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After premiering at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, Rian Johnson's The Brothers Bloom got bounced around like the red-headed stepchild on Summit's slate before landing a haphazard 200-screen release earlier this summer. Now, in what would appear to be an effort to maintain consistency between the difficulty of seeing it on a big screen and watching on your small screen, the crime caper's been made available for rental only since September, until making its retail bow in January...

...and that's a shame, because the presentation -- at least on Blu-ray -- looks and sounds as rich as it ever did theatrically, the extras are plentiful, and the film itself stands as a clever, funny and warm-hearted take on the con man genre, one more often known for its especially detached sense of cool above any sense of character.

And no, I'm not just saying all of this because Johnson name-checks yours truly a couple of times on the commentary. Honest.

When you think of a man of brawn who can outwit the ruthless Predator, you think of two men: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Adrien Brody. What, you didn't picture that last one? Well, Robert Rodriguez and Nimrod Antal did. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Brody and Topher Grace are both set to join Alice Braga, Mahershalalhashbaz Ali, Walt Goggins, Danny Trejo and Oleg Taktarov in Predators, a franchise reboot of sorts that will follow several of earth's "killers" who are kidnapped and dropped on the Predator's home planet for a game of hide, seek and be brutally murdered.

All joking aside, Brody and Grace's unassuming demeanors will be a big part of their characters. Brody will play a soldier forced to become a leader (presumably because the Predator killed the old one), but is fit for the job because he's "a hunter of men." Grace will play a nerdy, accountant type whose very ordinariness hides the fact that he's a serial killer.

The rest of the cast is a little better suited for the lethal jungle. Braga will play a tough female killer, while Ali is a man who is unafraid to die. Goggins is a loose cannon (there's always one!) and Takatarov will be a former Russian operative. But baddest of them all is Trejo's Cuchillo, "a hardened warrior with two uzis strapped to his back." I don't know about you, but my leader would be the one with the twin uzis. That's just me though.

Shooting begins next month in Hawaii, and then moves to Austin. Variety notes that Brody lobbied very hard for the role, and has already signed on for future installments. So, I guess we know which operative makes it out of the jungle ...

Here we go again! The latest film to get put through the remake ringer: Das Experiment. But at least this incarnation is getting a pretty interesting cast. Variety reports that Adrien Brody, Forest Whitaker, Elijah Wood, and Cam Gigandet will star in The Experiment, Paul Scheuring's (Prison Break) take on the German psychological thriller.

For the uninitiated, Experiment focuses on a collection of ordinary guys who sign up for a research study. They must become a group of guards and prisoners to see what affects power and control can have on a man. Of course, those affects will be bad. Brody will be the de facto head of the prisoners, while Whitaker will play the guard who becomes corrupt with power. One can assume that the other two will fall in line on one of the two sides, although their roles aren't being shared at this time.

Man, I wonder if they'll get any pointers from Rider Strong? The Boy Meets World kid got all sick with power on Veronica Mars when Logan had to partake in this very experiment for class. But seriously -- with Brody and Whitaker at the front, this could be one sweetly dark flick. As for the Scheuring side, Prison Break never appealed to me so you wonderful readers will have to weigh in on that end. Filming begins in Iowa next month, so are you ready to tap into your darker, power-hungry side?

The Brothers Bloom is one of the best movies I've seen in quite a while. I actually dreamed that at one of the press days, instead of DVDs with assets they were giving out copies of the movie, and I was really disappointed when I woke up. Seriously.

It's being marketed as a globe-trotting con man movie, which is true, but it's also got some romantic comedy action going on, and it's very funny. Rachel Weisz's character Penelope is one of the coolest and most three-dimensional "quirky female" characters I've seen in so long. Rinko Kikuchi steals every scene she's in as Bang Bang, their explosions expert. It's why The Brothers Bloom ranked with Happy-Go-Lucky as one of my faves of last year. The costumes are stylish and cool, the locations are glamorous and romantic, and the script is smart and well written -- just what you'd expect from Rian Johnson, who wrote Brick. (Fortunately, I didn't need subtitles to get all the nuances of Johnson's script, as I did with Brick -- which is, by the way, totally worth it.)

Okay, so now that I've slobbered all over The Brothers Bloom, go watch the first seven minutes on Hulu, introduced by Rian Johnson. Voila! The rest of the film hits theaters on May 15.

When we here at Cinematical harp on about a particular movie, it's usually because it deserves the attention, whether or not it's a genuinely Great Movie. Every so often, several of us on the staff will share the same wavelength for a film and insists on flogging it through its release, and we do so because we care so, so very much. Now, I personally won't go on about The Brothers Bloom at as great a length as we have with, say, The Promotion or Dear Zachary...; earlier today, when a colleague asked me (in wording that doesn't quite merit repeating here) if I had an overwhelming affection for the film, I couldn't say it was any stronger than I felt for either of those films.

I should know why I'm supporting any film, though, and I do know that I would like to see Bloom fare well in the marketplace whenever it does open -- which is why I hope that Summit changes its release date just one last time.

This had been hush-hush for a mild while now, but it looks like Rian Johnson's The Brothers Bloom has been bumped back yet again to next May. Back in September, I had mentioned that the crime caper had moved from October to a NY/LA qualifying run next week and a wide release in January. The difference between that post and this one is that I was fortunate to see the film at Fantastic Fest a couple of months back, and it was good enough to make me equally anxious to just see the film again.

Writer-director Johnson confirmed the rumor on his message board, then joking that his own December birthday had been pushed back by Summit to May, when there are less of them to contend with. All kidding aside, Bloom is now scheduled to bow in limited release on May 15th -- opposite DaVinci Code sequel Angels & Demons and Borat follow-up Bruno -- and then wide on May 29th, up against Sam Raimi's return to horror Drag Me To Hell and Pixar's anticipated-by-default Up.

It's tough competition, to be sure, but believe me (and Eugene, and James) when we say that The Brothers Bloom will be well worth the wait.

Etta James blasts her way through a sad song, but it's not good enough. Leonard Chess taunts her and claims she's not "woman enough" for such a song. Didn't anyone ever walk out on her and leave her heartbroken? Take that and put it in the song, he suggests. She steps up for another take, and -- although she has tears in her eyes now -- it sounds pretty much the same. The main trouble with Cadillac Records is that no one took aside writer/director Darnell Martin with the same advice. Scene after scene, Cadillac Records is thin, flat and rote.

Like all biopics, the new film skims over years and years of history in a brief fling. All the moments are historical; they describe what happened, but not who they happened to. Sometime in the 1940s -- the movie is rarely very clear as to what year it is -- Leonard Chess (Adrien Brody) runs a junkyard and decides to get into "race music." He moves from a club to a record label and signs Muddy Waters (Jeffrey Wright), a blues guitarist straight off the plantation. There are a few nice, early scenes showing these two men touring together, sharing meals and getting the stink-eye from local rednecks, but the movie shies away from developing this friendship.

After getting the chance to run through the world of heists and intrigue in The Brothers Bloom (wonderfully, I might add), Adrien Brody is getting into the underworld delivery business. The Hollywood Reporter posts that Mr. Brody is going to be pursued by cops and crime bosses alike when he stars in a new action flick called The Courier.

As the story goes, Brody will play "a daredevil courier trying to deliver a briefcase to an underworld figure who can't be found." Is he a daredevil for the ways he delivers packages, or a daredevil for taking on work from crime bosses? That remains to be seen. But the writing duo of Michael Brandt and Derek Haas (who helped out on both the 3:10 to Yuma and Wanted scripts) have written the screenplay and Russell Mulcahy is directing.

This means teaming one of my favorite actors with the director of the only film I ever walked out of (Ricochet). Since I was only 14 at the time, I'm prepared to give Mulcahy another chance, although The Scorpion King 2 and Resident Evil: Extinction make me a little nervous. But if the director of Heathers can also helm Hudson Hawk, anything is possible.

I already like the sound of this one: After taking a puff alongside the school stoner, a high school valedictorian decides to get the whole student body stoned, enough so for them to collectively fail the same drug test he finds himself up against.

That's the thrust behind the new comedy High School, which looks to begin production in early November, and according to this Variety notice, Adrien Brody (The Brothers Bloom) has signed on to play a drug dealer, while Michael Chiklis (Eagle Eye) will take up the role of principal, a move that'll likely play to his stoic strengths. (Bruce Willis worked wonders with a similar part in the still unreleased Assassination of a High School President; a greater pity because it's a fairly fun little flick overall.)

There is only so much else left to say about the project. It'll be directed by John Stalberg Jr., who co-wrote the screenplay with Stephen Susco (of the Grudge films) and... that's really about it for now, though -- dare I suggest -- Stalberg and Susco still have time to throw the word 'Musical' into that title somewhere and simply wait for the money to roll in. Either way, it sounds like a shortage of green will be the least of their worries.

Cinematical is excited to bring you these brand new exclusive images from The Brothers Bloom (see gallery below), which will enjoy a premiere at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival this month. The film, which marks writer-director Rian Johnson's follow-up to the much-beloved Brick, stars Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo as "the best con men in the world" who, for their one last job, decide to take a beautiful and eccentric heiress (Rachel Weisz) on a trip around the world. The delightful Rinko Kikuchi (pictured in the gallery below) also stars. We here at Cinematical are big fans of Johnson's Brick (that kinda sounds weird, huh?), and have been looking forward to The Brothers Bloom for quite some time now. While those lucky ducks currently in Toronto will get to see the film early (we'll have our review soon), the rest of us will have to wait till it hits theaters on December 19.