FEBRUARY, 18


PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES

Romance / Horror

The Cast: Natalie Portman, Johnny Depp, Carey Mulligan, Henry Cavill, Joseph Fiennes, Emma Watson, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Susan Sarandon, Bryce Dallas Howard

The Director: Tim Burton
The Screenwriter: James Bradley

The Plot:

Somewhere in the countryside of England during the first years of 19th Century.

Mr. Bennett (A.Rickman), his wife (E.Thompson) and his five young daughters are going through rough times. The lands are not being productive anymore. The latest harvests have been ruined. The reason? The hordes of zombies that wander around the woods often run through the lands trampling the farming.

Yes, England is full of zombies – also known as the ‘unmentionables’ – and that can be very annoying some times. The deceased ancestors of the British are a complete nuisance: post is often lost because the couriers are captured and eaten by the zombies; ladies hate to carry a musket to defend themselves as they consider it ‘unladylike’; and every boy and girl has to learn since the youngest age zombie-fighting abilities as an obligatory subject at school.

At their countryside estate, Mr. Bennett guides his daughters in martial arts and weapons training, molding them into a fearsome zombie-fighting army. Meanwhile, Mrs. Bennett endeavours to marry the girls off to wealthy suitors.

The big event of the moment for the family is the arrival of Mr. Bingley (H.Cavill), a very nice, wealthy and single man that has purchased a nearby house. Mrs. Bennett takes her daughters to a local dance with the only intention of them to meet Mr. Bingley. Eldest Bennett sister, Jane (C.Mulligan), will soon take all Bingley’s attention.

Bingley introduces her sister Elizabeth (N.Portman) to his best friend Fitzwilliam Darcy (J.Depp). Darcy has a high reputation as zombie-hunter. He is a haughty man. He behaves with smug condescension and 'proud' distaste for all the country locals. After Darcy's haughty rejection of her at the dance, Elizabeth resolves to match his coldness and pride, his prejudice against country people, with her own prideful anger—in biting wit and sometimes sarcastic remarks—directed towards him.

The party is interrupted by a zombie attack. The Bennett sisters have the chance to show their skills fighting the zombies. And Darcy is particularly impressed by Elizabeth’s skill when he sees her facing the zombies. During the fight, Jane is bitten by a zombie and everyone fears that she might turn one of them (which sometimes happens and sometimes doesn’t after a zombie’s bite).

After the dance, Bingley and Jane begin to grow close. It seems that Jane is fine after the zombie’s bite although she sometimes behaves strange with sudden up and downs in her mood. Anyway, the Bennets are shaken when Bingley suddenly announces that he is abandoning his country home to return to London with little explanation. Jane feels heartbroken.

On those days, a local militia arrives in town. Their task is to exhume and destroy dead bodies so the number of zombies does not keep increasing. Elizabeth becomes friendly with one of the soldiers, George Wickham (J.Fiennes). Wickham grew up being a close friend of Darcy but now they have turned enemies after Darcy cheated Wickham out of an inheritance. Elizabeth seizes on this news as further reason to dislike Darcy. Ironically, Darcy has begun to find himself attracted to Elizabeth since he saw her fighting the zombies at the dance.

Elizabeth is invited to socialize at Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s cottage for a weekend. Lady Catherine (S.Sarandon) is best known for being the patron of a reputed cadre of ninjas specialized in fighting the zombies. That has turned her into a very respected and influential leader of the British society. During the weekend, Lady Catherine tells Elizabeth that she has heard about her fighting skills and offers her to become one of her ninjas. Elizabeth doubts as she feels that’s not appropriate for a lady like her although it sounds so tempting.

Elizabeth meets at the cottage her good friend Charlotte (B.D.Howard). Charlotte has just returned from London and tells Elizabeth she was told there that it was Darcy who convinced his friend Bingley to return to London and leave Jane as the haughty Darcy considered that the Bennets are not a relevant family enough for his friend to marry Jane. When knowing that, Elizabeth’s dislike of Darcy turns into full-blown hatred. Elizabeth vows to avenge the slight to her family by killing Darcy. Later that weekend, she is afforded that opportunity when Darcy appears unannounced at Lady Catherine’s cottage.

That night, Elizabeth assaults Darcy at the stables of the cottage and attacks him with a katana trying to behead him. The situation culminates in a vicious verbal and physical fight. Darcy is wounded. But when Elizabeth is about to kill him, Charlotte shows up at the stables. To both Darcy and Elizabeth’s surprise, she has turned into a zombie and attacks them. Darcy and Elizabeth team up to fight back Charlotte. Finally, Elizabeth kills Charlotte with her katana and when examining her body she notices she had the sign of a zombie bite. Darcy escapes of the stables at that point.

A few days later, Darcy writes a long letter to Elizabeth in which he explains his actions. He broke up Jane and Bingley out of fear that Jane had contracted the "mysterious plague" after the bite she suffered at the dance and was about to turn into a zombie. With regards to the allegedly wronged soldier Wickham, Darcy explains that Wickham had attempted to elope with Darcy's younger sister in an attempt to get his hands on her considerable fortune — this was the "inheritance" that Darcy had cheated the man out of. Elizabeth realizes that she has judged Darcy too harshly, and is humbled. Darcy, meanwhile, realizes that his arrogant nature encourages people to believe the rumors about him, and resolves to act more appropriately.

Elizabeth decides to embark on a trip around the country with her sister Jane. She considers the trip will help Jane to recover from the pain left by Bingley and also from the sequels of the zombie’s bite (although, luckily, Jane hasn’t turned into a zombie). During the trip, Elizabeth and Jane suffer several attacks from hordes of rampaging zombies and fighting and defeating them cheers up the spirit of both sisters.

When they return home, bad news are waiting for them. Their younger sister, Lydia (E.Watson), has eloped to London with Wickham, Elizabeth’s friend. The Bennett family fears that this scandal will ruin their reputation making almost impossible to find good husbands for the other four daughters of the family.

But then Darcy unexpectedly shows up at the Bennet’s estate for a visit. He is coming with more news. Wickham and Lydia secretly married in London. Then, they decided to travel to Wickham’s family home at Yorkshire to meet Wickham’s family. But, unfortunately, during the trip they were attacked by zombies. Wickham died but Lydia survived. She is recovering at a hospital right now and soon will be ready to come back home. The good news of it is that now Lydia, as Wickham’s widow, will inherit his considerable fortune.

All the economic problems of the Bennett will be solved now. The scandal has turned into the salvation of the family from ruin.

During his visit, Darcy's new attitude and mannerisms impress Elizabeth and lead her to consider reconciling their relationship. Darcy stays at the countryside for some days gently courting Elizabeth.

Elizabeth has to leave as she has been invited again to spend another socializing weekend at Lady Catherine’s cottage and nobody can reject an invitation from her. When Elizabeth arrives to the cottage, she discovers it is all a trap. There are no more guests than her. Lady Catherine tells Elizabeth that she cannot accept her relationship with Darcy. She wants her own and only daughter to marry Darcy and won’t accept Elizabeth interfering in her wedding plans. Lady Catherine also tells Elizabeth that it was her who made Charlotte being bitten by a zombie when she was told that Charlotte was planning to seduce Darcy.

Lady Catherine challenges Elizabeth to a fight to the death. Elizabeth and Lady Catherine fight in a swords duel. Lady Catherine’s army of ninjas will join the fight when Elizabeth is about to kill her. Elizabeth can hardly resist the attack of the ninjas. Surrounded and close to be defeated, Darcy surprisingly appears.

Darcy was surprised that Lady Catherine had invited Elizabeth to her cottage when no other of the usual guests had been invited so he decided to go there to see what was going on.

Darcy and Elizabeth fight together against Lady Catherine and her cadre of ninjas until they defeat them all. Then, Elizabeth decides to spare Lady Catherine’s life. Darcy is touched by this gesture and once the fight is over he asks Elizabeth if she would marry him. Elizabeth says yes.

They return together to the Bennets’ home. On their way back home, they cheerfully wipe out a field of zombies.

Once back home, more good news are waiting for them. Bingley has returned from London. He has taken Lydia back home from the hospital and also he has asked Jane to marry him.

So all the Bennet family is together again and they happily celebrate the two coming weddings of Jane and Elizabeth. It seems like the beginning of a happy future for the Bennet family... as long as the zombies permit it.


Stark’s Comment:
‘Dark Shadows’ was also labeled as a ‘Romance / Horror’ movie and it didn’t work too well in box office so I don’t feel too confident about this release.

Behind The Scenes:
-The movie is based on a novel by Seth Grahame-Smith. It follows the plot of Jane Austen’s ‘Pride And Prejudice’ but introducing zombies as part of the story.
-Jane Bennett was going to be played by Claire Danes. But when James Bradley saw Carey Mulligan at the latest GMA Edition, he decided she was perfect for the role and decided to replace Danes.
-Originally, Jim Sturgess was going to play the character finally played by Henry Cavill. But when ‘Snow’ was released, Bradley realized that the three cast members of that movie – Sturgess, Watson and Rickman – were also cast for this one. He didn’t want to look repetitive so he replaced Sturgess with Cavill.
-Henry Cavill and Joseph Fiennes already met as Superman and Lex Luthor in CMP’s ‘Justice League 2’.
-James Bradley has stated that he might adapt in the future ‘Dawn Of The Dreadfuls’, a novel written by Steve Hockensmith. The book is a prequel to ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies’. But Bradley has said that he will only adapt it if this one works nicely in box office.
-Long after having chosen Natalie Portman to star this movie, Bradley found at the internet that Portman had in fact been considering producing and starring a big screen version of the book. Last news told that Portman had abandoned the project and Scarlett Johansson was now considering starring it. The funny thing is that Bradley had initially considered Johansson to star his movie before he finally chose Portman.

DEEP SILENCE 3

Action / Sci-Fi / 3D

The Cast: Jessica Alba, Michael Emmerson, Lara Belmont, Channing Tatum, Michael C. Hall, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Walton Gogging, Abigail Bianca, Parry Shen

The Director: Matt Kubrick
The Screenwriters: Matt Kubrick and Dawson Edwards

The Plot:

Footsteps. Loud hard footsteps. The camera shows nothing more than a camouflage pants leg and boots of someone walking down a dark corridor. Twisting around every corner with a sharp turn, these feet are walking with a purpose. They stop at a door, from which heavy steam is pouring out. The door is slowly tapped open with a kick, and we see that the room is a large shower. The boots walk closer to the sound of a woman singing while bathing. The boots turn a corner and meet another pair. The camera pans up to see a familiar face. The half naked Dr. Julia Reeves (J.Alba) is holding a gun to the face of an unknown man with a clipboard. Shaking the man says, "You have a new assignment Dr. Reeves." She smirks.

The credits roll as Dr. Reeves gets dressed. Julia Reeves in the last five years has joined an underground mercenary group that has been hired to investigate a secret research company known as A1X1 development. As she signs a few documents, she turns back to the nerdy man and says sternly, "Are my men ready? They better be." We find out that Reeves has been furiously tracking the links between her past mutant encounters. She and her team of mercs have traced them back to a company only known as A1X1.

This was the chance Julia was yearning for over the last five years. A1X1 has been designing a new form of genetics to create a new type of super enhanced soldier. Dr. Reeves and her mercenaries leave their base, headed to a freighter owned by A1X1, looking for anything to further their evidence. Julia leads her 10 man squad onto the freighter, they are silently taking down guards left and right. In a sharp shift, her men start to get picked off just as quickly as they took out others. The remaining four and Julia make their way to the main cargo hold. The dimly lit hallway goes completely dark. The team points their weapons in every direction trying to figure out what is going on. They can hear movement in the darkness all around them. Finally when the lights come back on they can see that they are surrounded by men armed with high powered machine guns, it was a trap. A fire fight breaks out between everyone. Julia dives to the ground, taking out as many as she can while aiming at their feet. The gunshots slow down and she stands to her feet. Her men are gunned down and Julia feels a blow to the back of her head.

1 MONTH LATER:

Julia rises from a cot that she has been calling her bed for 30 days. She looks around the small cell where she's been held captive, and stares out the window. Outside the window is darkness. Not because its night, but because Julia is deep underwater on an unknown base of operations for the A1X1. "Well good morning Dr. Reeves. Don't you look lovely today" says a voice. Angrily, Julia turns around to see a short man (M.Emmerson) with glasses smirking back at her standing with a young woman. "Cromby, I'm going to kill TWICE you for every time you've experimented on these people." Camera pulls out of the cell to see the entire hallway is filled with more prison cells like Julia's. "Its DOCTOR Cromby actually. You should know that by now. Or would you rather just call me Alan?" The girl looks at the floor avoiding Julia's stare. They have been performing all manner of tests on the prisoners to try and mix their mutant gene with the prisoners in the facility.

The girl is Lisa Gibbons (L.Belmont), Dr. Cromby's assistant. She whispers into Alan's ear that things aren't going smoothly with the experiments and the military wants them to speed up and show some real results this time. The two walk away, passing by angry or sick prisoners. One in particular sits in the middle of his cell looking very calm holding dog tags that hang from his neck. Lisa stops in front of his cell, checks her files and sees that his name is Alec White, Ex-Marine (C.Tatum). "Since when did Marines become Ghandi?" she asks. "Another side affect to the mutation, move along." says Cromby. Alec looks across the hall to see Julia looking back at him, and he smiles.

Once the two have left the corridor, Alec begins coughing. Julia shouts from across the room, "Hurry up Alec!" We then see him cough up a piece of paper. A few prisoners watch in anticipation of what Alec will do with the paper. Two of them begin arguing whether this will work, Nicholas Green (W.Goggins) and a huge black man who only goes by Trenton (A.Akinnuoye). A very attractive woman named Susan Hughes (A.Bianca), yells for the both of them to shut up before the guards outside hear. One of the sick prisoners, Mitchel West (P.Shen) begins to laugh through his coughs. As Alec carefully slides the paper across the hall to Julia, we focus on her eyes.

Transition from her beautiful dark brown eyes to the light gray eyes of Lisa, who is nervously walking around the base. Lisa arrives at the surveillance room, where one lonely guard is on duty. Lisa seduces the guard and knocks him out as he starts undressing. Lisa releases the prisoners and the gang immediately rush the door taking out the few guards outside the prison block. Julia snatches the radio from a guard and finds Lisa on the frequency. Lisa directs them to the armory, where Julia, Alec, Trenton, Nicholas and Susan each get a weapon.

Alan Cromby receives word of the prison escape, and realizes there's no going back from here. We then see Lisa running through the tight corridors to meet up with Julia's squad at the mutant tanks. She turns a corner and we see that she ran by a hiding Alan. Alan shoots her in the back of the head, and she dies instantly. He then makes the adrenaline fueled decision to release the mutants and hopes they will kill everyone so that nothing can leave alive. He screams for his second assistant, Dr. Carter (M.C.Hall) to do it quickly.

A fight for survival begins as the prisoners are forced to try and survive. Dr. Carter also sends out a distress call, fearing the worst. As soon as he does the mutants cut power to the base and switches to back up power. The lights are now dim, and the base filled with mutants and scared and sick prisoners. The prisoners hope to use Alan as a hostage when they learn that a sub will be there in 3 hours. The hope is that they can take over the sub and make an escape. Alan reveals that all his hard work won't be in vain. There is another organization that would love to have his research, and he takes off with some documents. Dr. Alan manages to get away from them. Julia sprints after him, but she's too late, Cromby makes it to a mini-pod and escapes leaving the prisoners alone on the base with the mutants.

Meanwhile the prisoners are being slowly but viciously picked off one by one and eventually only Julia and Alec are alive. As they scan documents they learn that Alec has been heavily modified with the gene therapy. They agree to lock him in part of the docking bay. As the hours past he slowly changes into one of the mutants. Julia stares him down through the secured door and says "I have to survive. I'm sorry."

It's at this time that the new sub has arrived with a small 6 man squad to secure everything. Julia lets the mutated Alec loose on them and he begins to tears them apart. Julia starts to make her way to the mini sub so she can leave but Alec eventually catches up with her. There is a huge fight between the two as Julia fights to survive. She loses her gun during the fight and it looks like that she will die and this will be the end of her. Finally she reaches her machine gun and uses the grenade launcher on it to blow him up. Finally she is able to get into the escape sub and drives off into the deep blue sea, holding on to A1X1 documents and a pair of marine dog tags.


Stark’s Comment:
Two new writers for this classic CMP’s saga. ‘Deep Silence’ was released in Season 2, written by the now retired Tom Figgs, directed and produced by James Cameron. It made 147 million at box office. ‘Deep Silence 2: Red Code High’, released in Season 10, was written by Joey Stark and directed by Renny Harlin. It made a box office of 107 millions. Now, Edwards and Kubrick take control of the franchise. And I expect another ‘+100’ box office.

Behind The Scenes:
-Matt Kubrick had always wanted to get involved in this saga. In fact, he wrote the screenplay of a sequel for the original ‘Deep Silence’ that was never developed. After that, he wrote by himself a third installment of the franchise. But finally he decided to team up with Dawson Edwards and a brand new screenplay was written. So this is the third time that Kubrick writes a story for the saga but the first time that his work finally sees the light.
-This is the 12th movie directed by Kubrick. The previous one was the flopped ‘Sam & Twitch 2’.
-Olivia Wilde refused the offer to play the character finally played by Lara Belmont. Wilde stated that she wasn’t interested in playing a minor role in this movie.
-Sam Worthington also refused to be in this movie. He preferred to join the cast of the upcoming ‘Modern Warfare’.
-Lara Belmont has worked before with Kubrick in ‘Legends Of The West’ and Adewale Akinnuoye worked with him in ‘Suicide Squad’.

A MURDER OF CROWS

Action / Thriller

The Cast: Harvey Keitel, Mickey Rourke, Kim Bassinger, Giovanni Ribisi, Sean Penn, William H. Macy, Marisa Tomei, Lindsay Lohan

The Director and Screenwriter: Richard Franzwa
The Producer: Sean Penn

The Plot:

Harvey Keitel is a crop duster and former stunt pilot by trade, but he prefers armed robbery. The aging trailer-park dweller has clearly not been too successful. Together with three others, including his wife Kim Bassinger and edgy Mickey Rourke, a heavily disguised Keitel robs a small bank in New Mexico. During the robbery, two policemen and the fourth robber are killed, and Bassinger is mortally wounded.

Keitel and Rourke find themselves with $750,000 — far more money than they expected. The bank manager, timid William H. Macy, reports only $20,000 stolen. Realizing they have stolen the proceeds of a mob money-laundering operation, Keitel and Rourke find themselves in trouble not only with the police, but with several shady characters, in particular mob money man Giovanni Ribisi and amoral hired killer Sean Penn.

After being threatened by Rourke, Keitel decides to double-cross him before Rourke can do the same to him. He makes a plan to flee the country and puts in a rush order for two fake passports with Lindsey Lohan, a pretty photographer. She promptly betrays Keitel and puts Penn on his trail. The sadistic Penn catches up with Rourke at the trailer and brutally disposes of him while attempting to determine Keitel's whereabouts.

Ribisi, meanwhile, terrifies the mousy bank manager Macy with the threat that the mob will suspect the robbery to be an inside job. One of the descriptions of torture that Ribisi suggests involves a pair of pliers and a blowtorch. Macy commits suicide.

Keitel goes to Ribisi's office, and surprises and seduces Ribisi's secretary, Marisa Tomei. He sets up a meeting with Ribisi in a remote automobile wrecking yard, arriving for it in his crop duster. He greets Ribisi so warmly that Penn becomes convinced the men must be partners. Penn angrily runs down Ribisi with his car.

Now he comes after Keitel, who tries to escape by plane. Penn damages the crop-duster's tail with his car before it can take off. Keitel's crippled plane flips over. Flat on his back in the wreckage, Keitel can do nothing to save himself except tell Penn where the money is hidden.

Seemingly in mortal danger, Keitel has actually set a booby trap for Penn. Penn goes to retrieve the hidden money and is blown up. In the remains of the explosion are a number of hundred-dollar bills and Rourke's dead body, to be mistaken for that of Keitel, who had earlier switched dental records. Keitel goes to where the money is really hidden and makes his getaway.


Stark’s Comment:
I like these movies with tough cool guys close to film noir. Hope it works cause I want more like this in CMP.

Behind The Scenes:
-Richard Franzwa makes his debut with this movie as director.
-Sean Penn has directed a movie for CMP: ‘American Heartland’. But this is his first experience as producer.
-William H. Macy is becoming the most demanded talent lately for supporting roles in CMP. He has already been seen this Season in ‘Replicant Rebel’ and ‘A Tangled Web’, this one also written by Franzwa.
-This movie was originally titled ‘Playing With Fire’. Harry Stark didn’t like the title as he considered it ‘too cliché’. So he asked Franzwa to change it.


KITE: Dark and tough. It’s the new story written by Dawson Edwards. It tells the story of a girl that becomes a professional murderer in Las Vegas and her enigmatic mentor. Emma Stone will try to forget the disaster of her previous work with Edwards, ‘Houstatlantavegas’, playing the lead star of this ultraviolent story. And Russell Crowe will play the mysterious man that teaches too many bad things to her, returning to Las Vegas after ‘Turn Of A Friendly Card’. Paul Greengrass, whose only previous work for CMP was ‘Omega’, back in Season 6, is directing the movie.

ESCAPE FROM HELL: It seems like the team of ‘The Dark Tower’ won’t rest for long now that the saga is over. Not only Russell Crowe is back to work. Director Sam Raimi hasn’t waited long either to work for CMP again. He is going to direct this strange action adventure movie written by Josh Collins that will take place in Hell itself. Same way he did with the Dark Tower’s movies, Raimi will also produce the film.

GRAND THEFT AUTO: Names well known in CMP join the cast of this game adaptation written by Chad Taylor and directed by Martin Campbell. Al Pacino, seen for the last time in CMP in Season 15 with ‘What You Deserve’ and heard in his voice-only work in ‘Mouse Guard’, plays here a dubious politician. Lena Heady, only seen before in CMP in Tarantino’s ‘Legends Of The West’, plays a prostitute. And Timothy Olyphant returns also to the Studio after his work in ‘The Dark Tower: Song Of Susannah’.

FOOD AND OTHER LANGUAGES: Ron Howard returns to CMP to direct this drama written by the debutante screenwriter Jack Adkins. Howard’s last work for the Studio was the unfairly undervalued ‘John Wayne Must Die’. He has also directed for the Studio movies like ‘Court Appeal’, ‘Ugly’ and ‘McMillan & Wife’ and its sequel.

WOMAN: Sophia Coppola has only directed one movie for CMP: Season 8’s witches story ‘Maleficarum’. And she won the Best Director GMA for her work. But not even the award meant a regular career in the Studio for her. It has taken Sophia nine CMP’s Seasons to return to the Studio. She is going to direct this drama written by Chad Taylor that follows the life of a woman during the 1950’s. And that lead character will be played by a CMP’s debutante, the star from the tv series ‘Mad Men’, January Jones.

MODERN WARFARE: Another two tough guys join the cast of this action show being directed by Peter Berg. Mehcad Brooks, seen before in ‘The Pledges’, and Karl Urban, seen before in the first ‘Dragonlance’ movie, complete the long all-men cast of this movie leaded by Christian Bale and Daniel Day-Lewis.

THE SHIELD: Let’s keep on going with a cast full of people specialized in other jobs besides acting. This week is the turn of singer Kelly Rowland, former member of ‘Destiny’s Child’. But there are also experienced actors in the cast like the veteran Christopher Lloyd, only seen before in CMP in the flopped Ben Stiller’s comedy ‘Eureka!’, and the CMP’s debutante Tony Todd. Lexi Alexander is directing this horror slasher movie written by Matt Kubrick.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING HONEST: Paul Haggins is directing this family drama written by Josh Collins. Val Kilmer plays in it Kevin Costner’s brother. The two latest works of Kilmer for CMP were also Collins’ stories – ‘Goldmine Killers’ and ‘The Mistaken’ – and the bad precedent is that both flopped in box office. Miley Cyrus is the surprise of this cast, playing Costner and Elizabeth Shue’s teen daughter. Miley made his debut in CMP playing a self-parody in the comedy ‘Guitar Hero’.

F-ZERO GX: Alan Rickman keeps working hard this Season. He was seen in ‘Snow’. He can be seen in this week’s release ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies’. And he will be heard in this animated feature. Spencer Breslin, who starred the comedy ‘Malcolm Manboobs’ at the beginning of this current Season, also joins the cast of voices. And Katie Holmes, last time seen in CMP in the acclaimed ‘Ms. Jordon’, will be heard here too.

THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS: British actress Hayley Atwell makes her debut in CMP in this remake written by D.R.Cobb and being directed by Scott Derrickson. Also in the movie we’ll see Alfred Molina, who has never worked for the Studio before either.


RICHARD FRANZWA – ‘A MURDER OF CROWS’

After more than 15 screenplays written for CMP, Richard Franzwa makes his debut as movie director this week with ‘A Murder Of Crows’, a tough story of criminals starred by Harvey Keitel and produced by Sean Penn. Franzwa was also the writer of ‘A Tangled Web’, the latest work of the Coen Brothers for CMP, also released this Season.

1.After your long career as screenwriter in CMP, why have you chosen this project to make your debut as movie director?

I've been wanting to direct for sometime now. There have been other projects that I have considered for my debut, but I got cold feet and decided that more established directors would be the better choice. This script was different because with this one, I finally worked up the courage to ask Mr. Stark to give me the opportunity to direct it. It turned out to be a very pleasurable experience.

2.How is it that Sean Penn decided to produce the movie?

When I was writing the script, I ran some actors through my head and I thought that Sean would be a fine choice for that particular part. I approached him and he accepted on the condition that he could produce. I think what motivated him was the success Clooney and Pitt have had with Scoundrel Productions and Sean wanted to show that they weren't the only actors who could produce quality movies.

3.Do you plan on directing more movies in the future?

In fact, I do. Once the third Dragonlance film is finished, I plan to work on a new trilogy surrounding the twin brothers Caramon and Raistlin. The plan is for Guillermo del Toro to produce while I take a shot at directing. After that, it will depend on the script. If I think I can handle it, then I may direct. If someone else is better suited, than the project will go to them. The trick will be to keep my ego in line and not believe I'm the man for everything I write.

4.The third installment of 'Dragonlance' is already in pre-production phase. What are your plans for this franchise? How many more installments are you planning to make?

As I said, there will be a second set of films that will follow the Legends Trilogy of books by Margaret Wise and Tracy Hickman. I'm hopeful that Vin Disel and Tim Roth will come back and sign on for another three movies. It would help the marketing of the films if we can have that tie in with the original movies. At this point, it is doubtful that Dakota Fanning will reprise her role as Tasslehoff, mainly because she's kind of out grown the role. But those decisions will be made when the time comes.

5.Many critics consider 'A Tangled Web' has many chances to be a main candidate at the upcoming GMA Edition. How do you feel about it?

I would be surprised if 'A Tangled Web' wins me my first screenwriting award. It was really just a throw away script that I cobbled together to have a couple of releases in this season. I don't think it was my strongest work and I'm not sure I would even put it in my top five. It was one of those movies where the actors made the most of what little I gave them to work with. If it wins anything it will be for the acting.


GMA's CURIOSITIES, PART 2

We complete this week the look at the most significant data of the Golden Moon Awards that we begun past week.


From Season 4 until Season 13, the Sam Mendes’ musical ‘Carousel’ was the most awarded movie at the GMA with 5 statues. The curiosity here is that ‘Carousel’ didn’t win the Best Picture award. In fact, it wasn’t even nominated for Best Picture.

What is ‘The Curse Of The 5 Nominations’? Getting 5 nominations at the GMA has turned into a dangerous number at the GMA. Here are a few movies that got 5 nominations and then they did not win any award: ‘The Great War Series: Darkening Skies’, ‘Hollyweird’, ‘Fallen Kings’ or ‘Robots Of Dawn’ are movies that have suffered the curse of the 5 nominations.

‘The Great War Series: Storm Breaks’ is the only sequel that has ever won the Best Picture GMA.

The only time that the Best Starring Couple award was won by two women was in Season 7. Frances McDormand and Kate Hudson won it for playing mother and daughter in ‘Velcro’.

Kate Hudson has won two statues in two consecutive GMA’s Editions. Best Starring Couple in Season 7 for ‘Velcro’ and Best Actress in Season 8 for ‘Mary’s Dark Side’.

Cameron Diaz is the only actress that has won the Best Villain award. It was in Season 13 for ‘Ms. Jordon’. Kirsten Dunst, Angelina Jolie, Merryl Streep and Marion Cotillard are the other actresses nominated at this category.

Mistaken winners 1? Steven Soderbergh was the surprising winner of the Best Director award in Season 9 for ‘Things I Forgot To Tell You’. All he did in the movie was recording in just one take with a video camera five monologues from five different actresses.

Mistaken winners 2? Daniel Craig won the Best Supporting Actor award for ‘1066’. But Craig played one of the lead characters of the story together with Clive Owen, not a supporting role at all.

Mistaken winners 3? Natalie Portman won in Season 14 the Best Supporting Actress award for ‘Metropolis’. But she obviously played the lead female character of the movie.

In Season 14, Natalie Portman was invited by CMP to announce the nominations together with Joseph Gordon-Levitt. She didn’t know she was going to get three nominations in that Edition. So, as her name begun to show up once and again in the nominations list, she was so thrilled that she could hardly go on with the announcements.

Brad Pitt presented the Best Actress award in Season 10. That gave him the opportunity to give the statue to his wife, Angelina Jolie, Best Actress winner for ‘Tender Is The Night’.

Tom Hanks is the talent that has been nominated in more different categories: Starring Couple (‘Court Appeal’, nominee in Season 1), Actor (‘September’s Gone’, winner in Season 2 and ‘American Tabloid’, nominee in Season 12), Director (‘The Greatest Show On Earth’, winner in Season 3) and Villain (‘American Tabloid’, winner in Season 12).

Martin Scorsese is the only moviemaker that has won three times the Best Director award: ‘The Heirs’ (Season 1), ‘American Tabloid’ (Season 12) and ‘A Farewell To Arms’ (Season 15). And that also means 100% of success: three nominations, three wins.


Meeting the world premiere of ‘Pride And Prejudice And Zombies’ in London, a peculiar exhibition opened at the Covent Garden. The exhibition shows 30 paintings inspired by the Seth Grahame-Smith’s novel. The three most famous Bennett sisters of the movie – Natalie Portman, Carey Mulligan and Emma Watson – attended to the opening of this bizarre exhibition.



At the end of each CMP’s Season, ‘Variety’ publishes a list of who they consider the most powerful talents in CMP’s world. You know, those people that get from Harry Stark an instant green light and a generous budget as soon as their name sounds attached to a new project. Well, it’s only Variety’s opinion. It does not really mean a thing but it’s fun to write about it. Ok, according to ‘Variety’, the most influential directors in CMP are the usual ones: Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and Christopher Nolan. But this time there’s a new name added to the list of powerful directors: Zack Snyder. His two latest box office’s hits with ‘Metroid’ and ‘Athena’ are the reasons of his increasing power.

What about the actors? ‘Variety’ considers that Brad Pitt and George Clooney are on top. Maybe because they are the only actors that have created their own production company in CMP’s world, ‘Scoundrels Productions’. But there’s also a new name on top: the lately inevitable James Franco. And two comedians follow this trio in the list: Ben Stiller and Steve Carell are considered by ‘Variety’ powerful enough to be supported by the Studio whatever they decide to do. On the other side, no actress is on top of this list anymore but ‘Variety’ considers that Cameron Diaz could be mentioned as the female talent with a strongest influence right now in the Studio.

He has been working on the concept for some years now. But, after too many come and goes, it seems like this time is for real. Joey Stark has confirmed that he is working again in one of his oldest projects: a sequel of ‘The Goonies’. Incapable of developing a plot by himself, Stark has teamed up with the new screenwriter D.R.Cobb and they are working together now on a screenplay. Stark has also confirmed that Steven Spielberg has accepted to produce the movie. It is not known if Richard Donner, director of ‘The Goonies’, will direct this sequel too or not.

But, besides that, Joey Stark has other plans. After the disappointing experience of ‘Secret Sins’, his debut as movie director, the younger Stark brother will return to work behind the cameras again. He has written and he will direct and produce a biopic of the legendary Austrian football player from the 1930’s Matthias Sindelar. In fact, the screenplay is ready and now Stark is looking for the right actor to play the character. Stark has also confirmed that the movie will be shot in black and white.

And I end up with a tradition at this point of every Season: the GMA buzz. Season 16 is a tough Season to make predictions about the upcoming Golden Moon Awards. There are too many good movies. My feeling is that it will all depend on the mood of the voters. If they are in the mood to support big productions, ‘Noon’, ‘The Dark Tower’, ‘Freedom City’, ‘The Respected’ or ‘Athena’ may have their night. But if they are in the mood for more author-esque low budget movies, it could be the night of ‘Whatever Happened To Holden Caulfield?’, ‘The Show’ or even ‘Queens’, ‘Foreclosed’ and ‘Love Lost’. And if they prefer this time supporting rarities, movies like ‘The Cool’, ‘Dark Shadows’ or ‘Pride And Prejudice And Zombies’ might take a big piece of the cake. So, as you see, we have a bit of everything and the buzz is strong for all of them. A very competitive Season.