News: Robert De Niro

De Niro’s concentration on comedy in recent years has been depressing for fans of his earlier work, so this week’s The Good Shepherd – which he directed as well as cameos in – has been something of a relief even if it isn’t as good as it should have been. Thankfully, with loads of films in the pipeline, quite a few are set to involve straight acting for a change.

Next up is an adaptation of the Neil Gaiman fantasy novel Stardust, with a supremely impressive cast that includes the likes of Peter O’Toole, Ian McKellen, Rupert Everett, Ricky Gervais, Sienna Miller, Michelle Pfeiffer and Clare Danes. Then there’s New Orleans, a thriller about police corruption, with De Niro investigating with the help of his new partner, played by rapper 50 Cent, before hooking up with the rather more talented George Clooney for the crime drama 36.

Then it’s back to comedy for Hollywood expose What Just Happened?, based on the book by Heat and Fight Club producer Art Linson (who also wrote the screenplay), with De Niro playing a film producer having a tough time getting funding, with co-stars including the likes of Bruce Willis, Sean Penn and John Turturro. After that it’s more drama, starring alongside his erstwhile Taxi Driver co-star Jodie Foster for her latest directorial effort, Sugarland, about two lawyers fighting to end the exploitation of migrant sugar labourers.

Then more drama – and a return to familiar territory – for The Winter of Frankie Machine, with De Niro playing a retired mob hit man, lured back into his former profession for one last hit. Finally, he’s set to star as the husband of Meryl Streep female President of the United States in the political comedy First Man, which sounds promising – as does the computer game version of Heat, assuming De Niro, Al Pacino and Val Kilmer all sign on to do voice duties, as they’re currently only in negotiations.

News: Alec Baldwin

His turn as Annette Benning’s alcoholic husband in this week’s Running With Scissors is just the latest in a recent spurt of top-notch character performances from the former A-lister, showing he’s well on his way to having a bit of a career revival following his Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination back in 2004, and his Best Comic TV Actor Golden Globe this year for 30 Rock.

Next up – on 23rd February – is Robert De Niro’s intriguing-sounding tale of the birth of the FBI The Good Shepherd, starring Matt Damon with the likes of Angelina Jolie, De Niro himself, Joe Pesci and Michael Gambon in support. That will be followed by the less promising, yet potentially interesting, 1980s-set coming of age gangster drama Brooklyn Rules, starring Freddie Prinze Jr, Mena Suvari and Scott “son of James” Caan.

Speaking of Freddie Prinze Jr, Baldwin’s next film after that will be Suburban Girl, a romantic comedy of relationships with age differences where he gets all loved up with Freddie’s real-world better half, Sarah Michelle Gellar – who at 29 is a good 20 years younger than him. Nice work if you can get it…

Then there’s another 1980s-set coming of age flick, Lymelife, though this time it’s a family-based comedy, with Baldwin as the patriarch of a family that includes Jennifer Jason Leigh and Rory “brother of Macaulay” Culkin, before Baldwin heads back to the war film genre that has served him so well in the past for The Forbidden City, based around the post-WWII Sino-American hunt for Japanese war criminals. Could be good…

News: Meryl Streep

After her turn in this week’s A Prairie Home Companion, Streep will continue to churn out film appearances like nobody’s business. There’s the usual smattering of heavyweight projects, like Dark Matter, based on the true story of a Chinese academic studying the origins of the universe, Evening, following a dying woman reflecting on her youth and young love as her daughters come to terms with her death, Dirty Tricks, based around the aftermath of the Watergate scandal and fall of Richard Nixon’s presidency, Chaos, taking in the effects of rape and prostitution, and the highly topical Rendition, looking at the secret CIA kidnapping and torture of terror suspects.

Less hard-going are likely to be First Man, where Streep will play a female President of the United States whose husband – to be played by Robert De Niro – sets aside his successful business to help run her campaign, and thriller Wanted, where she’ll star alongside Jennifer Aniston as two convicts who stage a breakout to prove that Aniston’s former cop has been framed for drug trafficking.

Despite the high chances of success of any project with Streep attached, the one most likely to make mega-bucks is surely Lions for Lambs, due out in the UK on 2nd January 2008. Directed by and starring Robert Redford, it is set around a platoon of soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, a Congressman’s dealings with a journalist, and an idealistic university professor attempting to inspire his students. The main reason for its likely success (bar the sure-fire hit-making team-up of Redford and Streep)? It will be Tom Cruise’s first film since his bizarre pre-nuptual antics, and he’s bound to do everything he can to make sure both it – and he – are as good as they can be.

2007 – a movie preview

A small selection of some of the potential highlights of the coming twelve months – by no means an exhaustive selection, but ones we’re looking forward to…

eta 12th January – The Last King of Scotland – at last a proper release for the film everyone raved about at the London Film Festival back in November. Forest Whitaker does Idi Amin in a tale of dictatorship and disillusionment, based on the prize-winning novel by journalist Giles Foden.

eta 26th January – Blood Diamond – Leonardo DiCaprio makes another bid for an Oscar as diamond smuggler teaming up with Djimon Hounsou’s poor local in a bid for a rare pink diamond amidst civil war-torn Sierra Leone. Political, topical – and coming out over here just a month before the Oscars…

eta 16th February – Hot Fuzz – Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg team up once more after the success of Shawn of the Dead and superb sitcom Spaced, this time with a spoof cop movie. Set in rural Somerset… How could this be anything other than genius?

eta 23rd February – The Good Shepherd – This Robert De Niro-directed tale of the birth of the CIA, with Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie (as well as Bob himself), looks set to be packed with political intrigue – much of which may well be relevant to our own times…

eta 23rd February – Letters From Iwo Jima – The second part of Clint Eastwood’s World War Two epic, this time the Japanese side of the story. By all accounts a far better film than Flags of Our Fathers, the American side of the tale that’s currently on release.

eta 9th March – The Good German – Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney team up yet again, this time for a noirish tale of intrigue set at the close of World War Two, with Tobey Maguire and Cate Blanchett in support. Initial reports from the other side of the Atlantic are that it’s not as good as it should be, but we still can’t wait to see for ourselves.

eta 30th March – 300 – Another overly stylised adaptation of a Frank Miller comic book after the success of Sin City, this time set in Ancient Greece (well, Sparta, to be precise). Looks like it should be visually stunning, but will it hold up as a film?

eta 27th April – Takeshis’ –  Japanese icon “Beat” Takeshi Kitano does his own version of Being John Malkovich as, playing himself, he happens across a lookalike. For fans of the cult actor, this could be something rather special, especially as it shows a side of the guy rarely seen outside of his Japanese TV appearances.

eta 4th May – Spider-Man 3 – Spidey goes evil (or does he?), so looks to build on the success of the first two in this top-notch franchise with yet another darker turn. Top stuff – especially for comics geeks who know who/what Venom is…

eta 25th May – Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End – Finally, a decnt conclusion to Dead Man’s Chest. Hopefully… Either way, another chance to see Johnny Depp do his thing, so hurrah!

eta 8th June – Ocean’s Thirteen – Yes, we know what you’re thinking – Ocean’s Twelve was horrendous. The good thing is, everyone involved seems to have realised, and have promised that this next outing is going to be the film the last one should have been. With Al Pacino added to the already star-studded cast, let’s hope they get it right this time…

eta 29th June – Shrek the Third – the team are all back, and what more could you want? Bound to be a crowd-pleaser.

eta 13th July – Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix –  The films have been getting progressively better as the series has progressed, though whether new director David Yates – best known for his TV work, including the tip-top political drama State of Play – will be able to continue the trend is anyone’s guess…

eta 27th July – Transformers – Yes, a live-action version of that 80s toy classic. Giant robots beating each other up for two hours? How could you not be interested? Oh, yes – it’s directed by Michael Bay, the man responsible for the likes of The Island and Pearl Harbor… But even so – giant robots!

eta 27th July – The Simpsons Movie –  Eighteen years after the funny yellow family hit the small screen, they finally make it to the big. Will they make the transition though? Fingers crossed, eh?

eta 3rd August – The Bourne Ultimatum –  The third in the insanely good spy series looks all set to be just as good as the last two, with Paul Greengrass returning as director and Matt Damon set to do his thing once again as the amnesiac spook still trying to uncover his murky past.

eta 26th October – The Golden Age –  Nine years on, a sequel to director Shekhar Kapur’s magnificent historical biopic Elizabeth, reuniting much of the original cast to explore the relationship of an older Queen Elizabeth I (Cate Blanchett) and the adventurous hero/pirate Sir Walter Raleigh (Clive Owen). Should be superb.

eta 9th November – American Gangster – Sir Ridley Scott teams up once again with Russell Crowe, with Denzel Washington also in the mix, in this 1970s-set drug-running thriller. Could be an overdue return to form for Scott after recent lacklustre outings.

eta 30th November – Beowulf – Ray Winstone stars in this epic version of the Dark Age classic, adapted by comic book favourite Neil Gaiman, and with a pretty damned impressive supporting cast. Potentially a new (one film) Lord of the Rings…

eta ? – The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford – Brad Pitt stars as near-legendary gunslinger Jesse James in this much-anticipated second feature from Andrew Dominik, who brought us 2000’s compelling (if occasionally horrifying) Chopper.

And then, of course, in 2008 we have Tim Burton’s Sweeny Todd,  Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo IV, comic book adaptation Iron Man and the next Bond film to look forward to, amongst others.

So then, what are you looking forward to the most?

News: Marc Foster

German-born director Forster is making quite a name for himself, adding this week’s Stranger Than Fiction to an already impressive CV that includes the Oscar-nominated likes of Monster’s Ball and Finding Neverland.

He currently has three films in the works: the small-scale tale of an Afghan-American’s return to his former homeland, The Kite Runner, based on the bestselling novel by Khaled Hosseini, is due out in the UK in January 2008, and will feature little in the way of big stars – quite a change from working with the likes of Dustin Hoffman and Johnny Depp on recent movies.

He is also attached to direct 36, a remake of the 2004 French action flick, starring Daniel Auteuil and Gerard Depardieu, 36 Quai des Orfèvres. No casting news has yet emerged, but rumour has it that one Robert De Niro may be interested…

Finally, and from the sound of things pretty much guaranteed to bring in a few Oscar nods on its release late in 2007, is Dallas Buyer’s Club. Brad Pitt will star in absolutely classic Oscar-winning material, as an HIV sufferer who develops full-blown AIDS and is told to go home and die by mid-1980s medics who were unable to cope with the then new disease, but who instead hunts down potential life-prolonging drugs via the black market in a desperate attempt to find a cure.

News: Matt Damon

The Departed‘s Damon continues to be one of the hardest-working stars in film, with two films already completed and two more currently filming since wrapping on Scorsese’s latest.

Of those already completed, first up is the highly promising The Good Shepherd. Directed by Robert De Niro, Damon takes the lead opposite De Niro, Angelina Jolie, Joe Pesci and Alec Baldwin in this period piece drama about the founding of the CIA, written by the hugely talented Forrest Gump, The Insider, Ali and Munich screenwriter Eric Roth. After that he’ll be popping up in Margaret alongside Anna Paquin, Mark Ruffalo, Matthew Broderick and Jean Reno in this coming of age drama about a teenage girl convinced that she caused a traffic accident.

Damon is currently busy filming the third movies in two separate franchises – Ocean’s Thirteen and The Bourne Ultimatum. If you’ve seen the last films in either of those two series, it should be fairly obvious which one’s likely to be the best…

News: Meryl Streep

The evil boss of this week’s The Devil Wears Prada is getting increasingly prolific, with another six films in the pipeline.

First up will be Dark Matter, for first-time director Chen Shi-Zheng, based on the true story of a Chinese academic awarded special US visa status to study the origins of the universe, until campus politics get in the way. Then will come Evening, another heavyweight flick, as a dying woman reflects on her youth and young love as her two daughters wrestle with her impending death – a far cry from the light comedy of Streep’s most recent outing…

Most promising, however, are two heavily political projects. First, First Man, in which Streep will play a female President of the United States whose husband – to be played by Robert De Niro – sets aside his successful business to help run her campaign. The next is the period-piece Dirty Tricks, based around the aftermath of the Watergate scandal and fall of Richard Nixon’s presidency, where Steep will play the blabbermouth wife of the US Attorney General alongside Annette Benning and Gwyneth Paltrow. A touch of The West Wing? It’s too early to say…