Movie Make-out

Dreamworks’ Kung Fu Panda has raked in a much-better-than-expected $160 million domestically (and counting), and it’s sure to do even better on DVD. (It will certainly get my $20; I loved it.) So it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that the Animation Guild’s blog brings us word that “a story crew has started early work in Kung Fu Panda, the Sequel, even while animators are hand-drawing new material for the DVD of Kung Fu Panda, the original.”

On the Triple Feature (episode #75), I mentioned that this is one of the few movies I really hoped would get a sequel — hopefully one where the Furious Five features more prominently and we get more of the originals’ absolutely fantastic action sequences — so this is very, very welcome news to me. Skadoosh!

Related post: Trailer Watch: Kung Fu Panda, Pineapple Express, Sex and Death 101, more

From the film’s official site:

Heavy Metal in Baghdad is a feature film documentary that follows the Iraqi heavy metal band Acrassicauda from the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 to the present day. Playing heavy metal in a Muslim country has always been a difficult (if not impossible) proposition but after Saddam’s regime was toppled, there was a brief moment for the band in which real freedom seemed possible. That hope was quickly dashed as their country fell into a bloody insurgency. From 2003-2006, Iraq disintegrated around them while Acrassicauda struggled to stay together and stay alive, always refusing to let their heavy metal dreams die. Their story echoes the unspoken hopes of an entire generation of young Iraqis.

Heavy Metal in Baghdad is rocking Tampa right now and will hit the Rocklahoma Music Festival (in St. Pryor, Oklahoma) on July 9th, but it is available now on DVD. I haven’t seen it, but the subject matter looks interesting enough and obviously the political backdrop should be eye-opening.

Also, Guy Ritchie’s RocknRolla has a trailer up at Empire Online — and the big surprise is, it actually looks pretty fun, even if the story looks like a big mess (something about the mob… big shock there, right?). The thing is, Revolver was such a huge piece of shit, that I’m gonna need to see some good reviews before I get lured into another one of his movies. RocknRolla stars Gerard Butler (300), Thandie Newton, Ludacris, Jeremy Piven, Idris Elba, and Tom Wilkinson. The film opens on Halloween.

Alan Rickman and Bill Pullman star in Bottle Shock, a indie comedy based on the “Judgment of Paris” tastings that put California wines on “the map,” as it were. Pullman plays “a former real estate attorney (who) sacrificed everything to realize his dream of creating the perfect hand-crafted chardonnay. His business, however, is struggling, and he’s not only trying to overcome differences with his slacker son (Chris Pine — Kirk in J.J. Abrams’ upcoming Star Trek reboot — in a terrible wig), but is also fighting off the creditors. Meanwhile in Paris, unwitting British wine shop owner Steven Spurrier (Rickman) hopes to revive his own failing business by sponsoring a competition which will pit the traditional French powerhouse against the California upstarts. Little did Steven and Jim realize that they were both on course to change the history of wine forever.”

Rickman is fantastic as always, and although the story looks utterly predictable (it’s pretty much all in the trailer), the tone is breezy and charming, sort of like Sideways meets Little Miss Sunshine. (Although I didn’t really like either of those movies nearly as much as anyone else, so that’s not incredibly high praise.) You can taste Bottle Shock in theaters on August 6. Hopefully you won’t want to spit it out.

Most of you saw this in front of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but for those of you fortunate enough to have skipped that disappointment, or who want to watch it again, the trailer for David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is online courtesy Apple, which also has it in high definition. It’s a gorgeous, haunting trailer, showcasing some beautiful art direction, an eerie piece of music from “The Carnival of Animals – The Aquarium” by Camille Saint-Saens (possibly not from the film, since Alexandre Desplat is credited with the film’s score), a stunning Cate Blanchett, and… well, a kind of ridiculous accent by Pitt, but I think I can handle it.

Eric Roth’s script was based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, apparently inspired by a remark of Mark Twain’s “to the effect that it was a pity that the best part of life came at the beginning and the worst part at the end.”

The adaptation stars Brad Pitt as a man who was born old and ages backwards, with all the hardships that would entail. Cate Blanchett and Tilda Swinton co-star. Benjamin Button arrives in theaters on December 19, 2008.

A “promo reel”/trailer for Ong Bak 2 has hit the net thanks to Twitch. It looks like a sequel in name only — no real connection to the original other than its phenomenal star, Tony Jaa, who also makes his directorial debut with this.

The story looks about as non-existent as in both Ong Bak and The Protector — it’s about “a young man saved from execution by a group of global martial artists as a boy” who attempts to combine all of their martial arts styles into “one master martial art.” Or something. But plot isn’t really the point with his movies, now, is it?

Ong Bak 2 comes out in Thailand this year and will hopefully make it here sometime next year.