Women in Trouble.  The very title catches your eye and automatically steers you to the B-List Exploitation movies that Sybil Danning made famous in the 1970s and 1980s. But, this is a new film with a B+/A- cast complete with Carla Gugino (Watchmen), Adrianne Palicki (Friday Night Lights), Connie Britton (Spin City), Marley Shelton (Eleventh Hour), Cameron Richardson (12 Miles of Bar Road), Garcelle Beauvais (NYPD Blue), Caitlin Keats (Kill Bill Vol. 2), Paul Cassell (Brothers & Sisters), and Elizabeth Berkley (Showgirls).

The film has been written and directed by Snakes on a Plane’s Sebastian Gutierrez. The official synopsis says, ‘A serpentine day in the life of ten seemingly disparate women: a porn star, a flight attendant, a psychiatrist, a masseuse, a bartender, a pair of call girls, etc. All of them with one crucial thing in common. Trouble.”

Gugino headlines as a porn actress, Elektra Luxxx, and Luxxx has begun a blog, talking about the film and its characters.

The film held a poster contest over at worth1000 and we show you the winning one-sheet although the Gato Negro Production lacks a distributor and release date. At that site, they expand on the premise by saying, “This is a sexy, sophisticated comedy that tracks one day in the lives of ten different women: a porn star, a psychiatrist, a flight attendant, a housewife, a masseuse, two call girls, etc… The stories interconnect. The tone is playful, smart and witty — funny, but not broad or slapstick. It is racy without being exploitative. It celebrates women. In essence, it’s a women’s picture that men will enjoy. The picture, starring several well known actors and actresses (age range 25-40), will be on the festival circuit; the poster will be used as a main selling tool. This is not a ‘safe’ studio picture, this is a crowd pleasing indie movie — so be bold!”

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Sylvester Stallone is assembling an all-star cast for his latest adventure film, The Expendables. Already he lined up Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Forest Whitaker and Randy Couture as the team of mercenaries hired to dethrone a dictator. The film has been written and will be directed by Stallone with production slated to begin in March for a 2010 release.  While Lionsgate will distribute in the UK, no word on who will release this in the states.

Jo Blo reports that Stallone is trying to entice his Demolition Man co-star Sandra Bullock to join in on the fun. She would play “a government agent (paired up with Whitaker) on the hunt for Stallone’s crew of hired guns. Delicious.”

Moviehole unearthed character breakdowns from the flick, including verification/speculation as to which actors are in the roles. The site says the film has been described as "Clear and Present Danger on acid.”

Here’s a few of the roles still being cast :

Agent Diane Lickson – C.I.A agent, based out of Langley. She’s determined to find out the identities of the hired-contractors (Stallone, Statham, Lundgren etc) but the only video footage they have of the guys is grainy and unwatchable so the facial recognition software is useless. Her colleague, agent Will ‘Willy’ Sands (Forest Whitaker), whose been out of the field for about seven years, is called in to assist her. He’s convinced the team of mercenaries is lead by someone he’s had a previous run-in with.

Church – The man that hires the ‘Expendables’ (run by ‘Barney’ and ‘Christmas’, assumingly the characters played by Stallone and Statham, respectively) to go after General Garza (who essentially runs his own island – described as a human rights graveyard). He’s an older bloke, and has a connection to the young man who Garza has apparently assassinated. This is personal, in other words. He wants Garza killed and his island burnt down. Five million dollars does the trick. (The rumor is, the role was written with Arnold Schwarzenegger in mind). (more…)

We wouldn’t have expected to find out about it in U.S. News & World Report either, but lo and behold, a genuine headline from the future:

Obama Environmental Czar Resigns

By Vic Sage | May 1, 2010 | USNews.com

(Washington, D.C.) — White House environmental “czar” Carol Browner announced her resignation today, citing a desire to “spend more time with her family.”

So there you have it. Thanks to dogged determination, a Christmas miracle, and presumably sales on the Question trade paperbacks from O’Neil, Cowan, and edited by some Gold guy, we’ll be seeing a return of Vic Sage in 2010.

Of course, if it doesn’t pan out, blame Dan DiDio as usual.

Dave Gibbons mentioned to Digital Spy that another of his comic properties is being eyed for the big screen.  "There’s been nothing picked up,” he admitted. “There was a series I did with Frank Miller called Martha Washington, which in fact is longer than Watchmen, it’s about 500 pages. Frank’s enjoying a certain amount of success in Hollywood and I wouldn’t be surprised if something happens with that. I think that would make a great movie. People misunderstand Frank, they think he’s very grim and right-wing, but he’s got his tongue very firmly in his cheek. Martha Washington is a war story but it’s quite satirical and I think has a strange resonance with what’s happening in the world today."

Miller also seems interested in the project, telling Splash Page, “It’s just a matter of finding the right venue, because Martha Washington isn’t a movie, it’s a series. It would have to be like 12 episodes to fit the whole story in. I would not let it be truncated.”

First published in 1990 as Give me Liberty, Martha has appeared in subsequent tales by the duo, all published by Dark Horse Comics.  They announced a Martha Washington Omnibus, collecting every page, but it remains off their schedule.

In the "oh my” department, Sherwood Schwartz and his son Lloyd have been talking up trying to make a feature film version of the classic 1960s sitcom Gilligan’s Island.  They envision Juno’s Michael Cera as the perfect Gilligan and imagine Beyonce Knowles as a modern day Ginger.

The legendary producer, perhaps best known for creating The Brady Bunch, told TV Guide of his plans at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, where Sherwood was inducted into its Hall of Fame.

The notion “just happened in the last 48 hours. I can’t take this much excitement at my age," he told the magazine. Dawn Wells, who played Mary Ann, approved of the casting concepts. "There isn’t anybody sexier than Beyonce!"

We’ll see if a studio snaps up this high concept given the iffy reception movies based on 1960s TV series have received from The Avengers to Bewitched.
 

With The Dark Knight earning $465 million overseas, it’s hard to imagine that the world’s most populous country has yet to see the movie. According to Variety, Warner Bros. has decided not to open the film there at all.

"Based on a number of pre-release conditions that are being attached to The Dark Knight as well as cultural sensitivities to some elements of the film, we have opted to forego a theatrical release of the film in China," Warner said in a release on Tuesday.

The Dark Knight’s scenes shot in Hong Kong might be the points of contention. The country remains touchy regarding how they are depicted in films made by other countries.

At present, it remains $4 million shy of $1 billion in worldwide box office, a number likely to be reached by the time of it January 23 re-release.