Josh Brolin and Sean Penn

by Jeff Leins

Josh Brolin has signed to replace Sean Penn in Cartel, the Universal Pictures drama under the direction of Asger Leth.

Brolin will play a “man on a mission to protect his son after his wife is brutally murdered in the gritty world of Mexican drug cartels,” according to the Variety announcement. Shooting will begin this January in Mexico City, just a short time after Brolin wraps his villain role in the Wall Street sequel Money Never Sleeps.

Penn dropped out of the film in June when he decided to take a break from working for personal reasons. Though they obviously wont be working together here, Brolin and Penn appeared alongside one another in last year’s Milk. The other production Penn left scrambling was the Farrelly brothers’ Three Stooges.

As for Cartel, it looks like they found another solid talent. Brolin is no Penn, but has been steadily gaining respect in his recent portrayals. This coupled with rumors of Javier Bardem also joining the project and there may be an interesting No Country for Old Men reunion in the works.

Source(s) Variety, NewsinFilm.com

Rick Baker and Rob Zombie

This image provided by Universal Studios shows six-time Oscar-winning special effects artist Rick Baker (left) and director/rock star Rob Zombie arriving at Universal Studios Hollywood’s Halloween Horror Nights opening night event event Friday Oct. 2, 2009 for the Chiller Eyegore Awards. Baker was honored with a ”Lifetime Achievement Award.” Zombie received a trophy as ”Filmmaker of the Year” for Halloween II.

Bruce Willis in the Surrogates

Patrick Kevin Day interviews some of the top talent behind the camera in Hollywood to find out how the achieved the movie magic we all see on the screen. His Scene Stealer feature (along with Liesl Bradner’s series of Wizards of Hollywood posts) are intriguing glimpses in the EFX world and you can read more of them here. — Geoff Boucher

 Patrick Kevin Day – LATimes.com

In order to make 54-year-old Bruce Willis’ surrogate robot look like a man in his mid-30s in the sci-fi film “Surrogates,” Oscar-winning visual effects supervisor Mark Stetson oversaw some work worthy of a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon.

“We started out with makeup,” Stetson said. Makeup supervisor Jeff Dawn oversaw the application of straightforward cosmetic makeup, which was enhanced by cinematographer Oliver Wood’s lighting. Then the digital-effects artists went in to the roughly 200 shots of Willis’ surrogate and removed the creases of the actor’s face frame by frame.

“It was a lot like doing concept work for a face-lift,” Stetson said. And is this kind of digital de-aging popular with stars in non-science-fiction films? “We’re getting into an area we really shouldn’t be talking about,” was all Stetson would say…

Tommy Olyphant

From SoundonSight.org

The first trailer for Breck Eisner’s remake of George Romero’s 70s plague classic, The Crazies, has finally landed online. In a terrifying tale of the American Dream gone wrong, four friends find themselves trapped in their hometown when an unknown toxin turns the citizens into homicidal maniacs. A small-town sheriff David Dutton (Tommy Olyphant) tries to maintain law and order while protecting his pregnant wife, Judy (Radha Mitchell); Becca (Danielle Panabaker), an assistant at the medical center; and Russell (Joe Anderson), Dutton’s deputy and right-hand man. Forced to band together, an ordinary night becomes a struggle for survival as they try to get out of town alive.

The scheduled release date for the remake is February 26, 2010.

Make Up Department
  Leo Corey Castellano … makeup department head
  Mary Kate Gales … additional makeup artist
  Chris Gallaher … key makeup effects: Almost Human Inc
  Robert Hall … special makeup designer: Almost Human, Inc
  Bill Johnson … additional prop bodies
  Adruitha Lee … hair department head
  Jonah Levy … special makeup effects artist: Almost Human Inc
  Deborah Patino … makeup artist: Radha Mitchell
  Erik Porn … special makeup effects supervisor: for Almost Human Inc.
  Toby Sells … special makeup effects artist: Almost Human Inc.
  Darnell Shepherd … hair/lab technician: Almost Human, Inc.
  Diana Sikes … hairstylist: Mr. Olyphant
  Betty Lou Skinner … key hair stylist
  Justin Stafford … wig maker
  Beka Wilson … key hair stylist
  Leigh Ann Yandle … key makeup artist
  Andrea Politte … additional hair stylist

Radha Mitchell

Special Effects Department
  Vincent Ball … special effects technician
  Kevin Carter … special effects contact lenses
  William Catania … special effects technician
  James Cheshire … special effects technician
  Paul Damien … special effects technician
  Peter Damien … special effects technician
  David Fletcher … special effects coordinator
  Ken Gorrell … special effects foreman
  Skylar Gorrell … special effects technician
  G. Heath Hood … special effects technician
  Thomas Kittle … special effects foreman
  Dalton Kutsch … studio technician: Almost Human, Inc
  Brendan McHale … special effects technician
  Randy Moore … special effects technician
  Greg Oliver … special effects technician
  James L. Roberts … special effects shop foreman

Danielle Panabaker

By Melanie Wallwork – Lep.co.uk

Traffic cops were stunned to find Darth Vader stranded at the side of a motorway – in R2D2′s car.

Dave Prowse, who played the Dark Lord in the original Star Wars films, bought the Mercedes CL500 from Kenny Baker, who lives in Ashton, Preston, around six years ago.

He was driving north on the M1 in the East Midlands when there was a problem with the alternator.

Dave, 74, who regularly meets Kenny for conventions, said: “All of a sudden, everything went kaput on the car.

“All the lights were flashing on and off and it lost power.

“Nothing untoward has happened before, just little things.

“It’s a wonderful car, it’s my pride and joy.

“It has a great provenance as it was previously owned by my good friend Kenny Baker.

Kenny Baker with one of his Mercedes

“Of course, because of Kenny’s size he used to keep a little ladder in the boot so he could climb up and put his suitcases in the back.

“When he’d finished, he’d put the ladder back in but then he couldn’t reach to close the boot so he’d tied a cord to the boot handle.

“I left the cord there as a reminder of the previous owner.”

Kenny, 75, who now drives a Mercedes CLS, said: “It was too big for me.

“I didn’t need such a big car and he did because of his bad hip.

Dave, who lives in Croydon, rang through to the Highways Agency using an emergency telephone and a patrol was dispatched to help.

Traffic officer Craig Chapman, 29, of Milton Keynes, said: “We meet all kinds of people on the hard shoulder but, since I started work for the Highways Agency, meeting Darth Vader is definitely one of the strangest situations I’ve been in.

“He was such a nice man and was so grateful that we came to help.”

From DVice.com

As if torn directly from the script of the sci-fi classic Aliens, an exoskeleton suit that claims the same name and look as the one used by Ripley in the film has been introduced by Japan’s Activelink.

The Power Loader is a 500-pound suit that allows its human user to easily carry up to 250-pounds of cargo with precision-guided electromagnetic motors. Scheduled to hit the commercial market sometime in 2015, you can see video of the suit in action above.

Check out their website   

Power Loader

Ming-Na

By Rick Bentley- McClatchy Newspapers

The Stargate world returns to TV Friday night on Syfy with the third series in the franchise, “Stargate Universe.”

The show puts a new twist on the spacial gate travels. Scientists, soldiers, politicians and civilians find themselves on an ancient spaceship headed at faster-than-light speed away from Earth when they escape – via a stargate – after an alien attack. The group must repair the ancient vessel, which is their only hope of survival.

Elyse Levesque

The show stars Ming-Na, along with Robert Carlyle, Louis Ferreira, Brian J. Smith, Elyse Levesque, David Blue and Lou Diamond Phillips.

For Ming-Na, who has been in “ER,” “Two and a Half Men” and “Mulan,” this is her first chance to work in a science-fiction series, something she’s always wanted to do.

“When I was younger I wanted to be in the ‘Star Wars’ trilogy. I wanted to be Luke Skywalker. I have always loved the sci-fi genre because it is such a challenge. One day you might be talking to someone who is a friend and the next day they could be embodied by another being,” Ming-Na says. “It’s even better because I am a part of this amazing franchise.”

Ming-Na plays Camile Wray, a human resources executive. Wray will be a liaison between scientists and soldiers, Earthlings and aliens. Ming-Na only agreed to take the role when executive producer Robert Cooper promised the character would insert herself into the action and make her opinions well known.

Brian J. Smith

Ming-Na knows taking the role comes with a big responsibility because the franchise has a strong fan base – something she got a glimpse of at this summer’s Comic Con in San Diego.

“I was a bit overwhelmed at how strong of a fan base the show has,” she says. “But because I was a sci-fi fan when I was younger, and could recite every line of the ‘Star Wars’ films, I knew exactly where that loyalty comes from.”

Kurt Angle

From ImpactWrestling.com

Kurt Angle is currently filming another independent movie in the Pittsburgh area called River of Darkness. It’s a low budget horror film where Angle plays a sheriff, Will Logan. Former WCW star Ray “Glacier” Lloyd stars as Clark Higgins, the nemesis of Angle’s character. The movie is about a guy who killed three brothers who come back to life 30 years later for revenge. Two of the brothers are played by Kevin Nash and Psycho Sid.

The other brother is played by Bill Laing, who played the Mothman in “The Mothman Prophecies.” Also in the movie is Bill Hinzman, who gained cult-status fame from his role of a zombie in “Night of the Living Dead.”

The movie is set to be released on DVD December 1st in most major stores.

Sylvester Stallone

By Phil de Semlyen – EmpireOnline.com

With The Expendables soon storming our screens and Rambo 5 tooling up, you’d think Sylvester Stallone might want to take a breather from the massive explosions and give peace a bit of a chance. Well, you’d be half right. The Italian Stallone has a few things on his mind and one of them is a remake of ’70s exploitationer Death Wish.

“I’m thinking about it,” Stallone told us. “It’s a classic morality tale, where you take a civilised man and take away everything that matters to him so he becomes primitive again.”

Eagle-eyed readers will have spotted some thematic similarities between John Rambo and the gnarly vigilante played by Charles Bronson, but the idea of Rambo-Takes-Broadway is still very much at the chewing-over stage. “The story’s been done many times, and when it’s done well, it’s an emotionally engaging film. The trouble with remakes is that people fall in love with the original. It’s like peanut butter. If you try to change the taste of peanut butter, you’re in trouble.”

It’s not all angst-ridden mayhem in the Stallone diary, though. Tearing around the Latin jungle with Dolph Lundgren and the Stath would get anyone’s creative juices flowing, but it’s still a bit of a surprise to hear his passion for a biopic of writer Edgar Allan Poe, high priest of the American Gothic. “I keep telling my producer Avi Lerner, ‘Make Edgar Allan Poe!’ He says, ‘Does he have a gun?’ ‘No, he doesn’t have a gun’, ‘Can he throw a knife?’ I say, ‘No, he writes poetry!’

Sadly the awesome sight of Stallone, quill pen in hand, bashing out The Pit And The Pendulum will be denied us. “Of course, I’m not playing Poe. ‘Yo, Poe!’ It won’t work! It’ll be some young actor because he dies at 39, but it’s gonna happen.”

Erika Sawajiri

From TrekWeb.com

According to The Hollywood Reporter, actress Erika Sawajiri, a local tabloid fave for a series of headline-making scandals, has been replaced as the female lead of the upcoming Japanese science fiction live action movie Space Battleship Yamato, according to Japan press reports.

Her replacement is Meisa Kuroki, who starred in Takashi Miike’s two “Crows” high school gang movies.
Based on Leiji Matsumoto’s classic anime (titled Star Blazers in the US), the live-action Yamato is being produced by broadcaster TBS and its partners. Shooting is schedule to start in mid-October, with release by Toho in December 2010.
The director is Takashi Yamazaki, whose credits include the pics “Always” and “Ballad,” a time-traveling fantasy that has done strong-if-not-stellar box office since its September 5 release. The male lead is Takuya Kimura, member of the pop group SMAP.

Meisa Kuroki

Plus, a new anime movie, titled Space Battleship Yamato Rebirth Chapter, is also in production for a December 12th 2009 release in Japan.