Trailer: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (Domestic)

It has been nearly two months since we first got the international trailer for The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, but now, thanks to Yahoo!, we now have a domestic trailer for the film. If I had to make complaints, it would be that the run-time is still pretty short for a theatrical trailer (it only runs 1:43), and it doesn’t include anything truly different from the international edition (despite being ten seconds longer).

Problems aside, the film still looks incredible and Christmas Day cannot come soon enough, even if it is in limited release. Check out the trailer after the jump.

Disney and Universal Pick New Chairmen

Disney Studios stayed in the news yesterday as the Mouse House officially named Rich Ross as the replacement for former Disney chairman Dick Cook. The move had been somewhat expected as the head of Disney Channels Worldwide emerged as the favorite shortly after Cook left the company.

According to Variety, Ross has been largely responsible for Disney’s branding efforts over the last five years, and is likely to focus on building franchises that can not only become tentpoles at the box office but transfer to other media. Ross will be in charge of the company’s live-action and animated feature labels, including Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone, Miramax, Marvel Entertainment and Pixar. Ross will also oversee its music group and theater productions including Broadway and tours like High School Musical and Disney on Ice.

Dick Cook Out At Disney, Could Johnny Depp Follow?

After a relatively quiet week in Hollywood, Disney dropped a bombshell Friday night as they announced Dick Cook was out as their chairman. The official company line maintains that Cook left the company as reported by THR, meanwhile Nikki Finke and others are reporting that the former chairman was forced out by President and CEO Bob Iger. I’m more inclined to believe Cook was fired, but this move is arguably more important for the impact it may have on Johnny Depp’s future in Pirates of the Caribbean as well as Pixar and Marvel entertainment.

This Made My Day: Letter From Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter S. Thompson not only ranked alongside Clint Eastwood as one of the biggest bad-assess this side of the 20th century, but the guy was also an amazing writer and journalist, so much so that his work has been turned into two movies thus far (Where The Buffalo Roam, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) with a third one on the way next year, The Rum Diary starring Johnny Depp, Aaron Eckhart, Amber Heard and Richard Jenkins. While the latter may finally be happening (the film is in post-production now), it took forever to get started, the original idea for the film floating around back when Thompson was still alive in 2005 and, apparently, he was none too happy with the delays.

The website LettersofNote (found via FilmDrunk, who I must thank) has published a letter from Thompson to Holly Sorensen, a production executive at The Shooting Gallery, the studio originally heading up the project. Now, when I say “none too happy with the delays” I am underselling it a bit. What I should say is “pissed-the-fuck-off”. You can read the letter after the jump, and it is only made better if you read it with Hunter’s voice inside your head. Enjoy.

WARNING: Not for the faint of heart or easily offended.

Johnny Depp Confirmed For ‘Pirates’ 4

As part of Disney’s D23 fan convention, Johnny Depp came onstage to announce the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie subtitled On Stranger Tides. No plot details were revealed and the film still needs a director as Gore Verbinski who directed the first three films in the series and was originally on-board for a fourth, left the project for the Bioshock movie which has since switched to another director. Disney has hoped that this will be the first in a second trilogy featuring Capt. Jack Sparrow, Something to keep an eye on as it starts rolling.

Retro Review: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

In celebration of the premiere of Terry Gilliam’s trailer for The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, I’ve dug through my archives for my review of one of my favorite former-Gilliam works: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, starring Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro.

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Before his death in 2005, Hunter S. Thompson, famous as the self-described “gonzo” journalist of the 1960s and 1970s, made a very strange request regarding how he wanted to be cremated. Thompson, a fan of large explosions, asked that his ashes be mixed with fireworks and launched into the sky from a 150-foot tower erected at his home in Woody Creek. After his death, the man who orchestrated the final sendoff was Johnny Depp, the actor who portrayed Thompson in the 1998 film adaptation of what many consider to be Thompson’s finest literary work, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Trailer: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (International)

(Now THIS would make a cool buddy movie)

Terry Gilliam’s latest work, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, now has an international trailer and it is nothing short of brilliant. I have always been a fan of Gilliam’s work, from Brazil to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to Twelve Monkeys to Monty Python, etc., and this trailer does not disappoint. Obviously, much of the buzz around this film, just like The Dark Knight and this years Academy Awards ceremony, will be due to Heath Ledger’s sudden death last January and Gilliam’s use of Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell to fill in the spots. Whether the changes will work or not will be something to discuss when the film comes out, but for now, the international trailer is after the jump (and in HD!)

P.S. This is actually a U.K. trailer for the film, so no dubbing and no subtitles, just brilliant visuals that will make Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland piss its pants.

Genius At Work: Best Actor-Director Combos

Watching Judd Apatow score another #1 if underwhelming comedy with so many familiar faces (still waiting for a Craig Robinson feature) got me thinking about some of the best combos of director and actor(s). These days it seems almost every big director has their go-to star or stars who they trust to both bring a strong performance and bank at the box office. Sometimes it works wonders (Knocked Up) and at other turns they disappoint (Funny People). But who are the best collaborators in the business today?

Comic-Con Overview

Unfortunately, because I live in New Jersey, making it out to San Diego for Comic Con wasn’t really an option, but it can no doubt be said that some of the coolest movie news comes out of Hall H in the span of a weekend than comes out in some months. That said, with the wrapping up of Comic Con yesterday, here are my favorite bits that came out over the course of the week.