The Incredible Hulk could be a quality film but if the Hulk doesn't look convincing, the movie just won't work. That is what it all boils down to. I am still unconvinced after Apple has posted a second trailer for the film.

Ang Lee's Hulk never felt real but that film was so bat shit crazy that I was able to overlook it and just go along with the strange, wild ride. This appears to be a more straight forward superhero movie and, I just don't know. It also seems a little weird to see Edward Norton doing his best Bourne imitation in the first part of the trailer.

Ian McKellen on whether or not he would be returning as Gandalf in The Hobbit:

"Yes, it's true," McKellen told Empire Online at the UK Speed Racer premiere. "I spoke to Guillermo in the very room that Peter Jackson offered me the part and he confirmed that I would be reprising the role. Obviously, it's not a part that you turn down, I loved playing Gandalf."

Vulture has up an article and interview with the one of the most unlikeliest stars of the Tribeca Film Festival, Bobby Valentine.

Valentine is the first manager of the Texas Rangers that I ever took notice of. Not for any specific reason that I can remember, probably because I could remember his last name.

A few new stills from the Coen Brother's upcoming Burn After Reading have shown up online (via First Showing).

Jonah Hill is in early negotiations to costar opposite Shia LaBeouf in. Hill will provide the comic relief as a sidekick to LaBeouf's Sam Witwicky. The rumor is that he'll play Sam's college roommate.

This is from a Mark Stein article over at ESPN about the ouster of the Mavs in the first round, once again. The story basically sums up that a change is coming and ends with this Jerry Stackhouse quote. I am also making a promise right now to post any quote or article that mentions the original Baby Jordan, Harold Miner.

"We've had a great run with this group," Stackhouse said. "But when you lose in the first round two years in a row, you expect some changes. We're all hired to be fired at some point, from the greatest [Michael Jordan] to Harold Miner. They all see the end.

"We'll wait and see what the boss [wants to] do. No matter what happens or what changes are made, it's been a great situation for me the last four years. It's been a great situation for Avery for the last four years, [for Jason Terry] coming out of Atlanta. For the last four years, it's been a great situation for everybody that's involved. So if this is the end or whatever, you can't do nothing but say we had our chance. Had our opportunity."

The second, somewhat better than the previous, trailer for this years possible Sundance breakout hit, The Wackness.

The film stars Sir Ben Kingsley as a therapist who buys weed from his teenage patient (Josh Peck) who eventually falls in love with his daughter (Olivia Thirlby) and it appears that there's a heavy hip-hop soundtrack to this one.
The Wackness

Steven Soderbergh will direct The Girlfriend Experience, a feature that focuses on the world of prostitution from the vantage point of a $10,000-a-night call girl.

Brian Koppelman and David Levien will write; they also wrote Ocean's 13 for the director.

Rather than go for star power, Soderbergh may set an adult film actress to play the lead role. This will be in the same style as Soderbergh's Bubble, using non-pros.

The title refers to a phenomenon in which wealthy men pay not just for the quality of a sexual encounter but also for a woman who will play the role of a perfect girlfriend. The arrangement apparently involves more intimacy than the usual prostitution relationship.

Mel Gibson has committed to star in "Edge of Darkness," marking his first starring role in a feature film since he headlined "Signs" and "We Were Soldiers" in 2002.

Martin Campbell (who last directed the wonderful Casino Royale) will direct the feature adaptation of the six-hour 1985 BBC miniseries, which Campbell also helmed.

William Monahan wrote the script, and Graham King is producing, both worked on The Departed.

Gibson will play a straitlaced police investigator whose activist daughter is killed. He plunges into the case and uncovers systemic corruption that led to his daughter's death.

When movie posters go bad.

Jason Batemen is teaming with Mike Judge for the comedy Extract, which Judge will direct from his own script. The story is about a flower extract plant owner (Bateman) who runs into a string of bad luck, including his wife's affair with a gigolo. I have hope for Judge, as I am currently sitting here watching a King of the Hill episode, but I just hope that this is better than Idiocracy. That was a film I had a hard time making it all the way through.

Based on that incidient of the Fort Worth woman striking the homeless man with her car and leaving him to die stuck in her windshield. As you can see, Mena Suvari is a dead ringer for Chante Mallard.

Warner Brothers has released the official music video for the newly revamped version of the "Go Speed Racer Go" theme. It's performed by some band called Ali Dee and the Deekompressors. All I can say is, what the hell is this?

Ewan McGregor is in negotiations to joing the cast of Angels and Demons, a prequel to one of the most boring big budget movies I have seen, The Da Vinci Code. He would take on the role of Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca, the Pope's closest aide, who helps Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) with his investigation.

It's finally official: Guillermo Del Toro, the acclaimed writer/director of Pan's Labyrinth and Hellboy, has come aboard The Hobbit, a two-film epic he will direct over the next four years. The long-awaited news was announced today by New Line's new head, Toby Emmerich, and MGM's new head, Mary Parent. Del Toro will move to New Zealand for the next four years to work with Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson and his Wingnut and WETA production teams. (Jackson and his partner, Fran Walsh, will executive produce both movies.) Del Toro will direct the two films back-to-back, with the first movie telling the story of J.R.R. Tolkien's original book and the sequel dealing with the 60-year period between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring, the first part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

I'm usually not one to gloat but this is something I am so excited about that I had to mention it. AICN recently had a contest where you had to write in and say why you were the perfect person to see Pineapple Express on May 3, over three months before it's released date. I'm not sure how it happened but luckily my letter was one of the 50 or so chosen, so I will be attending this event. While that is enough excitement for me, the thing that pushes this screening over the edge in terms of me getting worked up is that also in attendance that night will be Seth Rogen, James Franco, Danny McBride, and (for my second time to see him) David Gordon Green. Next weekend can not get here fast enough.

Anna Faris and Ray Liotta have joined Seth Rogen in the Warner Bros./Legendary Pictures comedy Observe and Report. Michael Pena (Crash, Lions for Lambs) and Jesse Plemons (NBC's Friday Night Lights) round out the cast, and Jody Hill (The Foot Fist Way) is directing from his own screenplay. The story is about a deluded, self-important head of mall security (Rogen) who battles the local cops in a turf war. Faris plays a girl working at a store in the mall, whom Rogen's character lusts after; Pena plays Rogen's best friend; Plemons is a security guard who works under Rogen; and Liotta plays Rogen's nemesis, a detective in the local PD. Production starts this week.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

In the Judd Apatow universe if Superbad is a 10 and Walk Hard is a 1 (it's not a 1 but for the terms of this argument lets say it is) then this film is somewhere between a 7 and an 8.

UPDATE: Ah, I thought of another one of these last night while I was sleeping.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a lot like Jason Segel. It's a little long and messy but damn it if it doesn't charm you in all the right places.

Emily at the La Quinta from Colby Allen on Vimeo.

Roger Ebert has started a blog!

Set pics from Woody Allen’s new movie have emerged, in which 20 year-old Evan Rachel Wood and 60 year-old Larry David grab a bite to eat. Think what you will but I know I'll be seeing it once it's released in theaters.

Here are all the films playing at the official 2008 Cannes Film Festival, an announcement went up just after 3 am this morning. I've highlighted the films I am most excited to hear about.

In Competition:

24 City, China, Jia Zhangke
Adoration, Canada, Atom Egoyan
Changeling, U.S., Clint Eastwood
Che (The Argentine, Guerrilla) Spain, Steven Soderbergh
Un Conte de noel, France, Arnaud Desplechin
Daydreams, Turkey, Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Delta,Germany-Hungary, Kornel Mundruczo
Il Divo, Paolo Sorrentino, Italy
Gomorra, Italy, Matteo Garrone
La Frontiere de l'aube, France, Philippe Garrel
Leonera, Argentina-South Korea, Pablo Trapero
Linha de Passe, Brazil, Walter Salles, Daniela Thomas
La Mujer sin cabeza, Argentina, Lucrecia Martel
My Magic, Singapore, Eric Khoo
The Palermo Shooting, Germany, Wim Wenders
Serbis, Philippines, Brillante Mendoza
The Silence of Lorna, U.K.-France, Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne
Synecdoche, New York, U.S., Charlie Kaufman
Waltz With Bashir, Israel, Ari Folman

Out of Competition:

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, U.S., Steven Spielberg
Kung Fu Panda, U.S., Mark Osborne, John Stevenson
The Good, the Bad, the Weird, South Korea, Kim Jee-woon
Vicky Cristina Barcelona, U.S.-Spain, Woody Allen

Midnight Screenings:

Maradona, Spain-France, Emir Kusturica
Surveillance, U.S., Jennifer Lynch
The Chaser, South Korea, Na Hong-jin

Special Screenings:

Ashes of Time Redux, China, Wong Kar-wai
Of Time and the City, U.K., Terence Davies
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, U.S.-U.K., Marina Zenovich
Sangue Pazzo (Crazy Blood), Italy-France, Marco Tullio Giordana

Screening of the President of the Jury:

The Third Wave, U.S., Alison Thompson

Un Certain Regard:

A festa da menina morta, Brazil, Matheus Nachtergaele
Afterschool, U.S., Antonio Campos
De Ofrivilliga, Sweden, Ruben Ostlund
Je veux voir, France, Joana Hadjithomas, Khalil Joreige
Johnny Mad Dog, France, Jean-Stephane Sauvaire
La vie moderne (profiles paysans), France, Raymond Depardon
Los Bastardos, Mexico, Amat Escalante
Milh handha al-bahr (Salt of This Sea), Palestine, Annemarie Jacir
O' Horten, Norway-Germany, Bent Hamer
Soi Cowboy, U.K., Thomas Clay
Tin Che, (Parking), Taiwan, Chung Mong-Hong
Tokyo!, France-Japan, Bong Joon-ho, Michel Gondry, Leos Carax
Tokyo Sonata, Japan, Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Tulpan, Germany, Sergey Dvortsevoy
Tyson, U.S., James Toback
Versailles, France, Pierre Schoeller
Wendy and Lucy, U.S., Kelly Reichardt
Cloud Nine, Germany, Andreas Dresen
Yi ban haishui, yi ban huoyan, China, Fendou Liu

James Caan has quit director David O. Russell's political comedy Nailed after a dispute that ended with the actor storming off the set. The flare-up reportedly started last week while Caan shot scenes of his character, a U.S. Speaker of the House, choking to death on a cookie. Russell told Caan to cough and choke, but Caan argued that a person can't both cough and choke to death at the same time. He reportedly left after Russell insisted they shoot the scene both ways, expressing concern that the choking version would be used in the final edit.

The I Heart Huckabees director is known for on-set freakouts, well documented in video clips that circulated the Internet last year showing him blowing up at Huckabees star Lily Tomlin (video here). He also had differences with George Clooney while making Three Kings and Clooney has stated he will never work with him again.

The guy does make good movies though.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall (which I am seeing tonight, so more on that later) director Nick Stoller is reteaming with Judd Apatow for the comedy Get Him to the Greek, with Jonah Hill and Russell Brand attached to star.

Stoller will to write and direct the comedy, which centers on a fresh-out-of-college insurance adjuster (Hill) who is hired to accompany an out-of-control rock star (Brand) from London to a gig at L.A.'s Greek Theater.

Stoller described "Greek" as a very dirty take on Almost Famous.

Stoller is quite the busy man but why not strike while the iron is hot. He is co-writing and will direct the comedy Five-Year Engagement, with Jason Segal co-writing and attached to star. He and Segal are also collaborating on The Muppet Movie. Stoller's writing credits include the forthcoming Jim Carrey starrer Yes Man.

I think the one thing I like most about Ang Lee is that there is no telling what his next film will be. This is the man that has made Hulk, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and Brokeback Mountain all within the past few years. Not even taking into account and of his other pictures and that is quite the eclectic group. Lee will next direct and his usual must James Schamus will write the comedy based on Elliot Tiber's memoir "Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, Concert, and a Life," co-written with author Tom Monte.

Set during the politically turbulent summer of '69, the story tells of an Everyman working at his parents' motel in the Catskills who inadvertently sets in motion what would become the generation-defining concert.

Virginia Madsen (Sideways) has been cast in Amelia, the Amelia Earhart biopic starring Hilary Swank and Richard Gere. Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding) is directing from a script by Ron Bass (Entrapment). The movie will tell the story of how the aviation legend's famous trans-Atlantic flight came to be and will also chronicle her rocky relationship with her husband, publisher George Putnam (Gere). Madsen will play Dorothy Binney, Putnam's first wife.

More casting news from the as-yet untitled Sam Mendes-directed romantic comedy as Jeff Daniels and Catherine O'Hara have been cast. As I have mentioned before, the film stars Maya Rudolph and John Krasinski star as an expectant couple traveling the country in search of a place to put down roots and raise a family. The screenplay was written by author Dave Eggers and his wife, novelist Vendela Vida.

The real casting news I am excited about was buried down here in the Hollywood Reporter story, just an off the cuff listing of who rounds out the cast. I had never heard any of these names mentioned with this before but go ahead and take a look at the last name listed. The Hollywood Reporter should know better than to not mention his name in the headlines when dealing with me. I'll post it in bold to make it easier for all of you. The film also includes Allison Janney (Juno, West Wing), Cheryl Hines (Curb Your Enthusiasm), Carmen Ejogo (Lackawanna Blues), Jim Gaffigan (My Boys), Melanie Lynskey (Two and a Half Men), Chris Messina (Made of Honor), Kevin J. O'Connor (There Will Be Blood), and Paul Schneider (Lars and the Real Girl).

The LA Times has a story about writer/director Jeff Nichols that makes me want to see Shotgun Stories even more. Since it is so short I thought I would just post the whole thing below.

Life for an independent filmmaker -- especially a first-time writer-director -- isn't easy. Jeff Nichols knows that all too well.

Nichols' feature directorial debut, "Shotgun Stories," is a stark, Eugene O'Neill-esque tale set in southeastern Arkansas about a feud that erupts between two sets of half brothers after their father dies.

Nichols, who was born in Arkansas and now lives in Austin, Texas, finished principal photography on the film in late 2004. Only now is it opening, on Friday.

"We didn't have enough money for a second unit or to get all the landscape shots that I wanted, which are really a big part of the film," says Nichols, who made the movie for under $100,000. He had to wait a year to earn the additional money needed to return to Arkansas with his cinematographer for a few days.

Nichols spent the next three months editing. Then he took the movie to some friends, director David Gordon Green and producer Lisa Muskat. They were so impressed, they signed on as producers to help him get funding to finish the post-production work.

Nichols had made the decision to shoot on film instead of high-definition video because "I don't think video captures information the same way [film] does.

"These characters -- they keep to themselves and don't speak very much. They are stoic. And that seems to be mirrored in the landscape. There seems to be an emotional depth in these landscapes, and it seemed appropriate to mirror those two things. If you shoot it on film, you can do it."

While he was working on "Shotgun Stories," Nichols also had a day job. "I have been real fortunate to get work at an ad agency in Austin. I would do copy writing for them and shoot little videos. That would kind of keep my head above water. I would turn around and take whatever money that wasn't spent on rent and bills and put it right back into the film."

Leatherheads

More 1930's romantic screwball comedy than football and I liked it more for that. Sort of like the Houston Oilers of the late eighties running that run and gun offense. It's a lot of fun to watch but isn't ultimately going to lead you to the promised land (that was my one mandatory football reference for this film). I sneaked into this on Sunday afternoon after watching the film below and it was a nice way to see this film, for free and with no expectations.

Smart People

I think for the time being I am finished with attempting to write full on reviews for the films Isee. I am certain this will change at some point, once I see another film I either love or hate. The problem is these middle of the road movies that neither inspire out and out adoration or venom to spew from my mouth. I just sit in the theater trying to figure out what I am going to write about the film while it is playing and that annoys the hell out of me. I am still going to write some short little thing about the things I see but I am not going to put any pressure on myself to try and aspire to be the next Ebert, or hell, even the next Roeper. So with that, I am going to leave you with a text message I sent immediately on the closing of this film.

One word review for Smart People: Eh.

UPDATE: I did want to add that anytime Thomas Haden Church is on screen the film improves dramatically.

Guillermo del Toro, who may or may not be directing ‘The Hobbit’, posted a comment over at The One Ring about directing the next Lord of the Rings film. More interesting though was his mention of the next smaller scale movie he will be making. Something closer to Pan's Labyrinth than Hellboy.

“But I’m starting to sketch one more, perhaps final, little movie about childhood and horror. It’s called Saturn And The End Of Days. It’s about a kid named Saturn watching the Rapture and the Apocalypse while on the way back and forth from the grocery store. It’s like, what would happen if the Apocalypse was viewed by you [while] doing errands. You go back and forth and nothing big happens except the entire world is being sucked into a vortex of fire.”

Miranda July writes on her stove again.

This guy can't catch a break. That pun was somewhat intended.

Roger Ebert is recovering at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago after surgery to repair a hip fracture. He tripped and fell at the Pritikin Center in Florida, where he had gone to continue physical therapy in preparation for his film festival. The staff at Pritikin was very helpful in their quick response to the incident.

"The show must go on!" Ebert says. "I am doing fine and if the doctors clear me, I will be there to welcome our guests, including Ang Lee, Paul Schrader, Richard Roeper, Richard Corliss, Sally Potter, Christine Lahti, Rufus Sewell, Timothy Spall, Michael Barker and many others. But whether or not I am there, the audience will see some amazing films."

The Roger Ebert Film Festival (Ebertfest) is sponsored by the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign April 23-27. Roger's wife Chaz says, "Please keep those thumbs up in the hopes that Roger will be there to celebrate the tenth year of his film festival. He has an indomitable spirit."

The best thing I can say about this trailer is that it really makes me want to watch The Utouchables again. (The music used here is the theme from that film.)

• MTV
• Music Videos
• MTV Shows
• Entertainment News

My God. I have no idea what this film is but I pray that they keep this as the final poster design.

Click here for the very first trailer for Hamlet 2 for you. It’s a red band trailer but I am linking to this site because it doesn't make you enter in any of your info, which I can never get to let me in anyway. I'm 27, my computer thinks I'm 13.

If you love opening title sequences as much as I do (and lets face it, who doesn't?) then you should head over to Art of the Title right now where you can see a whole mess of them from random movies and television shows.

Not sure if anyone even cares about this but the new X-Files has a title, X-Files: I Want to Believe. I was never really a fan of the show (I did enjoy the first movie though) so I'm not sure what the interest level on something like this really is. I tried to find David Duchovny's massive boner scene from Full Frontal to go along with this story but alas, nobody has posted it to YouTube.

Ridley Scott (who at this point is attached to just about every movies in Hollywood will direct and produce period noir drama The Kind One.

Casey Affleck is attached to star in the film, which is based on a novel by Tom Epperson, who will pen the screenplay.

Set in 1930s Los Angeles, the film centers on an amnesiac who finds himself working for a mobster -- a killer given the nickname the Kind One -- and falling in love with the thug's girlfriend.

Why is Ed Norton sad? See for yourself on June 13.

Allison Janney (who was one of the best things about Juno) has signed on to Sam Mendes' tentatively-titled This Must Be the Place. The Mendes comedy stars John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph as an expectant couple traveling the country in search of a place to put down roots and raise a family. Mendes is directing from a screenplay written by author Dave Eggers and his wife, novelist Vendela Vida. Janney's character reunites with Rudolph, a former colleague, at the couple's stop in Phoenix. She is a very un-PC woman, who admittedly has a few screws loose.

She also signed onto the next Eddie Murphy film (from the director of the Academy Award nominated film Noribit!)but the less said about that the better.

Richard Gere will star opposite Hilary Swank in the Amelia Earhart biopic Amelia. The movie will tell the story of how the aviation legend's famous trans-Atlantic flight came to be and will also chronicle her rocky relationship with her husband, publisher George Putnam (Gere). Earhart went missing over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 during a solo trans-global flight attempt and was declared dead in 1939. Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding) is directing the biopic from a screenplay penned by Ron Bass (Entrapment).

Gere has also just joined Don Cheadle and Ethan Hawke in Brooklyn's Finest, a drama about three unconnected Brooklyn cops who all wind up at the same deadly location despite their different career paths. One cop has gone undercover to crack drug gangs; another has engaged in graft and corruption; while another has played by the rules and put in his time on the force up until his retirement. Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) is directing. Gere is currently shooting Hachiko with director Lasse Halstrom.

I'm posting this before I have had a chance to watch it, so don't blame me if it looks lame. Then again, it would be my fault. This won an award at Sundance if that means anything to you.

Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Henry Winkler will reunite for Arrested Development creator Mitch Hurwitz's upcoming animated Fox comedy pilot Sit Down, Shut Up. The three actors will voice characters for the show, about staff members at a high school too wrapped up in their own lives to really help their students. The concept is based on a live-action Australian series of the same name. Also tapped to voice characters are Cheri Oteri, Will Forte, Regina King, Nick Kroll, Tom Kenny, and Maria Bamford

From McSweeney's, film school in three lines or less.

- - - -

Citizen Kane

CHARLES FOSTER KANE: I'm dying now. I miss my childhood.

REPORTER: Wealth and power have truly made you an asshole.

WORKER: No one cares if I burn this sled, right?

The Deer Hunter

ROBERT DE NIRO: Russian roulette is a precarious and dangerous game.

CHRISTOPHER WALKEN: One could almost compare it to our nation's current situation in Vietnam.

(Both turn and stare at camera for three hours.)

West Side Story

TONY: Cinema has a long literary tradition. This one's based on Shakespeare.

MARIA: Just like that Amanda Bynes movie!

TONY: (Sigh.) Let's just dance-fight.

The Graduate

BEN: Now that I'm done with college, I don't know who I am.

MRS. ROBINSON: Cougar bait?

BEN: Eh, that was fun, but I want to give the next-gen model a spin.

The Philadelphia Story

CARY GRANT: Sex in the 1940s took place entirely in the form of witty banter.

KATHARINE HEPBURN: Indubitably.

The Godfather

THE GODFATHER: Family is really important, and, um ... Wait, did you even see all these movies?

ME: Yes. Maybe. There were nap breaks.

ALL MY FILM PROFESSORS: You are a horrible, horrible person.

Shia LaBeouf is starring in The Dark Fields, which is being directed by Neil Burger (The Illusionist). The story, based on Alan Glynn’s 2002 novel, is about a loser (LaBeouf) who gets his hands on a top-secret pharmaceutical smart pill but soon discovers that it has lethal and lasting side effects. The project is said to be in the vein of Fight Club and The Game.

I'm not sure if this looks interesting or annoying. Either way, here is the trailer to Neil Labute's follow up to the miserable The Wicker Man, Lakeview Terrace (which also happens to be the name of the street I used to live on). Seeing Sam Jackson scream is always a good thing,especially when it is lines like "I'm the police! You have to do what I say!"

In a recent interview with variety, James Cameron had a few interesting things to say about the future of 3-D films.

Q: Right now, 3-D is pretty much being used for films that have some spectacle in them, whether it's "Journey to the Center of the Earth" or "U2 3D"; nobody's talking about using it for domestic dramas. But there are people wondering whether it will actually enhance the impact of character-driven stories. What are your thoughts on how 3-D changes the experience of watching actors act?

A: I plan to shoot a small dramatic film in 3-D, just to prove this point, after "Avatar." In "Avatar," there are a number of scenes that are straight dramatic scenes, no action, no effects. They play very well, and in fact seem to be enhanced by the stereo viewing experience. So I think this can work for the full length of a dramatic feature. However, filmmakers and studios will have to weigh the added cost of shooting in 3-D against the increased marketing value for that type of film.

Colin Farrell will star in "Triage," the next pic by Bosnian helmer Danis Tanovic.

Paz Vega and Christopher Lee also star in the dark tale of a photojournalist who returns home following a dangerous assignment without his colleague and best friend.

Tanovic's "No Man's Land," won the 2001 Oscar for foreign language film.

He also, just recently, created his own political party.

Donal Logue (who I have always been a fan of), Marisa Ryan (The Black Donnellys), and W. Earl Brown (Deadwood) have been tapped for HBO's drama pilot 1%. The story is set in Carefree, AZ, home of a chapter of one of the toughest motorcycle clubs in the country. Logue plays the lead, Misfit, a Silicon Valley member sent to the troubled chapter to bring it under control. Brown plays Sailor, a good-hearted member, and Ryan will play Montana, the wife of another club member.

Adrien Brody, Emmanuelle Seigner (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), and Spanish actress Elsa Pataky will star for director Dario Argento in the thriller Giallo. The story is about an American flight attendant and an Italian investigator searching for the American's missing sister, who has been abducted by a serial killer known only as Yellow (''giallo'' means ''yellow'' in Italian). ''Giallo'' also refers to the Italian pulp erotic horror genre that helped build Argento's career with films like 1975's Profondo rosso (Deep Red), 1977's Suspiria, and last year's La Terza Madre (The Third Mother).

Chloe Sevigny and Zooey Deschanel will star in the indie comedy Divorce Ranch, from writer-director Michael Lindsay-Hogg (Waiting for Godot). The story is set in post-World War II Nevada, when people could get a quickie divorce after they established residency. Sevigny plays an actress who heads with her 6-year-old son to a ranch in Nevada (where out-of-state people can stay until they've established residency) so she can meet and marry a wealthy guy. Deschanel plays the actress' assistant.

A few more details emerge about that Errol Morris scripted comedy via a Yahoo story:

Although the many elements in "Everything" would seem to make for an unruly lasso job, Morris has a penchant for pulling together disparate subjects, as he did with the exploration of four seemingly unrelated characters in 1997's "Fast, Cheap & Out of Control."

"This is a new idea of how to blend drama with reality," Morris said of "Everything." Although actors will be cast and the script developed in the manner of fiction films, real-life photographs will be used as source material. Morris has a history of using dramatic conventions in documentaries; re-enactments in movies like "The Thin Blue Line" are credited with invigorating the genre, though they helped get that film disqualified from Oscar documentary contention.

I posted the teaser poster for Religulous yesterday, the documentary that follows Bill Maher as he investigates religion. Now here is director Larry Charles' statement about the movie:

Ok. An old God, a very buff old God that lives in space decides to create the first man from earth dust, then makes a woman from that man’s rib. They get to live forever if they don’t eat the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge, but the woman is tricked into eating a piece by a talking snake and all future humanity is cursed. Or, how bout this one? This same space God who lives in the sky and has power over everything decides he wants a son, so he impregnates a woman but she remains a virgin. And, the child can walk on water and raise the dead. But his father, the sky God, sends him on a suicide mission to save humanity. After he dies, he rises from the dead and flies into space to be with his father (who is also him.)

Greek myths? The latest installment of the “Lord of the Rings”? Disney’s new animated movie? No! These are the foundations of Western religion. The tenuous shaky belief systems that our entire civilization rests upon.

What do you believe, why do you believe it, and why do you need to believe it? Can we be good without God? Is religion a calling or a mental illness? Were Jesus, Moses and Mohammed prophets and visionaries, or crackpot nut cases who today would be put away? Is religion an obsessive-compulsive disorder?

Comedian, acerbic commentator, raconteur, skeptic, seeker Bill Maher and I set off in search of answers to these questions in a raunchy, rude, irreverent, outrageous, and shocking nonfiction film about the greatest fiction ever told.

Set to the rhythms of “Sympathy for the Devil” and “Jesus Walks,” from the Western Wall to the Vatican, from self-professed messiahs to self professed Pariahs, we will not only expose the hypocrisy and corruption in organized religion but the absurdly hilarious logic that holds it together.

We will talk to clergy, extremists, scholars, politicians, ex-cons, the man on the street and even the man upstairs (that's right, we interview God.)

The funny will be scary, the scary wildly funny. The crazy will seem sane and the sane absolutely and undeniably crazy. All lines are blurred. All bets are off. We will get inside, on top of, behind, and in front of religion.

--Larry Charles

In what is undoubtedly the greatest news I have read in some time Screen Gems is planning a hip-hop musical reimagining of Jane Austen's classic novel Emma for the bigscreen.

Contemporary-set tale, which takes place at an inner-city high school, revolves around a stepbrother and stepsister. The film will include at least 15 song and dance numbers.

Screen Gems head honcho Clint Culpepper said he came up with the idea for Emma, which will likely be redubbed Emme, after watching the musicvideo Lipgloss by Lil Mama, which is when I do most of my brainstorming concerning classic literature.

Culpepper also had this quote which makes absolutely no sense and yet is perfect at the same time.

"Now it's urban, this is the way it should be reimagined in the new millennium."

Instead of a remake, Screen Gems is referring to this as a remix (I am not making that up).

The best film of last year is out on DVD today.

This is from Kanye West's blog. It's from Jim Henson's Muppet studio, a key model for Spike Jonze's upcoming adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are.

This is from Vulture but I just decided to post the whole thing here. It's Spike Lee's theory about how the Oscars are like a make up call in basketball.

In New York's 40th-anniversary culture package, we interview Spike Lee about his seminal New York movie Do the Right Thing. But Spike being Spike, he had plenty more to say, including his entirely reasonable theory about how the Oscar is "like the makeup-call in basketball." By Spike's estimation, we guess, he'll get his about fifteen years from now.

Spike on Driving Miss Daisy and Do the Right Thing:
Driving Miss Daisy… Let’s be honest, you look at the makeup of the Academy then, you have to choose between Radio Raheem and Morgan Freeman’s character — what was his name? Mocha or something? — who are they gonna take? Some angry, threatening black man or some subservient, meek … So what that taught me is that never should I ever, ever make a film for an award. You can’t do that. You have to do the best work you can, and if it gets acknowledged, great, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. I’m sorry — Ordinary People over Raging Bull?

Spike on Scent of a Woman and Malcolm X:
Al Pacino over Denzel? When Al doesn’t win for Godfather I, Godfather II, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon — they fucked him over at least five times, I know. Then he does Scent of a Woman. Denzel [nominated that year for Malcolm X] already won for Glory: "He’s young, he’ll be back, he’ll be all right. We fucked over Al, we’ll give it to him." [Whispering] "Denzel, we’ll hook you up, we got you." Training Day! He wins for Training Day. So we don’t get it for Malcolm X. It’s like the makeup call in basketball. It messes everything up.

Spike on Martin Scorsese:
If you don’t get it when you should, it messes everything up. The problem is, you don’t get it when you need to get it. And when you get the makeup call, then you’re fucking somebody else over and it just keeps going on and on and on. Now I love Marty — does he think Departed was the best film? Hell, no, he knows that, but would he give it back? Hell, no!

What is basically being seen as a give up, MGM and United Artists announced yesterday that they are moving the release date of Bryan Singer's World War II thriller Valkyrie, starring Tom Cruise, from October 3, 2008 to President's Day Weekend February 13, 2009. Basically moving it from being released in the midst of Oscar season to a month primarily known as a dumping ground. Then again, who knows?

This is by far the strangest movie news I have read in sometime. Documentary filmmaker Errol Morris (Fog of War, Gates of Heaven) is writing the screenplay for The End of Everything, a feature comedy based on real events. The story covers a range of subjects, including a wingless bird, author Margaret Mitchell, a volcano, and Laura Bush.

Darren Aronofsky (Pi, Requiem for a Dream) is developing Riverview Towers, a new series for AMC. The psychological thriller is about a family that moves into an apartment with paranormal activity. The project is being scripted by John J. McLaughlin, who wrote Aronofsky's upcoming feature Black Swan, a thriller set in the world of ballet.

Robert De Niro, Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale, and Sam Rockwell (who seems to get better with each film) are set to star in the Kirk Jones-directed Everybody's Fine, a remake of Giuseppe Tornatore's 1990 movie Stanno tutti bene. De Niro plays a widower who decides on a whim to take a road trip to reconnect with his grown kids. Along the way he discovers that their lives are far from perfect.

Oliver Stone recently added two names to W, his biopic chronicling the presidential life of George W. Bush. Thandie Newton is in final talks to play Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Ioan Gruffudd is looking to sign on to play former British prime minister Tony Blair.

New York Magazine is celebrating its 40th anniversary and its arts section is looking back and recounting some of the seminal moments in the city's art community. A few of them are:

David Edelstein on the films of the past 4 decades

Cindy Sherman on her Untitled Film Stills

Spike Lee on Do the Right Thing

Toni Collette will co-star with John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph in Sam Mendes' as-yet untitled relationship comedy. The story is about a couple (Krasinski and Rudolph) traveling across the country in search of the place where they want to raise their unborn child. Collette has been cast as a college professor and close family friend.

Leslie Mann has been cast alongside Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor in the black comedy I Love You Phillip Morris, which is being directed by Bad Santa writers Glenn Ficarra and John Requa. The story is about a married father (Carrey) who goes to prison and falls in love with a cellmate named Phillip Morris. His love leads him to make several escape attempts. Mann plays the wife of Carrey's character.

This is from Moriarty's over at AICN obituary for Charlton Heston.

The craziest thing I learned while reading about Heston tonight is that, allegedly, he was hired by the FBI during the Waco standoff to provide the voice of God when talking to David Koresh. They may not have ended up using him, but the fact that they went to him says a hell of a lot about the way he was regarded by film fans the world over.

Hollywood's least likely Mexican, Charlton Heston, is dead. Even Michael Moore pays tribue to the actor.

Any Werner Herzog news is good news. Herzog will write and direct The Piano Tuner, a lush Victorian-era drama about a Brit's journey to war-torn Burma.

Based on Daniel Mason's 2002 debut novel, the story centers on Edgar Drake, a man sent to a remote village in the late 1800s to repair an eccentric military man's piano. Drake falls in love with a Burmese woman and her country, but as the officer wins over locals through music and medicine, things grow treacherous when his troops begin to suspect him of treason.

I'm basically posting this for one reason.

Fox has renewed animated comedy King of the Hill for the 2008-09 season, the show's 13th.

The network picked up 13 more episodes of the 20th Century Fox TV-produced show with an option for more.

Because of the long production cycle of an animated series, the half-hours will begin airing in February-March 2009, with the remaining held over for the 2009-10 season.

All "Hill" cast members are set to return, including Mike Judge, Kathy Najimy, Pamela Adlon, Brittany Murphy, Tom Petty, Johnny Hardwick and Stephen Root.

The first trailer for Fernando Meirelles' (City of God, The Constant Gardner) Blindness has shown up (strangely enough) at MSN. The film stars Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover, Sandra Oh, and Gael Garcia Bernal.

Warner Bros. has bought the adventure-comedy spec script The Treehouse Gang from Timothy Dowling and set it up with David Heyman's Heyday Films.

In what sounds like a grown up version of The Goonies, Treehouse centers on four friends, known for their treasure-hunting abilities as kids, who meet up at their high school reunion and join forces for one last adventure while tackling 10-year-old grudges.

Dowling gained fame some years ago for writing and directing the short film, George Lucas in Love. A parody of Shakespeare in Love featuring the Star Wars creator getting inspiration for his sci-fi trilogy from random encounters in his college days. I'm sure if you are interested you could find the short on Youtube.

Frank Langella is in final negotiations to join Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst in All Good Things, a period love story/mystery drama being directed by Andrew Jarecki (Capturing the Friedmans).The story is about a 1980s New York real estate suit (Gosling) who has an affair with a girl from the wrong side of the tracks (Dunst) who goes missing. When a detective uncovers info on her whereabouts, the political stakes begin to rise and people close to the situation wind up dead.

A project based on best-selling author Robert Ludlum's 1979 novel The Matarese Circle is being pitched to nearly all the major studios with Denzel Washington attached to star. The story, from the author of the Bourne series, is about a pair of secret agents, an American and a Russian, who are forced to work together to fight a group of killers known as the Matarese — even though they both previously killed someone close to the other. Writers Michael Brandt and Derek Haas, who previously wrote 3:10 to Yuma and the upcoming Wanted, are attached to pen the project. Matarese is the only other Ludlum novel that, like Bourne, has a sequel: 1997's The Materese Countdown.

Nicole Kidman and Judi Dench are in talks for Rob Marshall's film adaptation of the Tony-winning Broadway musical Nine. They would join Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, and Sophia Loren in the movie based on the 1982 stage production, which was inspired by Federico Fellini's autobiographical film 8 1/2. The story is about a film director (Bardem), suffering a creative block as he juggles the numerous women in his life.

A really great trailer for Shotgun Stories. The film was directed by David Gordon Green’s film school pal Jeff Nichols and is about a two groups of half brothers that are involved in an escalating feud of revenge. It is also playing at Roger Ebert's upcoming film festival, Ebertfest.

Via Joblo (as you can see from the watermark). With Danny McBride on the poster it looks like somebody has figured out this guy is going to be huge soon.

Stop-Loss

This movie has a message, at least is had that going for it. The problem is that the story is so messy that you stop caring about what it is trying to say and instead end up frustrated with the choices that the filmmakers made. I'm just going to review this in a bullet format, I feel too lazy to put in an effort to actually make a cohesive entry.

• Apparently everyone in Texas wears pearl snap shirts and those straw cowboy hats where the sides are curled up. I hate to dwell on it but pretty much every detail about Texas in this film seems wrong. The country kids dress like Abercrombie models, not at all like what they should look like, which is well, trash.
  
• I nominate Abbie Cornish for the worst southern accent I have ever heard. All she does is talk reeeeeeal slooooooow and reeeeeeeeeeal deeeeeeeeep. She doesn't have a pearl snap shirt though, she inexplicably has not one but two designer jackets.
  
• What kind of girlfriend leaves with your boyfriends best friend for a road trip to Washington? Then she throws a fit when he shows up on the trip pissed that she had left. Of course there were other circumstances that led to this fit but by that time I didn't care.
• Channing Tatum has something. He reminds me of a young Mark Wahlberg, even down to his voice. Ryan Phillipe also comes out of this unscathed.
  
• This movie's marketing is entirely misleading.
  
• I like Joseph Gordon-Letvitt as an actor but he really needs to cool it on playing the emotionally disturbed guy.
  
• This film may have the single most knee jerk reaction to a situation in the history of movies. After being set up as a great soldier in the early scene, Ryan Phillipe beats up a few soldiers and goes AWOL after being stop-lossed. Sure this is a crappy situation but wouldn't it make more sense for his best friend (Channing Tatum), the more volatile of the two, to make this kind of decision? It would also make more sense because Cornish is his girlfriend. And Phillipe makes this decision just because a senator makes a passing comment to him after a homecoming parade.
• There is a scene where Phillipe goes to visit on his men wounded in battle at a hospital later on in the movie. This is probably the best scene in the movie because it avoids all the cliches these kind of moments usually take on. The actor playing the injured soldier (sorry, I don't know his name) is perfect as a soldier ready to join the war again even after being blinded and losing both an arm and a leg.
  
• Actually the closing moments of the film are also quite good. It is here that we see that above everything else in war, it is really about the men standing beside you.
  
• Nice to see Laurie Metcalf show up in a movie, if only for a scene.
  

From Roger Ebert's website:

Dear Readers:

I am at last returning to the movie beat. After my current stay at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, I’m looking forward to opening night of my annual film festival at the University of Illinois on April 23, and I will resume writing movie reviews shortly thereafter.

Are you as bored with my health as I am? I underwent a third surgery in January, this one in Houston, and once again there were complications. I am sorry to say that my ability to speak was not restored. That would require another surgery.

But I still have all my other abilities, including the love of viewing movies and writing about them. And at my side I have my angelic wife, Chaz.

The festival is shaping up well. Thanks to festival director Nate Kohn, the schedule, which is already released at ebertfest.com, includes appearances by filmmaker and U. of I. graduate Ang Lee; directors Paul Schrader, Sally Potter, Tom DiCillo, Bill Forsyth, Tarsem Singh, Jeff Nichols, Barry Avrich, Taggart Siegel, Eran Kolirin and Joseph Greco. We are also happy to welcome actors Joey Pantoliano, Aida Tuturro, Christine Lahti; and the Alloy Orchestra.

It was Schrader’s line from his screenplay for Martin Scorsese’s “Raging Bull” that inspired my acceptance of my bandaged appearance: “I ain’t a pretty boy no more.”

Assisting in the onstage Q&A sessions will be my TV partner, Richard Roeper; my Chicago Tribune colleague, Michael Phillips; my longtime friends, Time magazine film critic Richard Corliss and his wife, Mary, a film expert; Sony Pictures Classics president Michael Barker; film scholars David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson; Professor Eric Pierson; RogerEbert.com editor Jim Emerson; Movie City News editor David Poland; film scholar Hannah Fisher; and U. of I. alum and Sports Illustrated’s Bill Nack.

The longest distance commute to the festival will be Farmer John Peterson, who lives in northern Illinois but will fly in from New Zealand.

I am still cancer-free, and not ready to think about more surgery at this time. I should be content with the abundance I have.

So that’s the latest. I have been so moved by the messages I’ve received from so many of you. Thank you. Now let’s go to the movies.

Billy Crudup has been cast as FBI director J. Edgar Hoover in "Public Enemies, the Michael Mann-directed crime drama that stars Johnny Depp as John Dillinger.

Mann has also set Stephen Lang (no idea who this is) to play Winstead, the leader of the Texas Rangers who joins the manhunt for John Dillinger and his gang. Christian Bale and Marion Cotillard also star.

I am glad I live in the world that sees Lowell from Wings as a legitimate movie star. Thomas Haden Church (the aforementioned Lowell) will star with Kate Hudson in Big Eyes.

Church will play Walter Keane, who became a celebrity in the 1950s and '60s because of a series of paintings of big-eyed children that became a mass-market phenomenon.

Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski will direct the fact-based drama from their own script.

Spanish actress Carmen Maura (Volver) has replaced fellow countryman Javier Bardem in Francis Ford Coppola's family drama Tetro. In what the director describes as a ''sex change'' operation, Coppola said he decided that the interaction between the young man Tetro (Vincent Gallo) and his mentor would be more interesting if the mentor were played by someone of the opposite sex. Bardem had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts.

MSNBC has a fascinating article about the history of Martin Scorsese's documentaries and how it is in those films that you truly get to know him. Here is my favorite passage:

His documentaries let you love him. You love his artistry in “Mean Streets” and “Taxi Driver” and “Raging Bull” but they’re such dark films they make the filmmaker hard to love. But he shows up onscreen in “A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies” and confesses that as a child he stole pictures out of a book from the New York Public Library, and you fall in love.

He’s everything you want in a teacher: He’s passionate, articulate and has a wellspring of knowledge about the subject like no one else. At the end of “Personal Journey” when he says “This is where we have to stop. We just don’t have the time to go any further,” you think, “What do you mean? I’ve got time. Where are you going? Don’t leave.”

Just going to post the press release for this one but color me curious (is that even a real saying?).

NBC announced today that the most coveted time period of the coming season, the post Super Bowl slot, will be used to launch a spinoff of the network's hit comedy series, "The Office." Immediately following NBC Sports' coverage of Super Bowl XLIII, the network will first present an original episode of "The Office," followed by the debut of the new Greg Daniels comedy. The Super Bowl has been perennially the biggest television event of the broadcast season and was watched this year by a total audience of more than 148 million viewers. Giving this new series that coveted premiere slot will afford the show tremendous sampling from all demographic groups.

Greg Daniels, Executive Producer of "The Office," said, "Who would have ever thought that Americans would be subjected to a mock-documentary after the Super Bowl? What has happened to this country?"

From Greg Daniels, the Executive Producer of the Emmy Award-winning American version of NBC's "The Office," comes the highly anticipated comedy of the season in "The Office" spinoff. Audiences will follow another comic journey, complete with new faces and new locations, but with the same unique sense of humor and brand of quality from Daniels and his creative team. It's the next chapter of what viewers have come to know and love about "The Office."

Not real and not good.

Paul Schneider is getting another role in a high profile film. Schneider and Kerry Fox have joined the cast of Jane Campion’s (The Piano, In the Cut) Bright Star, a period pic about English poet John Keats and his secret love affair with the girl next door.

The film stars Ben Whishaw as Keats and Abbie Cornish as Fanny Brawne, the poet’s muse. The passionate relationship was cut short when Keats died aged just 25.

Schneider will play Keats’ best friend, Charles Armitage Brown, and Fox will play Fanny’s mother.

My big question here is will hehave to use a British accent? After doing some research (two minutes on Wikipedia) I learned that Charles was born in London, the son of a merchant or stockbroker. I hope Campion goes The Last Temptation of Christ route and has the actors speak in their natural voices. I'm not so sure I could buy Rico Rice sporting a fake cockney accent.

Turns out Chris O'Donnell is still making movies. He just landed a role opposite Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis in Max Payne, the live-action adaptation of the shoot-'em-up game. Payne is the story of a cop (Wahlberg), haunted by the death of his family, who's hot on the heels of a series of new murders. O'Donell will play executive Jason Colvin. John Moore (Behind Enemy Lines) is directing the crime noir drama.

A trio of stories on Martin Scorsese and The Rolling Stones concert film, Shine A Light. One, two, three.

John Hillcoat, who made one of my favorite movies from last year (The Proposition) and is currently filming an adaptation of my favorite book of last year (The Road), will next direct another adaptation. This time it is of Matt Bondurant's upcoming novel The Wettest County in the World.

Based on a true story, "Wettest County in the World revolves around a moonshine gang operating in the bootlegging capital of America -- Franklin County, Va. -- during Prohibition.

In response to Woody Allen stating yesterday in his lawsuit against American Apparel that he doesn't endorse products in the United States, I give you this 1967 Foster Grant Sunglasses ad.

Two actors I never thought would appear in a Steven Soderbergh film have just been cast in his next movie. Joel McHale, host of E!'s The Soup, and Scott Bakula have joined Matt Damon in Soderbergh's darkly comic thriller The Informant. The story, based on New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald's 2000 best-selling book The Informant: A True Story, is about a corporate giant brought to justice by one of its employees. Damon plays Mark Whitacre, who worked for agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland, and who leaked details of a price-fixing scam that ultimately resulted in a $100 million fine for the company. Bakula and McHale will play FBI agents working with Whitacre to stop the scam. Although the subject matter is serious, Soderbergh is expected to give it a darkly comedic spin. As such, in addition to McHale, the director has tapped several other actors with comedic roles on their resume, including Mike O'Malley (CBS' Yes, Dear), Andrew Daly (Semi-Pro), Adam Paul (Starz's Hollywood Residential), and Melanie Lynskey (CBS' Two and a Half Men).