It’s been 23 years since the original Wall Street, and Michael Douglas reprises his role as corporate raider Gordon Gekko, freshly released from prison and ready to ascend right back to the top from which he fell. The role of Gordon’s protégé, played by Charlie Sheen in the first film, is filled by current hot-property Shia LeBeouf, the kid who’s been popping up in every big-budget production from Transformers to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I’m not entirely sure why.

Here he plays Jacob Moore, a clean-air advocate and propriety trader for the crashing firm of Keller Zabel, headed by his mentor Lewis Zabel (Frank Langella). The reason Zabel’s headed down the tubes is because of a bogus rumor spread by hedge-fund manager Bretton James (Josh Brolin), who purportedly also had a hand in bringing Gekko down. James offers to buy the dying firm for a pittance, which leads Zabel to commit suicide and sets Jake out for revenge.

Jake’s also engaged to Winnie (Carey Mulligan), owner of a fledgling environmental blog and Gekko’s daughter, whose relationship with her father has been estranged ever since the suicide of her brother Rudy. At a signing for Gekko’s new book, Jake meets up with his soon-to-be father-in-law and two form a pact: Gekko will help Jake bring down James if Jake helps Gekko reconnect with his daughter. And all the while Jake struggles to get his pet project, a clean, fusion (I believe)-based energy company, off the ground.

Continue Reading →

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 interesting. Otherwise, on to the links!

• Remember that guy who reviewed the Star Wars movies? Well, he’s back and reviewing Star Trek now. Still funny.

• Old Spice spokesman Isaiah Mustafa wants to be Luke Cage so badly that he even did a photo shoot to show to studio executives. We think this needs to happen.

• Like fights? Of course you do. So, here’s five classic action hero fights that need to happen.

• Love Glee? Hate Glee? Seriously don’t give a crap either way? If you’re that first one, here’s a preview of next season. The rest of you go watch something else.

Continue Reading →

Apparently, the reports of friction between director Michael Bay and hot actress Megan Fox are true as, according to various reports, the actress will not be returning to star in Transformers 3. The studio supposedly did not pick up her option for the third film, which starts shooting this week in Los Angeles. Although, if you believe Fox, the decision to not to appear in the film was actually her’s.

If the studio really did make the decision and Fox is just covering, then I agree it still seems like an unusual move for the studio and director Bay to make, especially as the film has just begun production. To eliminate an actress from a franchise where she plays a pretty large part and is also the love interest is somewhat risky. In addition, previous reports had indicated that writer Ehren Kruger and Bay were planning on creating a ‘female nemesis’ for Fox’s character.

I guess you can forget about that as Bay and company now plan to take the story “in another direction,” and will cast a new love interest. Perhaps said love interest will be a female bad guy? Could be interesting.

But really, the stars of any Transformers film are the robots so what actors star in the film, even though the list has impressively grown for this film with the additions of John Malkovich, Frances McDormand and Patrick Dempsey, are not as important. To be honest, you could probably replace the entire cast with new people and as long as the robots were cool, which let’s face it they are, the movie would still make a ton of money.

Transformers 3 is filming now and will hit theaters, sans Megan Fox, on July 1st 2011.

Things have been pretty quiet for the upcoming sequel to Wall Street since we caught a glimpse of some set photos with Shia LeBeouf and Frank Langella a few months ago. Since then, production has finished up and we finally have a trailer to enjoy.

The film follows almost real-time after the events of the original 1987 film. Gordon Gecko is getting out of prison, and wants back in the game, except everything is different now. Douglas joins in with newcomer LeBeouf, as well as some old friends including Charlie Sheen, Susan Sarandon, and Frank Langella.

Given where the economy and Wall Street is today, compared to 1987, you can expect this film to take an interesting turn and border on didactic. Oliver Stone is returning to helm the sequel, who’s best known for his topical films such as World Trade Center and  W, so expect to see some potshots taken at the financial climate.

Check out the first new trailer after the jump, and catch Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps in theaters on April 23rd.

Continue Reading →