Donnie Darko Sequel Announced

Fox has secured the North American rights to distribute S. Darko , the upcoming sequel to the grossly-overrated 2001 cult favorite Donnie Darko .  Daviegh Chase will reprise her role as Donnie’s younger sister, who is now 18, and on a roadtrip with her friend when she becomes ‘plauged by bizarre visions’.  Chris Fisher, who previously directed the critically-acclaimed Nightstalker and the beloved classic, Rampage: The Hillside Strangler Murders , will helm. Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly is not involved in the production of the sequel.  The film’s budget is set at $10 million and will begin filming May 18.

Source: Donnie Darko sequel S. Darko starts shooting May 18 - ScreenDaily.com

Super High Me

Super High Me sounds interesting on paper. “Stoner comedian Doug Benson abstains from marijuana for 30 days and then consumes a large quantity of the drug for 30 days.” Ohhhhh man, right? Alas, all you really learn from the experiment is that Doug Benson likes marijuana.

Vignettes that build a case for federally de-criminalizing medical marijuana add some gravitas to the proceedings, but the film undercuts its own argument by exploiting a doctor’s signature for a decidedly non-medical purpose.

Grade: C

Super High Me is rated R and begins screening nationwide on April 20 (heh).

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead

It’s a mightily patronizing thing to suggest, yet it’s impossible to resist doing so: Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead , the latest film from 83-year-old director Sidney Lumet, feels like a movie that might have come straight out of Cannes from a fresh new talent. It’s really a film from a seasoned veteran filmmaker with the impressive ability to subtly reinvent his style without sacrificing the core elements that solidified him as a master in the first place. Lumet himself has commented on this matter, saying he finds it curious critics feel the need to begin their reviews of Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead by mentioning his age. Well, it’s because Devil is not only a great film, but one that feels incredibly modern, and coming from an 83-year-old man, that somehow amazes us. I guess we’re all a bunch of closet ageists for assuming older directors should make plodding films with boring plots. But Clint Eastwood, Lumet is not. (Yes, I went there.)

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Sneak Peek: Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden?

Super Size Me ’s Morgan Spurlock took on the challenge of tracking down Osama Bin Laden for his latest hyperbolic ploy for attention documentary, Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden .

MTV has an exclusive look at the first five minutes of the film .

Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden? opens in theatres April 18th, 2008.

The Tracey Fragments

Ellen Page stars as 15-year-old Tracey Berkowitz in the upcoming Bruce McDonald film, The Tracey Fragments. Filmed and edited entirely in fragmented split-screen shots to evoke the feeling of a troubled teen’s addled thoughts pasted together, the movie follows the story of young Tracey as she searches the town for her brother who has been hypnotized to think he is a dog. Broken Social Scene provides the prerequisite indie-rockin’ soundtrack.

The Tracey Fragments opens in New York City on May 9th, 2008, with a wider release to follow.

The Fall

Ain’t It Cool News has an exclusive look at the one-sheet for Tarsem’s upcoming visual feast, The Fall.

The film’s site has also launched, and includes a trailer, image gallery, synopsis, download section, and more.

The Fall is currently scheduled to open in limited release on May 9, 2008.

Run, Fat Boy, Run

If nothing else, this Michael Ian Black-penned romantic comedy generates actual laughter, unlike Stella-mate Michael Showalter’s wretched rom-com The Baxter.

Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead) plays a genial but hapless commitment-phobe who vows to finish a marathon in an attempt to win back the pregnant fiancée (Thandie Newton) he fled on his wedding day. Spoiler: He succeeds!

What elevates Fat Boy above standard romantic comedy fare is, dare I say, fart jokes and short shorts — sour patches of levity amid the sweetness. It’s There’s Something About Mary with a British sensibility.

Grade: B

Run, Fat Boy, Run is rated PG-13 and in theatres now.

Mister Foe Soundtrack

We’ve been getting a lot of traffic lately from people searching for the soundtrack to Mister Foe. As mentioned in our review, the film has a unique soundtrack comprised exclusively of songs from artists on the label Domino Records. Mister Foe already had its theatrical run in the U.K. under the title Hallam Foe, so that’s the search term you’ll need to use at this point. When Mister Foe has its theatrical run in the U.S. in May, the soundtrack may be released with the ‘Mister’ title on a U.S.-based distribution label. Until then, at least for folks in the U.S., the only option will be to import.

• Hallam Foe OST on Amazon

• Hallam Foe OST on CDUniverse

Rainbow Around the Sun

Two weeks ago at the 2008 South By Southwest Film Festival, rock musical Rainbow Around the Sun made its theatrical debut. The film’s directors, Oklahoma City filmmakers Kevin Ely and Beau J. Leland, talked a bit about their debut screening jitters on the film’s website:

“Saturday night was our world premiere screening at the Alamo Drafthouse; we were all a bundle of nerves early in the day but as the time got closer we just got more and more excited. Several people associated with the film made it down for the premiere, and around the dinner hour Matt led an impromptu mouthgarden parade down 6th street, singing and handing out mustaches to hundreds of confused onlookers. Some Austinites even joined in on the parade themselves.

Then came the screening. Even though we shot and edited Rainbow in HD, we had never screened the film in its native format. When the theater manager took us into the screening house to spot check our projection, the images really took our breath away. Kudos to the Alamo Lamar for their top notch theater and staff.

At first it looked like a light house, but by the screening time the theater was mostly full, and everyone seemed ready for some fun. Even with our cleaned-up-but-still-temp sound mix, the movie looked and sounded spectacular. I was in too much of a glee-induced haze to really gage the crowd response, but everyone seemed to dig it and we had a really fun Q&A afterwards. Matt even got to sell a bunch of CD’s in the parking lot.”

Rainbow Around the Sun follows the story of hard-drinking musician Zachary Blasto, who retreats into an elaborate fantasy world when confronted with his life problems. Eventually, the real world and fantasy world begin to intermix, and Blasto is forced to deal with his real-world issues when the characters of his fantasy world no longer play along and comfort him. The film unfolds in an episodic format, much like the individual tracks on a music album, and scenes are inter-cut with animated hallucinations.

The film has received generally positive reviews coming out of SXSW, with the occasional negative criticism usually focusing on the film’s low-budget feel. Rainbow plays next at the 2008 Florida Film Festival on April 4th. This definitely looks like a film to keep an eye on. The film’s trailer is below.

Big Buck Bunny

The term ‘open source’ has long been associated primarily with computer code. It refers to a software author’s choice to allow anyone to access the code of his or her work, and to modify and redistribute it as they see fit. With the introduction of the Creative Commons license in the past decade, these principles have spread to other types of work, including music, images, and now… movies?

Big Buck Bunny is a short, computer-animated film created by a talented group over at the Blender Institute. Upon the film’s release, all of its assets, including animation data, textures, and character models, will be released under the Creative Commons license. The complete finished film will be released under the same license. In short, this means anyone with the technical know-how will be able to take all of the data used to create the film and do whatever they want, or re-edit and tinker with the film as they see fit.

The film’s production has been financed through commercial sponsors, the Blender Foundation, Paypal donations, and DVD pre-sales. In a world of draconian digital rights management and often unnecessarily restrictive copyright laws, it is refreshing to witness open source principles spreading to new mediums.

Big Buck Bunny will premiere April 10th, 2008 at Cinema Studio K in Amsterdam. If you hail from the Netherlands or just so happen to be passing through, it might be worth checking out. Otherwise, the DVD can be pre-ordered through Blender’s e-Shop.

Click here to view Big Buck Bunny’s trailer

Also note: Elephants Dream was the world’s first open source animated film. It can be viewed in its entirety here.