Direct Download Link For Redacted Trailer

The trailer for Brian De Palma's contentious and undoubtedly very powerful new film Redacted has appeared on Moviefone. You can download smaller or larger FLV versions, or an even larger Quicktime encode.

Redacted At Venice

ScreenDaily are suggesting that Brian DePalma's Redacted, made for HDNet, is to premiere at Venice. That's great news.

I'm sure you're noticing by now that an increasing number of really exciting projects are getting day and date releases. Bubble was only the beginning. I think we really are going to be seeing more and more of this, after all.

Movie Minesweeper - The From The Room Across The Hall Edition

- Nicolas Cage won't be in Capone Rising after all. Perhaps there won't even be a Capone Rising. If there is, then Gerard Butler is still going to be the young Sean Connery.

- The Australian Daily Telegraph seem to think there's the possibilty of one more Star Wars film for cinemas. Nonsense. I think it will be at least ten years until Lucas announces more Star Wars feature films.

- Ubisoft have developed the videogame tie-in for Robert Zemeckis' Beowulf.

- CelebritySmack have a shot of Madonna, movie director. Apparently, Filth and Wisdom is only a short. That's merciful.

- Surprise surprise: Hope Davis will be in Charlie Kaufmann's Synecdoche, New York and once that's wrapped, she'll shoot Genova with Michael Winterbottom.

- Trent Reznor is trying to turn his album Year Zero into something more audiovisual, perhaps a film. Apparently, he's talking to 'A-list people' in order to do so. Sadly, this likely means David Fincher and not, say, Mark Romanek.

- Fox are planning a movie based on The Sims. Sim City I can see - the hurricanes and Godzilla-alikes might make for fun - but The Sims? Isn't this just every sitcom ever? Maybe they can do a cross-license and bring back Friends at the same time, as the same project.

- Tell me why. I don't like Monday Monday.

- Lodge Kerrigan is to write and direct a remake of Les Voleurs. This is a very good thing. We'll never get to see In God's Hands - stupid god and his clumsy hands - but at least we have something to look forward to again on the Kerrigan front.

- Rintaro, director of the animated Metropolis, is the latest to get going on a CG Penguin film. Apparently, the film is going to be kind of Franco-Japanese, somehow. Great name, though: Yona Yona Penguin.

- The BBC have comissioned Outcasts, a rather serious sounding new sci-fi series. Expect the American remake to follow.

- HorrorMovies have a rather exciting new clip from Hostel 2.

- And... Eli Roth is making strides with his Trailer Trash project, smaller steps with his Grind House 'sequel'. He's also pretty clear that he's done with Hostel, and won't cook up a third installment.

- There's going to be an Ocean's 14 but not a fourth Jason Bourne film? Suits me just fine. I won't lose any sleep over that outcome.

- A Lone Ranger film from the Pirates of the Caribbean team. Not for me, thankyou.

- US readers can see two clips from Sicko. [EDIT: Or download directly instead]

Capone Caged

A print ad for the upcoming Untouchables prequel, Capone Rising, is to appear in the special Cannes edition of The Hollywood Reporter. According to MTV, they've seen it, and it features a shot of Nic Cage as Capone and the legend 'Starring Nicolas Cage'. Superb.

De Palma is directing once again, and Brian Koppelman and David Levien have written the script. I love their Ocean's 13 script, and before that I loved their Rounders, Runaway Jury and Tilt scripts too.

In A Heart Shaped Box

Poor Joe Hill, everybody wants to name his father when they discuss him. So I won't. I'm not really a fan of his dad's books... though they have been turned into some great films over the years. DePalma, Kubrick and Rob Reiner - twice - have all done sterling jobs in hadling Joe's dad's stuff, Romero and Darabont made pretty good second-tier efforts too.

Now the signs are looking great for the first adaptation of a book from junior, as Neil Jordan has signed a deal to direct and script. It's a ghost story about a rockstar who buys a haunted suiton e-bay. The title suggests a certain rock star, but I've not read the book, so I honestly don't know.

I have read about the ghost's tendency towards possession however: he takes control of a car radio, a ouija board and - brilliantly - the electric voicebox of a laryngectomy patient. Spooky.

There are plenty of excerpts on Hill's website, but I think I'll check out the local library's copy instead.

No news if Jordan will tackle this before A Killing on Carnival Row for sure, but I'd expect this to come later as the script appears to be further from being ready.

Redacted From De Palma

Production Weekly sez: Brian De Palma is to soon start shooting Redacted, a film which will relate the the tragic (true) story of a 14-year old Iraqi girl's rape and murder by American troops. Three other members of her family were also killed by the troops.

The events took place in March, and in November of last year one of the troops, Specialist Barker, agreed to testify against the other four - and as has been noted, this does sound rather like the plot of Casualties of War.

The Production Weekly report has not stated this film will be a documentary, but neither is it a traditional narrative film. They say, "the film's narrative will be told using a mixture of video from news broadcasts, documentary footage, trial coverage, YouTube posts and excerpts from one of the soldier’s video blogs." I guess we don't know yet if these elements will be genuine, or fictionalised especially for the movie.

De Palma has been one of cinema's most provocative, passionate and accomplished makers of war (related) films, and Redacted is not likely to change this fact.

Razzies Ballots Out

The ballots for this year's Razzies have been delivered, and if you hurry, there's still time to join the academy, get yours and vote in time for the January 13th deadline.

Amongst the films getting the most nominations are Basic Instinct 2, Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector, The DaVinci Code, Eragon, Bloodrayne, All the King's Men and The Lady in the Water.

Hang on... The Lady in the Water? Oh don't be so daft. Not a great film, not by any stretch of the imagination, but not actually a bad one either, let alone Razzie-worthy. Indeed, M. Night Shyamalan is one of the nominated Worst Directors alongside Ron Howard, Wolfgang Petersen, Barry Sonnenfeld - all awful - and Brian De Palma and Neil Labute who, actually, made any number of sensible (if not in fact rather commendable) directorial choices in their 2006 films.