Justin Timberlake (The Social Network) has signed on to star opposite Clint Eastwood (Gran Torino) and Amy Adams (Junebug) in The Trouble with the Curve.

Written by newcomer Randy Brown, The Trouble with the Curve centers on an ageing baseball scout (Eastwood) who takes a road trip to Atlanta with his daughter (Adams) to take a look at a hot prospect.

Robert Lorenz, a long-time collaborator of Eastwood’s, will make his directorial debut on the film, which is scheduled to begin production later this month.

The Trouble with the Curve will be released in the US on September 28.

Timberlake was last seen in Andrew Niccol’s less-than-stellar sci-fi thriller opposite Amanda Seyfried (Chloe).

Source: Variety

Everything about Tom Hooper’s upcoming film adaptation of Victor Hugo’s renowned novel, and the subsequent stage musical, Les Misérables, sounds perfect so far.

Russell Crowe will be playing the male co-lead of Jean Valjean, with Hugh Jackman joining him as Inspector Javert, and Anne Hathaway will be bringing to life the female lead, Fantine.

When Hooper announced last month that he wouldn’t be using 3D for the film, he also said that we should expect to soon hear casting news about the roles of Éponine and Cosette, and it looks as though we could well be getting confirmation soon now.

Twitch are reporting, via The Playlist, that Taylor Swift and Amanda Seyfried have been offered the roles of Éponine and Cosette, respectively, after Hooper’s search in the past few months, with Swift beating the likes of Scarlett Johansson, Evan Rachel Wood, and Lea Michele for the role.

It was also announced last month that the cast of the film is expected to sing live on set, in front of the cameras, rather than pre-recording their vocals in a studio, which sounds like such a novel approach to me. Naturally, this means that the actors and actresses will need to be able to sing themselves, rather than use voice doubles. Swift of course has a background in music, but I hadn’t realised that Seyfried has been trained in opera singing herself, so both should come in handy for the hopeful pair.

The rest of the casting so far announced includes Sacha Baron Cohen and Eddie Redmayne, and the production is set to begin this spring. This could potentially cause a scheduling conflict with Swift, who has a tour lined up forAustraliaandNew Zealand, but hopefully this is something they can work around.

Les Misérables is set to make its US debut on 7^th December this year, perfectly lining it up for the Oscars in 2013. With a bit of luck, we’ll be getting it here in theUK at the same time to enjoy it before the end of the year too. I can’t wait. More news as we get it.

Until last year, I’d never heard of the name Linda Lovelace, but the casting for the upcoming biopic surrounding her life, entitled Lovelace, seems to have been getting better and better over the past few months.

Amanda Seyfried will be starring as the eponymous Linda Lovelace, described in real life as the world’s first porn star, who was the female lead in the 1972 porn film, Deep Throat. Variety report, via Collider, that Adam Brody (The O.C.), Eric Roberts (Heroes), and Demi Moore (A Few Good Men) are now all set to join the cast, with Moore taking a cameo role as political activist Gloria Steinem, and Brody starring as Lovelace’s Deep Throat co-star, Harry Reems.

The supporting cast also includes Peter Sarsgaard as her husband, JunoTemple, Sharon Stone, Wes Bentley, and Hank Azaria, and if he can fit it into his schedule, James Franco may be set to play Hugh Hefner. The film is to be directed by the co-directing team of Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, who worked with Franco on their last feature, Howl.

In real life (Wikipedia tells me), Lovelace later divorced her husband Chuck Traynor, and claimed that she had been forced into her pornography career by him at gunpoint. She then denounced her previous career, and came to be a spokeswoman for the anti-pornography movement.

In the past few years, Seyfried has been making a bigger and bigger name for herself as a leading actress, and I thought she and Justin Timberlake were brilliant opposite each other on In Time last year. Lovelace’s biography sounds pretty harrowing, and so the movie certainly has the potential to be an intense drama of her life. No news yet on a release date, but production is already underway inLos Angeles, and the film is expected to be released sometime this year. I’m a big fan of all I’ve seen Brody in to date, and can’t wait to see Moore in Margin Call this month, and the rest of the cast are all fantastic, so I think there’s every reason to expect Lovelace to be a solid film when it finishes production and makes its way to the big screen.

The big screen look into the troubled life of 70’s porn superstar Linda Lovelace now has a number of venerable character actors onboard.

Robert Patrick, Hank Azaria, Bobby Cannavale and Chris Noth have joined the production, which stars Amanda Seyfried in the lead role and Peter Sarsgaard as her violent, manipulative husband. Like Walk the Line, Patrick is performing daddy duties again and has been cast as Lovelace’s estranged father, while ‘Simpsons’ voice veteran Azaria will play the director of the porn flick in which she made her name, Deep Throat.

Howl co-directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman have assembled an interesting cast so far. Recent names to sign up were Wes Bentley, Sharon Stone and the up-and –coming Juno Temple.

News via Screen International

Amanda Seyfried has had a bit of a mixed bag with films this year, kicking things off in the spring with Red Riding Hood, which wasn’t brilliantly received, and ending on a much more positive note with Andrew Niccol’s brilliant In Time, which is out in cinemas now, and which I highly recommend you see sometime in the next few weeks.

The first trailer for her next film, Gone, has surfaced over at Yahoo Movies, which will give us another chance to see her in a leading role. And with any luck, this will hopefully be better received than Red Riding Hood was, because I think she is a great actress – which In Time, to give just the most recent example, shows – and deserves the rising recognition she’s been getting in recent years.

“Jill Parrish (Seyfried) comes home from a night shift to discover her sister Molly has been abducted. Jill, who had escaped from a kidnapper a year before, is convinced that the same serial killer has come back for her sister. Afraid that Molly will be dead by sundown, Jill embarks on a heart-pounding chase to find the killer, expose his secrets and save her sister.”

Along with Seyfried, the film also stars the excellent Wes Bentley (American Beauty), Jennifer Carpenter (TV’s Dexter), Sebastian Stan (Captain America: The First Avenger), Daniel Sunjata (TV’s Rescue Me), and Joel David Moore (Avatar). Allison Burnett, co-writer of the upcoming Underworld Awakening, has penned the script, which Heitor Dhalia has directed in what I believe is his English language debut.

Gone is set to come out here on 24th February next year, which means we’ve not gone long to wait until we can see it on the big screen. The trailer shows the film has some potential, and the great cast certainly lies in its favour, so let’s hope that it lives up to that potential and then some.

The thing that interested me the most, about Justin Timberlake in this movie, is that he has no idea what it’s like to be the 99%.  The film deals with the idea that a small group of wealthy people control most of the time, which is the only currency, and the remaining 99% are left to share what is left. Timberlake was a star at such a young age that money started rolling in relatively early for him. So playing Will Salas would have him tap into what it’s like to NOT be Justin Timberlake.  I think Justin is a talented guy and did a great job with what little he had to work with.  “In Time” marks the first real starring role for him as an action star. which of course I couldn’t resist asking him about.  Besides that he talked about how he prefers acting to singing as it feels more personal to him, which answered most of our music questions.  No word yet on when he’ll return to the mic but both Matt and Amanda talked about how he spent most of his time, between takes, serenading the cast and crew.  He also talked about how the film could not have been shot anywhere else but Los Angeles as it is a city obsessed with age.  Hell, I was just trying to refrain from making a Just-In Time pun. Here is my exclusive chat with the multi-talented Justin Timberlake.

——————–

HeyUGuys:You’ve done comedy and drama, how was being the action star in this one, did you like doing that?

Justin Timberlake: Of course, that’s like boyhood fantasies lived out: To shoot guns and kiss the girl and beat the bad guys. And you get to do it where Colleen Atwood puts a suit on you.  You get to drive a Jaguar. You know I told Andrew the future looks surprisingly retro in his mind.  You know? I kind of dig that about it.  My favorite sci-fi movies are the ones where everything is NOT that far off from, aesthetically, not that far off from where it is today. But kind of has it’s own uniqueness to it. I really like that about this movie as well.

HeyUGuys:What sort of similarities to you find between you and your character Will?

Justin Timberlake: There are so many. This is the first time that I’ve felt like it was the most personal.  Everything that happens to Will is so tangible, even though this is such an otherworldly concept. Everything that happens with him and his mom, everything that happens… those basic feelings of revenge and contempt and wanting to change the system I think is something that everyone can relate to, I think.  I know I could.  They have a real basic level for me, those feelings. Plus, I think you always find a little bit of yourself in the characters you play, even if you’re playing the bad guy. No one thinks they’re the bad guys. Everyone wakes up and they’re the lead character in their own movie.  I mean, where not like “Oh well, I’m Captain Hook!” We all think we’re Peter Pan!

——————

I loved how Amanda entered the room for our interview.  She ran in and immediately sat down, eager to chat with us.  I found that interesting because the character she plays in the film, Sylvia Weis, has never had to run a day in her life.  She is the daughter of the richest man in New Greenwich and has had, and will continue to have, all the time in the world.  So when the film really gets going and Sylvia finds that she has to look down at her watch, for the first time in her entire life, running becomes somewhat of a necessity. Here is my brief chat with the reluctant heroine herself, Amanda Seyfried.

——————–

HeyUGuys:What interested you the most about Sylvia?

Amanda Seyfried: Well, she has the biggest story arc in the movie.  She lives in this crazy high-concept world where she has all the time in the world, she can be immortal, and the way she views that, her perspective is so different than everybody else surrounding her. It’s cool because she’s a rebel.  She goes through this whole– she needs out, she finally gets out and than she is kind of in love AND frightened by this man that’s captured her.  The first time she meets this guy, which I find so interesting is that, she does fall in love with him the instant she meets him.  There is something there so strong and then she finds out he’s a criminal so she feels very conflicted. It’s exciting. She has a really good story.  I like the aesthetics and that I could change my whole look, finally, and basically being badass.

HeyUGuys:The film ends on a note that sort of suggests a Bonnie and Clyde continuation for you and Justin. Is a sequel something you’d be interested in doing in this world?

Amanda Seyfried: Well, if it does well than yeah. But if it makes nothing, no.  I mean I’m interested in seeing what happens. I kind of, in my own head, think they take down the system. They continue to do that until they have an army.  I see the whole ghetto getting involved with enough passionate people that it basically starts over for everyone.

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This evening, London’s Curzon Mayfair Cinema was graced by the presence of Justin Timberlake, Cillian Muprhy and Amanda Seyfried who all turned up for the UK Premiere of their new movie, In Time which is written and directed by Andrew Niccol. All the cast were on good form and Ben and I got to chat with them all about what we can expect from the movie and how they became involved.

In Time also stars Vincent Kartheiser, Alex Pettyfer, Johnny Galecki, Olivia Wilde and is set for release in UK cinemas 1st November.

Synopsis: When Will Salas is falsely accused of murder, he must figure out a way to bring down a system where time is money – literally – enabling the wealthy to live forever while the poor, like Will, have to beg, borrow, and steal enough minutes to make it through another day.

Just also ends the interview with a tip that I too believe you should follow!

You can keep track of all our In Time coverage here. Check out our premiere report below and click the images below to enlarge.

It seems fitting that my first interview of the day was Matt Bomer.  In the world of “In Time”, where people stop aging at 25, the landscape is very pretty. So when Matt walked into the room and introduced himself to each of the journalists sitting at the table, it was obvious why he belonged in this movie. He is extremely handsome and seemed to fit the mold Andrew Niccol had designed for the film.  During our discussing we talked at length about various topics including how “In Time” is being released at a very unique time in American history.  The film deals greatly with the whole 1% issue that mirrors protests happening around the globe today.  He talked to the idea of fearing death and that it is something he currently doesn’t think too much about.  Because he spends so little time on screen, as the wealthy Henry Hamilton, I was curious to know what drew him to the small but pivotal  role. Here is what he had to say;

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HeyUGuys: Did you and Andrew ever discuss a detailed back-story for your character Henry?

Matt Bomer: Yes. I had some ideas and he had some ideas and we had a meeting very shortly before I began. I think a couple days before I started shooting where we just bounced some ideas off of each other.  And he took what he liked of my ideas and I took all of his ideas and we just sort of went from there. And it was very specific and to me, it was very tied into the patriarchal nature of this group of elite and wealthy folks in New Grennich,

HeyUGuys:Are there aspects of what is happening to Henry in the film that you can personally identify with?

Matt Bomer: Yeah! I think that’s usually why you get hired for a certain part. There is generally something about your understanding of life that you relate to with the character. I’m not saying you have to be the person you play. But I understand a lot of things socially, culturally and societaly that I know I, and a lot of other people, would like to see changed, with regards to Henry.  I think that’s why Andrew wrote the movie to begin with.

——————–

It’s the near future and the government has put in a population control method in which people stop again at 25 years old. On your 25^th birthday you get a wonderful little gift in the form of 52 more weeks to live. After the clock runs out, so do you and it’s up to you to earn, steal or inherit more time.  However, that becomes harder and harder to do as time is literally the only currency in this dystopian world. A cup of coffee costs 4min. A bus across town is 2 hours and don’t even think about staying overnight in a nice hotel unless you’re prepared to shorten your life by 6 weeks.  So when all is said and done most people in this world are like Will Salas (Justin Timberlake).  He has managed to live 3 years after his 25^th birthday.  However, in those three years he hasn’t woken up to more than a day on his clock.  He literally lives each day like it’s his last.

When Will meets a “young man” named Henry Hamilton at a bar (definitely a place I’d be spending time at in what could be my last day on Earth) with over 100 years on his clock, he is perplexed.  In the ghetto, time gets you killed as minute-men are everywhere looking to take what they can. Henry seems to have a death wish as he doesn’t mind flaunting his wealth. When a gang gets word of a young socialite living on the edge in a ghetto bar they take heed and seek to rob the man of his time.  Will intervenes and escapes with what little time he has left on his clock and this careless man.  Henry is a depressed man of over a hundred years old.  He has all the time in the world but nothing to do with it. He reveals to Will that people aren’t made to live forever and that is why the rich continue to raise prices on everything; so the poor die and the rich stay immortal. After a discussion with Will, Henry decides to take matters into his own hands.  Unsure of how to fix the system himself, he relies on the cunning of young Will Salas to hopefully bring to light the corruption of the rich.  Henry gives Will all his remaining time entrusting that he will know what to do with it.

The next day, Will, with a hundred years to share, tragically see’s his mother die in his arms after her bus fare drains the last remaining minutes from her life.  This kicks Will, and the movie, into action as he sets out to utilize the time he has to take down the system.

This film had more potential than I have seen from a film in a long time.  A young man takes on the system after a tragedy is not a new idea but the world it was set in surely was; it is a world where time is all that matters. Director Andrew Niccol created an incredible place where you truly believed time was money.

I really do like the dichotomy between Amanda Seyfried’s character, Sylvia West, and Will.  She grew up never having to look at her watch but never truly living.  So when Will comes into her life, she sees something different in him that she is not used to seeing.  As he attempts to expose the system from the inside, his disguise of being rich doesn’t fool her.  He does everything fast, which is something people from her world just don’t do.

The filmmaking itself seemed really well thought-out and planned.  What better place to set a movie about age and perfection than right here in the heart of it, Los Angeles.  The film is also being released in a truly unique time for it to make a real connection with people. In Time is set in the world where there is no middle class.  The rich get richer and the poor simply die.  In fact, in our roundtables with the actor’s, one of the questions that came up for each of them was the events currently happening in New York and how that plays so well into the movie.

Beyond the world itself, the film is paper thin.  I think Justin Timberlake is an incredible actor but I felt the words he was given carried no weight to them.  The script in general lacks a certain luster and depth we’ve come to expect from Niccols. The film is riddled with one-liners regarding time that were funny the first couple of times but eventually got tiresome.  I think the filmmakers got too caught up showing us something cool that they forgot they had a brilliant idea at their disposal.  The reason Will is sprung into action is lost by the end of the film.  I completely forgot about his mother and why he was on this mission to begin with. It’s hard not to be swept up in the world that looks this good but you can see right through it.

For me the standout’s here are both Matt Bomer and Vincent Kartheiser, who spend way too little time onscreen. Kartheiser plays Philippe Weis, Sylvias father, one of the 1% in the film.  They each play old men in a young person’s body and they do it convincingly  well.  You can see the age in their eyes and feel what being able to live forever, and not age, can do to a person. Henry (Bomer) and Philippe are opposites in the same way Sylvia and Will are.  Henry is unable to deal with the expectations that are set out for him while Philippe is more than happy to take as much time as he can. Also, from his time on Mad Men, it’s always amazing to see the gears in Kartheiser’s, kill or be killed, mind at work.

At the end of the day I think In Time is a waste of time. It plays out more like a straight action/drama when it could have really been so much more.  It strings together scenes in hopes of coherency and misses the mark. I mean really? If you had 10 seconds left to live and a block up the road is more time, kick off those heels ladies.  Coming from the production team who brought us one of the best future peaks at our world in Children of Men, I expected so much more.  But if you’re looking for a film where pretty people do cool things, In Time offers just that. It’s an inspired idea that offers no true inspiration.

**½~~ (2.5/5)

To mark the release of the brand new movie IN TIME starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried on 1st November, we’ve been given this great set of merchandise to give away to five lucky HeyUGuys readers. Four readers will win a goodie bag containing an IN TIME playing cards an iPhone 4 case and a large IN TIME t-shirt and one lucky winner will receive all of the merch mentioned as well as a laptop bag. If you’ve missed our coverage of IN TIME, you can get right up to speed here including all the trailers.

IN TIME also stars Cillian Murphy, Vincent Kartheiser, Olivia Wilde, Alex Pettyfer and is directed by Andrew Niccol.

Welcome to a world where time has become the ultimate currency. You stop aging at 25, but there’s a catch:  you’re genetically-engineered to live only one more year, unless you can buy your way out of it. The rich “earn” decades at a time (remaining at age 25), becoming essentially immortal, while the rest beg, borrow or steal enough hours to make it through the day.  When a man from the wrong side of the tracks is falsely accused of murder, he is forced to go on the run with a beautiful hostage.  Living minute to minute, the duo’s love becomes a powerful tool in their war against the system.

To be in with a chance of winning this great prize, simply answer the following question using the form below:

Who directed the movie In Time?

COMPETITION NOW CLOSED

The small print:

• Open to UK residents only
• Only one entry per household will be counted
• The competition will close 1st November at 23.59 GMT
• The winner will be picked at random from entries received
• No cash alternative is available

The usual T&Cs can be found here. Good Luck!

Albert Nobbs is an interesting character thrown into a very average film.  He is a shy and timid man that does his duties, counts his tips and goes to sleep.  This is a perfect summary of what the movie does for it’s entire run time.  It’s a film that could have been a compelling look into the drastic measures women went to get ahead in this past, but turns out to be a one trick pony.

In Albert Nobbs Glenn Close pulls off a character and leads a story that few actresses could manage, and tells the tale of a woman that poses as a man in order to sidestep the oppressions of the opposite sex.  The problem comes in the form of predictable storytelling that few will care about and even fewer will see.

The story is set in Ireland in the 19th Century.  We see Albert preparing for the business of the day and are put into the world that he lives in.  It is a world of tedious bosses, arrogant guests and promiscuous maids.  The strongest aspect of the film and the thing that will get you through the two-hour running time is the cast.  Mia Wasikowska plays Helen Dawes, a young maid who desperately wants to quit her job.  She meets a young man, Joe, played by Aaron Johnson.  Joe and Helen hit it off and the two plan a life for themselves in America and as the story progresses, we find out that Nobbs is saving money to open a tobacco shop and soon begins to court Helen in order for her to marry him.

I know what you are thinking, however, the idea comes from a chance meeting with Mr. Page, played by Janet McTeer, who just happens to be in the same boat as Nobbs, a woman pretending to be a man.  The problem is the subplots have little conflict or influence on the main plot, and much of the film drags because of it.

The hype surrounding Glenn Close’s turn as Albert Nobbs is deserved.  I don’t think there is another actress that could make the character as believable as Close did.  And it’s not just hair and make-up, its the understated qualities of the performance that make it the Oscar nominated performance everyone is saying it is.  Will Close score an Oscar nom? Almost certainly.  Will she win?  That remains to be seen.

All in all, the movie’s viewership hinges on the Nobb’s character and Close gives a performance that gets us to the end credits.  Wasikowska and Johnson are fine in their respective roles and Brendan Gleeson is thrown into the mix for some light dramatic irony, however, this is the Glenn Close show by far.  Director Rodrigo Garcia doesn’t do much with the material outside of telling the supporting cast how to make Close look better, and that’s a shame, because the film could have been so much more than it is.

In the end Albert Nobbs is a film that doesn’t do much more than show us how great of actress Glenn Close is, and leaves much to be desired.

**~~~ (2/5)

Twentieth Century Fox have given us these brand new images of Writer / Director Andrew Niccol on the set of his new movie, In Time which sees Justin Timberlake fighting to stay alive by gaining extra time. I love these new images as they really show you what being on the set was like. What I don’t like seeing so much is the smashed up E-Type Jaguar in the background of one of the images!

In Time also stars Cillian Murphy, Vincent Kartheiser, Olivia Wilde, Alex Pettyfer and will be with us 1st November. You can see the rest of our coverage here or scroll down to see the images which you can click to enlarge.

Welcome to a world where time has become the ultimate currency. You stop aging at 25, but there’s a catch:  you’re genetically-engineered to live only one more year, unless you can buy your way out of it. The rich “earn” decades at a time (remaining at age 25), becoming essentially immortal, while the rest beg, borrow or steal enough hours to make it through the day.  When a man from the wrong side of the tracks is falsely accused of murder, he is forced to go on the run with a beautiful hostage.  Living minute to minute, the duo’s love becomes a powerful tool in their war against the system.

We got our first official look at Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried in Andrew Niccol’s latest film, In Time, back in July, and it was absolutely fantastic.

A number of trailers and brilliant posters have since been released (if you’ve missed them, you can catch up on everything we’ve seen so far here), but since I’m planning on going into this film fairly blind, I’m staying trailer-free until its release date.

Deadline are now reporting, however, that that release date may now have to be delayed, because author and screenwriter Harlan Ellison has filed a lawsuit (and you can read the filed suit here) against New Regency and writer-director Andrew Niccol.

Niccol is a fantastic writer and director whose brilliance gained much attention back in 1999 when he was nominated for Best Original Screenplay for The Truman Show. He’d previously made his debut with the awesome Gattaca (if you haven’t seen it, I cannot recommend it enough), and has since added to his credits S1m0ne, Lord of War, and The Terminal. His latest film, In Time, is one of the films I’ve most been looking forward to this year, and I really hate the possibility that its release might have to be pushed back.

The short story Ellison claims has been copied is titled, “Repent, Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman, and having not read any of Ellison’s work, I personally can’t say either way how much of a leg he has to stand on with his suit. This isn’t the first time that Ellison has sued a film for copying his work, receiving an acknowledgement credit on The Terminator after taking legal action against James Cameron and co. by claiming they had copied two episodes of The Outer Limits.

I am of course no lawyer, but having a brief read of the suit he’s filed, Ellison is trying to block the release of the film altogether, wanting Niccol and New Regency to be,

“ordered to impound and dispose of all infringing materials.”

I sincerely hope that that doesn’t happen. Because, no offence intended to Ellison, but I want to see this film so much regardless of who wrote it and whether or not it was based on an as-yet-uncredited short story. It’s not often we get to see new films from Niccol, and this is set to be brilliant, with a fantastic cast that includes Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Olivia Wilde, Cillian Murphy, and Alex Pettyfer.

The suit states that in or around November 2010 – after In Time, previously titled Now and I’m Mortal, had begun filming – Ellison and an unnamed third party agreed to work on a screenplay that adapts his short story into a feature length film. As such, I imagine, he wants the film blocked completely because he wants to make his own film instead.

Even if he were to make an adaptation of his short story, I’d still much, much rather see Andrew Niccol’s In Time, because you just know how ridiculously awesome it’s going to be – and it’s ready for viewing right now! I really do hope that nothing will come of the lawsuit, because the scheduled 1st November release date is fast approaching, and I want the film to meet that date. I can’t wait to see it, and am hoping pretty damn hard that nothing will stop that from happening. More news on this as we get it.

All through the marketing campaign for this film I kept my mind open and hopes relatively high. Catherine Hardwicke scolded those who noted the film’s apparent similarities to Twilight, something the trailers and posters played very heavily on, and yet I knew this was a sure fire way of getting people into the cinemas in order, I hoped, to spin us an entertaining yarn based on the enduring fairy tale.

Guess what happened?

It’s Twilight in a red cape with all the subtlety of a wolf bite to the arse, and the emotional complexity of a pantomime dame slipping on a banana skin. I hate reviewing very bad films, and genuinely try to find something positive but the only good note I had was that it looks great, pleasingly side-stepping the Burtonesque shorthand which passes for ‘dark fairy tale’ at the moment. The village and its surrounding landscape gives the right sense of heightened reality with the requisite feeling of isolation. However the film soon falls apart as Hardwicke populates it with a swag bag of clichés and paper thing characters; when Julie Christie and Gary Oldman cannot elevate a film you have problems.

It’s a shame too. Amanda Seyfried, when given more to do than choose between boys, is capable of bringing something complex and seductive to the screen. While Atom Egoyan’s Chloe did often step into a strange self-parodic parallel reality during its running time there were moments when the sexual politics of Seyfried’s titular character were given depth and weight. Not so here, with Wealthy Handsome Mr. Nice going up against   Swarthy Handsome (but Poor) Buck for her affections and those pesky Twilight comparisons are back in force . Couple this arid game of attraction with a lame Whodunnit element and you’ve missed the chance to bring a rendition of the fairy tale, with a far greater and complex exploration of female sexuality (which isn’t hard to imagine).

If the true story of how this film came to the screen ever gets told I wonder if Catherine Hardwicke’s original take differed greatly from what we ended up with. In this interview with our own Ben Mortimer she talks of her extensive research opposing the business of making a film and I wonder if her original intentions were stymied by a studio plumbing new depths of audience underestimation on the promise of another Tween friendly hit.

So, less Company of Wolves, more Company of Idiots. It’s an hour and forty minutes of Tell, Not Show with plot points marked out in huge audience friendly exposition. “Your Mother has what she wants…” Swarthy Handsome  Buck says to Amanda Seyfried, discussing her arranged nuptials to another, “Money,” he continues just in case we were left in any doubt of the black and white nature of the relationships on offer here. Some of the dialogue, no actually – most of the dialogue would have been laughed out of the South Chuffley Brownies’ annual revue for being too childish. Even Gary Oldman, who could belt out endless stanzas of McGonagall and imbue them with feeling and sincerity, is awash in the hysterical inanity of it all. His warrior preacher had, on paper, a decent stab at actual depth of character with a horrific incident in his past turning him onto his current werewolf-hunting path. Sad it is in the extreme then that he is forced to unveil himself like a pantomime villain drunk on theatrics and the burn of the spotlight.

I have no problem with a simple adaptation of the story, indeed the fact that it has been passed down through generations is precisely because it is so simple – with its instructive and instinctive cautionary tale a mainstay of childhood literature, but to make a dull affair is a waste. It’s so damn bloodless.

*~~~~ (1/5)

There is an alternative edit with a few ‘steamy’ scenes added in, and I watched this without having seen the film in its original form. It still wasn’t sexy. There’s also a ‘hidden’ extra in which Hardwicke appears to be auditioning an actor – I won’t spoil it save to say that if you’ve bought this Blu-ray then you deserve the punchline this little skit affords you.

Twentieth Century Fox have sent over the new UK trailer for their new movie, In Time starring Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Cillian Murphy, Vincent Kartheiser, Olivia Wilde and Alex Pettyfer. It’s out in the UK November 1st and I’m personally very much looking forward to it!

Welcome to a world where time has become the ultimate currency. You stop aging at 25, but there’s a catch:  you’re genetically-engineered to live only one more year, unless you can buy your way out of it. The rich “earn” decades at a time (remaining at age 25), becoming essentially immortal, while the rest beg, borrow or steal enough hours to make it through the day.  When a man from the wrong side of the tracks is falsely accused of murder, he is forced to go on the run with a beautiful hostage.  Living minute to minute, the duo’s love becomes a powerful tool in their war against the system.

In Time is written and directed by Andrew Niccol . Check out the new trailer below or click here to view the rest of our coverage.

Olivia Wilde, best known for playing Thirteen in House, is currently in talks to replace Jennifer Garner in the upcoming indie dark comedic thriller, Better Living Through Chemistry, Variety report.

Garner and her husband Ben Affleck are now expecting their third child, opening up the lead female role for the film, and Wilde sounds perfect for the part. She brilliantly brings out both the good and bad in her characters, and the latter is something she’ll likely be doing a healthy amount of for this project.

Wilde’s popularity has been steadily rising over the past few years, starring alongside Emile Hirsch, Anton Yelchin, and Justin Timberlake in Alpha Dog, becoming one of the leads with Hugh Laurie in House, starring with Garrett Hedlund and Jeff Bridges in TRON: Legacy, and can currently be seen opposite Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, and Sam Rockwell in Jon Favreau’s fantastic Cowboys & Aliens this summer.

Better Living Through Chemistry would see her working again with her Cowboys & Aliens co-star, Sam Rockwell, who will play a quiet small-town pharmacist stuck in a rut and a loveless marriage, who finds himself in affair with a trophy wife, whom Olivia Wilde is set to play. She introduces him to the recreational side of prescription drugs, and things start to spiral out of control when they start plotting her husband’s death.

Michelle Monaghan (Source Code) will be playing Rockwell’s wife, and Dame Judi Dench is expected to be the film’s narrator. Geoff Moore and David Posamentier will be making their writing and directorial debut with this film, which made it onto the last Black List of best unmade films, and it sounds like it should be excellent when it gets made. I only hope that its indie nature won’t mean that it doesn’t get a UK theatrical release.

Wilde has recently finished filming Butter, with Hugh Jackman and Garner, so it could well have been Garner who put forward Wilde’s name to replace her. She’s been absolutely fantastic in everything I’ve seen her in, and it’s always nice when great young actresses get the attention they deserve.

She’ll next be seen on our screens in The Change-Up, alongside Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds, which is due out on 16th September, and will follow that up with Andrew Niccol’s highly anticipated In Time opposite Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried, both of whom she has worked with before on Alpha Dog. (If you’re yet to see Alpha Dog, I cannot recommend enough that you should seek it out.) Things are certainly looking good for Wilde’s career at the moment, and Better Living Through Chemistry is another title we can look forward to seeing her in.

This weekend, we were completely immersed in all things Big Screen at the O2 for the Empire Big Screen event which, if you missed, can catch up on here. We got to see loads of great footage from upcoming movies along with a few new stills. This new still however I found in the ‘Hollywood Boulevard’ which was the exhibition section of the event. There wasn’t particularly anything to see that was brand new (other than the Star Wars stand that Fox and Panasonic had) and this brand new UK poster for In Time. To my knowledge, we’ve not see this poster anywhere before so it’s a little debut that we’ll take on!It’s a photo which I’ve cropped and the top and button are slightly rounded which is why it doesn’t look completely square.

In Time stars Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried’s new movie, we’ve seen a fair bit of already in the three trailers they’ve released. It’s directed by Andrew Niccol and also stars Olivia Wilde, Cillian Murphy, Alex Pettyfer & Johnny Galecki,

Synopsis: When Will Salas is falsely accused of murder, he must figure out a way to bring down a system where time is money – literally – enabling the wealthy to live forever while the poor, like Will, have to beg, borrow, and steal enough minutes to make it through another day.

As the poster suggests, In Time is released in the UK 1st November.

Click it make it GROW!

Mark Ruffalo (The Kids Are All Right) and Amanda Seyfried (Jennifer’s Body) are in talks to co-star in Now You See Me.

Ruffalo and Seyfried will star opposite Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network) and Mélanie Laurent (Beginners) in Summit Entertainment’s offbeat magician-heist drama.

Written by screenwriters Boaz Yakin and Edward Ricourt, Now You See Me pits a crack FBI squad in a game of cat and mouse against a team of the world’s greatest illusionists, who pull off a series of daring bank heists during their performances, showering the profits on their audiences.

Ruffalo will be seen next in The Avengers, which hits UK screens on April 27, 2012, while Seyfried stars alongside Justin Timberlake in the sci-fi thriller In Time, opening on November 1.

Source: Variety

OK, so the first trailer wasn’t strictly trailer and was given the title, sizzle reel but effectively, this is the third trailer (second here) for In Time which, if you watch in total is now 10 minutes of footage. Seems very odd to be releasing so much of the movie online but I guess that is modern marketing.

I love the storyline for In Time and am hoping for good things. It’s directed by Andrew Niccol and stars Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Cillian Murphy, Vincent Kartheiser, Alex Pettyfer, Johnny Galecki and Olivia Wilde who seems to be in everything at the moment!

When Will Salas is falsely accused of murder, he must figure out a way to bring down a system where time is money – literally – enabling the wealthy to live forever while the poor, like Will, have to beg, borrow, and steal enough minutes to make it through another day.

In Time is released in the UK 1st November.

Source: Apple