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Last month it was announced that director Tarsem Singh had cast Slumdog Millionaire star Freida Pinto in his upcoming Greek mythology film, War of Gods. If that wasn’t enough for the budding actress, she has now landed an always coveted role: the world famous Bond Girl.

Pinto has been cast as the female lead opposite of returning star Daniel Craig in the upcoming 23rd installment in the massive James Bond franchise, which has now entered its truly astounding 6th decade of feature films. This latest chapter in the adventures of the super-suave spy will be directed by Sam Mendes, who is best known for fantastic films like American Beauty, Road to Perdition, and Revolutionary Road. Mendes has always been more of an awards-worthy film maker to date, and it looks like he’s ready to finally have a little fun with this new project.

When it comes to the James Bond franchise, everything is pretty much fair game in terms of cast and crew. Approaching the 23rd film in the series, anyone can direct a chapter and there’s absolutely no issues with recasting the role of James Bond himself after an actor has contributed to a few of the flicks. Since Daniel Craig took over the famed title in 2006’s Casino Royale, Bond has reached a whole new level of quality and entertainment. Martin Campbell directed that chapter, which was followed up with Marc Forster’s Quantum of Solace, and now we know who will handle the duties for Bond 23: Sam Mendes.

Much like Forster (Monster’s Ball, Finding Neverland), Mendes is not a director who plays in the realms of action movies very often. His best work to date is the Best Picture winning American Beauty, which he has followed up with many loved and respected films such as Road to Perdition, Jarhead, and Revolutionary Road.

Jarhead
Directed by Sam Mendes
Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper, Peter Sarsgaard
Universal Home Entertainment
Release Date: November 25, 2008

Fighting enemies that you can’t really see and for a cause that you don’t fully grasp. That is what the Marines were doing in the Middle East in the late 1980s and early 90s for months and then years (they were slated to be stationed here for only a couple of weeks). Does that sound familiar in our day?

Sam Mendes shows us why he won Best Director for American Beauty. He was born to work the camera and he throws his patented touches in the film to show us what he really believes is going on in the minds and dreams of these rattled soldiers. Rather than look for or fight the enemy they sit and play cards, talk about each other’s girlfriends, and play football the entire day while they should be at home with their families and attending college. Jake Gyllenhaal is Sawford (based on the true story of this man, who also wrote a book in 2003 about his experience) and Jamie Foxx as the battalion’s staff sergeant. Jarhead shows us what these soldiers did to make the time pass and how anxious one gets in the heat of battle.

In an apparent effort not to let fans suffer too much, Columbia Pictures has acquired the rights to Preacher, the very popular, very violent comic. Their current plan seems to be to make this into a big-screen adaptation with Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Road to Perdition) — an interesting choice — attached to direct.

Preacher was recently heading for a HBO TV series run, which most fans seemed to think was the best option; they wouldn’t have to squish all the good stuff in a two-hour movie and they could violently squish a lot more things without fear of the dreaded NC-17 rating. These plans didn’t play out, however, and the project was killed off by HBO before now being picked back up by Columbia.