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There are plenty of reasons why I’m looking forward to Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog.” For one, I’m excited to see if the Mouse House can successfully revive hand-drawn animated features that Pixar mastermind John Lasseter is overseeing things. For another, I love New Orleans, especially its musical heritage, and I’m anxious to see the setting fully recreated by Disney animators. And now, thanks to a video hosted by Cartoon Brew, I’m also eager to see more of the film’s villain, Dr. Faciler.

As you can see in the behind-the-scenes clip, Faciler is voiced by and very much resembles Keith David, an underrated character actor who you may recognize from such films as “Platoon,” “They Live,” "Clockers," “Barbershop” and “Requiem for a Dream.” And if you don’t know him by face, you probably know his deep signature voice, which has been heard in tons of documentaries, cartoons and video games. He’s done Disney feature animation before, having spoken for the god Apollo in the “Hercules” film. Most recently, he voiced the cat in “Coraline.” Read more...

Tags Keith David, the princess and the frog

Unfamiliar with Rob Zombie’s special brand of filmmaking? Watch the video for his song “Dragula” below. In just three minutes and forty-eight seconds, you get a nigh on perfect sense of the man’s personal style. More than his love of gore, his sense of gallows-ready humor and an obvious fondness for the color red, it betrays Zombie’s fandom. The guy really, really loves his horror movies.

His feature length work, originals “House of 1000 Corpses” and “The Devil’s Rejects” play like over-enthusiastic love letters to seventy years of scary cinema. Horror gave back by letting him play with one of its favorite toys a couple years back. Zombie got to remake “Halloween” in 2007, which he did such a great job with that he was allowed to turn right around and make "Halloween II," which hits theaters this Friday. The sequel makes me a little sad though. It’s not that I’m sick of Michael Myers or anything. After all, everyone loves a supernatural serial killer in a William Shatner mask. No, I just want Zombie to take a stab at a few other horror perennials. Such as… Read more...

Tags Halloween II, rob zombie

Now that production is underway, reports of "Eclipse" set photos will be popping up more and more frequently. I've never understood the appeal myself. These days, so much of the glue that brings a movie together is applied during the post-production phase that they tend to be pretty boring. Sure, you sometimes get a glimpse of cool costumes or foreground set trappings, but with a movie like "Eclipse," even that will be relatively unexciting.

Then again, that's kind of what being a fan is all about. Obsessing over the small stuff just as much as you do over the big stuff. And here you've got set photos featuring two newcomers to the "Twilight" team: Bryce Dallas Howard, who replaces Rachelle Lefevre in the role of Victoria, and Xavier Samuel, who plays Victoria's lackey Riley. They're blurry and captured from a distance, but there are a lot of them. The pic up there is just a piece of one; head over to Lainey Gossip for the full set.

Tags bryce dallas howard, eclipse, rachelle lefevre, Twilight, Xavier Samuel

It's the last week of summer, so how is Hollywood celebrating? By releasing a home video slate of some of the most under-appreciated films of the year. From bickering spies to reluctant amusement park workers, August 25th brings together indie darlings and big-budget gems, and we're breaking it all down in today's DVD Report.

Let's kick it off with one of my favorite films of the year, Tony Gilroy's "Duplicity." The director's sophomore follow-up to "Michael Clayton," the Julia Roberts-Clive Owen spy yarn brings together two of the brightest and most expressive voices working today for a crafty globe-trotting adventure. Filled with twists and turns and superb acting, "Duplicity" wasn't exactly a smash hit at the cineplex, but it's more than worth your time. Sadly, if there's one thing worth griping about here, it's the rather lackluster bonus features...or should we say bonus feature. Both the Blu-ray and DVD feature a lone extra: audio commentary from Gilroy and his brother, who co-produced the pic. Come on Universal, you couldn't dig up any deleted scenes? Read more...

Tags adventureland, duplicity, Sunshine-Cleaning

I think Warmoth's own comments in Twitter-Wood yesterday sum up today's Daily TwitPic best: "I chose a shot that country music fans will appreciate and everyone else in the free world will at least experience bewilderment at." Penn Jillette (the guy on the left in that image off to the side), one half of the Penn & Teller comedy/magic/commentary team, apparently falls into the country music fan cateogry. He's quite happy to be in today's Daily TwitPic photo with country singer David Allan Coe.

It's worth noting two things about Coe: (1) he claims (or claimed) to have killed a man while in prison, which earned him a temporary space on death row and (2) two of his albums -- "Nothing Sacred" and "Underground" -- are laced with mature themes, profanity and outright racial slurs. The death row claim has been refuted somewhat, though it is a fact that Coe spent time in an Ohio prison. And now he hangs with pundit magicians. Read more...

Tags david allan coe, penn jillette

With the apocalypse only a few years away, it's best to prepare yourself. The Institute for Human Continuity, or IHC, has got you covered. At the IHC website, you can learn exactly what plans are in play to keep the human race going after disaster strikes and register with a lottery to secure your own place among the lucky survivors. You can also read through the science of what might trigger a world-ending event, and run a variety of simulated cataclysms. A rogue planet striking the the Earth will wipe us out swiftly, but a slower death by solar bombardment will just as surely bring about the end.

In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, the above chatter references Roland Emmerich's fall blockbuster, "2012." Emmerich, who has been bringing about the end of the world since "Independence Day" in 1996, mined myths surrounding the Mayan calendar -- which ends in the titular year -- for his latest take on the apocalypse. Read more...

Tags 2012, roland emmerich

-- Ian McKellen told attendees at an all-night "Lord of the Rings" screening that an actor has been selected to play Bilbo in "The Hobbit." There are no further details than that, though McKellen also mentioned that he'll be getting the script "within the next week." This falls very deeply into the rumor territory for now, though I have little doubt that a script exists or that there's a Bilbo short list. Especially since "Hobbit" director Guillermo del Toro told us as much in an interview. (TheOneRing.net)

-- The word is the "Fight Club" and "Zodiac" director David Fincher is all set to direct the Aaron Sorkin-penned "The Social Network," also known as "the Facebook movie" in some circles. As you might expect, the story follows the rise of the beast that we call Facebook and its founder, Mark Zuckerberg. Sorkin and Fincher make for odd bedfellows; I'll definitely see this one. (End of Show, via /Film) Read more...

Tags aaron sorkin, dakota fanning, david fincher, Dinner for Schmucks, guillermo-del-toro, gus van sant, Ian McKellen, lexi alexander, Lifted, Lucy Punch, martin scorsese, paul rudd, peter jackson, Restless, shutter island, steve carell, The Social Network, the-hobbit, todd mcfarlane, Uriah Shelton, zach galifianakis

-- First up in this relatively quiet day Around the Blogosphere is a well put together list feature running through 11 short films that have been teased out into feature-length efforts. There are some surprises there to be sure, especially if you're not a film geek. "Napoleon Dynamite" and Wes Anderson's "Bottle Rocket" both started life in short form. The peg of course is Shane Acker's "9," which was an Oscar-nominated 2005 short film. The CGI animated feature, which is produced by Tim Burton and "Wanted" director Timur Bekmambetov, hits theaters on September 9. (Short Films that Grew Up)

-- Over at Cinematical, Jessica Barnes gives some love to superheroes who were thrown under a bus in their Hollywood treatments. Not literally of course; most heroes could survive such an occurrence anyway. Can you guess who the lucky contestants might be? Other than Elektra and Catwoman that is. (Superheroes That Deserve Another Chance) Read more...

Tags 9, Bottle Rocket, catwoman, Elektra, Napoleon Dynamite, Shane Acker, tim burton, timur bekmambetov, Wes Anderson

Could observations about the relationship between Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore reveal your key financial prosperity? Well, at least one CNBC analyst thinks they might, and the happy couple was amused enough to tweet their reactions today in the Twitter-Wood feed.

The feed experienced an image-heavy weekend of tweets -- enough that selecting a Twitter Pic of the Day was not a cut-and-dry decision this afternoon. In the end, I chose a shot that country music fans will appreciate and everyone else in the free world will at least experience bewilderment at. It's a candid photo from Vegas that Penn Jillette recently caught with singer David Allan Coe. Its creepy second-placing challenger was a piece of fan art someone put together for Rose McGowan. In the old days fans depended on pencils and crayons; now, they have 3-D rendering software. Feast your eyes below, because it's all in the Twitter-Wood report for August 24, 2009. Read more...

Tags ashton kutcher, brea grant, brian posehn, david allan coe, demi moore, lee unkrich, miley cyrus, penn jillette, rosemcgowan

It’s been more than a decade since John Landis made his last theatrically released narrative film, a little-seen movie titled “Susan’s Plan.” The legendary comedy director, best known for “Animal House” and “The Blues Brothers,” as well as for Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video, is finally returning to the big screen for a new black comedy about a pair of real-life murderous entrepreneurs called “Burke and Hare.”

The project has been in development for a short while, but horror site Dread Central has just learned first-hand from Landis that casting has begun. First to come aboard is Simon Pegg of “Shaun of the Dead,” says Landis. Read more...

Tags Burke and Hare, john landis, simon pegg