Briefly: Kenneth Branagh‘s live-action Disney film, Cinderella, has just found its Fairy Godmother. Helena Bonham Carter will play the iconic role helping the title character (Lily James) fall in love with the prince (Richard Madden) in spite of the Wicked Stepmother (Cate Blanchett).

Oh yeah, I forgot there was an upcoming live action Cinderella. To say I’m thrilled would be a gross over-exaggeration. Let’s just say I am not sure if I care much about this film.

Also, Helena Bonham Carter as the “good guy” and Cate Blanchett as the “bad guy”. What will you tell me next? That there’s a…

According to Schmoes Know, they’ve picked up the following casting notice:

Storyline: Two 17 year old twins, a girl and a boy, are trained by their uncle Luke to be the greatest Jedi’s in the galaxy. Problems arise when the male twin turns to the dark side.

Jaina Solo – Female, 17 years old, lead. – Jacen’s twin sister, one of the greatest Jedi’s in the galaxy, trained by her uncle Luke Skywalker

Jacen Solo – Male, 17 years old, lead – Jaina’s twin brother, one of the greatest Jedi’s in the world. A loner who is constantly struggling with the idea of what’s right and what’s wrong.…

Director Michael Bay delivered a few pieces of news last night at CinemaCon, revealing that he’ll shoot the big showcase scenes in Transformers 4 with the new IMAX 3D digital camera and that Stanley Tucci will join the cast.

Bay was reportedly very excited to have Company You Keep star Tucci onboard the movie, which will star Mark Wahlberg, Jack Reynor and Nicola Peltz, as well as another mysterious young actor that Bay teased will be announced very shortly.

At this time, nothing has been revealed about Tucci’s character.

Why? Why, oh why, oh why would such a fine actor join the…

Joss Whedon‘s habit of calling back former Whedonverse alums is well established. But with the exception of Clark Gregg, who’ll reprise his role from the movies as Agent Phil Coulson, the cast of S.H.I.E.L.D. has so far been populated with all-new faces. (Well, new to Whedon.) That changed today, as former Angel star J. August Richards joined the ABC superhero series in a mysterious role.

Excellent! I haven’t seen him in anything for a while and I liked him in Angel so this seems like a good thing to me.

Other info:

Aside from Gregg, Richards joins Ming-Na, who plays soulful…

One of the most troubling things for a movie enthusiast is pronouncing names, like Mia Wasikowska, that belong to filmmakers and movie stars (seriously, who was naming some of these people?). Lord knows that on our podcasts I’ve stumbled over an infinite number of these names. For about two weeks, we had an office debate going on for the right pronunciation of “Ralph Fiennes.”

Nick Blake is taking the pain out of finding the right pronunciations. Watch him — and listen closely — as he waxes eloquently with these tongue-twisting names:

I was seriously hoping someone would tell…

The general moviegoing audience pays a great deal of respect to the The Oscars and what it determines deserves adulation for a year’s films. I agree that the Academy is noteworthy, but it’s far from a perfect judgment. In fact, there are no perfect award ceremonies. Moviemakers that judge for The Oscars and others like them reflect a great deal of skewing biases. They are greatly subjective.

But, if you overview the top three (or so) award ceremonies together (the Oscars, SAGA, and the Golden Globes) then you have a better representation of films’ and their makers’ credibility. More…

Les Misérables is bound to take the box office by storm, but it’s a musical. Are musicals allowed to do that? Under the right circumstances, such as in Tom Hooper’s film, they stand the chance to. I’m really looking forward to Hugh Jackman’s performance as Jean Valjean. Hugh describes the working relationship with Tom Hooper and more in this interview.

“He’s so bold. He just takes so many risks,“ Jackman says. ”You don’t win the Oscar and take on a movie musical. Movie musicals are the riskiest things in the world. Are you kidding me? So, singing live. Making it fully sung through.…

Casting for The Amazing Spider-Man sequel has been pretty stellar so far. Shailene Woodley was added as Mary Jane Watson, followed by Jamie Foxx as Electro and Dane DeHaan as Harry Osborn. Now, in an unexpected announcement, Martin Sheen has confirmed that he will return as Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben.

Not surprising given that there will likely be flashbacks, or things of like nature.

I still hate the first Amazing Spider-Man film and was hoping they wouldn’t continue down this road. Sigh.

Director Bryan Singer just confirmed on his Twitter that Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart will reprise their roles at Magneto and Professor X in X-Men: Days of Future Past, the sequel to X-Men First Class which starred Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy as younger versions of the same characters. They’ll be returning too, along withJennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult. The film is scheduled for release July 18, 2014.

Good.