Just a few days ago the lovely Jessica Barnes informed us that there was a new poster afoot for the upcoming werewolf movie Blood & Chocolate, and now here I am sharing with you the all-new trailer for the flick ... and it ain't pretty. Oh sure, leading lady Agnes Bruckner is all kinds of attractive, but based on this trailer, Blood & Chocolate looks a lot like a Uwe Boll flick mixed with a supernatural teenybopper TV series that Fox hyped, debuted and canceled over the course of three full weeks.

Equal parts Underworld, The Craft and Beverly Cleary, Blood & Chocolate comes from German filmmaker Katja von Garnier, whose last two films were a period piece about the women's suffragate movement and a drama about a bunch of imprisoned rockers who bust outta jail in search of stardom. So obviously she's just the person to helm Underworld Kinda: The Teenage Years. For those still holding out hope that I'm a clueless dolt who knows nothing, I'll let you know that B&C was written by the guy who penned The Brothers Grimm and The Skeleton Key. And The Ring 2. And Impostor, Reindeer Games and Scream 3. Yeah, that guy.

In related news, "Blood & Chocolate" has already won the award for 2007's Stupidest Movie Title of the Year. I just now made up the award and gave it out at the same time. (Yes, I know the movie is based on a book, but that doesn't magically make the title any less stupid.) Attention bored teenagers: Blood & Chocolate opens on January 26. Your other multiplex options that night will be Jennifer Garner, yet another remake or something to make your eyes bleed. Yowch, rough weekend.

OK, here's the portion of your day in which I mention that someone's about to get working on a Poltergeist remake and you get all annoyed and frustrated and decide to write a strongly-worded rant in the comments section, only you forget to approve your comment via email, which means nobody will ever know your opinion that A) Poltergeist is a classic, B) classics shouldn't be remade, and C) "screenwriter" Steven Spielberg really ghost-directed the movie for Tobe Hooper.

But we already know all of these things, and apparently that knowledge is not going to stop a remake from getting made. According to BD.com, the original plan was to take a work-in-progress called Poltergeist: Kayeri and retrofit the thing into some sort of "re-imagining" of 1982's second-best horror movie. But now it looks like the Poltergeist remake will be starting entirely from scratch ... and the more time they need the better, if it's me you're asking. (Well, I know these remakes are inevitable, but I'm certainly not in a huge hurry to see what some first-time rock-video director and a guy who once wrote three episodes of The X-Files would do with one of modern cinema's very finest ghost stories.)

And I'll use this scant piece of semi-news to remind you how pretty darn awesome Poltergeist actually is. Smart, spooky, playfully dark, just gory enough to please the geeks and just mild enough to warrant a Friday night family movie night. If you haven't seen the flick in a long time, I highly recommend you give Poltergeist a second visit. But dear sweet jeebus, please stop after the first one. The sequels are house-devouringly bad.

And while we're on the subject, doesn't Poltergeist seem like a movie that's just screaming for a swanky new 2-disc Special Edition DVD? Frankly the current DVD kinda sucks.

UPDATE: The illustrious SpielbergFilms.com, which I DO consider a reliable source tyvm, is reporting that this project is (as of this moment) not happening. Stay tuned for additional news -- if there is any.

When a movie is as awesome, celebrated and profitable as Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs is, it shouldn't come as a shock when the thing gets a "double-dip" on DVD. (Hell, even flicks like American Pie 2 have been re-released on DVD a half-dozen times!) If you're a hardcore fan of the multiple-Oscar winning horror thriller, then you almost certainly own a copy of the DVD already. But which one? Maybe you have the (now out-of-print and rather valuable) Criterion Collection edition, which offers a phenomenal audio commentary but a non-anamorphic transfer), the Image DVD version (bare-bones, bleachy and mercifully out-of-print as well) or MGM's really solid Special Edition from a few years back. (That's the one I own.)

But since MGM recently signed a home video deal with Fox, you can expect a bunch of their high-end A-list titles to get a digital re-issue some time soon. Case in point: On January 27 you'll be able to purchase an all-new Collector's Edition of The Silence of the Lambs, which, don't forget, was the first film to win the "Top 5" Oscars since 1975's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. (The only other film to accomplish this feat was 1934's It Happened One Night.) I remember being absolutely thrilled when Lambs mopped up that Oscar tele-cast, just like I was elated when Sigourney Weaver earned a nomination for her work in Aliens, basically because I like it when horror films are treated like, y'know, legitimate movies.

So yeah: One of the finest and creepiest serial killer thrillers ever made is about to hit DVD for the fourth time. The new 2-disc set looks to be a Lecter fan's new obsession: Three documentaries, several featurettes, 22 deleted scenes, outtakes, trailers, a booklet and some Hannibal Lecter recipe cards. (Yep, recipe cards.) Unfortunately, Criterion still owns the rights to their superlative old commentary track, which means it won't be appearing on this new release. Darnit.

Well, this whole "Peter Jackson is off The Hobbit" story finally hit the trades today, arriving in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. CNN also managed to throw something up about it too. Personally, it reminds me of some big nasty divorce battle, with MGM playing the part of the little kid who just wants the bickering to end so they can go live with Dad (played by Peter Jackson). And New Line has taken on the part of sadistic mother (note: not all mothers are sadistic, just the one in this scenario) -- a force hell-bent on keeping the luxurious home (ie: The Hobbit) all three once shared together.

Regardless, MGM still owns the distribution rights, so they will remain involved with this for now. And, like a typical kid, insist the Peter Jackson saga is not over ... yet. They remain optimistic, and I'm sure will do what they can to get mom and dad on the same page. However, like with most divorces, it's all about money -- and one can expect New Line not to budge even a tiny bit. In fact, they might already have a substitute dad in line to replace Jackson. According to Cinema Blend, they've received a few emails from different people who claim Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amelie) is at the top of the "How the f*ck do we replace Peter Jackson?" list. Granted, this is also the guy who brought us Alien: Resurrection (why do I feel as if some major LOTR fan just threw something at their computer). Yes, these are only rumors coming from anonymous people who may or may not have a clue -- but it's certainly a start.

Perhaps we should address the question: Who do you get to replace Peter Jackson?

Our wonderful friends over at Autoblog have a few movie-related posts this week. I love when Cinematical and Autoblog can share in the interconnection between cinephilia and autophilia, because really what good is a movie without a couple cool cars? Plus, give or take a decade, film and automobiles are roughly the same age, and so their histories are interesting to parallel.

• Frank Filipponio posted Thursday about Hot Rod magazine's list of "Top 40 Car Movies." He points out the mag's editors were biased towards films featuring hot rods, such as #1 on the list, American Graffiti. He also mentions some titles he thinks deserved to be mentioned, such as The Transporter and Cars. I like the list, because I'm not a huge car buff, but I do love all the late '70s/early '80s cars/truckers/dumb cop movies like Smokey and the Bandit and The Cannonball Run, and I'm always happy to see them recognized. The list also gives credit to movies with famous car chases, such as The French Connection, and also to at least one historical car movie, Tucker: The Man and His Dream. Also, the list includes a cool key to help you find which movie to watch if you like hot babes, lots of music or teen angst, or if you have a preference for Fords, Chevys or Pontiacs.
  
• Also on Thursday, Alex Nunez wrote up a piece on an Australian promotional tie-in for the home video release of Cars. Inside those Down Under DVDs is a mail-in coupon with which you could win a Holden HSV GTS that is painted to slightly resemble the main character from the Pixar film. For those of you thinking about importing the DVD or even entering online, be aware that the sweepstakes is only open to residents of Australia.
  
• Sunday, Alex reported on the subject of Bond cars and how Ford is very happy to be featured in Casino Royale, not just with the new Aston Martin (typically associated with Bond) but also with their new Ford Mondeo. There's also a little bit of "dissing" going on from the car manufacturer in the direction of Toyota/Lexus.
  

Now that there's been a matter of, you know, 72 hours since the release of Casino Royale, enough time has passed for an assessment of the canon -- out of the James Bond films, which are the best? Well, it's easy to name the best seven -- and in doing so, draw our week of Bond pop-culture coverage here at Cinematical to an end. Bear in mind that this list is only worth noting as a source of minor-scale arguments -- which is exactly why it's fun. And now that my inner Rob Gordon is ready, let's talk about the best Bond films of all time ... In no particular order, except for number one.

7. Casino Royale

Yeah. It's in there. In the top third, most definitely. There's more in my review, but there's not a single part of this film I didn't enjoy -- or, if I wasn't enjoying it, I was at the very least respecting it as part of the plot, as an attempt to set mood or build character, to tackle the backbreaking stoop labor of thriller-style exposition. Craig is a great Bond, and it felt real -- like the sort of thing that may, in fact, happen in something like the real world. Well, not the kick-ass free-running sequence, but still. Oh, and also: There are computers and cell phones in Casino Royale, and only one piece of gadgetry was essential to the film. Everything else? Guns, knives, fists, phones. It's down-to-the-ground stuff, and it's amazing to watch.

Wow, this one really sucks and you hardcore LOTR fans will not be happy at all. Heck, I'm not the biggest LOTR junkie, but even I feel as if some gigantic ape creature just kicked me in the nuts ... repeatedly. The One Ring.net has just received an email from Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh that basically says he will not be directing The Hobbit nor this supposed second LOTR-based film. Why? Well, because he'd rather make a prequel to King Kong. (Kidding, but something tells me I'd prefer that move over the one that's going down as we speak.)

Okay, the real reason has to do with a lawsuit Jackson and company have pending against New Line that has to do with "certain accounting pratices" that took place following The Fellowship of the Ring. Recently, there was word that MGM was trying to obtain the rights to LOTR from New Line in order to make two films, one being an adaptation of The Hobbit. MGM claimed they were in talks with Peter Jackson. However, Jackson was not present for these talks, only MGM's vivid imagination was. According to Jackson, New Line will be going ahead with the films, but since Jackson refuses to make them until the lawsuit is discussed, New Line has told him they "would no longer be requiring our services on The Hobbit and the LOTR prequel." And if that doesn't jam the nail straight into the coffin inside our hearts, these final words from Jackson certainly will: "This outcome is not what we anticipated or wanted, but neither do we see any positive value in bitterness and rancor. We now have no choice but to let the idea of a film of The Hobbit go and move forward with other projects."

New Line is currently looking for another filmmaker to bring The Hobbit and that LOTR prequel to the big screen. That's the good news. The bad news? Both films will probably suck.

[via AICN]

It's Casino Royale weekend! Sadly, it also means our (00)7 Days of James Bond will be drawing to a close as well. For your enjoyment and consideration, we've consolidated all of the opening gun barrel sequences to the James Bond films here.

I used to think this was a camera shutter when I was younger. It was only later that I finally realized it was a rifled gun barrel. Imagine my chagrin at all those years of wondering, "Why does James Bond not like photographers?"

Some trivia:

• The first three films didn't even have a Bond actor in this sequence. They were all filmed using stuntman Bob Simmons.
• Sean Connery made his debut as Bond the in the gun barrel sequence with Thunderball.
• Lazenby was the only Bond to drop to one knee while firing.
• Bond wore a hat and fired one-handed until 1973's Live And Let Die.
• Since The Spy Who Loved Me, Bond only wears a tuxedo in the opening, although that appears to change in the new film.
  
• 1985's A View To A Kill features a text card just before the sequence stating that the Max Zorin character does not reflect any person or company in real life.
• Die Another Day has Bond's gun firing a bullet that you actually see passing through the assassin's gun barrel. Nice shot, Mr. Bond. This was done to commemorate the 20th Bond film, and to celebrate more than 40 years of Bond.
  
• In the teaser trailer for Casino Royale, Daniel Craig is actually in a tiled restroom when he turns and fires, not the normal white background.
• The sequence was shot through a pinhole camera in an actual rifle barrel until GoldenEye. It has been CG-animated ever since.

Now get out there and check out the new Bond flick -- after first checking for snipers, of course. ...

One of the pleasures of anticipating a new James Bond film is considering which singer or band would be most appropriate to add themselves to the long and diverse list of James Bond themes. (Wouldn't a Radiohead theme song be just great? Or the Pixies?) It's almost like winning some kind of award. These songs will likely be revived and re-packaged for generations to come. Not all of the choices have been particularly timeless ("The Living Daylights" by A-ha), and many others are not without a cheeseball flavor (Tom Jones strutting through "Thunderball"). It's also obvious that a great song does not guarantee a good movie, and vice-versa. Hence, as terrific as the new Casino Royale is, the new song by Chris Cornell is only so-so.

In choosing my seven, I decided to omit Monty Norman's original, instrumental theme, written for Dr. No (1962), but used again in various forms throughout the series.

1. "Goldfinger," by Shirley Bassey
Bassey and the Sean Connery era go together like "martini" and "shaken, not stirred." She had that bold, brassy voice that sounded not unlike the wah-wah horns or the twangy guitar that accompany all that 1960s music. It's the most instantly recognizable song, and the most closely associated with its specific film. Plus how can you not love those bizarre rhymes, like "Midas touch" with "spider's touch" and "Goldfinger" with "cold finger"? Pure genius! Bassey returned to record "Diamonds Are Forever" (1971) and "Moonraker" (1979), the latter for an undeserving Roger Moore.

Early in Casino Royale, the head of British Intelligence, M (Dame Judi Dench) makes an offhand comment about how her job used to be much more simple: "Christ, I miss the Cold War." Well, that makes two of us, lady -- and the good news is that Casino Royale, the latest film celebrating the adventures of double-0 agent James Bond (Daniel Craig) is a great, gripping throwback to the Cold War intrigue, action and brutality of the early, best Bond films; in fact, Casino Royale is hands down the best action film of 2006.

My understanding and appreciation of the Bond character can pretty much be summed up in one written phrase -- and, ironically, it's not one by Ian Fleming. George Orwell noted how "We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm." That, to, me, is Bond -- he may stand ready in a great-looking suit, but nonetheless -- and fortunately, Casino Royale seems to understand that. Bond is a tool, a thug, what M calls "... a blunt instrument," Her Majesty's Neckbreaker. At the beginning of Casino Royale -- in a black-and-white pre-credit sequence -- Bond isn't even a double-0 agent yet. He's working on earning his wings, explaining to a fellow intelligence officer that he's already killed a man on orders. "How did he die?" Craig, as Bond, answers with a weary predator's smile: "Badly."

One more day until Casino Royale hits the theaters. Are you excited about it yet? Have you been following all of the Bond coverage and pretending that you're a superspy? I've personally had the Goldfinger theme song stuck in my head for days. At first, it made small errands (like going to the post office) fun and exciting. I'd pretend I was on a secret mission, and that the stamp on my letter contained a secret microdot that had to get to New York by Saturday. After that was another death-defying mission at the grocery store (plans for the enemy's HQ hidden in the canned vegetables). However, at this point I'm going a bit mental. Get out of my head, Shirley Bassey!

Hopefully my mental slippage won't be too obvious as we immerse ourselves in Part Two of the History of Bond Films. If you missed the first part, you can catch up quickly and be ready for Casino Royale by Friday. Make it your mission, in fact. "Gooollllldifing ... " er, sorry.

Onwards through the doors of MI6 and into Bond history we go -- just don't call me Moneypenny.

I won't keep it a secret from anyone: I couldn't care less about James Bond. Maybe I'm not a man's man. Maybe I'm not a proper film critic. Maybe I just don't have the time to watch all the 007 movies in order to convince myself that they're not all the same. Whatever the reason for my disinterest in the series, the painful truth is that I'm completely lost when it comes to discussing Bond. This could be why I don't hang out with a lot of movie geeks. Or, more likely, why they don't hang out with me.

It would make sense for my disinterest in Bond to extend to the films that parody the character and the series. Sure, I appreciate a good spoof, but there's not much enjoyment for me in a joke I don't get. So, just as I don't have a desire to watch the Scary Movie franchise because I don't watch the horror movies it makes fun of, I probably wouldn't like a concentrated spoof of the Bond franchise. Luckily for me, most Bond parodies aren't strictly a series of specific jokes and gags that I don't understand. They typically have something more to offer. And those that I can appreciate and enjoy are due to my having a general, pop-cultural knowledge of Bond films, a taste for simple satire and a preference for liberal, anarchic and random humor.

So, I've made a list of ways in which Bond has been spoofed that are accessible to the non-Bond-fan. There are others out there, from pornographic parodies to obscure foreign takes on the character, but I'll let the real 007 aficionados seek out every spoof out there. ...

James Bond films are always known for their action, sex appeal, explosions, guns, vehicles, Bond girls ... and the opening credit sequences. I still remember being about twelve years old and seeing Octopussy (I'm really dating myself here). My friend and I were like, "Holy crud. You can almost see naked women!" Yes, when you're twelve years-old and living in Texas, that's some pretty exciting stuff. Although these were the days before the Internet was invented, so that's probably all changed now. Believe me, it was hard enough convincing my mom to let us go see a movie called Octopussy.

The point is that the Bond film openings are meant to ooze sex and mystique. They all do an extremely good job of that, except Dr. No which is all wacky flashing lights until about halfway through, and then it morphs into a semi-sexy "Samba Lessons for Adults" sequence, and then jumps the shark into bizarro-land with a Jamaican version of "Three Blind Mice" ... we kid you not. They figured it out by From Russia With Love, and every Bond movie has had a similar opening sequence ever since.

Since we brought you every Bond movie trailer imaginable on Monday, you can find every Bond opening title sequence after the jump. YouTube user jmkaos, if you're out there reading this, thanks for all your hard work. The first martini is on us. (We can expense those, right?)

While attending the London world premiere of Casino Royale, MGM chief Harry Sloan talked a little bit about the studio's upcoming film slate, which (for the time being) includes those highly anticipated Hobbit films. Last we heard, MGM was in discussions with New Line for the rights to produce two Hobbit pics, though we weren't sure whether Peter Jackson would be involved or not. Most of you felt the same way I did -- no Jackson, no way. Well, the good news is Sloan admitted that MGM was in talks with Jackson to "make" (once again, we're not sure if that means as a director, a producer or both) two films based around the Lord of the Rings prequel.

And the bad news? Those discussions with New Line won't go anywhere until Jackson settles up a lawsuit he has with the studio over a ton of dough from the franchise that he feels he's entitled to. Drats. We hate lawsuits. However, Sloan felt confident the films would get made, and said that the first would be a direct adaptation of The Hobbit, while the second "would be drawn from footnotes and source material connecting The Hobbit with The Lord of the Rings." I'm not so sure about that second film, but the first one definitely needs to get made.

In case you're interested, Sloan talked more about The Pink Panther sequel, The Thomas Crown Affair follow-up and whether or not Rocky Balboa would continue to fight well into his 80s. Personally, I'd like to see a Rocky film that features him fighting over a game of Bingo in a retirement home. " Yo Adrian, I did it -- BINGO!"

Unless you've been hiding under a rock or working on an off-world colony for the past several months, then you know that the 21st James Bond film, Casino Royale, will be hitting theaters this Friday. It promises all the explosions, car chases, fistfights and gunplay that you've come to expect from a Bond film, and an even more emotional Bond, which we might have to get used to.

In preparation for Friday, we're summing up all of the previous Bond movies by capsulizing the plots and picking out our key favorite moments. Oh, who am I kidding, these are my favorite Bond memories. I grew up on these films, reading the novels, playing the role-playing game, obsessively reading the Q Branch Manual to find out about Bond's gadgets. I also must have played GoldenEye on the Nintendo 64 a trillion times, so I like to consider myself somewhat of a Bond-o-phile. Roger Moore was the reigning 007 when I was growing up, but I watched the Sean Connery Bond films on tape, and was sold on his coolness vs. Moore's. This led to an enormous rift between me and my best friend, who idolized Moore (and his dad kind of looked like him). Although we both agree that the latest Bond films are a lot of fun, I think we still want to butt heads over who is the best Bond.

Luckily, you don't have to have seen any of the previous Bond films to "get" the next one, but this little history can help you appreciate all of the effort that has gone into the series. We're serving it up to you shaken, of course ... never stirred.