Here are this weekend’s

Also, we’d like to wish Neil Gaiman, the author of the original Coraline children’s book the movie is based on congratulations for winning the Newbury Medal for his most recent novel The Graveyard Book.

Coraline opens on February 6.

Next Tuesday, February 3, marks the 50th Anniversary of the first tragic deaths to occur in the burgeoning rock and roll genre.  A small plane took off from a Fargo, North Dakota airport. Aboard it where three of rock and roll’s fastest rising stars- Buddy Holly, J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson and Ritchie Valens. Anxious to get to the next stop on their tour, the three elected to fly instead of take their tour bus, which was having heater problems. Shortly after take off at 1:00 am, the plane lost control and crashed into a nearby cornfield, killing all three performers and their pilot. The tragedy would serve as the basis of Don McLean’s hit song “American Pie.”

Of the three, only Valens would ever make an appearance in film. Alan Freed, the popular disc jockey credited with popularizing the phrase “rock and roll,” was starring in a number of low-budget rock and roll movies that featured skeletal-thin plots on which to hang performances by a number of rock’s emerging stars. Just prior to embarking on the “Winter Dance Party” tour with Holly and Richardson, Valens filmed a performance in the last of the movies that Freed would appear in, Go Johnny Go. Here is Valens singing “Oh My Head,” interrupted slightly during the guitar solo by the need for the film’s threadbare plot to move forward.

Of course, Valens’s short, spectacular and ultimately tragic life would be the subject of the 1987 hit film La Bamba with Lou Diamond Phillips as in the starring role. Note that the morbidly ironic line “No more Peggy Sue,” a reference to the hit song by Valens’ fellow ill-fated passenger Buddy Holly, was cut. (The below clip carries through the rest of the scene in which the song appeared, so there is some NSFW language.)

And here’s the trailer for the film. (And yes, that is Stray Cat Brian Setzer in one quick shot as rockabilly pioneer Eddie Cochran. )

1. Taken (Fox, 3,183 Theaters, 94 Minutes. Rated PG-13): “I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.”

Isn’t that quote full of awesome? It is spoken by Liam Neeson’s character in the trailer for this film, and it pretty much sums up the character. I don’t know if the rest of the movie holds up to the promise the quote makes. Neeson plays a former spy whose daughter is kidnapped while visiting Paris. He goes on a one man search and rescue mission to save her from being sold into a life of prostitution.

This kind of movie can be hit or miss. But if the rest of the script is as good as that quote, then it just might work.

2. The Uninvited (Paramount/Dreamworks, 2,344 Theaters, 87 Minutes, Rated PG-13): The previews for this movie makes it look like a “Stepmother from Hell” kind of movie, with Elizabeth Banks in the role of the hellish stepmother. But the trailer makes it seem like the horror is only psychological.

However, this film is an adaptation of a Korean horror film. Yes, another Asian horror movie adaptation. Don’t worry, they’ll run out of these remakes eventually. They have too.  So, expect a creepy ghost to pop up somewhere unexpectedly.

Unfortunately, the original, A Tale of Two Sisters, wasn’t one of the best horror movies to come out of the East. And since remakes are usually worse than the originals, well…

3. New In Town (Lionsgate, 1,941 Theaters, 96 Minutes, Rated PG-13): Ah, the fish out of water romantic comedy. Every few years one of these comes around, like clockwork. Not much changes over time, however.

The plot for this one doesn’t differ from the formula. A business executive (Renee Zellweger) must relocate from balmy Miami to the frozen Tundra of Minnesota. After some cultural misconceptions, she learns to accept her new surroundings, at least long  enough to find romance with a local hunk (Harry Connick, Jr.)

I like the way they are promoting this film as being in the tradition of Legally Blonde and Sweet Home Alabama. Do you think they desperately wanted Reese Witherspoon and she passed?

Here are today’s three teasers for next Friday’s animated Coraline.

Well, so far there have been no reports of the promised journalist visits to the set of the reshoots going on for X-Men Origins: Wolverine. However, while the production was doing some night shoots at the University of British Columbia a few nights ago, plenty of onlookers grabbed some photographs and have started posting them up online.

There’s not a whole lot to see, some explosions (like the one at left from Flickr user tyfn)and some barb-wire fences. I’m not sure if the production has shot at this location before, in which case they may be beefing up a previously filmed scene, or if this is a new location and a possible new scene added to the film.

You can check some other Wolverine location shooting photostreams at Flickr here, here, here and here.

Via SlashFilm.

The sad thing is that many of you won’t get to see Chocolate when it gets released next Friday. Sure, you’ll get to catch up with the film once it hits DVD a few days later, but this is the type of bone-crunching martial arts film that should be enjoyed with an audience. And since this film is directed by Prachya Pinkaew, who discovered the great Tony Jaa, you know that the action is going to be intense.

Jeeja Yanin stars as an austic young woman who ihas managed to develop incredible martial arts skills through watching the students at the Muay Thai martial arts school next door and by watching old martial arts films on television. When her mother develops cancer, she and her friend Moom set out to get money for her treatments.

We’ll have a review of the film next week for you in our run up coverage to this year’s New York Comic Con, but in the meantime, enjoy this new trailer.

Perhaps the first film of the year that I am truly anxious to see, the animated Coraline will arrive in theaters next week sporting a prestigious pedigree. The film is based on an original children’s story written by master fantasist Neil Gaiman and is directed by Harry Selick, the animation director of The Nightmare Before Christmas and James And The Giant Peach.

Some of the previous trailers and television commercials have tried to fill the public in on the film’s basic premise in which a girl discovers that there’s a parallel world just beyond her home that seems like a much better place to live. The key word here being “seems.” The trailer below gives more of a flavor of the film’s tone and only whets the appetite further.

Meanwhile, the studio has also been releasing a series of posters for the film that read like classic the humorously macabre rhymings of Edward Gorey. We have the first three for you today (click on each for a bigger view) and will be bringing you a few more each day until the film opens on February 6.

Twentieth Century Fox’s on-again, off-again big screen adaptation of the 1980s action television series The A-Team looks to be back on, as the Hollywood Reporter states that Joe Carnahan is in talks with the studio to helm the film.

The odds of the film making it to the big screen were starting to look a bit long after director John Singleton quit the project several months back after numerous delays in casting.

The original TV series dealt with four US Army Special Forces soldiers on the run, escaping military police for a crime they didn’t commit. While trying to evade capture, they found time to help various people in distress. Skip Woods’ screenplay for the film updates things slightly, making the quartet Gulf War veterans. Woods’ script has also toned the original series’ campy and cartoonish tone, giving the film a slight techno-thriller edge.

Fox hopes to have the film in theaters for the summer of 2010.

It seems that this past weekend’s report of the demise of The Green Hornet film may have been a bit premature.

HitFix’s Drew McWeeny, who broke the story that the adaptation of the popular 1930s and ’40s radio hero was in serious trouble at studio Sony Pictures, has followed up in his reportage with an email from the film’s co-writer and star Seth Rogen, who states that pre-production was still active for the film.

The Green Hornet has many people working for it, including production designers, costume designers and many conceptual artists, office staff, etc. . . .[The studio heads] have every intention on making it, and assuming we’re able to hire a new director in the upcoming weeks, which seems like a distinct possibility, it should still hit the release date.

Well, yes, it is obviously in Rogen’s best interest to talk the project up as being right on track, so take the news with an appropriate sized grain of salt.

I have to say, as a fan of the original radio series, I’m not that intrigued yet by the prospect of the Green Hornet coming to the big screen in this configuration. Seth Rogen is likable enough and even though he has been working out and is noticeably trimmer in recent interviews,  he still doesn’t quite fit my image of the character. There has also been some back and forth as to whether the film will have comedic elements in it or not. Making the film a comedy would not be doing the characters any justice. If this does go forward, I hope that there will be some news that engages my enthusiasm.

Watchmen viral site The New Frontiersman has published a new photo (click for bigger version) showing the Comedian during his tour of duty in Vietnam on behalf of the United States government. It is the latest in a series ofdocuments that the Right Wing publication has released relating to masked vigilantes and their impact in recent history.

The New Frontiersman has also been posting these documents over on Flickr.

Watchmen opens, as if you didn’t know, March 6.