Happy Monday! Also in today's edition of The Broadsheet: Johnny Depp's Rum Diary boycott... Scientology's stealth war vs. the South Park boys... Metallica seeks film moguldom... Michael Pitt didn't quit, he was fired... and more.
It's the most wonderful time of year -- that calm October blip where Oscar season's best films are coming up and we dream about how overrated many of them will be. I feel like a little kid again! While this season is far less objectionable than last year's, I can think of a couple movies I'd normally (and irrationally) resist if it weren't my job to deal with them. Can you?
Though Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows doesn't come out until December, the third installment of the flashy Arthur Conan Doyle series already has a screenwriter: Iron Man 3 scribe Drew Pearce. Pearce also wrote a bit on Pacific Rim, Guillermo del Toro's alien invasion movie that he'll start shooting soon in Toronto. I suppose this means we won't be returning to the simpler Basil Rathbone world of ol' Sherl any time soon. I want quaintness! [Deadline]
Some of us were too busy this weekend taking in Martha Marcy May Marlene and Margin Call to bother with such plebeian fare as Paranormal Activity 3, but I suppose I'll acknowledge the found footage thriller's big feat this weekend: Not only did it jazz up a comatose box office, it also notched the highest opening ever for a horror movie. Fancy! Click through for all the notable grosses and help me lament Johnny English's stateside downfall.
We've already seen one parody of the star-studded, snarky Avengers trailer that was released a couple weeks ago, but we think those Taiwanese geniuses have been topped by Swede Fest organizers Roque & Brian. The flying, lame one-liners, hair-whipping, and general superhero self-importance are all mocked here, and the closing quip seems to sum up the movie pretty nicely. Please watch, or you'll be Thorry.
She'd only wriggled her way into small parts before, but Kim Kardashian is set to take on a sizable part in Tyler Perry's upcoming jam The Marriage Counselor. Are you screaming and applauding right now? Good. Kardashian tweeted the news last night, and already I'm psyched to watch her light up in the big screen with those shiny, ovoid, battery-operated eyes. Details on her part after the jump.
The past month's been slow at the cineplex, but you can thank Paranormal Activity 3 for giving the people what they want: graininess! The second sequel trounces everything in its path this week, especially other newcomers like The Three Musketeers and Johnny English Reborn. The tally follows.
Logan Lerman, arguably our most rosy-cheeked D'Artagnan, made an appearance on a Korean talk show while promoting the new Three Musketeers at the Busan International Film Festival. Maybe the movie's not so hot, but you'll see in this clip that Lerman's cute awkwardness is the best we've seen since Jesse Eisenberg (and not as flip). Also, the host steals Lerman's shoes, and for some reason it's like watching a trainwreck.
Both Joan Fontaine and her big sister Olivia de Havilland are thriving well into their nineties, and even though they still don't appear to be speaking to each other, they remain two of Hollywood's most esteemed thespians ever. (Watch de Havilland's "Melanie Remembers" interview from 2004's Gone with the Wind re-release -- just lovely!) On the occasion of Ms. Fontaine's 94th birthday, let's take a stroll into the Oscar winner's filmography and find her greatest cinematic moment.
Friday! Huzzah! Time to gather some friends for a fun night out getting beaten senseless on a Vancouver sidewalk -- or, if partying Shia-style isn't your bag, feel free to just trawl through the lively memories gathered in Movieline's Week in Review. It's all here, with more delight to come in the days ahead from the winsome wit of Louis Virtel. Don't be a stranger, and have a great weekend!
In this weekend's Margin Call, Demi Moore plays a workaholic risk management exec whose reckless peers at a fictional Wall Street investment firm help ignite the 2008 economic crisis. So how did a Brat Packer from the '80s transform herself into a high powered finance exec?
Talking with i09, George Romero revealed that he's optioned Harvard psychologist-turned-writer Steven C. Schlozman's book The Zombie Autopsies, which is a zombie apocalypse tale with themes of economic collapse. Also: It's (100 percent?) medically accurate. "I think about it like the first Hammer Frankenstein film, which was all about very graphic scenes of brains floating in blood and things like that. I want it to be perfectly accurate, almost shockingly so." So, Night of the Living Dead meets Margin Call? Why not. [i09]
The very existence of Paranormal Activity 3 may induce a few eye-rolls, but at this point it's hard to deny the sheer effectiveness of "found footage" horror films. After Time featured a cover story on The Blair Witch Project in '99, it appeared we'd be in for years and years of copycats, but there have been more than a handful of inventive twists on the young genre. What's your favorite?
It was bound to happen eventually, and here we are: Three days after the Zanesville Zooicide that cost dozens of unleashed zoo animals their lives, PETA vice president Lisa Lange wants Cameron Crowe's upcoming We Bought a Zoo to warn viewers off from wild-animal ownership.
This weekend, Paul W.S. Anderson brings his own adaptation of Alexandre Dumas's novel The Three Musketeers to movie theaters. This is hardly the first feature film foray for the titular trio of sword-fighting adventurers though. The Three Musketeers, first published in 1844, has been interpreted for the screen over twenty times in the past century and framed as everything from a silent film to a Russian musical to a Charlie Sheen star vehicle. In celebration of this weekend's latest rendering of the classic, let's re-examine the Musketeers' long cinematic history.
FILM NEWS 
