Universal Sets 2011 Release Date for Cowboys and Aliens

Hot on the heels of the news that Olivia Wilde (House) is joining the cast of Jon Favreau's Cowboys and Aliens, we finally have a release date for the film from Universal. The studio announced on Friday that they're carving out a prime summer spot for the film, which stars Daniel Craig, on July 29, 2011. The date isn't a huge surprise since it's perfect summer fare from the guy who gave us Iron Man, and we already know that the film will start filming sometime this July.

The release date was previously owned by Peter Berg's Battleship, but that's now set for a May 2012 release. I'm not going to shed any tears for the Battleship delay, and quite honestly I'm glad that we're getting the more interesting Cowboys and Aliens first.

[Source: The Wrap]

• Olivia Wilde Joins Daniel Craig in Cowboys and Aliens
• Robert Downey, Jr. Will Not Star in Cowboys & Aliens
• Jon Favreau's Cowboys and Aliens to Shoot in July, Possibly in 3D?
• Tons of Details Emerge For Peter Berg's Battleship
• Aliens, Another Reason to Get Excited for Battleship
• VOTD: Stephen Colbert and Jeff Goldblum Play Out Battleship: The Movie

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Arts, Briefly: Romance Overtakes 'Avatar'

Moviegoers turned their attention to a mushy Nicholas Sparks adaptation over the weekend as "Dear John" ended the seven-week run of "Avatar" as the No. 1 movie in North America.

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Mediterranean Diet Lowers Risk of First Heart Attack

Ediets

That first heart attack has got to be a shocker. You're at the bar watching the game, dipping Buffalo wings into blue cheese and - BAM!

You're on the floor grabbing your chest and yelling for your drunken buddies to call 911. If only you'd been popping olives instead of jalapeño poppers.

Because a new study shows the Mediterranean diet may lower your risk of having a cardiac event, especially that pesky first heart attack.

Continue reading...

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He's So Vain

The life of Warren Beatty, a man as hungry for artistic control as he was for women.

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Brittany Murphy Knew She Was Going To Die

Brittany Murphy told her mother Sharon she loved her the morning of her passing because the actress knew she was dying, according to her widower.

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Megan on Set of "Jonah Hex"

Working her way into the weekend, Megan Fox was spotted on the set of her upcoming movie "Jonah Hex" in Los Angeles on Friday (February 5).All dressed up in a snazzy ensemble, the brunette beauty smiled as she toted an umbrella while camera crews captured her each and every move.

Due out in theaters on June 18, 2010, the film co-stars Oscar winner Mickey Rourke - who had nothing but praise for his sexy co-star.

He tells of Miss Fox,

"I didn't know too much about her, except what I read. And I think the pleasant surprise was this girl who's a world-class beauty turned out to be probably the best young actress I've ever worked with. I don't know if a lot of her films have showcased her acting ability more than, say, being action-oriented, but she really stepped up the plate with this one and was very consistent and professional, beyond her years. At 23, I couldn't do half of what she's doing."

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Sheryl Crow to Show Comedy Chops on 'Cougar Town'

The acclaimed singer would be one of the comedy's recurring characters in multi-episode arc.

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Sundance Buys: IFC Takes Joan Rivers Doc; Catfish Bought by Relativity Media

UPDATE: IndieWire reports that The Weinstein Company picked up The Tillman Story today. The company has been the frontrunner to buy the film for the past week. Original article follows.

Purchases at Sundance didn't come fast and furious this year — do they ever anymore? — but in the wake of the festival a few high-profile films have been fairly swift to land distribution deals. The docs Catfish and Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work have both secured distribution in the US. A few other films will probably be picked up soon: The Tillman Story, Animal Kingdom and Welcome to the Rileys are all close to having deals, but for now we'll focus on the two docs.

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work got great reviews at the fest for being an even-handed portrait of the firebrand Rivers, who is depicted over the course of a year. Not having seen the film I'll crib from EW's Owen Glieberman, who said "What's inspiring is that while so many fearless comedians were consumed by their demons, Rivers is just the opposite. Letting her demons run wild is what saves her, every day. Her comedy prickles and stings because, as you get to know her, you can see that she is, above all, a compulsively frank and honest person."

The film got the Documentary Editing award at Sundance, and IFC will now give it a theatrical release later this year. [THR]

Meanwhile, the deal I talked about a couple of days ago, where Brett Ratner was teaming with Ryan Kavanaugh and his company Relativity Media in an attempt to purchase rights to the minor Sundance sensation Catfish, has gone through. Relativity took US, UK and Canadian rights to the documentary film that follows a young photographer as he befriends an odd family in the midwest and eventually learns there is more (or less) to the fam than he imagined. Rogue Pictures, owned by Relativity, will release the film with help from Universal. [Screen Daily]

• Mini-Bidding War For Sundance Hit Catfish; JJ Abrams and Paramount Versus Brett Ratner?
• Spontaneous Sundance Interviews: Director Ricki Stern, Film Critic Peter Travers
• Website to Allow Box Office Betting in Real Dollars. What Are the Implications?
• Producer Ryan Kavanaugh Brings Moneyball Tactics to Filmmaking
• Casting For The Crow Remake Underway

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First Sneak Peek Video to Christina Aguilera's 'Burlesque'

The singer-turned-actress is seen filming her parts in which she makes sexy performances, while her co-stars Cher and Stanley Tucci are featured being interviewed by Mark Steines in the featurette.

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Steven Tyler Had an 'Awkward' Audition With Led Zeppelin

The former vocalist of Aerosmith was quite unprepared when trying out for Led Zeppelin because he believed they would be playing something new.

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Brigitte Nielsen Blown Away by Rihanna's Compliments

Brigitte Nielsen shares her experience when she was stunned after the 'Umbrella' hitmaker praised her at 2010 People's Choice Awards.

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Celebrity Birthdays, February 4

Happy Birthday to:

The original 'shock-rocker' Alice Cooper (1948)

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'Criminal Minds' and 'CSI: NY' February 10 Previews

The BAU team is on the hunt of a public serial killer while the CSIs are investigating a foul play in car race.

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Rosario Dawson Refuses to Be Brandon T. Jackson's Mentor

Rosario Dawson, who shares screen with Brandon T. Jackson in 'Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief', declines her co-star's request to be his mentor because she doesn't want to feel old.

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Julia Roberts Refuses to Have Another Child

The star of 'Pretty Woman' admits she is not planning to become a mum again as she's happy with her three kids.

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The Hurt Locker Lands Nine Top Oscar Nominations

War drama The Hurt Locker is set to sweep the board at the 82nd Annual Academy Awards after landing nine top nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director for Kathryn Bigelow.

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'Avatar' Sequel Is War Movie, Coming Within Four Years

While 'Avatar' ends with a battle, the follow-up is said to present a huge war but it reportedly will not be worked on soon after the first film.

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Paul McCartney Writes for Gwyneth Paltrow's Website

Knowing that the Beatle is an avid vegetarian, Paltrow called him to write in the 'Meat Free Monday' section.

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Rip Torn Heads To Rehab

Actor Rip Torn will enter an alcohol rehabilitation facility this week after allegedly breaking into a Connecticut bank with a loaded gun while drunk on Friday.

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Wyclef Jean Wants A Fugees Reunion For Haiti

Hip-hop group Fugees are one step closer to a reunion after Wyclef Jean backed plans by his former band mate Pras to collaborate and raise funds for earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

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'Transformers' And 'Land Of The Lost' Lead Razzie Nominations

LOS ANGELES (AP) - "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" made a fortune. "Land of the Lost" tanked. Both films are equal earners at the Razzies, though, grabbing seven nominations each on Monday, including worst picture of 2009 and worst-acting slots for Will Ferrell and Megan Fox.

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New Photo for 'The Last Airbender' and 'The Losers' Unveiled

Aang is pictured ready to have fight with his enemies in the still from the sci-fi, while all the members of The Losers are featured in the image from the action film.

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Weekend Weirdness: Red Riding Trilogy Reviewed (Britain's Five-Hour Answer to Zodiac?); New Trailers for Each Film

It's a crazy, mixed up world and we are thankful for movies, excluding The Spy Next Door and The Tooth Fairy, that offer proof. /Film's Weekend Weirdness examines such flicks, whether in the form of a new trailer for a provocative indie, a mini review, or an interview. In this installment, new trailers and a review of the Red Riding Trilogy, a noirish triptych of serial killer dramas imported from British television and being released stateside in February by IFC Films.

During a screening of the entire Red Riding Trilogy, with one intermission allotted for lunch, I found myself pondering the irony in three directors, one screenwriter, one author, tens of actors and three separate crews realizing a project that depicts humanity and bureaucracy at its most foul and irreversibly corrupt. A recent poster for the trilogy forebodingly reads, "Evil Lives Here," a tagline that would serve most of the work that exits Stephen King's skull; instead the "here" in Red Riding is Northern England in the '70s and early '80s, when a serial killer known as the Yorkshire Ripper carved a trail of female victims and set a mood and mythos ripe for social reflection.

If that sounds reminiscent of David Fincher's Zodiac, it is. Both that serial killer epic and Se7en are influential here by way of nightmarish imagery and the former's tediously realistic period detail and  pre-computerized investigation routines. But it's much harder to seek comparison for the way the trilogy's storylines and characters—spread across three films, 1974, 1980, and 1983—communally bleed into each other, yet vary in quality, tone, and execution. The first film is a sexy, hardboiled mystery; the second a pitch-black procedural; the middling third a tale of redemption that borders on Hollywood melodrama. These differences make the trilogy appealing and slightly frustrating. Taken as a whole, it's a collaborative achievement that fans of crime cinema can feast upon.

In the Year of Our Lord 1974: Enough Cigarettes, Sex, and Murder to Make Andrew Garfield a Star

Rather surprisingly, the first installment of Red Riding has no less than four sex scenes, all of which feature 20something Brit actor Andrew Garfield. When he's not preoccupied in a bout of shagging, Garfield's mutton-chopped character, an ambitious newspaper journalist named Eddie Dunford, tends to have a cig and drink in hand. At first, it's difficult to gauge where the film is coming from, but Dunford's lifestyle choices are a youthful juggling act that blurs his well-meaning but naive obsession with a missing girl. He hopes to link the possible murder to two similar cases gathering dust and catch his big break.

In the proceeding two films, Dunford is a minor, peripheral character, but 1974 offers a star-making performance for Garfield, who will appear later this year in The Social Network. He portrays a young journalist drunk on romanticized, idealistic notions of the profession and still taps plenty of Raymond Chandler-like cool doing so. When the latest girl's body randomly surfaces, swan wings inexplicably sewn to her back, director Julian Jarrold (Brideshead Revisited) makes Dunford's hazy confusion our own, quickly plummeting us into a conspiratorial web of group-think involving the police, a powerful developer, elite society, and the media. Recurring themes of paternal betrayal and vacancy are planted beforehand, with Sean Bean as a delightfully sleazy yet dapper father figure-from-hell to Dunford.

Several readers have wondered if the Red Riding films work as stand-alone features—especially since they were originally made, and aired last year, for British television. Jarrold's 1974 works best in this regard. His use of 16mm in rendering a patina-heavy Yorkshire as a murderous landscape of pubs and misleading, at times ashen, hillside lends his film to memorable images. Dunford's tale is also the most singular and isolated—his noirish nighttime drives pay homage to David Lynch's Lost Highway—and the six-year gap between '74 and In the Year of Our Lord 1980 allows Jarrold to introduce several, complicit characters that are central later without worry for prior comparison.  /Film Rating: 8/10

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