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Jessica Alba to co-star in “The Killer Inside Me”

A state official in Oklahoma has confirmed that part of a film starring Casey Affleck, Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson will be shot on location at various towns.

Jill Simpson, the director of the Oklahoma Film and Music Office, said that principal photography for the film “The Killer Inside Me” will start in New Mexico before moving to Oklahoma. Scenes will be shot on location in Guthrie, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Enid and Cordell.

She said it will be the largest film produced in Oklahoma since the box-office hit “Twister” in 1996.

Preproduction for the Guthrie portion of the shoot for “The Killer Inside Me” will resume on Monday. One of the film’s producers, Michael Eaton of London-based Revolution Films, will arrive in Oklahoma the same day.

Conflicting schedules for the actors and lack of full financing for the film delayed the start of filming, which had been scheduled for March 24. Chad Burris, the owner of Tulsa-based Indion Entertainment Group, said the necessary funding has been secured.

“That, coupled with, I think, they finally got the actors’ schedules lined out and the stars aligned and all the other great things that have to happen before a movie can actually get going,” Burris said.

Affleck’s availability for his scenes in the film is still in flux, Simpson said, although preparations are moving forward.

“The good news is, it’s back on and they’re going to be filming here,” Simpson said.

The movie will be a crime thriller based on a 1952 novel by Jim Thompson, who was born in Anadarko in 1906. The storyline involves a likable rural deputy sheriff, portrayed by Affleck, who has the mind of a murderous psychopath.

Thompson also co-wrote the screenplays for two films by Stanley Kubrick, “The Killing” in 1956 and “Paths of Glory” in 1957. He died in 1977.

Oklahoma’s incentive of offering up to a 17 percent rebate on production expenditures for companies filming in the state proved to be a strong lure for Muse Productions of Los Angeles and Revolution, Simpson said, along with the work of Indion Entertainment.

“I’m certainly happy the film’s going to happen and, you know, I never really thought it wasn’t going to,” Burris said. “I think there are people that got a little more nervous about it than I did. I think it’s a great boon for Oklahoma. I think it’s going to do a lot for us having this production here.”

Watch 9 clips from ‘Angels & Demons’!

We have been hearing that ‘Angels and Demons’ is one of the most awaited films of the 2009 Hollywood Movie calendar and we finally get a glance at how good it might be. We have just obtained 9 clips of the film for your viewing pleasure and even though it didn’t knock our socks off, the storyline is too enticing to not watch. The film will be released on May 15th and we just heard that Dan Brown’s next novel The Lost Symbol will be in stores in September. We await until then for another good read.

“Angels & Demons,” published in 2000, introduced the Langdon character which is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a cryptic symbol seared in the chest of a murdered physicist. What he discovers is a deadly vendetta against the Catholic Church by a centuries-old underground organization – The Illuminati.

Sacha Baron Cohen’s "Bruno" gets NC-17 rating

Universal’s “Bruno,” the widely anticipated Sacha Baron Cohen docu-comedy opening in July, has been slapped with an NC-17 rating on its first submission to the Motion Picture Association of America because of numerous sexual scenes that the ratings board considers over the line, according to the studio releasing the film.

Among the objectionable scenes is one in which two naked men attempt oral sex in a hot tub, while one of them holds a baby. In another, Bruno — a gay Austrian fashionista played by Baron Cohen — appears to have anal sex with a man on camera.

The Reader

Rated: R for some scenes of sexuality and nudity.
Release Date: 2008-12-10
Starring: Bernhard Schlink, David Hare
Director(s):
Distributor:
Film Genre:
Country:USA
Official Website: http://www.thereader-movie.com/

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The Spirit

Rated: PG-13 for intense sequences of stylized violence and action, some sexual content and brief nudity.
Release Date: 2008-12-25
Starring: Frank Miller, Will Eisner (Comic)
Director(s):
Distributor:
Film Genre:
Country:USA
Official Website: http://www.mycityscreams.com/

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‘H2: Halloween 2’ reveals Michael Myers!

For those of you who are still interested in H2, Rob Zombie’s follow-up to his execrable remake of Halloween, Comingsoon.net have bagged the first look at one of Michael Myers’ many looks in the upcoming film.

‘One of…?’ We hear you cry. ‘Many looks…?’, we hear others yell. And the answer is, ‘yes!’ Apparently this time Myers (the returning Tyler Mane) will be sporting some different looks throughout the film – including a maskless little number which we hear he pulls off beautifully – as he hunts down his sister, Laurie Strode.

For now, though, today’s first look sees Myers sporting his classic Bill Shatner mask – albeit a more bloodied, torn and burned version than we’re used to, which indicates that a)things aren’t going too well for the slash-happy psycho, and b) he’ll probably ditch that thing at some point.

Rob Zombie has called it a wrap on H2 and is celebrating the occasion by releasing your official first look at Michael Myers in the film. The writer/director stresses this is “one of the many faces Michael 2009.” This comes shortly after fans learned this week that Myers will be shown in various guises (sometimes maskless).

H2 is set for an August 28, 2009 release.

The Bronx is getting a film school!

The South Bronx is getting ready to raise the curtain on a first-of-its-kind public high school dedicated to film studies.

The Cinema School is set to open its doors in a new building on the grounds of Monroe High School in September.

The program, which will follow a conservatory-style curriculum, has drawn funding from JPMorgan Chase Foundation and has the support of industryites including Spike Jonze, Catherine Hardwicke, Spike Lee, David O. Russell and Whit Stillman, who have been involved in shaping the program. Gotham Mayor Michael Bloomberg is not surprisingly a big supporter of the school, whose inaugural class will consist of 80 freshman students.

The school was founded by former social worker Joe Hall and indie producer Rachael Horovitz (HBO’s “Grey Gardens,” “About Schmidt”).

“It’s the perfect extension of my day job,” Horovitz said. “It can take years to develop a script, and the filmmakers I’m working with can come in and teach at the school.”

The Cinema School is in part an outgrowth of the nonprofit Ghetto Film School org, a film training program Hall founded in the Bronx in 2000. Hall’s program and students attracted industry attention, including Horovitz, who wanted to see the program expand into an accredited, year-round high school. Evan Shapiro, prexy of the IFC and Sundance Channel cablers, serves as chairman of Ghetto Film School’s board and is also involved in the Cinema School.

Horovitz recruited a deep-pocketed benefactor for the school in JPMorgan Chase Foundation veep Gayle Jennings-O’Byrne, who deals with the bank’s arts and culture portfolio. Jennings-O’Byrne persuaded the Foundation to donate $110,000 to the Ghetto Film School. Of that donation, $35,000 went to fund the planning of the high school, and $75,000 bankrolled the Ghetto Film School’s final project, shot by students on location in Uganda.

Jennings-O’Byrne sees the outlay as the beginning, not the end. “We have plans to donate more,” she said. “We now have a new proposal in from them. We haven’t decisioned it, but we want to stay in the game.”

The Cinema School, in new buildings on the campus of Monroe High, is also part of a push by the New York City schools to open more facilities with special curriculum focusing on specific disciplines. Katherine Oliver, head of the Mayor’s Film Office, noted that the Cinema School would feed one of New York’s growth industries, film and TV production, and would help open doors for students who might otherwise struggle to break into the film biz.

“It gives a lot of inner-city kids a chance,” Oliver said.

The city has helped Hall and Horovitz secure funding for amenities like extra editing equipment that a standard public-school budget doesn’t provide. Horovitz says she wants the school to be able to afford better film screening equipment by the time classes start in September.

“We’re sharing the building with another school, and our goal is to have a stand-alone school — to really be able to have production facilities.”

As for the filmmakers themselves, most won’t be teaching full course loads, but many have donated time and resources to the school simply because they like the idea.

Peter Becker, prexy of cineaste homevid distrib Criterion Collection, is helping the school’s teachers design the curriculum. Becker said they’re wrestling with how to “create a film literacy program that doesn’t feel like homework.”

Hall and Ghetto Film School attracted the attention of helmer Russell, and his support became a gateway to other high-profile supporters.

“David said, ‘Come by and see me when you’re in L.A.,’ ” Hall said. “So we went to L.A. pretending we had other people to see. As we were showing him a short our students had done, he said, ‘I should be on your board.’ “

Stillman said the Cinema School program would go a long way toward ensuring that younger generations have an understanding of filmdom’s history.

“There’s a generation growing up that has never seen a Preston Sturges film,” Stillman said, with alarm in his voice.