Movie News

Having spent much of 2009 turning its searchlight toward the ocean of filmdom and seeing little more than inky blackness, Fox Searchlight is suddenly going all in, advancing 'Crazy Heart' to a limited December release -- just in the nick of time for serious consideration by Uncle Oscar.

Hey, Boo-Boo! Warner Bros.' 3-D live-action/CGI animated version of the much-loved Hanna-Barbera cartoon 'Yogi Bear' is moving forward with the announcement of the casting of Dan Aykroyd, Justin Timberlake and Anna Faris.

The studio is in talks with Aykroyd to voice Yogi, and Timberlake may join in as the voice of Yogi's bow-tie wearing sidekick Boo-Boo. Faris would play a nature documentary filmmaker who travels to Jellystone Park and encounters the animated characters, according to a report in Variety.

You just can't keep a good man down.

Coming off the huge success of 'The Hangover,' Bradley Cooper has signed on to star in the sci-fi suspense thriller 'Dark Fields,' according to a story in The Hollywood Reporter.

'Twilight' star Ashley Greene may soon be dealing with supernatural creatures of another kind.

The 22-year-old actress is in talks to star in 'The Apparition,' a 'Paranormal Activity'-like supernatural suspense thriller being helmed by uber-producer Joel Silver's Dark Castle Entertainment. Set to begin production in early February, the film is reportedly inspired by true events and focuses on a young couple who are quite literally haunted by their past, in this case a trouble-making apparition unleashed during a college experiment.

Coming off her first starring role in 'Confessions of a Shopaholic,' Isla Fisher will exercise her comedic chops once more in 'Desperadoes,' a 'Hangover'-esque comedy about a woman who races to Mexico to intercept an angry email.

When her new beau disappears after they have sex, Fisher's character sends him a blistering email. But once she finds out he's in a coma in a Mexican hospital, she and her friends try to get there before he comes to and checks his inbox.

If you got hurt on the job, would you want Sacha Baron Cohen to be your personal injury lawyer?

Variety reports that the 'Bruno' and 'Borat' comic's next leading role -- and his next act of ethnic impersonation -- will be in Universal's 'Accidentes.' He'll play a Latino lawyer in Los Angeles, an ambulance chaser who becomes a working-class hero (and scourge of wealthy and powerful Angelenos) when he represents an immigrant suing his employer over a landscaping accident.

It pays to take challenges, even if you don't think you can do them – at least according to Oscar nominee Viggo Mortensen.

"To be honest, I was afraid of the role to start with," Mortensen told Moviefone at Wednesday's premiere of his new drama, 'The Road,' at AFI Fest in Hollywood.

"I thought, 'Hmm, I don't know if I am up to the task,'" he says."But, that was the very reason I thought I should do it, try it. Because even if you screw up up, at least trying something different, something that places demands on you that you haven't dealt with as much or before, it's always good. Even if you screw it up, in trying to do a good job, you are going to learn something, and I did."

Mortensen, who stars as a malnourished father trying to survive in 'The Road,' was honored Wednesday by AFI for his acting accomplishments.

'A Christmas Carol,' a tale of greed and redemption, will blow away the competition at the box office this weekend and Bernie Madoff can only wish he could be there and learn. There are no first-run theaters in his hoosegow.

The latest telling of Charles Dickens' classic novella is one of four movies opening nationally today. But the other three -- the alien abduction thriller 'The Fourth Kind,' the 'Twilight Zone'-inspired fantasy 'The Box,' and the military intelligence spoof 'The Men Who Stare at Goats' -- will do well to sell as many tickets among them as 'A Christmas Carol' by itself.

Associating Ebenezer Scrooge with Bernie Madoff is unfair, of course. Scrooge never screwed anybody. He's just a rich old miser whose early failings have left him bitter and uncaring, nothing that a visit from three ghosts and a meeting with a lame child can't overcome. Its theme of greed and redemption and its moral of compassion for the underprivileged made the story an instant popular success in Dickens' day and makes it just as relevant in the current recession.

The decision to join the cast of 'Mad Max: 'Fury Road' -- the latest entry in the vaunted film franchise -- was easy for Oscar winner Charlize Theron.

"George Miller is THAT for me," Theron told Moviefone at Wednesday's premiere of her new drama, 'The Road,' at AFI Fest in Hollywood. "He is amazing. I am really looking forward working with him."

Miller is the writer/director of the 'Mad Max' movie series. Theron has signed on to 'Fury Road,' the long-awaited sequel to 1985's 'Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome,' as has English actor Tom Hardy in Mel Gibson's iconic role.