Direct Download Link For New Eastern Promises Trailer

There's a new trailer for Eastern Promises. Still looking very good.

Movie Minesweeper - The Red Rubber Jacket Report Edition

The Dardenne Bros., Luka Moodysson, Neil Gaiman, Step Up 2 the Streets, The Bell Jar, Watchmen, Star Trek, Southland Tales, Alfonso Cuaron, Naomi Watts, Joseph Fiennes, Harry Potter 6, The De2cent.

- Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne are receiving the funds for their next film from the Eurimages pot. Le Silence de Lorna revolves around the arranged marriage between an Albanian immigrant and a junkie. Eurimages have also coughed up a wad for Mammoth, Lukas Moodysson's next, an English-language film and, hopefully, a return to form.

- The Hollywood Reporter have had a good chat with Neil Gaiman.

- MySpace users and abusers might win a dance-on part in Step Up 2 the Streets.

- Julia Stiles talks The Bell Jar in her recent interview with MTV.

- Patrick Wilson has been confirmed for Watchmen, Zachary Quinto for Star Trek.

- Richard Kelly will be signing Southland Tales posters at Comic-Con. We can expect the trailer in mid-August, and a release date soon. I expect September.

- Alfonso Cuaron has had quite a dull week.

- It's been months since I first suggested Naomi Watts would be in Harry Potter 6, but it now seems that Joseph Fiennes has signed on too.

- The Descent sequel is to be called... drum roll please... The De2cent.

Direct Download Links For The Eastern Promises Trailer

Viggo Mortenson. Naomi Watts. David Cronenberg.

I smell a cult classic. Check out the Eastern Promises trailer out in 480p, 720p or 1080p. Remember to save as iheartdeadringers.mov or similar to ensure it works.

Movie Minesweeper - The If You Can't Read Variety For Yourself Edition

All of the following are reported in Variety. Just in case you can't read Variety for yourself, here's a little bullet point or so on each.

- Tom De Santo is to produce a feature film version of City of Heroes, the stupidly expensive MMORPG. The plan is to then get a TV spin-off running - TV superheroics are so much more cost effective. I can imagine the 'your hero, our world' promotions now when they try to get cheap IP from players of the game to exploit on the show. De Santo has made it clear that he wants to see superheroes versus aliens in the film, but I suspect that may be too much at once for the typical Batman or Spider-Man punter.

- Savage Steve Holland has another film coming (blah blah, number 38 bus, blah blah, two at once, blah blah). It's called National Lampoon's Ratko: The Dictator's Son. Sadly, Holland didn't write this one.

- Lionsgate have greenlit Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns. That's four Perry films from Lionsgate now, and not a single one of them any good.

- Orson Scott Card's Empire is being adapted into a screenplay by Oren Moverman. Great name. Expect the presidential asassination plotline to create plenty of controversy - more so, in fact, the closer Moverman's 'near future' world is to our own.

- Bourne boys Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass are bunking up again to adapt Imperial Life in the Emerald City. Damon's character is to be a composite of several real life figures, presumably to streamline the real life events into something like a digestible plot.

- Roland Joffe's t.A.T.u film is moving ahead, with Mischa Barton in the lead. Dear lord - this film is looking like such an easy target. Even if it's actually pretty very good - which it may well be - I can't see many people coming out and admitting they like it. Critics, eh?

- Menno Meyjes has two films still outstanding - Martian Child and Manolete. Before either of those hit the screen, however, he'll be underway with Last Battle Dreamer, a love story set amidst the Viking invasions. Not at all typecasting by nationality or pandering to low audience standards, Meyjes is looking for an American movie star type to play the Viking warrior lead and an English actress to play the noblewoman he ra... er... falls for.

- Naomi Watts is to take the lead in We Are All the Same, adapted from the non-fiction book that recounts how a white South African woman adopted a black child with aids, and then toured the world with the kid in an attempt to raise awareness. I think this has the potential to be incredibly interesting, if it isn't kept too simplistic. There's some complex arguments to be had here.

- Disney have inked a first-look deal with Stan Lee for any future creations he might cook up. Until he comes up with something, there's no idea how much of a waste this will turn out to be. Or not. Pressure's on, Stan.

Harry Potter And The Inevitable String Of MILF Gags

Laineygossip have been stirring up a rumour that Naomi Watts will be appearing in Harry Potter 6 as Narcissa Malfoy, Draco's mummy. Moviehole picked up on it, and now it's going to go over big on the web. It doesn't seem like a strong move for Watts, but it might be a big pay day for a minimum effort - and she might even find it fun.

Promise Delivered With Savage Grace

Ion Cinema have, somehow, scooped the below images, from David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises and Tom Kalin's Savage Grace. Kudos to them.

Tank Girl Film B

There was one scene in Tank Girl that I recognised as genius - set to Portishead's Roads, Lori Petty takes a sand-shower, soothes her aching bones, the giant-type commandments on how she might or might not shower (basically, no water) on the wall. A bunch of other scenes were fair enough, and overall, I enjoyed it enough to be disappointed.

Now, the curtain has been pulled back to reveal the studio's interference in the Tank Girl film Rachel Talalay wanted to make. Over on her official site, she's posted stills and complete deleted scenes - including one with her choice of Tank Girl, Emily Lloyd.

These include: the original opening, the original ending, a dildo-stuffed boudoir, a little bit of post-apocalyptic mutant bestiality, the original song and dance number, Sub Girl coming to the rescue and a longer version of the 'cold room' scene that was drastically cut in the final film.

Essential viewing - but quickly, before it's all pulled in some kind of pointless legal struggle. Thanks to KidKanga for the link.

Kicked, Bitten And Scratched

Naomi Watts has signed to star in Kicked, Bitten and Scratched, a romantic comedy adaptation of Amy Sutherland's animal training memoir. Todd Louiso and Jacob Kosoff are writing the script. You'll probably recognise Louiso as an actor - making mixtapes in Jerry Maguire, being delicate in High Fidelity - but he also directed Love Liza and, again with Kosoff, wrote the upcoming Ben Stiller and Jason Schwartzman comedy, The Marc Pease Experience.

I'm looking back at Naomi Watts' CV here, and this one hardly stands out. A good part of the reason for this is, of course, how varied her CV is. I think I saw her first of all in Flirting - if I did see For Love Alone, the previous film she made, I certainly have no recollection of it. And I must have seen her in Home and Away, if only for a brief glimpse as I channel hopped, or while I was visiting soap-addicted family.

As for her brief appearance in Joe Dante's Matinee, I wish I could picture it now. I believe she was in a mock up of something like a Kurt Russell/Disney family film. I adore Matinee, but I never picked up the DVD (so far) - mainly as the R2 version is bare bones and pan-scanned to 4:3. Inexcusable.

...and the little pieces of Tank Girl that I really, honestly, deeply loved (cumulative running time: under four minutes) weren't any pieces with Watts in - through no fault of her own. They just weren't Jet Girl scenes. Thinking back on it now, though,

So, I guess, Mulholland Drive was, for me as much as the rest of the movie watching world, the moment Naomi Watts really started to matter a little bit more. After that film, she was a talking point, a star, one of the ingredients of a film that one would be likely to discuss rather than ignore.

And I guess that's when it started getting wobbly. The quality of the films that Watts has opted for since David Lynch foist her into the limelight has been genuinely unpredictable. King Kong and I Heart Huckabees were wonderful; 21 Grams, Stay and The Ring 2 were most definitely not; the first Ring and Le Divorce watchable but far from essential.

What's interesting, though, is that she's some kind of off-centre star. Somehow, Watts doesn't slot so readily into the big, generic movies like Julia Roberts or (Watts' best friend) Nicole Kidman. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it looks to me like there's something vague around the edges of Naomi Watts' public image, and I always find it impossible to predict the style, budget or genre of her next film.

Maybe it's just because she finds it hard too. A girl has to work, right?