THE ONLINE AUTHORITY ON MOVIES

And now for something entirely different. Variety reports (via ComingSoon) that Walt Disney Pictures have picked up the film rights to Dani Menkin and Yonatan Nir‘s 2011 documentary Dolphin Boy in order to turn it into a narrative feature. Dolphin Boy, you say, that sounds charming! A boy and his dolphins! Swimming free! Free Willy with dolphins, nature’s smartest aquatic creature! Aww!

Wrong. The synopsis for the original film doesn’t shy away from tossing out terms that we might necessarily associate with the House of Mouse – terms like “violent attack,” “before hospitalization in a mental institution,” “devastating havoc that human violence can wreak upon the human soul,” and more! I’m devastated just reading about this film. If you’re into having your soul pulled out through your throat, the doc’s full synopsis reads as such:

Morad – a teenager from an Arab village in the north of Israel disconnects himself from humans following a violent attack that he experienced. As a last resort before hospitalization in a Mental Institution, he is taken by his devoted father to be treated with Dolphins in Eilat. Morad starts speaking again after months of silence, but he erases his past and refuses to go home to his awaiting mother. This documentary about the devastating havoc that human violence can wreak upon the human soul, and about the healing powers of nature and of love, was filmed over the course of the past four years.

Not wrenching enough for you? Check out the trailer for the Dolphin Boy doc after the break, and bring the tissues.

That strangely obvious Top Gun IMAX 3D re-release news was announced way back in September of 2011, but we’ve heard scarce little about just when we’ll get to see everyone’s favorite volleyball scene play out in the biggest cinematic format possible since then. Until now! Good news, fans of classic ’80s schlock cinema, as Paramount has just announced that the re-release will hit screens for a limited, six-day-only engagement on Feburary 8, 2013.

The film will only be available in select IMAX theaters, so perhaps start thinking about your tickets now (also, perhaps you should also start planning your cosplay look, while you’re at it). The re-master was overseen by the late Tony Scott, and the conversion is promised to “reveal extraordinary depth and clarity, allowing viewers to explore every detail of the action.”

Is six days just not long enough for you? Never fear, the Top Gun Blu-ray 3d and Blu-ray 2D sets arrive on February 19, 2013.

Whether or not Side Effects is director Steven Soderbergh‘s final film still remains to be seen, but even that added (potential) intrigue seems unnecessary so far, because the Channing Tatum, Jude Law, and Rooney Mara-starring film looks satisfyingly confounding all on its own. Mara stars as a young wife (to Tatum, lucky duck) who turns to a doc played by Law to help ease her anxiety. He prescribes her a new drug. And it has, you guessed it, side effects.

The film’s first poster is a sleekly designed affair, and we’re willing to bet it holds more than a few secrets to Side Effects. Like just what does “a doctor’s most important prescription is trust” mean?

Side Effects opens on February 8, 2013. [The Huffington Post]

Let’s just all pray that there will never need to be a reboot of Reboot, because this title is already a tad ludicrous as is, at least cinematically speaking. THR reports that Fox 2000 has set newbie scribe Lindsay Devlin to adapt Amy Tintera‘s upcoming YA novel, “Reboot,” into a feature film for them. The book which, again, won’t be released until next year, so no wonder you haven’t heard of it, is described as “edgy” and predictably takes place after the world has experienced a major upheaval.

At the center of Tintera’s novel is “Wren 178,” a female “reboot” who works as soldier for “HARC (Human Advancement and Repopulation Corporation).” What’s the deal with reboots? Well, they sort of sound like zombies – they are all people who have died, been brought to life, and now have superhuman strength (the depth of their strength is based on how long they were dead, as it were). The “178″ in Wren’s name refers to how long she was dead – 178 minutes – and Wren tops the Reboot charts in death-length. Part of Wren’s work as a Reboot is to train new ‘boots, but everything gets topsy-turvy for Wren when a new Reboot throws her for a loop. It’s a boy Reboot. Hide your shock. You can guess where this is going. The whole thing sounds a bit “Hunger Games” mixed with “Insurgent,” but hey, that’s what the kids are into these days.

After the break, check out a full synopsis for the book, via ComingSoon.

There’s a ton of inspirational philosophizing in the new trailer for Man of Steel, and damn does it also look awe-inspiring. Massive in scope, potentially intimate in its character arcs, terrifying use of Michael Shannon‘s eyes. All excellent notes (even if the song choice is a bit too cloying).

If trailers can be trusted, this one yells from the cold mountaintops that Zack Snyder‘s take on Superman will be a thing of wonder. It’s exhilarating.

I think I need to catch my breath.

Man of Steel hits theaters June 2013.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Columbia/Sony is still trying to make the Salt sequel a reality by hiring Becky Johnston. It’s an interesting choice and a pleasantly surprising one considering Johnston’s career legacy in adult dramas — particularly Seven Years in Tibet and The Prince of Tides. There’s no doubt that she’s a smart screenwriter, and it was a smart move for Columbia.

Admittedly part of that is from how indirect it is. They’ve hired an Oscar nominee with a great skill for character building to take on an action follow-up. That’s unexpected to say the least.

Of course, the goal here is to please star Angelina Jolie who wasn’t happy with the earlier version of the story turned in by Kurt Wimmer. If Johnston has the right take on the spy thriller, there’s a great chance that we’ll see Salt 2 put into production in the relatively near future.

In a press release today, Rovio Entertainment has announced that Despicable Me producer John Cohen will be producing an Angry Birds movie with an eye to release it in the summer tentpole season of 2016. The film will be animated and in 3D.

It’s not the first time we’ve reported on it, and it probably won’t be the last that we question the idea of taking an admittedly popular, completely uncinematic franchise and shoving it into film form. But since it’s happening, they could have done worse than to hire Cohen, especially since he’ll be working alongside executive producer David Maisel — formerly of Marvel Studios and Iron Man. Cohen has a lengthy track record working successfully in big budget animation (alongside Fox Animation and Blue Sky Studios), so the expertise is certainly there.

They’ll make a great team to create something visually and (most likely) comically appealing. No doubt it will be aimed at children and their parents, but the challenge remains of taking something addictive because of its simplicity and translating it with any worth into a story worth telling over an hour and a half. If I can’t draw my finger back on the screen, I’m not sure I want to see the fowl fly. Fortunately, they’ve announced it early enough for doubters like me to get out of the way when it hits.

It’s less than two weeks now until Judd Apatow’s latest riff-filled look at the life of the married human, This is 40, hits theaters, so that means it’s starting to be time for the film’s marketing team to go for the hard sell. You know what that means… it means they’ve now released a raunch-filled red band trailer meant to lure in all of the teenagers and young at heart people who love to hear people say naughty things, but are still on the fence when it comes to seeing a movie about wrinkled up old people in their 40s (yuck) doing whatever old people do.

So what kind of new stuff does this new, more restricted trailer have in it that the ones playing on TV just aren’t going to get you? You’ve got Paul Rudd inspecting the inside of his butt while doing a contortionist routine, a frank discussion about what Megan Fox is hiding under her skirt, Apatow and Leslie Mann’s teenage daughter screaming about dicks, boner talk, mustache talk, and a partridge in a pear tree. Is all of this stuff funny? Yes, indeed it is. Is it funny enough to convince you to see another Apatow movie that clocks in at over two hours? Well, that’s something everybody is going to have to decide for themselves.

The newer, naughtier ad is courtesy of Funny or Die, and the film itself is due to hit theaters on December 21. The time to decide whether this one fits into your crowded, end of the year movie schedule is nigh.