Between Forgetting Sarah Marshall last week, and Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay this week, the comedy world is all aflutter with dangerous vacations, whether that danger is watching your newly ex-girlfriend snuggle up to her raunchy new pop-star boyfriend, or heading to Amsterdam to get some Maria lovin'.

So this time around, I figured I would dip into vacations that go bad. We could break into the smaller-scale travel films, where protagonists only go a town or state over, but Harold and Kumar already did the close traveling. Now they're going a heck of a lot farther. Interesting adventures, strange people, and romantic dysfunction are the players in this game, and for this week's double feature, I give you: Blame it on Rio and Joe Versus the Volcano.

And, just to be clear, me choosing two infamously bad movies says nothing about my thoughts on H&K. I swear!

Nearly a year after its international premiere at Cannes, My Brother is an Only Child (ThinkFilm) opened at the top of the indie weekend box office returns, according to Box Office Mojo. Playing at just one theater in Manhattan, the film grossed $10,500. My Brother "follows two brothers through years of Italian history, with their personal and political travails echoing down the years," Cinematical's James Rocchi wrote last year. "Even with it's merits as a light-but-sentimental story of family in 1960's Italy, it also reminded me of the soaring, sweeping, astonishing La Meglio Gioventù (The Best of Youth) -- and wound up completely winning me over." The film will roll out to other cities over the next three weeks, per the distributor's web site.

Immigration family tale Under the Same Moon (Fox Searchlight / The Weinstein Co.) continues to perform well, earning $5,771 per screen as it expanded to 390 theaters in its second week. Leonard Klady at Movie City News commented that the film is "playing in a mix of Hispanic, art and mainstream locations but with rare exception is working best in the former venues." Also in its second week, Love Songs (IFC), Christophe Honoré's French-language modern musical, held onto most of its audience, averaging $6,800 at two Manhattan theaters.

I guess it was because I grew up with Michael Caine as the star of such fantastic flicks as Jaws: The Revenge and Blame it on Rio that it took me awhile until I really understood why everyone thought he was such a genius. For me, the revelation came about 10 minutes into Sleuth, by far one his best performances. Guardian reports that two of Caine's early works are getting the HD treatment. In honor of Caine's upcoming 75th birthday, Zulu and The Italian Job will be re-mastered and aired on Britain's Sky Movies for television.

Released in 1964, Zulu was the story of outnumbered British soldiers battling Zulu warriors at Rorke's Drift. This was Caine's first starring role in the true-life story (albeit with some creative license) as Lt. Gonville Bromhead. The Italian Job is the more famous of the two films. Peter Collinson's caper about a plan to steal Turin gold starred Caine as master thief Charlie Croker. It was another iconic role for Caine, who was already the epitome of Swingin' London. It also led him to some his most famous roles in the 1970's including Get Carter and Sleuth.

Expect to see a lot of retrospectives in the coming year as Hollywood continues to reformat their back catalogs for HD. For movie lovers it comes as a relief that these classics are being preserved for future generations. According to Sky Movies' Ian Lewis: "Watching a classic title re-mastered in HD is like viewing a restored painting." Luckily, Caine was a little more pragmatic about some of the downsides of HD resolution: "I love HD ... of course, it's very unforgiving, especially on young beautiful ladies, but thank God I'm old, I don't care."

If you've been reading Cinematical for a while, you might remember an old news piece talking about a reunion between Demi Moore and Michael Caine. The project, Flawless, has finally been completed, and now there's a trailer to feast your eyes on above. Set in 1960, the film follows two unhappy workers at the London Diamond Corporation. One (Caine) is a janitor about to retire, and the other (Moore) is a female American executive who keeps hitting a quite-low glass ceiling. The janitor then convinces the exec to steal diamonds from the company to somehow make things better. (Oh, the flawed rationale of the desperate!) It's interesting to see the two actors together again, and it looks like an interesting film, but I'd rather have young Demi, Rio style. There's just something about adult Demi that irks me. Anyway, the caper flick goes into limited release this March

[via Ace Showbiz]

It seems like just a few months ago we were enjoying the sights, the sounds, the smells and the cinema of South By Southwest 2007, but guess what? Now that it's January, the festival's only about nine weeks away! Awesome! So today we caught some slightly early news on what SXSW is cooking up for this March, and I must say I'm pretty impressed with what they snagged for their opening night film.

And that film is: Robert Luketic's 21, which is based on the book Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions. (You may remember Mr. Luketic from flicks like Legally Blonde, Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!, and Monster-in-Law.) Adapted by Ben Mezrich's book by screenwriters Peter Steinfeld and Allan Loeb, 21 stars Kevin Spacey, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Bosworth and Jim Sturgess. (Check out the trailer right here.)

And if that world premiere isn't cool enough, festival chief Matt Dentler has also divulged the following titles for SXSW '08:

At the Death House Door (Steve James & Peter Gilbert) "A sobering and powerful story of the wrongful execution of Carlos DeLuna and the Death House Chaplain, Pastor Carroll Pickett, who spent the last day of DeLuna's life with him."

Dreams with Sharp Teeth (Erik Nelson) "A documentary portrait of acclaimed author Harlan Ellison, as he looks back on his fabled and influential career as one of the world's top science fiction writers."

Flawless (Michael Radford) "In 1960s London, a talented but overlooked diamond executive (Demi Moore) is convinced to participate in a jewelry heist when a veteran janitor (Michael Caine) hatches a plan."

Run Fatboy Run (David Schwimmer) "An out-of-shape divorced father (Simon Pegg) makes one last attempt to win back the respect of his son, his ex-wife (Thandie Newton), and the community around him. All he has to do is finish his first marathon."

Wild Blue Yonder (Celia Maysles) "Celia Maysles had no idea her father and his brother Albert were pioneers of verite documentary filmmaking. Determined to uncover the secrets surrounding her background, Celia sets out on a quest to rediscover her father by using his own artistic process."

Expect a few more flashy surprises before the full SXSW slate is announced on February 5! Until then, feel free to browse through the SXSW website and decide if THIS is the year you're finally going to take my advice and attend the dang festival. (You do know it's a movie AND music fest, right? Interactive, too, and I do believe I've mentioned the indigenous BBQ more than once.)

The Muppet Christmas Carol may be to the Muppets what Room Service is to the Marx Brothers. Neither is particularly good, especially in relation to the rest of the Muppet or Marx Brothers movies, but they can still be enjoyed immensely if you are a big enough fan of the Muppets or the Marxes. The films share two significant factors that aided in their surprisingly low quality. Each comedy "troupe" (if you can accept Kermit & Co. as a troupe) had recently suffered from a terrible disruption in their respective commands. Muppet Christmas Carol was the first Muppet movie produced after the death of Jim Henson, while Room Service was the first Marx Bros. movie to be filmed (fully) after the death of producer Irving Thalberg (though, of course, Thalberg was not the Bros.' creator like Henson was the Muppets'). And, most importantly, each is notable for having not been written for their "troupe"; instead the "troupe" was rather ill fittingly dropped into pre-existing stories.

In the case of The Muppet Christmas Carol, that pre-existing story is of course Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas (umm, commonly known as simply A Christmas Carol). Unlike previous Muppet vehicles, such as The Muppet Movie and The Muppets Take Manhattan, this one focuses on a main character not played by a Muppet. Instead, Michael Caine portrays the lead, Ebenezer Scrooge, while the old favorites play minor supporting characters from Bob Crachit (Kermit) and his wife (Miss Piggy) to the narrators, Charles Dickens (Gonzo) and Rizzo the Rat (himself). Strangely the Christmas spirits aren't played by any of the star Muppets. In fact, only one of them is even technically a puppet: the Ghost of Christmas Present, which is a burly, redheaded body puppet (has an actor inside) with a Scottish accent.

Sometimes when I can't sleep I run through lists of my "desert island movies," or the ten movies I would most prefer to have with me on a desert island (provided there was also a DVD player, flatscreen TV and electricity). It's an interesting game, because you get deeply into questions of what is good versus what is enjoyable. For example, Joel and Ethan Coen's new No Country for Old Men may be their best film, but it's not as much fun as Fargo or The Big Lebowski. The other night, I started playing another game: desert island movie star. If you could take the entire filmography of a single movie star to a desert island, whose would it be? (For the purposes of this column, I'm sticking to my usual realm: actors appearing in movies currently playing on 400 screens or less. Otherwise we could continue to play on into the length of a book.)

British actors are always a good choice, because they generally have a kind of old-fashioned work ethic; they're more interested in being a good worker than in crafting a certain type of career, so you've got more to choose from. Take Michael Caine, currently in Sleuth (7 screens). He's a double Oscar winner, but he's made a ton of movies worth looking at a second time, notably The Prestige, Batman Begins, Children of Men, The Man Who Would Be King, Hannah and Her Sisters, Get Carter and Dressed to Kill. On the downside, you'd also be stuck with stagnant award-winners like The Cider House Rules, as well as turkeys like Jaws: The Revenge and On Deadly Ground and Bewitched. But at least you'd have more than 100 to choose from.

Just to show you how old I really am, I bought a ticket to see Joy Division on what was to be their first American tour in 1980 (The Starwood, Los Angeles, $6.00). In those pre-Internet days, it was a couple of weeks before I learned that lead singer Ian Curtis had taken his own life (and the show was canceled). Nowadays, the buzz has been building for months about Anton Corbijn's Control. In his Cannes review, James Rocchi wrote that the film finds "beauty and sadness in a story where we know the sad finale." Playing in just one theater (two screens at Film Forum) in Manhattan, Control earned an estimated $27,000 this past weekend, according to Box Office Mojo, tops among new limited releases.

I have no story to share about my own personal doll -- really! -- but Lars and the Real Girl is much more than a cheap joke about the subject, according to our own Monika Bartyzel: "It's actually a smart, well-crafted, and heart-wrenching film that smoothly discusses the intricacies of loss and depression." But does it bring the funny, Monika? "It has many humorous moments, but they serve to relieve tension, not drive the story." All that and Ryan Gosling too! Playing at seven locations, Lars made $85,000 for a very good per-screen average of $12,142.

Sleuth, the remake of the 1972 film of the same name, had difficulty drawing audiences at its nine locations despite the star combo of Michael Caine and Jude Law, earning $5,566 for an estimated total of $50,100.

The Darjeeling Limited ($11,842 average, 95 screens) and Lust, Caution ($7,870 average, 77 screens) did well as they expanded in their third week of release, while Into the Wild held up well in its fourth week ($6,248, 153 screens). Amid reports that critics were having difficulty seeing it in advance, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford expanded to 163 screens in its fourth week and earned an average of just $2,361. I'm not as much in love with the film as others, but I think more people would be giving it a chance if Warner Brothers didn't appear to be dumping it. This is a film that needs critical support -- a few TV ads wouldn't hurt, either.

Now that Ingmar Bergman has left us, and doesn't appear to have won any chess games since, it is time for Liv Ullman to return to the cinema of Norway, her native country. Ullman grew up there and made her film debut there, but it was in Sweden that she broke out internationally when she appeared in her first Bergman picture, Persona, in 1966. After that she worked on a couple more Norwegian films, but she primarily stuck to working with non-Norwegian filmmakers, including Bergman, who cast her as the lead in nine films, two of which earned her Oscar nominations. Now it has been 38 years since the actress starred as the title character in Arne Skouen's An-Magritt, her last Norwegian film (I guess Unni Straume's Dromspel doesn't count). Why the long absence? Ullman, who currently calls New York her home, claims she actually hadn't been offered anything in Norway in all that time. But now, according to Reuters, she's finally returning, having been cast in a film titled In a Mirror, in a Riddle, which will be directed by Danish filmmaker Jesper Nielsen (Okay).

In the film, Ullman will play the grandmother of a seriously ill 13-year-old girl. It's a role the actress claims brought her out of retirement (her last appearance was in Bergman's final film, Saraband), having cried happy tears while reading the script. She told the daily Dagbladet she's very proud to be a part of the film. In a Mirror, in a Riddle is based on a novel by Jostein Gaarder, best known in America for his bestseller Sophie's World, which has previously been filmed as a Norway-Sweden co-production, and which is also currently being made into an English-language movie starring Michael Caine.

Is there a statute of limitations for 'spoiling' a movie? Is there anyone of passing cultural literacy who does not already know that the great man's dying words spoke of his fondest childhood memory, that the astronaut was on Earth all along, that the low-grade crook was making the whole story up off the bulletin board? And is there a certain point where you can't help but spoil a movie if you're going to talk about it honestly? And what if the movie under consideration is a remake?

Kenneth Branagh's new film of Sleuth brings all of those questions to mind. Based on Anthony Shaffer's play, previously filmed in 1972, Sleuth starts simple and stays small: The older Andrew Wyke is visited by the younger Milo Tindle. The older man has position, power, privilege; the younger man has none of those things -- but he is sleeping with the older man's wife. The younger man has come to ask the older man to grant his wife a divorce -- and, maybe, see what the old fool's made of. The older man is not willing to grant the divorce -- but, he might as well see what this young bastard's like. In the original 1972 version of Sleuth, Laurence Olivier was the older man, and Michael Caine the younger; now, Caine plays the cuckolded husband and Jude Law the bright young adulterer.

Think back to a simpler time in America when the films of Steven Seagal were box office hits. Some of you young'uns might not be able to fathom such a thing, but it's true. What happened? Why is he now stuck doing direct-to-DVD films with titles like Belly of the Beast and Flight of Fury? Some would say it's because he's made so many genuinely awful movies, but Seagal claims the cause for his decline goes much higher up.

Yahoo is reporting on a Los Angeles Times story that finds Seagal blaming the Federal Bureau of Investigation for his career slump. The FBI investigated Seagal because of his ties to former private detective Anthony Pellicano. Many Hollywood types worked with Pellicano, who was investigated starting in 2002 and is now in federal prison awaiting trial on wire-tapping and other charges.

"False FBI accusations fueled thousands of articles saying that I terrorize journalists and associate with the Mafia," Seagal told the Los Angeles Times. "These kinds of inflammatory allegations scare studio heads and independent producers -- and kill careers." Seagal has never been charged or accused of being involved in the incident that led to Pellicano's arrest, and he is demanding that the FBI publicly clear his name.

A spokeswoman for the FBI wouldn't comment, "because of the ongoing nature of the investigation." The U.S. Attorney's Office won't talk either, as the office "does not comment on talks it has with attorneys representing defendants, investigation targets or witnesses." In the meantime, Seagal will continue to make movies, and he'll make his triumphant return to the director's chair with Prince of Pistols. It will be his first time directing since 1994's On Deadly Ground, which co-starred Michael Caine(!). Can you believe that at one time Michael Caine was taking acting guidance from Steven Seagal? If you want the full Seagal experience, don't hesitate to check out his albums, Songs from the Crystal Cave and Mojo Priest (which includes a song called "Talk to My Ass"). I'm not making this up.

Although Warner Bros. decided not to debut anything Dark Knight related during their official panel, the studio staged an elaborate stunt outside by painting a phone number across the sky, followed by a message from the Joker. For those who'd like to play along without skipping to the end of everything, call this number: 1-800-395-9646. Follow the riddles given to you on the phone over at the website we talked about earlier today. Eventually, as you pass each step, the above photo will appear. Looks like Maggie Gyllenhaal ain't having such a swell day. And yes, that's Heath Ledger as the Joker with a knife up to Mags' sweet face.

As you move further along in the Joker's game, eventually you'll be provided with the first teaser trailer for The Dark Knight ... in glorious HD quicktime. It's taking a really long time to load the best quality trailer, but I got through pretty quickly with this link. As expected, it is the same trailer we wrote about yesterday (the one that was leaked onto YouTube) in which no actual footage is shown; just a fairly heated conversation between Bruce Wayne/Batman (Christian Bale) and Alfred (Michael Caine). The Joker's voice pops on briefly, a Joker card flies at the screen ... and we're out. Stay tuned to Cinematical as we've been all over ComicCon and will share all the glorious breaking news as it hits.

... has just hit YouTube, and it's in very low quality. At least we think this is the first teaser. You be the judge. This is a bootleg version of the teaser that is supposed to play before The Simpsons Movie this weekend, as well as at ComicCon. No word yet when the teaser will officially land in good HD quality online, but I'm thinking Warner Bros. will have to do something. I mean, they can't let folks watch this cruddy bootleg thing. But if you want to get a taste of what we should expect from the highly-anticipated sequel to Batman Begins, then head on over and check it out ... while it's still around. In case it's gone by the time you read this, I'll try my best to give you the play-by-play (don't worry, there aren't any spoilers).

The most annoying part of the teaser is that it's a, well, teaser. As expected, none of the footage was ready to show yet, and so all we get is a black background (that slowly becomes the bat symbol) and a voice-over exchange between Bruce Wayne/Batman (Christian Bale) and Alfred (Michael Caine). Wayne tells Alfred that "he" crossed the line, and Alfred fires back: "You crossed the line first, sir." He later adds: "Some men aren't looking for anything logical. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn." The bat symbol flies into the picture -- we hear some brief dialogue from the Joker (Heath Ledger doing his best Jack Nicholson impression), a Joker playing card flies across the screen and we're out. The Dark Knight. Summer 2008. I'm sure a lot of fans will be disappointed in the fact that no actual footage is shown, but keep in mind they're still filming this puppy. Just the fact they were able to cut something together (using dialogue already filmed) in time for ComicCon and The Simpsons Movie should be good enough. Keep it tuned in here, and we'll let you know when the trailer hits in better quality. The Dark Knight will arrive in theaters on July 18, 2008.

Sources have told Comingsoon.net and and some other outlets that a teaser trailer for The Dark Knight will make a double-premiere on July 27, both on prints of The Simpsons Movie as it hits theaters across America, and during the Warner Bros. ComicCon presentation earlier that morning. For the last few weeks, we've been hearing that it was simply too soon for anything of substance to be unveiled at ComicCon for The Dark Knight, but really, how hard is it to cut a teaser together? If it's cleverly done, you can get by with only seconds of useable footage from the film, and it doesn't have to be money-shot footage. Looks like the powers-that-be have come around to that way of thinking. If all of this is legit, it would, of course, be the first time footage from the film has been seen anywhere, although some fans have gotten so impatient that they've actually crafted some fan trailers to keep themselves satiated in the meantime.

So what secrets are left about the production? We're still not completely sure who Anthony Michael Hall is playing, although source after source has claimed to know that he is playing Edward Nygma, a.k.a. The Riddler. It's also still up for debate whether Aaron Eckhart will transform into Harvey Dent in this film, or whether that's being saved for the next one. We're also fairly sure that Harley Quinn will not be making an appearance in the film, despite some earlier rumors that Sarah Michelle Gellar was up for that role. What about the role of the cop, Renee Montoya? Still no word on that either, although it's likely to be a small part even if its cast. Stay tuned to Cinematical for all the latest.

There was once this remake called Alfie. It was like any other remake -- some liked it, some didn't and some stayed very far away. One would think that Jude Law doing another remake of a Michael Caine movie would be a bit much. Nevertheless, we're getting a remake of the 70's movie Sleuth, which pitted Caine against Laurence Olivier. Who could they ever get to fill the latter's shoes? Caine, of course. It's pure remake brilliance -- Law takes on Milo Tindle, Caine's original character, and he takes on Andrew Wyke, Olivier's character. Last September, Erik Davis first posted about the film, when we had news about the UK shoot. After that came the first image and now we've got a trailer to see what Harold Pinter and Kenneth Branagh have done with the new remake.

The trailer is up over at Moviefone, and it's looking pretty modern and entertaining. Instead of a hairdresser, Tindle is an actor who is having an affair with Wyke's wife. The pair strike an agreement that the young man can have the gal, if he follows Wyke's instructions and steals some jewels. Of course, that isn't the whole story and the old man isn't a total pushover. Law and Caine look like they're having good, chemistry-filled cinema fun together, and while I can do without all the fancy computer effects in the trailer, it looks like it has a good balance of dark humor and mysterious happenings. If you're still not sure about the whole thing, since the Internet is such a lovely and diverse place -- you can check out the original trailer over at YouTube and compare the two! It's definitely no longer a 70's murder mystery, but I think it has promise.