By: Henry J. Fromage –

Jason Statham thrillers are rarely worth reporting on these days.  They all look alike, and deliver about the same low-level amount of ass-kicking and generic plotting.  Seriously, could you pick one of The Mechanic, Killer Elite, and Safe out of a lineup?  Well, chances are you will be able to do so for Homefront.  He plays his usual type of role- this time an ex-DEA agent, but the difference is that Sly Stallone wrote the script, but didn’t star in it himself for some reason.  Also, the villain, a meth dealer named Gator, will be played by… James Franco?

And isn’t he basically already playing this role in Spring Breakers?

Lee Daniels has been trying to get a Martin Luther King project off the ground for years now with Hugh Jackman in a prominent role.  Unfortunately, the longer time passes the less likely Selma looks, but instead Daniels and Jackman have just lined up another one- Orders to Kill.  This project is a bit different- based on a book that alleges that James Earl Ray was only the fall guy for a government/Mafia conspiracy to kill MLK.  Bizarrely enough, aMemphis jury actual found a key member of this conspiracy theory, Loyd Jowers, and “governmental agencies” to be responsible for MLK’s death in a wrongful death lawsuit.  This was little reported, but will form the climax of the film, which now definitely piques my interest.

Somewhere, Oliver Stone is firing a production assistant

I loved Shotgun Stories and Take Shelter, and am eagerly awaiting Mud, so news of a new Jeff Nichols directorial project is music to my ears.  His next is base d on a “Popular Science” article entitled The Boy Who Played with Fusion, which tells the true-life story of Taylor Wilson, a rare genius who was able to attain nuclear fusion himself by the age of 14.  The film will contrast his story with one that inspired him- that of David Hahn, another teen who tried to build a type of reactor in his backyard in the early 90s.  That attempt apparently didn’t turn out so well.

Teens + radioactive isotopes = legendarily bad parenting.