Screenhead

Inkheart may well be the greatest public service advertisement ever released for literacy.

Seriously, in terms of getting kids interested in reading, there’s not going to be anything better than this adventure title.  Ever.  But will it make a good movie for anyone else?  Surprisingly, the answer is yes.

Inkheart, based on a novel series that spans three books and is actually in stores now, is about a seemingly average guy, with the unlikely career of book doctor.  For those of you who don’t know, book doctors take antique books and restore them to the best condition possible.  So it’s especially fitting that our seemingly average book doctor has a special gift.  He’s called a silvertongue, or the kind of person who can read a book aloud and bring whatever he read about into our world, living and breathing, where applicable.  Inkheart will go to great pains to show how incredibly specific this gift can get, including bringing out gold from the Forty Thieves’ treasure cave and Huckleberry Finn’s raft.

Anyway, our seemingly average silvertongued book doctor discovered his gift when he inadvertently brought a legion of bad guys from the book Inkheart into the real world and in the process lost his wife INTO the book.  Now he’s trying to get his wife back while dodging the bad guys, who are all desperate to bring one MORE character out of the book, the monstrous amorphous titan known as The Shadow who answers only to the leader of the villains of Inkheart.

If you’ve got a kid at home who isn’t THOROUGHLY convinced of the value of reading, take him or her to see Inkheart.  Like YESTERDAY.  This is almost GUARANTEED to get anyone under the age of ten frantically searching books looking for something interesting to bring into the real world.    Meanwhile, it’s also plenty of entertainment for everybody else, who’ll get to see a tautly plotted, action-packed masterwork lead by none other than Brendan Fraser, who’s still an amazing actor.  In fact, so much so that the book’s original author actually said she wrote the role specifically FOR Fraser.

Special mention needs to be made for The Shadow, a work of CG so thoroughly capable and well-executed that it’s almost downright believable.  Watching a hundred foot tall titan made of smoke ravage a castle is almost breathtaking in its intensity.  And The Shadow, frankly, is only the beginning of the great effects work.  Fire is the order of the day on the Inkheart set, and it’ll be flashing and jetting and burning around like half the print itself is on fire.  I haven’t seen this much fire in a movie since the last time I saw Clive Barker.

Even better is the movie’s pacing.  There are very few dull moments in Inkheart, adding up to a movie that will catch AND hold attention, a relative rarity for a Hollywood title.

And, just in case this wasn’t sufficient awesome for you, remember there are two other books in the series, thus the likelihood that there will be sequels.  Assuming, of course, you get out there and see Inkheart, which naturally, I’m recommending you do and in rapid fashion.

From the Hollywood Reporter comes word that New Line Cinema is planning a sequel to last year’s family fantasy hit Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D.

The film did pretty well, raking in four times its production value of $60 million and making a killing at video.

The sequel comes from Richard Outten’s Mysterious Travels spec script which combines the adventure stories of Gulliver’s Travels, Treasure Island and Mysterious Island.

The script is being retooled to fit Brendan Fraser and Josh Hutcherson’s characters from the first film.

I have to admit, when I got my hands on a copy of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, I was eyeing it like a dubious fish that someone set in my hands and requested I add to the soup.  No, no…this wouldn’t do at all.  They changed the Evey O’Connell.  Alex was a major character.  There wasn’t even REALLY a Mummy in this one.  And where’s Egypt?  Where’s Imhotep?  Nope, nope…not having this.  This is a slap in the face of established canon.  This is…this is actually not half bad.

That was about what it was like for me, watching this new Mummy installment.

This time, the O’Connells, along with college-age ne’er-do-well son Alex are off to China.  The elder O’Connells are there at the behest of the British government to return a priceless artifact, while Alex is there to oversee the museum opening of his first major archaeological find–the Dragon Emperor.  But a set of doublecrosses later brings the legendary Dragon Emperor back to life, and poises him to pick up where he left off, ready to conquer the world.  Now it’s up to all the O’Connells, and some new allies, to settle a brand new “mummy”s hash permanently.

A special advance heads-up on this one: purists WILL be offended.

I’m sorry, there’s just no better way to put it than that.  This is not the Mummy series you’ve come to know and love.  There’s a new Evey, like I said. Maria Bello, however, will handle the job just as ably as her predecessor.   Everything I’ve already said is fully applicable.  But it’s not all doom and gloom–Brendan Fraser is still a top-notch adventurer, and his son is definitely no slouch either.  Even Jonathan will be back with the team, and providing the comic relief we’re all used to.  There are even some improvements, and plenty of action and comedy and thrills to go around. For instance, there’s a great scene involving a truck full of fireworks in the middle of a Chinese new year celebration that’s just jaw-dropping.
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Keri Russell has signed on to star opposite Brendan Fraser and Harrison Ford in “The Untitled Crowley Project” for CBS Films. 

In this emotional drama, Russell plays Aileen Crowley, a wife and mother who relentlessly builds a normal, loving home life for her children while her husband, John Crowley (Fraser), and an unconventional scientist (Ford) race against time to build a company that could rescue them. The film is inspired by a true story.  Ford is also Executive Producer on the project.  Tom Vaughan (Starter for 10, What Happens in Vegas) is set to direct. 

Robert Nelson Jacobs (The Water Horse, Chocolat) wrote the screenplay, which was inspired by a Wall Street Journal article and subsequent book, “The Cure,” by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Geeta Anand. 

Most recently Keri Russell starred alongside Adam Sandler in Bedtime Stories. Prior to that film, she received critical acclaim for her starring role in Adrienne Shelly’s Waitress. Her other feature film credits include August Rush, Mission Impossible III, The Upside of Anger and We Were Soldiers.

Brendan Fraser is set to star in a live-action family comedy, Furry Vengeance, directed by Roger Kumble.

Fraser will play a real estate developer, whose new housing subdivision pushes far into a pristine part of the Oregon wilderness, pitting the developer against a band of angry critters according Variety’s article.

Production is set to start this summer when all the critters are out of hibernation.

From Production Weekly comes word that Brendan Fraser will play the titular role in Crowley, an upcoming drama being led by Harrison Ford.

The film is based on the true story of John and Aileen Crowley, whose two children had a rare genetic disorder. Crowley, instead of giving up hope that his children could not be cured, found a researcher (played by Ford) with a potential cure.

It is inspired by Geeta Anands book The Cure. The film is being executive produced by Harrison Ford and will begin shooting this April in Portland.

Mo has a unique talent of bringing characters out of books. Then, one night he brings three characters out form a book called Inkheart. Inkheart is a story during medieval times and filled with magical beings. Capricorn and Basta, two villains, and Dustfinger, a fire-eater are the magical beings. Mo’s daughter Meggie helps her father to escape the evil Capricorn.

Inkheart opens January 9, 2009 and stars Brendan Fraser, Paul Bettany and Helen Mirren.

Following the “overwhelming audience response” to Mummy: The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, Film School Rejects are reporting that Rob Cohen is already planning to make a fourth film in the franchise. Where will the next movie be set? Where else can you get mummies? Peru, of course!

Both Brendan Fraser and Maria Bello suggested South America to be the next location for the fourth film. Cohen had more to add.

“What I’m really happy about is that, by taking ‘The Mummy’ out of Egypt and putting it in China, by exploring a different approach to the quest for immortality, we now have it clear that the ‘Mummy’ franchise can travel,” he said. “Now we know that if we want to go to Mexico or we want to go to Peru, we can because there’s a cultural truth there of the mummies and these beautiful cultures… So I think that somehow that might make the basis of a good story.”

As expected, no release date was given, though you can expect to see the film in another three years.