I just writing this here as a to do list. It is much easier to post here than to keep a yellow sticky note inside my wallet (I already have two there anyway). All this is is a list of movies I need to see before the end of the year. I am sure I will be adding some later but these are just off the top of my head and I know there is no way I will see all of these, hell, some of them might not even be released here before the year is up. I will be deleting them once I have seen them so that I can keep things organized.

There Will Be Blood
Juno
Margot at the Wedding
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Grace is Gone
Walk Hard
The Diving Bell & the Butterfly
The Savages
Youth without Youth
Charlie Wilson's War
The Bucket List
The Great Debaters
I Am Legend
The Kite Runner
Away from Her

Some new photos from Semi-Pro which follows Will Ferrell as the owner/star player of the fictional ABA team The Flint Tropics.

The best part about this video is the very beginning that makes it look like an old VHS dub. I had to watch it twice to realize it was intentional.

From EW, The 50 Smartest People In Hollywood.

The new international trailer for Juno. My favorite line, or at least a close approximation of it:

"You are like the coolest person I know and you don't even try."

"I try really hard actually."

It was reported that Universal was trying to sign Russell Crowe to replace Brad Pitt in Stay of Play, and now he is in final negotiations for the political thriller.

Pitt pulled out of the movie citing script concerns that made him uneasy about toplining the picture, says The Hollywood Reporter. That brought him to loggerheads with the studio, which was adamant about going ahead with the script they had. Even meetings with the movie's director, Kevin Macdonald, proved fruitless.

Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland) spent the weekend in Australia wooing Crowe, who had to see if "Play" could fit into his schedule; Crowe is scheduled to shoot Universal's Nottingham, the Ridley Scott-directed reimagining of the Robin Hood story.

In Stay of Play, an adaptation of a British miniseries, Crowe will star alongside Edward Norton, Helen Mirren, Rachel McAdams, Jason Bateman and Robin Wright Penn. He will play a political consultant-turned-journalist who heads a newspaper's murder investigation involving a fast-rising politician (Norton).

Edward Norton and Tim Blake Nelson, who star together in upcoming The Incredible Hulk, will reunite for Leaves of Grass. Norton will direct, Nelson is producing, and both star in the comedy.

Norton plays twin brothers - one a philosophy professor, the other a career criminal who gets his more erudite twin into big trouble with some murderous potheads.

Adam Sandler from his upcoming movie You Don't Mess with the Zohan. Co-written by Judd Apatow, Sandler stars as a Mossad agent (Israel intelligence agency) who fakes his own death so he can move to New York to become a hairstylist. My biggest concern is that this is directed by Dennis Dugan, who's last three films were this I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, The Benchwarmers, and National Security. Not exactly an impressive resume.

A full list of all the films playing at this years Sundance Film Festival. Below is the one I am most interested to hear about.

PRETTY BIRD (Director and Screenwriter: Paul Schneider)— A comic tale of three would-be entrepreneurs who set out to invent a rocket belt. The clash of their mismatched personalities soon dissolves the business into a morass of recriminations, retaliations, kidnapping, and murder in this parable of American dreams and delusions. Cast: Billy Crudup, Paul Giamatti, Kristen Wiig, David Hornsby.

From Awards Daily, some clarification as to why some films were not nominated for the Spirit Awards.

There is a budget restriction on the IFPs which was why Into the Wild, There Will Be Blood and The Kite Runner weren't eligible for the Spirit Awards but that hasn't stopped the rampant speculation. There Will Be Blood and The Kite Runner did not play at the appropriate festivals to qualify and neither has opened yet.

This will probably not mean anything to anyone besides me but after 10 years on the air, the Food Network has canceled Emeril Lagasse's Emeril Live. Production on the show will stop on Dec. 11, but the celebrity chef remains on contract with the network. The network will continue to air Lagasse's The Essence of Emeril, and the chef will also participate in various specials. I have no problem with this. "Live" is actually one of my least favorite shows on the network, it is only good for his trademark quotes and trying to work them into everyday conversations.

Sean Penn's Into the Wild was named best feature on Tuesday night (Nov. 28) at IFP's 17th annual Gotham Awards. Michael Moore's Sicko took home best documentary, and Ellen Page won breakthrough actor for her role in Juno. Music-industry satire Great World of Sound, which led all nominations with three, earned Craig Zobel the award for breakthrough director. The ceremony also included a tribute to movie critic Roger Ebert, who has been battling cancer. He came to the podium with his wife Chaz, who told the audience that her husband's recovery has been aided by movies.

Jake Gyllenhaal is set to play Hall of Famer Joe Namath in its as-yet untitled biopic about the former New York Jets quarterback. David Hollander will write the script once the writers strike is over. The movie will tell Namath's story as the promising young kid from steel town Beaver Falls, PA who rose to rock star status in the 1960s as the nonconformist socialite known as Broadway Joe, who would sit on the sidelines wearing a full-length fur coat. In one of Namath's most memorable moments, he guaranteed an upset victory in 1969's Super Bowl III, when his Jets played the heavily-favored Baltimore Colts, and delivered on his promise. I think I posted this story just as an excuse to run the picture to the right.

Some new pictures from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

I was wrong about Once. It is nominated for a single Indie Spirit Award, best foriegn film.

The IMBD page for Shotgun Stories and the poster.

Here are the 2008 Indie Spirit Awards nominations. I would post them here but for some reason copying and pasting them didn't seem to work and it would take far too long to type everything out. I actually don't know what constitutes indie or not for these awards. I fully expected to see multiple awards for Into the Wild but it is nowhere to be found. I assuming it is not eligible because it was financed by the same company that made No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, which are both left off the list. I guess my biggest surprise is the complete shut out for Once, a film I know is an independent, and that David Gordon Green has produced something called Shotgun Stories that is up for the John Cassavetes Award.

This is from EW's new Hollywood Insider Blog. Nothing that great but I like the revelation at the end about the Colombian version.

With the strike in week 3, the networks are planning to showcase a fair amount of reality TV in the coming months. And the folks at Fox will soon unveil one of those is-it-genius-or-is-it-the-end-of-Western-Civilization? masterpieces. Introducing The Moment of Truth, a game show in which contestants can win up to $500,000 if they answer correctly—according to a polygraph test—a total of 21 probing personal questions. (Sample stumpers: Do you really care about starving children in Africa? Would you find your husband more sexually attractive if he lost 25 pounds?). Adding to the intrigue/discomfort is the fact that contestants will have to come clean in the presence of family and friends. Based on the highlight reel we watched, brace thyself for awkwardness, gasps, tears, and maybe even a touching moment or two. Creator/executive producer Howard Schultz—the Extreme Makeover guru who spent five years refining Truth; the pilot was originally shot for NBC—explains the appeal of his series thusly: "The world is swimming in B.S. This is a show that exposes all of that." (And then some: A Colombian version of the series was recently cancelled in the wake of a female contestant's admission that she had once hired a hit man to kill her husband. Luckily, the hit never occured.) Fox president of alternative entertainment Mike Darnell—who says he hasn't been this jazzed about a new show since Joe Millionaire—promises at least a slightly kinder and gentler Truth here in the States, though he notes with a chuckle: "I would never go on one of my own shows, but I wouldn't even go near this one." Hosted by Mark L. Walberg—emcee of Temptation Island—the Truth will be revealed on Jan. 23 after American Idol, which gives the strike-sidelined Stephen Colbert just enough time to work on that inevitable parody: The Moment of Truthiness.

Seth Rogen is taking a hands-on role in post-production on The Pineapple Express. His latest idea is having Huey Lewis pen and perform the theme song for the film. According to EW Rogen was spotted having lunch with Lewis at Ford's Filling Station in Culver City, where the movie's music was the main topic of discussion. "Seth's looking for something in the vein of 'Power of Love,'" says a source, referring to Huey Lewis and the News's 1985 hit, which was the theme song to Back to the Future.

Mark Ruffalo has apparently all but signed a final contract to star opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in director Martin Scorsese's drama Shutter Island, an adaptation of Dennis Lehane's 2004 novel. Ruffalo will play a U.S. Marshal who along with his new partner (DiCaprio) travels to a Massachusetts island to investigate the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane. While there, they get hit by a hurricane and trapped in a violent inmate riot. Shooting is scheduled to start in March. Ruffalo will next star opposite Julianne Moore in Fernando Meirelles' Blindness and alongside Adrien Brody and Rachel Weisz in Rian Johnson's The Brothers Bloom.

This is a really bad cover but the DVD comes out on December 18, a pretty great day for DVDs with Superbad and Blade Runner: The Final Cut also being released.

Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under) will voice one of the monsters in Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are.

An adaptation of Maurice Sendak's children's book, Ambrose will play KW, one of the giant creatures in the land of the Wild Things. When a young boy named Max visits their strange world, KW and company turn him into their king.

Ambrose replaces the previously cast Michelle Williams. Shooting on the project took place in secret last year in Australia.

The trailer for the opening night film of the Sundance Festival, In Bruges.

The official Watchmen site has updated with pictures of the Vancouver backlot that's standing in for New York City and it looks almost identical to the graphic novel. More importantly though, in the bottom image we are given our first looks at Rorschach, the main character from the film.

This is an excerpt for a review of No Country for Old Men written by Moriarty (easily the sights best writer), over at Ain't It Cool News. These paragraphs don't even get into his critiques of that film, but it brings up a point I had never considered before but completely agree with.

Each of the great movies that the Coens made take place in self-contained worlds. Unlike Wes Anderson, who has created one self-contained world that he seems determined to explore every broken-familied corner of, the Coens create whole new worlds each time out. BLOOD SIMPLE and RAISING ARIZONA don’t take place on the same planets. MILLER’S CROSSING might as well be about a different species. BARTON FINK is a snapshot of the sweaty interior of one particular writer’s overearnest brain, and it doesn’t feel anything like MILLER’S, the film it followed. It also gave no hint of what to expect from HUDSUCKER, a gorgeous cartoon, lusher than anything they’d tried before. FARGO. THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE. Both crime films, but totally different in the way they play. Both exist as wholly realized realities that make me want to climb up into the screen.

THE BIG LEBOWSKI... a cult movie with a cult that grows more every day... a deliberate riff on the same tradition of detective fiction that also inspired MILLER’S CROSSING, but so stylistically different that you would never automatically assume both films sprang from the same minds. Same thing with O BROTHER. How is that similar to LEBOWSKI at all? It’s not. Not remotely.

I think the reason I dislike INTOLERABLE CRUELTY and THE LADYKILLERS is because they both feel pressed from more ordinary studio movie templates. INTOLERABLE CRUELTY feels like a Nora Ephron movie. It’s a little more wacky in a few places (I like Wheezy Joe, but he hardly makes the entire movie worthwhile), but it’s basically a generic chick flick in terms of look and style. Pretty. Forgettable. And with THE LADYKILLERS, it feels for the very first time like the Coens trying to do what Barry Sonnenfeld does, broad mainstream comedy. I think it fails as a mainstream film, but it also fails as an eccentric pleasure. It feels like the Coens imitating the people who imitated them, and the results left me cold.

Here is another excerpt from the review. This one about the controversial ending, it sums up how the way the film eventually unfolds makes complete sense. Don't read this if you haven't seen the film, it contains quite a few spoilers.

I’ve heard much debate about “the ending” of this film, but I think it’s really a bigger issue. The stuff that frustrates some viewers is pretty much part of the reason this story was even told in the first place. As much as I said this is a story about a guy finding some money, it’s also a story being told by the guy who finds the remains of the guy who found the money. Tommy Lee Jones plays Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, a guy whose attitude marks him as the last of a dying tradition. Tough, a survivor who’s seen it all. The film is more about his observations on the incident than it is about the incident. By the time the film reaches its conclusion, I think it’s managed the difficult feat of switching perspective, gradually, eventually telling us a story we didn’t even realize we were watching. Maybe that’s what throws some people, that thunderclap as they realize that this is Bell’s story, not Llewelyn’s. This is a film about how wicked we can all be under the right circumstances, but it’s also a film about what it does to someone when they spend their time chasing all these wicked people around, cleaning up the messes they leave behind.

I usually think website for movies are a waste of time other than to see trailers or other clips, but here is an entertaining one for Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind.

Roger Ebert's just posted best of 2006.

Yes, I know it's a year late, but a funny thing happened to me on the way to compiling a list of the best films of 2006. I checked into the hospital in late June 2006 and didn't get out again until spring of 2007. For a long while, I just didn't feel like watching movies.
Then something revolved within me, and I was engaged in life again.

I started writing reviews of the 2006 films, starting with "The Queen," and screened the Oscar nominees to make my annual predictions. Then I began doubling back to pick up as many promising titles as I could. Am I missing some pf the year's worthy entries? No doubt. But even in a good year I'm unable to see everything. And I'm still not finished with my 2006 discoveries. I'm still looking at more 2007 movies, too, and that list will run as usual in late December.

Nothing I am likely to see, however, is likely to change my conviction that the year's best film was "Pan's Labyrinth."

And so these were 2006's best films:

1 Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" tells opposite stories and does both of them full justice. On the one hand, there is an outpost of Franco's fascist army in the forests of Spain, seeking its enemies shortly after the Spanish Civil War. On the other hand, there is the fantastical world of a young girl whose mother is married to the monstrous captain in charge of the unit. She is led into a labyrinth by a fairy, and encounters the bizarre and disturbing world of a faun who tells her she is really a princess and must strive to accomplish three tasks to be reunited with her dead father.

It is universally assumed that this world exists only in the girl's fantasy, but I am not so sure. The film plays as well if it is a real but parallel world, in which she can correct such evils as fascism. The special effects are nightmarish and effective, including the faun and a giant toad, and it takes courage to go into that labyrinth -- and also to emerge again into a world of politics and cruelty. Del Toro doesn't compromise on the fantasy, or the reality.

2 "Bubble," Steven Soderbergh's film delicately examines the everyday life of three Ohio factory workers. To cast his film, Soderbergh used actual blue-collar workers from the district; he structured their performances and the plot, but remained open to their real lives, and we see the desperation of working poverty, in which you work double shifts, stare at the TV and collapse. Martha (Debbie Doebereiner), who cares for her father, has enough money to own a car; Kyle (Dustin Ashley), who lives in a mobile home, depends on her for rides to a doll factory. Then Rose (Misty Dawn Wilkins) gets a job in the factory. She's younger and prettier than the fat Martha, but is Martha jealous? No, she doesn't want Kyle's love but his dependency on her. How this pays off is completely unforeseen but sort of inevitable, and it illustrates the bleakness and poverty of imagination of their quietly desperate world.

3 "Children of Men" is Alfonso Cuaron's fantasy set in the year 2027, when terrorism has rendered the world ungovernable, and no children have been born in 18 years. When a newborn infant and its mother Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey) come into the circle of the hero (Clive Owen), he joins with a former lover (Julianne Moore) and her associate (Chiwetel Ejiofor) in an underground movement, to help the young woman find refuge in a rumored haven off the coast of Britain. This involves a journey across the land, and a stop at the home of a courageous aging hippie (Michael Caine) who tries to live somewhat outside the system. The view of the deteriorating society they travel through is humbling; is this where we are headed?

4 "The Departed" is Martin Scorsese's story of loyalties and deceptions in the worlds of two kids who grow up as impostors: One becomes a gangster (Matt Damon) who goes undercover as a cop, and the other (Leonardo Di Caprio) becomes a cop who goes undercover as a gangster. Each one is assigned to find the other, and each knows things he must conceal; there is a chilling moment when one is given the wrong address and goes to the right one instead. The movie's crosscurrents of plot and emotion are terrifying in their application of unforgiving logic. Scorsese, so good for so many years, finally won an Oscar for this film, as best director.

5 "The Lives of Others" is a film by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, about a member of the Stasi, the East German secret police during the cold war, and how he spies on a playwright suspected of treason. As he shares their lives through earphones day after day, his own life comes to seem more bleak and friendless than ever, and he makes certain decisions which the film doesn't underline, but simply regards with detached objectivity. The central performance by Ulrich Muehe is a masterpiece of observation about how a man can shut down or open up in reaction to the inhuman requirements of the state.

6 "United 93," written and directed by Paul Greengrass, could have been a routine thriller, even an exploitation film, but it is a masterful reconstruction of what happened on board the 9/11 plane that never did reach its intended target -- the one that was brought down in a Pennsylvania field by passengers' determined not to cave in to hijackers. Greengrass underlines the impact by making his film entirely in the present tense; at no time do his passengers have any more knowledge than the real ones must have had at the time. That's effective in placing us in the moment.

7 "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters From Iwo Jima" are two paired films by the hugely ambitious Clint Eastwood, who shows the most relentless battle of World War II from the American side, and then, with subtitles, from the Japanese side. Some 44,000 died in a few weeks on a small island in the Pacific, fighting with raw courage, and on the Japanese side, with full knowledge that they would die. With masterful production planning, Eastwood is able to make the strategies of both sides clear, and we understand what is happening and how deadly it is, and how the famous photograph of the flag being raised over Iwo Jima does not represent what is assumed, or even show what it seems to show. There is a heartbreaking subplot about Ira Hayes, the Native American who was one of those who raised the flag.

8 "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer," directed by Tom Tykwer ("Run, Lola, Run"), is based on the portrait of deep evil in Patrick Suskind's mesmerizing novel. A strange little man is born with no body odor of his own (is he the spawn of the devil?) but a nose so sensitive that he can live on a different plane from other people. He grows obsessed with extracting the aromas of beautiful women and becomes a serial killer in the service of his craft. Since neither novel nor movie can impart scents, it would seem they have impossible tasks, but not at all; the film is transgressive in suggesting how much its hero's gift violated the rights and persons of those around him.

9 "Babel," Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's cross-cutting film, shows us characters in Morocco, the United States, Mexico and Japan, all altered by the introduction of a rifle into their matrix. They speak different languages, yes, but more crucially they speak different images and contexts; what is meaningful in one world is inconsequential in another. The linkage is not just a narrative gimmick, but essential to the film's view of cultures in conflicts that are sometimes unconscious.

The inclusion of films in the best 10 by Gonzalez Inarritu, Alfonso Cuaron and Guillermo del Toro is emblematic of the stature of the current Mexican cinema; all three have emerged as among the best recent directors.

10 "Man Push Cart" by Ramin Bahrani is as strong as or stronger than anything produced by Italian neorealism, and in the same spirit. The Iranian-American director follows the daily life of an immigrant from Pakistan as he operates a stainless-steel coffee and bagel cart on the sidewalks of New York and lives a marginal economic existence. The title reduces his life to his basic element; he was once a rock star at home, but now he pushes a cart. Bahrani's gifts as a filmmaker were evident again at Toronto 2007, when he premiered "Chop Shop," another unremitting portrait of life on the edge in New York City.

Golden Anniversary Award

The year 2007 was not precisely Robert Altman's 50th anniversary as a filmmaker, but "The James Dean Story," his first feature, was released in 1957, and so the year will serve. This special recognition is given to the great director, who died on Nov. 20, 2006, depriving the film world of one of its most fertile and inspiring geniuses. It goes in particular to his elegiac and bittersweet "A Prairie Home Companion," which I am convinced is a farewell film of sorts, as the magician lays down his rough magic and a radio show goes off the air. In terms of its content, it is musical, funny, moving, mysterious. In terms of its function, it is difficult not to see the Garrison Keillor character as standing in for Altman, as he observes that everything must eventually run its course. If this film is a farewell to his career, I wonder if Altman's previous film, "The Company" (2003), was a tribute to his own work style. The largely improvised story of a year in the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago, it stars Malcolm McDowell as "Mr. A," obviously intended as Gerald Arpino, the Joffrey's co-founder and artistic director. But maybe there is another "Mr. A" in view, too, who uses the same directorial method of low-key suggestion, elusive ways of collaboration, a sense of community, an openness to innovation.

I was so ill when Altman died, they didn't even tell me. When I finally heard the news, I immediately thought of this film. I watched it again, and found myself crying. I miss him so much.

Best documentaries

Alphabetically: "49 Up," the latest chapter of Michael Apted's epic documentary series, tracking the lives of the same British citizens every seven years; "The Devil and Daniel Johnston," about an elusive and troubled but legendary singer-songwriter; the Oscar winner "An Inconvenient Truth," containing Al Gore's warning on global meltdown; "Isn't This a Time," about a final reunion of the legendry folk group the Weavers; "The Real Dirt on Farmer John," about an unconventional Illinois farmer who runs a self-sustaining organic farm; "Shut Up and Sing," about the Dixie Chicks and their troubles after their lead singer was critical of George W. Bush, and "Unknown White Male," the strange case of a man who may or may not have had amnesia.

The Special Jury Prize

At many great festivals, including Cannes, this prize essentially means: A large minority on the jury strongly feels this is the film that should have won. This year it is shared by 10 films, alphabetically:

"Akeelah and the Bee," the story of a young girl (Keke Palmer) who is a gifted speller and finds that opens doors to solving problems in her life; "Come Early Morning," with one of Ashley Judd's best performances as a hard-drinking rural contractor whose life is spinning out of control; "Hard Candy," starring Ellen ("Juno") Page as a completely different and astonishingly transgressive young girl who gets revenge on a man; "L'enfant" by the Dardenne brothers, about two young drifters who have a baby, and the callow and heartless husband who decides to sell it; "Little Miss Sunshine," with Abigail Breslin and a colorful family on a cross-country odyssey to a beauty pageant.

Also, "The Queen" by Stephen Frears, with Helen Mirren's Oscar-winning performance as Queen Elizabeth II; "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada," directed by and starring Tommy Lee Jones as a ranch worker who wants revenge and a proper burial for his murdered friend; "Tristram Shandy, a Cock and Bull Story" by Michael Winterbottom, about an attempt to film an elusive British classic only one of the filmmakers has read; "Tsotsi" by Gavin Hood, starring Presley Chweneyagae as a South African township hoodlum, in last year's winner as best foreign language film, and Pedro Almodovar's "Volver," with Penelope Cruz and Carmen Maura, about a mother's ghost who returns to tidy things.

The tie for 11th place

Every year we traditionally declare a 10-way tie for 11th place. The distinguished films this year are Eric Byler's "Americanese," about a tentative romance much entangled with the Asian heritage of the three people involved; Rian Johnson's "Brick," transposing a hard-boiled detective style to a modern high school; Olivier Assayas' "Clean," with Maggie Cheung as a drug-addicted fading rock star who wants her child back from her father-in-law (Nick Nolte); Cristi Puiu's "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu," about an ambulance service in Romania doggedly determined to find a hospital for a dying man, and Bill Condon's "Dreamgirls," the high-octane musical.
Also Ryan Fleck's "Half Nelson," with Ryan Gosling as a high school teacher with a drug problem, and a student who tries to help; James Marsh's "The King," with Gael Garcia Bernal as a young man in search of his father; Marc Forster's "Stranger Than Fiction," with Will Ferrell as a man who hears his own life being narrated in his head; Jason Reitman's "Thank You for Smoking," a brilliant satire about Big Tobacco, and Michael Cuesta's "Twelve and Holding," about three kids who take desperate measures to turn around their lives.

A few of the better For Your Consideration ads I have seen.

Gone Baby Gone

The second movie of the night. A good workmanlike crime thriller. It actually is made better by some of the un-commercial turns the script takes. You can also tell this is made by someone who knows the Boston area. Ben Affleck populates this film with naturalistic extras and shoots in areas it is obvious he feels at home in.

To be honest, I don't even know if I can review this film correctly. I had to go down to the concession stand twice to let the cashier know that the projector had gone out of focus. The first time I told her this she asked what I meant. I told her the picture was soft and she was still confused. The word blurry finally seemed to make sense to her.

I also sat only one row in front of four of the noisiest women I have ever encountered in a movie theater. They only stopped talking at the when the little animation came up that said "Silence is golden." This was short lived though when one of them realized they had missed the message.

Lady 1: Wait, what did that say?

Lady 2: It said silence is golden.

Lady 1: I guess I'll be quiet then...unless I got something to say.

Laughter, then the conversation continued.

Michael Clayton

Michael Clayton is a throwback paranoia infused thriller that I enjoyed much more than I expect. The film also has great performances by George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, and Tilda Swinton. An interesting structure with a lock solid script it seems more like all the great thrillers from the 70's than any modern movies. This also has the best ending credit sequence of any movie this year. No real reason to say much more. You have probably already seen this movie and if you haven't you probably won't.

A funny international trailer for Walk Hard.

An argument I can't support. One of the biggest Oscar upsets of all time, Shakespeare in Love beating Saving Private Ryan for best picture in 1998. The Envelope's Tom O'Neil argues that Private Ryan isn't even a good film and that the script is laughable. This I disagree with 100%. I love Saving Private Ryan and whole heartedly think it should have won best picture that year (Spielberg won best director). I remember after seeing it (4 times in the theater) that it would be up for a whole slew of awards and was actually shocked that some of the supporting characters were not included in the nominations. In hindsight I have no problem with the decision to leave them out, it being a much more technical movie than actors movie (though Hanks was nominated). Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Shakespeare in Love, I actually like it quite a bit but it is nowhere near what I think the best movie of that year was. Within the five nominated films of that year I would now place it third (behind The Thin Red Line, my personal favorite from the year, and Ryan) and at the time I think I remember even liking Life is Beautiful more.

I know everyone has been trying to figure out what the best dinner scenes featured in movies this year are, so here you go.

Apple has posted the trailer for Cloverfield, the monster attacking New York movie shot from the perspective of home video cameras. My favorite part of the trailer is the group of guys hiding in a small store front with it relatively quiet, right before seemingly all Hell breaks loose.

From The Huffington Post, Alec Baldwin doing a sort of straight forward stream of consciousness blog posting.

I saw Sean Penn's film, INTO THE WILD, this weekend. Hope you all had
the chance to see it on the big screen, as well. Give Emile Hirsch the Jim Caviezel Award for the greatest suffering on film. I have not seen an actor put through this much in quite a while. Good job by Sean and Co.

Also, give Ryan Gosling the Ryan Gosling Award for being such an unbelievable film actor. I saw LARS AND THE REAL GIRL this weekend, too. Gosling is one of the few leading men in movies who could pull this role off. He was phenomenal in HALF NELSON and he is remarkable here.

Man, I keep thinking about how I shot my mouth off with all the things I have said about this administration. All the things that all of their opponents have said. What liars, whores and thieves
these people are. Then, I get uptight when I watch even a snippet of these debates. Is leadership there? Is greatness there? Is the end of the war there? Up on that stage?

I miss my make-up artist, Stacey Panepinto. I miss my hairstylist, Richard Esposito. I miss all of the 30 ROCK cast and crew, who I don't see anymore because of this motherfucking, motherfucking, motherfucking strike.

Bruce Willis will star in the sci-fi thriller The Surrogates, which is being directed by Jonathan Mostow (Terminator 3, U-571). He is available for the project following the announcement that production on Pinkville, in which Willis was set to star for director Oliver Stone, had been postponed due to the writers strike. (UA had to pull the plug because neither Stone nor screenwriter Mikko Alanne could hone the Pinkville script any further because they're both members of the striking Writers Guild of America.)

Surrogates is set in the near future, where humans live in isolation and interact vicariously through surrogate robots who are better-looking versions of themselves. Willis will play a cop who uses his surrogate to investigate the murders of others' surrogates until a conspiracy case forces him to venture from his own home for the first time in years.

Michael Cera hosted a non-televised episode of Saturday Night Live at the Upright Citizens Brigade theater. Proceeds from the tickets were to go to SNL’s production staff, most of whom had had been recently laid off. Read more about it here and see photos from the event here. A sold-out live version of “30 Rock,” the Tina Fey comedy, is scheduled for 8 p.m. Monday at the theater.

A really great international trailer for I'm Not There. More music video than movie promo and, of course, inspired by this.

Control star Sam Riley, from The New York Times. Also accompanying the photographs is a short article about him.

I really hope they switch to yellow subtitles before this is released.

This is from Roger Ebert's one star review of Southland Tales. I haven't seen this movie and don't really plan on doing so but my confusion comes from the third sentence in this paragraph. Is Ebert talking about the Abilene shown in this movie (if it is even shown) or the real town? If he has been to Abilene he must have visited a different area than the one I have because I've never been very impressed with it.

The time is The Future: one year from now. By the time the DVD comes out, the time will be The Present. Two Texas towns have been nuked, including Abilene, the prettiest town that I've ever seen. America is in a state of emergency. A left-wing revolution is being masterminded from Venice Beach and the Santa Monica Pier against the oppressive right-wing government. A Schwarzeneggerian actor, related to a political dynasty, has been kidnapped, replaced with a double, and -- I give up. A plot synopsis would require that the movie have a plot.

Tim Burton is teaming with Disney for two 3-D movies, Alice in Wonderland and Frankenweenie. First up is Alice, based on the Lewis Carroll story, which will combine performance-capture imagery with live-action footage. The director will then move on to helm and produce Frankenweenie, based on his 1984 short film about a pet dog brought back to life by his loyal owner. That movie will use stop-motion animation and be shown in digital 3-D.

I really wish that Burton would scale back a little and make a smaller film, something more like Ed Wood (his best movie) than keep making all these big budget goth fairy tales.

I am torn about this news. I love Seth Rogen but am not so much a fan of Kevin Smith. At least Smith is stepping out from underneath his View Askew universe. That is, unless the next casting news involves Jason Mewes and/or himself. Anyway, Rogen has signed on to star alongside Elizabeth Banks (The 40-Year-Old Virgin) and Jason Mewes (Jay of Jay and Silent Bob) in writer-director Kevin Smith's comedy Zack & Miri Make a Porno. Rogen and Banks will play the title roles, two childhood friends who round up their buddies to shoot a porno flick to help them pay off a debt. Mewes plays a supporting role.

This is what I get for copying and pasting this story. I actually wrote those opening four sentences before I read all of the story and I hadn't even seen that Mewes had signed on. I guess Smith isn't stepping too far out of his comfort zone.

From EW, a list of how many episodes are left for these prime-time shows before the writers' strike puts them on hiatus.

0 NEW EPISODES LEFT
The Office (NBC)

2 NEW EPISODES LEFT
My Name Is Earl (NBC)
Private Practice (ABC)
The Unit (CBS)
Two and a Half Men (CBS)

3 NEW EPISODES LEFT
Back to You (Fox)
Desperate Housewives (ABC)
Grey's Anatomy (ABC)
Heroes (NBC)
How I Met Your Mother (CBS)
Pushing Daisies (ABC)

4 NEW EPISODES LEFT
Big Shots (ABC)
Brothers & Sisters (ABC)
Criminal Minds (CBS)
Dirty Sexy Money (ABC)
Shark (CBS)
The Game (The CW)
30 Rock (NBC)
'Til Death (Fox)
Women's Murder Club (ABC)

5 NEW EPISODES LEFT
Bones (Fox)
Chuck (NBC)
Gossip Girl (The CW)
House (Fox)
Journeyman (NBC)
Prison Break (Fox)
Reaper (The CW)
Supernatural (The CW)
Ugly Betty (ABC)

6 NEW EPISODES LEFT
Girlfriends (The CW)
Life Is Wild (The CW)

7 NEW EPISODES LEFT
Boston Legal (ABC)
Carpoolers (ABC)
Family Guy (Fox)
Samantha Who? (ABC)
Smallville (The CW)

8 NEW EPISODES LEFT
Cavemen (ABC)

10 NEW EPISODES LEFT
The Simpsons (Fox)

11 NEW EPISODES LEFT
Aliens in America (The CW)
K-Ville (Fox)
King of the Hill (Fox)

12 NEW EPISODES LEFT
Notes From the Underbelly (ABC)

13 NEW EPISODES LEFT
American Dad (Fox)
October Road (ABC)

14 NEW EPISODES LEFT
Men in Trees (ABC)

15 NEW EPISODES LEFT
Everybody Hates Chris (The CW)

I don't even know what to say, this poster is horrible.

Francis Ford Coppola has chosen newcomer Alden Ehrenreich to star in his family drama Tetro. Maribel Verdu (Pan's Labyrinth, Y Tu Mama Tambien) also is joining the cast, and Javier Bardem has an offer for a key role.

Written by Coppola, the script follows a young man (Ehrenreich) journeying to Buenos Aires to find his brother, who left the family years earlier.

Verdu will play the brother's girlfriend. Bardem, whose deal depends on scheduling, would play an Argentinean literary critic named Unknown.

I thought that Matt Dillon was going to be in this also but there is no mention of him anywhere in the story from The Hollywood Reporter.

Writing my review for No Country for Old Men I didn't even mention the superb writing for the film. Instead of going back and adding to it, I thought I would let Roger Ebert tell you about it, from his review.

Consider another scene in which the dialogue is as good as any you will hear this year. Chigurh enters a rundown gas station in the middle of wilderness and begins to play a word game with the old man (Gene Jones) behind the cash register, who becomes very nervous. It is clear they are talking about whether Chigurh will kill him. Chigurh has by no means made up his mind. Without explaining why, he asks the man to call the flip of a coin. Listen to what they say, how they say it, how they imply the stakes. Listen to their timing. You want to applaud the writing, which comes from the Coen brothers, out of McCarthy.

The Golden Globes will honor Steven Spielberg with the 2008 Cecil B. DeMille Award (their version of the lifetime achievement award).

Spielberg has been nominated for Golden Globes 18 times and has won a total of six for four films: "Schindler's List," "Saving Private Ryan," "E.T.," and "Letters From Iwo Jima."

No Country for Old Men

The Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men is a deceptively simple story on the surface, it is only in it's final moments that you begin to realize just how complex it really is. Set up as a chase movie, it becomes more about fate and facing death as the story progresses. Don't get me wrong, this is as exciting and intense as any other film this year, just something more sneaks in from the corners and sticks with you long after the movie is over. This is as good a film as the Coen's have ever made.

No Country is also surprisingly funny. It features a villain as evil and frightening as anyone since Hannibel Lecter but some of the scenes with him become so tense that it becomes funny. You laugh, then you feel bad for doing so. These is even a scene where Tommy Lee Jones' character reads a horrific newspaper article to his deputy who then begins to laugh. Jones response, "That's okay, sometimes I laugh too".

The performances across the board are all top notch. Javier Bardem as the aforementioned bad guy is somehow able to portray all these terrifying traits while never changing his expression. Josh Brolin also strikes the right tone as a man who makes a decision then must face the consequences of that decision. Tommy Lee Jones is flawless as the sheriff, his opening and closing monologues perfectly set up and expand on all the themes found within the film.

There are individual scenes in the movie, and I'm not really sure how to describe this, that the characters are smarter than most other movie characters. They actually use common sense. Whether it be the hiding of a satchel or determining where a wounded man would rest, it is a simple thing that makes a big difference.

Another small item that caught my attention is the sound design of the film. What little music within is very minimal, but the Coen Brothers' use the natural sounds of the surrounding area to create a far greater suspense. Even in simple scenes such as a character alone in a cheap motel room the let the sounds of the outdoors seep into the room, just as they would in real life.

Control

The best thing I can say about Control is that it is my favorite musical biopic, tied with The Buddy Holly Story, but that it is also more about the life of Ian Curtis than anything else. It avoids at the pratfalls that usually besiege the genre. There is no great tragedy that forces Curtis to become a musician, he is just a writer and knows some people in a band that need a singer. Not every moment is his life is a reaction to something that happened earlier in the film, we just observe what happens.

Outside of being a great movie, it is also beautiful to look at. Filmed in black and white (technically filmed in color then transferred to black and white) I couldn't imagine the picture any other way. The lack of color seems to merge perfectly with the music of Joy Division.

To be honest, if you have any interest in music you owe it to yourself to see this movie. Sam Riley isn't simply doing an impression of Curtis, he instead creates a fully realized character. The scenes leading up to and following his suicide are staged in a way that are both stunning and heartbreaking. That we never actually see the act makes it ever more powerful, even if at that point it seems inevitable.

NOTE:

Special mention goes to the music being recorded live by the actors playing the band, then simply being mimed.It adds a huge level of authenticity and this case, actually makes the music better.

That isn't to say that the actors are better than Joy Division, just within the context of films it always works better to be able to tell that the actors actually know how to play their instruments and don't look out of place. I usually spend half the time watching these type of movies trying to figure out if the actors are lip syncing or not and it becomes distracting after a while.

It looks like the writing and directing duo from The Proposition will re-team with star Ray Winstone for a new film called Death of a Ladies' Man. Winstone recently spoke to the MTV Movies blog while promoting Beowulf and said that Ladies' Man is about a traveling salesman who is addicted to sex and uses his beauty products to meet women. Hillcoat is set to direct the adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road next.

A bunch of clips from a movie I just saw, No Country For Old Men. I'll post a review of this and Control sometime tomorrow.

List of The 50 Greatest TV Icons, compiled by TV Land network and Entertainment Weekly:

50. Larry Hagman
49. Calista Flockhart
48. Jimmy Smits
47. Simon Cowell
46. Lassie
45. Sarah Michelle Gellar
44. Susan Lucci
43. Flip Wilson
42. James Gandolfini
41. Jon Stewart
40. Sally Field
39. Jennifer Aniston
38. Bea Arthur
37. George Clooney
36. Diahann Carroll
35. Michael J. Fox
34. Bob Barker
33. Ellen DeGeneres
32. Henry Winkler
31. Sarah Jessica Parker
30. Alan Alda
29. John Ritter
28. Howard Cosell
27. Regis Philbin
26. Farrah Fawcett
25. Heather Locklear
24. Michael Landon
23. Barbara Walters
22. Milton Berle
21. Kermit
20. Carroll O’Connor
19. Andy Griffith
18. William Shatner
17. Bob Newhart
16. David Letterman
15. “Not Ready for Primetime Players”
14. Ed Sullivan
13. Jackie Gleason
12. Dick Van Dyke
11. Roseanne
10. Dick Clark
9. Homer Simpson
8. Jerry Seinfeld
7. Mary Tyler Moore
6. Carol Burnett
5. Walter Cronkite
4. Bill Cosby
3. Oprah Winfrey
2. Lucille Ball
1. Johnny Carson

A short film P.T. Anderson made right before or right after (I can't remember) Punch-Drunk Love. Nothing that great but I thought about it on the way into work for some reason.



And for a bonus, one of the best supplemental materials released with a DVD.

Daniel Day-Lewis on There Will Be Blood, from The New York Times.

“I was deeply unsettled by the script...For me, that is a sure sign. If you remain unsettled by a piece of writing, it means you are not watching the story from the outside; you’ve already taken a step toward it. When I’m drawn to something, I take a resolute step backward, and I ask myself if I can really serve this story as well as it needs to be served. If I don’t think I can do that, no matter how appealing, I will decline. What finally takes over, what took over with this movie, is an illusion of inevitability.”

Ridley Scott (American Gangster, Matchstick Men) will direct Stones, a supernatural thriller about the mysterious destruction of ancient religious sites around the world. It is discovered that Stonehenge is the tie that binds together artifacts that still have primeval powers. Scott is currently directing Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe in Body Of Lies and he is expected to next move on to direct Nottingham, the Robin Hood story from the sheriff's perspective.

This is from CBS News' White House Correspondent Mark Knoller . These are the complaints of every moviegoer and I wish they would change but they won't. It has been this way for about five years now and you just have to accept defeat at the hands of movie theaters. I can deal with all this, it's the cell phones going off and their little lights illuminating the theater that drives me crazy. That being said, it was nice to go to the movies at the LSIFF over the weekend and not have to sit through any pre-movie entertainment.

I don’t go the movies much but I had a day off last week and went to see an afternoon showing of "Michael Clayton," the George Clooney legal thriller.

The movie was fine. Not great, but no complaints.

Yet the movie theater experience left much to be desired.

Take the starting time. The movie clock in the newspaper said 1:00PM. But the film didn’t start until 1:19PM. That’s nearly 20 minutes of commercials and coming attractions.

That’s an awful long time to ask customers to wait for something for which we paid in advance.

And by the time the feature came on, I had eaten much of my popcorn.

Speaking of which, the price of movie snacks seems exceedingly high – especially popcorn.

I bought a small popcorn and small diet soda. Total cost: $9.00. That was more than the $7.50 for the ticket.

The fact is, most movie theaters are glorified snack bars. On average, they keep only 50% or less of the ticket price, far less for blockbusters in their opening weeks. Much of a theater’s profit comes from the concession stand.

Regal, one of the nation’s largest multiplex chains, reported the 3rd quarter profit margin at its snack bars exceeded 86%.

And the markup – especially on popcorn – is eye-popping. The Los Angeles Times last year calculated that just $30 of raw popcorn can translate into as much as $3,000 in sales at the snack bar.

That sounds like a markup that would make the oil industry blush.

It explains why they don’t let you bring your own snacks into the movies.

But it wouldn’t surprise me if some consumer-oriented member of Congress tried to address these concerns in legislation.

Imagine “The Truth in Movie Start Times Act of 2007.” It would require theater operators to begin their feature films within five minutes of their listed times – or members of the audience would be entitled to a refund.

Or how about “The Snack Bar Fair Pricing and Equity Act of 2007,” restricting markups on popcorn, hot dogs and soda sold at theaters and ball parks.

It seems to me the movie theaters themselves could attract more business by advertising: “Our movies start on time!” or “Our popcorn is reasonably priced!”

Of course, that might mean the theater was more crowded, and would keep me from going. Even on a day off.

Xzibit has been given his most high profile acting job to date. The rapper and Pimp My Rid host has been cast in director Oliver Stone's Pinkville. He joins Bruce Willis, Channing Tatum, and Woody Harrelson in the movie about the 1968 My Lai Massacre, in which more than 500 people — mostly women, children, and the elderly — were killed by U.S. soldiers. Xzibit will play a soldier who is convinced that he was right to have carried out his orders.

I guess it will be a little longer before Nicolas Cage actually tries to act again. Mickey Rourke has replaced Cage as the star in director Darren Aronofsky's upcoming indie drama The Wrestler. There is no word as to why Cage left the project. Rourke will play Randy ''The Ram'' Robinson, an over-the-hill fighter who returns to the ring for one last shot at glory. Aronofsky wrote the script with Robert Siegel.

I was looking forward to seeing Cage actually try and portray a realistic character again. He was good a few years ago in The Weather Man but you would have to go back to 2002 and Adaptation to see the last time that Cage took a chance and really dove into a character.

Jacket art for Paramount Home Video's Director's Cut edition of Zodiac, a two-disc affair that's due on 1.8.09.

Director Walter Salles with Notes for a Theory of the Road Movie.

Time has posted a list of the 10 best Coen Brothers moments.

From The New York Times, Daniel Day-Lewis on his favorite westerns.

I don't particularly like westerns as a genre, but I do love certain westerns. ''High Noon'' means a lot to me - I love the purity and the honesty, I love Gary Cooper in that film, the idea of the last man standing. I do not like John Wayne: I find it hard to watch him. I just never took to him. And I don't like Jimmy Stewart as a cowboy. I love him, but just not as a cowboy; ''Mr. Smith Goes to Washington'' is one of my favorite films. I love Capra. I love Preston Sturges. But we're talking about westerns. ... I have always admired Clint Eastwood's westerns. The spaghetti westerns were a great discovery. And ''Pale Rider.'' As a child, the John Ford film ''Cheyenne Autumn'' made a big impression on me. And ''Five Easy Pieces.'' It's not really a western, but it is about the possibilities that can be found in the West. Jack Nicholson is sublime in that film, just sublime. It's the most stultifying portrait of middle-class life. You want to flee from that world and head anywhere less civilized. Which is, of course, the appeal of the West: It's not tamed yet.

Ever since Mark Wahlberg's Oscar nomination he has been lining up roles with gifted directors like M. Nigh Shhymalan, Darren Aronofsky, and Peter Jackson, so I guess it is okay if he seems to be taking one role just for a pay check. Wahlberg will star as the title character in the adaptation of Rockstar's video game Max Payne. John Moore (Behind Enemy Lines) will direct the film, which will tell the story of a cop, haunted by the tragic loss of his family, who has little regard for rules as he investigates a series of mysterious murders and battles an adversary trying to destroy him. Beau Thorne wrote the script.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is a superb melodrama that is wound so tight you expect it to go flying off its rails at any moment. It never does though, in fact, it doubles back onto itself in an ingenious structure that adds to the overall tension. The fact that it was made by Sidney Lumet, at 83 and 3 years past his lifetime achievement Oscar is even more amazing.

The less you know about this film going into it the better. This is the type of movie that twists one way, then turns another. Never seeing what is coming next. I hesitate to say anything about the plot, wanting to spoil nothing.

I will say that the film is filled with great performances. Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke are physically two of the most ill matched cinematic brothers, but that thought goes out the window the minute you see them in them together. There are two fractured human beings trying to move on in life but continuing to make one mistake after another. They are allowed to have feelings not usually associated with a crime drama, regret and remorse. Albert Finney is also perfect as their father, a man whose sorrow and anger lead him to truths about his family are too horrible to imagine.

I said this is a crime drama, and it is. What makes it even more special is that we are given to opportunity to see the aftermath of the actual crime. How it affects each member of the family. This all leads to a final section that is both perfect and almost too tense to watch. We see the depths these character must go to in order to try and live their lives. Also, not everything is perfectly wrapped at the end, and in a film like this, that is the way it should be.

Yahoo has posted the trailer for Valkyrie starring Tom Cruise and a whole bunch of British actors. It'll be interesting to see how they keep the tension when everyone in the world knows that the mission failed. The best thing, by far, about the trailer is the lack of faux German accents. Everybody sounds basically like they always sound.

A Steve Nash Nike ad, posted a few days ago on TrueHoop. Still not as good as the Dwayne Wade one but better than the Lebron spot (here is a better one for King James).

Eh, I can live with this.

I might have posted these before. Either way, here they are.

There is about a 99% chance I will never watch this show as it is probably just trying to ride the coattails of Dancing with the stars, but ABC has placed a five-episode order for a new dance competition series, Dance Machine. '

That really isn't interesting in the least bit, what I like was the shows description from RDF USA CEO (I don't know what any of those acronyms mean) Chris Coelen, "Ordinary people, extraordinary circumstances, and a whole lot of money on the line."

Director Roman Polanski (The Pianist, Chinatown) has signed on to direct a movie adaptation of Robert Harris' political novel The Ghost, published last month by Simon & Schuster. The story is about a ghostwriter, hired to complete the memoirs of a former British prime minister, who uncovers secrets that put his own life in jeopardy.

Director Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth) will write and direct a feature adaptation of cult British science fiction TV series The Champions. The story is about a trio of secret government agents whose lives were saved when their plane crashed in the Himalayas and they were rescued by an advanced civilization that bestowed them with superhuman abilities.

This is from MTV's movie blog:

Josh Horowitz: "Francis Ford Coppola recently told Esquire he doubted how hungry you are for roles anymore. Did those comments upset you?

Jack Nicholson: "He called me. I've known Francis for a long time. I didn't even bother making him explain it. I just told him if anybody in the world understands being burned by an interview, I do. Don't give it a second thought. [But] if that's what he said, and that's what he meant, and now he feels he said something he shouldn't have, that's fine by me [also]. I'm hungry in the sense that I always was. Do I have to work? I haven't had to for quite a long time. Am I as hungry? I don't know that I'm as hungry, but I'm as vicious about the meal as I ever was."

A new trailer for Woody Allen's Cassandra's Dream that looks a lot like the last trailer.

The trailer for The Great Debaters. Directed by and starring Denzel Washington, it's sort of like a reverse Hoosiers but instead of basketball you get debating.

The Office shuts down, from TV Week.

“The Office” showrunner Greg Daniels has joined the picket line at his production company’s Van Nuys location in an attempt to shut down production of his show.

“We’re trying to shut down ‘The Office,’” Mr. Daniels said. “We have the star of our show and the entire writing staff behind us.”

Mr. Daniels says he arrived at 4:15 this morning and none of the show's actors have crossed the line. “The Office” cast includes several performers who are also writers on the show, like B.J. Novak, Mindy Kaling and Paul Lieberstein. “Office” star Steve Carell is a WGA member and is not showing up for work as well, he said.

Mr. Daniels is one of many writer-producers facing the decision this morning whether to continue acting as producers on their shows. Sources say a group of top showrunners met this weekend and largely decided to not cross the picket lines. Studios maintain showrunners should continue working to fulfill their production duties.

“We have non-writing producers on the show who are perfectly capable of doing any non-writing producing duties,” Mr. Daniels said. “They want me do to writing-producing and just pretend it’s producing. Every decision you make has a writing aspect to it. If they really just thought it was producing, they could just as easily get somebody else to do these tasks.”

Mr. Daniels said there’s only one unproduced “Office” script that’s ready to go, but it’s a good one.

“Last week we had our best table reading of the entire run of the show, and that’s what we were going to shoot this week,” he said.

Strike!

Jake Gyllenhaal and Jessica Biel will star in the risque political satire Nailed for director David O. Russell (I Heart Huckabees, Three Kings), who will also co-write the screenplay with Al Gore's daughter, Kristin Gore, a former writer on Futurama. Biel is set to play Sammy Joyce, an awkward small-town receptionist who has a nail accidentally shot into her head, eliciting wild sexual urges. Gyllenhaal plays an immoral congressman who takes advantage of her sex drive and capitalizes on her crusade as Joyce heads into her own career in politics.

Some time after this film is completed, videos will be released to the internet of Russell screaming and berating both actors.

Sylvester Stallone is in talks to star in and direct an MGM remake of the classic 1974 film Death Wish, which starred Charles Bronson as a man who goes vigilante after his wife and daughter are attacked. Michael Ferris and John Brancato (Terminator 3, Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins) are writing the script.

On its own, this isn't a bad idea. The first Death Wish is the only half way decent one, they became almost parodies as more and more sequels were made. The biggest problems is that there has already been two movies this year that are essentially remakes of Death Wish, the Kevin Bacon starring Death Sentence and Jodie Foster's The Brave One. This formula has been done to death (pun intended). The biggest uh oh comes from a quote from an employee for MGM.

''We hope to get a deal done with Sylvester Stallone to direct and star, and like the Rocky and Rambo films, we see this as another potential franchise for him,'' said MGM chief operating officer Rick Sands.

There is a part of me that really wants Stallone to become a big movie star again. I just wish he would try with something original. This will be his third remake/sequel in a row, after Rocky Balboa and the upcoming Rambo.

A new trailer for There Will Be Blood. This movie can not come out quick enough. You also get your first sample of Jonny Greenwood's score, which sounds very Bernard Herrmanesqe.

David Fincher really likes killers. After making Se7en and Zodiac his is moving onto a feature adaptation of the graphic novel The Killer, written by Matz (real name Alexis Nolent). The story is about a top assassin suddenly plagued by his conscience as a highly competent cop is hot on his tail.

There are a whole series of these new NBA commercials, and I think they are really well done, but after three days of watching the NBA I am already getting sick of them. Every commercial break the same piano progression starts and it is already getting old. Granted it is (1,000 times) better than the Dane Cook MLB Playoff ads but they need to scale back on the showings.