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Counting out Signs and We Were Soldiers, it's been nearly a decade since Mel Gibson's knocked some skulls (if you're willing to factor in 2000's The Patriot; if not, then exactly a decade since 1999's Payback), and in the trailer for Edge of Darkness -- embedded post-jump -- it looks like old habits die hard.

Gibson plays a Boston detective whose daughter is killed in a hit meant for him. Naturally, he starts knocking on doors and following trails to determine if his daughter had actually been the target all along, and why. Writer William Monahan is no stranger to either Beantown (The Departed) or elaborate conspiracies (Body of Lies), and director Martin Campbell (Casino Royale) already made a BBC miniseries out of the material back in 1985. (No wonder it was reminding me of State of Play, title similarities aside.)

I wasn't sure then why a film with such firepower on paper was being relegated to next January, but it seems to be in stride with the turning tide of this past January's strong performance. Just as The Cabin in the Woods 3-D had been pushed back to the same weekend that My Bloody Valentine 3-D had, I believe that Darkness is being positioned on the same weekend that Taken had for a reason. (Even the poster is not far from that of the righteous-father flick.)

Let's hope Mel McKickass has all the right reasons to warm things up next winter.

I think for fans of the psychological thriller, 13 Tzameti, an American remake probably seemed like a bad idea from the get-go -- to be honest, most of them usually are. But with the film's original creator at the helm, and the addition of Mickey Rourke, Jason Statham, Ray Liotta, and Ray Winstone, hopefully it has helped raise our expectations for the update ever so slightly. But the remake won't just be a boys club this time around, because The Hollywood Reporter has announced that Emmanuelle Chriqui (Cadillac Records) has joined the remake of Géla Babluani's Sundance winner.

The original film, released in 2006, centered on a young construction worker who in a desperate attempt to earn money for his family is swept up in a deadly game of Russian Roulette that has been turned into a 'spectator sport'. There aren't many details about the plot for the remake, but Babluani has confirmed that he will not be remaking the film 'shot-for shot', and that some of the story elements will be changed. I don't want to give anything away, but if you have seen the original film, then you probably have a pretty good guess as to what Babluani might have in mind for his re-write.

Chriqui might be best known as Sloan McQuewick on HBO's Entourage, but she has been slowly building her film resume with everything from teen horrors to 'empowering' indies (although it's probably for the best if she leaves Don't Mess with The Zohan off her resume). It shouldn't come as a surprise that in most of her work, her looks have played a large part in the roles she is offered; hookers, porn stars, you name it. I just hope for her sake, Babluani is going to give her something just a little more exciting to do this time around.

Here's the first good news of 2009! Variety reports that Hugh Jackman is now off the official wishlist for Cleo, the Steven Soderbergh musical that will reportedly star Catherine Zeta-Jones as the legendary Egyptian queen, and feature the music penned by Guided by Voices.

Jackman has apparently left talks not because of the concept, but due to a scheduling conflict. (Maybe it's Drive, since everything else has vanished from his IMDB page.) Ray Winstone remains in discussion to play Julius Caesar, and Zeta-Jones is still rumored to be Cleopatra herself.

I may be one of the few celebrating the news. I know Soderbergh is a master of taking preposterous concepts and turning them into cinematic brilliance, but a Cleopatra rock musical just sounds like a spectacularly bad idea. Jackman is a wonderful stage performer, and I've been dying to see him in a movie musical for years. (If you've never seen his pre-Wolverine turn in Oklahoma!, do yourself a favor and rent it now.) But not this one -- Soderbergh or not, it just sounds too campy to be believed.

Since Variety is stumped as to what caused the schedule conflict, I'll make a New Year's wish and hope his production shingle has decided to really get moving on that remake of Carousel. Jackman has had the rights to it for awhile, and to see him singing and dancing in that is ten times better than seeing him as a rocking Mark Antony.

In October, Eric D. Snider shared the wildly strange and awesome news that Steven Soderbergh was following uber-long biopics with a rock-singing Cleopatra in three dimensions. Soderbergh had set his sights on two unsurprising leads -- Catherine Zeta Jones and Hugh Jackman (Marc Antony). But that left one major hole to fill -- the sandals of Caesar himself.

According to MTV, that honor will be given to Ray motherfrakking Winstone. The thought of him playing the iconic figure in a rock opera -- it just sounds too good to be true. Anyhow, the filmmaker went on to say that this will be a period piece shot on backlots, and explained his motivations. It seems he was itching to do a rock 'n' roll musical like Tommy, but didn't like the options coming his way so he started researching. Musicals led him to female-driven plots, which led him to female protagonists and figures, and then Cleopatra. Jackpot!

It all sounds wonderful to me, although part of me sort of wishes that he'd hook up with Julie Taymor for this (can you imagine the visuals if he did?!). Best of all -- we shouldn't have to wait an eternity since Soderbergh plans to begin shooting Cleo this April. Are you ready to see Catherine, Hugh, and Ray don retro-wear and sing in 3D?

Man, kids grow up right quick. The Hollywood Reporter posts that Ginnifer Goodwin (Big Love and He's Just Not That Into You) and Nicholas Hoult have joined the Isherwood adaptation A Single Man -- which I wrote about recently when Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, and Matthew Goode signed on. Goodwin will play a suburban mom who doesn't share her husband's dislike of Firth, their gay neighbor, while Hoult plays Kenny -- "a sexually ambiguous grad student who shows an unusual interest in the professor." Now, I didn't mention Hoult's credits yet because i was saving it for last -- this is the kid from About a Boy. Yes, that's his picture to the right. God, he's grown up!

In other news... It's a little hard to write about this 13... After I read Variety's quite-specitic casting piece, I read Christopher Campbell's review, which notes that some oft-mentioned plot points are pretty spoilerish. So here's what I will say: This is an English-language remake by Gela Babluani of his award-winning thriller 13 Tzameti. It's been cooking up since names like DiCaprio, Ledger, Phoenix, and Maguire were circling it. Sam Riley (Ian Curtis in Control) beat them to the gig, and then the likes of 50 Cent, Mickey Rourke, and Jason Statham were added. Now the above V piece says that Ray Winstone and Ray Liotta are entering the mix. If you don't care about possible spoilers, go there to learn the details of each cast member's role and what this twist is. If not: just know that it's oozing with machismo, and should make for one heck of a film.

About a week ago, word spread that Robert De Niro had walked off the set of Martin Campbell's Edge of Darkness. A spokesman for De Niro explained it to us like idiots: "Sometimes things don't work out; it's called creative differences." De Niro would have co-starred with Mel Gibson as an agent tasked with cleaning up evidence of a murder Gibson's homicide detective is trying to investigate.

It seems that Campbell has found his replacement: the great Ray Winstone, who is currently in negotiations to step into the role. Winstone obviously doesn't have De Niro's profile, which is a loss for a film that's benefited from a considerable amount of hype before even starting principal photography (most of it having to do with Mel Gibson's return to acting after six years). But he certainly has the chops.

De Niro, meanwhile, faces a test of his drawing power this weekend with the release of Righteous Kill. The marketing campaign has concentrated exclusively on the presence of De Niro and Al Pacino, so the question will be how many people the two of them can get into the theaters. Not that De Niro has anything to prove, as evidenced by his walking off the set of a major film two days into shooting.

The press conference for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull just wrapped. Steven Spielberg and George Lucas were on hand with the cast to answer questions about the film. Of course, many of the questions were directed at Ford and Spielberg, but a few were tossed to other cast members as well.

Spielberg, asked whose idea it was to revisit the franchise, said that the idea first came up when Harrison Ford said at the Academy Awards several years back that he'd be interested in wearing Indy's hat again; he noted that he was the hardest to convince that the world really wanted another Indy film. Asked whether there will be further sequels, Spielberg said that that depends on whether people want one, and that they'll keep an ear to the ground to gauge audience reaction to Kingdom of the Crystal Skull; if there's interest, though, he said there will be more to come. So, good news for all you Indy fans out there.

I just walked out of the completely packed press screening of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. James will have his review up shortly, but before the press conference begins, I wanted to give you my quick initial impression of the film, which is: Indy 4 is a nicely satisfying continuation of the franchise, and will please most Indy fans.

Though the first act drags a bit, the latter two-thirds of the film pick up the pace, and the film is packed with all the familiar elements fans have come to expect from Indiana Jones. John Williams's classic score still thrills, and the film, for the most part, meets the expectations set when you hear those familiar first bars of the theme song. Harrison Ford is older, of course (aren't we all), but still brings the role all the charm, daring and humor Indy should have. Shia LaBeouf holds his own alongside Ford, bringing to his role a combination of swaggering bravado and hidden vulnerability that mirrors the younger Ford in the earlier films. And it's great to see Karen Allen back on the screen for the sequel, still full of sass; although she is saddled with a couple of lines of fairly cringe-worthy dialog, you just can't help but like Marion.

You know, if I were an immortal creature of the night, I probably wouldn't be working in a strip club. But seriously, if you were all powerful, would you bother having a day job? Let alone one that has you spending your evenings fighting off 'pole chafing'. Oh well, I guess I've been watching vampire movies long enough to recognize the honored tradition of the stripping undead. The latest contribution, according to Horror Movies.ca, will star Ray Winstone (Beowulf) and go by the name of Live Girls.

Rob Green is set to direct the story of a married man (Winstone) who begins to frequent a strip club and becomes obsessed with the lead dancer, Anya. As to be expected, these ladies are little more blood sucking than you would normally find in your average peeler bar, and our hero begins to find himself changing in unexpected ways. When he returns with another wronged man to uncover the mystery behind this club, it's all fangs and arterial spray from there.

But before you get too excited about Girls, keep in mind that Winstone already has three other projects on the go, and Green is in production on another film. Not to mention that this particular movie hasn't been listed anywhere official for either Green or Winstone. So, stay tuned to Cinematical for any news that comes our way.

By the time this review is over, I will have spent more time thinking about Fool's Gold than the writers of its script. This...thing...is one of the sloppiest pictures released by a major studio in recent memory. What can you say about a "romance" with no romance, a "comedy" with no laughs, an "adventure" with no excitement? Though I certainly wasn't rubbing my hands together in anticipation walking in to the theater, I thought this would at least succeed at being an enjoyable time waster. "Attractive people wearing few clothes in exotic locales -- I can handle watching that for a few hours," I thought to myself. But I was wrong. So very wrong. The whole affair is about as compelling as a two-hour fart.

I don't ask a great deal from romantic comedies. I don't need every one to be Annie Hall or When Harry Met Sally or Love, Actually. I don't even need them to be particularly good -- I kinda enjoyed The Holiday, for God's sake! Give me a few laughs, appealing leads, a warm squishy feeling, and you've done your job. Plainly, the makers of Fool's Gold did not do their job. Listen, I know Valentine's Day is coming up, so heed this warning -- if you see this crashing bore of a movie on a first date, your relationship is doomed, cursed even. Do not speak on the way home, avoid eye contact, just go your separate ways and don't speak of the evening again.