Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis Sign Up for 'Substantial' Roles in 'Expendables 2' (BLOG)

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis have reportedly been locked for "The Expendables II". According to Deadline, the "Terminator" movie franchise hunk and the John McClane of "Die Hard" films have closed deals to take "substantial" roles in the follow-up to "The Expendables".

Schwarzenegger and Willis previously appeared as cameos in the 2010 hard-hitting action movie, with the former playing Barney Ross' (Sylvester Stallone) rival mercenary leader Trent Mauser and Willis portraying a man who hires Ross for a mission in Vilena. Stallone will additionally reprise his role in the upcoming film, but he will not return as the director.

Other original stars such as Jet Li, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Mickey Rourke and Terry Crews are also expected to return to the sequel, while Chuck Norris, John Travolta, Donnie Yen and Jean-Claude Van Damme have been rumored to be added to the line-up.

"The Expendables II" is set for August 17, 2012 release in the United States. Principal photography will reportedly take place in China with Simon West serving behind the lens.

Beside "Expendables II", Schwarzenegger is also on board Kim Jee-Woon's English-language debut "The Last Stand" which was recently rumored to nab Peter Stormare as the former Governor's on-screen foe. As for Willis, he can next be seen in "Looper" and reportedly lands a role as General Joe Colton in "G.I. Joe: Retaliation".



aceshowbiz

'The Help' At #1 For Third Straight Weekend (BLOG)

Despite three new wide releases -- including "Apollo 18," "The Debt", and "Shark Night 3D" -- it was "The Help" that held down the #1 at the weekend box office for the third weekend in a row.

The film added another $14.6 million over Labor Day Weekend, taking its domestic total $118.9 million. It's an adaptation of Kathryn Stockett's novel about black Southern maids sharing stories about white employers amid the civil-rights movement.

"The Help" has grown through word of mouth. It originally opened at #2 four weeks ago, behind "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," but has sat at the top spot since then.

"The Debt," a Holocaust action drama, had a better-than-expected debut, performed better than expected, taking the #2 slot with $9.9 million over the weekend, and $12.6 million including Monday. It's also a remake of a small 2007 Israeli picture, "Ha-Hov".

The science-fiction film "Apollo 18" took in $8.7 million ($10.7 million counting Monday) to land at #3. It purports to show "found footage" from a U.S. space mission, and boasted no major stars. It also had a mysterious marketing campaign, which revealed little about the film's story.

The thriller "Shark Night 3D," debuted at #4 with $8.3 million ($10.3 million with Monday). It's a Jaws-like horror flick in which a shark that targets vacationers.

Closing out the top 5 is "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," falling from #3 to #5 with $7.9 million. To date, its grosses over $160 million.

That's a wrap for this weekend. Next weekend, look out for the release of the Stephen Dorff and Christina Ricci comedy "Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star," the Warner Bros. action/thriller "Contagion" starring Matt Damon, and the action film "Warrior."

This weekend's top 10 is as follows:

1. "The Help," $14.6 million.
2. "The Debt," $9.9 million.
3. "Apollo 18," $8.7 million.
4. "Shark Night 3D," $8.3 million.
5. "Rise of the Planet of the apes," $7.9 million.
6. "Colombiana," $7.4 million.
7. "Our Idiot Brother," $5.4 million.
8. "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark," $5.1 million.
9. "Spy Kids: All the Time in the World," $4.8 million.
10. "The Smurfs," $4.1 million.

'The Help' wipes out 'Conan,' wins weekend box office (BLOG, VIDEO)

With strong legs driven by great word of mouth, and moribund competition from new releases, DreamWorks' period drama "The Help" easily won the domestic box office this weekend, grossing $20.5 million, according to studio estimates.

The total represented a 20 percent drop from the Emma Stone film's debut weekend and gives the movie a total domestic gross of $71.8 million after two weekends.

"To be knocking on the door of $72 million after two weekends certainly exceeds everyone's expectations," noted Disney's new theatrical distribution chief, Dave Hollis. (Disney is now the global distributor for the Steven Spielberg-led DreamWorks.)

Finishing a distant third behind weekend No. 3 of Fox's "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" ($16.3 million), The Weinstein Company's fourth "Spy Kids" movie grossed a solid if unspectacular $12 million playing at 3,295 locations.

The $27 million Robert Rodriguez film met its pre-release projections, but came nowhere close to the performance of director's last "Spy Kids" installment in 2003, which opened to $33.4 million.
Tell us on Facebook: Well, the weekend is nearly over. Seems many of you went to see holdovers like 'The Help.' But, tell us what you saw and what you thought of it on Facebook.



In fact, on a weekend that was down 3 percent from the same period last year, and during which no new release found serious traction -- or as one distribution executive put it, "Business sucked" -- two remakes of '80s films floundered.

Lionsgate's "Conan the Barbarian" -- a retake on the 1982 pectoral showcase that launched Arnold Schwarzenegger's career -- grossed just $10 million, according to rival-studio data. The R-rated film, which was produced by Avi Lerner's Millennium/Nu Image for $70 million, had been forecast to bring in around $15 million.

DreamWorks' "Fright Night" -- a remake of a 1985 tongue-in-cheek vampire comedy that became a cult hit -- grossed just $8.3 million. Distributor Disney had hoped to gross around $12 million for the weekend.

One other film debuted widely this weekend: Focus Features opened romantic drama "One Day" in 1,719 locations and grossed $5.1 million for its trouble -- meeting the low side of pre-release projections. The Lone Scherfig-drected film stars Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess as a man and a woman who, you know ... fall in love.

Among holdovers, besides "The Help's" continued strong performance, the best news came from Sony's "The Smurfs," which added $35 million to its foreign total and now has grossed $329 million globally after four weeks with a sequel on the way.

As far as the new films, there wasn't a lot of good news to be had, save for strong 3D performances.

Both "Fright Night" and "Conan the Barbarian," for example, received more than 60 percent of their opening revenue from 3D grosses -- well above the 40 percent range that most 3D releases have been performing at over the summer.

Meanwhile, "Spy Kids: All the Time in the World" received 44 percent of its gross from 3D, with only 40 percent of its distribution coming through the format.

"You look at the way family films in particular have been performing all summer, and exhibitors have been telling us they've been getting some push-back from the public," said Weinstein distribution president Erik Lomis, explaining his studio's decision to scale down the number of 3D screens for "Spy Kids 4."

"I don't think we left anything on the table," he added. "If people wanted to see it in 3D, they could."

For the release, Weinstein handed out special scented cards that were to be smelled by the largely under-12 audience at certain perscribed increments of the film -- Weinstein marketed it as "4D Aromascope," while adding a prominent note to parent's that "It's free!"

Substituting the pectoral region of the buffed-out Jason Momoa for the erstwhile Governator, "Conan" could have, perhaps, used a gimmick for two.

As it stands, Lionsgate -- which merely bought distribution rights in the U.S., Canada and the UK, won't get too singed by "Conan's" soft theatrical performance.

However, it is disappointing given that the studio has had big success with August releases the past two years, with the tiny-budgeted "Last Exorcism" breaking out to a huge $20.4 million over-performance in 2009, and last year's "The Expendables" -- yet another Nu Image collaboration -- spawning a $274.5 million worldwide gross and a sequel.

Of course, Lionsgate was hardly alone in watching an '80s remake underperform this weekend.

Produced for around $30 million, and starring Colin Farrell in the hipster vampire roll, "Fright Night" was the weekend's only new release to impress critics -- it's Rotten Tomatoes score is 74 percent. Exit data from moviegoers gave the film a respectable B-plus score from Cinemascore, meanwhile.

But as has been the case across genres and studios for the last year, the younger audience was just hard to find, with over 60 percent of moviegoers coming in age 26 and older.

"Getting younger audience members to show up is an increasingly difficult challenge," said Disney's Hollis.

Of course, Disney and DreamWorks can easily be distracted from that movie's angst by the breakaway success of "The Help," which commanded a rare A-plus Cinemascore grade a week ago and is already sparking awards talk.

"I think we hear all of that talk, and it's the kind of thing you dream for," Hollis noted. "But at this point, it's too early to get too excited about."

Here's how the top 10 finished this weekend:
"The Help" ($20.5 million)
"Rise of the Planet of the Apes" ($16.3 million)
"Spy Kids: All the Time in the World" ($12.0 million)
"Conan the Barbarian" ($10.0 million)
"Fright Night" ($8.3 million)
"The Smurfs" ($8 million)
"Final Destination 5" ($7.7 million)
"30 Minutes or Less" ($6.3 million)
"One Day" ($5.1 million)
"Crazy, Stupid, Love" ($5 million)

msnmovies

Rihanna Talks Battleship (BLOG)

(Huffington)Rihanna is no stranger to violence on camera -- see her "Man Down" video for proof -- but in her first feature film role, she's taking it to a whole new level.

The singer stars in "Battleship," the Peter Berg-directed big screen adaptation of the classic board game. She plays a hardened Navy sailor that helps take on the aliens that threaten the future of the world, battling alongside Taylor Kitsch and Liam Neeson, amongst other big name co-stars.

She's already famously fit, but to get military ready, Rihanna had to kick it up a few notches.

"We worked with real military people, you know, people in the Navy, people who have fought in Iraq before," she told UGO.com in a long interview about the film. "They pretty much came and drilled me. This one man, Donald, he pretty much drilled me, yelled at me, cursed me, 'Ow!' Made me do pushups."

And while she's very tough, it was hard not to crack.

"I really want to say, 'F*ck you' right back, but then he probably would have thrown me through the window!" she joked. "I was so scared I just stood there and looked at him like, 'I swear I’m going to get it right, I swear, I swear, I swear I’ll be good.'"

For much more from Rihanna, click over to UGO.com; click here to see the film's first trailer.

Happy Independence Day Weekend!

Hope everyone enjoys a safe and happy Independence Day weekend! Mine didn't start out very well. My blog was hacked into on Friday. I think that I made a grave editing error and my dashboard was exposed for a few minutes. When I realized the mistake, I immediately erased what was causing the problem. Shortly after that, I could no longer log into my dashboard. I tried to get into my blog dashboard several times over the next few hours, but to no avail. I finally closed my browser and shut off the computer for the night, hoping that perhaps the problem would get fixed overnight by blogger.

This is basically what happened. After utilizing the "preview" button to look at my new post (Exposing A Loony Leftist Lie,) it just suddenly disappeared from the edit/compose box! I then received a message that I had never seen before. It said something like, "Post not saved. Could possibly have been deleted by another person editing the post." Those were not the exact words, but that was basically what the message was telling me. I got nervous. I thought that perhaps someone now had complete access to my dashboard.

Several choices entered into my mind. I thought about deleting this blog and starting over. I also thought about creating a new blog within a provider other than Blogger. I have noticed several of the major blogs that I have in my sidebar have done that. Perhaps they wanted to get away from Google/Blogger too.

My next thought was that I would loose over five years of blog posts if I just went ahead and deleted this blog! That would be a lot of work gone down the drain, so the option of deleting this blog was no longer on the table. Fortunately, the next morning, I was able to log onto my blog dashboard and everything seemed O.K.

Anyway, I would like to thank the readers who frequent here and the many guests who come by this blog via search engines. I hope that what you searched for, and read here at Talk Wisdom helped you.

As I walked my dogs this morning, I noticed that many of my neighbors have flags displayed outside their homes. Some have flag poles and display the flag every day. My husband recently put up a large flag near a window outside our home. We have always had a small one on a stick positioned upon our "Welcome" sign on our front door. 

It makes me happy to see the symbol of our nation and the freedom that it represents displayed by so many neighbors! I think that in these difficult times, with the kind of gangster government that our nation is suffering from, displaying the proud symbol of our patriotism towards our beloved country is even more important than ever. There are people who live in this nation who obviously show their hatred for our flag and what it stands for. They adhere to philosophies and a type of government that is foreign to most Americans. But the freedoms and liberty that the flag represents allows such people to trample on the very symbol that we love; but they, unfortunately, hate. Ironic, isn't it? I also think that it is very very sad.

I recently saw a movie called, "The Majestic." Jim Carrey starred in the movie along with Martin Landau and Amanda Detmer. I really liked the movie all the way up until the end. I guess you could say that I felt the same way one commenter at the link did when he wrote:

"I first hated this film when I saw it. I think my opinion's softened on it over time, but I will always hate it for the fact that it trivializes the HUAC trials and the seriousness of the anti-commie hysteria of the 1950s." - bxc85

I sincerely think that the ending of the movie was, in a not-so-subtle way, an attempt to re-write history. It did not project, as "bxc85" stated above, the seriousness of the anti-communist sentiment of the 1950's.

Just think about how people felt about radical Islam just after that tragic and horrific day on 9/11/01. Would people who lived through that change their minds about the threat of jihadist terrorism over the course of history? Would a little town of patriotic military families end up cheering a victorious sounding speech in a congressional hearing if the person speaking the words was a pro-radical Islam supporter? I don't think so!!

It is so typical of liberal leftists to gloss over any person or group who is, has become, or always has been radical and dangerous to our way of life. What more can I say about this?

I also think that it is a terrible thing to realize that this movie was made in the same year that the terrorism attack on our nation occurred. Perhaps it was made and released before that tragic day, but I also think that it was inappropriate considering how dangerous communism and nazism was in the 1950's. I can't help but wonder what my father would have thought of the movie. He fought in WWII, and could not bring himself to discuss the horrors of that war. To trivialize communist sentiment during a Congressional hearing should be anathema to any truly thinking person.

I was brought up to believe that communism was very bad. Why? Because MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WERE KILLED! President Ronald Reagan cemented that belief with how often he discussed the need to defeat it. Since he worked in both Hollywood and in both state (California) and federal government, he was very familiar and aware of the communist threat back then. What would he have thought about the ending of that movie?

It was a strange experience to view a film that I liked at first, but then found very disturbing at the end.

For those of you who have seen the movie, any thoughts or comments?

In conclusion, have a Happy Fourth of July holiday!

~ Christine

'Limitless' Wins Weekend Box Office With $19 Million!! (Blog)

Bradley Cooper starrer Limitless opened to a better-than-expected $19 million at the North American box office in a boost for Relativity Media’s foray into domestic distribution.

But business remained soft overall. The other new movies -- Lionsgate's Matthew McConaughey legal thriller The Lincoln Lawyer and Universal's sci-fi comedy Paul -- grossed $13.4 million and $13.2 million, respectively, not quite enough to best holdovers Rango and Battle: Los Angeles.

Paramount’s sleeper hit Rango grossed an estimated $15.3 million in its third weekend to come in No. 2. The toon fell a respectable 32%, finishing the weekend with a cume of $92.6 million.

Sony’s Battle: LA fell 58% in its second weekend to an estimated $14.6 million for a cume of $60.6 million. The sci-fi action pic placed No. 3.

hollywoodreporter.com

C. Thomas Howell Confirms 'Spider-Man' Reboot Will Pit Spidey Against Lizard!! (Blog)

Actor C. Thomas Howell has confirmed that The Amazing Spider-Man will pit Spider-Man against Dr. Curt Connors, better known as Lizard.

Howell, who has a minor role in director Marc Webb's 3D remake of the popular series, accidentally let the major plot point slip during an interview with Movieweb.

"Sony wants us to be hush-hush right now," he said. "I play a relatively small role. I play a construction worker whose son is caught in the middle of a battle between the Lizard and Spider-Man on the Manhattan bridge. Spider-Man helps me get my son back from this perilous situation."

Welsh actor Rhys Ifans was cast as the upcoming film's villain back in October. Though the TheWrap reported that Ifans would play Lizard, a role held by Dylan Baker in Spider-Man 2 and 3, Sony never confirmed the speculation.
Howell also described how his character fits into the series' long-running theme of Spider-Man's ambiguous loyalties.

"Spider-man is kind of hurting," he said. "I help him when all of the other people won't. Part of the story is, the nation thinks he might be a bad guy. They don't know what to think. Because of my experience on the bridge with my kid, I know he is a good guy. I pitch in and help out at the end. That is the best way."

Spider-Man stars Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker, Emma Stone as love interest Gwen Stacy and Irrfan Khan as another villain named Van Atter.

Younger Audience Still Doesn't Watch the Oscars!! (Blog)

LOS ANGELES — The Oscars tripped in their transition to a hipper, younger, media-mad future, attracting 12 percent fewer viewers than last year in the important 18-to-49 age bracket.

Early ratings results for Sunday night’s broadcast of the 83rd Academy Awards ceremony on ABC pointed toward an overall audience of 37.6 million, about 4 million viewers short of last year’s 41.7 million.

In a year when ratings for the Grammys, the Golden Globes and the Super Bowl were all up, the bright, new Twitter-fingered Oscars were down. Tom Sherak, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which bestows the awards and produces the telecast, was not ready to concede defeat, however. “I think it’s a beginning — everything needs to start somewhere,” Mr. Sherak said in a telephone interview. “Something didn’t work? Let’s try to fix it.”

The viewership figures mean that these annual movie awards are still chugging along as a spectacle one-third the size of the Super Bowl, almost as big as a good playoff game and down about 34 percent from their own contemporary ratings peak, in 1998, when “Titanic” helped deliver more than 57 million viewers.

But Mr. Franco and Ms. Hathaway survived. And for the Oscars, there’s always next year.

Steph Jones and Vanessa Simmons to Star in A New Film! (Blog, Video)

Singer Steph Jones and Model/Mogul Vanessa Simmons are coming to a movie screen near you. She is starring in a new film called "Talking With The Taxman About Poetry." The film also stars Kareem Ferguson and Diarra Kilpatrick. The plot:


Living a comfortably meaningless, anonymous, non-existent life as a recently fired substitute teacher, THEODORE, an uninspired writer and literary scholar, is manipulated back to life when a local, lowly, enigmatic trumpet player, SEVEN, causes an awakening in him of passion, contradiction, and purpose through the medium of the written word. Introducing TALKING WITH THE TAXMAN ABOUT POETRY.

Watch the promo(s) of the four main characters here:







We may be looking out for this one...

Ummm... Madea's Big Happy Family Trailer (Video, Pics)

The attention-getting and totally goofy teaser poster that had Tyler Perry in Madea drag and Black Swan makeup had me worrying that the first trailer for the latest Madea movie would be a similar kind of parody. Madea dancing the black swan? Madea being seduced by Vincent Cassel, when it's supposed to be the other way around? The possibilities were endless, and all vaguely horrifying.


Rest assured, that's not what we're seeing with the new teaser trailer for Madea's Big Happy Family, which debuted today at Apple. Instead it's some weird hybrid of a follow-the-bouncing-ball sing-along and a remix, with Maury Povich thrown in-- your guess is as good as mine on that one. Check out the trailer below, and below that, the full synopsis as posted to Apple:

Madea, everyone's favorite wise-cracking, take-no-prisoners grandma, jumps into action when her niece, Shirley, receives distressing news about her health. All Shirley wants is to gather her three adult children around her and share the news as a family. But Tammy, Kimberly and Byron are too distracted by their own problems: Tammy can't manage her unruly children or her broken marriage; Kimberly is gripped with anger and takes it out on her husband; and Byron, after spending two years in jail, is under pressure to deal drugs again. It's up to Madea, with the help of the equally rambunctious Aunt Bam, to gather the clan together and make things right the only way she knows how: with a lot of tough love, laughter...and the revelation of a long-buried family secret.


And, here are the promo pics:




**This one talks...SERIOUSLY!! Click on the pic!**






Your thoughts?


Madea's Big Happy Family hits theaters on April 22...

'Yelling To The Sky' Movie Trailer featuring Zoe Kravitz, Gabourey Sidibe and Tariq Trotter (Black Thought) (Video)

'Yelling To The Sky" may be one 2011's movies to watch! Watch the preview for the film below which also stars Antonique Smith (Notorious) and Black Thought, of the legendary Hip Hop band The Roots:

About the film:


“Yelling to the Sky” tells the story of Sweetness O’Hara, a teenaged girl (Kravitz) who is forced to take responsibility over her own life when her abusive father causes her mother and sister to abandon the home. Also featured in the film with Kravitz is Tim Blake Nelson and Oscar nominated Gabourey Sidibe (“Precious”). The film is the debut film from writer/director Victoria Mahoney. It is scheduled to debut at the Berlin Film Festival and will also be featured at SXSW which starts on March 11th, 2011.


Will you be looking out for this one?

Netfilx Not Sending DVD's Anymore, Upsets Customers!! (Blog)

When Netflix started up more than 10 years ago, its sales pitch was pretty simple: Hey, subscribe to us, and we'll mail you DVDs that you can then mail back to us without worrying about any late fees. But as the rental market moves toward online and on-demand models, Netflix's iconic red envelopes may eventually become as antiquated as VHS tapes. Beefing up their streaming business, Netflix has predicted that in about two yearstheir economics will be geared more toward their "Watch Instantly" service than through physical discs. For that to happen, Netflix will have to nudge their DVD-loyal customers to the new platform. And on Monday, the company learned just how hard that may be.

In a seemingly innocent 109-word blog post, Netflix director of product management Jamie Odell announced, "We're removing the 'Add to DVD Queue' option from streaming devices," suggesting that it was being done so that the company "can concentrate on offering you the titles that are available to watch instantly." Granted, the Netflix website still allows DVD queue updating, but this post, dropped on the morning of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, created an immediate firestorm of comments -- most of them very, very angry.

"Clearly Netflix wants to send less discs through the mail, and therefore wants to make it more difficult for the user to add to their queue in furtherance of that," wrote "Eldendor." "Horrible idea!" wrote "usrbingeek." "Especially when there are still few titles available for streaming and the titles that you do have, seem to have very narrow license windows." On and on came the complaints, with most responders saying essentially (1) I like having access to DVDs even if I use a PS3 or mobile phone to stream movies on Netflix; and (2) there aren't enough good titles available on "Watch Instantly." "I think this is a totally foolish move on your part. I like to be able to add movies to my DVD queue from my iPhone," commented "b.dsign."  "[I]f this means that netflix is going to add more movies to watch instantly i support the change," "Beto" wrote, "but if they are not, then it's just a bad idea."

As of yet Netflix hasn't released any response, which, really, is their response. Whether customers like or not, Netflix knows that the future is moving away from physical discs and toward instant access. And, really, none of us who use Netflix should be surprised: Back in November the company announced that they were offering a new lower subscription rate for streaming-only customers while increasing the rate for people who still wanted DVDs. Right now, if you want DVDs from Netflix, the company is less than thrilled with you: They need you to get used to the idea of streaming films and TV shows so that you'll drop the physical disc habit: a craving, ironically, that they themselves created thanks to the ease of their iconic red envelopes.

But while Netflix is slowly discouraging the continued interest in DVDs, they face a different challenge even if their business model transformation succeeds. As Slate reported, if Netflix's streaming business takes off the way they think it will, it could prove a serious drain on America's broadband capacity, which is far less nimble than other countries'. Netflix is angering customers right now because the company wants to do away with DVDs: We don't even want to think of a future where Netflix angers the entire Internet community because too many people are streaming old episodes of "Friends" at the same time.

ON THE SET: 'MEN IN BLACK 3'

Will Smith was spotted on the set filming the anticipated movie, 'Men in Black III'. The Fresh Prince is aging well, and looks in top shape for the movie.  (click to enlarge)

We hope it's as funny as the first two...and relevant.

The movie is set for release May 25th, 2012. Will you go see it?