Noticias

Holy smoke!  It looks like everybody's favorite talking dog and his boy companion are back in action.

The "Rocky and Bullwinkle" characters are coming to the big screen in "Mr. Peabody & Sherman," minus one anthropomorphic moose and squirrel duo, but packing some serious star power.

Cinema Blend reports that the Dreamworks Animation project is moving forward after a stall, having found its lead in "Modern Family" star Ty Burrell, who will replace Robert Downey Jr. as the bespectacled pooch. Sherman, Mr. Peabody's adopted human, will be voiced by 8-year-old Max Charles, who has had minor roles on "Community" and "True Blood," and will star as a young Peter Parker in the soon-to-be-released "The Amazing Spider-Man."

While the characters are best known for their short segments in between larger portions of "Rocky and Bullwinkle," this movie will have them flying solo as they scour the universe for their missing Wabac machine...

While The Black List may be getting most of the press from entertainment news circles when it's announced in December, there's another compilation of the best new ideas and writing being offered to Hollywood movie studios and producers. It's called The Hit List (Thl), and it differs from The Black List in one fundamental way: whereas The Black List (Tbl) is a list of the top unproduced screenplays in Hollywood, several of the screenplays on that list have been purchased or are in development.

Take a look at last year's Black List (Part 1 is here, Part 2 is here) and here we are, one year later, and several of the scripts that made the 2009 list will be coming out in 2011 -- or have already been released (like The Social Network or Due Date). The Hit List is different in that it seeks to give attention to spec screenplays -- that is,...

CAMP NOWHERE

Buena Vista

Sneaking in under the wire, Hollywood Pictures' seasonal ''Camp Nowhere'' pits yet another gang of clever kids (this time bored with parent-approved summer camps) against stupid adults in a wish-fulfillment comedy. With its target audience largely back in school, the routine effort has almost no chance of making an impact at the boxoffice.

First-time director Jonathan Prince and writers Andrew Kurtzman and Eliot Wald shoot for easygoing laughs and harmless family fun, but ''Camp Nowhere'' has little to distinguish it from similar fare released over the years. Kids will warm up to their energetic contemporaries on screen, but adults will nod off en masse.

Well-cast but not offering anything new, the film has Christopher Lloyd making funny faces as the burnt-out benefactor who helps set up a secret, kids-only camp for the principal scammers -- Spanky-inspired ''Mud'' (Jonathan Jackson), tough guy Zack (Andrew Keegan), airhead Trish (Marne Patterson) and cutie pie Gaby (Melody Kay).

Other adults, good and menacing, figure in the farce that finds the kids auspiciously occupying an old hippie hangout in the woods (HR 8/26-28).-- David Hunter

THERE GOES MY BABY

Orion

An ''American Graffiti''-ish take on the personal and social upheavals surrounding Westwood High's 1965 graduating class, ''There Goes My Baby'' is U.S. social history as writ by the jukebox. Featuring a venerable slew of Golden Oldies from the '50s and '60s, this long-shelved Orion release cruises best during its tune times but stumbles when the narrative spins onto the scene.

The imminent demise of Westwood High School's popular burger hangout, which is to be torn down and replaced by a shopping mall, is the Joni Mitchell-ish metaphor for this story of change.

Indeed, writer-director Floyd Mutrux's central thesis focuses on the growing pains between the Age of Eisenhower and the Age of Aquarius. In his 45-rpm-deep scenario, the central characters are a representative stockpot of Westwood High graduating seniors.

As far as recapturing the days when the '50s met the '60s, ''There Goes My Baby'' succeeds about as well as those '50s-themed franchise burger joints succeed in recalling the era -- all the right sounds but a synthetic feel (HR 8/26-28).-- Duane Byrge

WAGONS EAST!

TriStar

This season's western crop hasn't exactly been burning any holes in the boxoffice. With the exception of ''Maverick, '' the other oaters, including those Kevin Costner, Billy Crystal and Woody Harrelson-Kiefer Sutherland vehicles, fell considerably short of expectations.

Which is reason enough to hold out little hope for ''Wagons East!, '' a slapstick take on the Old West that arrives with the built-in notoriety of being the film that John Candy had almost completed at his untimely death.

Given that the finished product is often tasteless and remarkably unfunny, making little use of Candy's comic genius, it is a milestone best left forgotten.

Matthew Carlson's first feature screenplay wants very much to be another ''Blazing Saddles, '' but

the crass, half-baked result can't hold a candle to vintage Mel Brooks.

Director Peter Markle does little to improve the situation, letting things run their predictable course (HR 8/24).-- Michael Rechtshaffen

Other reviews

Also reviewed last week were the films ''A Simple Twist of Fate'' (HR 8/29), ''Princess Caraboo'' (8/29), ''Kabloonak'' (8/29) and ''Mustang: The Hidden Kingdom'' (8/29).

(c) The Hollywood Reporter...