bill nighy Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Tethered to reality by only a slender thread, Pirate Radio quickly cuts loose and floats off into its own imaginary layer of the Earth's atmosphere, where only good-hearted, pleasant-thinking, die-hard romantics can survive. Welcome home, Richard Curtis, where have you been?

Writer/director Curtis rose to fame on the basis of his screenplay for Four Weddings and a Funeral, featuring an ensemble of quirky yet appealing men and women chasing love and happiness, followed, notably, by his script for Notting Hill, but he's been writing off-kilter comedy sketches and episodic television for many years. Pirate Radio proves that his gift for writing witty one-liners and creating funny situations remains intact. His skills as a film director and shaper of material are a little more fuzzy and undefined, however.

As with Love, Actually, his previous directorial effort, Pirate Radio (AKA The Boat That Rocked) is filled with episodes that feel randomly assembled, knit together by proximity and happenstance more than narrative necessity. For all the laughter and positive feelings that Pirate Radio generates, it's a lightweight treatment of a potentially heavyweight subject.

A feature-length adaptation of the classic Japanese manga, Astro Boy now comes equipped with a recycling message, both in its story and with its screenplay. Parts feel pieced together here and there from other, better, sometimes darker films, aligning the film itself less with our young protagonist and his knack for salvaging old robots and more with the villain's ability to simply assimilate other devices until it becomes one ungainly mass. That said, there's plenty of color and spunk to keep the kids interested; they'll just have to wade through some atonal waters in order to get to the fun.

Neil Gaiman, the darling of comic book and fantasy fans everywhere, has been alluding to a short film project he's been working on on Twitter. Apparently, his fans aren't the only ones who can't resist snapping up his every project, because Variety is reporting the British TV channel has already picked up the short film as part of a "12 Days of Christmas" series.

Gaiman, who is very open to fan interaction and uses Twitter both effectively and charmingly, Tweeted in August, "Oh good. I have my star, who was my first (and only) choice. I have a costume designer. We agree about things. This is fun."

The dapper Bill Nighy is the star of Gaiman's short silent film which is "a love story involving two statues and Christmas shoppers." We can, no doubt, expect music from Gaiman's muse and collaborator Amanda Palmer for the soundtrack. it's so cool that he wrote a short silent movie screenplay, got it made, and sold it all in one summer. Such is the power of Neil.

The real question is, when does the rest of the world get to see it? Can we hope that Neil releases the film the same way he released videos of him reading The Graveyard Book to adoring audiences around the world?

So, fan girls and boys, let's hope this holiday season will bring another treat under the tree or Hanukkah bush from the prolific author behind Coraline (the book), American Gods, Stardust (the book), Anansi Boys, and of course, the graphic novel series Sandman. Along with that lump of coal you no doubt deserve.

Cinematical has just received this exclusive final poster for Astro Boy, set to fly into theaters on October 23rd. Based on the classic Japanese manga (and eventual television series), this spanky new colorful version of Astro Boy stars the voices of Freddy Highmore, Kristen Bell, Nicolas Cage, Bill Nighy and Nathan Lane -- and it follows a young robot with big-time super powers who ventures off on a journey in search of acceptance when he's doesn't quite meet the replacement son expectations of the scientist who created him. And it's on this journey that Astro Boy faces his toughest challenge yet: help save earth from an alien race threatening the planet.

From Todd Gilchrist's fantastic post, Astro Boy, Rebuilt and Reborn for the Silver Screen: "In modern computer animation there seems to be two standards – there's Pixar, and there's everybody else. But watching three clips from the film that were mostly finished, Astro Boy promised to have a style all its own – one that feels decidedly digital but is also elegant; one sequence in particular evoked the bustling cityscapes of the Star Wars planet Coruscant. But notwithstanding Astro Boy's familiar, cylindrical profile, the other robots who inhabit his world are intriguingly weird, operating less according to a semblance of scientific plausibility than the whim of their creators."

Check out the full-sized sparkling final poster below, and the latest trailer after the jump. Astro Boy hits theaters on October 23rd.

We live in a marvelous age, one where technological advancements have made it relatively easy to produce a film in which computer-generated guinea pigs interact seamlessly with flesh-and-blood humans. What's extraordinary is that a film can have all that and still be boring. Eighty years ago, people were delighted just to see movies talk. In 2009, you can watch animated rodents save the world and still think, "Meh. What else you got?"

G-Force is the subject, a harmless and good-natured family flick that unfortunately relies so much on its central conceit -- small animals have been trained as government spies!! -- that it forgets to do anything else. Take the animals out of the equation and you're left with an exceedingly generic secret-agent adventure -- which may be no surprise, given that the screenplay is by the husband-and-wife team of Cormac and Marianne Wibberley, who also wrote the National Treasure movies, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, and Bad Boys II. If anyone knows by-the-numbers action movies, it's those two. (The first-time director is Hoyt Yeatman, an Oscar-winning special-effects wizard with a long Hollywood résumé.)

The G-Force is a squad of three guinea pigs and a mole that have been fitted with devices that translate their squeakings into human speech, and then trained as spies by a low-level government scientist named Ben (Zach Galifianakis). Ben can also train insects to carry tiny cameras into small spaces, though it doesn't seem to be a matter of "training" them so much as just telling them what to do and they do it. Ben is almost literally the lord of the flies.

With his film due out in a couple of weeks, Harry Potter is beginning to make some waves. First up is an update on the Potter IMAX delay. Long story short, Half-Blood Prince won't be arriving on IMAX screens the same day the film hits conventional theaters because of a deal IMAX made with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen for an exclusive four-week run. However, three theaters will be getting Harry Potter in IMAX on opening day, July 15th, but if you don't live in New York, Los Angeles or Chicago, you're out of luck. Collider tells us those three theaters are as follows: Century City IMAX (Los Angeles), Henry Crown (Chicago), and AMC Loews Lincoln Square (NYC). The first 12 minutes of the movie have been converted to IMAX 3D, and so I'm sure it's worth the trip for those who live in the surrounding areas. Unfortunately, everyone else will have to wait another two weeks.

Read the rest over at SciFi Squad

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present for your consideration the first candidate for Best Actor for next year's Academy Awards. Michael Sheen gives a blistering, fierce, and romantic performance as the enslaved hero of Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, which opens in wide release today. It ain't art, but it is hellaciously entertaining.

No one is more surprised than me. The first film in the series, Underworld (2003) brought a centuries-long blood feud between vampires and lycans (AKA werewolves) to a head in the modern day. The sequel, Underworld: Evolution (2006), explored what might happen if the two feuding clans could somehow be brought together through the presence of a hybrid wolf / bat / human. Both movies were directed by Len Wiseman, both movies were stylish to the point of being mannered, both featured CGI werewolves * transformations, and both were defined by the heroics of the murderous Kate Beckinsale, memorably packed into a skintight, black leather bodysuit atop monstrous black boots.

Without Beckinsale and Wiseman, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans charts its own path, aided immeasurably by the return of Sheen and Bill Nighy. The two had supporting roles in the first film -- Sheen as the rebel werewolf leader Lucian, and Nighy as imperious vampire lord Viktor -- and have been elevated to top billing, joined by Rhona Mitra as Sonja, Viktor's willful, defiant daughter and Lucian's love interest.

As a whole, the picture lives up to the juicy lead performances, neatly leaping over.the stumbling blocks so common in prequels (and third installments in a series), and delivering generous amounts of fast-paced action and bloody battles to satisfy both faithful fans and curious newcomers.

Believe me, I struggled long and hard to come up with a catchy title like 'From Mars to Metro City' or something like that, but hey, sometimes a pun just isn't going to happen and it's best to move on. Variety reports that Kristen Bell has signed to voice the female lead in the feature film adaptation of Astro Boy. If you know your Astro Boy, you probably don't remember many female leads in the story, but hey, count your blessings if this is the only change in store for the classic manga tale.

Astro Boy was written by Timothy Harris, and is the story of a boy robot who is abandoned by his creator and left to fend for himself in the wilds of Metro City. The robotic Pinocchio tale had it all, absent father figures, betrayal, and robot gladiators, you know, just your usual kid's story. Bell will be joining Nicholas Cage, Freddie Highmore, Nathan Lane, and Bill Nighy in Imagi Studios 3-D update of the classic manga.

So while she may not be Harley Quinn (but I guess it doesn't hurt to fantasize), Bell has three other projects in various stages of production. Unfortunately, they seem to be the usual run of the mill romantic comedies that all young actresses seem to have to make at some point in their career. Bell will also be making a reappearance on TV's Heroes this season as the electrifying baddie, Elle Bishop. But none of these projects will get Bell fans hyped like the rumored Veronica Mars flick -- no matter how misguided that idea might be.

Astro Boy is scheduled to arrive in theaters in 2009.


[Thanks: Coming Soon]

Just when you thought Astro Boy was never going to make it to the big screen, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. We have received the official press release from Imagi Studios and Summit Entertainment (who are partnering for the flick) with the full cast for the anime update. Imagi finally found their lead in Freddie Highmore back in February and they have announced that joining Highmore in the cast are Nicolas Cage, Bill Nighy, Nathan Lane, and Eugene Levy. There is no word yet on which characters from the original series will be making an appearance, but I could definitely see Lane doing a respectable job as Hamegg.

Astro Boy is the story of a boy robot looking for love and acceptance after being abandoned by his creator. After a Pinocchio-like journey of servitude in a circus, Astro was whisked off to safety by the understanding Professor Ochanomizu. Of course, Astro also spent his time battling mad scientists and out of control robots in between bouts of abandonment issues.

So for starters, the newest photos from Valkyrie manage to make Tom Cruise look a lot more dashing. Good thing, too, because the only other photo release prompted a flurry of cheap shots aimed at everybody's favorite tabloid whipping boy. Empire now has three new studio stills from Bryan Singer's historical drama about the infamous July 20th plot to assassinate Hitler. Joining Cruise are Bill Nighy, Kenneth Branagh, Eddie Izzard and Terrence Stamp. There are also some extra shots in the newsstand edition of Empire this month, along with an interview with Singer.

Cruise stars as German Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. In 1944, Stauffenberg along with other high-ranking officers in the Nazi party attempted to assassinate Adolph Hitler. Stauffenberg and his crew attempted to kill Hitler with a bomb planted in a briefcase. Obviously they failed, and the key players were rounded up almost immediately. By 1945, most of the men involved had committed suicide or had been executed in a variety of nasty ways.