The Directors Chair

Steve Carell only has one season left as Michael Scott on The Office, and the showrunners are looking for an actor to take over as the show’s branch manager. Paul Lieberstein, who plays Toby on the show in addition to being a writer, producer and occasional director, already has someone in mind: Harvey Keitel.
An offer has not yet been sent out to Keitel, but Lieberstein did have this to say to E! News:

[Harvey Keitel] is probably the only guy who can do it, and he’s doing TV now … That’s what a very smart/eager man once called a ‘win-win-win.’ I haven’t started any talks with his people, but Harvey would do a great job — a very different energy. And we don’t want to bring in another Michael, having someone play a very similar character because we have such a high regard for Steve.

When asked if he was serious about casting Keitel, Lieberstein was unflinching.

Yes, absolutely. He’s a real tough guy, but I saw him in ‘Life on Mars’ and I saw a lot more comedy in his work, just little slivers of it, little things he would do that made me think he’s capable of a lot more than what [he's done].

I respect for Lieberstein for attempting a ballsy change, but truthfully, there is nothing that can make the decision to prolong the show after Carell’s departure a worthwhile endeavor. Carell is such an essential part of the series’ dynamic (both in terms of the character relationships and where the show derives its humor) that continuing it with him gone seems completely nonsensical. It already felt like the show was being dragged out with its last season, so at this point the best move would really be to just end it. Or alternatively, to turn it into a spin-off starring Darryl.

Source: /film

What the deuce? There is no Office without Michael Scott, it’s had a good run. Just leave it to go out with a bang. No need to keep milking it. Please.

According to retailer information, Christopher Nolan’s mindbending thriller Inception will be released on Blu-ray in the UK on December 6, in a “triple play” (BD/DVD/Digital Copy) combo pack. Special features will reportedly include WB’s Maximum Movie Mode, a first for a Nolan film. Also available will be a very enticing Limited Edition Briefcase with five movie art cards, a spinning top and a booklet – which is actually the user manual for the PASIV (Portable Automated Somnacin IntraVenous) device used in the movie.

According to product listings, special features will include:

* Maximum Movie Mode: Christopher Nolan and Leonardo DiCaprio extract information about the world of Inception and learn about all things you may have missed in the film. Questions, answers, surprises and intrigue are all there for the taking!
* Prologue (Motion Comics):
o Inception: The Cobol Job: Online comic that details how Cobb, Arthur and Nash came to be enlisted by Cobol Engineering to perform an extraction on Saito.
o Inception: The Big Under: The story that reveals how Cobb and company get to Saito to put him under for the dream featured in the beginning of the film.
* Dream of Consciousness: Taking some of the most fascination and cutting-edge dream research to date on lucid dreaming, leading scientist to make the case that the dream world is not an altered state of consciousness, but a fully functional parallel reality.
* 15 Focus Pods
* Photo Gallery

Source: BluRay.com

Universal Playback has announced the Blu-ray release of Heroes: Season 4 in the UK for October 4. Unlike the US, Britain will also get a full-series box set, Heroes: The Complete Collection, including seasons 1 through 4 of this acclaimed series, and an exclusive bonus disc with over 90 minutes of new featurettes unseen in any other Heroes release.

Special features for Season 4 include:

* Audio commentaries:
o “Once upon a time in Texas” with Tim Kring
o “Shadowboxing” with Adam Armus, Kay Forster and Greg Grunberg
o “The Fifth Stage” with Tim Kring and Adrian Pasdar
o “Brave New World” with Tim Kring and Robert Knepper
* Deconstructing Sylar
* Behind the Big Top
* Milo speaks
* Tim Sale gallery of screen art
* Genetics of a scene
* Heroes Revolution
* Extended scenes
* Deleted scenes

The exclusive extras on The Complete Collection include:

* Transporting Tour of 2009
* Heroes on the Run
* Action
* New Heroes on the block
* Heroes and Villains

Source: BluRay.com

It has been a while since we’ve gotten a real Ghostbusters 3 update. Last we heard, Office / Year One scribes Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg had turned in a script, Ivan Reitman will return to direct, but Bill Murray is the sole holdout (initially telling the producers that he would only be part of the film if they killed him off. The screenwriters did just that, and had his character in the film as a ghost, but Murray appears to be completely uninterested in the sequel), while Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd claim the film will be in theaters for either Christmas 2011 or 2012. We also know that the story apparently begins as the paranormal researchers “reopen” their ghost removal service after it has been closed for years, and the the film will introduce a new generation of Ghostbusters, who will be trained/mentored by the original crew.

Back in December 2008, Sigourney Weaver suggested that her character Dana Barrett’s baby Oscar should be one of the new Ghostbusters in the in development Ghostbusters 3. At the time, I thought that the addition of Dana’s offspring (and Peter’s potential step-son?) would be an interesting way to tie together the new team with the old. Now we have learned that the plans actually call for Oscar to suit up as one of the new Ghostbusters, but there is a bit of canon-bending with the storyline.

Bloody Disgusting is reporting that in the upcoming sequel it will be revealed up front that Dana’s son Oscar is in fact Peter Vankman’s child. In the original film it is never clear who Oscar’s father is, but it was inferred that it is not Peter’s kid. This comes from the GBFans FAQ:

First off, it’s not Louis Tully. Oscar is not the by product of Zuul and Vinz Clortho mating. There is five years between the movies. Oscar is about eight months or so old in GB2. Basic biology says that’s impossible The real answer has never been 100% established onscreen or in any officially endorsed materials, but Sigourney Weaver (1989 on The Arsenio Hall Show) and Joe Medjuck (in the 1999 Ghostbusters DVD) both state, however, that Oscar’s father is the violinist seen with Dana in one scene in GB1, whom Venkman calls “The Stiff” (and Sigourney referred to as “Mister Nose Spray”). He’s never given a name onscreen (he’s simply referred to as “Violinist” in the GB1 credits), but in the GB1 novelization he’s referred to as Andre Wallance, which indicates that Dana’s son’s birth name is presumed to be Oscar Wallance.

So it seems they are changing Ghostbusters canon a bit, and Oscar, it turns out, was Peter’s love-child, which he obviously wasn’t told about due to the commitment issues that led to his breakup with Dana. In Ghostbusters 3, Oscar is now a 21-year-old ready to chase and trap Ghosts, just like his father did. The other big bit of news coming from BD, is that Rick Moranis is expected to come out of retirement for the film, and Sigourney Weaver are expected to return as well.

Moranis is a big surprise as he retired from the business a few years after the 1991 loss of his wife, Anne, to liver cancer. He later explained that he “pulled out of making movies in about ‘96 or ‘97. I’m a single parent and I just found that it was too difficult to manage raising my kids and doing the traveling involved in making movies. So I took a little bit of a break. And the little bit of a break turned into a longer break, and then I found that I really didn’t miss it.” Other than some voice work on a couple Disney films, Moranis hasn’t appeared in a wide big screen release since 1996’s Big Bully.

Moranis portrayed Sigourney Weaver’s Manhattan neighbor Louis Tully in the original film and 1989 sequel. Rick even refused to participate in the 2008 Ghostbusters video game, although Dan Akroyd, Bill Murray, Annie Potts and William Atherton provided voices. Ramis has said that Moranis won’t be part of Ghostbusters 3: “Rick has retired from show business. But everyone else says they’ll do it.” May-be something has changed?

Source: /film

The television series Lost has come to a conclusion, sparking much debate among the fan communities. The debate isn’t really focused on the answers (or for some, lack of answers) but more so over what they thought (or disliked) about the final season and series as a whole. Actually, the storyline conclusion of Lost was pretty much spelled out for audiences (complete with an onscreen speech), completely explained. My biggest pet peeve about the final episode is that it doesn’t leave much room for theories or interpretations. However, actor Matthew Fox, who played Jack Shephard in the show, has an interpretation of the final episode, the flash-sideways, and the whole series. Read it now, after the jump.

Matthew Fox explained his theory to Newsweek at the Emmys:

“There are certain religious beliefs, spiritual ideas, that when you die, you have to remember your own death in the momentin the moment of your death, you have to remember all the people that brought you to that, all the people that were most important to you, bringing you to that moment. And essentially that’s what the entire Sideways was, I believe, in the sixth season. The moment that Jack was dying he was being reunited with all the people that had brought him to his death so he could move on to whatever was next. I thought it was pretty beautiful. Very spiritual. I’m not necessarily a religious person.”

So according to Fox, the flash-sideways are not purgatory, but instead a creation of his own mind during death. What do you think?

Source: /film

To celebrate the Blu-ray release of Lost: The Complete Sixth and Final Season and Lost: The Complete Collection in the UK, Prince Charles Cinema at Leicester Square, London will be screening all 121 episodes of the series, back-to-back, starting on release date (i.e., September 13) at 10 a.m.

The marathon will be open to the the first 280 fans at the theater gates. Paramedics will be on standby throughout the marathon, and breaks will be permitted.

Prince Charles Cinema director Gregory Lynn said: “We’re thrilled to host such an exciting event and look forward to keeping our cinema running all day and all night for as long as it takes!”

Back in May, a group of three New Yorkers completed a charity Lost-a-thon, watching the whole series (Season 6 on DVR), breaking the Guinness World Record for most consecutive hours spent watching television.

Source: Blu-Ray.com

I found this article very interesting over at /film. I agree with the views and having just written reviews for both films I really don’t know why The Expendables is beating Scott Pilgrim either.

As Sylvester Stallone reigns supreme at the box office yet again, the sting of Scott Pilgrim’s failure to resonate with the public only deepens. Strange how both films attempt to appeal to similar filmic influences, yet the divide amongst audiences has been so wide.

It’s possible that this is a result, however subconscious, of a contrasting appreciation for the way the films choose to define its men, with the reverence for the long-lost form of the burly ’80s action hero speaking more to people than the modern promotion of the geek hero. In this way, The Expendables and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World are on opposite sides of a cultural rift. Scott is a character whose manhood is not impugned by his scrawniness, awkwardness or geekiness, making him the sort of “badass” hero that could only exist in a post-Internet world. The characters in The Expendables, meanwhile, can essentially be seen as a plea to return to the male image as it was once celebrated, when masculinity was defined by muscles, scars, motorcycles, booze, tattoos and mindless acts of violence.

If this is indeed the case, the takeaway here is simple: The men of today are gay; long live the six packs and mullets of yesterday.

Even more likely though, the disconnect was in the marketing. The Expendables made its bottom line very clear: Here are a bunch of awesome people. They’re in this movie together. Go see it.

Scott Pilgrim, on the other hand, was already battling the stigma of Michael Cera and hipsters, and its trailers did it no favors. Universal took the exact wrong approach. They assumed the intended demographic would be instinctively drawn to the material, so they advertised the hell out of it without restraint. Instead of downplaying the quirky hipness of the material, the marketing emphasized it even further, throwing out onscreen text like “It’s on like Donkey Kong,” incorporating out-of-place indie songs as background music, and tagging the ends of trailers with the same “That was epic” quip (despite it not even being part of the final film). For those not familiar with the graphic novels, the trailers reeked of trying-too-hard desperation, putting people off almost immediately. The studio didn’t so much sell the movie as they did spend a ton of money informing moviegoers what not to see.

Another theory: The respective box office success and failure could also be due to the differing methods used by each film to pay heed to their cultural heritage. Whereas The Expendables opted to emulate its very specific pop culture influences, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was more of a reflection on a melting pot of pop culture influences, making it harder for audiences to understand what exactly the movie was trying to be. Straight, simple emulation offers a far more secure base for financial success, as it plays to an instant familiarity. Audiences know what they’re getting, so they’re more likely to drop $10 bucks on it.

Of course, this is assuming that what’s being emulated hasn’t yet lost its appeal.

Case in point: Piranha 3D. Campy, old-school monster movie schlock certainly appeals to me, but you really can’t count on it to find much love at the box office. And unfortunately for the Weinsteins—but fortunately for us—director Alexandre Aja showed no limits in cranking up the cheese factor with Piranha 3D, which in turn may have alienated viewers looking for a more serious horror outing. The film ended up placing 6th (behind Vampires Suck and Lottery Ticket) with $10 million in its coffers—a touch less than Scott Pilgrim made last week. But relative to its $24 million budget, it’s not nearly the disaster that Pilgrim has proven to be.

And with that, America has spoken: Trashy ’80s action like The Expendables? Yay. Trashy ’70s exploitation like Piranha 3D? Nay. Smart, original and visually arresting genre-benders like Scott Pilgrim vs. the World? Fuck off, hipster.

Below you will find the weekend box office’s top 10 results thanks to Box Office Mojo:

TW LW Title Studio Weekend Gross % Change Theater Count / Change Average Total Gross Budget* Week #
1 1 The Expendables LGF $16,500,000 -52.6% 3,270 - $5,046 $64,890,000 $80 2
2 N Vampires Suck Fox $12,200,000 - 3,233 - $3,774 $18,564,000 $20 1
3 2 Eat Pray Love Sony $12,000,000 -48.1% 3,082 - $3,894 $47,100,000 $60 2
4 N Lottery Ticket WB $11,125,000 - 1,973 - $5,639 $11,125,000 $17 1
5 3 The Other Guys Sony $10,100,000 -42.0% 3,472 -179 $2,909 $88,190,000 $100 3
6 N Piranha 3D W/Dim. $10,035,000 - 2,470 - $4,063 $10,035,000 $24 1
7 N Nanny McPhee Returns Uni. $8,310,000 - 2,784 - $2,985 $8,310,000 $35 1
8 N The Switch Mira. $8,100,000 - 2,012 - $4,026 $8,100,000 - 1
9 4 Inception WB $7,655,000 -32.2% 2,401 -719 $3,188 $261,848,000 $160 6
10 5 Scott Pilgrim vs. the World Uni. $5,034,000 -52.6% 2,820 +2 $1,785 $20,730,000 $60 2

Source: /film

You can find my review of The Expendables online now by clicking here!

Twenty years later and without a truly iconic action movie that stands out for our generation it is up to the heroes of the past to do it for us. With an ensemble cast that boast more muscle between them than seen at Mr. Universe are we going to be treated to something we’ve longed for?

Full details have been revealed for Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, which, as previously reported (see blu-ray.com, July 5), will be released on Blu-ray on August 31 as a Best Buy exclusive. This two-disc Rich Mahogany Edition will include 50 minutes of new special features, a Many Months of Burgundy book and 12 collectible trading cards.

Special features include:

* Commentary with Adam McKay, Will Ferrell, Lou Rawls, Andy Richter, Kyle Gass, Paul Rudd, David Koechner and Christina Applegate
* Deleted and extended scenes (new)
* Bloopers
* ESPN Sports Center Audition – Ron Burgundy
* Wake Up Ron Burgundy
* Feature Introduction by Will Ferrell and Aaron Zimmerman
* Raw Footage “Good Takes” (new)
* Music video: “Afternoon Delight”
* “Afternoon Delight” recording session (new)
* Public Service Announcements
* Awards Speech
* AMC Loews Happy Birthday (new)
* Interviews:
o Rebecca Romijn
o Jim Caviezel
o Burt Reynolds
* Cinemax: The Making of Ron Burgundy
* Reel Comedy: Anchorman
* A Conversation with Ron Burgundy
* Cast Auditions (new)
* Table Read (new)
* Rehearsals
* Playback Video
* Commercial Break
* Trailers (in HD) (new)

Source: BR.com

My review of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is now online and you can read it by clicking here!

Based on the best selling Brian Lee O’Malley graphic novel, the movie appears to transcend the source material as its striking visuals and ear-bleeding soundtrack leap out the screen at you in a way you couldn’t imagine.