
Every so often Hollywood produces a grand-scale film with a sweeping narrative and epic storyline that it becomes destined for greatness. No, not summer blockbusters, like Avatar or The Dark Night, with budgets in the hundreds of millions. The storylines are not epic in the sense that they make way for explosions and breathtaking action, but rather they follow a simple character, and detail every little aspect of their incredible lives. Like The Cider House Rules, The World According to Garp, Forrest Gump, and countless others, these films often contain Academy Award-winning or nominated performances, and usually a best picture nomination or win. They go on to be considered classics and live on in lists detailing the best films of all time. Barney’s Version is one of these films, and it needs to be one that goes on these lists.
With its release on Blu-ray, Barney’s Version has a chance to become the hit it deserves, and gain the recognition and acclaim that are justified for such a film. If you haven’t yet seen or heard of this movie, check out the review and watch it immediately afterwards. My review of this masterpiece of cinema on Blu-ray after the jump.

Opening this weekend, in limited release, is a great movie called Barney’s Version. Based on Mordecai Richler’s prize-winning comic novel, the movie is about four decades, two continents, and the three wives of Barney Panofsky (played to perfection by Paul Giamatti). Without saying too much, the film follows Barney’s long and colorful life and over the course of two hours, we really feel like we’ve spent a lifetime with him. In a good way. And while I singled out Giamatti, Rosamund Pike, Minnie Driver, Rachelle Lefevre, Dustin Hoffman and Scott Speedman are all fantastic. For more on the film, watch the trailer here.
Anyway, the other day I sat down with Giamatti and Pike and while I didn’t have much time, we talked about how they got involved in the project, the rehearsal process, did they read the book, and Pike gave me an update on The Godmother. Hit the jump to watch what the interview:

In a tiny town in the South American jungle, there is one understaffed, under-stocked medical clinic where three idealistic young doctors have run away from their personal demons, but quickly learn they are not the only ones with emotional baggage. Such is the premise of the new ABC series Off the Map, from executive producer Shonda Rhimes (Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice), which tells the story of Ben Keeton (Martin Henderson), the youngest Chief of Surgery at UCLA who walked away from it all to found this clinic and teach its newcomers how to save lives in the most challenging environment they’ve ever worked in, while having the adventures of a lifetime.
On the series, The Twilight Saga star Rachelle Lefevre plays Ryan Clark, a mysterious doctor who has a history with the clinic’s founder. While at the party to celebrate the ABC portion of the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour, the actress talked about not joining the series until after the pilot was already shot, the balance between personal drama and medical procedural, working on the beautiful island of Hawaii and bonding with her castmates. She also reflected on how her involvement as Victoria in the first two Twilight films has changed her life. Check out what she had to say after the jump.

The last time we reported on Barney’s Version, they released a teaser trailer in August that showed the subtle humor that Paul Giamatti is best at. The film is directed by Richard J. Lewis and is headlined by Giamatti, Dustin Hoffman, Minnie Driver, Scott Speedman, Rosamund Pike, Rachelle Lefevre, and Bruce Greenwood. While Lewis has done a majority of his work on the small screen, he seems to have a nice start here with plenty of humor to go around. For further proof, a brand new trailer for the film was released today. Hit the jump for the full trailer, synopsis, and more.

Promo trailers for David Schwimmer’s Trust and Richard J. Lewis’ Barney’s Version have popped up online. Both films will be playing at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival, which runs from September 9 – 19th. Trust is an intense-looking drama about parents (Clive Owen and Catherine Keener) dealing with the rape of their 14-year-old daughter. The trailer is strong stuff (although it seems to verge away from real emotions at times and pushes a revenge-thriller angle that seems phony), but I think people are going to write it off because Schwimmer’s name is attached. I wonder if he walks down the street and people shout at him, “Hey, Ross! What’s going on with you and Rachel!” and he’s forced to answer, “We got together at the end of the show when I forced her to choose between me and her career! And no, Matt Goldberg did not own all ten seasons of Friends at one point in his life!” (Schwimmer speaks in half-truths.)
I also dig the trailer for the significantly more lighthearted Barney’s Version starring Paul Giamatti, Rosamund Pike, Minnie Drive, Rachelle Lefevre, and Dustin Hoffman. It’s got some good jokes, a fun premise, and it looks like Giamatti and Hoffman have great chemistry. Hit the jump to check out the trailer and synopsis for each film.

Three new movie posters have been released for “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” and they feature the Cullens, the Volturi, and the Wolf Pack. Since I haven’t read the books, I can’t say if the actors portraying the characters look the part, but I did recently see the trailer for “New Moon” and have to say…it looked a hell of a lot better than the first film. Who knows, maybe director Chris Weitz actually made the “Twilight” film the fans have been dreaming about. We will all know soon enough as “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” hits theaters November 20th. Take a look at the new posters after the jump.

Summit Entertainment has just released a featurette for “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” called ‘Meet Jacob Black’. If you’ve been waiting to see more footage of Taylor Lautner (Jacob) without his shirt on, you’ve come to the right place. The company that “Twilight” built has also released an updated synopsis for “New Moon” and that’s after the jump. While I still don’t understand the “Twilight” phenomenon, who am I to judge. I used to love “Star Wars”. Look where that got me.

A big shake-up in the world of “Twilight” hit today as Summit Entertainment announced that Bryce Dallas Howard would be replacing Rachelle Lefevre in the role of Victoria for “Eclipse”, the third film in the “Twilight Saga”. Scheduling conflicts were the stated reason for Lefevre dropping out of the part – and, as luck would have it, the well-known and similarly red-headed Howard had room on her calendar at short notice. More after the jump…
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Director Brad Parker Talks CHERNOBYL DIARIES and His Future Bad Robot Project
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES Mega Gallery Featuring 50 Images and 15 Posters
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