China’s highest grossing movie of all-time is finally coming to North America, but as this trailer clearly states, it “ain’t no Avatar.” The movie is called Let the Bullets Fly and it is a period action movie set in the 1920s. There’s no wuxia to be found here; instead it’s filled with bloody fist fights and violent shootouts. It looks to be a Western of sorts, perhaps in the vein of Kim Ji-woon’s The Good, The Bad, The Weird. Indeed, I was pretty surprised by how gruesome and off-the-wall the first domestic red band trailer is.

The movie stars Chow Yun Fat as a local mobster in a remote provincial town who butts heads with a bandit (Jiang Wen) masquerading as the town’s mayor. The two engage in a deadly mind game that ends up leaving a trail of bodies in their wake. The movie debuted in North America at the Tribeca Film Festival last year and will be released by Well Go USA next month. Let the Bullets Fly hits select theatres on March 2nd; check out the trailer after the jump and see what you think.

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With Valentine’s Day less than a week away, some moviegoers are no doubt in search of the perfect date movie. While in the past this has usually meant something that falls in the romantic comedy category, over the last few years studios have been starting to realize that you can mash action and romance together in order to create massive box office hits that appeal to both men and women. This week’s poll is in search of a movie that strikes the ultimate balance between the two sides. While some of the options probably qualify as more action / adventure than straight up action, I’ll leave it to you to determine what makes for a better movie. Which romantic action movie is your favourite? Which ones did we forget? Cast your vote in this week’s poll and then discuss further in the comments below.

Although Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy didn’t exactly light up the box office, it did make its $21 million budget back and also earned Gary Oldman his first ever Oscar nomination, which is certainly a worthwhile accomplishment if ever there was one. The other indirect result of the film’s critical acclaim is that it has brought the works of veteran spy novelist John Le Carré back into the spotlight. An adaptation of one of his more recent books is slowly taking shape over at FilmNation Entertainment with Anton Corbijn (Control, The American) in the director’s chair. Now this week they’ve announced that Philip Seymour Hoffman is in final negotiations to play the lead role of Gunther Bachmann, the head of a German spy unit. Sounds pretty awesome if you ask me! Producer Gail Egan had this to say about the announcement:

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Alright, alright… don’t get your panties in a bunch. It’s not Michael Mann’s Heat that’s about to get the remake treatment, but rather the 1986 Burt Reynolds vehicle of the same name (apparently there are quite a few movies called Heat). Directed by Dick Richards (Farewell, My Lovely), the original film starred Reynolds as a former gambling addict who now makes a living as a Las Vegas bodyguard. When a female friend gets savagely beaten, he helps her exact revenge on the mobsters who are responsible. The movie was based on a book by William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Princess Bride), who also wrote the script. Now Brian De Palma has signed on to helm a new version with Jason Statham in the lead role.

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The Artist
Written and Directed by: Michel Hazanavicius
Starring: Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo, John Goodman, James Cromwell, Uggie

I’ve been frantically trying to catch up on every movie that I should see before Oscar night, but for some reason, I have continuously shoved The Artist to the bottom of the screener pile for months. I found it difficult to conjure up much enthusiasm for a film that is not only silent but filmed entirely in black and white. What’s the big deal? Why is this film a frontrunner for the heated Best Picture race? It looked dull and tedious. Wrong, on both accounts.

The Artist is one of the most charming films I have ever seen. It’s a wonderful tribute to the golden age of film, all the while managing to feel wholly original and exhilarating. It’s little wonder it has emerged as a critical darling this season. There’s nothing else quite like it. A dashing hero (Jean Dujardin) and a coquettish ingénue (Berenice Bejo) whirl their way through a tale of romance, melancholy, loss and redemption.

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In the lead up to Super Bowl weekend, I was thinking about the few big 2012 summer blockbusters that we have yet to see a trailer for, and The Bourne Legacy stood out as the biggest of the bunch. This week Universal has finally debuted the trailer, but just like Sony did with The Amazing Spider-Man, they decided to unveil it online instead of dropping a few million dollars on a 30 second TV spot that could easily be missed. The question is, will anyone care about a new Bourne movie without Jason Bourne?

As previously announced, The Bourne Legacy does not star Matt Damon but rather Jeremy Renner in the lead role, playing a new member of Operation Treadstone named Aaron Cross. Renner is a capable actor, but something tells me this could easily blur together with his recent role in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. It’s unclear what Aaron Cross’ story will be (aside from the fact that he can also kick all kinds of ass), but Edward Norton apparently plays the film’s villain. Director Tony Gilroy wrote the screenplays for the previous three films and also directed Michael Clayton, so the movie seems to be in good hands, and yet it’s hard not to see this as an extraneous spin-off from an already solid standalone trilogy. The Bourne Legacy hits theatres on August 3rd; check out the trailer after the jump and see what you think.

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There was a time when the so-called “Frat Pack” was on top of the comedy world, back when actors like Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Luke and Owen Wilson were all collaborating in some of the funniest and most successful films of the past decade. However, recently their output has slowed and dropped off in terms of both quantity and quality as they’ve been surpassed by Judd Apatow’s “Jew Crew”, among others. Most of the Frat Packers have gone on to experiment with more artistic fare like Stranger Than Fiction, Greenberg and Midnight in Paris to varying degrees of success, but most of their actual comedies have become pretty uninspired (Little Fockers and The Big Year being the latest group efforts). But could they be hatching a plot to reclaim the comedy crown from all these young upstarts who starred in movies like The Hangover and Horrible Bosses? This year Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn will star in a promising sci-fi comedy called Neighborhood Watch, and now it looks like Wedding Crashers buddies Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson will also be teaming up for a new movie called Interns. Is this something that could actually be worth getting excited about?

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0:00 – Intro
11:40 – Review: Chronicle
57:35 – Review: Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie
1:22:10 – Trailer Trash: The Avengers, Act of Valor, Get the Gringo
1:46:30 – Other Stuff We Watched: Natural Born Killers, Tremors, Any Given Sunday, Invincible, The Program, Little Giants, The Spanish Prisoner, Spartan, Inglourious Basterds, Drive, Rolling Thunder, To Live and Die in L.A., Take Shelter, The Help, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, The Take, Justified, Thief, Luck, Misfits
3:07:20 – Junk Mail: Post-Oscar Roles for African-American Actors, How to Avoid Falling Asleep in Movies, Why People Enjoy Bad Movies, Favourite Movie Cars
3:34:55 – This Week’s DVD Releases
3:37:35 – Outro

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The trend of actors turning to the director’s chair continues this week as we’ve learned that Joseph Gordon-Levitt will soon be making an effort behind the camera. The untitled film is described as a romantic comedy about a modern day Don Juan who attempts to become less of a “selfish dick.” In addition to directing, Gordon-Levitt wrote the script and will play the lead role. Scarlett Johansson has also been announced as a lead, although her role was not specified. While directing might seem like a big turn for Gordon-Levitt, he’s had aspirations to helm features for quite a while and has made several short films that have played on the festival circuit, in addition to launching a collaborative production company called hitRECord.org. The script for the film took three years to complete, finishing around the time 50/50 was shooting.

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The end credits of Machete hinted at the possibility of not one but two sequels, although at the time it was unclear if this was merely a joke or if it was for real. However, when you consider that the movie itself was a self-fulfilling prophecy that grew out of a fake trailer created for Grindhouse, it only makes sense that both Machete Kills and Machete Kills Again would eventually become a reality as well. That being said, it is a little bit surprising that they are happening so soon. For a guy who has been attached to so many different projects over the past few years, you’d think that Robert Rodriguez would be far too busy to bother with another Machete movie right now. That doesn’t appear to be the case, as it is now being reported that the first sequel will begin shooting as early as this April.

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This week’s DVD releases are pretty exciting if you happen to be into glittery vampires, but for the rest of us there aren’t many other options out there. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 is obviously the biggest title hitting stores today and is probably going to sell a few zillion copies, but beyond that you’ll have to choose between A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas (minus the 3D, unless you have a 3D TV), Roland Emmerich’s strange Shakespeare thriller Anonymous, and the Kellan Lutz lacrosse drama A Warrior’s Heart. Yikes. Fortunately there are a pair of great docs in Project Nim (which was already out in Canada with less awful artwork) and Knuckle, plus we also have season 2 of the acclaimed PBS series Downton Abbey and the Diamond Edition of the animated Disney classic The Lady and the Tramp. What will you be buying or renting this week? Check out the full list of new releases after the jump.

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Last week Kevin Smith held a live podcast and interactive Q&A in Toronto that was simulcast to movie theatres across North America called Kevin Smith: Live from Behind. As you might expect, the Q&A featured some new information about upcoming projects from Smith, one of which was his hockey movie Hit Somebody (which he plans to debut in hockey arenas across Canada), and the other was a brand new movie called Jay & Silent Bob’s Super Groovy Cartoon Movie. Unbeknownst to me, there had been a brief mention of this film in the SModcast Pictures press release from last month, but it stated only that it would be “a blend of live action footage and R-rated animation.” Smith confirmed this fact during Live From Behind, although he did not reveal a heck of a lot more.

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