The Tom Tom Club

Doug Liman's Chaos Walking is hitting theaters (whatever the hell that means) on January 22nd, and now that they've dropped the first trailer -- watch it back here -- they're opening the flood-gates. Today comes a series of new images (naturally I snatched the "Twink Holland in a tank top" ones but the rest can be seen over at this link) and the very first clip from the film, which I'll share with you now, here, now:

Will this movie be any good? I don't fucking know. It's had a tortured production which I've doodled about for the past several years. What I do know is Tom wears a tank-top a bunch -- and there are rumors about he has his first nude scene! -- so I will very clearly watch it. Hit the jump for a couple more shots of Tom, with some Mads Mikkelsen thrown in for good measure...

Chaos in the Making

Back in March of 2012 the first Hunger Games movie had come out, and by that April I was already posting about how studios were rushing to adapt every Young Adult novel in existence. One of them was Patrick Ness' trilogy of Chaos Walking books, which got no less than Mr. Charlie Kaufman attached to adapt, which got no less than yours truly to read the books immediately. And they're pretty good, I recall! (I remind you, it's been eight years.) Very weird, and seemingly un-filmable, with their noisy clouds of visible thoughts -- an idea which you can see would draw somebody like Charlie Kaufman in. Anyway that was eight years ago -- eventually Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley and...

... Mads Mikkelsen got cast and Go director Doug Liman got hired and the movie took ages to make and then it sat on a shelf for more ages and I think they reshot a bunch of it at one point and and now we have a trailer, voila. (Funny enough you can see Tom Holland's age jump around in just this footage here.) The movies, they can be weird and wily beasts towards the finish line. Anyway here's the trailer:

Once Charlie Kaufman got the kibosh and this thing got delayed and delayed I have to admit my interest waned, but we'll see when it "comes out" in January -- a January release! Always a good sign! But if nothing else it appears that Spider-twink spends a lot of the movie in a tank top, so all's not lost. On that note I made some gifs of precisely that, right on after the jump...

Jakes Gyllenhaal Goes Blind

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I was looking at the IMDb page for the actor Jake Gyllenhaal -- perhaps you have heard of him -- recently and finding myself entirely uncertain what the next acting project for him might be. He's had several things lined up but they've all been lined up for some time, and some of them less convincingly than others -- for instance I personally don't think his movie Rio with Luca Guadagnino is ever going to happen, even though... sigh, just imagine. I think the most likely thing is his HBO series Lake Success based on the Gary Shteyngart book, but this whole pandemic thing has made everything a question mark. He hadn't been filming when it all went down, and there are several things just laying there. (Hey remember how he bought the rights to the Fun Home musical in January?)

Anyway today comes word of a whole new thing for the big ass pile -- an adaptation of the graphic novel Snow Blind, from writers Ollie Masters and Tyler Jenkins. Anybody read it? I guess it's a thriller about a teenage boy who discovers his parents are in the Witness Protection Program. This here film version is set to be directed by the Danish director Gustav Möller who made the one-man wowza called The Guilty (reviewed here), a remake of which has been in the works and has been set to star, you guess it, Jake Gyllenhaal. Damn he gets around.

And Snow Blind actually has another wholly exciting name attached -- the writer is Patrick Ness, the author of the YA novels that make up the Chaos Walking trilogy as well as A Monster Calls, all of which I'm a massive fan of.  I've posted about Ness often. Funny enough, speaking of Jake getting around, his husband Tom Holland already filmed a film version of the Chaos Walking books that's seen a torturous production -- I have quite literally lost track of what's happening to it. Once upon a time it had a script by no less than Charlie Kaufman! But they filmed it in like 2017 (here's a shot of Tom Holland on set) and then... nothing.

And as if this incestuous web of overlapping names needed to get more so I just now learned from Deadline's article on this Snow Blind news that Ness, who worked on the screenplays of both of his book adaptations, is at this moment working on the script for Luca Guadagnino's Lord of the Flies remake. All of this makes me feel like Ness is the spoke in the whele that connects Jake to Tom to Luca, and that I have got to immediately go make friends with Patrick Ness. See you suckers later!

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Pic of the Day

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Our first look at Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley in the movie version of Chaos Walking is here! This is a behind-the-scenes picture obviously - given that great big camera in frame - but this is what their characters Todd & Viola will look like, at least. (Tom's dirty tank top for the win.) Doug Liman is directing and the film also stars Mads Mikkelsen, David Oyelowo, and Damian Bechir; it isn't supposed to be out until 2019 so don't hold ya breath. See our previous posts on this movie here.

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I Am Link

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--- Everybody Wants Chaos - Tom Holland posted a picture on his Instagram from the set of Chaos Walking the other day (he also posted that picture to the left, which is way more interesting) calling attention to the fact that it had begun shooting finally, which is news we have waited a very long time to hear, so yippee for that. And an even bigger yippee to today's news that no less than David Oyelowo has just joined the film's cast! He is playing another bad guy alongside Mads Mikkelsen, whose casting we celebrated (along with Nick Jonas) the other week. Add on Daisy Ridley and that is one super cast that Doug Liman is gathering up here.

--- For The Love Of Alf - That list of the 100 Greatest Comedies of All Time that the BBC collated from a bunch of critics has been hogging all the attention this week which is a shame because there's another list worth a look-see - Rolling Stone came up with the Top 40 Science-Fiction Movies of the 21st Century, and it's filled with super picks! (And my real world friend Sean T. Collins wrote up a few of them so keep your eyes peeled for his name.) I've been in a big sci-fi mood thanks to MoMA's amazing summer series, which I pray they make an annual thing.

--- Bad Hellboy Bad - I kind of wanted to avoid this news in hopes it would go away - Neil Marshall & Co were doing so well in casting their Hellboy reboot! David Harbour and Milla Jovovich and American Honey's Sasha Lane and Ian McShane! Very good! But now they have gone and cast Ed Skrein - who I like a lot, mind you - to play a character that is half-Japanese in the comics, which is a terrible, terrible decision. Why won't they learn already? Ugh!

--- Break Forth - I figure I should give you the heads-up on this one since I reviewed it at Fantasia Fest a couple of weeks ago and it's not half bad - the trippy Cronenbergian horror movie Sequence Break, which I called "a love letter to films like Videodrome and the practical effects of 80s horror," has been picked up by Shudder (along with five more horror movies), the online streaming service, so stay tuned for that.I imagine I will help you do so by mentioning it when it has a date and a trailer.

--- David Hears You - Every time I have done one of these link round-up over the past couple of months I have said the same thing at some point therein - I could make this whole damn thing nothing but Twin Peaks writing! And here we are again. I'll just give you two though, and there's related even more specifically - here is an interview with David Lynch in the New York Times where he talks about creating the show's soundscape, which anybody who's ever seen anything from David Lynch knows is like way important. And on that same front the fine folks at the site Welcome to Twin Peaks uncovered a fun little aural Easter Egg in the new season's premiere. Oh wait here's another one - Lynch chatting with ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons about industrial noise for The Guardian. Sure, okay!

--- The Tippi Point - Because I've only been doing one of these posts per week lately (they're so time consuming because I can't stop myself from rambling) (case in point) some of this news is a little old, like this - the BBC is remaking The Birds! Well, they are making a miniseries from Daphne du Maurier's novella anyway, which is incredibly different from the movie Alfred Hitchcock ended up making. The only thing they have in common... is birds.

--- Call Me Luca - I haven't had a chance to listen to this yet myself but The Playlist shared a Q&A with director Luca Guadagnino at the Melbourne Film Festival last week where he apparently talks about both Call Me By Your Name (which was screening there) and his upcoming remake of Suspiria (which probably won't screen anywhere until next year is my guess). Somebody listen to it and tell me the good parts!

--- And Finally I thought about making gifs from this but I think it probably works better as video, uninterrupted - Sam Taylor-Johnson directed a commercial for Givenchy (thx Mac) starring her gorgeous slab of husband Aaron Taylor-Johnson and it's a real joy; it's easily the best thing I've ever seen her direct. But then I only made it halfway through 50 Shades of Grey and I only watched one episode of Gypsy before giving up so what do I know? (I'd say I know a lot.) Wisely she got Aaron to dance, channeling that REM music video he starred in - he needs to make a musical, obviously. Watch!
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Proud of what we made here. @aarontaylorjohnson @aarondoucette @mr_stephengalloway @thestylecouncilparis #givenchy #givenchybeauty #aarontaylorjohnson #elizabethsalt @lucyhalperin @gunning8

A post shared by Artist & Director (@samtaylorjohnson) on Aug 22, 2017 at 12:32pm PDT

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Nick Jonas Gets Walking

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I had already forgotten that Chaos Walking was finally happening - last we'd heard was way back in November when Spider-twink Tom Holland signed on the play the YA trilogy's male lead, and Daisy Ridley the female one. Well they're plowing ahead with the thing now and today comes word that Nick Jonas is joining the film too, and besides that something I totally missed - Mads Mikkelsen is apparently playing the villain? Whaaaaat? Score!

Everything's coming up Mads today. (See Also.) And that's not even getting to Demian Bichir, also in the movie, and the fact that Doug Liman is directing. Sidenote: I tried to watch Doug Liman's most recent movie The Wall starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson as a solider... trapped behind a wall... but I was bored ten minutes in and stopped. Hopefully that was just a Rope-like experiment Liman was playing with and he'll bring his big stuff for Chaos Walking, because I really loved Patrick Ness' series of books. 

Have any of you read them yet? I will admit I am sad that Charlie Kaufman's not making this movie like had been the initial rumor - can you imagine? I am sure his ideas were too weird for a big studio - the books, which are about sound itself, are very very weird though. I hope this version doesn't tamp down what made them interesting in the first place and just turn them into a generic YA thing.

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Chaos Assembles

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THR is reporting that our amazing new Spider-man Tom Holland has signed on to star in Chaos Walking, which is a project I've been blabbing about for ages and ages - based on a terrific YA trilogy of books by the writer Patrick Ness (whose book A Monster Calls was also turned into a movie, one which is out at Christmas and we cannot wait to see) the movie was originally being written by no less than Charlie Kaufman. 

Then back in August, after a very long gestation period, came word that Go director Doug Liman was directing the film and Daisy Ridley would be co-starring; at that point a new writer was mentioned, which had me worried that Kaufman had been usurped. Booted! But THR does mention Kaufman today as a co-writer, so I guess we'll see how that shakes out.

Chaos Walking is actually the title of the entire trilogy of books, which are individually titled The Knife of Letting Go, The Ask and the Answer, and Monsters of Men - THR doesn't mention the films being a trilogy now, so perhaps the entire story's been distilled down to one? That would surprise me - for one that would be a lot of story to mash up, and for another since when is Hollywood in the business of not stretching these things out? Or did the lessened reception of the endless Divergent series teach them a lesson? (This is much much more interesting than the Divergent series, people.) In summation, Spider-bum!

I Am Link

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--- Boo Witch - I won't be watching it (I still haven't watched the first one) but there's a new trailer for the new Blair Witch and you can watch it over here - there are also several stills from the film which consist of a bunch of people I don't recognize standing around in the woods, and I wouldn't want it any other way! I just realized I'm going to be traveling the weekend this movie comes out, so I guess I'm going to some bizarro movie theater on the road to see it.

--- Darker Things - Go director Doug Liman is very busy right now - we told you a couple of weeks ago about how he recently attached himself to Chaos Walking with Daisy Ridley, which is an adaptation of a book series we liked very much; well he's just had to drop off his Gambit movie with Channing Tatum, which he was also set to direct, because he's making a Justice League Dark movie - which I maintain is just the silliest name; it sounds like a chocolate bar - which is like The Avengers but with weirdos... you know, like Suicide Squad. Or Guardians of the Galaxy even! Anyway this group of weirdos includes "John Constantine, Swamp Thing, Deadman, Zatanna and Etrigan the Demon." I am down for some Swamp Thing.

--- Ride 'Em Cowboy - Pedro Almodovar has come up this week a bunch, he's been doing lots of press for Julieta, but I can't not mention all his talk about what his version of Brokeback Mountain would've consisted of (he almost made it before Ang Lee did) because I would watch this!

"More sex, more sex. And this is not gratuitous. Annie Proulx’s story is about a physical relationship, an animal relation. So sex is necessary, because it is the body of the story. So I always had the image — these two guys start making love to each other like animals, like they were taking care of . Against the cold, in the mountain; almost a way to survive in the mountains. In the end, they discover that it was something else and they were surprised; it was like a big accident. But the physical part, [the story] is about that. "

--- Poor Peggy - I wanted to quote something from this interview with Kirsten Dunst in the New York Times, in which she talks lovingly about her character from Fargo (I liked the bit about her grandma) but I have hit the paywall on their website and they're not letting me reload the article so whatever, go read it, unless you're paywalled out too, in which case we can commiserate together on our shared cheapness.

--- Gold is the Warmest Color - I liked the sci-fi romance Equals with Nicholas Hoult & Kristen Stewart quite a bit when I saw it at Tribeca, so I am excited to read that that film's director is making yet another weird romance next, and it will star Charlie Hunnam and Lea Seydoux! I guess he wants a blond bookend to that brunette one. No word on what makes this story "unique" but with Charlie around I am hoping it's set in a nudist colony.

--- Night and the City - Writer-director Dan Gilroy is finally lining up a project to direct after he knocked at least me out with Nightcrawler - it's called Inner City and it looks like it will star Denzel Washington; not much on specifics but they're comparing it to the Paul newman movie The Verdict (which I have never seen) in that it is "a character study as much a courtroom drama and is set in Los Angeles."

--- Happy Easter - I don't know how this slipped by me posting about it (I knew the news, but I didn't exclaim the news) but Kristin Chenoweth has reunited with her best Pushing Daisies boyfriend Bryan Fuller  on American Gods! She will be playing the character called Easter, and Bryan posted that shot of Cheno in character, with bonnet, on Twitter yesterday. Oh heavens I am excited!

--- And Finally it's brief - you might say it's a tease! - but here's the teaser trailer for the third season of The Fall with Gillian Anderson and Jamie Dornan, a show I have enjoyed very much even if I think Jamie Dornan is not the greatest actor in the bunch still. Gillian more than makes up for his woodenness. We still don't have a release date for this, though.
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I Am Link

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--- The Shadows Know - Last thing we'd heard about about the long-shuffled-about Crow reboot it was going to star Jack Huston in the lead (yawn) and Andrea Riseborough as the bad guy (yes!) and be directed by Colin Hardy, whose horror film The Hallow was actually pretty terrific. Hardy is still attached here a full year later but rumors are rumbling that the film will now star Jason Momoa, who recently posted a picture of himself with the director on his Instagram. (Yup, right next to all the usual shirtless pics, of course.) I can't decide if that's a good or a bad idea. Momoa's awfully bulky for the Crow, who I picture lithe.

--- Everybody's in Crisis - Woody Allen's series for Amazon now has a name, Crisis in Six Scenes, and a premiere date -- set aside the weekend of September 30th cuz that's what you'll be watching. The six-episode half-hour series stars, amongst many, Woody himself and Miley Cyrus. Now there's a duo. It's set in the "turbulent" 60s and it's about, and I quote, "a middle-class suburban family [who] is visited by a guest who turns their household completely upside down."

--- And Speaking of "I can't believe we live in an age where these people are making television shows," didja hear yesterday that David O. Russell is planning on making a series that will star Robert De Niro & Julianne Moore? Yeah, that's something. Info's sparse but Deadline says it is "a crime/cop thriller that might be set in the 1990s." No network's signed on yet but with a pedigree like that...

--- Machete Mixer - The remake of The Crazies is actually not bad, thanks to good performances by Timothy Olyphant and Joe Anderson, so the news that its director Breck Eisner has just signed on to make the new new Friday the 13th movie could be good news for that series? Of course that's if you ignore the fact that since The Crazies Eisner went on to direct Sahara and The Last Witch Hunter, which involves... a whole lot of effort, that much ignoring. But hey it's Jason Voorhees, how can you mess that up... hahaha, right.

--- The Real Horror - Yes Dario Argento gave an interview where he said he doesn't think that Luca Guadagnino should bother remaking his film Suspiria, but honestly at this point, after a couple straight decades of directing absolute garbage, I maybe kind of don't care what Dario Argento has to say? Believe me, I cherish many many films from the man. But I don't trust him or his opinions about movie-making anymore. Giallo and Dracula 3D were so bad I think he might have dementia, honestly.

--- Ridley Me This - I was just now rifling through the notes I make myself for these posts over the course of a week or so and stumbled upon this story and gasped - I'd totally forgotten that it was announced on Friday that Star Wars star Daisy Ridley had signed on to star in the movie version of the Chaos Walking books! Click here to see our previous posts on the series - we're big fans of Patrick Ness' YA trilogy. But it doesn't look like Charlie Kaufman is attached anymore, which had us pretty thrilled - instead Jamie Linden, the writer of Dear John and Money Monster, must exist in Charlie's massive shadow and given his previouslies I am not sure he can handle it. On the positive side Doug Liman is supposed to direct it, and we will always hold out hope for another Go from Doug.

--- But Speaking of screenwriter trade-offs, this one's much less questionable - Sarah Polley is no longer writing the new Little Women movie, which is sad, but you know who is writing it now? Greta effing Gerwig! I can't possibly be upset about that, no matter how much I love Sarah Polley. This is like a lateral move, equally awesome, I think. (thx Mac)

--- And Finally I haven't watched the teaser trailer for Denis Villeneuve's new film Arrival, starring Amy Adams - should I? You can watch it right below. I will obviously see this movie so I'm not sure I should bother with watching a trailer, but if I'm missing something gooseflesh-inducing maybe I will - I did hear whispers of such. A couple of images from the movie were also posted at The Film Experience, with word on who's who and what's what.
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The Monster Is Calling Me

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There might not be any movie coming out in the near future that I'm looking forward to more than I'm looking forward to A Monster Calls. (Find links to all of our previous posts on the film here.) Based on the heart-rending book by Patrick Ness (who also wrote the fantastic Chaos Walking trilogy) A Monster Calls stars Toby Kebbell (hey we were just talking about him) and Felicity Jones and newcomer Lewis MacDougall as a family facing adversity, with Sigourney Weaver as Grandmother (her part is probably much bigger than you think it's gonna be) and Liam Neeson voicing a great big scary tree monster. This sounds like weird stuff, but it is a beautiful and sad sad sad book and the first teaser trailer has arrived and it looks like they have maybe knocked it outta the park. I can't believe I have to wait a full year for this! It's out in October 2016.
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A Monster Named Siggy

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Sigourney Weaver has just joined the cast of A Monster Calls. What's A Monster Calls? Well we've mentioned this project a couple of times already here at MNPP; we're very excited about it. It's based on a book by Patrick Ness, who also wrote the Chaos Walking trilogy of books, which we're fans of. We read A Monster Calls a couple of months ago and it's a shockingly moving piece of work - I had no idea going in what I was in for, actually. It's about a boy named Conor who has a sick mother and a gigantic tree who comes at night and rips apart his bedroom. 

As for the movie-makers, Director Juan Antonio Bayona last made The Impossible with Naomi Watts, and Sigourney's joining Liam Neeson (he's voicing the titular monster) and Felicity Jones as Conor's mom. Sigourney has a really very important, and big, role as Conor's grandmother. Sigoruney wasn't what I had pictured but then I suppose I just don't picture her when I read about grandmothers, and I'm gonna need to get over that now. It's a really good part though, at least in the book. (thanks Mac)

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I Am Link

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--- Blood Red Shoes - Vera Farmiga is going to star in the ballet dark-comedy Prima, as a mother "who will stop at nothing to realize her daughter's ballet dancing dream;" she'll be starring opposite her Orphan co-star Peter Sarsgaard as the daughter's "devil in dance shoes" instructor. And on top of all that the choreography will be from Mr. Natalie Portman, that hot piece Benjamin Millepied. I hope Ben's in it, and reenacts this part from The Black Swan, only with Peter as his crotch-groper. That's what I hope. By the way I am sort of addicted to ballet in real life now - that shit is tons of fun! And those dancer's bodies - my goodness

--- Lick It Up Baby - As I said in my last post today where I celebrated the Dead Gay Sons in Heathers, I am going to see the off-Broadway musical in a couple of weeks, so this conversation here with the dudes who turned the movie into songs (thanks Mac) is pretty much perfect reading for today.

--- Tree Stand - The last time I mentioned A Monster Calls, the upcoming horror flick from the director of The Orphanage and the writer of the great Chaos Walking books, I mentioned that Liam Neeson was rumored to star as the, well, I guess the monster. Now we have confirmation. Felicity Jones is playing the mother of the kid who's the main character who meets the monster, which is in the form of a tree in his backyard. I am guessing Liam will be doing voice-work then, and not wearing this (although that would be soooo awesome).
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--- Sweet On Honey - We finally have some new information on Andrea Arnold's next movie (her last being the lovely Wuthering Heights) - we already knew it was going to be her first US-based film and was going to be about a teenage girl going to work for a magazine and getting sidetracked with party-time; now we have a title, American Honey (better than the rumored one of Mag Crew) and the news that Arnold will be shooting it this Summer, and casting's underway now. I'm guessing she'll be hiring unknowns since that's how she usually rolls, and to great effect too. (Speaking of, where the hell are all of Katie Jarvis' jobs dammit?)

--- Byrne On Fire - Looks like I am definitely going to see Neighbors this weekend; they'd prodded me with enough Zac Efron beefcake into curiostiy, but now that we've got word that Rose Byrne's part is much more than just "Wife Way Too Pretty For Schlumpy Funny Guy" and she's got stuff to do, well sign me up, I love Rose Byrne. Says The Playlist:

"She has proven herself to be a fearless comedic performer, one who is absolutely awe-inspiring in this movie. Rose Byrne is second banana no more."

--- Un Wrapped - Andy Muschietti, the director of the surprise success horror flick Mama (which had its moments but was ultimately only okay, says me), has dropped off of a reboot of The Mummy after clashing with the folks at Universal. He wanted to make something dark, they wanted something light, wake me up when we aren't hearing this story for the thousandth time. I'll be over here with mark Romanek imagining his Wolfman movie.

--- Half Mast - Well damn, so much sexiness just got tossed down the drain - FOX canceled both Enlisted, which starred Geoff Stults and Parker Young and Chris Lowell as military brothers and got them all instagramming themselves as we documented here, and Chris Meloni's new show Surviving Jack, which we've also documented the gratuity from. All four of you guys just come over, I'll get you drunk and ease your pain, I promise.

--- Heart Broken - The best thing about this oh let's just say misguided piece on the upcoming adaptation of Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart (misguided is being so so nice on my part) is actually all of the comments - this is not how things usually work! Usually the comments sections of big websites read like troll central! But the article itself is the trolling here, and the comments take that shit to task, and spectacularly. 
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I Am Link

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--- Book Her - I keep bitching on Twitter about wanting to hear what Lupita Nyong'o will sign up to do next, since I'm gonna be really angry if Hollywood doesn't use her - today comes whispers of her first post-Oscar project being a voice role in the big-budget CG extravaganza Jungle Book movie Jon Favreau is making that we've been hearing about - Idris Elba will be voicing the tiger, you may recall? Lupita would voice the mother wolf that adopts the boy. So... there's that. Apparently ScarJo is in talks to voice the snake, too. So many beautiful people hired to be turned into cartoon animals.

--- Riot Grrl - A few of my favorite lady performances seem to fall under the umbrella that is the "Manic Punk Dream Girl," which is a category that's just been coined by David Sims over at The Wire - give it up for Lulu, y'all. These ladies are so much more agreeable to me than their pixie counterparts.

--- Doubled Dose - Super glad to see there's forward momentum on the movie where Tom Hardy will be playing the Kray twins, the well-known murderous gangsters from the 50s where one was straight and one was gay - Emily Browning has signed on to play the wife of... well one of them, I can't remember the story, it's entirely possible the gay one got married.
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--- Elder Gerwig - Meg Ryan will be voicing the the Future Greta Gerwig character in How I Met Your Dad, like how Bob Saget narrated the show's Mother incarnation. I'm sure lots of somebodies somewhere have made all the requisite jokes about how this saves us from having to look at Meg's screwed-up face, so I'll refrain.

--- Mother Monster - A few weeks ago I told you about A Monster Calls, the great-sounding new horror flick from The Orphanage director JA Bayona that's an adaptation of a kid's book by Patrick Ness, the dude who wrote the terrific Chaos Walking trilogy of books. It's about a kid and a monster tree or something (I have the book but I haven't read it yet). Anyway Felicity Jones just signed on to play the kid's mom. I can never remember who she is or if I've actually seen her in anything. There's also a rumor that Liam Neeson will be playing the Monster.

--- Wet And Wild - Patricia Clarkson gets all the luck - she's making a movie where Scott Speedman washes up on the shore and she gets to take him in! I want that gig. It's called October Gale and he's a criminal that's being hunted by another bad guy and yadda yadda you get him naked quick, Patty.

--- Grr Argh - The Playlist has rounded up a big bunch of new videos having to do with the new Godzilla movie - some new International trailers with new footage, as well as some behind-the-scenes chats with the director Gareth Edwards. This is probably the movie I'm most looking forward to seeing this Summer, at least blockbuster-wise - what about you?

--- And finally Hannibal's creator Bryan Fuller's been making the interview rounds this week - just a couple of days ago there was that glorious one with HuffPo, and now here's a really good one at The Backlot where he discusses the show's oft-displayed homoerotic tension between Hannibal and Will. Choice bit:

"To be absolutely clear, it is not sexual, but it’s beyond sexual. It is pure intimacy in a non-physical way. But it is that intimacy between heterosexual men that I’m fascinated with because it does go beyond physical parameters to this very primal basic male bonding place. That, as a gay man, I am outside of, because it is unique. Because it is free of a sexuality and/or intimation of sexuality. Yet anyone in the audience who is attracted to either of the men will feel that energy."

Oh I'm feeling it, Bryan. That moment in the last episode when they were leaning towards each other I think my couch started on fire. Anyway there's also a video chat between Bryan and Scott Thompson over here (thanks Mac); I haven't watched it yet but I will be shortly believe you me. Here it is:
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Monsters Calling

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I wasn't nearly as bowled over by Juan Antonio Bayona's 2007 ghost movie The Orphanage as everybody else seemed to be - it was a fine little thing with a few fine scares but you'd have thought it reinvented the scare-wheel the way some people behaved. Much to my surprise I much preferred Bayona's next film, the tsunami drama The Impossible, which to my mind managed ten times the harrowing horror that his lil' bag-head did. 

Anyway Bayona's got some cool stuff on his plate - I didn't know he was directing episodes of Sam Mendes' upcoming horror show The Extraordinary League of Gentlemen Penny Dreadful, which I'm super excited about in the wake of its most recent very effective trailer. And I must have also missed the news that Bayona was hired to film the second World War Z movie; Marc Forster directed the first one, which shocked everybody by not completely sucking. I like that Bayona's got the sequel though; as I said he proved himself with mass destruction once already. This time plus zombies!

That's all my rambling lead-up to the new news, which is the World War Z sequel is still a ways off from happening so before he gets to that Bayona's just signed on to make something called A Monster Calls. What's A Monster Calls? It's an adaptation of a kid's book by writer Patrick Ness. Who's Patrick Ness? Patrick Ness is the author of the Chaos Walking trilogy, which rules. We've written about Chaos Walking a few times here before because no less than Charlie fucking Kaufman has supposedly been working on adapting those books into a series of films; we haven't heard anything about the status of that though since September, when Robert Zemeckis was talking about making them. Zemeckis isn't do that anytime soon though since he's now working on turning the doc Man On Wire into a fiction film with Joseph Gordon-Levitt. So who knows.

Anyway I have not read A Monster Calls yet, but it's on my list. Any of y'all read it? Like I said it is a kid's book, but it sounds like pretty creepy in its synopsis on Amazon. Ness himself apparently wrote the script that Bayona's signed on to direct; a script that got placed on The Black List last year. So fingers crossed for spooky stuff!

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Chuck & Bob's Chaos

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It's been so long since we first heard that Charlie Kaufman was adapting Patrick Ness' terrific trilogy of young adult adventures called Chaos Walking that I've had time to 1) run and read all three books, and 2) eventually forget that Charlie Kaufman was adapting them, and then 3) even really forget what the books are about. Granted with my lousy memory all of this only took place in less than two years, but still. News has been quiet. Until now! And it's good, I think. Robert Zemeckis is thinking about directing the film... s. Being reminded what the books are about, I'm still unsure how you even turn them into movies - how do you visualize audible thought? The soundtrack is going to be INTENSE. Anyway even though Zemeckis hasn't been my fave as of late - I disliked Flight quite a bit, and let us not even speak of those dead-eyed animated aberrations - he still made Back to the Future and Romancing the Stone and Who Framed Rogger Rabbit and Death Becomes Her, so he's got a couple more free passes to burn. I really thought Spike Jonze might make the movies (he and Kaufman are a package deal, right?) but I'd rather he be off making righteous looking quirk like Her anyway.

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I Am Link

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--- Beefcake Boss - Hey you guys, guess who saw Magic Mike last night? This asshole right here, that's who. I assume I'll write something up later-ish so stay tuned for that. But here's a fun fact: before Steven Soderbergh took on the movie, Channing Tatum had been talking with Nicholas Winding Refn about directorial duties. Just imagine! On a separate but related note, Soderbergh's talking up where he's going from here - he still has a couple films lined up but his supposed hiatus from filmmaking is looming larger every day. So... maybe TV after that? And thirdly, Magic Mike flashmob!

--- RIP Sarris - I spent awhile yesterday reading David Bordwell's piece on the just passed critic Andrew Sarris and it's well worth your time. I'd read a lot of Sarris back in school but it'd been awhile.

--- Still Bourne - If the new Damon-less Jason Bourne movie with Jeremy Renner does well then they might make the next one a team-up between Renner and Damon's characters. I still haven't seen any of the Bourne movies (I know, I know - in the name of all things Joan Allen what am I thinking?) but I don't mind picturing Jeremy Renner and Matt Damon "teaming up" at all.

--- Come On Charlie - Not good news regarding Charlie Kaufman's next movie Frank or Francis, the Hollywood satire - according to stars Elizabeth Banks and Kevin Kline the whole thing's on hold, postponed, for the time being. No word on why. Argh! Kaufman's not slacking, he's got lots on his plate right now including that HBO show with Catherine Keener and that adaptation of the Chaos Walking books for the screen - speaking of I am plowing through the first book The Knife of Never Letting Go right now and it's good! - but honestly after he made Synechdoche New York and blew me away I'd rather his return to the director's chair be his top priority.

--- Hobbit Fever - Fat hobbit Sean Astin has joined the cast of the next Cabin Fever movie - it's weird, Slash's article about it makes nary a mention of Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever, which geeks like me mostly remember because of the sordid ordeal wonderful director Ti West had with the studio messing everything up. Anyway this third film is called Cabin Fever: Patient Zero and will have a bunch of douchebags (inevitably they will be douchebags) having a bachelor party (see?) on the Caribbean when they bump into a medical research facility, one thing leads to another, somebody's face falls off. It will also star the very hot piece Brando Eaton, pictured left.

--- Spandex Kings - DH did a nifty little job laying out where all the Avengers moolah stands as of today, fifty-four days in. It's passing the 600 million mark today, is why. God I hope Joss had a good deal. I know that Sir Ham Downey Jr. made ridiculous amounts of money - enough to go away forever, please? - but if Joss made a good chunk of change as well then I can mostly stomach that.

--- Angry Molesting Tree - Speaking of Joss, Michael C. did a fun little exploration of the white board in Cabin in the Woods, which is a movie I literally check for its DVD release date at least once a week, hoping it's been announced, and still nothing. When it's on DVD say goodbye to me, I'll be watching it five thousand times in a row, I swear it.

--- Unseen - BD points me over to somewhere I wish I hadn't been pointed - these limited-edition posters for Drive and especially Insidious are lovely, but they are 60 bucks each and I can't right now. Won't somebody think of my birthday???

--- Hung Up - And speaking of posters, our favorite poster expert Glenn is looking at what he deems the best designs of 2012 so far, and several of my faves are included, and even more are new to me and new favorites now. That sentence is gibberish, but it says what it needs to. New now new!

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Charlie's Time For Chaos

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Somebody told me ages and ages ago to read the "Chaos Walking" trilogy by Patrick Ness and I can't for the life of me remember who it was. So if you're reading this, person who did that thing, I apologize - I tossed the books onto my Amazon Wish List and promptly forgot about them, as I'm wont to do. Forget, that is. Speaking of, what the hell am I talking about? Ahh yes, apparently the person who told me to read the "Chaos Walking" books knew their shit because they're preparing to turn the books into the next hot movie franchise and who should sign on to adapt the first book but Charlie Kaufman! Via Deadline:

"Lionsgate has high hopes that the Patrick Ness young adult novel series Chaos Walking has the potential to become another futuristic Hunger Games-esque franchise. While the mission on most of those book to movie sensations is to stick close to the books, Lionsgate has done an intriguing thing on Chaos Walking: they’ve set Charlie Kaufman to adapt the first book in the series.

The Carnegie Medal winning book is set in a dystopian future with humans colonizing a distant earth-like planet. When an infection called the Noise suddenly makes all thought audible, privacy vanishes, chaos ensues, and a corrupt autocrat threatens to take control of the human settlements and wage war with the indigenous alien race. Only young Todd Hewitt holds the key to stopping planet wide-destruction."

The first book in the series is called The Knife of Never Letting Go, the second books is called The Ask and the Answer, and the third book is called Monsters of Men. They are all out now; the last one was published last September. Strangely they haven't packaged them into a boxed set yet though. I suppose they've got plenty of time and money to make ahead. Has anybody read them? I guess I've got my next reading project lined up. If Charlie Kaufman's sees fit to get his mitts on this story then something special waits indeed. Now they just need to go ahead and hire Michel Gondry or Spike Jonze to direct.

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