules Dassin, Robert Siodmak, and Anthony Mann. I must have gone through at least 50 titles, but my very favorite remains the first noir I ever saw: Otto Preminger's practically perfect Laura. As most old-school movie freaks can tell you, film noir generally deals with several key components: Crime, paranoia, sharp shadows, hard-boiled dialog, elaborate conspiracies, femme fatales, sudden violence, and a foreboding sense that fate is a cruel mistress indeed. (Like I said, I'm no scholar, but you can get a great noir lesson right here.)

But nowadays we don't seem to have much use for film noir, unless (of course) it's used as a stylistic choice in movies like Sin City and Watchmen. (Hey, I guess Frank Miller and Alan Moore dig film noir, so maybe you should too!) And then there are indie films like The Perfect Sleep, which aim to come across as both a traditional film noir and an affectionate homage / satire of the genre at the same time. If the flick is just a bit too clever for its own good on one or two occasions, well, I suppose that's preferable to most movies, because they're generally way too stupid for their own good.

So Erik-with-a-k covered the coming comedies of 2009, Scott was all over the horror picks (though his inclusion of Race to Witch Mountain still boggles my mind), Eric-with-a-c nabbed the family-friendly fare, and Elisabeth went over the geek fodder that awaits. But while I respect their calendar years and made-up math alike, I've opted to divide my list of 2009's action and adventure flicks into four categories: Action Flicks I Couldn't Care More About, Action Flicks I Couldn't Care Less About, Action Flicks That I Hope Surprise Me, and Those Which Fell In Between. Enjoy!

Action Flicks I Couldn't Care More About: First and foremost -- Watchmen (March 6th). It's one hell of a graphic novel and looks to be one hell of an adaptation (with or without the Giant Blank), but the only problem is it may not hit theaters on time if 20th Century Fox has anything to say about it. Both Fox and Warner Brothers are fighting over who actually owns the rights, and if a judge favors Fox comes January 20th (when the court date is set), we're looking at a delayed release and a whole ton of angry fans. Then there's Public Enemies (July 1st), which has me sold on not the subject matter, but sheer pedigree: Michael Mann directs Johnny Depp and Christian Bale as '30s gangsters. (It doesn't hurt that the earliest word ranges from damn good to great.) On the skimpier side, I can only hope that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (July 17th) streamlines its source material as the previous one had, and I can only hope that Crank 2: High Voltage (April 17th) lives up/down to the depravity of its predecessor. There's one last action movie that I couldn't care more about because, well, I've already seen a version of it. The international cut of Taken (January 30th, though reportedly opening with some R-dodging trims) is about as brisk and butt-kicking as one might hope out of a man-on-a-mission kidnapping thriller, and if you disagree, I'll send Liam Neeson to change your mind.

Gallery: Watchmen

Okay, so we went through something similar with Frank Darabont's unused draft of the latest Indiana Jones installment, which managed to be a bit better (read: Mutt-less) compared to the still entertaining end result. Now, it appears that the original draft for Hancock -- long titled Tonight, He Comes -- has popped up by way of Jeff Wells over at Hollywood Elsewhere (read it here). Oh, and if it's authentic, it happens to be missing the next-to-last page.

I've found the behind-the-scenes hearsay -- conveniently summed up in this NY Times piece -- on this film to be fairly fascinating. First, as scripted by Vy Vincent Ngo, Tonight had made the rounds as a reportedly hard-R superhero drama that capitalized on the somewhat sexual nature of the title. However, it seems once Will Smith was brought on board, Sony saw fit to tame things down considerably.

Even as recently as April, the MPAA had twice handed them an R instead of the sought-after PG-13, and now the finished result runs a choppy 92 minutes -- distinctly shorter than indicated in AICN test screening reports which made particular mention of a subplot involving statutory rape. Of course, as Wells brings up, it's hard to ignore the involvement of producer/screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, whose recent work on Smith's last hit, I Am Legend, had a similarly slapdash second half at the compromise of the original material.

I've yet to get more than a couple of pages into this thing, but do you guys think this is the real deal, and if so, do you guys think that this is the real film compared to what's on thousands of screens this week?

You know what I call 18 consecutive days of horror, sci-fi, action foreign, indie, obscure, and generally weird movies? Well obviously I call it heaven, but most normal people refer to it as Montreal's Fantasia Film Festival, which runs every July and throws a couple hundred features and shorts to a very ravenous crowd of genre freaks. And with folks like Mitch Davis, Tony Timpone, and Todd Brown (among others) on the programming end, you could probably just book a flight to Montreal without even checking the official Fantasia website.

I'm still not sure if I can make the trek up north next month, but I have been invited and (based mainly on the recently-released full lineup of flicks) I can pretty much guarantee that the current registrants are in for one hell of a good time. Among their selected titles, I can very strongly recommend All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, Dance of the Dead, Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer, Let the Right One In, Mother of Tears, [REC], Stuck, and Timecrimes -- plus they're offering solid titles like Fear(s) of the Dark, The Objective, Red, Second Skin, and Spine Tingler. Among the stuff I'm still drooling to see: Babysitter Wanted, Dark Floors, Midnight Meat Train, Pig Hunt, Repo: The Genetic Opera, and (of course) a new Uwe Boll flick. Plus this festival seems to offer more "Asian weirdness" movies than you'll ever find in one place. At least a dozen that look and sound certifiably insane, unless you'd define Tokyo Gore Police and Negative Happy Chain as "mainstream."

For a complete schedule, lineup, trailer bank, and tons of geeky goodness (in your choice of English or French!), click here and then here. (Montreal's not all that far away...)

When we last saw a (teaser) trailer for Eagle Eye - the forthcoming thriller that reunites star Shia LaBeouf with Disturbia director D.J. Caruso and Transformers executive producer Steven Spielberg - I commented with something along the lines of, after "reading the synopsis, I've always thought that Caruso and company were following their Rear Window re-do with North by Northwest 2.0."

...which I then followed up with "Whether that's the case or not, I'm a sucker for a chase movie, and more so for [co-star Michelle] Monaghan. Count me in." Well, judging from the new trailer up at Yahoo! Movies, I'll be having a modest amount of crow for lunch later today, as there now seems to be enough distinct differences between that Hitchcock classic and this paranoid techno-thriller that it'll likely excite on its own merits (fingers crossed).

Sure, we seem to have another one of those incredibly elaborate plans on behalf of the baddies that already appears to have too many variables for its own good, but you know what? So long as the thing moves, I'm not above setting aside brains in favor of brawn.

With a cast that also includes Rosario Dawson, Billy Bob Thornton, and Michael Chiklis, Eagle Eye hits theaters on September 26.

If you thought Rose McGowan with the machine gun leg was something else, just wait till you feast your eyes on The Machine Girl! Yes, that's right: A sweet Japanese teenage lass has been damaged beyond repair by the evil Yakuza, but with the help of a stump-mounted machine gun (and a whole bunch of other freaky weapons), this gal's gonna have her revenge! And how!

If you have a strict aversion to over-the-top arterial sprays and hardcore gore, then definitely don't check out this brand-new Machine Girl trailer over at Twitch.com. Anyone else should feel free to enjoy the Asian insanity. According to the Twitchers (and they know their Asian genre fare, trust me), The Machine Girl comes from the folks responsible for Death Trance (which I haven't seen) and Meatball Machine (which is certifiably bizarre), plus the trailer certainly looks chock-full of over-the-top chop-socky. Sign me up.

Every time I see an action movie with shaky, hand-held camerawork, I take a moment in my review to complain about it, but I never have the room to go into detail about why I hate it so much. Now that Michael Bay's Transformers (360 screens), Rob Zombie's Halloween (371 screens) and Brett Ratner's Rush Hour 3 (400 screens) have fallen into my humble lower domain, I'd like to discus it further.

The earliest example of shaky-cam I can remember comes in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove (1964). Kubrick was known as filmmaker married to smooth, steady camerawork, using long takes, wide, deep compositions and slow, clean, traveling movements. So when he used the hand-held to emphasize the chaos of combat in Dr. Strangelove, it was an innovation. The scene has two important attributes: it's still recorded in long takes, so the viewer has a relatively good idea what's going on, but more importantly, in this particular scene, in this particular movie, it doesn't matter exactly what's going on. Only the larger concept of the fracas itself matters.

Today, just about every other Hollywood film uses shaky-cam, though European filmmakers generally prefer longer takes and less shaking. Since cameras get lighter and easier to use every year, it makes sense. With hand-held, it takes much less time to set up a shot. No more laying down track or mapping out every inch of camera movement. But hand-held has been quickly abused, and it's almost always used wrong. Bay's Transformers is a particularly heinous example. Each time a transformer switches from car to robot, Bay moves his camera right up to the action, as if it's taking place mere inches from our faces. Since the robots are several stories high, this is painfully disorienting. It's like trying to view the Empire State Building by waving a camera in front of a few bricks. Moreover, a filmmaker friend told me that, because the robots were created with CGI, Bay probably added his shaking camera after principal photography, with computers.

Zombie's Halloween should offer a pretty cut-and-dried case study. For dialogue sequences, Zombie keeps the camera fairly still, but when Michael Myers attacks, he begins jerking and lurching around. This does not emphasize the terror. It's more like riding a roller coaster and anticipating a ten-story drop before suddenly finding yourself thrown from the ride. Compare this to John Carpenter's masterful original, which was also filmed handheld, but via long, graceful, gliding Steadicam shots. Part of the problem with most shaky-cam work is that the director is forced to cut it together very quickly to hide the fact that very little is actually visible.

In my book, Ratner's crimes are a good deal worse. Ratner had the opportunity to direct Jackie Chan in his first big Hollywood-financed film. Chan is an exceptionally skilled martial artist. He choreographs his stunts and moves at lightning speed and razor precision. He has even established an emotional logic for his stunts, and he's a fairly good director himself, having made more films in Hong Kong than Ratner has here. Chan's method, and indeed the method of most Hong Kong filmmakers, is to choreograph the action first, then film it clearly without getting the camera in the way. Instead, in all three Rush Hour films, Ratner shakes the camera around and butchers everything Chan does. Nearly every martial arts star working in Hollywood has suffered the same problem, while -- ironically -- the talented Hong Kong directors, who know how to photograph action, have ended up making "B" movies with Jean-Claude Van Damme.

When we humans walk down the street, our heads and eyes bob up and down. But our brains automatically adjust so that our vision remains constant and smooth. If you're walking along a sidewalk and your gaze fixes on a car parked at the end of the block, the car does not jerk up and down. So when a filmmaker runs through the forest carrying the camera and filming the running movement, he's not actually capturing the feel of running. He's capturing chaos. The idea of making a movie is to get into the audience's heads. So by filming smoothly and cutting when necessary -- like the blinking of an eye -- the action should be closer to what everyone can relate to. Brad Bird's Ratatouille (393 screens) offers an excellent example of this. When his rat hero Remy explores the kitchen of the restaurant, Bird's "camera" swoops around the room at top speed, but it never loses the concept of the room. We're always aware of the room and our place in it.

That's the key: space. Even though Paul Greengrass's The Bourne Ultimatum is filmed entirely with shaky-cam, the space is always clear. The old-time Hollywood action directors like Howard Hawks and Raoul Walsh understood this instinctively. Let the audience see. Most of today's "action" directors, I suspect, very simply don't understand action, so they use the shaky-cam as a way to hide their ineptitude. The lack of action and choreography is covered up in the sludge of fast film and fast editing. What's even more perplexing is that nobody ever seems to notice or complain. (One of the most poorly made movies of all time, Gladiator, actually won a Best Picture Oscar.) Audiences are apparently used to shoddy work and wouldn't know good work if it bit them. We deserve better than what we're getting. All it takes is a taste of the good stuff before the bitterness of the bad stuff comes out.