dj caruso Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Chris Pine Knows 'The Art of Making Money'
Filed under: Action », Drama », Thrillers », Casting », Deals », Paramount », DIY/Filmmaking »
His captain's chair on the Enterprise secure, Chris Pine has been eager to find roles in this time space continuum to help define him as something other than James T. Kirk. He nearly saw his first post-Trek feature Unstoppable go off the rails, but he's proving to be unstoppable himself as he has already lined up another project. Variety reports that Pine will be returning to Paramount for The Art of Making Money. D.J. Caruso is in talks to direct. (Will it be the start of another beautiful Caruso friendship like he enjoyed with Shia LaBeouf?)Money is based on a 2005 Rolling Stones article by Jason Kersten (which was then turned into a book) which followed the rise and fall of counterfeiter Art Williams. According to a nifty little bio by NPR, Williams grew up on the south side of Chicago, and turned to counterfeiting bills after being introduced to it by "a gentleman caller" of his mother's. After perfecting the very tricky $100 bill, he went on to produce more than $10 million dollars worth of counterfeit bills. But he wasn't all bad, as he and his girlfriend enjoyed donating many of the things purchased on buying sprees to thrift stores. Eventually Williams was caught and put in prison. He was released but found living legally too boring and cheap, so he promptly began manufacturing money again. Kersten said that "the great irony" of Williams' criminal career was that it proved he had the brains to run a Fortune 500 company if he could have just gone straight.
So, will Pine make a brilliant counterfeiter who enjoys playing Robin Hood from time to time? Will The Art of Making Money be the first of the hard hitting dramas Pine becomes known for, his Captain Kirk just an intriguing note on his resume? We shall see.
Could Great Video Games Finally Get Great Movies?
Filed under: Action », Horror », Thrillers », Deals », Fandom », Comic/Superhero/Geek », Games and Game Movies »
There are plenty of fun, or at least serviceable, video games based on movies, and there have been plenty of abominable ones as well. I've paid cash money to see freaky skinless zombie dogs in Resident Evil and Resident Evil: Apocalypse, and Lara Croft swing from the ceiling in at least one of the Tomb Raider movies. I've wisely avoided the Uwe Boll poopfests, especially Postal, an adaptation of a game that was a cheaply made piece of crap when I first played it in, oh, the early '00s. Let's not even discuss the Mortal Kombat movies or the Super Mario Bros. movie that Harold Ramis wisely passed on. There are just so many mediocre games that have gotten way too much screen time.But perhaps the cinema will begin to shine for us video game/film nerds. (Not too brightly, though -- it's dark in here with all the monitors!) There are plenty of excellent games out there, and even if they don't all quite make it to the big screen, recent developments have got me hopeful that really cool directors are sitting up and taking notice.
Shia LaBeouf Still Wants to Be 'Y: The Last Man'
Filed under: Sci-Fi & Fantasy », Thrillers », Casting », RumorMonger », Celebrities and Controversy », Scripts », Newsstand », Comic/Superhero/Geek »
I spoke too soon. We all did. After the heartening news that Shia LaBeouf wasn't interested in being the last man on earth (to which every other guy on the planet yelled "Fool!!"), he's hastily amended his brush-off to Collider. While he still feels the part of Yorick is too "Sam Witwicky" and stresses that he wants to do something that's "foreign," he's still very interested in Y: The Last Man. He just wants to wait a few years, and he'll have the time to get the Witwicky out of his system.
"I love Y! Y is my favorite comic book ... Brian K. Vaughn, Neil Gaiman, the guys who write the Criminal series, these are all my favorite, this is my favorite stuff to read. It's the stuff that I love. Y: The Last Man is my favorite comic book. It's also DJ Caruso's favorite comic book. We DO want to make it ... Absolutely, man! In fact, that's what's going on right now. Vaughn and Ellsworth and DJ are writing the script now. The script is not ready to be shot. DJ is making a different movie right now. He's making Jack and the Beanstalk. There's just other things going on with DJ and I wouldn't want to make the movie with anybody else because he loves it like I do. But I don't think Vaughn is trying to give it to anybody else. I think that it is something that's very realistic, it's just not in the pipe for the next year."
Well, I'm pleased that he's a fan of the series and who knows? Maybe a few years will see me warm up to him, and be delighted that he was the first pick for the last man.
SXSW Review: Disturbia
Filed under: Thrillers », SXSW », Paramount », Theatrical Reviews », Dreamworks »
Slickly shot, generally well-acted, and entirely, predictably conventional from stem to stern is the new teen-friendly urban thriller Disturbia. It's the lamest movie of D.J. Caruso's directorial career, and it also stands to become his most profitable. (OK, Caruso's Taking Lives is equally forgettable, but I'm a big fan of The Salton Sea, plus I found Two for the Money to be more entertaining than most folks did.) Painfully "inspired" by flicks like Rear Window, Body Double, or any other thriller in which window-to-window voyeurism plays an important role, Disturbia delivers an entirely generic story, packs a strong lead performance by Shia LaBeaouf, and will vanish from your memory banks in less time than it took to buy the tickets. Even if you love the flick (which is highly unlikely), it'll still be forgotten in very short order.
The plot, quite literally, could not be simpler: A teenage boy under house arrest believes that his neighbor is a serial killer ... and nobody believes him. Skeptical Mom, Annoyed Cop, Goofy Best Friend, and Brand-New Hottie Next-Door all bounce around the periphery as Wolf-Crying Boy waits for The Nefarious Neighbor to do something nasty. And since that neighbor is played by the always-menacing David Morse, there's not much question as to his character's true intentions. (Casting directors generally don't go with David Morse when they're looking for someone to play "wrongfully accused.") It's all very rote and predictable and familiar, and by "all" I'm also including an atrocious third act that shoots for chills and delivers only muffled yawns.
EXCLUSIVE: SXSW Adds Reign, Blunt, LaBeouf, Britton
Filed under: Independent », SXSW », Cinematical Indie »
With the South by Southwest Film Festival only a short ten days away, you'd think the programmers would be taking it easy. Wrong-o. Nobody rests on their laurels down in Austin, which explains why the SXSW crew keeps adding new movies, panelists and special guests! Here's the most-recent (although probably not final) batch of late additions:Pop star James Blunt will attend the world premiere of James Blunt: Return to Kosovo, so be sure to bring those autograph books, ladies!
Director D.J. Caruso and "hot young" actor Shia LaBeouf will be in attendance for the world premiere of their Disturbia thriller, and will probably be talked into a post-movie Q & A session.
Actress Connie Britton and director Sarah Kelly will be here to introduce their cool-looking '80s-centric movie The Lather Effect, which also stars Tate Donovan, Eric Stoltz, Ione Skye, Peter Facinelli and Monica Keena.
Producer Elizabeth Avellan will stop by for a panel discussion on March 14th, and considering she's worked on movies like Sin City, Spy Kids and Grindhouse ... I just might have to stop by and have a listen.
Reign Over Me, a flick that sure looks like a true-blue "tearjerker for guys," will have its world premiere at SXSW on Wednesday, March 14. Written and directed by Mike Binder (The Upside of Anger), it stars Don Cheadle and Adam Sandler as former college roommates whose lives took off in decidedly ... different directions. (UPDATE: Both Cheadle and Sandler will be in attendance at this screening.)
More SXSW updates as they become available. And get ready for some serious wall-to-wall coverage of America's finest flm festival once March 9 hits the calendar.
I Didn't Find This Trailer All That Disturbiaing
Filed under: Thrillers », Paramount », Dreamworks »
Take a big splash of Rear Window, a tiny pinch of Fright Night and ... a guy stuck in his home thanks to a house arrest anklet ... and you've got Disturbia, an impending thriller that MIGHT have been half-decent if the brand-new trailer didn't give away all the good stuff.Shia LaBeouf stars as a young man sentenced to three months of house arrest, so he does what any normal guy would do. No, not movies or books or Xbox ... he starts spying on the whole neighborhood! And since one of the guy's neighbors is played by David Morse, you just know there's going to be a big dose of no-goodness goin' down in suburbia.
The liberally borrowed plot structure and spoiler-happy trailer aside, I can still admit a small sense of anticipation for this movie. I've always been a big David Morse fan, plus Carrie-Anne Moss is also part of the equation. Moreover, the director is D.J. Caruso, whose last three movies were Two for the Money, Taking Lives and The Salton Sea -- two of which I enjoyed quite a bit. (The goofily-titled Disturbia opens on April 13.)
Jeremy Renner Wants To Be An Avenger
Directors We Love: Jim Jarmusch
Indie Roundup: 'Sweetgrass,' 'Clarkworld,' 'Broken Embraces'
Shelf Life: Fight Club_thumbnail.jpg)
Watch: Famous 'Matrix' Scene Re-Created with LEGOs
_thumbnail.jpg)
