I've been hankering for a good crime flick with a women in the lead for a long time (I can't be the only one who thinks that Catherine Zeta Jones' pregnant drug runner deserved way more screen time in Traffic). But, in the grand tradition of most crime movies, women are relegated to the sidelines as either 'the downfall of the anti-hero', or, 'sexy punching bag' -- neither of which is very flattering, but hopefully that will change with Queen of the South. Variety reports that Eva Mendes has signed to star in the big screen adaptation of Arturo Perez Reverte's crime novel, La reina del sur (Queen of the South).

The story is being touted as a "female Scarface," and centers on a woman who flees to Spain when her drug-dealing boyfriend is murdered. Once she arrives, she starts her own narcotics operation to finance revenge against her lover's murderers -- and quickly becomes top dog. Joining Mendes in the cast are Josh Hartnett and Ben Kingsley in as-yet unnamed roles.

News of the flick first surfaced last year, with Mendes, Jennifer Lopez, and Penelope Cruz on the short list for the role, but in the end Mendes won out. Personally I would have liked to see Lopez take on the role (it's been too long since we had the chance to see her be a bad ass), but I guess in a pinch Mendes will do.

Do you think Warners made the right choice with Mendes? Or is there anyone else out there who would have liked to watch Lopez 'tussle' just one more time?

Upon first hearing Josh Hartnett mention his starring role in the fantasy action flick Bunraku, I had a hard time believing the film was ever going to happen. It's not every day a movie has paper mache puppets, origami, comic books, video games AND German expressionism. Plus, Hartnett was comparing the look of the film to everything from Hitchcock to Michel Gondry. To be honest, the whole thing sounded like a mess. But, I guess it was all sorted out because The Hollywood Reporter announced that Demi Moore has just signed to star in the role of a captive courtesan to an evil warlord.

Guy Moshe (who also wrote the script) will direct the story of a lone drifter (Hartnett) who blows into town with revenge on his mind, but is soon faced with even bigger problems than he started with. Woody Harrelson also signed to play 'The Bartender' (in a bar where everyone knows your name?) and Japanese actor Shun Sugata (Kill Bill) has been cast in the role of 'Uncle'.

Have you ever liked an actor that no one else seems to like? You almost want to keep your adoration to yourself, for fear that you'll be laughed out of a party or a gathering when you say how much you like Josh Hartnett. I actually do like Josh Hartnett, quite a lot. For a pretty boy, he has a very warm screen personality, and though he can appear perfectly comfortable playing a boxer or a cop, he also has a wonderful sense of humor. In short, he's not a brooder or a poser like most of his other pretty boy contemporaries. And yes, he was in Pearl Harbor, but he made up for that with excellent performances in The Virgin Suicides, O, 40 Days and 40 Nights, Hollywood Homicide and The Black Dahlia. Incidentally, these are all under-appreciated or misunderstood movies, just like Josh himself.

There. I've gone on record. Looking down the list of movies currently playing on 400 screens or less, I came up with several other actors I like that have not really received the love they deserve. First up, we have Amy Adams, who I just caught in the new Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. As far as I'm concerned, Amy walks on water. She's like a Carole Lombard for the 21st century. That means that she's not particularly suited for low-key "realistic" roles, such as the one she plays in Charlie Wilson's War (97 screens); in that, she basically trails Tom Hanks and occasionally reads some complicated dialogue to him. (I thought Mike Nichols was supposed to be good with actors.) But in Enchanted (329 screens), Amy is perfectly cast as a slightly cartoonish, screwball kook. She can move her eyes and her entire body in very precise ways for outlandish results, but she still retains a strain of humanity; she never spirals off into anything untouchable or unknowable. I thought she deserved an Oscar nomination for this one, but I'm afraid she'll need to put on a lot of "ugly" makeup before she wins anything.

I'm all for actors who try and break out of a preconceived idea about themselves, but sometimes I think there are those who take it all just a little too seriously. Enter Josh Hartnett. In an interview with VH1, Hartnett spoke up his next film Bunraku. The name comes from a traditional form of Japanese puppet theater, and Hartnett told VH1 that the film, "It's a story of revenge...My character is called 'The Drifter,' and he comes into this world that doesn't look like anything like you've ever seen before. It's in the vein of 'Sin City' or something like that, where the world doesn't look like reality at all." So I guess that is where the paper mâché puppets would come in. Luckily this is not a kids movie, and Hartnett told VH1, "[The script] has a lot of fight sequences in it, but it's more about these crazy characters...Like my character, he's a gypsy and he's coming into town and he's got something to prove - and no one really knows what he's about."

The film will also incorporate CGI and traditional puppetry to create an overall look for the universe. But so far even Hartnett isn't sure what to expect when he arrives in Romania to begin shooting, saying, "It's odd; it's out there. I've been trying to do as much artistic fare as I can and things that are compelling to watch as well." Hartnett also compared the film to the work of Michel Gondry and Alfred Hitchcock's Rope. Hitchcock's film was famous for appearing to be shot in one long take. Unfortunately, it wasn't technically possible at the time and Hitchcock went for the next best thing. The master of suspense shot the film in 10 minute takes and seamlessly edited them together. But a lot has changed since 1948, so who knows how Bunraku might turn out. Hartnett mentioned that casting hasn't finished yet for Bunraku, and for some reason, he has yet to mention who might be directing this possible 'fruitcake' of a film. Until he does, stay tuned to Cinematical for any updates that might come our way.

You just saw him running from vampires in the cold, dark Alaska of 30 Days of Night. Now get ready to see Josh Hartnett evading more human adversaries on a hot, Texan football field in End Zone. According to Variety, the actor has been cast as the lead in an adaptation of the farcical Don DeLillo novel, which will be directed by George Ratliff (Joshua). The movie, scripted by Ratliff and his Joshua writing partner David Gilbert, will see Hartnett as a college football running back who is ruining his chances for stardom by thinking too much about another kind of end zone, that related to nuclear war. Also cast are Kat Dennings (Big Momma's House 2), who plays the love interest, and Joshua star Sam Rockwell, who plays the school's publicist. Another significant role, not yet filled, is a professor of international terrorism and mass destruction who sees Hartnett's character as a perfect soldier.

I can't really picture Josh Hartnett as a perfect soldier, let alone a football player. But I guess I never could have imagined him as a cop or a pilot or any other responsible position had I not seen it realized on screen. Mostly my image of him is focused on three relatively slacker roles: Trip Fontaine in The Virgin Suicides; the sex-crazed abstainer of 40 Days and 40 Nights and the "wrong man" protagonist of Lucky Number Slevin. Now that I think of it, though, I could see him as one of the pot-head jocks in Dazed and Confused, and since DeLillo's novel was released in 1972, it places Hartnett's End Zone character in almost the same environment. Of course, I don't recall Randall "Pink" Floyd ever contemplating nuclear war.

Ever wondered what it would be like to see every vampire movie ever made, all rolled into one? If so, 30 Days of Night is for you -- it's got a little bit of everything. For Dracula-lovers, there's a hillbilly Renfield, played by everyone's new favorite actor, Ben Foster. His arrival in town at the outset, with a shambling gait and greasy-roadie haircut, foreshadows the arrival of some nameless master who he's bound to displease in some way. The vampires, when they arrive, turn out not to be Hungarian sophisticates, but feral beasts who look like a cross between a cougar and Marilyn Manson. They take their movement cues from The Lost Boys, attacking from out of frame and grabbing their prey up into space or yanking them into a dark corner. Instead of sucking blood, they tear their victims' limbs apart as easily as restaurant rolls. An apparent nod to the Blade series also creeps in, when the vamps begin speaking some erudite, subtitled language and spouting faux-profound aphorisms like "things which can be broken must be broken!"

On top of this heady mishmash of genre staples there's a nifty overarching conceit, taken from the comic on which 30 Days is based -- the location of the carnage is a remote town in Seward's Folly, where the sun doesn't shine for a full month. (Why did it take vampires so long to hear about this place? And mightn' it have been more interesting if all the world's vampires came gunning for this place, instead of a handful? But that's neither here nor there.) The vamps that do descend on the snowy Alaskan hamlet must go head to head with two pretty local cops, played by Josh Hartnett and Melissa George, and one of the best things about 30 Days is that it acknowledges straightaway that the humans are physically no match for the vampires. Those who survive the initial assault must scramble into hiding places to save their necks and what follows is a sort of 'Anne Frank vampire film', with Hartnett and George and a ragtag group holing up in an abandoned attic and waiting for the vamp patrols to move on.

Say all you want about Josh Hartnett kicking vampire ass (never in a million years did I think Hartnett would kick anyone's ass), but when it comes to 30 Days of Night, Ben Foster clearly steals the show. I had a chance to catch the flick last week, and Foster brings new meaning to the word 'creepy.' I won't say too much about his character since I'm sure there's a lot of you who haven't read the graphic novel, but I will tell you that he plays a dude named The Stranger. And when he first arrives in town, all beat up and freaky-looking, no one knows what to make of him. Is he good? Is he bad? Is he wearing deodorant?

Thomas over at Reelz Channel sent in this scoop to us earlier today; apparently, during a recent interview promoting the film, 30 Days of Night screenwriter Brian Nelson teased fans with the sort-of-promise that The Stranger will be back in future sequels. Do keep in mind that Reelz spits out a few spoilers prior to dishing this info, so if you want to avoid them, you might want to stick here -- I'll just give you Nelson's quote: "I'll just tantalizingly say it is possible you might see more of The Stranger in the future." There's no word on whether Foster would return to the role (his stuff was so good in 30 Days, they added additional scenes to give him more screen time), but I imagine they'd fight to have him come back and join in on the fun. 30 Days of Night hits theaters this weekend. Oh, and there should definitely be a sequel. The film rocks -- the studio knows it, the fans know it -- so let's just get it underway.

That last R-rated clip from 30 Days of Night was pretty cool, but wait'll you get a load of this new one. It's definitely more my kind of thing, since I prefer zombies to vampires, and the clip makes the pic look more like a zombie movie. What could be better than Mark Boone Junior driving around in some kind of chainsaw-esque tractor, slicing through multiple baddies while simultaneously blowing away others with a shotgun? Exactly. Nothing could be better. In fact, I think I like this scene better than that sequence in Dawn of the Dead where they're driving the modified bus around. But that partially has to do with my appreciation for Mark Boone Junior. He just looks like the perfect guy to be in charge of a task like this. Anyway, once again you have to prove you're 18 (or otherwise get through the sign-in page) in order to watch the clip. Or you could just wait until Friday when the movie hits theaters.

Cinematical wimp pansy editor-in-chief, Erik Davis, saw the film and loved it, even though he's probably back to sleeping with a night light. He even claims it's the most beautiful horror film he's ever seen. For those still out of the loop, the movie is based on Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith's graphic novel about a small town far up north where the sun disappears for a whole month -- ripe time for a crop of vampires to go on a rampage. Directed by David Slade (Hard Candy), it stars Josh Hartnett, Ben Foster, Melissa George, my favorite supporting actor these days, Danny Huston, and, of course, Mark Boone Junior.

I'm not much of a horror buff myself, but if there is more stuff like this new clip, I'm pretty much sold on going to see it. And though I don't think I've ever needed a night light, I bet I'll have at least one nightmare as a result. It just looks like that kind of movie. At the very least, I'm sure I'd at least get freaked out the next time I'm walking around late at night in the snow. Between 30 Days of Night and the recently released The Last Winter, I'm pretty set never to go up to the arctic circle.

Let me preface this story by telling you I'm: a) a total wimp when it comes to horror flicks, and b) I slept with a night light in my room until I was at least 19. With that in mind, our friends over at Sony/Columbia Pictures emailed me the other day with a proposition: They were doing a screening of 30 Days of Night, followed by something called 'Dining in the Dark,' and asked if I was interested. Even though I'm in no way a horror buff, I'm a big fan of director David Slade (loved Hard Candy!), and was looking forward to seeing what he did with 30 Days of Night, an adaptation of the graphic novel about a bunch of vampires who invade a small Alaskan town under, well, 30 straight days of night. I wasn't quite up to speed on this whole 'Dining in the Dark' thing, but I figured -- what the hell -- they'll be candles, it'll be spooky, and we'll have a blast.

But before I tell you about dinner, let's talk about the movie. Ryan will be bringing you a full-on review of 30 Days when it hits theaters next week, but I'll get the ball rolling by saying it was pretty damn good. Visually (and I credit the novel, cinematographer Jo Willems, and Slade here), the film looked absolutely incredible. There's this one overhead shot which sweeps across the entire town and shows vampires feasting on residents that's, quite simply, brilliant. The quick cuts are fantastic, and there's definitely more than one scene where you'll be jumping out of your seat. Additionally, I'm starting to really dig Josh Hartnett. He's good in this film, and I'm loving the role choices he's taking on lately (between this film and Resurrecting the Champ). Melissa George doesn't do a whole lot for me, but she's fine here as Hartnett's estranged wife -- and I'm glad the two of them didn't talk about their struggling relationship too much while a group of nasty-ass vampires were invading the town (although there are some cheesy moments sprinkled throughout). Even so, the end (if you've read the novel and know what happens) is damn powerful. Oh, and I can't say enough about Ben Foster -- this guy is all kinds of creepy here.

After the jump: How I go from 30 Days of Night to eating dinner in the pitch black.

It was almost a year ago when Jette brought us a first look at some of the behind-the-scenes for the big-screen version of 30 Days of Night. Since then, there have been teaser posters, fancy websites, the promise of new short films, and the R rated trailer released in August ( who could forget, of course, the image of Josh Hartnett hacking at a child with an ax -- something like that tends to stay with you). Shock Til You Drop is now hosting three new posters for the vampire flick. Fans of the graphic novels have been pretty eager to see what Ghost House and director David Slade (Hard Candy) have planned for the story of a group of vampires descending on a small town in the wilds of Alaska for a 30-day feeding frenzy.

Based on the graphic novel by Steve Niles, Night stars Josh Hartnett as the local sheriff and Melissa George as his wife -- it's up to both to save their town before the vampires wipe it clean. Ben Foster (3:10 to Yuma) also stars as "the harbinger of the vampires. Well really a scout who was sent into the town because he can be out during the day. He is tentatively known as a "bug-eater", not a vampire but something akin to a ghoul. They find him snooping around town and trespassing so they arrest him" -- at least according to the message boards at IMDB, and since I haven't read the original graphic novels, I'm just going to have to take their word for it. 30 Days of Night is set for release on October 19.

[via Solace in Cinema]

Never one to sidestep controversy, writer/director Rod Lurie recently caused film purists to perk up their ears when he seemed to suggest during an interview that his upcoming remake of Sam Peckinpah's revenge thriller Straw Dogs would be tantamount to a moral improvement over the original film, since it would purposefully not rehash the ultra-controversial moment from the Peckinpah original when Susan George, playing the wife of Dustin Hoffman's character, begins to express pleasure during a brutal rape sequence. Lurie was more than ready to expand on his statement and explain exactly what he meant when I spoke with him recently -- he's out promoting his new sports journalism drama, Resurrecting the Champ, which opens in theaters today. During the course of our conversation, we talked about that film and what it says about the state of journalism today, we talked about his career path and how he wants to alter it, and I got his thoughts on the decline of the print film critic and the rise -- for better or worse -- of the Internet film critic. Here's the interview.

Cinematical: What are you up to today?

RL: Today's the day before the release of my film, so I'd like to say I'm just chilling out, but really we're watching all the reviews come in and all the box-office tracking and all that. It's a tense day, to say the least.

Cinematical: I wanted to ask, did you catch that article in the American Journalism Review this month, about film critics?

RL: No, I didn't.

Cinematical: Pretty interesting. It talks about print critics being offered buyouts or being simply let go at a lot of places, in favor of coverage from the wire services and all that. The underlying premise, I think, was that the trend was escalating.

RL: You know, I think about it a lot, because you know, I was a film critic for many years.

Cinematical: Right.

RL: There but for the grace of God go I, sort of thing, Ryan. You know, the Internet is a wondrous thing. It's the space travel of our time. By that, I mean it's the sort of thing that, twenty years ago was sort of unfathomable and it's done a lot of wonderful things, but it's also destroyed a lot of things. Print journalism is going to disappear, obviously, in the not too distant future. And part of the war of attrition on print journalism is getting rid of the non-essentials. Not that movie criticism is non-essential, but movie critics are, in the sense that there are plenty of wire services and we use Roger Ebert's reviews in 400 newspapers and the Associated Press and Reuters. It's a little sad, because I think it's nice for every town to have its own critic, its judge, its representative, its own community standards held up by the candle of that particular critic. So that's definitely going away, and it's too bad -- it really is.

Being the main man in flicks like The Faculty and The Virgin Suicides pretty much solidified Josh Hartnett's celebrity boy machismo, at least for a while. There was lots of funny and serious romance, a questionable stint re-creating Pearl Harbor and we can't forget -- desperately trying to abstain from sex for 40 Days and 40 Nights -- a favorite of mine. I am not sure why, but there's something about his pent-up walk of sexual frustration that makes me laugh every time. But after all these films, he pulled back a bit, still acting in big-name films like Sin City and Lucky Number Slevin, but not being the hot boy wonder any more.

Hartnett recently spoke to Jam! about why that is. As he describes it: "There was a point where I was on the cover of a bunch of magazines and I was going into auditions trying to convince these directors I was a real actor and not just a magazine cover boy." To get himself some cred, he says: "I had to change my whole perspective and fight for smaller roles and turn down the bigger ones. It's odd when you're doing that, but it's worth it, I think -- I hope -- in the long run." This comment is probably partially, or directly, related to him turning down a huge sum to play Superman.

While focusing on being taken seriously, the actor also states: "I would like to play everything, and I'm naive enough to think that I can." He's doing pretty well so far. His last release was The Black Dahlia (not the best film, but definitely an interesting role), and he's now following it up with Resurrecting the Champ, 30 Days of Night, August, The Prince of Cool and the Chinese film I Come with the Rain, which he says he only has a few lines in. All this effort -- is it worth it? Are you into the Hartnett with or without the cover-boy image?

Man, do I love me a good red band trailer. And when it includes Josh Hartnett slicing his way through a little vampire girl with an axe, how can you go wrong? Since this is a red band trailer (or R-rated trailer), you'll need to prove you're over 18 before watching. (Kids with older siblings know what to do.) Once you prove your age, you'll be taken to the new trailer, followed by an exclusive scene from the film. Both look outstanding, and I'm convinced director David Slade's follow-up to the very awesome Hard Candy will most likely go down as one of the best vampire flicks in a long, long time. Unlike most red band trailers, the one for 30 Days of Night doesn't feature any nudity or foul language. Lots and lots of blood? Check. Vampires feasting on human faces? Check. Yeah, this ain't your ordinary, run-of-the-mill family film.

30 Days of Night is based on a miniseries of horror comic books written by Steve Niles (who also co-wrote the screenplay for this feature version, and spoke with Cinematical's Ryan Stewart recently about the page-to-screen process). Although a number of sequels exist in comic form, there's been no word on a potential horror franchise here. Chances are folks will wait to see how this one does in theaters. If it does well, they'll most likely move onto Dark Days (the immediate follow-up to 30 Days). Summer wasn't so nice to horror, but hopefully the brisk October release date (and Sam Raimi's participation) will help 30 Days of Night rise above the rest. This first flick will revolve around a group of vampires who travel to a small town in Alaska where there's no sunlight for 30 days straight. There, they can feed on a slew of unsuspecting town folk without the threat of sunlight crashing the party. It'll be up to the town's husband-and-wife Sheriff team (played by Harnett and Melissa George) to find a way to stop these blood suckers before they destroy everything. 30 Days of Night hits theaters on October 19, right in time for Halloween.

By the looks of the new site for the vampire flick 30 Days of Night, this movie is going to be one nicely designed bloodbath. Sony just launched the fancy flash site for the film version of Steven Niles' graphic novel about a group of vampires descending on a small Alaskan town for a non-stop feeding frenzy.

Night is directed by David Slade (Hard Candy) and the script was written by Stuart Beattie (3:10 To Yuma). Josh Hartnett stars as a local sheriff trying to keep a group of locals alive, and Ben Foster (who gave us a behind the scenes look at the film, last February) is an ancient vampire that is none-too-pleased with the attention-drawing antics of his kind. The site looks like it was designed in the spirit of the original graphic novel, plus, along with the teaser clips and downloads, there is the promise of a nifty-looking shooter game.

There has already been talk of shorts set in the Night universe produced by Sam Raimi's Ghosthouse, more comic books, and don't forget the possibility of multiple sequels (Ryan got the chance to speak with Niles about the film, as well as female lead Melissa George). So, combined with the solid teaser trailer Scott told us about last month, it's looking like this graphic novel has the potential to spawn a whole new horror franchise. The film is also expected to get a little extra buzz with the cast, along with Slade and Raimi, answering questions about the film for a ComicCon panel this weekend -- stay tuned for that report. 30 Days of Night hits theaters October 19th.

Graphic novelist and screenwriter Steve Niles called into Cinematical headquarters this weekend from the Fangoria Weekend of Horrors Convention in New Jersey. We talked all things 30, from the marketing push that will include a series of short films based on the comics, to the ComicCon plans for the film, to the rating -- it's going to be R, for sure -- to the massive sequel potential that exists, considering how much source material there is. (Niles is already thinking about a Dark Days sequel revolving around Melissa George's character, something even she wasn't thinking about when I spoke with her last November) If you're a movie person who isn't familiar with the 30 Days graphic novels or Niles' work in general, he's a major name in comics, having developed many well-known titles and collaborated with scores of other artists.

I was eager to get a sense from him of what kind of vampire effects we're in store for with the film, but he told me Weta is still keeping that information under strict lock and key. Oh well. In addition to 30 Days, he was also ready to talk up Bigfoot, a straight-up horror movie he's jointly developing with Rob Zombie -- a finished script is out to directors. For those who worry about seeing another Bigfoot story that tries to make the beast a sympathetic humanoid, you'll be glad to know that Niles is steering in exactly the opposite direction. Check out the full interview below.

RS: How goes the convention?

SN: So far, so good. It's really funny because I usually do these things on the West Coast, and I walked into this one and it's like, I pretty much ran into the same people, the same vendors, it's very funny. I got here and it was very familiar.

RS: I heard you're taking 30 Days to ComicCon; you're going to be there in person?

SN: Oh yeah, definitely. I'll be there in person, and I'll be doing stuff at IDW, doing some comic stuff, we've got some new 30 Days comics coming out. Sony's got a big thing -- they're going to have a booth there this year. We're gonna be doing a big panel and showing clips, and we might even be unveiling some 30 Days merchandise, some collectible figures or something like that. I'm still waiting to find out, but all day Saturday is going to be '30 Days crazy.'

RS: So have you seen a cut? Is it still in post?

SN: I saw ... I know there's been one test screening since the one I saw. But I hear that they are really close to locking it. Still waiting for word on if we're going to get any re-shoots or anything like that. But for the most part, what I've seen is the finished film.

RS: How much of your draft survived the Stu Beattie draft and the other one? How much of your scripting work is still in there?

SN: An amazing amount of it is. What I used, especially in my version, I used a lot of dialogue from the comic. And all of it's in there. So a lot of my dialogue, a few of my gags, a few things I came up with -- slaughtering the dogs and all of that stuff -- a few things that were just kind of expanding on the idea of the comic -- it all made it. It's really unbelievable. I'm really happy that the three of us are sharing credit because we all became friends and we all worked together, and we all had the same ... we all wanted to make it as close to the comic as possible.