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Vulture:

Scott teases the spaceships and caves filled with ominously gridded egg placement that you might expect from a movie that “shares DNA” with the Alien series, but there’s also waterfalls, dust storms, and a very intriguing plot hint: This team of spacemen (which includes Charlize Theron, Michael Fassbender, Noomi Rapace, and Idris Elba) goes looking for the beginning of life itself, and instead finds something epic that will probably pick them off one by one[.]

“Prometheus” hits theatres June 8.

The duo re-team for “Young Adult,” and while it’s only been four years since “Juno” struck sleeper movie gold, it’s clear the filmmakers used that time wisely.

“Young Adult” lacks the preciousness that nearly derailed “Juno,” and the movie spotlights a lead character you’d rather slug than give a tender embrace. That smacks of both confidence and daring, but Reitman and Cody can’t deliver a third act worthy of their otherwise biting dark comedy.

Charlize Theron is Mavis, a former prop queen and young adult fiction writer who long ago fled her small-small town for life in the Twin Cities. When Mavis learns her old beau Buddy (Patrick Wilson) just became a father, she snaps. She returns home determined to win him back, not caring that he’s already married and a new pappy.

Why? We’re not sure at first, and frankly Cody’s script isn’t willing to fill in all the blanks.

Mavis quickly insinuates herself back into Buddy’s life. He’s oblivious to her plans, part of his aw shucks appeal that likely lured Mavis to him back in the proverbial day. Even Buddy’s wife (Elizabeth Reaser) doesn’t feel threatened by Mavis’s return.

Wrong move. Mavis is like a shark swimming in bloody water, and she won’t stop until Buddy is hers once more.

Mavis confesses her plans to a former high school classmate named Matt (comedian Patton Oswalt), a physically challenged nerd simultaneously repelled and attracted by Mavis’ company.

Both Theron and Oswalt deliver performances that should have Oscar voters checking their ballots twice in good Santa Claus fashion. Theron proved she could go ugly in “Monster,” but there’s something even worse about a woman who seems to have it all but is hell bent on taking everything from a happily married man.

Mavis ends up melting down at the worst possible time, and it’s here where a redemptive arc – or something critical – seems in order. But “Young Adult” grinds to an abrupt halt longer before any bigger purpose becomes clear.

Dark comedies are the trickiest to pull off, and it’s clear Reitman and Cody nearly achieved their goal with “Young Adult.” Maybe a little more growing up is in order between the talented pair.

Mavis Gary is a mess, a one-time high-school hottie now going to seed at 37. She’s a best-selling author, sort of (she ghost-writes a series of popular Young Adult novels), but her Minneapolis apartment is a pit, she has a serious bourbon problem, and she chugs Coke for breakfast after waking up next to whichever random lug she happened to bring home the night before.

One day Mavis gets a blast email announcing the birth of a baby, adorable photo attached. It’s from Buddy Slade, her old high school boyfriend. High school was 20 years ago, but Mavis remembers it—and Buddy—fondly: She wasn’t a mess then. Giving the matter some self-centered thought, she decides that Buddy is the guy she was meant to be with. He’s still living in their corny hometown, married now, and with the baby, it’s true; but why should that stand in the way of her winning him back?

In “Young Adult,” director Jason Reitman and his “Juno” scribe Diablo Cody attempt something tricky. Cody’s story is a deconstruction of that Hollywood staple, the romantic comedy hooked on an idiotic premise. These are the kind of pictures in which a woman desperate for a child has herself artificially inseminated and then discovers that the requisite fluid has been anonymously donated by her adoring best friend. Or two girlfriends discover that their long-planned weddings have been accidentally scheduled at the Plaza Hotel on the very same day. The trailer for “Young Adult” might seem to promise exactly that sort of disposable chuckle fest. But the movie is actually much darker, and more daring.

Read the full review at Reason.com

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Guess Universal Pictures decided to get on board with the fairy tale trend after “Alice in Wonderland” and “Red Riding Hood” were received so well from the critics. Not! “Alice” scored a mediocre 52 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, while ‘Red’ sits at a measly 11 percent.

But Hollywood doesn’t make movies for critics, they make them for the money, and any film that bounces off of a fairy tale is likely to bring in major dough. With director Tim Burton’s “Alice” raking in more than $300 million, I’m sure “Alice” producer Joe Roth is looking to bring in a similar dollar amount with his new spin on a classic yarn.

The Roth-produced “Snow White and the Huntsman,” hitting theaters in Summer 2012, is Hollywood’s latest attempt to turn a fairy tale into a blockbuster. In a twist to the genre, the Huntsman (a “Thor”-reminiscent Chris Hemsworth) is ordered to take Snow White (Kristen Stewart) into the woods to be killed. He ends up becoming her protector as they battle to take down the Evil Queen (Charlize Theron).

The trailer centers around Theron’s wicked Queen, with the actress looking more beautiful (and scarier) than ever. K. Stew puts on her usual stoic face as Snow White which doesn’t look much different from “Twilight’s” Bella. Not sure how I feel about this “Snow White” because of Stewart’s involvement. She is a horrible actress, and if she can’t pull it together for this movie, then she needs to take a break and try theater, where she would be much better suited.

It’s still almost a lock that “Snow White” will take the number one spot its opening weekend thanks to the “Alice” connection behind the scenes and a cast sure to draw a diverse crowd.

The other “Snow White” film, “Mirror, Mirror,” is set for a March 2012 release and stars Julia Roberts and Lily Collins. May the best twisted tale win.

Now, ‘Juno’ director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody are back with ‘Young Adult,’ an upcoming dramedy dropped into the schedule for maximum Oscar consideration – Dec. 9.

The trailer offers a far different vibe than ‘Juno,’ but there’s a snarkiness that unites the two projects. Charlize Theron stars as a former high school princess who returns home and decides to win back and old flame (Patrick Wilson). But said flame is already married and has a child on the way.

“We can beat this thing together,” she tells him in the trailer’s kiss-off line.

Cody earned an Oscar for her ‘Juno’ script, but she’s still an unpredictable force in the film industry. Her attempt at wink-wink horror, 2009’s ‘Jennifer’s Body,’ showed a serious lack of understanding for an admittedly tricky genre. She had better luck as a driving force behind Showtime’s ‘The United States of Tara.’

But Reitman may be the surest bet in Hollywood these days. His first three movies – ‘Thank You for Smoking,’ ‘Juno’ and ‘Up in the Air’ – reveal a gifted filmmaker with a penchant for quality material. His presence alone is enough to make ‘Young Adult’ one of the year’s must-see movies.

But when we look at the leading actresses of 2010, the dearth of great performances and great parts is stunning.  The Golden Globe nominees for best actress this year were Halle Berry in the anonymous flick Frankie and Alice, playing a crazy person in her usual over-the-top style; Nicole Kidman in the anonymous flick Rabbit Hole, playing a grieving mother in her usual cold and remote style; Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone, playing a teenage girl looking for her meth-making dad; Natalie Portman in Black Swan, playing a crazy person with a constipated look plastered on her mug; and Michelle Williams in Blue Valentine, playing a spoiled girl who gets knocked up, married, and presumably divorced.  Has anyone seen any of these women in any of these films?  And if the disastrous Natalie Portman – Queen Amidala masturbating, anyone? – is the frontrunner for Best Actress at the Oscars, how far have female figures fallen?

Far.  Quick, think of the ten greatest living film actors.  It’s not that tough – we have iconic male film stars all the time.  Now think of the ten greatest living film actresses.  Now take away all women over 50.  Still thinking, aren’t you?

The simple truth is that actresses were far more iconic fifty years ago than they are now.  We may want to shtup most of the actresses we see on screen today, but we don’t show up to see them because of their standout screen personas.  That isn’t because today’s actresses are less talented than their predecessors – we have many talented actresses on the scene.  It’s because screen executives have decided that truly feminine women, with both brains and looks, are no longer in keeping with the times.  Instead, film execs have cut a sharp dichotomy between “sexy” women and “smart” women – it’s either Megan Fox or Kate Winslet.  Charlize Theron can’t play a strong, graceful, beautiful woman – she’s got to be either a lesbian serial killer or a piece of eye candy.

The feminism embraced by most of today’s execs is antiquated.  They still think that women must act like men in order to promote equality of the sexes.  Make Natalie Portman’s character a man in Black Swan and take away Darren Aronofsky’s idiotic and self-centered camera movements and you’ve got an oversexed Ronald Colman in A Double Life.  There’s nothing feminine about Ellen Page in Juno – she’s more of a dude than Michael Cera in the same film.  What ever happened to Bette Davis, to Vivien Leigh, to the old-school, unmannered Meryl Streep?  They’re gone, replaced with pale imitations starring in angst-filled nonsense glorifying aberrant behavior.

Ironically enough, the feminism of today’s Hollywood has killed the female movie star.  If Hollywood wants to restore that luster, they’ll need to embrace femininity, in all of its three-dimensional glory, once again.

Imagine that the entire world as you’ve known it has come to an end right before your eyes. Almost everyone has died, or gone crazy scavenging for food, even becoming cannibals in the name of survival. Your beautiful wife, who was the light of your life, left you to wander off in the night and die rather than endure another terrifying day of huddling from the elements and hiding from the human monsters that most everyone else has become. 

And now all that’s left is you – and the ten-year-old son whose care has become your entire purpose of your existence. You had a good life once – until just a decade before – with a dignified career, nights at the opera, and joy emanating from every pore of your beautiful spouse. But now it’s all a memory, and a fading one at that. You haven’t been called by your own name in so long that you and your son are only known as Man and Boy. 

What then, the universe asks? Do you keep a faith in God, or curse the hopelessness around you? Do you try to maintain the fire of a good soul and pass moral values to your son, or do you let your morals and humanity eventually slip away? If your morals slip away in the middle of nowhere, does anyone notice? 

Those are the questions that lie at the root of director John Hillcoat’s profoundly moving adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book “The Road.” Starring Viggo Mortensen in an alternately feral and saintly performance of shattering emotional depth – his are the most haunted eyes I’ve ever seen sustained in a film performance – it is a film that doesn’t shy from some of the most disturbing questions of human existence, yet also guides viewers gently through to a sense of grace and hope that will move, for even days afterward, those brave enough to take the journey. 

The film takes place against some of the most shockingly bleak landscapes (actually Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Oregon, and Mt. St. Helens in Washington) one could ever imagine in America, with millions of rotting trees that have collapsed and cities that have been laid to utter waste. The film never explains whether the destruction was wrought by man-made actions such as nuclear warfare (which appears to be the case, due to the fact that Mortensen’s voiceover says that “all the clocks stopped at 1:17 a.m.” and in a flashback to that moment, he sees walls of flame reflecting off the glass of his home) or an environmental catastrophe (a theory bolstered by the fact that at least one more major tree-felling earthquake takes place in the course of the film). No blame is placed on mankind in either case for the moment of destruction; it is left a disturbing mystery, nagging at the back of viewers’ minds but in a way that expands the sense of dislocation and uncertainty. 

Following the course taken by many other films about desperate journeys, the Man and Boy are heading in the vaguely defined direction of the ocean. The hope is that there, where the land ends, so does the destruction – that beauty will take over, and the opportunity to float away to a better life in an unravaged corner of the world. Yet this vague sense of hope is also often overwhelmed by the sense of constant fear and isolation they have to contend with along the way, never quite knowing who to trust. 

At one moment, they may be running for their lives from a roving band of cannibals that still look like normal, civilized humans. At another, they’re dodging a nasty rainstorm through a shivering night. Yet moments of grace and joy come as well, as when they discover an underground nuclear shelter packed with edible food and warm beds and are able to have a semblance of their former lives for a few days – and yet even then they know it can never last for long. 

There are brief, powerful cameos throughout the film, highlighted by Robert Duvall as a man whose eyes are blinded by cataracts and soul is shattered by the loss of his own son, and Charlize Theron as the wife who gradually loses all hope amid a series of flashbacks. They are among the better people that Man and Boy encounter, but the lesser-known Michael K. Williams also has a pivotal role as The Thief, a man who robs Man and Boy and then forms the ultimate ethical challenge for Man in whether to extract revenge or forgive him for his desperate act. 

In the end, “The Road” is a modern-day parable about the need to maintain morals even when all sense of morality seems lost. It is about maintaining a fire of righteousness even when surrounded by those who have gone wrong. And it is a film that once seen, will be hard to ever forget.

My friend Kitty sent me this link to an article about the ongoing saga of turning the 1,100 page book “Atlas Shrugged,” by Ayn Rand, into a feature film:

Rand’s popular but polarizing book — it’s derided by many literary critics but has a huge public following — tells the story of Dagny Taggart, a railroad executive trying to keep her corporation competitive in the face of what she perceives as a lack of innovation and individual responsibility.

A number of stars have expressed serious interest in playing the lead role of Taggart. Angelina Jolie previously had been reported as a candidate to play the strong female character, but the list is growing and now includes Charlize Theron, Julia Roberts and Anne Hathaway.

Although it was written a half-century ago, producers say that the book’s themes of individualism resonate in the era of Obama, government bailouts and stimulus packages — making this the perfect moment to bring the 1,100-page novel to the big screen.

Rumors about Angelina Jolie’s interest in the film have been swirling about for some time, but Charlize Theron? Julia Roberts? Anne Hathaway? What’s up with that? Let’s take a look at these lovely ladies and their left-wing credentials, talented actresses though they may be:

Julia Roberts: During a fundraiser for Al Gore’s run for the presidency back in 2000, she explained her preference for Democrats over Republicans by saying the word “Republican” is right between “reptile” and “repugnant” in the dictionary. Tee hee. She also described former President George W. Bush as “embarrassing. He’s not my president and he never will be either.”

Back in 2006, Roberts was also in favor of California’s Proposition 87, which would have taxed oil to fund alternative energy research. (It ultimately failed at the voting booth.) I guess growing your own kale stamps out the carbon footprint of traveling on private jets. 

Charlize Theron: According to this bright light, Americans are just as oppressed as the good folks of Cuba. From a CNN interview:

Theron: No, but I do remember not too long ago some people getting fired from their jobs in television because they spoke up on how they felt about the war.

CNN: Do you think the lack of freedoms in Cuba are parallel to the lack of freedoms in the United States?

Theron: Well, I would, I would compare those two, yes, definitely.

Has she ever heard Dwight Schultz’s story of being called a “Reagan a**hole” by director Bruce Paltrow at Schultz’s audition for the television show St. Elsewhere? My guess would be no. Theron, like Roberts, didn’t have nice things to say about Bush either, calling “him irresponsible and taking exception with politicians in their very expensive suits and air-conditioned buildings, telling us how our soldiers are doing in Iraq. “I wonder what she thinks of her man Obama in his expensive designer suits in a wintertime toasty-warm Oval Office, telling us how our soldiers are doing in Afghanistan.

Anne Hathaway: The young woman whose road to stardom began by playing a princess of a fictional European country, is really concerned about the disparity of wealth in America. “Right now, the disparity between the uber-rich and the uber-poor, it’s worrying and it’s not getting better. We need to focus on a way to just get our economy back, to get it back on track.” By the way, Hathaway earns $5 million per film, and might be on her way to asking for $8 million. Maybe she’s talking about the disparity between her salary and that of Angelina Jolie, who earns $15 million per film…

And what about her support for Obama during the election? Was it due to his policies, his experience, his ability to get the job done? Not so much: “He inspires us to be the best Americans we can be.” Wow, that’s deep. I understand so much more now.

Frankly, out of the three, Hathaway seems to be the most obvious choice, as Theron and Roberts are just a little too long in the tooth to play the young Dagney. Darn it, there I go again with the non-PC stuff. According to the “Today Show,” 40 is the new 20. Sorry.

What’s so confusing here is that Ayn Rand’s writings reflected views that are antithetical to those held by left-wing libs, especially many in Hollywood:

Politically, Rand wanted to provide liberal capitalism with a moral foundation, to take on the prevalent notion that communism was a noble if unworkable idea while the free market was a necessary evil best suited to flawed human nature. In this she succeeded brilliantly (even if the notion that socialism failed because it has never been properly tried is still alive and well among the intelligentsia). Her arguments against “compassionate” redistribution–and persecution–of wealth have lost none of their power in the decades after they were made.

Perhaps they think the script will ultimately “improve” the book to match current politically correct views on life and society.

If these ladies are serious about being in the film, they’d best start reading the book now. Maybe they’ll be finished with it by 2010, which is when producers Howard and Karen Baldwin are hoping to start filming.

As Kitty said in her e-mail, “You’d think they wouldn’t be caught dead in a ‘conservative’ movie. Which only goes to prove that Hollywood lefties do have their price.” Seeing as the movie’s projected budget is currently in the $50 million range but could go up, I can see her point.