Editorials > Filmwad Breaks it Down: Tuesday November 27

With negotiations resuming in Los Angeles, everyone can enjoy just a little bit of cautious optimism regarding the WGA vs AMPTP strike, but don't get your hopes up. These are still two groups who each very much want the money they feel they deserve. So unless money suddenly stops paying bills and buying food, the end is still just out of sight.

Better news is that Mark Ruffalo is teaming up for the first time with legendary director Martin Scorsese and his protege ("muse" might give the wrong impression) Leonardo DiCaprio for the film Shutter Island. The pair will play U.S. Marshals investigating a disappearance from a mentally insane asylum in 1954 Massachusetts. Maybe DiCaprio will get to smooth out the rough edges of his Boston accent this time around.

Daniel Craig is assuring fans that Bond 22 won't be as jokey as he had previously insinuated. He says there will still be humor but not unnecessary "gags." Shucks, and here I was hoping for a prolonged MI-6/Benny Hill crossover with pie-fights.

John Cusack is going to be starring in a movie called Shanghai produced by the Weinstein Co. Cusack will play an American who travels to Japanese-occupied Shanghai in 1941 to learn that his friend has been murdered. As he investigates he will uncover "much larger secrets about his own government." I'm just guessing, but is it that the government knew about Pearl Harbor before it happened? Ah, sweet controversy.

The first trailer is for Definitely, Maybe, the Valentine's Day sapfest from writer-director Adam Brooks. Ryan Reynolds plays the father of Academy Award nominee Abigail Breslin, the demanding child who guilt-trips her father into telling her the story of how her divorcing parents met. Reynolds agrees to tell her the story on the condition that she not know which of the three women in the story became her mother. In the little girl's words, "It's like a love story mystery." The three supporting actresses are actually incredibly beautiful and talented ladies. Elizabeth Banks, Rachel Weisz, and Isla Fisher have all more than proven themselves in previous roles. Maybe the film is just being badly marketed? No. "Sapfest" was the right word.
Release Date: February 14, 2008.

21 is a movie that could very easily go either way. Kevin Spacey is on a bit of a losing streak with his past few films being the critically and/or commercially weak Fred Claus, Superman Returns, the straight-to-DVD Edison Force, and Beyond the Sea. The director, Robert Luketic made a name for himself with Monster-In-Law and Legally Blonde. So what kind of movie this is going to be is anyone's guess. At least Laurence Fishburne is still intimidating as hell.
Release Date: March 28, 2008.

-David Morgan