A Scene From Where The Wild Things Are

Can somebody please tell me if this is a legitimate clip or not? It... certainly... looks like it. And that certainly sounds like Benicio... and... well, it was a nice surprise to find it in my e-mail, let me tell you.

Yeah, let's face it. It is real. At the very least it was a real test. I love the suit. Spread the word.

I'm still very busy, working away on a couple of BIG film projects and teaching, teaching, teaching. I'm thinking of bringing back film ick as a weekly podcast... sound like a good idea? Where should I host it?

And... I don't know what to say about Heath Ledger. Sorry. I don't know what to say at all. But I'm obviously incredibly pleased that The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus is going to be completed.

[EDIT: I'm now told this clip was a test shot in the summer of 2005 in Griffith Park. And that's not the final Max, but Griffin Armstorff who improvised everything you see him do here. Presumably, Benicio Del Toro was then given dialogue to match the improv lines, but it's also fairly clear that the basic scene outline was probably preplanned first of all. On top of everything else, I think we can expect the finished film to look even better than this does]

Movie Minesweeper - The Wedding Day Edition

No, I'm not getting married today. But I am going to a wedding, and filming it too. So, I'm in a real rush - but I can't not update at all today, can I? No. So, here's a very rapid Movie Minesweeper to try and keep things relatively smoothly running.

- SuperHeroHype have the final Transformers one sheet. I was going to see the film today, but that wedding interfered. I'll survive.

- The first image of Harrison Ford in costume for the new Indiana Jones shows that his dress sense hasn't altered much.

- Morgan Freeman is to play Nelson Mandela. It was only a matter of time.

- Variety have published their 2007 list of hot screenwriters to watch. I spotted two that were, previously, actors on Buffy the Vampire Slayer but I wouldn't be surprised if you told me there were more.

- Sharon Morrill, the mastermind behind Disney's direct-to-DVD operations, has lost her job. Ostensibly, it's because of the delays and spiralling costs of Tinkerbell, but seeing as Tinkerbell seems to be the first of these projects to finally start going right, it's really because of everything else. She has done quite a bit of damage, if you ask me, and she really should have to carry the can.

- There's even more evidence that a Sex and the City movie is coming.

- A deliberately obscure and mysterious Saw IV still has turned up.

- Terence Stamp is now in Wanted too. I understand it's not a huge part (fans of the comic probably know which role I'm getting at).

- Only one witness to Cillian Murphy on the Dark Knight set? Hmmmm. I'm not saying the Scarecrow isn't in the film, just that this is no more proof of his appearance than all these dappy e-mails I've received are of Edward Nygma turning up. I'm shrugging at both, though, to be honest.

- Woody Allen and William Friedkin are to direct opera.

- Tonight, He Comes is being retitled John Hancock. Not sure about either of those. How about An Alan Smithee Movie 2?

- Apparently, James Marsters is to appear in the next series of Torchwood - presumably before knuckling down to write the script that will make him one of 2008's hot screenwriters.

- MTV have secured a much nicer version of the Where the Wild Things Are still.

- The Munchkins are getting a star on Hollywood's walk of fame. Just one star - to share. Is there some sort of height-to-star ratio that we don't know about? I'd get the man from the lollipop guild on the case, this simply can't be fair.

Where The Toy Things Are

The first image from Where the Wild Things Are has popped up online and, yep, it looks really quite exciting indeed. I've popped it below with more snaps from the New York Toyfare. There's Beowulf and the Hulk's silhouette, and if you go over to the coverage at Wizard, you can see plenty more - including well distributed, much discussed, boring snaps of vehicles from The Dark Knight and Speed Racer. Yawn.

But this Wild Things image. Now. There's something, eh?