Double-dipping is a dirty word among movie fans, who have grown increasingly weary of shelling out more money for a multiple versions of a given film. There can be a benefit to the practice, however, especially for consumers eager to pick up multiple movies quickly and efficiently without a lot of fuss. Warner Bros – one of the most notorious practitioners of double-dipping – has recently dived into its archives for a series of “Best of” DVD Collections. Their Best Picture compilation – consisting of 20 films that snagged the top trophy their respective years – ranks as one of the most reliable, marred by a few embarrassing hiccups. Hit the jump for my full review.

Warner Japan is plotting a remake of Clint Eastwood’s 1992 western Unforgiven, and Ken Watanabe (Inception, Letters from Iwo Jima) has been tapped to star.  Variety reports that Watanabe will lead the samurai period drama under the direction of Lee Sang-il (Villain).  The story will again be set in 1880, but the location has been changed to the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido at a time when Japanese settlers were displacing the native Ainu people.  Watanabe will play “a samurai with a fearsome reputation as a swordsman who is living in retirement with his Ainu wife when poverty and a large bounty tempt him into action again.”

Eastwood’s film was a brilliant take on the Western genre as it touched on the darker aspects of the Old West of legend.  The film took home Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Editing, with Gene Hackman winning Best Supporting Actor.  This new remake, titled Yurusarezaru mono, is slated for a fall 2013 release in Japan.

When Clint Eastwood made Unforgiven in 1992, he was in a transitional period of his career. Though he was still making pop junk like Pink Cadillac and The Rookie, he had also directed Bird – which started his career as an art-house/Oscar friendly director (though that film was mostly ignored). Eastwood was getting old, and there was sense that he had to stop playing these sorts of role. Unforgiven was his great Western standoff, and he assembled a great cast that included Morgan Freeman, Gene Hackman, and Richard Harris in a career-defining work. Our review of the Blu-ray of Unforgiven follows after the jump.

Scott Frank (Minority Report) has been tapped to rewrite and helm the feature film adaptation of the British miniseries Unforgiven. Last year, Christopher McQuarrie was set to pen the adaptation, with Angelina Jolie eying the starring role, but now GK Films has brought Frank onto the project. The 2009 miniseries told the story of a woman attempting to rejoin society after serving a 15-year prison sentence for murdering two cops after they came to evict her family from their farmhouse. She plans to live quietly with her troubled younger sister, but she’s soon targeted by two sons of one of her victims on a quest for revenge. Hit the jump for more, including a clip from the miniseries Unforgiven.

Christopher McQuarrie (Valkyrie) is currently working on a draft of a remake of Unforgiven, with Angelina Jolie in mind for the lead role.  Don’t worry, it’s not that Unforgiven: the source material in question is the 2009 British miniseries led by Suranne Jones.  According to Deadline, McQuarrie’s script centers on “a woman’s attempt to rejoin society after she serves a fifteen-year prison stretch for the murder of two policemen… but the paroled woman is targeted for a revenge campaign by two sons of one of her victims.”  The report indicates that Jolie will not commit to this (nor any other film) without a finished screenplay — GK Films is fast-tracking development.

McQuarrie co-wrote The Tourist, which sees Jolie opposite Johnny Depp starting December 10th.  McQuarrie recently finished work on the  script for the Japan-set sequel to X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  Jolie is in the early stages of development on her directorial debut, a Bosnian War film.  Hit the jump for a full synopsis of ITV’s Unforgiven miniseries.