Slow-motion "Matrix" style derry-doing? Heat seeking missile-like fireballs? A floating ship (or whatever the heck that is)?  This is some pretty high octane "Three Musketeers" business.

This trailer doesn't make me feel like my mother, but my great, great grandmother: "What the? Why are these actors talking? Where's Douglas Fairbanks? Not Junior, Senior?!"

Well, it had to happen. Whenever a classic has a three in its title, and especially an action packed Alexander Dumas classic, you can bet on the 3-D cinematic experience. Next! Edward Albee's "Three Tall Women" in eye popping 3-D! Watch three women talk and ... throw things at the camera!

O.K., enough.

This one, directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, boasts a great cast: Orlando Bloom, Logan Lerman, Chritoph Waltz and Milla Jovovich. And a better interpretation of Dumas' lyricism regarding stuff that flies in your face. Well, that's what the movie thinks anyway.

 

Here comes the Irwin Allen of Super-Hero movies -- "The Justice League."

Chock full of not, iconic stars (like Gene Hackman, Shelley Winters, Red Buttons and Ernest Borgnine of Irwin Allen-dom) but iconic characters, it looks like Warner Bros. is going to throw more DC Comic heroes at us --  in one movie.

At this point, I'm not exactly surprised or excited. I mean, it could be three things: Great, so-so or awful.

Now if Red Buttons and Shelley Winters were making an appearance, I'd be stoked ...

Here's more from The Huffington Post:

"This year, Green Lantern (starring Ryan Reynolds) is hitting the big screen. In 2012, both Batman and Superman will get their own feature films in which to play hero. A year later, they may all team up.

"In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Jeff Robinov, the new Warner Bros. motion picture group president, revealed that a big part of his strategy for the studio going forward is movies based on DC Comics heroes. So it only makes sense that he plans on putting them all together in one film, a big screen adaptation of The Justice League.

"Comprised of major heroes such as Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, The Flash and Wonder Woman, the Justice League is the ultimate crime fighting force, though Marvel's Avengers, which is already getting its own big screen adaptation, have a very legitimate case for disagreement.

 

Coming Soon has some news on a movie I've been greatly anticipating -- "The Rum Diary," starring Johnny Depp, adapted from Hunter S. Thompson's novel, which is largely autobiographic.

If you remember, and you should, Depp played Thompson in Terry Gilliam's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." He also became great friends with the infamous writer and will hopefully, do this material proud.

As of now, we've got a release date. Finally. Let's see if it sticks.

Here's more from Coming Soon.

"While attending the CinemaCon opening night party last night, our good friend and colleague Kino Katey from CinemaBlend noticed a still from Bruce Robinson's 'The Rum Diary' flashing on the screen with a release date of October 28, 2011.

"This long-in-development movie returns Johnny Depp to the crazy world of Hunter S. Thompson, a character he played in Terry Gilliam's 1998 movie 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,' but this time it's based on one of Thompson's works of 'fiction' in which Depp will play journalist Paul Kemp who gets frustrated with New York and moves to Puerto Rico to write for a local newspaper.

 

I have no idea how the "The Hangover Part II" will hold up, but I do like this poster.

It's actually scary. If you weren't aware of the first picture, you might mistake it for a horror movie.
 

From the Nicolas Ray noir, "They Live By Night," to two of Alfred Hitchcock's finest, "Rope" and "Strangers on a Train," actor Farley Granger left quite a career behind him.

The actor passed away Sunday from natural causes in Manhattan. He was 85 years old.

The AP wrote:

"Granger was a overnight Hollywood success story: He was a 16-year-old student at North Hollywood High School when he got the notion that he wanted to act and joined a little theater group.

"Talent scouts for movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn saw the handsome youngster and signed him to a contract. His first movie was 'The North Star' in 1943.

"'It was one of those miracle careers,' he said. 'I had no talent and no training whatsoever and suddenly I was thrown ... (in) with Walter Huston, Erich von Stroheim, Anne Baxter, Ann Harding and Walter Brennan.'

"A decade later, at the height of his Hollywood stardom, he walked away from it — to really learn his craft. He spent the rest of his career in a mix of movies, television and stage work."

 

Oh, brother.

My mother is not going to like this news. As a voracious Agatha Christie reader, Jennifer Garner is not her Miss Marple. In fact, she's likely not the Miss Marple any fan of Christie wants to see.

But alas, we can't have an old spinster playing the part, now can we? Well, we can, and anyone from Helen Mirren to Judi Dench would do a bang-up job with the iconic sleuth.

Here's more from the Huffington Post:

"This beloved classic is getting a facelift. Quite literally.

"Disney has closed a deal for a big screen reboot of Agatha Christie's 'Miss Marple' mystery novel series, and the House of Mouse is making substantial changes to the story. Deadline reports that, instead of the British grandma Jane Marple portrayed in the books and in previous big screen incarnations, the film series will instead feature a young, far more svelte amateur sleuth, to be played by Jennifer Garner.

"Garner, of course, has plenty of screen experience when it comes to solving mysteries, starring in the longrunning TV spy show, 'Alias.' This will be a bit different; the novels, 12 in all, were written from the 1930-70's. Whether the films will stay in that considerable span of time, or be brought up to date has yet to be announced.

"Marple has been played by a number of notable actors, both on TV and the big screen. The first films starred Margaret Rutherford, while Angela Landsbury took on the role in the star-studded 'The Mirror Crack'd,' which included Tony Curtis and Elizabeth Taylor."

 

Did she, or didn't she dance?

That's been the controversy surrounding Natalie Portman's Oscar winning performance in "Black Swan" -- a controversy I find a bit silly given that she's an actress. Was James Franco supposed to cut off his arm too?

Nevertheless, there are those, including her dance double Sarah Lane, who are ticked that Portman and all of the brass behind her, claimed to train hard for the role, performing many of the moves herself.

After EW published the dancer's claim that Portman did very little of her on-screen dancing, director Darren Aronofsky released a statement through studio Fox Searchlight:  

Here from EW:

“Here is the reality. I had my editor count shots. There are 139 dance shots in the film. 111 are Natalie Portman untouched. 28 are her dance double Sarah Lane. If you do the math that’s 80% Natalie Portman. What about duration? The shots that feature the double are wide shots and rarely play for longer than one second. There are two complicated longer dance sequences that we used face replacement. Even so, if we were judging by time over 90% would be Natalie Portman.

"And to be clear Natalie did dance on pointe in pointe shoes. If you look at the final shot of the opening prologue, which lasts 85 seconds, and was danced completely by Natalie, she exits the scene on pointe. That is completely her without any digital magic. I am responding to this to put this to rest and to defend my actor. Natalie sweated long and hard to deliver a great physical and emotional performance. And I don’t want anyone to think that’s not her they are watching. It is.”
 

Zack Synder and his women has been all over the place this weekend.

First off, I couldn't get through a day on the internet without hearing someone carp about the sexism and nutty-but-not-in-a-g​ood-way problem with "Sucker Punch." And then comes the news of "Superman" casting. Amy Adams will play Lois Lane.

"A cougar!" claimed many, probably many who deemed "Sucker Punch" sexist.

Here's a way to describe the (gasp!) 8 year age difference via The Playlist:

"After a brief departure in 'Superman Returns,' where Kate Bosworth was 23 to Brandon Routh‘s 26 years old, they are returning to the popular dynamic of Lane being a smidgen older (and, likely, more professional) than Clark Kent, as Adams, 36, is paired with an actor, Henry Cavill, nearly a decade younger. Rowr. Adams follows in the footsteps of actresses like Bosworth, Margot Kidder, Erica Durance, Teri Hatcher and, apparently, Uma Thurman, who plays a “Lois Lane” in the star-studded upcoming comedy anthology 'Movie 43.'"