michael pena Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Last year, it seemed too strange to be true that Werner Herzog and David Lynch were teaming up for a film together -- My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done. Almost any other directorial combo I could see, but the minds of Herzog (director) and Lynch (producer)? Merging directorial quirks is one thing, but when two men have distinct visions and artistic sense, that isn't the most stable situation. Who wins out when grizzlies face backward-talking little people?

Surprisingly enough, the project is still in motion, and it's definitely not featuring any common Lynch players. The Hollywood Reporter posts that Michael Peña (Lions for Lambs), Brad Dourif (Humboldt County), and Bill Cobbs (Night at the Museum) have joined a cast that already includes Michael Shannon, Willem Dafoe, and Chloe Sevigny.

The last three aren't big surprises (but very welcome and excellent choices) since each has had their share of alternative feature work, but the first three definitely suggest that this won't be your typical film from either filmmaker. And man, it's nice to see Pena getting busy with a meaty project that isn't about war. This time around, the film is a loose adaptation of a story of "a San Diego man who experiences a series of mystifying events that lead him to brutally murder his own mother with a sword."

Here's to hoping at least some of the wacky events are helmed by Lynch, or, at the very least, we get a Angelo Badalmenti score.

Celebrity interviews can be pretty nerve-wracking. The ante is upped even more when the interviewee doesn't give many interviews. You hope for the best, but sometimes that's not what you get. Xan Brooks got a chance to interview Faye Dunaway for The Guardian, and things didn't go so well. It started with a list of ixnayed topics, but one was left off the list -- Roman Polanski and rumors about Chinatown. He asked if it was true that she once threw a cup of urine at the famed director and well, she didn't take too kindly to that line of questioning. Follow the link to see what happened and then comment below: Was it okay for Brooks to ask her about that? Did she overreact?

And then there's a little bit of tennis. Variety reports that Frank Deford's adaptation of his novel Big Bill: The Triumphs and the Tragedy, which focuses on tennis legend Bill Tilden, has been optioned by Baldwin Entertainment. This is a pretty old-school story -- Tilden won six straight U.S. Open singles titles in the 1920s, and was the first American to win Wimbledon. The plus about this feature: there's a lot more to the man than just rackets and balls. "He was also a contract bridge champ, musicologist, novelist, playwright and actor. On the other side of the ledger, Tilden was famously self-destructive, going to jail twice for sexual misbehavior with teenage boys and dying penniless." That should prove interesting.

Finally, Michael Pena told MTV that he'd definitely be in if a feature version of The Shield, if one was schemed up. In fact, he thinks there could be a prequel and that it would be "awesome." Me, I caught some old-school Felicity eps recently, and now I can't see him as anything other than the wanna-be ladies man who lived in the dorm. He's come a long way in 8 years.

I know this is traditionally a slow news time but wow, it's a desert out there! Is everyone in Hollywood sleeping? Are they becoming addicted to CNN election coverage like I am? Well, I managed to tear myself away from Anderson Cooper to do a little Cinematical work (and it's hard, 360 runs on such an endless loop that it's kind of like spending a delightful eternity with him), you'd think someone in Tinseltown could option some graphic novels or cast Captain America. Sheesh. Anyway, here's what we've got today:

• The Hasbro Licensing Summit of 2008 revealed the Transformers appearing in Transformers 2 are: Sideswipe (Chevy Corvette), Ravage, and Devastator. Also from Transformer World 2005, Robert Orci has answered a slew of new sequel questions. Beware of spoilers. Additionally, The Insider visited the set of Transformers 2, and you check out some video after the jump.
  


• Oh, Brett Ratner. I snark on him, but immediately feel guilty because everyone does, and it can't be easy for one man to endure. And then he goes and tells MTV about his superhero spin-off ideas and I just want to shake him by the shoulders, and tell him to leave this genre alone. Disappointed that he didn't get to direct Batman, he nevertheless thinks there should be a Joker spin-off -- and not even Heath Ledger's death dampens his enthusiasm. "Heath was great," Ratner said. "But the Joker is a great villain. That's why Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger had so much to work with. And I think there will be another actor who can interpret that. It would be great to see [Robert] Downey [Jr.] as the Joker, for instance." Now, while I don't think the character of the Joker should die with Ledger, I certainly think he's off-limits for awhile -- and a spin-off? Come on. This isn't Magneto, this is a character we never really want to know more about, he needs to exist solely where you can't see him. But then again, Ratner also thinks a Storm spin-off with Halle Berry is a good idea.
  

Having finished his porno, Seth Rogen is now getting ready for that mall cop movie I told you about back in March, Observe and Report. The actor will star as Ronnie Barnhardt, "a deluded, self-important head of mall security who squares off in a turf war against the local cops." This is a whole different project than Mall Cop, which has Kevin James facing a collection of thieves, and that makes it all the better.

The Hollywood Reporter now posts that Rogen will be joined by Anna Faris, Michael Pena, Jesse Plemons, and Ray Liotta. Faris gets to play a salesgirl at the mall that Ronnie lusts after, while Pena gets to put aside some of his meaty roles in films like Crash and Lions for Lambs and get funny as Ronnie's right-hand security man, and Plemons plays another mall guard. Liotta, meanwhile, will play Ronnie's nemesis, a police detective. There is, however, no word who will be fighting with the cop on his side of the turf war.

Even though there is no La Fours in sight, nor any flying fatasses, I think this, along with Zack and Miri, will be good for Rogen's career. Whether Judd Apatow continues his reign of comedy or not, Rogen should have a healthy selection of non-Judd work. That being said, I wouldn't be surprised if this film has at least a few brief cameos by some of Rogen's previous co-stars. Production begins this week.

While it may have had an all-star cast boasting the likes of Robert Redford, Meryl Streep, and Tom Cruise, Lions for Lambs appeared without a splash. In fact, it hit audiences with a dull and disappointing thud. Honestly, that partially surprises me, partially doesn't, and partially disappoints me. The film is by no means a masterpiece, nor is it a powerful and hard-hitting political thriller, action film, or drama. However, it does pack a punch against apathy and disinterest, and does so with a passionate and measured hand.

The film focuses on three main interactions – the journalist (Streep) and the politician (Cruise), the professor (Redford) and the student (Andrew Garfield), and the two soldiers and old friends (Michael Pena and Derek Luke), who are in Afghanistan. Each character provides a face to an aspect of today's current war-filled society -- one that brings it out of abstract thought and the printed word.

So much for all those casting updates for (and comments asking about how to get cast in) Pinkville, Oliver Stone's latest Vietnam war movie. Thanks to the writer's strike, the movie is now delayed indefinitely, according to Variety. United Artists put the stop on the production because both Stone and Pinkville screenwriter Mikko Alanne are members of the WGA, and more script-tuning is needed. Apparently the film is fully written, but there were expectations that things would be changed while filming is taking place -- something Stone is known for -- and that's not allowed to happen during the strike. The movie now joins Angels & Demons (aka The Da Vinci Code 2), which was the first major feature to be delayed because of the strike. Yet unlike that higher-profile film, Pinkville may not be easily started when the strike is over. There are now possibilities the cast will change or that United Artists will be less interested in doing such a serious picture right off the disappointment of Lions for Lambs.

It will be a shame if Pinkville is on hold for too long. And it will be too bad if the ensemble cast is broken up. Just last week I was getting all excited for Michael Pitt. Before that, I was already into the group of actors brought together: Bruce Willis, Woody Harrelson, Channing Tatum, Michael Peña and Xzibit (plus Toby Jones, who was announced with Pitt). However, with rescheduling now there may be a chance that Sean Penn could come back to the film, as he was originally reported to be attached.

The cast and crew was set to begin shooting in a few weeks in Thailand, so now obviously there are a lot of people out of work who are likely praying for the strike to end asap. Once given a new greenlight, Pinkville will be Stone's fourth feature film to deal directly with the Vietnam war, following Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July and Heaven and Earth (unless he somehow squeezes another in before this one -- who knows how long UA will keep this on hiatus?). This time Stone is focusing on the terrible My Lai Massacre and the trial of the U.S. soldiers involved.

Oddly enough, The Hollywood Reporter has two new casting announcements today, despite Friday's announcement from UA. Jason Behr (The Grudge) is set to play Lt. Stephen Brooks, commanding officer at My Lai, and Cam Gigandet (Who's Your Caddy?) is cast as guilt-ridden soldier Fred Widmar.

I've been waiting for Michael Pitt to break out big for years now -- ever since Murder By Numbers, I think (he was noteworthy a year earlier in both Bully and Hedwig and the Angry Inch, but not quite as promising). He still has a chance, especially if he takes the part of Lt. William Calley in Oliver Stone's Pinkville. According to The Hollywood Reporter, he's currently in talks for the role, and if he's smart he'll just go ahead and grab it. Calley is the central figure in the Vietnam war film, which deals with the investigation into the 1968 Mai Lai Massacre; the Army officer was the one found guilty of giving the orders that sparked the incident. Pitt would join an ensemble cast that already includes Bruce Willis (or as I like to call him, Bruce Billis), Channing Tatum (another young actor continually teetering on the verge of stardom), Michael Peña (previously seen in Stone's World Trade Center), Woody Harrelson and Xzibit, who just joined on this week. Also joining the film is Toby Jones (Infamous), who will portray Lt. Andre Feher, the chief warrant officer who tries to convince Willis' character, Gen. William Peers, that the U.S. Army is responsible for the massacre.

With Pinkville, Pitt would be sure to make up for the mediocre year he's had. Between starring in Tom DiCillo's embarrassingly awful Delirious and the apparently abysmal Silk (it has an astonishingly sad 8% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes), the actor has been really struggling to get his due notice. He does have other intriguing projects in the pipeline, however; next year he can be seen co-starring in Michael Haneke's Funny Games U.S., a remake of the filmmaker's own earlier work, and he's set to star as a young Christopher Walken (sorta) in Abel Ferrara's King of New York prequel, Pericle il Nero. It seems that Pitt might prefer working outside of Hollywood, but the guy should at least do a good ensemble piece every now and then, and there's not many better Hollywood directors he could work with than Stone.

Every hardcore war movie these days needs at least one rapper-turned-actor, and The Hollywood Reporter tells us Oliver Stone's Pinkville has chosen to go with Xzibit, who, contrary to what you may or may not think, was actually born with the name Alvin Nathaniel Joiner. Since the name Alvin is most closely associated with a certain signing chipmunk, I don't blame the guy for going with Xzibit. He'll join a cast that already includes Bruce Willis, Channing Tatum, Michael Pena and Woody Harrelson. Stone, whose last film was World Trade Center, returns to Vietnam for his fourth (and last, we think?) time with Pinkville, which will be based off a script written by Mikko Alanne, and revolve around the very real and tragic Mai Lai Massacre that found several hundred Vietnamese civilians -- mostly women, children and the elderly -- killed by U.S. soldiers.

For those who aren't huge rap fans, you might know Xzibit from his hit MTV show Pimp My Ride, in which he helps transform a teenager's sorry excuse for an automobile into a piece of art that couldn't be left alone on the street for more than three seconds before getting snatched. In addition to that, he's also nabbed roles in Gridiron Gang, Derailed and XXX: State of the Union. He's currently shooting the flick American Inquisition. In Pinkville, he'll play an American solider "who is convinced he carried out his orders in a moral way." Ah, so he'll be playing that guy. Pinkville is in pre-production now and is hoping for a release at some point in 2008.

You know how it felt when you were in college and your dad would take you aside for a, "Let's have a serious chat about your future/what a slacker you are/why you need to start growing up and getting your life together" talk? Wasn't that fun? Or not. That's pretty much how it feels watching the lastest Iraq war flick, Robert Redford-helmed Lions for Lambs, written by Matthew Michael Carnahan, who also penned The Kingdom, which came out in September (and barely made back its $70 million budget).

Lions for Lambs gets its title from a story related by Redford's character, college professor Stephen Malley, about a German general in WW2 who had a lot of respect for the British footsoldiers on the front lines, even though he thought those brave men were being led by a pack of idiots. The general, Malley tells us, said of the soldiers "Never have I seen such lions led by such lambs." The film plays on that idea with our current (seemingly endless) war and the soldiers putting their lives on the line for decisions being made by people who don't seem to know what the hell they're doing. The anecdote could also apply to the film itself, which has heaps of earnest, heartfelt performances and a relevant message unfortunately wrapped up in an oddly discordant, moderately self-righteous package which is probably going to go right over the heads of most of the people at whom it's targeted.

Director Oliver Stone is lining up one helluva juicy cast for his latest trip back to Vietnam. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Woody Harrelson has become the latest actor to join Pinkville, for United Artists, and this will mark the first time Harrelson has worked with Stone since the very nutty Natural Born Killers. Harrelson will co-star alongside Bruce Willis, Channing Tatum and Michael Pena in the mystery drama which is "based on the infamous 1968 My Lai Massacre, in which upward of 500 people -- mostly women, children and the elderly -- were killed by U.S. soldiers." Harrelson will take on the role of Col. Henderson, "the conflicted officer in charge of the task force that committed the massacre."

When Cinematical had a chance to visit the set of Fighting recently, we spoke a bit with Channing Tatum about starring in Pinkville. In the flick, he'll be playing a helicopter pilot who helped the villagers and later testified against the soldiers. Tatum, who's about two films away from becoming "the next big thing" (mark my words) had this to say: "I'm going to work with Oliver Stone; he's a veteran, literally, he's a Vietnam vet -- and I'm gonna go do a Vietnam story with him. It's his last sort of revisit to Vietnam -- or so he says -- so we'll see." This will mark Stone's fourth Vietnam-related film, after already giving us Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July and Heaven and Earth. Will it be his last? Who knows. But when he does head to Vietnam, he comes back with some terrific movies -- chances are, with this cast, the same will happen here.