While the film lover in me might be happy to see Matt Damon branching out with roles that don't trade on his looks, the red-blooded girl in me is happy to see Damon back in fighting form. Empire has the first still from the Iraq drama, The Green Zone, and he's back to the Matt Damon that we all know and love.

Zone is based on the 2006 book Imperial Life in the Emerald City, by journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran. Damon stars as Chief Officer Roy Miller, a soldier stationed in Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein charged with the task of locating weapons of mass destruction. During the investigation, Miller begins to suspect that the WMDs may not exist, and then things really get dangerous. Amy Ryan also stars as a NYT correspondent, along with Jason Isaacs and Brendan Gleeson as fellow military men.

Studios might have a 'complicated relationship' with Iraq war films, but there is no chance that Zone is going to fall into the same trap of preaching to audiences. Damon made it pretty clear to Empire that Zone is strictly a Hollywood affair: "[We're] not trying to make a statement, particularly with a movie that costs $80 or $90 million. Hopefully this will feel like an accurate portrayal of what things were like for these guys. You can't do a polemic – you should be blogging if that's what you want to do." Maybe it's for the best, but I happen to think there is nothing wrong with mixing a little politics into your entertainment -- how about you?

Green Zone is expected to arrive in theaters in 2010.

Whenever Scott and I aren't out fighting crime together, we tend to be chatting each other up about horror films, as he has often either pointed me towards many a overlooked gem or brought to my attention the best titles currently making the festival rounds.

Whether or not Weinberg was the one who got me initially amped up for [REC], I can't accurately recall, but the point is that I can support his many praises over the film, and I think it's safe to say that we're both cautiously optimistic about the forthcoming American remake, Quarantine. It seems that Sony's smarter minds are also prone to cautious optimism, as Shock Till You Drop informs us that the film's release has been bumped up a week, from October 17th to October 10th.

Now, the 10th is a crowded weekend - we also have a crime thriller, a family adventure, and a teen sex romp - but what's important is that not only do none of those films appeal to the same horror-seeking demographic as Quarantine, whereas video game adaptation Max Payne might on the 17th, but the move gives it an extra week to rake it in until Saw V comes around and effectively dominates the market come the 24th.

As for me, I'm still curious about Quarantine director John Erick Dowdle's previous film, the still-unreleased The Poughkeepsie Tapes. Is it some sort of staring contest between them and the equally delayed All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, or what?

This may sound paranoid, but I am convinced that Thomas Jane must have made some enemies in Hollywood. The guy is talented, he has great screen presence, he's awfully easy on the eyes; and still he ends up flicks like Mutant Chronicles. If you don't believe me, take a look at the new teaser for the sci-fi thriller over on the actor's personal site, and tell me this movie doesn't look destined for obscurity.

Chronicles is loosely based on the successful role-playing game of the same name from Target Games. In Philip Eisner's (Event Horizon) script, the world has been divided into four corporations who are constantly at war. When a new plague of mutants are unleashed unto the world, an ancient society recruits a battle-hardened soldier (Jane) as humanity's last chance for survival. Joining Jane are Ron Perlman as the mystic Brother Samuel, Devon Aoki as a fellow bad-ass, and John Malkovich as the political leader Constantine.

On paper, the whole thing sounds fine; mutants, elite military squads, and pseudo-mysticism -- what could go wrong? After watching the trailer, the answer would appear to be ... everything. The film was originally announced back in 2006, but other than a quick poster release and a website, there hasn't been much attention paid to the film...and now I'm starting to understand why.

Mutant Chronicles is scheduled for release later this year.

[via Coming Soon]

Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant cast just became a whole lot crazier. Variety is reporting that Val Kilmer and Xzibit are joining Nicolas Cage and Eva Mendes in the much-maligned remake / re-imagining / re-something of Abel Ferrara's cult classic.

Kilmer will be playing Cage's police partner, presumably the straight arrow to complement Cage's cop-on-the-edge. This comes right on the heels of Kilmer being cast in Silver Cord, so I think it's safe to say someone's trying to make a comeback. (Am I the only one who laments the passing of years, and what it has done to one of my biggest crushes? Has it really been so long since The Saint?)

Xzibit, fresh off The X-Files: I Want to Believe, will be playing their nemesis, Big Fade.
Remember, folks, it's a re-imagining, which is why you don't remember any of these characters from the original.

If there aren't shockingly hilarious tales of egos and fistfights from the Lieutenant set, I'll be among the bitterly disappointed. While I suspect Kilmer has chilled with the passing of years, I'm thinking that combining him with Herzog is bound to be tempestuous. Is it too much to ask that Herzog just goes even further, and hires Sean Young and Gary Busey? Perhaps even Mike Myers? Throw the script out the window, and just film the production. I think it would be far more fun than any re-imagining.

The rule of thumb in this film blogging world of ours is, what goes up must come down. In other words, any trailer that finds itself premiering on YouTube can only find itself taken down from YouTube. So, for now, let us offer you what appears to be the teaser for this winter's big-budget remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still, in which an alien visitor (Keanu Reeves) gives us Earth denizens a hefty heads-up that if we don't straighten up our act, he and his giant robot friend will do it for us ...

Now, I may or may not be entering spoiler territory with this following paragraph, so feel free to skip it (in that case, long story short: also stars Jennifer Connelly and due in theaters on December 12th) -- BUT, from what I can recall reading at one point, our main man's angle this time around is not concerns of nuclear warfare (that's SO 1951!), but rather more environmentally-fixated priorities. Who knew that between this, WALL-E, and The Happening that the big H'wood cared so much about the state of our planet.

On the other hand, pitched properly, green can only equal more green in their eyes.

[thanks to Film Web]

(UPDATE: the Quicktime trailer appears to have gone up.)

UPDATE: Here's the trailer in Quicktime quality.

Of all the films I'm looking forward to this fall, Blindness ranks fairly high up there. Canadian distributor Alliance has just made available a full trailer that proves to be fairly intriguing, as an optometrist (Mark Ruffalo) and his seemingly immune wife (Julianne Moore) cope with an inexplicable epidemic of sight loss.

I'm a sucker for most anything vaguely apocalyptic, and while this very well could turn out to be akin to watching the first act of Children of Men through a milk-filled mask (which I've done, mind you), the prestige behind the project* says otherwise. We have acclaimed screenwriter Don McKellar adapting Nobel-Laureate José Saramago's novel, with Academy Award nominee Fernando Meirelles directing a cast that also includes Danny Glover, Gael Garcia Bernal, Alice Braga, and Sandra Oh.

I must say, going off that taste and last spring's teaser, I still like the look, sound, and feel of this one, especially Moore's little retort (you know the one), and that's not to mention that any trailer which employs John Murphy's underrated score from last year's Sunshine to set a rightfully ominous tone is always fine by me. We'll get to see (sorry) what trials and tribulations await the world on September 19th.

*Not to mention Rocchi's review of the film from its Cannes world premiere.

Not three weeks ago, I made first mention of a brief and bland teaser for the forthcoming horror film, Mirrors. Now, along comes IGN Movies with a red-band trailer that, at first, didn't do much for me. Blah blah blah, Jack Bauer as security guard for old department store, blah blah, former guard grew obsessed with surrounding mirrors, blah blah -- look, even Amy Smart is yawning after all that exposition.

Oh, did I say 'yawning'? I meant 'tearing off her own jaw'. Yes, while we still seem to be saddled with a fairly ridiculous premise that's seen better and worse days, there's modest comfort to be taken that the R rating ain't exactly being shied away from. Let's face facts here, people: all it takes sometimes is a couple of nifty death scenes to make movies like this that much easier to stomach (well, some might argue the opposite).

Directed by Alexandre Aja and starring Kiefer Sutherland, you can see Mirrors (bah-dum-cha!) on August 15th.

According to Variety, Matthew Fox is in talks to play the title character in Warner Bros' Billy Smoke, an adaptation of Oni Press's newest comic book series. Don't feel bad if you're wondering who the hell Billy Smoke is, and why you can't keep up with comic books these days -- it won't be published until next year. Oni Press doesn't even have a preview of it up, so we can't judge it based on six pages.

However, the story goes a little something like this: Smoke is an elite hit man, who is nearly killed during a botched job. He has a change of heart, and realizes that his only way to find redemption is to rid the world of all assassins. It's waking up the ghost of another film in my brain, but I'll be damned if I can remember what it is. Readers?

The series is being written by by B. Clay Moore, who already has racked up some luck in the movie business. His graphic novel, Leading Man, was recently optioned by Universal. And yes, that too is published by Oni Press. I'm a little worried they are actually taking over Hollywood, as this is the fifth book of theirs to be optioned by a studio. The Last Call was bought just last week. I'm not sure what titles are even left to buy at this point -- may I nominate Polly and the Pirates?

As someone who's only grown decreasingly fond of the Saw franchise (at least since the second one) and still marvels at the fact that we as a world find ourselves facing the prospect of a fifth (and possibly sixth!) one this coming Halloween and the next, I must attest to being weirdly admirable of how creatively macabre the series' marketing campaigns have been.

Case in point: the first revealed poster for Saw V, included in full after the jump and courtesy of IMP Awards. Following up the magically MPAA-approved acts of amputated limbs, dislodged teeth, and bent fingernails is the face of actor Tobin Bell acting as a mask on another body entirely, in spirit with the films' perpetual acknowledgement that Bell's character, John Kramer/Jigsaw, kinda died at the end of Saw III and sorta went through an autopsy at the beginning of Saw IV.

As Bell remains flaunted and credited in equal measure - as does the similarly deceased Shawnee Smith - I think it's safe to expect A) more flashbacks, a la #4, and B) more exceedingly gruesome demises, a la #1-4. However, at a combined worldwide gross of $553 million to date, it's also safe to say that there are many who'd hope -- who'd pay -- for nothing less.

You know what I call 18 consecutive days of horror, sci-fi, action foreign, indie, obscure, and generally weird movies? Well obviously I call it heaven, but most normal people refer to it as Montreal's Fantasia Film Festival, which runs every July and throws a couple hundred features and shorts to a very ravenous crowd of genre freaks. And with folks like Mitch Davis, Tony Timpone, and Todd Brown (among others) on the programming end, you could probably just book a flight to Montreal without even checking the official Fantasia website.

I'm still not sure if I can make the trek up north next month, but I have been invited and (based mainly on the recently-released full lineup of flicks) I can pretty much guarantee that the current registrants are in for one hell of a good time. Among their selected titles, I can very strongly recommend All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, Dance of the Dead, Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer, Let the Right One In, Mother of Tears, [REC], Stuck, and Timecrimes -- plus they're offering solid titles like Fear(s) of the Dark, The Objective, Red, Second Skin, and Spine Tingler. Among the stuff I'm still drooling to see: Babysitter Wanted, Dark Floors, Midnight Meat Train, Pig Hunt, Repo: The Genetic Opera, and (of course) a new Uwe Boll flick. Plus this festival seems to offer more "Asian weirdness" movies than you'll ever find in one place. At least a dozen that look and sound certifiably insane, unless you'd define Tokyo Gore Police and Negative Happy Chain as "mainstream."

For a complete schedule, lineup, trailer bank, and tons of geeky goodness (in your choice of English or French!), click here and then here. (Montreal's not all that far away...)