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It seems like an eternity since I first saw Snow Cake, starring Alan Rickman and Sigourney Weaver, at the Seattle International Film Festival in 2006. Finally, the film is actually opening. The film played heavily on the film fest ciricuit last year, opening at Berlin, then hitting a few more international fests before wending its way across the Atlantic to Tribeca, then meandering along to Seattle, Shanghai, Edinburgh and Toronto.

The film stars Rickman (who, I'm starting to think, couldn't turn in a bad performance if he tried) as Alex Hughes, a sullen man with a mysterious past who meets Vivienne (Emily Hampshire), a young hitchhiker, at a truck stop diner, and surprises himself by agreeing to give her a ride to Wawa, Ontario, where she's heading to visit her mother. A tragic car crash kills Vivienne just as they're starting out, leaving the traumatized Alan to deliver the news of her daughter's death to her mother, Linda ( Weaver). As it turns out, Linda is autistic, and doesn't handle the news of Vivienne's death quite the way Alex expected, and he ends up being drawn inexorably into Linda's life. Carrie-Ann Moss has a nice turn as the sexy next door neighbor.

As an enormous fan of both Tim Burton and musicals, I can't wait for Sweeney Todd. Coming to theaters this holiday season, Todd is an adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's musical thriller about "the demon barber of Fleet Street." Aside from Burton's involvement, the most exciting aspect about this movie is the cast. Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Alan Rickman are just a few of the names attached, and Dreamworks has confirmed that "All the stars will do their own singing from Stephen Sondheim's music and lyrics." When I reported on the film a few months ago, I mentioned that Burton regular Christopher Lee was a part of the cast. He was to play a "Gentleman Ghost," a character not in the original show. Sad news -- the "Gentleman Ghost" has now been cut from the film, along with several other characters.

The worst part is that the scenes were cut before reaching the shooting stage, so all of the Lee fans won't get to enjoy them on a future DVD release. Says Lee, "It would have been worse if I had done the scenes, but I never got to film them. It's a shame as the lyrics were wonderful, but these things happen." This would have marked Lee's fourth collaboration with Burton -- the others being Sleepy Hollow, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Corpse Bride. Todd tells the story of "a wrongfully imprisoned barber in Victorian England who sets out to seek revenge on the judge who imprisoned him." "I've always wanted to do a musical and Sweeney Todd is my favorite," says Burton. "Stephen's blend of humor, horror and emotion is something that has always connected with me." Sondheim shares the admiration, saying "I'm excited as well as confident that it will be a first-rate and startling movie." Sweeney Todd will get a limited release on December 21st, presumably for Oscar consideration. It goes wide on January 11th, 2008.

Despite rumors about delays, Dreamworks has given Sweeney Todd an official release date of December 21st, 2007. And really, what better time than Christmas for a story of grisly murders, revenge, and meat pies? Sometimes a release date is just a release date, but when a film with this pedigree is placed into theaters at that time of year, odds are it's angling for some little gold statues. Here's hoping it warrants them! The film stars Johnny Depp, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Laura Michelle Kelly, Christopher Lee, Timothy Spall, and Anthony Stewart Head of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame. John Logan (Gladiator, The Aviator) is adapting Stephen Sondheim's beloved "musical thriller" for the big screen.

The story of Sweeney Todd has been filmed many times before, the most well-known probably being a 1982 televised version of the stage play, starring Angela Lansbury. I saw the most recent stage revival of the show on Broadway, and was pretty impressed. I'm eager to see Burton's take on it. Sweeney Todd is an extremely icky, pitch-black affair, and I couldn't imagine a better pairing of director with material. The show's blend of dark humor and grisly thrills fits squarely into Burton's Sleepy Hollow wheelhouse. Sweeney marks the sixth time Depp and Burton have worked together. Their collaborations have brought us three truly excellent films: Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, and Sleepy Hollow, as well as the pretty cool Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Corpse Bride, for which Depp provided a voice. I can't wait to see where this new one ranks. I don't know about you, but hearing Borat, Donnie Brasco, and Hans Gruber sing sounds like a pretty sweet Christmas present to me.

Oh, and if you want to see what Mr. Depp will look like as "the demon barber of fleet street," head here. Looks like he's got kind of a Cruella DeVille thing going on with the hair.

More people have signed on to star in more movies. Check it out:

• Even though Idlewild wasn't received as warmly as he would have liked, that's not stopping Outkast's André Benjamin from seeking out additional material. The actor-musician is in final negotiations to star alongside Will Ferrell and Woody Harrelson in Semi-Pro -- ya know, the Ferrell basketball flick we've mentioned before. Benjamin would join Harrelson as a player on the fictional ABA team (Flint, Michigan Tropics) that Ferrell coaches. How will this one stack up against Ferrell's other sports-related comedies? Well, Jon Heder isn't it -- so it's definitely got that going for it.
• So I'm kind of digging the cast of Sweeney Todd so far, what with Johnny Depp, Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter already attached to star. Though I missed the staged musical version when it was on Broadway, the premise seems tasty enough -- and I'm certainly looking forward to Tim Burton's take on the movie-musical genre. Add to that the recent signing of Alan Rickman (who is set to play Judge Turpin, the man responsible for throwing Todd in prison causing him to lose his family and return for revenge) and we may have a gem in the making. Rickman is always great as the villain -- in my opinion, I wouldn't mind watching him star as the bad guy in every film. Can we make that happen? Please?
• What's up with this film Finding Amanda? Matthew Broderick plays an alcoholic gambler who's also a television producer, and he must travel to Las Vegas in order to convince his niece, a stripper-hooker, to go into rehab? Are they serious? It's like Leaving Las Vegas, only with Ferris Bueller. Needless to say, the filmmakers have finally found their Amanda -- and it's not Evan Rachel Wood, as previously reported. Brittany Snow (John Tucker Must Die) has, instead, decided to take on the role. And you know what rhymes with 'snow,' right? Pic begins shooting early next month in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

Fur: An Imaginary Portrait Diane Arbus opens today in limited release, and I have to wonder how many people have even heard of it. I hadn't really planned on seeing Fur at Telluride; at least, it wasn't on my radar as a "must see" film. Then I heard so many people buzzing about it, I decided to add it to my schedule at the last minute. It was one of those polarizing films with very little middle ground: People were either very Pro-Fur or very Anti-Fur -- so I had to see it. About a third of the way into the film, I was thinking to myself, "This film is not going to play well to mainstream movie audiences, but I love it." Then again, I'm the sort of filmgoer who actually likes weird. I enjoy having my expectations turned on their ear, and Fur definitely does that.

Another upcoming artsy film that leans sharply toward the bizarre is Perfume: Story of a Murderer. I caught a screening of Perfume, helmed by Run, Lola, Run director Tom Tykwer, the other night. Perfume opens in limited release at the end of December, with a wider release slated for January. Like Fur, Perfume is a dark, almost hallucinatory film with the air of a fable about it. I thought when I saw Fur that I'd seen the most curious film I was likely to see all year; Perfume managed to surpass it -- in a really good way.

In a recent interview with IESB, Fox chairman Tom Rothman had a few things to say about some very big upcoming films. I'm talking Eragon, Wolverine, Magneto, Fantastic Four 2 and the main focus of this week's Poll, Live Free or Die Hard (aka Die Hard 4). Last week, Justin Long was officially announced as John McClane's (Bruce Willis) newest sidekick in the fourth installment -- a computer hacker brought on to assist McClane in tracking down and defeating a group of cyber terrorists.

However, while production has already begun (check out these brand new set pics), we still don't know who will play the main villain. In my opinion, the Die Hard films are defined by their baddie, with Alan Rickman by far my personal favorite thus far (Jeremy Irons was okay in Vengeance -- a little bland for my taste, but still pretty decent). In the interview, Rothman admits casting for the franchise's next bad guy is just about done, with an announcement expected within a week or two. He notes the actor in question is American and says, "... it's a very cool piece of casting. Very cool and contemporary." Great, now I'm just dying to know who it is. Cool? Contemporary? American? You think it's a woman? An alien? Freddy Prinze Jr.?

So, I ask you: If you had final say, who would square off against John McClane? And, based on the info Rothman gives us, who do you think they're targeting?

I posted several months ago about the first, tension-filled teaser for Tom Tykwer's Perfume. For those of you who, understandably, haven't been following along, the movie is based on a German novel (For what it's worth, it's been "hailed as one of the most influential works of German literature in the past two decades" -- are you suitably impressed?) about a guy with the earth's best sense of smell but also, sadly, no personal aroma whatsoever. Ah, irony. He becomes obsessed with bottling the scent of a virgin and, while it's unclear whether he's got a specific virgin in his sights or is after a more general smell, the trailer makes it clear that some of the ladies don't live through the extraction process. (Of course, given that the novel's full title is Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, the deaths aren't exactly shocking.)

Though the movie doesn't come out in Germany until September, the first full trailer has emerged and, despite the fact that I understand not one word (it's in German, you see), it retains the eerie intensity of that early teaser, and does nothing to reduce my (fearful) eagerness to see the film. There's a lot more to see here than in the teaser -- we get a greater sense of the supporting characters (including Dustin Hoffman, who I think plays a non-violent perfumer, and Alan Rickman, who seems to be involved with one of the unlucky ladies, and looks very funny in a period wig), as well as further confirmation that the movie is going to be creepy as hell (was that a girl in a life-sized test tube?).

Perfume comes out in the US in December.

[via AICN]

According to Production Weekly, the great Alan Rickman will star alongside Kristin Scott Thomas in a screen adaptation of Piers Paul Read's psychological drama, The Villa Golitsyn. The novel sounds incredibly complex and warped, which is just the sort of thing you might expect from director Peter Medak on his best days (The Krays being the shining example of those times). Apparently Rickman's character, Willy Ludley (Yikes. Is any man on earth less fitted to the name "Willy" than Rickman?) is drinking himself to death with his lovely wife (Priscilla, played by Thomas) by his side. He also might be some sort of war criminal, which is what old pal Simon (not yet cast) has come to find out. The three are joint in the Ludleys' French villa by an assortment of other characters, "and as events lead to a startling and incredible revelation, there is nothing that any of them can do to avert the awaiting tragedy." Great, yet another book I'm going to buy because of this job.

The movie will have a two-month shoot this summer, starting in June, and will hopefully show up in theaters on this side of the ocean sometime in early 2007.

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It could mean a number of things, right? Perhaps you're stuck in the middle of the woods and people around you are disappearing, while horrifying visions follow your every move. Congrats, you've just lost your sh*t. Oh, or maybe you were accidentally flushed down the toilet and wound up trying to survive in a sewer system. Okay, maybe in that situation, your sh*t would follow you down. But upon arrival, I'm sure you would lose it.

While the term may mean different things to different people, the character's in the following films, at one point or another, probably felt as if they had lost their sh*t. Personally, when I see someone separate a curse word with a *, it often causes me to lose my own sh*t. So, in theory, I've just pissed myself off while writing this post. Hmm, maybe I'll simply blame the FCC.  Welcome to this week's Trailer Park....

We haven't heard much about Tom Tykwer's Perfume: The Story of a Murderer since the cast was announced last March. Starring Dustin Hoffman, Alan Rickman, and Ben Whishaw, the film is an adaptation of a German novel of the same name that has been "hailed as one of the most influential works of German literature in the past two decades." The novel tells the unendingly bizarre story of an 18th century man (Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, played by Whishaw) who has remarkably sensitive sense of smell but lacks any discernible personal scent. His career as a perfume artist "take a dark turn" when he becomes obsessed with bottling the scent of "a young virgin." I don't want to spoil anything here, but what with the title and everything, I'm a little worried about the virgin's lifespan.

Out of nowhere, a German teaser for the film has emerged, and it's creepy as hell. Something about the way she pauses before screaming makes it much, much scarier than the normal shrieking any woman would do when she finds she's being sniffed by a random guy she didn't even know was there. Yikes.

The movie opens in Germany in September and in other European territories in the late fall and early winter. There is currently no US distributor.

[via AICN]