Matt Damon in Eastwood’s ”Human Factor”
Matt Damon will play rugby star Francois Pienaar, joining Morgan Freeman, in Clint Eastwood’s new movie ”Human Factor.”
The film is based on a book by John Carlin about post-apartheid South Africa.
Francois Pienaar who created, with Nelson Mandela, an event that gave whites and blacks in South Africa a common cause to rally around as the country was trying to heal from the wounds of apartheid.
They formed a strong relationship when South Africa hosted the Rugby World Cup in 1995.
”Human Factor” will begin shooting in South Africa in early 2009.
No More Dirty Harry - Confirmed
Clint Eastwood confirmed there will be no more Dirty Harry films, which presumably means his newest film, Gran Torino, will not star everyone’s favorite badass cop.
Asked whether it’s true that we’ll see more of Dirty Harry, Eastwood said definitively,
“That is not correct.” Angelina Jolie then quipped,
“I am!” and Eastwood fired back with a laugh,
“Yeah, Dirty Harriet, starring Tomb Raider.”
Eastwood said that for one thing, he’s just too old to be believably playing the role of a working cop at this point, and that while he enjoyed the role and saying “do I feel lucky?” he’s more interested in being behind the camera at this point than in front of it, which is just where he is now at this point in his career.
Hollywood and Cannes Film Festival
Clint Eastwood’s film “The Changeling“, starring Angelina Jolie as a woman searching for her missing son in 1920s Los Angeles and “Synechdoche, New York,” screenwriter Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut.joins a competition list.
Steven Soderbergh, who took the top Cannes award in 1989 for “Sex, Lies and Videotape“, won a race against time to complete his four-hour epic “Che“, on the life of the revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara in time for the festival.
Steven Soderbergh’s inclusion looks like a last-minute decision. He competes with two pic ”Che” bio - “The Argentine” and “Guerrilla”
As predicted, Steven Spielberg’s “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” world preems down on the Croisette, possibly on Sunday May 18. It promises this fest’s must-attend, highest-glam event.
Thierry Fremaux, the festival’s head said the presence of Steven Spielberg and the stars of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”, which will premiere outside the main competition, would ensure “a magnificent red carpet”.
Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett and George Lucas are expected to join Spielberg on the steps outside the Palais des Festivals, guaranteeing the kinds of flashing cameras that add essential glamour to the festival’s arthouse fare.
Out-of-competition, DreamWorks Animation’s “Kung Fu Panda,” an adventure, comedic chop-soc tooner, promises another Hollywood red-carpet cavalcade.
Also non-competing, as is Woody Allen’s custom, is the Spain-shot “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.”
After its debut at the Sundance Film Festival, the Hollywood satire “What Just Happened?” will get a second chance at Cannes - closing night, but we are not sure yet because organizers said they would announce the movies that open and close the festival in a few days.
Robert De Niro stars an embattled Hollywood producer whose life falls apart during one turbulent week. In a life-imitating-art turn, the film’s climactic scene takes place at the Cannes Film Festival, with the producer’s fictional movie-within-a-movie opening the event.
“What Just Happened?” also stars Catherine Keener as a tough-as-nails studio chief and features a number of stars, including Sean Penn and Bruce Willis, playing themselves in self-parodying roles. Barry Levinson directs from an adaptation of “Into the Wild” producer Art Linson’s memoir.
The film generated strong buzz going into January’s Sundance Film Festival, and was expected to sell for a significant seven-figure sum. But the movie received a mixed critical.
Angelina Jolie in ‘Changeling’
The story follows a woman (Angelina Jolie) whose son goes missing in 1920s Los Angeles. The police return the wrong child and the woman is thrown into an insane asylum for disagreeing with the LAPD.
When it seems that her real son has been murdered by a child serial killer and the child returned admits to fraud, she takes her case to the city council and takes down the mayor, the police chief and several corrupt officers, concurrently sparking changes in the insanity legislation.
Starring: Angelina Jolie, Amy Ryan, Jeffrey Donovan, Colm Feore, John Malkovich, Michael Kelly, Jason Butler Harner
Director: Clint Eastwood
Release Date: November 7, 2008
