Movies Music and Television, Weekly News Roundup: WOODY HARRELSON OSCAR NOD, SCARFACE REMAKE, MONEYBALL and J.J. ABRAMS "ALCATRAZ"

First off this week who thinks Woody Harrelson is worthy of an Oscar?  Me for one.  I have been a big Harrelson fan for years and in my opinion he is one of those actors who can pick up a role and make it his own, what I mean by that is he isn't just Woody Harrelson in every movie you see he can really step into something and make you believe he is the character he's  playing.  My two personal favourites are Natural Born Killers and White Men Can't Jump.

Harrelson has actually been nominated for an Oscar twice in the past and I have to be honest I haven't seen either of the movies.  For The Messenger he was nominated for a best supporting actor role and The People vs Larry Flynt saw him get the nod for best leading actor.

Now it seem that Harrelson is going to get another chance, Oren Moverman who directed Harrelson in The Messenger has helped heap him with praise once again.  Rampart premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and the cop drama drew rave reviews.  The movie is based on a character named Dave Brown a corrupt cop who strolls through life believing he is always on the right side of the law, his past finally catches up with him and he is forced to come clean with his family and department heads.

Deadline are reporting the movie has now been picked up by Millennium pictures in a deal worth $2m dollars but no release date has been set.  As well as Harrelson leading the movie he is backed up with a stellar cast including Robin Wright, Steve Buscemi, Sigournay Weaver, Ben Foster, Ice Cube, Anne Heche and Cynthia Noxon.

Who knew the Pacino version of Scarface was a remake?  Not me that's for sure.  It seems that they aren't happy with one remake released in 1983 and now they want to make another updated version, although they are trying to stay away from words like sequel or remake.  The original Scarface was released in 1932, in black and white of course and starred a guy named Paul Muni who played an Italian immigrant who took over Chicago.  Pacino as we know was a Cuban immigrant who muscled his way to the top of the Miami cocaine trade during the 1980's, his iconic one liner "say hello to my little friend" and the character of Tony Montana is still merchandised to this day when asking most people if they have seen a Pacino movie (who hasn't?) there answer will be Scarface.

What is it with remakes at the minute and where would they go with a new character if it's not a remake like they say?  The 1983 version of the movie still sits in prime place in my DVD collection along with other classic gangster movies like Casino and Goodfellas and personally I wouldn't like to see any of them remade.

Who has heard of Moneyball starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill?  No.  Well this is a movie which has been gathering interest for quite a while now, released in America over the weekend it has drawn rave reviews.

The movie is a biography which is based on a book of the same name, it follows Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) and his successful attempt to build a Baseball Team with the Oakland A's after they employ computer generated analytics and a reduced wage bill.

The movie is brought to you by Aaron Sorkin the Oscar winning director who lead Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Capote.  Hoffman also stars in this movie along with Robin Wright, check the trailer below.

So why am I so interested?  Well if you come here regular you may know that I'm a huge fan of Football, not American, the English Premier League and Newcastle United in particular.  I read an article a while back now comparing the tactics of Mike Ashley (Newcastle owner) and the director of the Oakland A's Baseball team.  Ashley has made similar cuts at Newcastle particularly with the wage bill, this season manager Alan Pardew has managed to make people really fight for their place in the team creating a little hunger once again, that's why I'm interested.

I have mentioned in a couple of posts lately that Director and Producer J.J. Abrams must surely be the busiest guy in Hollywood right now, and it seems he has struck gold once again with his new TV show Alcatraz.

The Pilot episode of the show premiered at this years Comic Con and left the audience dripping for more.  The show has been billed as the new Lost and also draws comparisons from many other Abrams projects like Fringe and The 4400.

It centres around a mysterious incident at Alcatraz prison in 1963 when all 302 prisoners and guards vanished without any explanation.  One prisoner from back then named Jack Sylvane shows up in modern day San Francisco, mystery is he hasn't aged a day since his dissipearne from Alcatraz.  He has returned to right a few wrongs and the lead Detective in the case Sarah Linden along with geeky historian Dr. Diego Soto (Lost's Jorge Garcia) are left to unravel the mystery.  They are soon joined in the investigation by FBI agent Emmerson Hauser (Sam Neil, Jurassic Park) and learn that Sylvane won't be the only prisoner from 1963 making a re-appearance in San Francisco.  The show is due to air on Fox in early 2012.