Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Manhattan Federal Court after rejecting a takeover bid by Lionsgate and billionaire Carl Icahn. It is expected that the “pre-pack” bankruptcy deal will last 30 days with major lenders JP Morgan and Credit Suisse swapping $4 billion of loans for a majority of the company’s equity.
Leading the cast of the biggest movie of the summer Inception as well as his stay on Shutter Island, Leonardo DiCaprio is no stranger when playing roles dealing in matters of the mind. Now, Deadline is reporting DiCaprio’s next role will take him to much darker territory he has yet to play: the mind of a serial killer, with the film Devil in the White City.
Tim Burton is teaming up with usual suspect Johnny Depp for a film adaptation of the gothic television drama Dark Shadows. Depp has for a long time wanted to play Barnabas Collins, the main character of the series that ABC broadcast from 1966 to 1971.
I’d normally consider it a cop-out to label a film exactly like another and purposefully avoid direct comparison between two films, but Due Date, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis as polar-opposite travel buddies thrown together by unwelcome circumstances, bears more than just a resemblance to John Hughes’ Planes, Trains & Automobiles. In this case, 21st Century update is spot-on.
Megamind is by all intents and purposes a “Will Ferrell” movie boasting bizarre rambling sequences and low-brow slapstick. It contains about as many chuckles as his earlier action comedy The Other Guys and is about as clever in its genre-skewering — timely, but far from radical. Like Robin Williams’ The Genie in Aladdin, it is clear a significant amount of ad-libbing was conducted by its comedic cast and sometimes for better and sometimes for worse, it breaks the movie free from more conventional confines.
This controversial film adaptation sees the comedy director creating a story that mildly dances around such soliloquies. His passionate attempt to turn this seminal work into a motion picture is both admirable and ambitious but not very successful.
I thought the right thing to do would be to focus on the road-trip films that have tickled our funny bones over the years. It’s hard to talk about road trips and leave off Thelma & Louise, Almost Famous and True Romance, but this post will celebrate the often ridiculous shenanigans that can happen when two or more people hit the road. The films might not always be great (or good, for that matter), but you’re sure to remember them.
