Martin Freeman to play Bilbo Baggins

Peter Jackson confirmed that Martin Freeman has been cast to play Bilbo Baggins in the two upcoming Hobbit movies.  You may remember Freeman from his roles in Love Actually, Shaun of the Dead, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  Don’t remember him? Well, click here to see Freeman’s filmography.

Filming has been delayed several months because of a labor dispute between Jackson and the New Zealand Actors’ Equity and SAG, but is set to begin in early 2011. Looks like there’s no chance of making the originally planned Christmas 2011 and 2012 release dates for the two films, but at least it’s getting started. Hopefully.

Weekend Box Office: October 22-24, 2010

Here is the top 10 Box Office for October 22-24, 2010:

1. Paranormal Activity 2, $41.5M, Week 1, (3216 screens)
2. Jackass 3-D, $21.6M, Week 2, (3111 screens)
3. Red, $15M, Week 2, (3273 screens)
4. Hereafter, $12.0M, Week 2, (2181 screens)
5. The Social Network, $7.3M, Week 4, (2921 screens)
6. Secretariat, $6.9M, Week 3, (3108 screens)
7. Life as We Know It, $6.2M, Week 3, (3019 screens)
8. Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, $3.2M, Week 5, (2236 screens)
9. The Town, $2.7M, Week 6, (1918 screens)
10. Easy A, $1.8M, Week 6, (1632 screens)

 

Movie Review: Devil

First, five people are riding in an elevator together and it gets stuck. Then, they find out one of them is the devil. Great. No one on the building crew can figure out why the elevator is stuck in the first place – the mechanics seem fine. Then, {cue dramatic music} horrible things start happening. Of course, the people begin accusing each other of being the culprit. Each of the five has issues that we slowly learn about as the story progresses. The five are:

• A temporary security guard (Bokeem Woodbine) who works in the building and who has a police record.
• An irritating mattress salesman (Geoffrey Arend) who immediately begins getting on everyone’s nerves.
• A young woman named Sarah (Bojana Novakovic) who is caught in some lies.
• An older woman (Bojana Novakovic) who is a thief.
• A nervous young guy named Tony (Logan Marshall-Green) – no one is sure why he is even in the building.

Periodically, the lights in the elevator go out and every time they do, something bad happens. It’s done in classic Shyamalan fashion: the lights go out and you see quick flashes of what’s going on, and you hear shuffling sounds and lots of bumping around, but you can’t tell what it is or who’s doing it. These scenes are actually well done. Very thrilling.

Detective Bowden (Chris Messina) is brought in to try and solve a different mystery but soon ends up working on the elevator situation. Ramirez (Jacob Vargas) is a security guard who thinks something demonic is happening, although no one believes him initially.

Devil is more of a thriller than a horror movie, and it is very psychological. It is really not as bad as I feared it might be. The story unfolds in such a way that you are left guessing all the way to the end of the movie, although the ending does leave something to be desired. I give this movie two and a half Slurpees out of five.

* Devil * Director: John Erick Dowdle * Starring: Chris Messina, Bokeem Woodbine, Geoffrey Arend, Jenny O’Hara, Bojana Novakovic, Logan Marshall-Green * Writers: Brian Nelson (screenplay), M. Night Shyamalan (story) *  Time: 80 minutes * Rated PG-13 * Horror/Mystery/Thriller * Trailer *

Upcoming Release: Skyline

This weekend, I saw a trailer for a movie that looks like my kind of movie.  It’s called Skyline and it’s yet another alien invasion movie, but it looks like it has some great special effects.  Here’s the synopsis:

“Strange lights descend on the city of Los Angeles, drawing people outside like moths to a flame where an extraterrestrial force threatens to swallow the entire human population off the face of the Earth.”

The movie was directed by Colin Strause and Greg Strause. It stars Donald Faison Eric Balfour, Scottie Thompson, David Zayas, and Brittany Daniel and it is set for a November 12 release date.  Here’s the trailer:

Weekend Box Office: October 1-3, 2010

Here is the top 10 Box Office for Sept. 24-26, 2010:

1. The Social Network, $23M, Week 1, (2771 screens)
2. Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, $10.9M, Week 2, (3575 screens)
3. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, $10.1M, Week 2, (3597 screens)
4. The Town, $10M, Week 3, (2935 screens)
5. Easy A, $7M, Week 3, (2974 screens)
6. You Again, $5.6M, Week 2, (2548 screens)
7. Case 39, $5.4M, Week 1, (2211 screens)
8. Let Me In, $5.3M, week 1, (2020 screens)
9. Devil, $3.7M, Week 3, (2392 screens)
10. Alpha and Omega, $3M, Week 3, (2303 screens)

Movie Review: The Social Network

Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) is sharp, a genius who can apparently write programming code easier (and quicker) than I can write this post, but he hasn’t learned to soften his language when speaking to someone he cares about. When Mark’s girlfriend Erica Albright (Rooney Mara) breaks up with him, in part because of the way he speaks to her, he heads to his dorm and writes a scathing blog post about her. He also writes the code to develop a site that allows students to rate/compare the hotness of college co-eds; the hits to the site eventually crash Harvard’s server. This catches the attention of twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss (Armie Hammer) and Divya Narendra (Max Minghella), who have an idea for a Harvard social networking site and who want Mark to work with them.

Mark instead decides to start his own site but he feels he is not infringing on their idea because, “They had an idea, I had a better one. I didn’t use any of their code.” With help from friend Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), the journey to Facebook begins. The basic code is developed fairly quickly.  They add Relationship and Interested in statuses and it’s ready to launch. Facebook was popular from the beginning, but really took off when the guys decided to expand to other universities and states.

They become rock stars of sorts and like many popular music groups, problems begin when one member stands out from the others. Jealously and arguments ensue. Other issues arise when new members start joining the group. Enter Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), the fast-talking founder of Napster. Sean and Eduardo bump heads from the start, and Mark voices his concern that Eduardo might be “left behind.”  I have no idea how accurate the story is. What’s the real truth? Only those involved know for sure. Needless to say, the “Winklevi” with Narendra and Eduardo Saverin decide to sue Mark.

I have seen the real Mark Zuckerberg in interviews, and Eisenberg does a great job of portraying the quirky Zuckerberg with his rapid-fire, robot way of speaking. Eisenberg does not display a lot of emotion on his face, but adequately portrays the inner emotion the character is feeling. He seems to be in a constant state of bewilderment throughout the movie, as if he does not fully understand the negative effect of something he has said or done. He genuinely seems to believe that most of what he has done is right and seems to be sorry for the things he did that he knows were not right – especially when it comes to his relationship with Erica. All of the actors were good in their roles. The movie is a drama but does have several comedic moments, many of the lines delivered by Eisenberg, in his deadpan manner.

Obviously, the Facebook story continues and we don’t know what will happen next. But Facebook, Mark reminds us, is like fashion – it’s never finished. This movie is not just about how Facebook was started. It’s also about the desire to belong to something great. I liked The Social Network and I give it 3.5 Slurpees out of 5. I give it that because it would be a strong, interesting story even if it were not based on a factual situation.

And just so you know, Jesse Eisenberg is not Michael Cera.

* The Social Network * Director: David Fincher * Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Rooney Mara, Bryan Barter, Dustin Fitzsimons, Armie Hammer, Max Minghella * Writers: Ben Mezrich (book), Aaron Sorkin (screenplay) *  Time: 120 minutes * Rated PG-13 * Drama/History * Soundtrack * Trailers *