Granted, Daniel Craig has already made sure that he won't be playing James Bond for the rest of his career; but that hasn't stopped him from signing up for a variety of parts that are as far as you can get from the suave super spy. Paramount Vantage has just released the trailer for the WWII drama, Defiance. The film is the latest from 'bleeding-heart' action director Ed Zwick, whose last feature, Blood Diamond, managed to snag the director an Oscar nomination. Judging by the orchestral swell in this trailer and tag lines like "from desperation comes defiance," it would seem like he might be angling for another nomination this year.

Defiance is based on the true story of three Jewish brothers who escaped Nazi-occupied Poland to join up with the Russian resistance in the forests of Belarus. Zwick's screenplay is based on Nechama Tec's book Defiance: The Bielski Partisans. Tuvia, Zusia, and Asael Bielski established a large partisan camp in the forests of Belarus during World War II and ultimately helped to save the lives of over 1,200 Jews. Craig will play Tuvia Bielski and he is joined by Liev Schreiber and Jamie Bell as Zusia and Asael.

Despite my lack of love for some of Zwick's previous work, I'll admit that so far this one looks pretty good. Although to be fair, it might have a lot to do with the talents of Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber rather than Zwick's skill behind the camera. Defiance has yet to find a release date, but is expected to arrive sometime in '08.

[via ComingSoon.net]

With its concentration on the music industry, it's easy to forget that the Grammys have a few movie-related categories. They include best compilation soundtrack album, best score soundtrack album and best song written for motion picture, television or other visual media. One thing that's always odd with the Grammys, though, is how many nominees are so old. Take a look at the score/composer nominees, for example: Babel (Gustavo Santaolalla); Blood Diamond (James Newton Howard); The Departed (Howard Shore); Happy Feet (John Powell); Pan's Labyrinth (Javier Navarrete); Ratatouille (Michael Giacchino). Only the last of those films came out in 2007. But the eligibility period for the Grammys is always October of the previous year until the end of September of the current year. All but Ratatouille's soundtrack were released in October, November and December of 2006. Since the Grammy ceremony is only a couple weeks prior to the Oscars, the ancient films honored are easily seen as that much more old news (Babel won the 2007 Academy Award for score).

Happy Feet was also recognized in the best song category, for "The Song of My Heart" by Prince (who already has the best soundtrack of all time), despite its not having received an Oscar nomination. Same goes for one of its competitors, Casino Royale theme song "You Know My Name", co-written (with David Arnold) and performed by Chris Cornell. Dreamgirls' "Love You I Do", written by Siedah Garrett and Henry Krieger (performed by Jennifer Hudson) is the only overlap from last February's Oscar nominees (it lost to Melissa Etheridge's "I Need to Wake Up" from An Inconvenient Truth). The other recognized tracks, both from 2007 releases, are Eddie Vedder's "Guaranteed" from Into the Wild and Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová's duet "Falling Slowly" from Once.

Once is also a contender for best compilation soundtrack, though it faces a huge challenger in The Beatles, who are recognized for the album for the Cirque du Soleil show Love (how does that fall into this category and not the one for musical show album?) and indirectly for the soundtrack to the movie Across the Universe, which features covers of the band's tunes performed by the movie's cast. Other soundtrack nominees are retro musicals Dreamgirls and Hairspray. Sorry, fans of High School Musical 2.

I stood where James Dean stood before he got "stuck" in Rebel Without a Cause. I know that it's been many years since his feet were there but just the idea is still exciting. I also turned into a huge geek after seeing Casino Royale at the famous Grumman's Chinese Theatre when I stuck my hands in Sid Caesar's. That's the fun part of living in Los Angeles; nearly everywhere has been used as a location for a film. It makes the city potent with history and lore and I simply love it. But more and more filming is done outside of California (Vancouver may be the new Hollywood) and this past year outside the United States.

This year filming in Europe and Africa was bountiful. Marie Antoinette and The Da Vinci Code were two that rolled camera in France and Catch a Fire and Blood Diamond are two out of many that were filmed in Africa. The Hollywood Reporter attributes it to filmmakers' rising interest in creating more complex films about the difficulties existing in our world (globalization for one) as well as tax incentives that are stealing filming from California.

It also is incredibly fun for everyone involved in the production to travel to new places. I wouldn't mind going to France, Africa or Vancouver -- especially if it were to make a film. But I wonder if all this traveling to the real Champs Élysées is making the sound stages at the Universal Studios back lots really dusty. ...

What if you could make your own film presenting your take on the Harry Potter character (someone in Georgia might be interested) or your opinion of what should have happened in X-Men: The Last Stand (comic book geeks everywhere wish they could)? Unfortunately, most fictional films involve intellectual properties and copyrights and other things that (legally) cannot be messed with by just anyone.

The same isn't true for documentaries, which tend to present facts or deal with truth, concepts that people don't regularly own or control. These facts and truths are often debatable, though, and can be argued or debunked via other documentary films. Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 was answered with Alan Peterson's Fahrenhype 9/11. Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me led to both Bowling for Morgan and Me and Mickey D. Robert Greenwald's Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price was responded to with Ron Galloway's Why Wal-Mart Works: And Why that Drives Some People C-r-a-z-y.

The latest rebuttal doc is aimed at Al Gore's claims in An Inconvenient Truth. Steven Hayward has begun work on An Inconvenient Truth ... Or Convenient Fiction?, a documentary that will be formatted in the same way as Davis Guggenheim's award-winning doc on global warming. Hayward, like Gore, will present his own thoughts on the issue through a similar lecture and slide show. But he isn't going to disagree with global warming altogether, just specific points that Gore supposedly got wrong.

There are plenty of reasons to dislike Blood Diamond -- it's over-long, over-earnest, and over-hyped, just for starters. But Blood Diamond is handsomely made; it features at least one interesting performance; it is actually trying to be about something. In an end-of-year film season crammed with pious nonsense like The Pursuit of Happyness and insane vanity projects like Rocky Balboa, that's enough to reveal it as, well, something like a diamond -- multifaceted, rough and all the more brilliant viewed against its contrasting background. And, of course, like a diamond, it has no real value beyond what the viewer is willing to ascribe to it.

Directed by Edward Zwick (Glory, The Last Samurai), Blood Diamond takes place in civil-war torn Sierra Leone. A fisherman, Solomon (Djimon Hounsou) wants the simple things -- peace, order, a better life for his son. He's not going to get them. Rebel forces tear through the village -- killing many, mutilating some and pressing others into service as diamond miners. This is Solomon's fate, although he's soon rescued and taken to jail. Sierra Leone's rebels finance their attacks on the government through selling diamonds; the jewelry industry doesn't want to have a potential customer ready to punk down the recommended three month's salary turned off by the ugly political realities of Sierra Leone -- crimson blood clashes with wedding white -- so most of Sierra Leone's diamonds are smuggled into neighboring Liberia; this is where Rhodesian-born, South African-bred smuggler Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio) comes in.

Holy crap, I can't wait to share with you the brand spanking new trailer for Die Hard 4 (aka Live Free or Die Hard) but, unfortunately, you'll have to wait until this weekend. Hopefully. Argh, don't you hate those misleading titles -- now you've been sucked into the post, and therefore must continue reading. Must. Continue. Reading. I do, however, have some info regarding where you will find the new trailer, as JoBlo tells us it will run before select prints of Blood Diamond -- just one more reason to shell out the dollar for Leonardo DiCaprio, eh?

And when we say "select prints," we mean 35MM prints -- Pathfinder will be playing before digital prints. So, if you're heading to the theater just to see the Die Hard 4 trailer (they're still filming, so I wouldn't expect much more than one or two shots mixed with scenes from the previous installments), you best do some research beforehand. Otherwise, you can hang around Cinematical this weekend, as I'm sure it will pop up online soon. Live Free or Die Hard opens in theaters this June 29.

In other trailer news (because I feel bad about misleading you with that title), a brand new trailer for Zack Snyder's 300 will be arriving online this Friday, courtesy of Warner Bros. The same trailer will be playing before Apocalypto when it hits theaters this weekend. For those who haven't yet had the chance to check out 300's current trailer, you simply must take a look -- it's that awesome. This puppy arrives in our laps on March 9.

UPDATE: The new trailer is now online -- check it out!

While browsing around online this morning searching for a good poll topic, I happened upon The Movie Blog where our buddy John was pondering (when is he not pondering?) the decline of Denzel Washington's career. Sure, Deja Vu opened third this weekend with a respectable $20 million, but there was a time when it was all about Denzel -- you couldn't mention the words 'black actor' without his name coming up, while women everywhere fantasized about Denzel sweeping them off their feet. However, and John points to this as his possible downfall, ever since the man took home a Best Actor Oscar for Training Day, his star power has slowly faded and, now, his appearance in a film does not guarantee it a number one slot at the box office. That's not to say his acting has gotten worse -- in fact, he's one of the only actors who consistently makes good films. But something is missing. Denzel is no longer Denzel.

Personally, I feel we're at an interesting time right now, and those huge, A-list box office champs are slowly fading from power. In its fourth week, Babel has only grossed $12 million, despite the fact that Brad Pitt is in it. Granted, it's only played in over one thousand theaters for two of those four weeks, but that's still a low figure for such a big name. They're offering Will Ferrell $29 million to do Elf 2, but Stranger Than Fiction tanked in theaters (only $22 million). Pretty soon George Clooney will find his way back onto the big screen in The Good German, though there's a pretty good chance that film won't do too well either. And what about Blood Diamond -- will Leo DiCaprio attract a decent audience for that pic? Probably ... not. So, is it that these men are still popular, but only when surrounded by three or four other supposed A-listers? Have we gotten so used to ensemble pieces (Ocean's Franchise, The Departed), that one man just can't carry a film anymore? Or, are our favorite hot shots on their way out?

So, I ask you: Does the power of an A-List actor still exist? Or, does it only exist when it's surrounded by two or three other A-list actors?

Warner Bros. announced that it has moved the release date for Blood Diamond up one week to December 8, instead of sticking with its original release of December 15. According to Dan Fellman, President of Domestic Distribution, the move was made simply because the film is already generating good buzz and the studio wants to give you folks Academy and guild members more time to see it before Oscar starts tapping on everyone's shoulder.

Seems plausible, right? Well, Fellman is wrong in one area -- Blood Diamond has not been generating good buzz as of late. It's not so much the film as it is the studio's so-called marketing strategies. See, some of you might not be aware of this, but producers grabbed 27 teenage and child amputees out of South African hospitals and asked them to be extras in the flick. In return, they were promised a small salary and brand new prosthetic limbs. However, more than three months later and no one has received anything. Some feel Warners was holding out until the film was released before handing over the prosthetic limbs in order to use it as a way to promote their product. As you can imagine, this has caused quite a stir and Warner Bros. insists the new limbs are on their way. It does make you wonder though, did they push up the film's release date because of the good buzz or the bad buzz?

If you've ever taken a stroll through New York's financial district, there's a good chance you've spotted at least one shoeshine stand set up. While I've never taken the time to stop in to get my shoes polished up, they seem to be pretty popular with the suits. And I'm sure, as these suits sit on their high chair and wait for the shine to end, they bark all kinds of juicy insanity into their cell phone. No worries -- I mean, who's listening anyway? The shoeshine guy?

Well, Warner Bros. has tapped Charles Leavitt (Blood Diamond) to adapt Confessions of a Wall Street Shoeshine Boy, an unpublished novel written by Vanity Fair editor Doug Stumpf. Story revolves around a reporter who gets in tight with a shoeshiner in order to expose a whole lot of corruption taking place within a Wall Street firm. While it doesn't appear to be based on a true story, I'm sure this sort of thing happens all the time and it's always the person you least suspect. Oh, and for those who think the plot seems boring, they're calling this one a "legal thriller," which means someone will wind up dead in one of them groovy-looking corporate bathrooms.