Movie Minesweeper - Too Much Clutter That Needs Binning Edition

This is a very big update, and there should be something for everyone...

- Lionsgate are to release Michael Moore's Sicko across the states on June 29th. That's the same day as Die Hard 4.0 and Ratatouille.

- The Film Agency for Wales are to fund Wyndham Price's Abraham's Point, Justin Kerrigan's I Know You and Caradog James' Blonde. They're also lining up Seperado!, a documentary about Super Furry Gruff Rhys' solo-tour of South America that struck me as more appealing than the fiction films put together.

- The premiere of Ocean's 13 is set to raise cash for the Not on Our Watch charity, which supports relief efforts in Darfur.

- La Vie en Rose is the opener for this year's Sydney Film Festival, Day Watch will be the closer.

- People have some preview shots from High School Musical 2.

- Hilary Swank is to be beset by Vampires in Fangland.

- Uri Geller has tried to remove an expose of his pathetic charlatanism from YouTube, but the plan has backfired, and now he's being sued. Good. He's a cynical conman and he might make a good example if this blows up big enough.

- Another Die Hard 4.0 featurette has been certificated for DVD - this time, a 40 minute look back at the first film.

- George Lucas has dissed Spider-Man 3 to Fox News. Silly man - he never directed a film that was a half as well made as Spider-Man 3, for all its faults.

- No more Warner Bros. talker screenings in Canada. Apparently, this is because the Canucks are big time pirates. Let's see if this tactic actually has any effect.

- Five films from CalArts students are now online, and are well worth your time.

- Besides The Jetsons, Robert Rodriguez is also considering a film version of Land of the Lost with Will Ferrell. What an utterly unappetising pair of prospects. I hope he finds something better to do than become a studio hack.

- Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont are scripting Sisters of Mercy as a Will Smith vehicle. Yep - I'm looking forward to Made of Honor, have Can't Hardly Wait on DVD, and I'd buy Josie and the Pussycats if I saw it cheap enough. Sue me.

- Peter and Michael Spierig's Daybreakers is finally moving ahead: Ethan Hawke has signed to star.

- Roger Langridge is working on a Muppets strip for Disney Adventures magazine. Roger and I once had work published in the same comic, I believe.

- The Veronica Mars 2.0 show seems to be a go, after all.

Emile Hirsch Leaving Zac Efron In The Dust

Emile Hirsch is in final negotiations to take the lead role in Speed Racer. Zac Efron does appear to have been the first choice, but, according to the rumour mongering birds out there, his High School Musical contract was too tight and dates couldn't be shifted.

From what I hear, however, Efron might well have the last laugh as all manner of high profile roles are being sniffed out for him in preperation for the High School sing-a-long being over later this year.

Good luck to them both.

[EDIT: The BBC have gotten a little confused. Forget Emile, they're claiming that Judd Hirsch has the part]

Disney's Wizards

Now we know what Disney's Wizards is, after the name popped up on a list of Dinsey registered URLs a few weeks back.

It's a TV show, likely to go by the full name The Wizards of Waverly Place. A half-hour sitcom, the series is expected to be the next big Disney Channel brand, probably even leading to a movie , just as Haunted High School Musical followed the non-Haunted version. The lead characters are a multi-cultural family who are, secretly, Wizards in training. What is this? Diff'rent Strokes by way of Sabrina the Teenage Witch? Well... actually, that's probably quite a likely description. We'll see.

Fred Savage is directing the first two episodes, apparently. Yes, Fred Savage. The one time child star who was in, of all films, The Wizard. What a magical coincidence.

Ahem.

We can at least all stop hoping now that Ralph Bakshi's Wizards was getting a Disney Channel spin-off.