The Sin City sequel news is coming at us fast and furious, and Robert Rodriguez has used an appearance at the Sundance Film Festival to announce that a big name from the original cast will be returning for Sin City: A Dame To Kill For.
Rodriguez told MTV that Bruce Wills will be reprising his role as Hartigan, the good cop with a bad heart, for the sequel coming later this year.
This is intriguing because as anyone who saw the last film knows (SPOILER WARNING!!!!!) Willis’ character commits suicide in the last film. He took his own life to protect Jessica Alba’s character, Nancy, from the minions of Senator Rourke, seeking revenge for Hartigan’s killing of Rourke’s son in the first movie.
However, since one of the segments in the new film will deal with Nancy trying to escape from Rourke’s goons, perhaps that suicide plan wasn’t quite as effective as Hartigan thought. It would be logical that Hartigan would appear in this segment as a flashback or a memory of Nancy’s character. Also, due to the nature of the narrative structure of these films, another segment could be set when Hartigan was alive and he could be featured there.
Other notes from the interview states that the filming process on the film has begun three months ago. Due to the way the CGI imagery lends itself to having footage being assembled in a piecemeal fashion, Rodriguez is shooting the film as the actors become available. As a matter of fact, even though Ray Liotta’s, Jeremy Piven’s, and Juno Temple’s casting was just announced last week, their parts are already finished filming.
Rodriguez also said that the pivotal part of Ava Lord has yet to be cast, as the role is weeks away from being shot. One expects an announcement should be made soon with the actress cast.
When the first Sin City came out, I was amazed at the cast that Robert Rodriguez was able to put together for the film. It was a star-studded mix of Oscar-worthy thespians, summer blockbuster idols, solid character actors, and young up-and-comers–a veritable who’s who of the Hollywood elite. And it looks like he’s having similar luck putting together the cast for that film’s sequel, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.
The Playlist is reporting that Ray Liotta, Jeremy Piven, and Juno Temple are set to join Josh Brolin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Dennis Haysbert and Jamie Chung as new residents of Basin City. The website does not know what characters the actors will be playing as of yet, but, since production has already begun on the film, I’m sure details will be coming soon.
One casting announcement that should also be coming soon is who will be playing the titular “Dame to Kill For” from the original comic, Ava. With all due respect to Ms. Temple, the role calls for a more mature, classic Hollywood femme fatale in the mold of a Rita Hayworth or Ava Gardner type. Rodriguez and co-director/Sin City creator Frank Miller have gone on record saying that they were pursuing Angelina Jolie for the role.
Regardless, these three actors will be a great addition to the cast. Liotta specifically seems tailor-made for the art-noir world of the film.
1. A Nightmare On Elm Street (Warner Brothers/New Line, 3,332 Theaters, 95 Minutes, Rated R): The original Nightmare on Elm Street was a step above the typical teen slasher films of the 1980s. It had a great back story–a child killer is burned alive by the neighborhood parents only to come back and kill their kids in their dreams. It had themes–vengeance, revenge, Children paying for the crimes of their parents. And it had a lot of psychological twists and gruesome, yet imaginative deaths.
The original is considered a classic of its genre. So much so, that a remake seems superfluous. But they are remaking every horror movie of note from the last 30 plus years, and they would have to get around to this one eventually. So why not now.
This version has one major improvement over the original–the guy playing Freddy. Robert Englund was awesome as the creepy and campy clawed killer, but how many Oscar nominations did he have? One less than the current Freddy, Jackie Earle Haley, who is enjoying another chance to employ his Rorschach voice in his current role.
2. Furry Vengeance (Summit Entertainment, 2,997 Theaters, 92 Minutes, Rated PG): If Brendan Fraser’s career was in Nightmare on Elm Street, stay with me here, I know it sounds weird, but stay with me, if his career was being hunted by Freddy, when it came time for the big kill scene, this film would unspool.
Seriously, this films has a 0% fresh over at Rotten Tomatoes. Granted, only 21 reviews are in, because the studio refused to screen it for critics (BAD SIGN!!!! BAD SIGN!!!), but no one have it a thumbs up. Lets see if it gets any positive reviews before the weekend is up.
Gawd, this film looks positively awful. Fraser plays a real estate who finds himself up against a cadre of woodland creatures when he wants to develop their habitat. Nut shots, peeing in the mouth and skunk sprays ensue. But I’d wager not much hilarity.
This film supposedly passed through Steve Ccarell and Jeremy Piven’s hands before it landed at Fraser’s. Those men should send a nice gift basket to their agents. And Fraser should fire his.
1. Bandslam (Summit Entertainment, 2,121 Theaters, 111 Minutes, Rated PG): Good lord, there’s a lot of movies coming out this week. Hey, Hollywood, there is still a lot of weeks left in summer! Spread things out a little!
I’m going to go through these quicker than usual. So try and stay with me.
I only know two things about this film. One, it stars teenybopper star Vanessa Hudgens, a woman who can’t seem to stop taking cell phone pictures of herself naked. Attention: young Hollywood! Cell phones can be hacked! So if you take pictures of yourself nekkid to send to whoever, don’t go crying when they appear all over the Internet.
Second, there is a god-awful cover of Bread’s “Everything I own” in the film. This song is so solid that artists as diverse as Boy George and N’Sync can do pretty good cover versions of it. It is hard to screw this one up, but they did in this movie. Which bodes ill for it because this film is about a group of kids from different classes who form a band that wins a local battle of the bands contest.
If that isn’t enough to make you avoid this film, Hudgens’ character’s name is Sa5m. Yes, because she is a quirky free spirit or something. Couldn’t be more pretentious if they tried.
2. District 9 (Tri-Star, 3,049 Theaters, 112 Minutes, Rated R): If there is a record for number of films a movie is compared to, then this one would hold it. Lets see. It’s been compared to Alien Nation, Independence Day, Iron Man, and Transformers. And that’s just from the trailer alone. Whether or not it actually resembles any of those films is something we are going to find out.
The promotional blitz for this has been going on for well over a year. Posters for it were all over last year’s San Diego Comic Con. So this one has been in the works for a while.
The film deals with aliens who have come to Earth as refugees and the problems they cause by being here. The cast is filled with unknowns, so there is really nothing to draw people in except that plot. Will it be strong enough to make a dent at the box office? I guess we’ll see this week.
3. The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard (Paramount Vantage, 1,838 Theaters, 90 Minutes, Rated R): Ah, used car dealerships. When will they ever be anything less than a wellspring of comedy?
This film has the appearance of being a cross between Used Cars and Dodgeball. A down on their luck car lot must make a lot of money over the July 4th weekend or else be bought out by a bigger, slicker dealership.
The film has a pretty intriguing cast. Any film that has Alan Thicke, Ving Rhames, Charles Napier and James Brolin in it is worth seeing for curiosity value alone. And finally Jeremy Piven has found a vehicle to channel his Ari Gold-ness into a lead film role. Good going Jeremy. Take it easy on the sushi, okay?
4. Ponyo (Disney, 927 Theaters, 100 Minutes, Rated G): There is something so right about the partnership between Hayao Miyazaki and Disney. Both are legends in the field of celanimation and bothfill their movies with awe and wonder. Of course, Miyazakiis a bit more esoteric with his plots, but still. It’s a marriage made in Heaven.
This film revolves around a five year old boy who enters into a friendship with goldfish princess who longs to be human.
If that plot seems a bit out there, well, you’re probably right. However, when it comes to Miyazaki, it is pretty normal.
If you can only see one movie this week, take a chance on this one. I haven’t seen every Miyazaki film, but the ones I’ve seen were truly special and magical.
5. The Time Traveler’s Wife (New Line, 2,988 Theaters, 107 Minutes, Rated PG-13): Funny story. I bought the novel this film was based on the week it came out. I figured, I like time travel, why not take a chance. Right after I bought it, right after I left the store, I loaned it to a friend of mine. I still have yet to get it back.
The ads for this film compelled me to call this friend to playfully hassle her as to where the book was at all this time and give her a hard time for keeping it so long. Her response was, “You should thank me. I saved you from having to read it!” Take that as an indication as to what to expect from this film.
One thing that bothers me about this film. Eric Bana is 41, Rachel McAdamsis 30. Now, in romantic movies, that kind of age difference is fairly common when it comes to men in relationship to women (and reversed in Sandra Bullock’s case). However, withthe whole time travel angle, the disparity in ages takes one an extra level of creepiness. Add to that the scene where Bana’s character visits McAdams’ character as a child and I just want to crawl out of my skin. Yuck!
