End-of-Week News Round-up

Time for another one of these compendium posts.... cool/interesting film/entertainment stuff that's popped up in the past week which I haven't had the time to post about until now.

GENERAL NEWS

• Here's the first look at Anthony Hopkins as as the Master of Suspense in Sacha Gervasi's forthcoming biopic Hitchcock. Verdict? I love the fatsuit. The shape of Hitchcock's head looks perfect, and can't wait to see what Hopkins does with this role.
• After initially having an exciting wishlist of slightly off-centre directors for The Hunger Games sequel Catching Fire (David Cronenberg, Alfonso Cuaron, Alejandro González Iñárritu), Lionsgate have settling a much less exciting director helm the project: Francis Lawrence, the dude behind Constantine and I Am Legend who is not related at all to star Jennifer Lawrence.
• Cannes 2012 line-up have been announced and in competition are new films by Ken Loach, Michael Haneke, John Hillcoat, Jacques Audiard, Andrew Dominik and more. For full list, click here. 

CLIPS

• Trailer: Cosmopolis - hard to tell exactly what the film is about from the trailer, though from what I've cautiously read around the place, it's about billionaire Robert Pattinson trying to get across Manhattan for a haircut, or something. Can tell you this though: it looks awesomely sleek, sensual, futuristic, and certainly more vintage-feeling Cronenberg than his last few films have been.
• Viral Vid: Happy Birthday David - Michael Fassbender in creepy life-like android mode for this cute little marketing vid for Prometheus.
• Parody: Donald Duck - A Dogme Film - possibly the funniest thing I've seen this week. Imagine a live action Donald Duck film directed by Lars von Trier. Works better than you'd think.