The 48-year-old actor [Russell Crowe] is playing the titular lead role in Darren Aronofsky’s interpretation of the biblical story of the great flood and they are currently shooting scenes in Reykjavik, Iceland.

To get to the set Russell has to pass volcanic ash and negotiate a steep climb.

In a series of posts on his twitter account, he wrote: ‘‘I’m living on a vast plain of volcanic ash in the lee of a volcanic glacier. The commute to work is a hike up a mountain… Wind tears the volcanic desert, ash and sand arcing in 40 foot waves across the plain, in the distance the somnambulant…

Lawless directed by John Hillcoat is coming to theaters August 29th. What in the trailers sort of looks like a western setting is really a depiction of depression era Franklin County, Virginia. Two bootlegger brothers have local authorities hustling in on their racket. To make matters worse (read as “exciting”), it escalates into a larger conflict between lawmen and career criminals.

The most notable reason the film is worth wartching is to see Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Jessica Chastain, and Shia LeBeouf. Tom Hardy and Gary Oldman were filming these roles back-to-back with with filming of…

Joss Whedon has signed to write and direct “The Avengers 2,” Disney Chairman Bob Iger said Tuesday.

Not that I really had any doubt, but definitely awesome to get confirmation.

Whedon wrote and slid behind the camera on “The Avengers,” which Iger called a “phenomenal success” during the call. The adaptation of the Marvel Comics series has grossed nearly $1.5 billion worldwide.

Whedon’s script and direction were praised by critics and fans for their light and often humorous touch.

I loved The Avengers and can’t wait for the second installment.

“Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora – and even this weekend the shootings at the Sikh Temple in Milwaukee in which seven people were killed – the list of gun massacres in the USA grows ever longer. America is mainly split on the issue of gun controls – this film concentrates on what young people there think should happen now,” said Executive Producer Steve Anderson in a release on the BBC website.

(emphasis mine)

Of course the focus is going to subtly shift to gun control. Not to get too political on Moviebyte, but I’m going to let my conservative side come out for a minute here. Let us…

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was shot at 48 frames per second, rather than the film industry standard 24fps. The first public presentation of footage, at CinemaCon this past spring, didn’t go so well, with audiences finding that the increased detail seen in the HFR footage made the film look cheap, rather than more impressive.

Huh. Who would have guessed there was a reason films have been shot at 24fps all these years?

WB will do a very limited release, “perhaps n[o]t even into all major cities,” to start getting audiences used to seeing HFR. There may be a wider rollout after…

Late last week, the box office prognosticators speculated whether The Dark Knight Rises would eek out a triumph over newcomer Total Recall. The pendulum would swing in either direction as the weekend approached, but in the end TDKR easily beat out Total by every measure. In fact, the film only really managed to measure-up to its original, but in 2012 dollars

As far as The Dark Knight Rises still being in first place, that is probably as it should be. But the fact that it only made as much as the original but in today’s dollars — which actually means it’s doing far worse — is something of…

I have been looking forward to the release of Hulu on the Apple TV for more than a year. As a consumer, I see them as a perfect pair. Who doesn’t want on-demand TV by way of a pretty black hockey puck with the Apple logo on it? For those of us that have cut the cable cord it is ideal.

Hulu and the studios do not feel the same way. But let us cut to the chase: on demand media devices, like the Apple TV, are the future available today; just like Hulu itself was four years ago. The networks are slow to understand this.

I thought when Hulu Plus came to Apple TV that all the features of the…

Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo topples Citizen Kane at the top of critics’ list in the last Sight & Sound survey for the “best movie of all time.”

“What is Vertigo,” You ask? It’s a fair question to ask, seeing as how few people count it as the best film by its director, Alfred Hitchock. But as far as the most authoritative poll of critics the world over is concerned, it’s the best motion picture of all time.

If this movie still isn’t ringing a bell for you, here is a summary of Vertigo in the words of Jonathan Romney at The Independent:

… Based on a novel by the French duo Boileau and…

The story of a man named Brady and his irritatingly chipper blended family is as much a part of ‘70s pop culture as shag rugs and free love, maybe more; neither of those dated phenomena lived on in the popular consciousness as tenaciously, and exhaustively, as The Brady Bunch. The series already enjoyed five seasons, an afterlife in syndication, many lesser spin-offs, and — the true marker of any Hollywood institution — an E! True Hollywood Story. So who really thinks we need another Brady Bunch reboot?

Vince Vaughn, that’s who!

This sounds like such a bad idea on so many levels. I…