On Friday night, Bleeding Cool reported that Nemesis, a comic-book written by Mark Millar with art by Steve McNiven, is headed to the big screen as 20th Century Fox optioned the property and Tony Scott set to direct.

The idea behind Nemesis is ‘What if Bruce Wayne became a bad guy?’ In the comic, the very Batman-inspired character is the country’s only super-villain who uses his training and high-tech gadgetry to systematically hunt down cops.

Millar is a prolific comic-book writer, having worked on the X-Men, Civil War, The Ultimates, and many others before focusing on his own creator-owned books like Kick-Ass and Wanted. He has been criticized for only thinking about how his comics can be turned into movies, and I can’t judge his intentions, but it seems to be working.

Tony Scott, younger brother of Ridley, has had a long and successful, albeit not always critically-acclaimed career. He has directed Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop 2, True Romance, Enemy of the State and more recently worked with Denzel Washington on Man on Fire, Déjà Vu, and The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. His next film, Unstoppable hits theaters November 12th.

While Nemesis is a neat idea, a film adaptation doesn’t really sound all that interesting. The comic presents some interesting imagery, so that may be good to see on the big screen, but are a simple character study and some cool images enough to hold up an entire film? And Tony Scott directing doesn’t get me as excited as it does Millar. He can direct action, but I don’t see him bringing anything new to the movie to really make it stand out. Anyway, its still very early in development so we’ll have to wait and see.

Here’s our first look at Let Me In, the American adaptation of the Swedish novel Let the Right One In which was originally adapted into the Swedish feature film by the same name. I can’t go any further without strongly encouraging you to, that if you haven’t, see director Tomas Alfredson’s  English subtitled Let the Right One In as it is one of the best thrillers I’ve seen in a decade. Let Me In was directed by Matt Reeves, best known for directed the J.J. Abrams produced Cloverfield in 2008. Let Me In stars Chloe Moretz (Kick-Ass) Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Road) and Richard Jenkins (Burn After Reading). Let Me In is set to be released in theater on October 1, 2010 just in time for Halloween, why Halloween? If you don’t already know this is a vampire story but nothing like the vampires we’ve seen lately on the big screen. Let the Right One In, and I’m assuming Let Me In, takes vampires seriously and after you’ve seen (hopefully) either film I think you will too! What are your thoughts on this American adaption? Did you like the Swedish film?

This is the trailer for the movie I’ll be seeing October 15, 2010 (US theatrical release date) because HOLY MOLY it looks good. Red is based on Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner’s comic book limited series written in 2003 of the same name. This film adaptation was directed by Robert Schwentke (Time Traveler’s Wife, Flightplan) and stars Bruce Willis (Lucky Number Slevin), Morgan Freeman (Lucky Number Slevin), Helen Mirren (Gosford Park) and John Malkovich (Being John Malkovich). Also appearing in the film are Mary-Louis Parker (Weeds), Richard Dreyfuss (Jaws), Brian Cox (Rushmore), Julian McMahon (Nip/Tuck) and Ernest Borgnine (The Dirty Dozen). If that cast isn’t reason enough for you to be chomping at the bit to see this comedic comic book adaptation then the trailer will certainly do the job, enjoy-

I did not read Red, did you? Are you excited about a big screen adaptation? Do you like the cast? Share your thoughts with us!

After over a decade of failed attempts at getting the popular 60s TV series to the silver screen, Heat Vision reports that Warner Bros. has hired screenwriter Max Borenstein to pen an adaptation of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

The original series aired at the peak of the spy craze, from 1964 until 1968. It starred Robert Vaughn and Illya Kuryakin as agents of U.N.C.L.E. (United Network Command for Law Enforcement) who constantly fought T.H.R.U.S.H. (Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity). The show was enormously popular during its time, so, of course, Hollywood inevitably wants to adapt it for a modern audience.

David Dobkin (Wedding Crashers) is already attached to direct, even though Borenstein, as far as I know, hasn’t even started the script yet. Now, I am not familiar with the show (I loved watching Get Smart reruns when I was kid.), but this doesn’t seem like a good fit. I’ve heard that “U.N.C.L.E.” has humorous elements, but do you think that Dobkin can pull it off?

As production wraps up on The Social Network, director David Fincher has been floating around numerous projects for his next film. Last week, it looked like he would be directing Tobey Maguire in Pawn Sacrifice, but now The Playlist has confirmed that the director’s next project is an American adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” is the extremely popular Swedish novel by Stieg Larsson. Larsson was a journalist, and it was only after his death that his three novels were published as the “Millenium Trilogy,” with “Dragon Tattoo” being the first. Film adaptations of all three books were produced in the author’s native Sweden last year, and the first is just now making its way into American theaters.

After the widespread success and critical acclaim for the original, Sony acquired the rights to a US version. The project is being produced by Scott Rudin off of a Steve Zaillian. That we’ve known. Now, David Fincher is attached to direct, which is great news. I can’t stand this trend dapting foreign films for American audiences, but if you’re going to do it you minus well do it right.

As for the cast, Carey Mulligan and George Clooney have been rumored for the lead roles, but at this point that’s just speculation. The script is not even finished yet, and Mulligan has not been contacted about the role. Also, Fincher supposedly wants an unknown for the role, so who knows?

I’m wondering what’s happening with the sequels. Sony is focusing on the first, but if its successful, will we be seeing our own, American “Millenium Trilogy?”

The wonderfully refreshing thing about Thor Freudenthal’s Diary of A Wimpy Kid is it that it knows exactly where it wants to go, and taps all the right emotions on its journey. That is, of course, the exact opposite of the middle school experience, where no one knows where they are going, and waiting breeds anxiety.

This movie understands just how wacky the microcosm of middle school can get, and I can think of no higher praise than this; kids between 11and 13 should connect with it completely. The performances, the direction, and the witty script, based on the book by Jeff Kinney, take the sixth grade experience and flatten and exaggerate it to the point that it perfectly imitates the headspace of a pre-teen.

Zachary Gordon does a nice job as Greg Heffly, a shrimp of a kid whose entrance into middle school is filled with anxiety and hope; anxiety that his child-like friend Rowley will embarrass him, and hope that he might ascend the ladder of popularity at school. Along the way he contends with his pestering big brother, bemused parents, a hyperactive redhead who lives down the street, while doing his best to keep Rowley close as a friend while distancing him socially. He’s also harassed and beguiled by Chloe Moretz as the mysterious girl under the bleachers.

Gordon as Heffly is plucky and sincere, but also a bit annoying, and I’m pretty sure that’s right on point. His approach makes Heffly slightly less sympathetic than the books’ protagonist, and I appreciated that added layer to Fruedenthal’s film. What I do remember about middle school is that in addition to it being a swirling vortex of hormones and insecurity, it was also infinitely easy to behave like a jerk in the face of ‘good intentions.’ Heffly is the hero, but only in his own mind. The real star and smiling surprise of Wimpy Kid is his friend, the overweight but staggeringly optimistic Rowley Jefferson, played pleasingly by Robert Capron.

Rowley looks like a social misfit from day one, and that isn’t just a one glance assumption. He shows up to homeroom dressed like a Mexican peasant, plays ventriloquist with his belly button, and at the end of day, makes the cosmic error of asking Greg if he wants to “come over and play” in front of a crowd. Greg diagnoses him as a kid who hasn’t grown up appropriately, but what looks more awkward than Rowley’s comfort with his own quirkiness is Greg’s unending quest to fit in. Even when he finds he is good at something –he delivers a lovely rendition of ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’– he’s still off in his timing. The play he auditions for is Wizard of Oz, and his voice too high to play anyone other than Dorothy.

In a nice reversal, the film allows Rowley to grow and flourish in middle school. He’s weird and pitiable to begin with, but his fearlessness and sincerity is infectious, and when he starts writing the school comic, the other kids gravitate towards his easy, likable nature. So does the audience. The strength of Capron’s performance is that you can see how lucky Greg really is to have a friend like Rowley. So good natured is he, that he gladly rides a big wheel down a hill just so Greg can throw footballs at his head…repeatedly. A late-in-the-game dance scene features Rowley and his mother break dancing to Beastie Boys. I’d roll my eyes in another movie, but here it works completely.

Fruedenthal’s take on Wimpy Kid may seem simplistic and overly obvious–at points it has all the visual dexterity of a Disney Channel special– but it paints this odd time in a kid’s life in bold, strong colors and it has the potential to resonate both with children and their parents. There are tons of great gags that should please audiences of all ages. My favorite involves a piece of moldy playground cheese that follows the rule that if you show a gun in act 1, it needs to be used by act 3.

Wimpy Kid is a great movie for the audience it’s aiming for. If you aren’t beyond recalling your own middle school days, it might be a great movie for you too. For me, there was something poignantly truthful in recalling how easy they really were and how hard and uncertain they seemed at the time. Makes one wish for a guy like Rowley to help you through.

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

Ryan Bingham lives like a man in transition–he has no wife, no home, or familial trappings. His work consists of visiting employees at their workplace and firing them on behalf of their employer, a big firm who doesn’t want to handle the un-pleasantries.

In some sense, he’s a corporate ’sin eater’–carrying a mantle others would rather pass on, and becoming a kind of social pariah as a result. But Bingham flourishes at his work and and even gives inspirational speeches about how to thrive in the industry. He’s the heartbeat of Jason Reitman’s Up In The Air, a charming pic about a less than charming man that wants to position itself as the new ‘American movie’. It misses this mark, and ends up being simply a good film with a great cast and an ambitious director.

  Taking place largely in the confines of airports, hotel rooms, and the offices of the unlucky, Up In The Air chronicles the lifestyle of a new American breed, one whose survival is fixed upon living outside of intimate human connection.

The trick, of course, is that even those ’road warriors’ like Bingham and his sometimes lover Alex Goran, a luminous and vibrant Vera Farmiga, find themselves latching onto relationships to add meaning amidst the loneliness and isolation of their vagabond lifestyle. In addition, they are (seemingly) defining their life and choices by the work they do. Ryan believes he is fulfilling an important need and has discovered what he believes is his niche.

Clooney makes Bingham a complete character, even though he isn’t written that way, and Reitman doesn’t seem interested in developing him beyond the modest demands of the breezy romantic drama he’s got brewing at the film’s center. The scenes where he’s called on to fire people are supposed to be the film’s context but his interactions with Farmiga are what we really care about and they scream out here for a more ambitious frame and engine to drive them.

 Farmiga herself is Up In The Air’s secret weapon and if we are being honest, one of the primary reasons the film found itself so favorably fawned over by critics. She has always had a warm presence on film; as far back as Dummy I’ve found her to be an invigorating and welcoming performer.

Reitman, whose biggest gift to the movie is his knack for casting the right people in the right roles, has pitted her against Clooney and he singlehandedly saves his film by doing so. She’s got the banter and the verbal sparring down and later when she’s expected to unpack depths and secrets to the character we have barely guessed, she does so in a way that is true to  Alex’s sensibilities. She also holds her own with Clooney, and he’s inclined to shrink back a little, which also serves the film’s agenda of humbling Bingham bit by bit.

The other woman in Bingham’s life is Natalie Keener, a new girl he’s training at work. She’s played gamely by Anna Kendrick of the Twilight series. Keener is a neophyte with the firm who is now under Bingham’s wing and goes about her task with a certain chipper detachment. When she offers a new suggestion–firing people via i-chat– Bingham balks at the notion, and considers a life without the open road and parade of makeshift residences. Kendrick handles the role well and displays what could be described as acting chops. She’s lucky then, because what Reitman draws from her was certainly not present in either Twilight movie or last year’s Elsewhere. Her work here suggests we will see her again.

And what of Reitman? Well, I think it’s unfortunate that everyone is racing to label the young man a master and great American director only three films in. It’s probably going to backfire for him. In reality, Up In The Air marks a transition for him from modest mainstream comedies to a more cohesive and flexible drama. The script he has to work with is better here than the ones for Juno and Thank for You Smoking.

Bingham is a juicy character, and if given the proper Willy Loman treatment, could have been a performance for the ages. Instead, Reitman juggles a difficult book and a promising concept and delivers a movie better than the ones that came before. It isn’t perfect and in my opinion, but it is very good and deserves an audience who can come to it without the baggage of “best movie of the year’. Like Bingham, potential viewers should unpack their expectations before boarding this flight.

Blu-Ray Disc Features:

Audio Commentary: This feature is not exactly what I was expecting regarding a commentary. It covers the production well enough, with no lack of information as Reitman, cinematographer  Steelberg and first assistant director Blumenfeld chat up the film and their experience with it. The problem is that most of the time it’s like sitting on a sugar-addled fourth grade sleepover where all the participants have ADD. Reitman gets downright frantic a few times, and I think this gets in the way of having a real discussion of the film through the lens of hindsight. They still seem locked into “this is so great” mode.

“Shadowplay Studio: Before the Story” (2:27), A small feature on the production of the opening credit sequence of Up In The Air. Sort of a throw away bit.

Music Video (1:02) Sad Brad Smith’s ‘Help Yourself’. For whatever reason, I sort of dig the song.

 Storyboards (1:26), Not a long feature but an interesting one. It isn’t just the storyboards but rather a comparison between them and the finished shots from the actual movie. I’m always interested in seeing how this plays out for films that aren’t special effects heavy and it’s a nice, short insight.

 Deleted Scenes (23:16 total) Clooney as an astronaut? This is the best reason to get the disc for those who have already seen the movie previously. Reitman has a knack for cutting the right things but he often still has good material left over. It was true of Juno and it’s true here. Each of these scenes are quite good and help to establish a little bit more of Bingham’s character. I’m not sure I’d have left them in, but they are certainly welcome . At one point Bingham explains that the reason he keeps the personal address is that he doesn’t want to be labeled a ‘vagrant’ by the government. Bingham heading off to Omaha and his time there is a lengthy bit of the deleted scenes and also the most interesting. There’s stuff here that sheds more light and context on the events in the film. This is how you do a deleted clips reel. There’s optional commentary by Reitman too.

 “American Airlines Prank” (0:37) Between this and last week’s Wild Things prank clip, I’m really hoping that on-set pranks don’t start becoming a regular feature on DVD/blu-ray discs.

 The disc is rounded out with both trailers for the film.

In Closing:

Up In The Air is a refreshing and entertaining film that highlights the difficulty of the time we currently live in but it also has room for its characters, their motivations, dreams and regrets. Clooney, Farmiga and Kendrick do a wonderful job and Reitman is growing bit by bit with each new film. If it isn’t quite the masterpiece it was touted to be, it’s still a strong film with a great transfer and some solid special featurers including that great collection of deleted scenes. Fans of the film and newcomers should be well pleased with this release.

Blu-ray Rating:

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

When the credits started to roll at the end of Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island, I was left with an unexpected question. What was the point?

Here is a film that would have won Oscars aplenty back in 1956, the year it takes place. But alas, it is now 2010 and there isn’t a single idea or thought in the film that hasn’t been had a thousand times before and better. What is it then that has attracted a director of Scorsese’s calibre and actors like Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo and Emily Mortimer?

The answer will become obvious once you lay eyes upon the film. It’s all about the style and atmosphere. This is not the kind of movie often made in the 21st century and it must have been enormous fun to make. As a viewer, it is a curious wonder to behold. There isn’t a thought or sensibility that exists within Scorsese’s movie that would be alien to the world of 1956. As a result, it takes some getting used to.

The style requires the actors to talk in pseudo-serious tones and deliver over-heated treatises that extend well beyond the terse soundbites most modern scripts require.  The camera spirals up and around the characters and there are quick pans to new scenes and wipes for others. There are long dark, hallways, moldering basements, wailing rainstorms, ominous cliffs and the kind of psychobabble that reveals a certain social naivete towards mental illness. No one behaves as we suspect they might, but instead they adhere to an out-of-date cinematic code that would be most welcome in a film noir.

One thing I love about Scorsese is his ability to make a film free of ironic sentiment. There isn’t any winking or nodding going on in Shutter Island nor does it feel the need to make the characters smarter than the movie they find themselves in. In doing this, he pulls stronger and more natural performances from his actors. For my money, he has been the only director capable of getting a robust performance from Dicaprio. Leo might be wrong for the square-jawed, damaged Federal marshal, but he plays the unhinged part with a recklessness that enhances the rising tension.

Emily Mortimer, Michelle Williams and Patricia Clarkson are the females here, and none of them are typical damsels in distress or femme fatales. They sometimes exist as all of them and none of them, and Williams in particular gets some awfully chilling moments towards the close. It is always good to see Ben Kingsley, but even better when he’s giving it his all and not just cashing a paycheck. No fear, Sir Ben is at the top of his form and I was more than happy to see the creased, world-weary face of Max Von Sydow peek around the edge of the German doctor’s chair.

On a visual level, there are sights worth savoring. There is a handsome and lonely quality to the imagery that makes it a dark pleasure to drink in.  It is hard to describe the shivers of delight that accompany a moment like the one where Dicaprio, wrapped in the feverish dementia of his own grief-stricken dreams, holds Williams while a large smoldering hole containing thousands of flickering embers opens in her back. Later there are just shivers as hundreds and hundreds of rain-soaked rats pour from a crevice in the rock face and clambor to and fro on the craggy cliffs, inches away from the revolted marshal.

As moviegoers, we have been trained to enter a thriller with a keen awareness of the endgame and to believe that each piece only exists to lead to the next, building an arcane vertebrae connecting an all important conclusion. If those pieces cannot support the whole, or if we can’t reconcile the pieces, then we may reject the entire creation. As it turns out, Shutter Island could care less about building a water-proof mystery that holds up to scrutiny. It lives and breathes its own aesthetic beauty, savoring each unkempt graveyard and solitary lighthouse with a near hedonistic abandon.

Shutter Island wants to live free of the cares and concerns of its plot, but in the end the brittle narrative  apprehends the film and slams the iron door shut on Scorsese’s pulpy aspirations. He needed a better story for all of his dark props, eerie sets, and leering actors to inhabit. If not a better one, then at least one that feels fresher. Dennis LeHane’s story isn’t the lifeblood of the film, but it proves an unwelcome distraction from Island’s Gothic excess all the same. When the ’so what?’ comes it is a direct result of the saggy, predictable conclusion.

I didn’t love Shutter Island, despite its many good qualities. It’s a great entertainment if you don’t think much about it, but it’s hard not to see the film as a disappointment. There are moments of sincere power and then, too, entire sequences that simply don’t work. A significant lack of dramatic tension in the late going dilutes its status as a thriller. Still, it cannot be denied that the movie possesses a quality that isn’t often seen in the genre; good, old fashioned paranoia.

In 2008, Scorsese directed a documentary about Val Lewton, the 40′s era producer that developed films like The Body Snatcher and Cat People, the latter of which features one of the finest chase scenes in the history of the movies. I’d like to think if Lewton saw Shutter Island, he’d be there, saluting Martin, and offering his hand from the shadows.

Rating: ★★★☆☆