Rama's Screen

We saw the first official photo and now MTV has the trailer for THE RUNAWAYS the biopic of the Joan Jett’s all female Rock n’ Roll band in the 70s. Apparition is releasing it on March 19th, 2010 after the movie makes its way first to Sundance.
The trailer is a lot of.. red.. their a-hole manager Michael Shannon insulting, while Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning throwing stuff and singing angry! This could turn out great, I like it. What do you think? Watch the trailer after the jump… Read the rest of this entry »

THE RUNAWAYS will make its way to the upcoming Sundance Film Festival. The first official image has showed up online, you can see the whole size after the jump. Is it wrong for me to say that Dakota Fanning looks absolutely stunning in that image? Because a decade ago she was just a little girl in I Am Sam.
EW and Riskybusiness reported that Apparition has picked up the US rights to THE RUNAWAYS and will release the biopic of the all female Rock n’ Roll band in theaters on March 19th, 2010. The movie hasn’t premiered at Sundance yet and it’s already got a date and a distributor, that’s cool and all but I remember this past year Apparition distributed Black Dynamite and Boondock Saints II which I thought were entertaining movies and yet they opened limited only in select cities and that stinks because not many got to enjoy them… Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Shannon and Noah Buschel

This past week I had a chance to interview writer/director Noah Buschel (Bringing Rain, Neal Cassidy) who has a great indie movie titled THE MISSING PERSON, recently released in select cities, I hope you guys get to watch it, a really cool mystery film starring Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road). Noah didn’t just talk about the film, he also talk about the unfortunate state that Independent Films are currently in, blaming it on Little Miss Sunshine and agents. Read the whole interview after this jump… Read the rest of this entry »

The Spy photos were cool, but now Omelete has scored big time again today by bringing the world the first official image of JONAH HEX. That’s the look of a guy you don’t wanna mess with, you don’t even wanna stare at his face. This shot oughtta be a poster. Josh Brolin plays the scarred, rough-and-tumble gunslinger bounty hunter tracking a voodoo practitioner (John Malkovich) who wants to raise an army of undead to liberate the South. Megan Fox plays Leila, a gun-wielding beauty and love interest of Hex. Will Arnett will play a Union soldier who enlists Hex and is blindsided by the dirty fighting style of his enemies. Michael Shannon will play Doc Cross Williams, the bizarre ringleader of a brutal gladiator circus event. Directed by Jimmy Hayward (Horton Hears A Who). View the whole image after this jump… Read the rest of this entry »

I like watching film noir but I don’t know if it’s the music or the narration but sometimes everything just feels so soothing, sometimes I’d fall asleep in the middle of watching noir.
Strand Releasing has released the trailer, via Apple, for THE MISSING PERSON starring Michael Shannon and Amy Ryan, 2 actors who were nominated for supporting performances in Revolutionary Road and Gone Baby Gone respectively, they play the lead in this mystery drama that premiered at Sundance ‘09 to mixed reviews.
The poster is via Cinematical. Check them all out after this jump… Read the rest of this entry »

I’m about to head out to Whittier for business but before I go, I figure we’d take the time to quickly familiarize ourselves with the following development. The adaptation THE WETTEST COUNTY IN THE WORLD based on a true story novel by Matt Bondurant has been housed at Columbia for a while with John Hillcoat (The Road) set as the director but the project was put in a turnaround. According to Hollywood Reporter, producers Douglas Wick and Lucy Fisher of Red Wagon (Jarhead, Girl Interrupted) want to reconfigure the process and finance it as an Indie gig and this has attracted A-list names.

Talented names like Shia LaBeouf, Scarlett Johansson, Ryan Gosling, Paul Dano and Michael Shannon have expressed their interest. The production hasn’t started yet, the cast hasn’t been confirmed yet, this is just to tell you where this project is right now at this very moment but if this does move forward, I think it will be the next big thing that we need to keep an eye on.

Here’s the official synopsis of the story…

“Based on the true story of Matt Bondurant’s grandfather and two granduncles, The Wettest County in the World is a gripping tale of brotherhood, greed, and murder. The Bondurant Boys were a notorious gang of roughnecks and moonshiners who ran liquor through Franklin County, Virginia, during Prohibition and in the years after. Forrest, the eldest brother, is fierce, mythically indestructible, and the consummate businessman; Howard, the middle brother, is an ox of a man besieged by the horrors he witnessed in the Great War; and Jack, the youngest, has a taste for luxury and a dream to get out of Franklin. Driven and haunted, these men forge a business, fall in love, and struggle to stay afloat as they watch their family die, their father’s business fail, and the world they know crumble beneath the Depression and drought.

White mule, white lightning, firewater, popskull, wild cat, stump whiskey, or rotgut — whatever you called it, Franklin County was awash in moonshine in the 1920s. When Sherwood Anderson, the journalist and author of Winesburg, Ohio, was covering a story there, he christened it the “wettest county in the world.” In the twilight of his career, Anderson finds himself driving along dusty red roads trying to find the Bondurant brothers, piece together the clues linking them to “The Great Franklin County Moonshine Conspiracy,” and break open the silence that shrouds Franklin County.

In vivid, muscular prose, Matt Bondurant brings these men — their dark deeds, their long silences, their deep desires — to life. His understanding of the passion, violence, and desperation at the center of this world is both heartbreaking and magnificent.”

Toronto Film Festival 2009 is happening next month and one of the movies that will make it debut there that week will be MY SON, MY SON, WHAT HAVE YE DONE, directed by Werner Herzog (Rescue Dawn). The trailer has hit the web, obviously it doesn’t have a distributor yet so there’s not telling at this point when it will hit theaters. It’s a psychological thriller starring 3 Oscar nominees, highly emphasized in the trailer, featuring lots of Ostriches. Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road, Bug) is perfect for this type of character.. disturbed, unstable, scary when he’s made up his mind on committing something. Willem Dafoe is also good playing that type as well but he’s at the other end of the spectrum this time, the negotiator. David Lynch lends his name, that explains the mood of the trailer but does knowing his involvement make you wanna see this movie? Notice the pecial cameo appearance by home of Comic-Con, the San Diego Convention Center.

Inspired by true events, My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done, is a story of ancient myth and modern madness. Brad Macallam, an aspiring actor performing in a Greek tragedy, commits the crime he is to enact in the play by killing his mother. The mystery unfolds in a series of flashbacks displaying the psychological destruction of the killer set off by an ill-fated white-water kayaking trip in a distant land.

If Heath Ledger wasn’t nominated for his Joker role in The Dark Knight, that best supporting actor Oscar would’ve easily gone to Michael Shannon. If you haven’t seen Revolutionary Road, I suggest rent it as soon as you can because Shannon’s magnificent performance literally stole the screen from Leo and Kate.
Shannon won’t have to doing many indie gigs for a while like he used to… because big budget offers are rolling in from left and right. He’s already in JONAH HEX and the remake of 13.

According to Hollywood Reporter, he’s signed on to star as one of the male leads in the biopic project THE RUNAWAYS based on the life of the first all female rock band in the 1970s led by Joan Jett and Cherie Curry who will be played by Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning.
No word yet on which character that Shannon will play and whether or not he’ll be personally or professionally involved with either one of the four members of the band.

THE RUNAWAYS is based on Jett’s 1970s girl rock band named The Runaways, the members were guitarists Jett and Lita Ford, drummer late Sandy West, singer-keyboardist Cherie Currie and bassist Jackie Fox.The band lasted about four years together, falling apart over management and money issues. The film will revolve around Jett and Currie and follow them from the band’s meteoric rise as teenagers to their dissolution and disillusionment
Written and directed by Floria Sigismondi, The film is expected to start production in 2009 and will work around Kristen Stewart’s NEW MOON schedules.

According to Hollywoodreporter, funnyman Will Arnett and Oscar nominee Michael Shannon have joined the cast of JONAH HEX, a movie adaptation based on the DC Comics character, to be directed by Jimmy Hawyward.
Josh Brolin plays the scarred, rough-and-tumble gunslinger bounty hunter tracking a voodoo practitioner (John Malkovich) who wants to raise an army of undead to liberate the South
Megan Fox plays Leila, a gun-wielding beauty and love interest of Hex

Will Arnett will play a Union soldier who enlists Hex and is blindsided by the dirty fighting style of his enemies. If you think he’s going to be the comic-relief in this movie, better think again because the report says that his role “not inherently comic”
I think Arnett’s actual hilarious days are behind him back in the short-lived series Arrested Development, after that, the gigs he’s been doing to make us laugh.. failed one after another.

Michael Shannon was brilliant Revolutionary Road, too bad he had to be nominated in the same year as Heath Ledger’s THE JOKER because otherwise Shannon would’ve snubbed that Oscar easily. In JONAH HEX, Shannon will play Doc Cross Williams, the bizarre ringleader of a brutal gladiator circus event. They’re already planning on having his character show up for the sequel.. wow there you go! The S word.. for “sequels” they don’t even know if the first movie’s going to bank money and yet they already unleashed the S word..Hollywood is unfreakin’believable!

JONAH HEX opens August 6th, 2010