Dominic Sena and Nicolas Cage, the director/actor combination you watched make cars go fast in Gone in Sixty Seconds is back, this time with Cage as a witch deliveryman in knight armor, his slightly longish hairpiece, and some of his most intense faces in Season of the Witch . If you’ve ever wanted to see our buddy N.C. nonchalantly kill a wolf, here you go:

A witch, a mutilated monk, and Nicolas Cage demanding Ron Perlman cut someone’s head off? What more do you want from a film, Foreign Press???

A witch, a mutilated monk, and Nicolas Cage demanding Ron Perlman cut someone’s head off? What more do you want from a film, Foreign Press???

Christ, the dogs are going to talk, too? To date, only Judy Greer had been mentioned to play Debbie Winslow in the movie, while Lee Pace from “Pushing Daisies” is playing Phil Winslow, but a small throwaway piece in Variety about Anjelah Johnson joining the cast, mentioned some of the voice cast and with a little more searching around, we found a very long list of those involved with providing voices for various animated characters in the movie, none of whom we know anything about except for their names: Amanda Seyfried voices “Mazie,” Jeremy Piven is “Bosco,” Ron Perlman plays “Chupadogra,” Christopher Mintz-Plasse (aka “McLovin”) is “Guiseppe,” while Black Eyed Peas singer Stacy “Fergie” Ferguson is “Jezebel.” Steve Coogan voices “Raisin,” George Lopez is “Carlos” and Damon Wayans Jr. provides the voice for “Thunder.” AND Fergie is a voice? Does this mean there’s also an auto-tuned dog? You would think any attempt at a Marmaduke movie would start at the bottom of dignity’s well, but it turns out there was a little lower to drop. Though, I have to admit, back in the ’80s, Fergie was pretty good at playing the victim of clown murder:

Fingers crossed, you may soon see Lost ’s Charlie telling Hellboy all about how he dug up corpses for The Tall Man — IFC Films has acquired the rights to distribute Glen McQuaid’s horror-comedy I Sell the Dead , which has been making the film-fest rounds since 2008. The cast is designed to appeal to a certain stripe of film geek: Dominic Monaghan plays an 18th-century graverobber who’s giving his confession to a priest ( Ron Perlman ) before he’s led to the gallows for his crimes. In flashback, he tells the story of his life as an apprentice to a professional corpse-nabber ( Larry Fessenden , who also produced) as they acquire cadavers for a crazy doctor ( Phatasm ’s Angus Scrimm ). The flick was repped by Submarine’s Josh Braun, who also negotiated the sale of Canadian, U.K., Australia, and New Zealand distribution rights to Anchor Bay. I Sell the Dead opened this year’s Slamdance festival, and reactions were mixed. But most reviewers admired first-time director McQuaid’s darkly comic sensibility, and his tone that falls somewhere between the old 70’s Hammer films and EC’s “Tales from the Crypt” comics. And let’s face it — Perlman and Monaghan together is a genius bit of casting. If the trailer’s any indication, we can expect a few zombies, some professional competition from rival grave-robbers, and a lot of seriously dark humor. Check out the trailer: Filed under: Deals , Distribution Permalink | Email this | Comments

Vikings vs. aliens — you’re either with it or not. It’s a curious concept, likely greeted by one of two reactions — either palpable intrigue or a total and utter lack of interest — and even those intrigued know that a killer pitch can’t stop a SciFi Channel level stinker from being just that ( Sharks in Venice , anyone?). Well, rest assured that this version of that story, which opens in select markets today, isn’t all hollow kitsch — in fact, Outlander is probably the best possible version of whatever movie you’ve already made in your head from reading those first three words. During the reign of the Vikings, a spaceship suddenly thunders down from the heavens and crash-lands smack in the middle of Norway. Out tumbles Kainan (James Caviezel), who has to bury his co-pilot and learn the language of the land in short and painful order, respectively — and who also has to find out what has become of an alien stowaway that claimed much of his own race and is now free to plague a new planet. The local villagers, led by Rothgar (John Hurt), are skeptical of this stranger and his alleged quest to conquer what he only calls a dragon, but soon enough, even the elder, the heir apparent (Jack Huston), and his headstrong wife-to-be (Sophia Myles) will realize that what menaces them is a bigger beast indeed… Filed under: Action , Horror , Sci-Fi & Fantasy , Thrillers , Mystery & Suspense , Theatrical Reviews , The Weinstein Co. Continue reading Review: Outlander Permalink | Email this | Comments