 After scaring audiences as a teen killer in We Need to Talk About Kevin, Ezra Miller will be tackling a decidedly lighter roles. He has The Perks of Being A Wallflower coming this year and Variety is reporting that Miller has signed on to star as one of Mia Wasikowska’s lovers in the new adaptation of Madame Bovary. This new adaptation written by Rose Barrenche, the script will maintain the period setting with the drama unfolding with a modern mentality.
Read more on Ezra Miller to play Mia Wasikowska’s lover in ‘Madame Bovary’…
 Logan Marshall-Green has been generating some nice career momentum with parts in The Devil and starring in the highly anticipated blockbuster Prometheus. He poised to take on his biggest role yet, tackling the great American playwright Tennessee Williams in a new biopic Lonely Hunter. Indiewire is reporting that the movie will be about Carson McCullers, writer of The Heart is A Lonely Hunter, as she hangs around Paris with her writer friends Williams and Truman Capote, as well as her tumultuous life. Jena Malone, who appeared in Sucker Punch, has been cast to play McCullers and Deborah Kampmeier (Hounddog) will direct.
Read more on ‘Prometheus’ actor Logan Marshall-Green to play Tennessee Williams in ‘Lonely Hunter’…
 A few weeks ago I selected ‘Mother’s Day’ as my PICK OF THE WEEK for the Weekly DVD Column here at The Awards Circuit (the link to that column is here). I had meant to publish this review beforehand, but here’s the thing…this movie is so mediocre it’s hard to come up with anything to write about it. Director Darren Lynn Bousman (he who directed 3 installments of the ‘SAW’ franchise and the rock opera ‘Repo: The Genetic Opera’) is a filmmaker well suited for this sort of grimy B movie, but his actual direction leaves something to be desired here. The film has been on the shelf for over 2 years, and it’s not hard to see why. Bousman tries a lot of things, but rarely is successful, partially due to a lazy script by Scott Milam and the mostly indifferent acting of the cast (though his pacing is terrible here). Everyone is over the top without really putting the effort in, except that is for Rebecca De Mornay. She gives an effectively chilling performance that’s deserving of a better movie than this one. We have a mostly boring slasher flick with one really good performance in it. That’s not nearly enough to lead to a recommendation, but it does save the film from falling into the crevice of being one of the worst films of the year. It’s just one of the most forgettable.
Read more on Mother’s Day (**)…
 If you’re looking for some levity in the midst of an election year, the Will Ferrell and Zack Galifianakis comedy ‘The Campaign’ might be for you. Poking fun at politicians and campaigns has been a staple for comedians and in trailer released today, the two comedians go for broke as two rival politicians vying for a Senate seat. Hijinks ensue including baby punching, yo mama jokes, and someone getting shot in the leg after the jump.
Read more on Ferrell and Galifianakis are rival politicians in ‘The Campaign’ trailer…
 It’s May! Contenders are still far on the horizon, the summer blockbuster season is quietly underway after the impressive showing of “The Avengers.” $200 million dollars? I still can and cannot believe it. With our revamp being brought to a close, official and frequent Oscar predictions have started and will continue to be updated. As you will see from the menu and the actual pages, there are some changes, most for the better. I’ve kept the basic “For It/Against It” as you click through the contenders. Anything outside of the predicted five or ten nominees are ranked accordingly. I’m still trying to figure out how I’m going to keep the ranking in perspective of the actual predicted nominees and I’m open to any suggestions. Otherwise, what you see is what you get. Now, on to actual Oscar talk which is pretty much the reason you all come here in the first place.
Predictions have begun with the NEW and IMPROVED official Oscar Predictions! I’ve begun in Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, and Supporting Actress. The rest will come periodically throughout the weekend. (MAKE SURE YOU CLICK ON THE PICTURES!)
These Oscar Circuit’s will be incredibly in-depth since there won’t be any place for me to include commentary on the actual pages. You can look on the sidebar for the updated Oscar Circuit’s as they become more and more frequent throughout the year.
Read more on Editor Oscar Circuit – “It’s time for a face lift”…
Categories: Editor, Oscar Circuit Tags: Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, best picture, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Daniel Day-Lewis, Django Unchained, Editor, Julianne Moore, Leonardo DiCaprio, Lincoln, Oscar Circuit, Quentin Tarantino, Steven Spielberg, The English Teacher, The Great Gatsby
This past Sunday, the great George Clooney celebrated his 51st birthday. Born May 6th, 1961 in Lexington, Kentucky, George Clooney comes from a family deeply involved in the world of show business. His father, Nick, was a former anchorman and game show host, while his mother, Nina, was a beauty pageant queen. More famously, he is the nephew to the great actress/singer Rosemary Clooney (who married actor José Ferrer).
Early in his acting career, Clooney appeared in a spread of television shows that included The Facts of Life, The Golden Girls, and Roseanne before becoming a major star as Dr. Doug Ross on the NBC hospital drama, ER. His first major film role was in Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn. His career only continued to skyrocket after that as he ventured into directing his first feature film in 2002, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.
Read more after the jump…
Read more on Circuit 3: George Clooney…
 Directed By: Tony Gilroy
Written By: Tony and Dan Gilroy (Based on Eric Van Lustbader’s novel of the same name from the universe created by Robert Ludlum)
Cast: Jeremy Renner, Edward Norton, Rachel Weisz, Joan Allen, David Strathairn, Albert Finney, Stacy Keach, Oscar Isaac, Scott Glenn, and Corey Stoll.
Synopsis (Courtesy of IMDB): A story centered on a new CIA operative in the universe based on Robert Ludlum’s novels.
Read more on Awards Profile: The Bourne Legacy…
 Eva Mendes turns in a decently good performance in the flawed coming of age dramedy ‘Girl in Progress’, but just about every other element of the film leaves more than a little bit to be desired. The movie is more like a series of plot points from a TV show than a theatrical release, and none of the points in the story are handled very well. Nothing about it is especially bad, but nothing outside of Mendes stuck out as anything better than average either. The movie wants to be hip and trendy while also upholding traditional values in a way, making it an inferior cousin to ‘Juno’ (the dialogue is also trying and failing to do that, but more on that later). Director Patricia Riggen and scribe Hiram Martinez have a specific goal in mind, but they pretty much keep it to themselves, settling for formula, predictable developments, and stereotypes instead. This all makes for a disconnect between the filmmakers and the audience, with the cast caught in the middle. I went into my screening of this flick with an open mind, but I left rather disappointed. Now that it’s opening for Mother’s Day Weekend, I can publish my review, and as you can see…I wasn’t a fan.
Read more on Girl in Progress (**)…
So last week, I made what I thought was a rather bold prediction that The Avengers might actually beat Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2’s opening weekend record with just over $170 million! Gosh, could it really happen? Well, yes…and then some. So with that, let’s get some obvious things out of the way. The film will make $1 billion in its theatrical run. Period. This will also put it in prime position for the top ten highest-grossing films of all time. That’s not a leap of faith. Finally, I’m not going out on a limb in predicting that The Avengers will be the first movie in history to rake in $100 million during its second weekend in theaters. What will be the unfortunate victim of this juggernaut’s second go-round?
Luckily, it’s arguably the most tired actor/director collaboration of modern times returning again to trot out tired macabre “kookiness” as the most banal form of recognizable cinematic branding. Their last work together, Alice in Wonderland, was the absolute worst film I saw in 2010. Of course, it also happened to be a smash hit. Dark Shadows – loosely, loosely, loosely based on the cult gothic fantasy soap opera – stars Depp as Barnabas Collins, a wealthy aristocrat who breaks the heart of a vengeful witch is cursed as a vampire and buried alive. Finally freed in 1972, he sets out to restore honor to the family name. Very little of this is based on the original story beyond a few characters, but hey, a vampire comedy might be refreshing in this age of sparkly vampires in theaters and oft-screwing creatures of the night on HBO. Then again, maybe not, since critics are characterizing the film as a tonally and narratively scattershot mess. I can’t imagine a lot of die-hard fans of the show itching to see this film and families won’t be as eager to see this the way they suffered through flocked to Alice in Wonderland. It’ll be making $25-30 million under the shadow of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.
Read more on Weekend Openings (May 11-13)…
 I’m quickly becoming a rather big fan of filmmaker Gavin O’Connor. I always liked his work, notably the hockey film ‘Miracle’, but last year he raised his game to outstanding levels with the severely underrated flick ‘Warrior’. Now, according to Deadline here, he seems to be tackling the Japanese set thriller ‘Yakuza’. He’s co-writing the project as usual, and it has quite a bit of potential I think, with him involved at least. After the jump you can read more about my thoughts on O’Connor, but at this point…when he makes a movie, I want to see it.
Read more on Warrior director Gavin O’Connor will next helm the film Yakuza!…
 To be sure, an online award voted on solely by the Italian public isn’t exactly a high profile precursor or anything (more than partly due to coming a few months after the Oscars…among other things), but any award that recognizes ‘Drive’ as its Best Picture and Nicolas Winding Refn as its Best Director is good in my book. Throw in other winners like Michael Fassbender for Best Actor and Carey Mulligan for Best Supporting Actress (both for ‘Shame’), and this is well worth sharing. You can see the full list of winners after the jump, but I’ll just say this…if only the Oscars could have looked more like this last year, then we’d all be a lot happier I think. Alas…
Read more on The Italian Online Movie Awards Honor ‘Drive’ with Best Picture!…
 Directed by: Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini
Written by: Michelle Morgan
Cast: Kriten Wiig, Darren Criss, Annette Bening, Matt Dillon, Natasha Lyonne, June Diane Raphael, Ronald Guttman, Michelle Hurt, Gil O’Brien, Mickey Sumner, and Nathan Corddry
Synopsis (courtesy of the website IMDb): A playwright stages a suicide in an attempt to win back her ex, only to wind up in the custody of her gambling-addict mother.
Read more on Awards Profile: Imogene…
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After scaring audiences as a teen killer in We Need to Talk About Kevin, Ezra Miller will be tackling a decidedly lighter roles. He has The Perks of Being A Wallflower coming this year and Variety is reporting that Miller has signed on to star as one of Mia Wasikowska’s lovers in the new adaptation of Madame Bovary. This new adaptation written by Rose Barrenche, the script will maintain the period setting with the drama unfolding with a modern mentality.
