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Baby Mama

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Release Date: 2008-04-25
Starring: Michael McCullers
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Official Website: http://www.babymamamovie.net/

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‘A Serious Man’ from the Coen brothers begins production

NEW YORK, September 8th, 2008 – Production begins today on location in Minnesota on A Serious Man, for Focus Features and Working Title Films. Joel and Ethan Coen, Academy Award winners for No Country for Old Men and Fargo, are writing, producing, and directing the film. Working Title co-chairs Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner are executive-producing the film with Robert Graf, who has worked on the Coens’ last six features in various producing capacities.
 
The director of photography on A Serious Man is seven-time Academy Award nominee Roger Deakins, who is marking his tenth feature collaboration with the Coens. Mary Zophres is the film’s costume designer, marking her ninth feature collaboration with the Coens. Jess Gonchor is the production designer, marking his third feature collaboration with the Coens.
 
A Serious Man is the story of an ordinary man’s search for clarity in a universe where Jefferson Airplane is on the radio and F-Troop is on TV. It is 1967, and Larry Gopnik, a physics professor at a quiet midwestern university, has just been informed by his wife Judith that she is leaving him. She has fallen in love with one of his more pompous colleagues, Sy Ableman, who seems to her a more substantial person than the feckless Larry. Larry’s unemployable brother Arthur is sleeping on the couch, his son Danny is a discipline problem and a shirker at Hebrew school, and his daughter Sarah is filching money from his wallet in order to save up for a nose job. While his wife and Sy Ableman blithely make new domestic arrangements, and his brother becomes more and more of a burden, an anonymous hostile letter-writer is trying to sabotage Larry’s chances for tenure at the university. Also, a graduate student seems to be trying to bribe him for a passing grade while at the same time threatening to sue him for defamation. Plus, the beautiful woman next door torments him by sunbathing nude. Struggling for equilibrium, Larry seeks advice from three different rabbis. Can anyone help him cope with his afflictions and become a righteous person – a mensch – a serious man?

Tony Award nominee Michael Stuhlbarg (whose films include The Grey Zone) stars as Larry; Fred Melamed (Suspect) plays Sy; Richard Kind (The Visitor) portrays Arthur; and Minnesota actors Aaron Wolf, Sari Wagner, and Jessica McManus are cast as Danny, Judith, and Sarah, respectively.
 
The Coens’ comedy thriller Burn After Reading, also from Focus Features and Working Title Films, world-premiered last month as the opening-night film of the 2008 Venice International Film Festival; made its North American premiere last week at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival; and will be released by Focus nationwide on Friday, September 12th. The film stars George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Richard Jenkins, and Brad Pitt.
 
Focus president of production John Lyons, who is overseeing A Serious Man and oversaw Burn After Reading on behalf of the company, has previously collaborated with the Coen brothers extensively, as casting director on their features Raising Arizona, Miller’s Crossing, Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy, Fargo and The Big Lebowski.
 
Messrs. Bevan and Fellner have also had a long association with the Coens; Fargo (which won Oscars for Ms. McDormand as Best Actress and for the Coens in the Original Screenplay category), The Hudsucker Proxy, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou? (for which Mr. Clooney won a Golden Globe Award), The Man Who Wasn’t There, and Burn After Reading were all made by the Coens with Working Title. Working Title Films is Europe’s leading film production company, making movies that defy boundaries as well as demographics.
 
Currently in post-production at Working Title are a record number of films: Beeban Kidron’s Hippie Hippie Shake, starring Cillian Murphy, Sienna Miller, Emma Booth, and Max Minghella; Kevin Macdonald’s State of Play, starring Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Robin Wright Penn, and Helen Mirren; Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon, adapted by Peter Morgan from his play of the same name and starring Frank Langella and Michael Sheen; Joe Wright’s The Soloist, starring Jamie Foxx, Robert Downey, Jr., and Catherine Keener; Richard Curtis’ The Boat That Rocked, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, and  Nick Frost; and Paul Greengrass’ untitled thriller starring Matt Damon.
 
Focus Features (www.filminfocus.com) exists to produce, acquire and distribute original and daring films that challenge the mainstream to embrace and enjoy voices and visions from around the world that deliver global commercial success.
 
In addition to A Serious Man and Burn After Reading, upcoming Focus Features releases include Henry Selick’s 3-D stop-motion animated feature Coraline, starring Dakota Fanning and Teri Hatcher; Shane Acker’s animated fantasy epic 9, starring Elijah Wood and Jennifer Connelly; Cary Fukunaga’s immigrant thriller Sin Nombre; writer/director Jim Jarmusch’s new film, tentatively titled The Limits of Control, starring Isaach De Bankolé; a contemporary comedy directed by Academy Award winner Sam Mendes and starring John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph; Taking Woodstock, the new film from Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee; and Gus Van Sant’s Milk, starring Sean Penn as Harvey Milk.

Almodovar wraps ‘Broken Embraces’ with Penelope Cruz

‘Bangkok Dangerous’ bombs at the box office

Less than a year after starring in the biggest movie of his volatile career, Nicolas Cage led the North American box office to its worst weekend in five years on Sunday with one of his weakest.

“Bangkok Dangerous,” a thriller in which the 44-year-old actor plays a jaded assassin, opened at No. 1 with estimated three-day earnings of just $7.8 million, distributor Lionsgate said. While no one was expecting it to be a hit, industry observers had predicted it would earn more than $10 million.

The last box office champ to open lower was the David Spade comedy “Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star,” which kicked off with $6.7 million during the weekend of September 5-7, 2003.

Overall ticket sales also fell to their lowest level since then, said tracking firm Media By Numbers. The top 12 films earned $51.6 million, up from $50.5 million that weekend.

Early September is traditionally a quiet time at the box office since the summer blockbuster season is over. The studios spend the early fall quietly dumping their underperforming movies on the market. “Bangkok Dangerous” was the only new wide release this weekend.

Lionsgate, a unit of Lions Gate Entertainment Corp, said it was happy with the film’s opening and expected it to be profitable. Although the movie reportedly cost $45 million to make, Lionsgate acquired U.S. and Canadian rights for a modest sum from “The Departed” producer Graham King’s Initial Entertainment Group.

The film is a remake of the 1999 Thai film of the same name, with both being directed by Hong Kong-born twin brothers Danny and Oxide Pang. The remake was not screened in advance for critics, which is rarely a good sign.

Cage has actually done a lot worse at the box office: His terrorism thriller “Next” opened to $7.1 million in April 2007 and the family drama “The Weather Man” to $4.2 million in 2005. But he was last in theaters with the biggest movie of his career, “National Treasure: Book of Secrets,” The action sequel opened to $45 million in December on its way to $220 million.

After three weeks at No. 1, DreamWorks/Paramount’s Hollywood satire “Tropic Thunder” slipped to No. 2 with $7.5 million, while Columbia Pictures’ comedy “The House Bunny” rose one to No. 3 with $5.9 million in its third week. Their respective tallies stand at $97 million and $37 million.

Guillermo del Toro – indefatigable until 2017

Many top film directors have no idea what their next movie is. But Guillermo del Toro is now booked through 2017. And maybe beyond.

Universal — which has a three-year first-look deal with the helmer inked in June ’07 — and del Toro are making a long-term commitment by setting up four directing projects, including remakes of “Frankenstein,” “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” and “Slaughterhouse-Five.”

The fourth project is an adaptation of “Drood,” a Dan Simmons novel acquired by U that will be published in February by Little, Brown.

Of course, del Toro’s first priority is New Line and MGM’s “The Hobbit,” to which he has committed the next five years. He has begun writing “Hobbit” with Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, collaborating via video conferencing and trips to New Zealand every three weeks.

While it’s difficult, if not impossible, to plan projects five years into the future, at this point U execs think “Drood” is the most likely to be del Toro’s first post-“Hobbit” directing vehicle.

If both sides have their way, the helmer will belong to Universal after “The Hobbit” wraps.

In addition to the four pics, the studio still has its sights set on del Toro’s pet project, an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness.”

As if that is not enough to keep him busy, U also has on the horizon an adaptation of David Moody’s apocalyptic novel “Hater” that del Toro will produce with Mark Johnson but not direct, and “Crimson Peak,” a gothic romance spec script by del Toro and his “Mimic” collaborator Matthew Robbins, which del Toro will produce but not direct.

While he busies himself with “Hobbit,” del Toro will outline the other projects and hire writers. The pics will be supervised at del Toro Prods. by his manager, Gary Ungar, who’ll be exec producer of the films and will oversee the slate with development director Russell Ackerman and U exec Scott Bernstein.

“No one expected ‘The Hobbit’ to come about; it was the most marvelous monkey wrench tossed into my life,” del Toro said. “I consider (the new deals) the renewal of my marital vows with Universal.”

U production prexy Donna Langley said the helmer’s “Hobbit” hiatus will only delay plans to dive into the del Toro business.

“We came out the other side of some tough conversations with a stronger bond and sense of long-term commitment,” Langley said. “Guillermo is in the most prolific time of his life … Joe Johnston on ‘The Wolf Man’ showed us the importance of entrusting the Universal franchise monsters to experienced filmmakers with voices. That was a big impetus for our decision to go with Guillermo to put his creative stamp on these properties.”

Langley said she is intrigued by “Drood,” in which Simmons supposes that survival from a catastrophic train crash changed author Charles Dickens, plunging him into the depths of London depravity and possibly turning him to murder before he wrote his final novel, “The Mystery of Edwin Drood.”

“It’s the fantasy and gothic horror world Guillermo finds comfortable,” Langley said. “It feels like a great fit for where (we expect) Guillermo will have evolved as a filmmaker five years from now.”

Frankenstein represents a longtime fascination for del Toro, who has made his home a memorabilia shrine to the Karloff monster from the 1931 U film.

“To me, Frankenstein represents the essential human question: ‘Why did my creator throw me here, unprotected, unguided, unaided and lost?’ ” del Toro said. “With that one, they will have to pry it from my cold dead hands to prevent me from directing it.”

On “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” del Toro wants to stick more closely to Robert Louis Stevenson’s prose and explore the addictive high the repressed Jekyll experienced as his murderous alter ego.

Del Toro plans to provide a more literal interpretation of “Slaughterhouse-Five” than in the 1972 film adaptation, hewing closely to the Vonnegut novel about a prisoner in a German WWII POW camp who travels through time and space.

“There are ways that Vonnegut plays with and juxtaposes time that was perhaps too edgy to be tackled on film at that time,” del Toro said.

Meanwhile, del Toro is awaiting word on whether U will embrace a follow-up to “Hellboy 2: The Golden Army.” The big-budget film opened in the heat of summer and fell short of blockbuster status in the U.S. but has performed well overseas.

“I think they’ll decide when the last euro hits the piggybank,” del Toro said. “We laid the groundwork to have a magnificent third act. I’d like to return to an action franchise with 60-year-old actor Ron Perlman, because he’ll be scratching at that age when I get to it.”

Langley said the studio is interested and may work with del Toro to add a TV series and online segments to broaden the following before making the series finale.

Del Toro is repped by Endeavor and Exile.

Toronto Film Festival just not the same

Factors such as rising travel costs, delays caused by the writers’ strike and weakened art-house divisions have kept the most likely best-picture candidates out of the lineup.

Unlike in the past, when 1999’s American Beauty proved a trip up north could lead to Oscar glory, late fall’s choicest academy bait, such as Frost/Nixon and Australia, won’t be there. Even high-profile titles opening in October — Ridley Scott’s Body of Lies, Oliver Stone’s W — are missing.

That doesn’t mean there won’t be celebrity gridlock at the 33rd edition of North America’s premier film gathering, which features 312 movies from 64 countries through Sept. 13.

If there is a major upside to the 2008 schedule, it is that the doom and gloom cast by last year’s dour war-themed dramas (In the Valley of Elah, Rendition) and vigilante gut-wrenchers (The Brave One, Reservation Road) have been replaced by what the festival’s co-director Piers Handling declares as “the return of the American comedy.”

Call it the Juno effect. “There are a few films about the Iraq war,” such as Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker and The Lucky Ones with Rachel McAdams, he says. “But there are at least five really good, solid comedies. Kevin Smith’s Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist. Ghost Town, Religulous. The Coen brothers with Burn After Reading.”

Even British filmmaker Mike Leigh, whose last outing was the 2004 abortion weeper Vera Drake, has an effort that lives up to its title: Happy-Go-Lucky.

And a possible crowd-pleaser has emerged, if the reactions at Telluride can be trusted: Slumdog Millionaire, the story of a teen orphan in India who wins the jackpot on a Hindi version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Directed by Danny Boyle (Trainspotting), it was recently picked up by Fox Searchlight in a deal with Warner Bros.

Fair warning, though. There is a Paris Hilton documentary, as if we didn’t know enough about the celebutante, helpfully titled Paris, Not France. But, as Handling notes, “It’s really short.”

‘Tarzan’ returns to the big screen

He’s already tackled Huckleberry Finn and Mowgli, so let’s see what Stephen Sommers can do with Tarzan.

The “Jungle Book” director is in negotiations with Warner Bros. to bring a new version of the classic Edgar Rice Burroughs creation “Tarzan, Lord of the Apes,” to the big screen. “Collateral” screenwriter Stu Beattie will write the project with Sommers.

Jerry Weintraub (“Ocean’s Eleven”) is producing through his Jerry Weintraub Prods. Jessica Goodman and Jesse Ehrman will oversee for the studio.

Guillermo del Toro had been attached to direct a script written by John Collee (“Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World”) when the project was announced two years ago. But “The Mummy” director will get his shot now that Del Toro is committed to a four-year stint choreographing dwarves in New Zealand for the MGM-Warner Bros. two-fer of “The Hobbit.”

With the first two “Mummy” movies, “The Scorpion King” and “Van Helsing,” Sommers, who is repped by WMA, has become a connoisseur of the big-budget, effects-driven spectacle. He recently finished shooting the summer 2009 Paramount tentpole, “G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra,” which Beattie came in to write for him.

Over the decades, Tarzan has come in for any number of epic treatments, from John Derek’s 1981 Jane-driven “Tarzan, the Ape Man,” to the 1984 drama “Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes,” which famously earned pseudonymous screenwriter Robert Towne’s dog, P.H. Vazak, an Oscar nomination. Disney released its take on the jungle king in 1999, replete with an incongruous (but Oscar-winning) Phil Collins soundtrack.

Beattie and Sommers do not plan to work from the original 1914 Burroughs tome or any previous film. An entirely new approach is in the works, though more details beyond that are being kept under wraps tighter than Tarzan’s loincloth.

Beattie, has “Australia” coming out in November, which he co-wrote with director Baz Luhrmann.

Don LaFontaine, legendary voice of trailers dies at 68

Don LaFontaine, who brought his sonorous, ominous, melodramatic baritone to so many thousands of movie trailers, commercials and television promos that he became known in the industry as “the voice of God,” or just “the V.O.G.,” died Monday near his home in Los Angeles. He was 68.

His death was confirmed by his agent, Kevin Motley. The official cause has not been released.

In a 33-year career Mr. LaFontaine did voice-overs for more than 5,000 movie trailers, 350,000 commercials and thousands of television promos, including dozens of “Next week on ‘E.R.’ “ spots.

“Don was an absolute treasure to the voice-over industry,” Joan Baker, the author of “Secrets of Voice-Over Success” (Sentient Publications, 2005), said in an interview on Tuesday. “He had a unique sound, a voice placed deep in his body that cut through the sound bites and the music.”

Ms. Baker said Mr. LaFontaine “understood the dynamics of each word and gave each word a musical note that was intuitive, which is why he could perform in so many genres — action, drama, comedy, romance, horror films, science fiction.”

Mr. LaFontaine wrote most of his voice-overs and, sometimes with collaborators, came up with familiar phrases like “a one-man army,” “one man, one destiny,” “from the bedroom to the boardroom,” and “nowhere to run, nowhere to hide and no way out.”

But he is best known for “In a world where … ,” which has become overused and the subject of parody. Ms. Baker could not say for what production that phrase was first used. But in an interview last year, Mr. LaFontaine explained its intent.

“We have to very rapidly establish the world we are transporting them to,” he said of his viewers. “That’s very easily done by saying: ‘In a world where … violence rules,’ ‘In a world where … men are slaves and women are the conquerors.’ You very rapidly set the scene.”

Comics have since pounced on the phrase, and in 2005 Mr. LaFontaine himself spoofed it in a commercial for Geico Insurance. It was one of a series in which celebrities commented on the tales of real people involved in accidents.

“People had heard his voice for decades, but the Geico spot put him on the map, visually,” Ms. Baker said. “In his commercial, this very plain woman describes her accident, and Don, in the background, narrates it in movie-trailer promo talk. The very first thing he says starts, ‘In a world where both of our cars are totally under water … ’ “

Born in Duluth, Minn., on Aug. 26, 1940, Mr. LaFontaine joined the Army soon after graduating from high school and was assigned to an Army band as a recording engineer. After his discharge, he got a job with National Recording Studios in New York. There he met Floyd Peterson, a producer of radio commercials, and they formed a company to produce movie trailers.

In 1965, a scheduling mix-up prevented an announcer from making a session; Mr. LaFontaine took over the mike to read radio spots for “Gunfighters of Casa Grande.” To his surprise, MGM liked his first personal performance. In 1976, Mr. LaFontaine started his own production company. His first assignment was for “The Godfather, Part II.” Two years later, he became head of the trailer department at Paramount Pictures.

He later returned to independent production. Over the years, he did promos for films including “Terminator,” “Fatal Attraction,” “Cheaper by the Dozen,” “Batman Returns” and “The Elephant Man.” He did commercials for Chevrolet, Pontiac, Ford, Budweiser, McDonald’s and Coca-Cola, among other companies.

Mr. LaFontaine is survived by his wife, the singer-actress Nita Whitaker, and three daughters, Christine, Skye and Elyse.

Working from a home studio that his wife dubbed “the Hole,” Mr. LaFontaine remained active until recently, averaging at least seven voice-overs a day. Last year, he did a promotion for the “The Simpsons Movie,” in which his comments were immediately echoed by characters from the film. At one point he says, “Hey, you’re just repeating everything I’m saying!” and Homer responds: “I know. It’s weird!”

Gael García Bernal’s brother debuts on film

Alameda Films, Mexico’s oldest and most prolific film production company, marks its 60th year with a turn toward edgier fare. The producer of various Arturo Ripstein classics and 2003 Oscar-nommed “The Crime of Father Amaro,” the highest-grossing local pic in Mexican film history, started shooting “Daniel & Ana” last week. Drama tracks two siblings whose joint kidnapping takes its toll on their relationship and their family.

Budgeted at $1.5 million, somber tale is the directorial feature debut of Michel Franco and stars newcomers Dario Yazbek Bernal, the younger brother of “Father Amaro” lead Gael Garcia Bernal, and Marimar Vega, daughter of veteran thesp Gonzalo Vega.

Cinematographer Chuy Chavez‘s credits include the visually arresting “Me and You and Everyone We Know.” Spain’s Morena Films co- produces pic.

Under the stewardship of Daniel Birman Ripstein, who took over full reins of the company when partner/ grandfather Alfredo Ripstein (and father of helmer Arturo) died in January 2007, Alameda Films has a lined up a couple of ambitious projects.

Shingle moves into uncharted territory with its first animated pic, “El Santos,” based on the wildly popular ’80s comic strip by illustrators Jis and Trino. Development has been under way the past three years, according to Birman who, chafing at the sluggish pace of animation filmmaking, says the pic should be finished by 2010.

“El Santos” could bring Alameda box office gold, just as it did the makers of 2006 toon “Una pelicula de huevos” (A Movie With Eggs), which now ranks as the second all-time grossing Mexican pic. Alameda is also developing an adaptation of Arthur Machen’s short story, “The Islington Mystery” which inspired the darkly comic 1960 pic “El esqueleto de la Senora Morales” (The Skeleton of Mrs. Morales).

Meanwhile, company is prepping digitally restored collections of the more than 100 pics produced by Alfredo Ripstein/Alameda since 1948, among them Jorge Pons‘ “Midaq Alley,” which launched Salma Hayek.

Shingle produced a couple of docus in the past years, among them Carrera’s “The Red Queen: A Mayan Mystery” for the Discovery Channel. Birman is co-producing the Mexican adaptation of Broadway show “Avenue Q.” He also heads sister distrib Film House, which has released a number of pics.

“There just weren’t that many good projects out there,” says Birman of the shingle’s five year hiatus from fiction pics. But once he read Franco’s screenplay, Birman jumped at the chance to produce it. “I know that this has been well worth the wait.”