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Mind you, I am sure most of [the currently depressing slate of films to come, including Valkyrie and The Road] are distinguished films that will attract critical acclaim, but is it what the public wants (or needs) to see? Wouldn’t they prefer to see Miley Cyrus in a remake of The Wizard of Oz? Or how about Tiny Fey and Amy Poeller in a Hope & Crosby-type road movie—perhaps The Road to Alaska?

—Peter Bart, on what movies the general public should be able to choose from during the current U.S. economic crisis.

I’m not sure what to think about the details that Variety blogger David S. Cohen wrote about on the announced partnership between George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic and Paramount to make Rango, its very first animated film.

It’s going to be animated by hand but! it’s going to involve a modification to the process that ILM used to create the animated special effects in Pirates of the Carribbean 2 and 3 but! it’s going to be rendered photo realistically but! they’re also going to be stylized, according to director Gore Verbinski’s will.

It sounds like a mish-mosh of contradictions, and I’m having trouble visualizing what that’s going to look like.

Since it’s not roto-scoping, I know it’s not going to look like Heavy Metal, and I’m fine with that. It’s purported to be better than the mo-cap used in Beowulf, and since I liked Beowulf, I’m disconcerted by that. I was a little freaked out by the creature animation in Pirates of the Carribbean 2, and since this new technique is derived from that one, I’m swinging back into be concerned.

It’s enough to make one yearn for the days of Stan Winston, Phil Tippett, and puppet animation.

If you need any more proof that the Cold War is over—no really it is!—look no further than the House that a Mouse built, for Walt Disney Pictures is throwing their hard-earned Mickey money at a locally produced Russian film called Kniga Masterov, aka The Book of Masters if you don’t speak Russian or didn’t take a comparative lit course in college. (For the record, I’m a member of both groups.) Masters will be a children’s adventure based on Russian fairy tales and characters written and directed by Vadim Sokolovsky, Disney’s head of acquisitions and production in Russia.

Part of me likes the idea of Disney teaming up with foreign movie houses to release films geared towards children about their own culture and/or ethnic backgrounds. If Disney had come out with a movie that was the dramatic tale of how a bunch of natives rose up against the cruel foreigner who was talked into killing their leader by his rival and struck him in the back with a spear when I was a kid, I think I might have actually been more tempted to learn Tagalog.

As it is, Disney’s backing of this film will do wondrous things for their bottom line because if the movie’s only going to cost $7 million USD to make and there are about 141 million people in Russia, (based on the average cost of a movie ticket in Russia, carry the one…) the only people who would need to see this film would be everyone in Moscow, and the rest of the country can just put their feet up.

Original author and real estate broker Richard Doetsch must either have real chops, the best agent in the world, or a lucky horseshoe lodged up his butt in order to nail a second movie deal for a book that didn’t even have a publisher when the movie deal was struck; his first book The Thieves of Heaven is being developed at Fox 2000 and his next novel is going to be auctioned off to the highest publishing bidder soon. Hell, maybe he’s got all three.

The best part of this story is the note that Doetsch has up on his website regarding The Thirteenth Hour:

While you may have read the Hollywood speak where they try to summarize the story by comparing it to two other films—in this case The Bourne Identity and The Time Traveler’s Wife (I’m flattered)—I promise you, it is so much more than that.

SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT.

Well, I’m sold. How ’bout you?

Wendy and Lucy Star, Distributor Get the NY Times Treatment
If there’s one thing I love about print media, it’s their flair for timing. First up was a September 7 profile on Wendy and Lucy star Michelle Williams (yes, they talked about Ledger’s death) and two days later, there was a profile on Beastie Boy MCA, whose indie film label Oscilloscope picked up the film, which opens in limited release on December 10. I’m still not convinced that online press can secure that kind of star access.

Sid and Marty Krofft Strike Universal Gold Again with Sea Monsters
The deal to make a movie based on the live-action/puppet show “Sigmund and the Sea Monsters” came right on the heels of production being completed on Land of the Lost, which stars Will Ferrell and will screen in June 2009. (Source: Variety)

Mamma Mia! Lead to Continue Schmaltzy Movie Streak with Sparks Novel Adaptation
It looks like the upcoming dark comedy Jennifer’s Body-starring, “Big Love” daughter of polygamists-portraying Amanda Seyfried is swinging back to the fluffy, romcom side of things with a lead role in Dear John, based on the Nicholas Sparks novel. Now that’s how you throw a change-up into a movie career. (Source: Variety)

Daniels, Ryan Reynolds, and Lisa Kudrow to Star in Paper Man
The story is described as a coming of age comedy focused on the friendship between a failed author (that’s Jeff Daniels) and a Long Island teen. I am trying my best not to make a reference to Alexander Nabokov’s novel Lolit—DAMNIT! (Source: Variety)

As for the other New Line movie announced this week based on best-selling chick-lit novel How to Be Single by Liz Tuccillo (a co-writer of He’s Just Not That Into You), I can probably only think of one reason to think that it would be better or more different than any of the other movies about single women who are trying to find romance in New York City, and that’s if it honestly addresses the real problems that are facing many of the single women here. (Source: Hollywood Reporter)

If you’re under 25, female, and single, the world is your burrito — or fish taco if you’re a lesbian — because every year, there is an influx of cute college freshmen who aren’t smart enough or connected enough to get into an Ivy League school but whose parents make enough money to get them into a private school whose annual tuition is the equivalent of someone else’s yearly salary. You’ll get drunk at clubs where they don’t necessarily check your I.D., know the doormen at all the surrounding dorms by face when you leave them at 6 am during your Walk of Shame, it’ll be a blast.

Then, once you leave college and are lucky enough to nab an entry-level job in your field and make something of yourself by the time you’re 30, something strange happens. All that free time you had to go clubbing? Gone, because you’re either busting your ass to keep paying for a small, cramped apartment in Manhattan or busting your ass to keep paying for a slightly more roomy apartment in one of the other boroughs that you share with some stranger who you may or may not have met off of Craigslist in a desperate attempt to get some housing before you’re forced to move back to your home state or if you’re a native New Yorker, move back in with your parents.

And after you hit 30, it gets worse.

By that time, you’re somewhat expected to either start thinking of having kids or have one already, and if you’re not in a somewhat stable relationship with another busy Manhattanite you haven’t married yet because you’re both working on your careers, you’re spending so much time on the subway commuting to and from your outer borough apartment to your friends’ favorite Manhattan night spots that you don’t have time to eat healthily or exercise. You’re also likely to have a second job, which you take just to be able to afford your very first therapist. As for finding romance at the office, fuggedaboutit, because you’re old enough to know better than to make out with the mailroom staff or the receptionist, but you can’t help but flirt with them anyway since everyone else who is at the same responsibility-level as you are is also your competition for a decreasing amount of raises and bonuses thanks to the recession.

Now that I think about it, maybe a movie about the reality of being a single woman in New York City is just too depressing to be made.

New Line Cinema announced that it would be producing a movie based on the story of professional hockey player Sean Avery‘s experiences as a Vogue magazine summer intern. (Source: Hollywood Reporter)

Choke producers Beau Flynn and Tripp Vinson have been tapped by New Line to oversee it, and that has me slightly anticipating more details because since romantic comedies aren’t their usual bread and butter, they’re probably going to be bringing a fresh take to the genre.

The reason why I’m very optimistic about this movie because I am hoping — probably against hope — that it can break down some boundaries when it comes to the notion of what is truly masculine. After all, you’re not going to make fun of a former New York Ranger who’s known for his verbal jabs as well as his bodychecks just because he considers himself a fashionista, are you?

Indie movie junkies and beatniks everywhere must have had a collective orgasm when it was announced that David Strathairn (The Bourne Ultimatim), Alan Alda (The Aviator), Jeff Daniels (Good Night, and Good Luck), Mary-Louise Parker (“Weeds”), and Paul Rudd (Knocked Up) were attached to join Spider Man‘s James Franco as the lead in Howl, a pic about the obscenity trial surrounding Beat Generation writer’s Allen Ginsberg’s book-length poem of the same name (source: Hollywood Reporter). The five stars will play key characters in the trial, ranging from the prosecuting attorney (Straithairn) to one of the defense witnesses (Rudd).

If you don’t know what “Howl” is, you must have either never gone through an “I just gotta be free, man” phase of your life in college, or you didn’t have a hippie English teacher in high school like I did. I will forever be grateful to Ms. Marjie Blevins for introducing me to Ginsberg’s work and encouraging me to think about poetry and the world in a non-conventional way.

The fact that it was also a way for me to get away with saying the words “let themselves be fucked in the ass” in a high school honors class was just a bonus, really.

Most people know Paul Gross from his role in the short-lived TV show “Due South” as a Canadian Mountie on the trail of his father’s killer who — for reasons that don’t need exploring in this blog post — became the biggest secret crush of many women who in their late 20s continue to write erotic fanfiction about him to this very day. What people don’t know is that he’s a screenwriter and director as well, and his latest project has the very ambitious goal of making people become aware of the Canadian film industry via his new WWI-era film Passchendaele (pronounced “passion-dale”). (Source: Risky Biz @ Hollywood Reporter)

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking: “Canadians make movies? I thought their film industry only existed to support U.S. projects that are too expensive to film Stateside?” And therein lies the problem. Because Canada is so close to the U.S. and we share a common language and heritage, oftentimes Canadians feel as if their voices and culture are being overwhelmed by ours.

Think of it like two guys who move into two side-by-side houses named Sam and Doug. At first things are pretty cool and they talk to each other as they mow their front lawns and sometimes they watch football games on alternating weekends at each other’s houses. Sam comes over to help Doug shovel his walk in the winter, and Doug sometimes watches Sam’s mailbox when he leaves on vacation in the summer.

Then one night, Sam comes home with a really hot chick named Holly Wood who likes to party hard, and eventually she moves in. At first Doug is a little annoyed when Holly invites everyone in her cell phone over for late-night parties, but since Sam still lets Doug come over to watch the football games on his 60-inch plasma TV he’s fine with it. That’s cool, because Doug has a new live-in girlfriend of his own, a sweet motherly sort of woman who makes him cookies. But then the girls start hanging out while the guys are at work, and Doug’s sweet motherly girlfriend starts thinking that she needs to start ratting up her hair like Holly does, and she has to start dressing like Holly, and she starts to curse and swear like Holly does.

And then Sam starts saying things that Doug can’t stand about nice people he knows, with Holly’s urging. And it’s Holly’s idea that whenever Doug comes over to watch the ball games, Doug has to chip in to pay for all the beer.

If you lived next to an obnoxious neighbor who was trying to impose his ideals on you and yours, wouldn’t that make you want to reject everything that American pop culture stands for, and explore your own identity as a Canadian?

Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler took the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, scoring the Golden Lion for himself and for star Mickey Rourke. (Source: The Circuit @ Variety)

I am very pleased to hear this news, because I always like watching actors reinvent themselves or find new aspects to their craft and explore the shit out of them, and for Rourke to have been a part of a project that played to his strengths while delving into Aronofsky’s usual existential matter is pretty damn gratifying. The comeback story is also a compelling one as well, and I’m a huge sucker for underdogs. It’s why Sunset Boulevard — both the movie and the musical — is such a compelling story, it’s why you watch Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, it’s how movies will always be a part of the human entertainment experience.

Though it’ll be playing at the New York Film Festival this October, I can’t wait till this gets picked up by a distributor for wider distribution.

UPDATE (9/8 3:49 PM): Ask and ye shall receive, Trish. Variety’s Anne Thompson broke the news (mere hours after you first posted this) that Fox Searchlight has picked up the film for a cool $4 mil. It’s assumed (although I didn’t see anything concrete) that they’re going for an “Oscar-qualifying late-year platform with a wider release in January.” — Gordon

Spielberg, Dreamworks Investigates “39 Clues” as Next Project
The latest word on Steven Spielberg’s next directorial effort is that Jeff Nathanson — who penned popular hits The Terminal, Catch Me if You Can, and the latest Indiana Jones for him — will be adapting the screenplay for “The 39 Clues.” Word also says that it’s to be a “multiplatform” adventure series which probably means that we’ll be inundated with a 39 Clues tie-in novel, video and computer games, and I dunno, maybe a breakfast cereal. (Source: Variety)

Enough With the Logos Already!
Variety writer Peter Debruge turned in a piece so “interesting” on the seemingly endless pre-credits logo sequences before movies that EIC Peter Bart felt he had to add his two cents in. Personally, I agree with Bart that it can be annoying, but I have to admit that it also gives movie goers a chance to be just a little late coming back from the bathroom or the concessions stand. (Source: Variety)

Jesus Christ, it’s a Lion! Get Back in the Movie Theater!
Before I read this story, I thought it was going to be about how they were going to be making a movie about this YouTube video, where five lions, two crocodiles, and a water buffalo calf are locked in deathly combat. But no, they’re going to go the Born Free route and make a movie about this one (NSF-People Who Don’t Like Whitney Houston’s Singing or 1960s Hairstyles). (Source: Hollywood Reporter)

Gordon: Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly have been signed to star in Creation, a movie about the the life of Charles Darwin that will be directed by Jon Amiel. Please touch on this tomorrow (Source: Hollywood Reporter).

Trisha Lynn: Touch, or do a full article?

Gordon: Either way. If you want to write something longer, feel free.

Trisha Lynn: What’s the angle?

Gordon: I do have this fear it will focus so much more on Darwin’s life and relationships than anything he actually did. As most movies about geniuses do.

But that’s probably just knee-jerk snark.

Trisha Lynn: There’s not much entertainment or drama in movies about scientific discoveries unless there’s lots of sensationalism involved, like in Inherit the Wind. But that was more of a courtroom drama. The only thing I can think of that would be comparable would be if someone did a movie about Martin Luther and his 95 theses, or Socrates’ last days, or Galileo’s imprisonment. That would actually be pretty cool.

A guy sitting on a beach painstakingly cataloging the differences between tortoises? Doesn’t seem like it would make a good movie to me. But that’s just knee-jerk snark as well.

Wikipedia tells me that while there was a little drama surrounding the race to get his work published, the actual co-publishing of the book was done with a minimal amount of hassle. Also, while there was a huge hubbub over the findings, it was very much in line with what other scientists were observing about the world, which means that if Darwin didn’t do it, someone else would have.

So I disagree with you there. A movie about his life and his relationships with other people in the scientific community of his day would be way more interesting than a movie about his actual work.

20th Century Fox will get its day in court as Los Angeles federal judge Gary Allen Feess has set the trial date for the lawsuit over the rights to the Warner Bros. Watchmen film for January 9. (Source: Variety)

Feess also said that the issues were too complex to be resolved on an interim basis, which to my eyes somewhat contradicts a previous statement of his which was that he wants the case to move quickly. Why not assign a court mediator or negotiator to the case right now? I’m probably going to reveal a lot of naievete by saying this, but surely 20th Century Fox already has all of its documentation ready to be entered into evidence and all of its witnesses, right? You don’t just go and say, “Dude, I think I still own your blockbuster movie” if you don’t have concrete proof, right?

Word is out that with the setting up of a sequel to one of the few horror films in recent memory that was not based on an existing Japanese film, Rogue Pictures wants to turn The Strangers into a horror movie franchise not unlike Saw or Hostel. (Source: Variety) I think that if they did that, it would be a completely terrible mistake.

The beauty of a horror movie like The Strangers is that you really have no idea why the antagonists are going around killing people; you only know that you’re supposed to cheer against them and cheer for the protagonists. It’s good versus evil in its truest form, and no matter who wins you know that it’s going to be pretty satisfying. Remember The Birds? Not even in the original short story is it ever really explained why the birds have all gone on this murderous spree, and that’s perfectly okay. You also only need to watch The Happening to know that if you try and explain something a perfectly weird phenomenon, you can get a pretty crappy movie as a result.