Filming has begun in for the new cinematic adaptation of the Warren Ellis graphic novel, Red. The Summit Entertainment production started principle photography in Toronto this week, and with a strong cast and crew, it looks to find some of that sought after success in the world of comic book adaptations.

The film’s impressive cast features Bruce Willis, Mary-Louise Parker, Academy Award®-winners Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, Richard Dreyfuss, and Ernest Borgnine, John Malkovich, Karl Urban (Star Trek, Lord of the Rings), Brian Cox (Super Troopers, Troy), Julian McMahon (Fantastic Four, Nip/Tuck), James Remar (Dexter, Battlestar Galactica) and Rebecca Pidgeon (The Unit, The Shield).

In what is growing to be a certain cult classic one day, Piranha 3D is the actual title of a movie that is on its way to us right this very moment.

The Dimension Films production is directed by Alexandre Aja, who is no newcomer to the horror genre having helmed the remake of The Hills Have Eyes and also Mirrors. Even though the production is a 100% intentional B-movie production, it has a major cast, which makes the film feel like it could be all the more fun. The cast includes Elisabeth Shue, Richard Dreyfuss, Eli Roth, Jerry O’Connell, Kelly Brook, Adam Scott, Christopher Lloyd, and Ving Rhames.

Some delays have stalled the project a couple of times, but now Piranha 3D has an official release date and a plot synopsis that you have to read. The film will be released nationwide on August 27, 2010.

Click on over to read the synopsis!

W
Directed by Oliver Stone
Starring Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Banks, James Cromwell, Ellen Burstyn, Thandie Newton
Lionsgate

Long gone were Presidents Kennedy and Nixon when Oliver Stone decided to dissect them back in the 1990s and those two films (JFK and Nixon) turned out just fine. With President George W. Bush, Stone is not only dealing with a sitting president, but is dealing with the fact that good ole W is among the most discussed presidents of all-time.

Go ahead, try and turn on a news station that isn’t discussing this man’s calamities. It’s impossible. That fact alone would dissuade most directors. But Stone handles W’s issues and dilemmas with a keen understanding and a unique freshness that results in a fascinating foray into W’s desire to break away from his family’s name, but at the same time be accepted by them. Let the debates begin.

Stone’s tactic isn’t to give the audience a lecture or a PowerPoint presentation on the 43rd President of the United States. W (Josh Brolin) isn’t like Lincoln or Washington, or, any president for that matter. Most of them are made out to be monuments, not alcoholic, spoiled, feckless men like the young W. Those prestigious presidents would fill the movie screen in searing dramas and portraits of history that would be directed by the likes of Spielberg.

W.
Directed by Oliver Stone
Starring Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Banks, James Cromwell, Ellen Burstyn
Rated PG-13
Release Date: October 17, 2008

Any comedian will tell you the secret to a good joke is to make it accessible, have a good setup, and kill with the punch line. I don’t know that there is necessarily a golden formula but this seems like pretty sound advice on a general level. I suppose variations of the same thing can be said about making movies. Director Oliver Stone had nothing if not a golden setup. A movie about the exiting President of the United States, while he is still in office, mere days before the election that would remove him from power, and with just enough time to reflect on his last eight years in office. Stone, being no stranger to controversy or films of historical significance, seemed to be in a perfect position to move in for the kill. Instead we got what those in retail refer to as the old “˜bait and switch’.

W. does show us what we expected to see from this movie; that George W. Bush (Josh Brolin) grew up as a hard partying man of privilege who rarely had to deal with consequences for anything he did or said. He was an irresponsible, womanizing, carousing, spoiled little rich kid who wouldn’t and couldn’t hold a job. Any trouble he got into was fixed by a phone call from his father, George H.W. Bush (James Cromwell). It also told how Dubya fell ass-backwards into politics and eventually became the leader of the free world. It would almost be an inspiring “little engine that could” type story, if not for knowing the details about how everything actually turned out. The pre-release posters and trailers suggested the movie would be a caustic illustration of the rise and fall of the 43rd President of the United States. Turns out, W. shows a surprising lack of poignancy, political or otherwise.