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Plenty of actors have played Abraham Lincoln well, but the actor still most associated with the role is Raymond Massey, who starred in Robert E. Sherwood’s Pulitzer Prizewinning play. The film version was not a hit, as Sherwood’s aim is to capture the melancholy, even the foreboding, of a man who was a natural for politics. In this reading Lincoln tries to resist his ‘call to greatness’ knowing he’s letting himself in for an unhappy life. The Warner Archive’s restoration retrieves the film from old 16mm prints, restoring James Wong Howe’s handsome cinematography.

Abe Lincoln in Illinois

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1940 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 110 min. / Spirit of the People / Available at Amazon.com / General site Wac-Amazon / Street Date , 2022 / 21.99

Starring:

Raymond Massey, Gene Lockhart, Ruth Gordon, Mary Howard, Minor Watson, Alan Baxter, Harvey Stephens, Howard da Silva, Dorothy Tree, Louis Jean Heydt, Clem Bevans, Herbert Rudley,...

June 18th is shaping up to be a killer day for genre fans, as two of my favorite movies of 2019 are making their way home: Jordan Peele’s Us and Lords of Chaos (on DVD) from Jonas Åkerlund. Kino Lorber is showing Chan-wook Park some love this week with their Blu-ray release of Thirst, and Scream Factory has put together the impressive-looking Universal Horror Collection: Volume 1 set as well.

Other home entertainment releases for this Tuesday include Under the Silver Lake, The Monolith Monsters, Crypto, The Nightmare Gallery, Derangement, and Disappearance.

Lords of Chaos

The story of True Norwegian Black Metal and its most notorious practitioners: a group of young men with a flair for publicity, church-burning and murder: Mayhem. Oslo, 1987. Seventeen-year-old Euronymous is determined to escape his idyllic Scandinavian hometown and create "true Norwegian black metal" with his band, Mayhem. He's joined by equally fanatical youths - Dead and Varg.

Scream Factory is looking to give you plenty of reasons to scream for joy this summer with their latest announcements of upcoming Blu-ray releases, including the Hammer's Frankenstein Created Woman (featuring Peter Cushing), three Universal horror movies from the ’50s, and the chilling supernatural film The Entity (which will include a new interview with Barbara Hershey).

Frankenstein Created Woman Collector's Edition Blu-ray: "It’s the year of Hammer Films for us as you can already tell and we have yet another one planned for the Summer. Frankenstein Created Woman (starring legendary star Peter Cushing) is being prepped in Collector’s Edition Blu-ray release!

Here are the early details we have at present time:

• National street date for U.S. only (Region A) is June 11th.

• Release will come with a slipcover (guaranteed for three months after its original release date).

• The newly-commissioned artwork pictured comes to us from Mark Maddox...

We're back on track this week with an episode starring Joseph Wiseman (Aka the future Dr. No). He plays a wealthy man who compels three people from his past to visit him in his bomb shelter. And then the air raid sirens go off ... The Twilight Zone, Episode #82: "One More Pallbearer" (original air date January 12, 1962) The Plot: Wealthy eccentric Paul Radin (Joseph Wiseman) has constructed a bomb shelter 300 feet beneath a New York City skyscraper. Workers finish installing a television screen and sound system just in time for his three guests to arrive. All three have a past connection to Radin. Colonel Hawthorne (Trevor Bardette), his military superior during World War II, ordered him court-martialed for refusing to follow a...

Sugar Shane Mosley was forced to give 3 championship belts to his wife as part of their divorce ... does she deserve them or did he get screwed? And, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson says he would make a "damn good" president. But before you write him off ... Harvey explains why it could work ... and how it all ties back to Abraham Lincoln . And ... if you want to ask a question live via Skype , email us your info (name,...

Cy Twombly: Sculpture Through October 3, 2011

Men, like trees, wrote Abraham Lincoln, are best measured when down. With the passing of Cy Twombly last week at age 83, we may finally begin to count the rings. Sculpture, now at the Museum of Modern Art, is an opportunity to examine the lesser-known three-dimensional works of the American painter.

Twombly is best known for his scratchy, graffitied canvases, whose subject matter ranged over centuries of classical myths, great battles, and -- in his final series, Bacchus -- giant wine-colored flowery shapes. His signature style, a combination of handwriting, scribbles, and Ab-Ex gestures, can be sampled at MoMA in Leda and the Swan (1962), hanging near the start of the exhibition.

read more...

Why two mermaids are too much, in Bigger Than the Sound.

By James Montgomery

Katy Perry and Lady Gaga

Photo: MTV News / Getty Images

I suppose it's every pop star's prerogative to adopt an alter ego: Where would Beyoncé be without Sasha Fierce? How could Nicki Minaj exist without Roman Zolanski? Can Mariah ever not be Mimi?

All valid questions, to be certain, and yet ... maybe it's time we stop asking them. With all due respect to the Queen B, Ms. Minaj and the Magnificent Mariah (or any of the myriad of pop stars who have sought to reinvent themselves over the years), it is entirely possible that we have finally reached the point of no return. And as such, perhaps we should to retire the alter-ego idea entirely.

This has nothing to do with my feelings about alter egos, second selves, or even doppelgängers, since, as a general rule of thumb,...

Dreams are funny things. One second you might be dreaming about lying on a beach in San Diego and the next second Abraham Lincoln lands next to you wearing a jetpack. Things just have a way of getting really jumbled up in dreams. Which might explain the latest movie poster from Hollywood dream king Christopher Nolan.

Because he seems to have gotten some "Inception" all up in his "Dark Knight Rises."

The first teaser poster for "The Dark Knight Rises" has just been released and the image is striking, awesome -- and totally looks like "Inception 2." Bruce Wayne vs. Don Cobb, anyone?

Of course, as cool as the new poster is, it's still a little disappointing that, you know, it doesn't tell us anything about the plot of "The Dark Knight Rises," which is apparently the biggest secret since the formula for Coke. But that hasn't stopped fans from already...

Walton Goggins has joined director Steven Spielberg's Lincoln. The Justified star is to play the progressive democrat and abolitionist Wells A Hutchins, according to Deadline. Goggins will be joining Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln and Sally Field as the president's wife Mary Todd. David Strathairn, Tommy Lee Jones, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, John Hawkes, Hal Holbrook, Bruce McGill, Tim Nelson and James Spader are also signed up. Lincoln is based on Doris Kearns Goodwin's bestselling book Team (more)...

Walton Goggins ("Justified," "Predators") has joined Steven Spielberg's Abraham Lincoln biopic reports Deadline.

Goggins will portray Ohio Congressman Wells A. Hutchins, a Democrat who crosses party lines to vote in favor of abolishing slavery. Tony Kushner ("Munich") penned the screenplay based on Doris Kearns Goodwin's book "Team of Rivals".

Goggins joins a cast which includes Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Shooting kicks off sometime this fall in Virginia.

Walter Goggins is the newest addition to the cast of Steven Spielberg’s upcoming “Lincoln.” Goggins will be playing Ohio Congressman Wells A. Hutchins, one of the few democrats who votes in favor of the Thirteenth Amendment that abolishes slavery.

He will co-star alongside the always-great Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln, Sally Field, Todd Lincoln (ironic?) and David Strathairn, who also just recently joined the cast as Secretary of State William Seward.

Deadline reports the screenplay is from Tony Kushner, based on the book “Team of Rivals” by Doris Kerns Goodwin. The film is set to begin production this coming fall in Virginia and should be released in late 2012.

Schwarzenegger is back to work, two former members of "The Shield" find film projects and Elizabeth Banks is the latest to join What to Expect When You're Expecting. All that and one more little tid bit in today's movie news nuggets...

Arnold Schwarzenegger is going to take a break from his extended family duties and make his return to Hollywood with I Saw the Devil director Kim Ji-Woon's English language debut The Last Stand for Lionsgate. The film centers on a lone border sheriff tasked with stopping an escaped drug dealer from crossing into Mexico in a super car. Schwarzenegger is replacing Liam Neeson who dropped off the project a few months ago. [Movie Web and Slashfilm]

Walton Goggins ("The Shield") has joined the cast of Steven Spielberg's Lincoln and will play Ohio Congressman Wells A. Hutchins, a progressive Democrat who goes against his party and votes in favor of the Thirteenth Amendment to abolish slavery.

Filed under: Movie News

He plays a white supremacist on TV, but Walton Goggins has just been cast as a pro-abolition Democrat in Steven Spielberg's 'Lincoln.'

Goggins, who co-stars as colorful small-town criminal Boyd Crowder on 'Justified,' will play Ohio Congressman Wells A. Hutchins, a progressive Democrat who went against his party to side with Lincoln and support the Thirteenth Amendment.

The prestige pic will star Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln, Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln, and David Strathairn, as Secretary of State William Seward.

Spielberg will start shooting in Virginia in the fall, for a late 2012 release.

Goggins next appears in 'Cowboys & Aliens,' followed by Straw Dogs' in September.

Before 'Justified,' Goggins starred opposite Michael Chiklis on 'The Shield' as Vic Mackey's Bff turned bitter enemy, Shane Vendrell.

[via Deadline]...

Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Marisa Tomei, Ryan Phillippe

Director: Brad Furman

The Scoop: Based on the novel of the same name by crime writer Michael Connelly, this doesn't actually have anything to do with Abraham Lincoln's years as a lawyer. Sorry. Despite the obvious connotations, this one is actually about a lowbrow lawyer (McConaughey) who runs his practice out of a Lincoln Town Car. Phillippe is his client, who has more secrets than answers, many of them involving Tomei.

Special Features: Featurettes, deleted scenes, interviews

*NextMovie Staff Pick* | Rated R, 119 min. | Watch the trailer...

Steven Spielberg continued to round out the cast of his epic biopic Lincoln adding Justified star Walton Goggins. According to Deadline, Goggins joined the cast to play Ohio Congressman Wells A. Hutchins, a progressive Democrat who votes for the Thirteenth Amendment in order to abolish slavery. Goggins, who’s enjoyed great acclaim as Justified's Eastern Kentucky dealer and ex-con Boyd Crowder, joined Tommy Lee Jones, who recently signed on to play Thaddeus Stevens, a Republican congressman from Pennsylvania and a fierce advocate for abolishing slavery. Joseph Gordon-Levitt also came aboard recently to play Robert Todd Lincoln, the only one of Abraham Lincoln's children to live into adulthood.

Tom Hanks's later-life rom-com flops as Transformers clanks home and Bridesmaids lives happily ever after

The winner

The biggest film in the market by a huge margin, and the second-biggest opener of 2011, is Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Opening with £10.73m including Wednesday/Thursday previews of £4.23m, the metal-bashing actioner is this year second only to the debut of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, which began its run in May with £11.63m, including previews of £3.07m. Next comes The Hangover Part II, which opened with £10.41m, including previews of £2.03m.

At first glance, UK grosses across the Transformers franchise seem to have taken a small leap forward: the original film debuted in 2007 with £8.72m, and Revenge of the Fallen followed two years later with £8.35m. However, the latter achieved its opening salvo without any previews. Strip out the previews from Dark of the Moon's tally, and it...

Welcome to the Mouse House for a special occasion! It’s the 4th of July, a time when Americans around the country pay homage to our humble nation, now celebrating its 235th anniversary. Disney is recognized for its commitment to preserving our country’s history and recognizing the efforts of the individuals who have played a key role in preserving Americana, a place where we can challenge the future and chase after our unique dreams. Here is a compilation of the company’s finest United States-centric entertainment offerings in both film and the theme parks, as well as through a few other forms.

Voices of Liberty at Epcot

Quite possibly my favorite musical act in World Showcase at Epcot is the beyond-terrific group of a capella singers, known as the Voices of Liberty. Each day they host multiple performances inside and around the majestic American Adventure atrium, singing well-known American...

Robert Redford’s Lincoln assassination drama The Conspirator is now out in the UK, although without a huge amount of fanfare so let’s get everyone in the mood with a new poster, shall we?

We’ve seen a few images and had ourselves a trailer and anything with James McAvoy will stir a certain section of the UK audience and there’s a decent cast with Robin Wright, Justin Long, Evan Rachel Wood , Tom Wilkinson , Alexis Bledel , Johnny Simmons, Toby Kebbell , Kevin Kline and Danny Huston alongside McAvoy.

In the wake of Abraham Lincoln ’s assassination, seven men and one woman are arrested and charged with conspiring to kill the President, Vice-President, and Secretary of State. The lone woman charged, Mary Surratt (Wright), 42, owns a boarding house where John Wilkes Booth and others met and planned the simultaneous attacks. Against the ominous back-drop of post-Civil War Washington, newly-minted lawyer,...

Film fans will be treated to a host of Hollywood's upcoming releases at a three-day festival in London next month.

Bauer Media and Clarion Events have announced Empire Presents...Big Screen and revealed details of the line-up.

It will include chances to meet the stars and see premieres, screenings and worldwide debuts of new footage.

The event, from August 12 to 14 at the 02, is backed by all the big studios including Paramount, Disney, Twentieth Century Fox, Sony, Marvel Studios, Warner Bros, Universal, Optimum Releasing, Pixar, Momentum, Lionsgate and Icon.

It will open with the UK premiere of Paramount's genre-mashing comic book adaptation Cowboys & Aliens, with the cast in attendance. The film, directed by Jon Favreau (Iron Man, Iron Man 2), stars Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford. As well as the premiere, there will be special screenings on each day.

Industrial Light and Magic will take Star Wars fans on a journey...

Almost by decree, British actor Tom Wilkinson turns up in mutton chops to play an American senator in Robert Redford's starchy period piece The Conspirator. Has Tom pinched those whiskers from the Hollywood props cupboard, forcing studios to cast him in every historical movie just so they might wrench them back off him during make-up? He's clearly too quick for them. I swear Tom Conti did a similar thing and nicked the FilmFour moustache back in the 1980s. He never gave it back either – he just secretly handed it on to Alfred Molina. I hear the 'tache now lives in Malibu and has its own agent.

This may be off the point, but Redford's film is so boring and pious that a spot of levity feels necessary. Actually, the film begins with a joke as James McAvoy, injured on a civil war battlefield, banters to wounded comrades. Before he can finish the gag,...

Transformers: Dark Of The Moon (12A)

(Michael Bay, 2011, Us) Shia Labeouf, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Josh Duhamel, Frances McDormand, John Turturro, Josh Dempsey, John Malkovich. 155 mins

Despite the bombastic patriotism, drooling machine porn, all-round political dodginess, atrocious comedy, antiquated alien-invasion plot, etc, there's something oddly compelling about metropolitan destruction and high-tech combat rendered on this scale. If only there weren't those irritating humans getting in the way. It's an improvement on the last one, but this is so defiantly crass, it's almost admirable. Best watched with a 10-year-old boy, a hangover, or a cultural historian by your side to tell you how wrong it all is.

A Separation (PG)

(Asghar Farhadi, 2011, Iran) Peyman Moaadi, Leila Hatami. 123 mins

The complete opposite of Transformers: a complex, intricate and deeply satisfying study of Iranian society. Built around a divorcing couple, but ranging far wider, it's a web of social taboos, domestic clashes and building tension.

Monday is July 4th, on which Americans celebrate their independence from good taste and in some cases, fingers (fireworks go "Boom!"). It's the one day of the year that common sense is replaced by drunken rounds of Marco Polo and dangerous and unnecessary pyrotechnics.

It's all ooh's and aah's until the Catherine Wheel breaks from its moorings and rolls down the hillside, as screaming children and inebriated fools in porkpie flag hats run for cover.

Or at least, that's what I'm always secretly praying for.

In the spirit of the holiday, we've decided to honor some of our favorite all-American patriots!

Okay, some of these guys may not actually be American, and we may be stretching the use of "patriot" a bit, but these are all guys we have no problem saluting (and they can pull off red, white, and blue).

 

Gabriel Martin, The Patriot

 

Played by Australian Heath Ledger,...

Here’s the new poster for Harvey James McAvoy‘s latest movie, The Conspirator. Also starring Robin Wright, Tom Wilkinson, Evan Rachel Wood, Kevin Kline, Danny Huston, Justin Long, Alexis Bledel, Toby Kebbell and Stephen Root.

Directed by Robert Redford with a script written by James D. Solomon, the film takes place at the end of Abraham Lincoln‘s life, following the trial of the group that planned and carried out the assassination.

Here’s the official synopsis for “The Conspirator”:

Against the turbulent backdrop of post-Civil War Washington, rookie lawyer Frederick Aiken (James McAvoy) reluctantly agrees to defend Mary Surratt (Robin Wright) – the lone woman charged as a co-conspirator in the assassination trial of Abraham Lincoln. When his colleagues, friends, and true love begin to desert him, Aiken must rely on Mary’s spirited daughter Anna (Evan Rachel Wood) to help piece together the events leading up to the assassination.

Click above to Listen Now! It's a three-day weekend and we'd like to thank Abraham Lincoln for fending off Orcs in the battle of Minas Tirtih so that we don't have to work on Monday. USA! USA! Instead of talking about Transformers:dark Of The Moon, we talk about the 1980s cartoon. Seeing as that's the only opening film before this weekend, we continue to talk about the 1980s and how that trollop Miss Suzie never really took care of her tugboat. We apathetically answer fan questions...

Robert Redford's account of the aftermath of the Lincoln assassination is a po-faced history lesson that makes its points rather too obviously, writes Peter Bradshaw

A very stuffy Madame Tussaud's history lesson from director Robert Redford, which replicates the self-consciousness of his movie about the Afghan war, Lions for Lambs. It has the same dewy-eyed liberal need to rebuke the excesses of the right, while insisting on its own, unimpeachable patriotism. The Conspirator is about the aftermath of Abraham Lincoln's assassination in 1865 and the dubious conviction on conspiracy charges of Mary Surratt (Robin Wright), a boarding-house keeper and mother of the fugitive John Surratt, wanted far more urgently than Mary on the same count. The subtextual parallels are not with the 1963 murder of Kennedy with its resulting wave of shock and sorrow, but of course with the 9/11 attacks, and the aggressive new mood of vengeance. This movie focuses...

Might 2012 still have an X-Men movie in it? Hugh Jackman has given an update on The Wolverine…

It's been a troubled path, bringing the follow-up to X-Men Origins: Wolverine to the big screen. All seemed ready to go, until director Darren Aronofsky jumped ship, and the tragic tsunami in Japan delayed plans to shoot part of the movie there.

In recent weeks, though, it seems that the project has been coming back together. A new director has been appointed, in the shape of James Mangold, and Hugh Jackman seems ready to go.

Jackman was chatting to Chfi radio in Toronto, and he revealed, "We shoot in October, so it will probably come out a year after that. That's usually around the timeline."

But will it, in this case? As we've noted before, summer 2012 is a packed and competitive one. Right now, we're looking at Marvel's The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises,...

The Conspirator ***

Stars: James McAvoy, Robin Wright Penn, Tom Wilkinson, Colm Meaney, Danny Huston, Evan Rachel Wood, Justin Long, Kevin Kline | Written by James D. Solomon | Directed by Robert Redford

When Abraham Lincoln is assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, six of his co-conspirators are rounded up. The subsequent trial is organised by Edwin Stanton (Kline), the Secretary Of War, who wants a quick trial and verdict in order to placate a population left reeling from the death of their president.

Among the accused is Mary Surratt, a civilian who owned a boarding house at which Wilkes Booth and his cohorts, including her son, plotted the president’s death. But the outstanding and unusual circumstances of the crime lead her to be tried in front of a military court, thereby denying her the right to a trial in front of her peers as guaranteed by the Constitution.

The case for her...

David Strathairn has joined the cast of Touchstone's Abraham Lincoln biopic "Lincoln" to be directed by Steven Spielberg.According to Variety, Daniel Day-Lewis has been cast as Abraham Lincoln with Sally Field playing Mary Todd Lincoln.Strathairn will play William H. Seward, Lincoln's Secretary of State.The other actors include Tommy Lee Jones, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Hal Holbrook, James Spader, John Hawkes, Tim Blake Nelson, Bruce McGill, Joseph Cross, David Costabile, Byron Jennings, Dakin Matthews, Boris McGiver, Gloria Reuben, Jeremy Strong and David Warshofsky.Spielberg is producing with Kathleen Kennedy. Tony Kushner wrote the adaptation of Doris Kearns Goodwin's 2005 book "Team of Rivals," which looks at Lincoln's presidency between 1861 and 1865 with a focus on the three Cabinet members, Edward Bates (attorney general),...

Sarah Palin's presidential soap opera took centre stage in an Iowa opera house for 'awesome' premiere of The Undefeated

The Sarah Palin soap opera continued – this time in an real opera house – for the premiere of The Undefeated, the hagiographical documentary of the life and times of an Alaskan governor turned political rock star.

Pella's Opera House was built in 1900 but it has surely never seen a day like Tuesday, when Palin's admirers and a media scrum descended on the rural Iowa town, with more than a few hoping that Palin would take the final step and announce that she was running for the 2012 Republican party presidential nomination. And that was just the journalists.

Those hopes had been stoked earlier in the day, with the news that Palin's daughter Bristol had appeared on Fox News and said that the former vice presidential candidate had made up her mind, saying: "She definitely knows.

Finally something new about the upcoming Steven Spielberg‘s project Lincoln. And of course, we’re here to talk about the cast, because according to the latest reports, David Strathairn has joined previously announced Daniel Day-Lewis and Sally Field.

Well, as you see, one thing is for sure, this project definitely has some serious cast on board.

So, as you already know, this project is based on the Doris Kearns Goodwin book titled Team of Rivals and Oscar-nominee Tony Kushner (Munich) is responsible for the script.

Goodwin’s book is actually “…an analysis of Abraham Lincoln’s political talents identifies the character strengths and abilities that enabled his successful election above three accomplished candidates, in an account that also describes how he used the same abilities to rally former opponents in forming his cabinet and winning the Civil War.”

As for the above mentioned cast, Daniel Day-Lewis is set to...

Casting Tidbits feel real while we're in them. It's only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange. First up, DreamWorks sent over a press release today saying David Strathairn (Good Night and Good Luck) will be playing Secretary of State William Seward in Steven Spielberg's historical biopic Lincoln. Strathairn joins an amazing cast that already includes the amazing Daniel Day-Lewis as our 16th president Abraham Lincoln and Sally Field as his wife Mary Todd Lincoln. Production begins this fall in Virginia and it sounds like the film will hit theaters in late 2012 for an Oscar-qualifying run. Second, Variety reports Carey Mulligan is attached to star in a new sci-fi action film called Outback. Director Gary Ross (currently working on The Hunger Games) will helm the feature whose plot is being kept under wraps. The only detail known, as if we needed to guess, is that...

This morning's first batch of news items begins with the proposed 300 sequel and moves to more Dark Knight Rises rumors, talk of Darren Aronofsky's Noah finding distribution, more casting in Spielberg's Lincoln and G.I. Joe 2: Cobra Strikes adds two more. I know you can hardly wait, so let's get to it...

The sequel to 300, which was previously expected to be titled Xerxes, is still moving forward, though under a new title. The film will now be called 300: Battle of Artemisia and with Zack Snyder busy with Man of Steel a new helmer will be taking over and apparently Noam Murro (Smart People) and Jaume Collet-Serra (Unknown, House of Wax) are the two directors in contention.

If you ask me, Collet-Serra's visual sense seems to match up with Snyder's a bit more than Murro, though I have only seen Murro's dramedy Smart People, which doesn't really compare. That film,...

David Strathairn has joined the cast of Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln. THR reports that Strathairn has signed on to play William Seward, "who served as Lincoln’s Secretary of State from 1861 to 1869. Seward was a passionate abolitionist and fiercely loyal to Lincoln as he served in his cabinet during the Civil War." He joins Daniel Day-Lewis as Abe Lincoln and Sally Field who stars as his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln.

Here is what Spielberg had to say about casting Strathairn:

“Throughout his career, David Strathairn has consistently delivered performances of strength and character. That's why I am so pleased that he will portray the Secretary of State, who became such a dominant figure in Lincoln's ‘team of rivals’ cabinet."

The screenplay was written by playwright Tony Kushner, which is based on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s best-selling book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. The book focuses on...

Steven Spielberg continued to round out the cast of his epic biopic Lincoln adding veteran actor David Strathairn. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Strathairn joined the cast to play William Seward, Lincoln’s Secretary of State and a fierce abolitionist. Tommy Lee Jones recently signed on to play Thaddeus Stevens, a Republican congressman from Pennsylvania and a fierce advocate for abolishing slavery. Joseph Gordon-Levitt came aboard to play Robert Todd Lincoln, the only one of Abraham Lincoln's children to live into adulthood. Sally Field also joined the film to play Mary Todd Lincoln opposite Daniel Day-Lewis as the 16th President of the United States.

British movie star David Strathairn has landed the role of former U.S. Secretary of State William Seward in Steven Spielberg's upcoming Abraham Lincoln epic.

Seward was recovering from injuries sustained in a carriage accident when a wannabe assassin linked to the group behind Lincoln's murder attempted to kill him on the same night the president was shot and killed.

Seward fought off his attacker.

Daniel Day-Lewis will portray Lincoln in the movie, while Sally Field will play First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln.

The film will also feature Tommy Lee Jones, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and John Hawkes.

DreamWorks have announced that David Strathairn, best known for his Oscar-nominated performance in ‘Good Night and Good Luck’ and his Emmy Award Winning role in HBO’s ‘Temple Grandin’ miniseries, has joined Steven Spielberg’s upcoming Abraham Lincoln biopic, ‘Lincoln,’ as William H. Seward. In real life Seward served as President Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of State. An outspoken abolitionist, he was...

David Strathairn has been set for a key role in Lincoln by director Steven Spielberg. He’ll play William Seward, Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of State, an outspoken abolitionist and a core member of Lincoln’s wartime cabinet (via Deadline).

Daniel Day Lewis will be playing Abraham Lincoln, the Us’ 16th President,, of which the film plans to follow his entire life until he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth . The film also stars Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens, Sally Field will play Mary Todd Lincoln, Joseph Gordon Levitt will be playing Robert Todd Lincoln. The DreamWorks film has been set to begin production this fall in Virginia for a late 2012 release through Disney’s Touchstone label. Tony Kushner wrote the script based on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals and Kathleen Kennedy is producing with Spielberg. John Williams plans to score the film for Spielberg, continuing their longtime collaboration.

Academy Award nominee David Strathairn has landed the role of William Seward, Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of State, in Dreamworks Pictures' Abraham Lincoln biopic Lincoln, Deadline has discovered.

Strathairn will star opposite Daniel Day-Lewis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Sally Field, James Spader, Tim Blake Nelson, John Hawkes, and a host of other actors and actresses.

Read more on David Strathairn joins Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln...

Steven Spielberg has cast Good Night, and Good Luck Oscar nominee David Strathairn in a major supporting role in his upcoming biopic Lincoln.

Strathairn will play Secretary of State William Seward, which perhaps sounds a little dry, except Seward was a historical badass.

Not only was Seward a fierce abolitionist and a close ally of the 16th president throughout the Civil War, but he also orchestrated purchase of the land that would become Alaska (known at the time as “Seward’s Folly”). He was at his most ninja when targeted by the same group of assassins led by John Wilkes Booth…...

David Strathairn will play William Steward, the outspoken abolitionist who was Abraham Lincoln's secretary of state in DreamWorks Studios' "Lincoln," the studio said Monday. Steven Spielberg is directing the movie, which stars Daniel Day-Lewis as the nation's 16th president and Sally Field as his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln. The movie is based on historian Doris Kearns Goodwin's bestselling biography, "Team of Rivals." Tony Kushner wrote the screenplay. Strathairn won an Emmy for HBO's "Temple Grandin" and was nominated for an Academy Award for "Good Night and Good Luck." He stars in the upcoming "The...

David Strathairn has been set for a key role in Lincoln by director Steven Spielberg. He'll play William Seward, Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of State, an outspoken abolitionist and a core member of Lincoln's wartime cabinet. He joins Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln and Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln. The DreamWorks film has been set to begin production this fall in Virginia for a late 2012 release through Disney's Touchstone label. Tony Kushner wrote the script based on Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals and Kathleen Kennedy is producing with Spielberg. Strathairn won an Emmy for HBO's Temple Grandin. He's repped by ICM and Ryan Entertainment.

Emmy-winning, Oscar-nominated actor David Strathairn has just been cast as Secretary of State, William Seward in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, which will star Daniel Day-Lewis at the legendary 16th President of the United States. The film is aimed at a late 2012 release. Read more after the jump. Spielberg, who plans to shoot the film "this fall in Virginia with an anticipated fourth quarter release in 2012" had the following to say about Strathairn: Throughout his career, David Strathairn has consistently delivered performances of strength and character. That's why I am so pleased that he will portray the Secretary of State, who became such a dominant figure in Lincoln's ‘team of rivals’ cabinet. Seward was a Governor of New York, United States Senator and Secretary of State under both Lincoln and Andrew Jackson. He's best known as "an outspoken abolitionist and one of the most loyal members of Lincoln’s wartime cabinet.

Seventies bedroom poster idol has become a peddler of po-faced, finger-wagging history lessons

"He lacks the wound," Norman Mailer once said of his rival Gore Vidal. And while that might be debatable, the phrase certainly applies to Robert Redford, erstwhile Mr 1970s Box Office and former bedroom poster idol of a generation, now an irredeemably boring director.

His latest, The Conspirator, tells the story of the trial of Mary Surratt (Robin Wright), a Washington DC boarding house owner ultimately executed alongside several men of her acquaintance who were involved in the plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. One of those men loudly proclaimed Surratt's innocence from the very scaffold at which they were hanged, and Redford's movie ponders the highly ambiguous facts about her involvement in the same worthy, po-faced and finger-wagging manner that characterises most of his work as a director.

Like Redford's last directorial snoozer, Lions For Lambs, a broken-backed,...

Warner Bros. has just acquired Blood Wars, said to be a radical reinvention of vampire mythology, TheWrap reports. Imagine Entertainment is producing the film where "vampires have control of the world and humans are their slaves. But humans infiltrate the vampire army and plan a rebellion." If you ask me it sounds like the same ol' song and dance, and not much of a "reinvention"... The project is based on a story by Chad St. John and Blacklight Transmedia, with Dalan Musson writing the script. The subgenre remains big (in development) with Twentieth Century Fox in production on Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, The Hunger, a remake of Tony Scott's 1983 film, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, based on the television show, Midnight Mass, based on the DC Comic, Nocturnal, with Legendary Pictures and Bite Me, with Thunder Road and Mad Chance.

Exclusive Warner Bros. has just acquired "Blood Wars," a radical reinvention of vampire mythology, TheWrap has learned. Imagine Entertainment is producing. In the Warner Bros. version of the story, vampires have control of the world and humans are their slaves. But humans infiltrate the vampire army and plan a rebellion. The project is based on a story by Chad St. John and Blacklight Transmedia. Dalan Musson is writing the script. Jon Berg is overseeing for Warner Bros. Sarah Bowen is Imagine's executive overseeing it. Zak Kadison is producing. The undead remains big. Twentieth Century Fox has "Abraham Lincoln:...

In September 2008, Kevin Bacon set up at Showtime The Booths, a drama about Abraham Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth and his brother. Three years and a regime change at the pay cable network later, there is movement on the project. Oscar-nominated writer Ron Nyswaner (Philadelphia) has been tapped to write the potential series, which Bacon is still executive producing. The Booths focuses on Confederate Booth and his brothers, Edwin and Junius Brutus Jr., and chronicles their years leading up to the April 14, 1865 assassination of Lincoln at Ford's Theatre. The brothers, sons of British Shakespearean actor Junius Brutus Booth and Mary Ann Holmes, were all stage performers. In addition to The Booths, Bacon also is executive producing a single-camera comedy at HBO based on Clint McCown's book The Member-Guest with an eye to star. Nyswaner most recently co-wrote with Phil Dorling the feature comedy Predisposed, which is now filming...

For over a century, it has been one of the world's most burning questions: If Abraham Lincoln fought his own clone, who would win?

Okay, so maybe we're overstating the importance of the question, but that isn't going to stop Hollywood from answering it. And next year's showdown between "Lincoln" and "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" is just one example of the many projects in the movie pipeline that are fighting with their own clones. Everyone from Snow White to Osama Bin Laden is racing to get to the theater before their evil twin gets there first.

So with that in mind, we thought we'd take a look at some of the films that may soon have you seeing double. Because in Hollywood, if an idea is good enough to film, it's good enough to copy.

'Untitled Snow White Project' vs. 'Snow White and the Huntsman' 'Untitled Snow White Project'

Starring:...

In the wake of the release of Green Lantern in theaters everywhere, there have been a few interesting reveals from people. Heidi Macdonald reveals that she doesn’t get the character of Green Lantern, and Adam-Troy Castro shakes his head at what may be the most famous page of Green Lantern ever (reproduced above). Ty Templeton, as he is wont to do, goes full mock, as does Let’s Be Friends Again.

Here’s what they’re missing.

Quoting Heidi:

While I’m willing to shoulder the blame for shunning Green Lantern over the years, as I’ve been learning and growing, I have noticed a few things about the character that do strike me as flaws, dramatically speaking. It’s often noted that DC’s heroes for the most part lack the melodramatic emotional flair of the Marvel heroes, Batman and Superman being the notable exceptions. Marvel’s heroes...

The St. Louis Globe-Democrat is a monthly newspaper run by Steve DeBellis, a well know St. Louis historian, and it’s the largest one-man newspaper in the world. The concept of The Globe is that there is an old historic headline, then all the articles in that issue are written as though it’s the year that the headline is from. It’s an unusual concept but the paper is now in its 25th successful year! Steve and I collaborated recently on an all-Vincent Price issue of The Globe and he has asked me to write a regular monthly movie-related column. Since there is no on-line version of The Globe, I will be posting all of my articles here at We Are Movie Geeks. This month’s St. Louis Globe-Democrat is written as if it’s 1946.

Motion picture audiences may be curious who this odd-looking new horror star by...

The 160th Anniversary Retrospective at the Kiehl's flagship store in New York. Photograph by Zachary Tolbert.In the five years since Chris Salgardo, president of Kiehl’s U.S.A., has been at the helm, he’s literally taken the brand for a ride in the name of charity. Kiehl’s has created a new philanthropic initiative practically every year, including 2010’s LifeRide for amfAR (a six-day motorcycle ride through California) and its newest endeavor, Kiehl’s Gives, created in honor of the brand’s 160th anniversary. The initiative supports three of Kiehl’s key charitable pillars—children, the environment, and H.I.V./AIDS—with Julianne Moore, Pharrell Williams, and the Scissor Sisters lending their star power. Each celebrity is representing a pillar closest to his or her heart: Moore for children’s well-being, Williams for the environment, and the Scissor Sisters for H.I.V./AIDS research. The initiative kicks off at KiehlsGives.