The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The Good
-John Carney, best known for directing the charming indie folk romance Once, is now attached to the big screen adaptation of The Dogs of Babel, about a man who tries to teach his dog to speak after the pooch is the sole witness to his wife's death.  It'll be an interesting project for Steve Carrell, who stars.

-The Weinstein Company is re-releasing their Holocaust drama Sarah's Key into 300 theaters this Friday.  Normally such a move would signal awards hopes for the film in question, but Sarah's Key will be a non-contender come Oscar season.  Still, it's a great movie based on what I'm told is a powerful novel, and it's certainly worth catching if you missed it the first time around.

-Ben Kingsley is headlining a modern day take on Henrik Ibsen's classic play A Doll's House.  It will be interesting to see how the play's fragile gender expectations and familial dynamics play out in a contemporary context.

-Bellwether Pictures, the micro-studio Joss Whedon started with Kai Cole, is following up Whedon's secret Much Ado About Nothing adaptation with a supernatural romance called In Your Eyes, penned by Whedon.  In addition to Bellwether's two releases, we also have The Avengers (which Whedon directed and wrote) and The Cabin in the Woods (which he wrote with director Drew Goddard) to look forward to next year.

-The Coen brothers are working on casting their next film, Inside Llewyn Davis, about the 1960's New York folk music scene.  John Goodman and Justin Timberlake are the latest names attached to the project, marking another striking vote of confidence in Timberlake's acting ability despite In Time bombing with audiences and critics alike this past weekend.

-After being called off earlier this year, it looks like a Fraggle Rock movie might make it to theaters after all, as New Regency now owns the rights to the property.  (But see The Ugly below.)

-Terrence Malick's next two films will be internationally distributed by FilmNation Entertainment.  That news isn't terribly relevant to me, but it's exciting that the director has two projects in the pipeline (they'll shoot back-to-back next year).  Lawless stars Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale, Rooney Mara, and Cate Blanchett, while Knight of Cups also stars Bale and Blanchett.  Malick is notorious for releasing movies very rarely, so it's not certain when these films will actually see the light of day, but his next, The Burial (starring Rachel McAdams, Ben Affleck, Rachel Weisz, and Javier Bardem) could be out as early as next year.



The Bad
-As if besmirching a classic actioner twice wasn't enough, a third Clash of the Titans movie is in the works.  The sequel to the 2010 horror film, Wrath of the Titans, releases in March, and will likely suck at least twice as much as its predecessor.

-Taylor Lautner is set to appear in Gus Van Sant's (Good Will Hunting, Milk) next project, a waste both of Van Sant's talent and Lautner's ability to make terrible movies into completely awesome movie-going experiences.  Honestly, I think Abduction is the most fun I've had at the movies all year.  It deserves Razzies in a glorious, balloon-hating way.

-Warner Brothers is pulling a Disney Vault with the Harry Potter movies.  At the end of the year, the studio will stop shipping DVDs of the blockbuster franchise, meaning fans will have only a month and a half to pick up the final installment, Deathly Hallows Part II, which comes out November 11.

The Ugly
-So about the Fraggle Rock movie?  It might be CGI.  That's a sin.

-James Franco, Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, and Emma Roberts are in talks to star in Harmony Korine's next movie, Spring Breakers, about a group of college students who rob a restaurant to fund their spring break festivities.  My experience with Korine's work consists of suffering through the horrifically avant-garde (and wrist-slittingly pretentious) Mister Lonely and desperately needing a shower whilst watching the trailer for Trash Humpers.  Yes, the director of something called Trash Humpers is snagging Disney Channel talent for his next movie.  I think I need another shower.

-If there's a 2012 release I'm not sure about, it's Casa De Mi Padre, a Spanish-language comedy starring Will Ferrell.  The trailer is suitably weird and melodramatic, with some fantastic supporting actors in the form of Gael Garcia Bernal (!) and Diego Luna.  The movie is set for March 16, so we'll have to wait until then to see if this is a wonderfully weird turn for Farrell or another misguided project.

-There's a new Left Behind movie in the works, which absolutely no one asked for.  The original trilogy starred Kirk Cameron and was thoroughly mediocre even by super-lowered Christian movie standards.