By Jarrett Mellenbruch

Just go ahead and give Mattie Ross whatever it is she demands. Trying to bargain with this 14 year old , played by Hailee Steinfeld, will eventually leave you weakened and bewildered. Her relentless pursuit of justice for the murder of her father calls upon her vast reserve of cunning, quick wits, and masterful tongue.

Cast opposite the craggy and weathered drunkard U.S. Marshall  Rooster Cogburn, masterfully played by Jeff Bridges, she holds up her part and then some in this perfect balance between a game innocent and an extremely experienced, blunt yet perceptive hired gun.

Thanks to Hailee Steinfeld, the young actress who plays Mattie, women viewers who venture out to see one western every decade would do well to make True Grit their choice for the Teens. This may be the one movie where a mother/daughter night out to see a shoot-em-up may rival the father/son crowd. That’s not to say the men should stay away, only that there is something for everyone here, including the strong central heroine.

Matt Damon, Barry Pepper, and Josh Brolin nicely round out the cast and offer some extra color and comedic moments. Damon’s LaBoeuf is the cowboy nerd who rides the fine line between charming and annoying, and he rides it well. Pepper plays bad guy Ned Pepper, who probably is the grittiest part of the whole movie. And Josh Brolin is the seemingly simpleminded crook who killed Mattie’s father and kicked off this whole goose chase.

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Spy films of the 1960′s have a reputation of getting terrible remakes. It happened with Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman in 1998′s The Avengers. It happened with Jim Caviezel and Ian McKellan in last year’s The Prisoner. But that all may change, now that Steven Soderberg has expressed interest in taking on The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Here’s the official word from THR.

Steven Soderbergh is in early talks to take over directing duties on the long-in-development film The Man From U.N.C.L.E. at Warner Bros. Scott Z. Burns, who wrote Soderbergh’s The Informant and the director’s upcoming medical thriller Contagion, is negotiating to come aboard as writer.

The show was a basic serialized spy drama from 1964 starring Robert Vaughn, who found a strong career later in life on the hit BBC show Hustle. The plan is most likely to gear the film towards the action/comedy hybrid, which is what original screenwriter Max Borenstein was tasked to do.

Now that Scott Burns is taking on the script, you can expect to see elements of both The Bourne Ultimatum and The Informant–Burns’ previous films–to arise in this script. The only question remains: will we see Matt Damon as the titular Man?

If there is one truth that is universal to every human being, it is that we are all going to die someday.  For some people that is a terrifying prospect, for others it is just another stop on life’s journey.  Whatever your beliefs are, I think that all people have innate curiosity about what happens when we die.  After all, no one knows for sure.

I’m sure it is no coincidence that Clint Eastwood has turned to this subject matter at this point in his life. The man is 80 years old.  He’s likely had more than a fleeting thought about his own mortality.

Hereafter juggles three distinct storylines throughout the movie until they converge in a neat and tidy package at the end of the movie. The film doesn’t even give you a moment to get settled in your seat before you are subjected to  a gut-churning Tsunami action sequence.

It’s one of the most amazing set pieces I’ve ever seen.  It is terrifying and fantastically realistic, and it will leave you a slack-jawed mess.

Marie (Cécile De France from High Tension) is a successful French news reporter with her own show.  She is on vacation with her boyfriend (who happens to be the producer of her show) when the Tsunami hits.  She has been buying souvenirs for her boyfriend’s children in the marketplace.  As the giant wave starts bearing down upon the market, everyone starts running for their lives.

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This week’s pick salutes Steven Spielberg’s epic Saving Private Ryan (1998) which tells the story of an eight man rifle squad which is chosen to find and safely bring back Pvt. Ryan after it is discovered that his three older brothers have all died in combat just days apart from one another. The film stars Tom Hanks (Capt. John H. Miller, Charlie Company, 2nd Ranger Battalion), Tom Sizemore (Sgt. Mike Horvath), Ed Burns (Pfc. Richard Reiben), Jeremy Davies (Cpl. Timothy E. Upham), Barry Pepper (Pvt. Daniel Jackson), Adam Goldberg (Pvt. Stanley Mellish), Vin Diesel (Pfc. Adrian Caparzo), Giovanni Ribisi (Pvt. Irwin Wade), and Matt Damon (Pvt. James Ryan).

Saving Private Ryan is best known for its first thirty minute opening which is one of the most brutal depictions of combat ever put on film. Elements of Capt. Miller’s (Hanks) battalion prepare for the assault on Omaha Beach on the fateful morning of June 6, 1944. While the assault force approaches the Normandy coast aboard the landing craft, each man is preparing themselves for the inevitable. Many men are seasick, while many pray silently to themselves.

The operator of the boat alerts them that they will hit the beach in just thirty seconds. Miller instructs his men to move fast and to clear the “murder hole” (the opening of the craft). When the ramp hits, you are immediately plunged into the intense combat. Rows of men are cut down from German machine gun fire before they can even leave the craft. Other men are instructed to jump over the sides, only to drown due to the amount of heavy equipment many troops carried into combat.

Miller helps a fellow soldier ashore while they make their way through the maze of anti-tank traps and dead bodies at the water’s edge. The camera is submerged under the water, and then surfaces. The use of sound in this scene is fantastic. When submerged, the scene is tranquil and peaceful but when on the surface, you are subjected to the sound of machine gun fire, explosions, and bullet ricochets off of men and the tank traps that were placed to keep American armored vehicles from reaching the beach.

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As if we weren’t excited enough when the first trailer for the Coen Brothers’ upcoming remake of True Grit hit last week, a brand new, full-feature trailer has hit the web, and not only does it have more Jeff Bridges as US Marshall Reuben “Rooster” Cogburn, but a killer Johnny Cash tune, and even some kind of man-bear riding a horse.

The film comes from Ethan and Joel Coen, who made their stamp on visually stunning Western-style dramas with No Country For Old Men. The cast is rounded out enough with Bridges leading the charge, filling in the shoes of John Wayne, while Matt Damon and Josh Brolin fill out the supporting cast.

Between this film and his upcoming dual roles in Tron Legacy, it looks like the next year will be pretty big for Jeff Bridges, and could bring him another Oscar for True Grit.

Check out the full trailer for the film after the jump, and catch it in it’s full Western glory in theaters on Christmas Day.

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Way back in February we brought you some casting news about the Coen Brothers remake of the John Wayne classic western True Grit. And now, thanks to the magic of the Interwebs, we can bring you the first teaser trailer for the film.

With a cast that includes Matt Damon as La Beouf, Josh Brolin as killer Tom Chaney and Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn (the role made famous by Wayne) the trailer brings us a bit of the flavor of the film and brings to light the fact that this film is going to be pretty amazing. The original film, based on a 1968 novel by author Charles Portis, starred Wayne in a role so popular it earned him his only Oscar.

In case you’re not familiar with the story, it concerns 14-year-old farm girl Mattie Ross who sets out to capture her father’s killer. To help, she hires tough yet abrasive U.S. Marshall Rooster Cogburn, a man with “true grit.” Over Cogburn’s objections, Maddie accompanies him on the quest and they are joined by another Marshall, La Beouf, who wants Chaney for his own reasons.

True Grit hits theaters on December 25th. Check out the trailer after the jump.

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USA Networks’ new series Covert Affairs doesn’t premiere until July 13, but The Flickcast was invited to Toronto to check out the set and talk to some of the cast.  There’s too much content to put in one post so we thought it was best to break this up over several articles.  Getting things started is this interview with Covert Affairs Executive Producer Doug Liman.

Even if you haven’t heard of Liman but are into the spy genre there’s a high probability you’ve seen one of his films.  Liman directed the first of the Bourne trilogy films and produced the other two.  He also produced Mr. and Mrs. Smith and is currently working on Fair Game; the true story of CIA spy Valerie Plame Wilson whose identity was revealed by the White House to allegedly discredit her husband.

With all that on Liman’s film resume it’s no surprise he was drawn to a TV series about spies.  Ultimately, however, it was working on Fair Game that became the driving force behind Covert Affairs. According to Liman:

“…in doing the research for Fair Game, we got access to a lot of current and former covert officers with the CIA. And most of the material that we were learning about had no place in the movie, unless I wanted the movie to be 10 hours long. And so we had this huge treasure trove of just sort of cool factoids.

And you know, that stuff is, you know, it was just like the perfect timing to be developing a TV show in the same arena at the same time, because we’ve just taken all the research that, you know, wasn’t appropriate for Fair Game and just channeled it right into Covert Affairs.”

While at their core Covert Affairs and Fair Game are about the CIA both spin the material in completely different directions. While Covert Affairs plays to the strengths of the CIA and what they do to protect the nation, Fair Game definitely represents the Agency in a moment of weakness.

This distinction was not lost on Liman as he explained the differences:

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Like most weeks, this time around we’ve got another bunch of new movies and TV shows hitting DVD and Blu-ray. Some of them are new, some are old and some are hitting Blu-ray for the first time.

Of the ones hitting stores today, we’re most interested in the Blu-ray release of The Last Station, the extra fun and campy Death Race 2000, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Afro Samurai: The Complete Murder Sessions, Riverworld and the action film Green Zone (pictured above with Amy Ryan and Matt Damon).

Movies

A Star Is Born (Blu-ray Book) ~ Judy Garland (Blu-ray)

Close-Up (The Criterion Collection) ~ Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Abolfazl Ahankhah (Blu-ray)

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs ~ Bill Hader, Anna Faris (Blu-ray and DVD)

Death Race 2000 (Roger Corman’s Cult Classics) ~ David Carradine, Sylvester Stallone (Blu-ray)

Fireball ~ Ian Somerhalder, Lexa Doig (Blu-ray and DVD)

Green Zone ~ Matt Damon (Blu-ray and DVD)

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Welcome to this week’s On the Radar where we delve into all corners of the entertainment, tech and geek Internets for news, views and whatnot that may have escaped our regular coverage this week. Let is know if we missed something.

The Last Airbender may be another M. Night letdown, but at least it will have cool looking creatures.

Time to high five the 13 year old you, the lightsaber is finally real.

Andy Leipzig is a nerd like us. The difference is he uses it in some really cool art.

Guillermo Del Toro walked away from The Hobbit. Why? Because he totally digs vampires.

Remember the oil spill episode of Saved By The Bell? If not, here are the things you should remember. Maybe they’ll help us today.

Talk about life after death, it seems that Conan’s upcoming stint on TBS may be better than his NBC days ever were.

Who wouldn’t want to see a Japanese remake of Ghost? Oh….everybody.

Will Smith is already pimping Men in Black 3D, reminding us that parents still just don’t understand.

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With every big-budget original idea, there always seems to be another film with a similar plot right behind it. In this case, we’ve got Chris Nolan’s Inception hitting theaters this summer, and now, along the same lines of psychological thriller, we’ve got Matt Damon in The Adjustment Bureau.

Granted, this idea came first in the form of a novel by Philip K. Dick, but it still doesn’t excuse Universal for releasing the film a few months after Inception. In Bureau, Damon plays Senate candidate David Norris who falls in love with the quirky Emily Blunt. They get together, get it on, and Damon is visited by a group of greyhairs in suits who explain that they “control how things work” and his relationship was never supposed to happen.

The film has  elements of The Matrix, Dark City, and Inception, with some potentially great performances from Mad Men and Iron Man 2′s John Slattery and Superman’s Terence Stamp. The film also comes from writer/director George Nolfi who worked with Damon on 2007′s Bourne Ultimatum, so there’s a little bit of history too.

Check out the trailer after the jump, courtesy of Yahoo Movies, and keep an eye out for The Adjustment Bureau when it hits theaters on September 17.

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As with most weeks, this week brings a crop of new movies and TV programs on Blu-ray and DVD. Among the ones we’re interested in this week are two Doctor Who TV Movies, X-Men, Volume Five, the Blu-ray release of NINE and the Blu-ray debut of Saving Private Ryan (pictured above with Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Vin Diesel, Adam Goldberg and Edward Burns)

Movies

Doctor Zhivago Anniversary Edition ~ Omar Sharif, Julia Christie (Blu-ray)

Fallen ~ Paul Wesley, Tom Skerritt, Bryan Cranston (Blu-ray and DVD)

Leap Year ~ Amy Adams, Matthew Goode (Blu-ray and DVD)

Nine ~ Daniel Day-Lewis (Blu-ray and DVD)

No Time for Sergeants ~ Andy Griffith, Don Knotts (DVD)

Saving Private Ryan ~ Matt Damon, Tom Hanks, Edward Burns (Blu-ray and DVD)

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With The Flickcast’s own Shannon Hood covering all the excitement at SXSW this week yours truly is stepping in to take over box office duty. Don’t worry all you Hood fans, I have no doubt that she’ll be back next week, which means I’m only here for one week. That’s something that can’t be said about Alice in Wonderland, however.

Even with mixed reviews, Alice took the top spot again over the weekend. While it dropped 46% drop from last week, the 3D fantasy took in another $62 Million, bringing its total to $208 Million in only two weeks. As Shannon noted last week, this is Tim Burton’s biggest opening and the film is certainly finding an audience.

One concern from reviewers was whether or not audiences would be somewhat disappointed by the 3D aspect of Alice in comparison to Avatar. While Avatar was quite an immersive experience Alice in Wonderland presented more of your traditional 3D environment. It seems movie goers don’t mind the difference and are eager to see Johnny Depp and cast as they romp through Wonderland.

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