Cinematical

Sure, I've already shared Seth Rogen's audition for Freaks and Geeks, but since the comedic wonder that is The Pineapple Express is finally here, it's a pretty good time to share old-school Saul and Dale before they reunited, hit the chronic, and got themselves in trouble with dangerous drug dealers. A good ten years ago, they were living in 1980. In the above clip, James Franco's Daniel spends a lot of time going punk, and then Nick (Jason Segel) and Ken (Rogen) make fun of him for his new look, full of distressed clothing and eggy hair.

Most of the kid's from Judd Apatow's old show have come a long way, many of them reuniting over and over in the Apatow universe. But I have to say -- it's high time Sarah Hagan gets a piece of the action. It's just wrong that her last movie was Orange County. Even a little cameo. Just a tiny one to start ... Whaddya say, Judd?

The full cast for Quentin Tarantino's WWII flick Inglorious Bastards is starting to come together. Not long after Variety announced that Brad Pitt was officially onboard to play a "Tennessee hillbilly who assembles a team of eight Jewish-American soldiers to take on the Nazis," word has come out that Simon Pegg, David Krumholtz and Nastassja Kinski are all in talks to join the picture. The Office's B.J. Novak is already in talks as well, and he and Krumholtz sign on, they'll be playing "Pitt's underlings." Pegg, on the other hand, would be playing a British lieutenant. Kinski, who's being looked at to play a German movie queen (and is actually German -- go figure!), would become one of the only females in this male-dominated cast.

Personally, I'm a fan of all these folks, though I'm still holding out for a few Tarantino regulars to pop up at some point. (I'd also like to offer up Cinematical's Scott Weinberg for a role. He's a good Jew, that kid.) Tim Roth should definitely nab a role before casting is all said and done, though I'm not so sure there's something for Michael Madsen. I've got the script sitting on my desktop (haven't read it yet), so if you've managed to take a peak, who else do you think would fit in here?

• Whether you watch Entourage or not, you've probably heard that the show's premise is loosely based on Mark Wahlberg's own experiences as he stepped into the movie business. Now he's finally getting into the action. Mixed in with his upcoming work with The Fighter and The Brazilian Job, Ace Showbiz reports that Wahlberg has filmed a scene with Jeremy Piven for the show where they go at it. There's no word on who Wahlberg will play.
  
• Louise Linton, who played a Skin Care Consultant in Lions for Lambs, and Katie in The Echo, is now going sporty. Variety reports that the actress has signed on for a role in the indie comedy The Wiffler: The Ted Whitfield Story. She'll play a woman called Shannon Storm in the film, which focuses on the MLB strike in 1994, that let the nation turn its eyes to wiffle ball.
• Finally, Alex Pettyfer, who you might remember as Alex Rider in Stormbreaker, is getting ready to be Tormented. Variety reports that the actor will topline the horror film, which centers on "a bullied teen who comes back from the dead to take his revenge." And people think they just have to fear karma... He'll be joined by the likes of April Pearson, Larissa Wilson, Mary Nighy, and Dimitri Leonidas.

Have I ever told you that I'm obsessed with watching Cirque du Soleil shows? I've seen at least 10 live performances in the past few years and highly recommend them to anyone who's never taken the Cirque plunge. In fact, now you have more of a reason to check out a Cirque show because their latest, Delirium, is coming to a theater near you at the end of the month. Sony Pictures Releasing has set up this new programming division called The Hot Ticket, and they specialize in bringing stuff like rock concerts, Broadway shows and premier sporting events to theaters across the United States and Canada. We've talked about this sort of thing a bunch before, and it's definitely a smart move for theaters; one that might eventually become the norm.

So far, The Hot Ticket is bringing Delirium (I'd shell out money to see Delirious on the big screen too, by the way) to theaters for a limited run of four days (August 20, 21, 23 and 24). You can find out where it's playing near you by visiting The Hot Ticket website. Aside from Delirium, they'll also be bringing the show Rent to theaters in September. As far as the viewing experience goes, here's a quote from their website: "Each presentation from The Hot Ticket will be a limited engagement and events will be shown in 2K and 4K digital theaters to ensure the highest quality viewing experience. With the very best in special event programming and state-of-the-art digital projection and sound in theaters, The Hot Ticket will offer the kind of unparalleled access that will make these events memorable viewing experiences."

Sounds like something worth trying out. What do you think? Is this the future of theatrical entertainment? (Check out some really cool images from Delirium in the gallery below.)

I'm not partial to overtly subjective reviews, yet I can't seem to find any better way of relating my response to Isabel Coixet's latest film, Elegy, an adaptation of Philip Roth's novel "The Dying Animal," which follows the romance between a college professor and his much younger former student. First, though, a note of appropriateness: early in the film, this professor, the Roth regular David Kepesh, who previously appeared in the novels "The Breast" and "The Professor of Desire," is lecturing about how literature, specifically Tolstoy's "War and Peace," will be appreciated differently by a reader at different points in his or her life. In ten years, for example, it may seem like a new book entirely.

Perhaps in ten years, then, or more likely in thirty, I will be able to watch Elegy again and have a new perspective. Maybe I will be able to relate to Kepesh, here portrayed by Ben Kingsley, when I am in my sixties and have similarly lived and experienced as much. Yet the fact that Coixet's film is so depressing makes me almost hope that I never actually live so long to find out. I should have known, what with the filmmaker's past films, such as My Life Without Me, with their gray atmospheres and dreary dealings with illness and death. While appearing on the outside to be a sexy drama about how one lecherous old man discovers love, Elegy is on the inside really just a slow, uninteresting depiction of a selfish fool who possibly too-late realizes that he's grown old before he's actually grown up.

I think I need to befriend Adam Sandler's new character...

No, I'm not talking about Zohan. I'm talking about Skeeter Bronson in Bedtime Stories. He's a hotel handyman who discovers that the bedtime stories he's telling his niece and nephew are starting to come true. When Skeeter realizes his talent, he tries to take advantage of the situation by improving his life, "but it's the kids' unexpected contributions that turn Skeeter's life upside down."

In the picture above (which Disney sent around yesterday as a part of their fall/holiday preview), he finds himself in a shower of what looks like a whole slew of gumballs. I'm betting that he's thanking all the powers-that-be that he didn't tell stories about it raining cats and dogs... While most of Sandler's current work has not even begun to pique my interest, this sounds like it could be a cute holiday film. But is a storm of candy enough to get you to the theater?

Paramount Home Entertainment has officially announced the first major summer movie on DVD, and trust me when I say this will be worth the money. Yes, Iron Man will arrive on shelves this September 30 in a 2-disc Ultimate Edition on both DVD and Blu-ray (the war is over, so I trust you've upgraded by now). There will also be a single disc for those not interested in the ridiculous amount of special features, but something tells me those types of people don't hang around Cinematical much. Okay, here's what we're looking at:

The IRON MAN Ultimate Edition two-disc Blu-ray is presented in 1080p High Definition with English 5.1 Dolby True HD, French 5.1 Dolby Digital and Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital and English, English SDH, French, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese subtitles. Bonus features include:

Disc 1:

· Hall of Armor
The Invincible Iron Man (HD)
-- Origins
-- Friends & Foes
-- The Definitive Iron Man
-- Demon in a Bottle
-- Extremis and Beyond
-- Ultimate Iron Man
Deleted/Extended Scenes (HD)
BD Live:
-- Iron Man IQ

Disc 2:

· I Am Iron Man (HD)
-- The Journey Begins
-- The Suit that makes the Iron Man
-- The Walk of Destruction
-- Grounded In Reality
-- Beneath the Armor
-- It's All in the Details
-- A Good Story, Well Told
Wired: The Visual Effects of Iron Man (HD)
Robert Downey Jr. Screen Test (HD)
The Actor's Process (scene rehearsal with cast) (HD)
The Onion "Wildly Popular Iron Man Trailer to be Adapted into Full Length Film" (HD)
Theatrical Trailers (HD)
Image Galleries

Regular DVD special features after the jump ...

Okay, try and stay with me on this: it's a movie about six children who are genetically engineered to fly. Now, what if said kids escaped from those experimenting on them and were subsequently pursued by a pack of human-wolf hybrids?

I know what you're thinking -- that this could either be the best movie ever made or anything but. Variety has reason to think that Columbia is tipping towards the former, as they've picked up the rights to James Patterson's young adult book series, Maximum Ride. It seems like quite the change of pace for Patterson, he of Alex Cross mystery fame, but as far as the adaptation is concerned, perhaps Don Payne can rein things in, what with two straight-up superhero scripts already under his belt. Oh, and did I mention that frequent Marvel movie producer Avi Arad is also on board?

(Dare I make a suggestion, though: the title makes me think of a guide to Jean-Claude Van Damme's all-time favorite rollercoasters more than a mutants-on-the-lam saga. Just sayin'.)

Can any of our trusty readers vouch for the novels, or at least for their offspring who might have picked up at least one of the four published to date? Are those as new to the concept as I am game for this potential franchise in the making? Goodness knows that we'll need something to fill that supernatural-teen gap post-Twilight...

What with the Olympics and the Batman and the pineapple express and the pants, you might be a little overloaded with things to watch this weekend. On the other hand, maybe you've seen all that and want something different. In that case, hooray for the Indie Spotlight! It's our weekly roundup of what's opening beyond the multiplexes, designed so movie fans can keep an eye out for those less-publicized titles.

There are eight indie films for you to examine this week: Beautiful Losers, Beer for My Horses, Bottle Shock, Elegy, Hell Ride, Patti Smith: Dream of Life, Red, and What We Do Is Secret. Here's the skinny on each of them.

Bottle Shock
What it is: A fictionalized account -- very heavily fictionalized, it would seem -- about the plucky California winery that managed to beat French wines in a blind taste test in 1976.
What they're saying: The reviews at Rotten Tomatoes are almost evenly split down the middle. My own take: It's the Two Buck Chuck of wine movies.
Where it's playing: Various places throughout Northern and Southern California, Seattle, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Detroit, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston.
Official site: Take a sip.

Hell Ride
What it is: Executive-produced by Quentin Tarantino, it's Larry Bishop's homage to the sleazy biker movies of the early 1970s.
What they're saying: They're saying they hate it. Ten of the 12 reviews at Rotten Tomatoes are negative, and that includes the two from Cinematical, by James Rocchi and yours truly.
Where it's playing: Quite a few cities, actually; check out the map here.
Official site: Hop on, easy rider.