It took me WAY too long to see Orphan.  Released a week before The Collector (check out my review of that one here), I made the mistake of seeing that God awful piece of crap instead of seeing this smart, beautifully-filmed suspense thriller (it’s hard for me to call this a horror film).  Orphan is an example of the varying range for Dark Castle Entertainment, which started as a company specifically to remake old William Castle films, Tales from the Crypt-style, and has actually moved past making “fun” horror films (I think the last one was House of Wax) and more into the thriller territory.  The last Dark Castle horror film, The Reaping, was so awful that I regretted watching every minute of it.

Trailers for Orphan give the impression that it’s a 2009-edition of The Good Son, replacing Macauly Culkin with Isabelle Fuhrman.  A crazy kid who’s just born bad, and kills/beats up other kids.  Actually, the film ends up being much more than that and, even though it’s not supernatural (I’m not ruining anything – there’s not even a hint of the supernatural throughout the entire film), still manages to bring something new to the “scary kid” genre.

Read the rest of my review after the jump!

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Remember that film The Canyon that I told you about the other day, with Yvonne Strahovski, the hot chick from Chuck?  Apparently it also has Will Patton from Armageddon!  Twitch Film premiered the trailer and…it’s not quite what I was hoping for.  Definitely more thriller than anything else, this looks a lot less like A Perfect Getaway than I originally thought.  It’s more of a man vs. nature kind of things.  And wolves…lots of wolves.

Source: ComingSoon.net

Is it just me, or is Marty Scorcese getting better with age?  The Departed was such a fantastic film, and I really enjoyed his Rolling Stones concert film, Shine A Film.  Shutter Island looks fantastic.  Based on the Dennis Lahane book of the same name, the film tells the story of two U.S. marshals, Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Ruffalo), who are summoned to a remote and barren island off the cost of Massachusetts to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a murderess from the island’s fortress-like hospital for the criminally insane.

Shutter Island is due out in theaters on October 2nd!

Would you trust this guy with the future of your company?

So, according to Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood, it’s not looking good for The Weinsten Company.  Here’s some highlights:

Right now, everyone is still operating on the premise that TWC can come up with the $30 million or moreo marketing money budgeted for Inglorious Basterds. But that was before news came out that The Weinstein Company is on the brink (amid rumors the end could come in August) intenwsified by last week’s bad news that TWC has hired a financial advisory firm to restructure.

…a worst case scenario was always considered by Quentin’s people: What if TWC which has domestic didn’t have the resources to market and/or release the movie? Universal has foreign. Would it pick up the North America as well? Meanwhile, Universal is the distributor of the valuable domestic DVD rights on behalf of the 3-way partnership.

What this all means is that TWC is “hoarding whatever cash they have left to be able to release Inglorious Basterds,” a film financer analyzes. Tarantino’s film is scheduled for release August 21st.

Sounds like The Weinstein’s have a lot riding on a film that, while I can’t wait to see it, is probably not going to make them the money they’re hoping giving it’s violent content.  Things do not bode well!  I just hope this has no effect on the release of Inglorious Basterds.  I want my scalps!

Where's Chuck when you need him?

Well, actually, it’s called Canyon.  So I guess it’s not a title in reference to her.  heh.  Anyway…

ShockTillYouDrop has a look at Yvonne Strahovski, who’s hot but who’s name requires me to look it up every time I need to figure out how to spell it, is starring in a “survival thriller” (read: probably not horror) film called Canyon, which opens in theaters October 23rd.  She and Eion Bailey (Fight Club, apparently, but I have no clue who he is) “decide to spend their honeymoon frolicking in the wild and wide expanse of the Grand Canyon, a longtime dream destination for the groom. But when a charismatic and mysterious guide arrives, their wedded bliss suddenly turns into a story of survival.”

Oddly enough, this sounds a lot like the David Twohy film starring Milla Jovovich and Steve Zahn, A Perfect Getaway.  Must be the “in” thing this year.  Just want to warn you guys – obviously don’t frolick in the wild on your honeymood.  Just sayin’.  Here’s the trailer for that one.

I’m not huge into the religious thriller thing.  In fact, I kinda hated The Davinci Code.  I never read the book, but the movie was abysmal.  That being said, I wasn’t in a huge rush to see Angels and Demons, the written precursor to Davinci, but the filmed sequel.  Still, the trailer made it look halfway decent and, as much as I may dislike religious thriller, I like adventure films.

So what did I think of Angels and Demons?  Was it the formulaic nonsense with the overly sappy religious crap that The Davinci Code was?  Was Tom Hanks hair better in this one or did he pull another Nicolas Cage?  Check after the jump for my full review!

Click here for my review!

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