The Telluride Film Festival, now 36 years young, has always had a flare for the dramatic, choosing as they do to unveil their lineup at the last possible minute. That turns tomorrow into something of a Christmas Morning for its cineaste attendees, knee-deep in goodies like the superb, Palme d'Or-winning The White Ribbon (which will feature one of Michael Haneke's only North American appearances in support of the film), Jacques Audiard's Grand Prix-winning A Prophet, fashion icon origin myth Coco Before Chanel, and sweet Sundance surprise An Education. Among the other curios in contention, Jane Campion's Keats romance Bright Star, post-apocalyptic travelogue The Road, and, last but not least, Werner Herzog's head-f**king Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. (The first review is in and it's a rave! As in, ravingly weird.) Todd Solondz's Life During Wartime also makes its debut, just squeezing out Toronto International Film Festival for the honors; but they can salve their wounds knowing they still have dibs on Jason Reitman's Up in the Air.
The full announcement is after the jump.
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The NYT is going deep this weekend on Spike Jonze, with a nearly 7500-word profile on the man and his mission that takes almost as much time to read as it took Jonze to put Where the Wild Things Are together. Then again, suggests the piece, that rambling nature is part of what makes Jonze who he is.
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It's been just seven years since Lionsgate's soothsaying president of production Mike Paseornek had the stroke of genius to take Tyler Perry -- a sort of dumbed-down, cross-dressing George Bernard Shaw of the contemporary African-American theater circuit -- and see how his wildly successful stage shows might fare on the big screen. A dozen self-written features, one non-union TV series, and a peculiar appearance in a summer sci-fi reboot later, and it's safe to say Perry and his alter ego Mabel "Madea" Simmons are doing just fine, thanks: His 2008 earnings alone are estimated at around $125 million.
Now Lionsgate wants him to branch out into other proven theatrical properties, ones that Perry hasn't himself written. Before we had monologues for vaginas, before Heidi scribbled down her Chronicles, we had For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf.
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This is why studios don't screen some movies for critics. After a summer during which Bradley Cooper and Sandra Bullock hits combined for $350 million at the box office, the harsh reality of September has set in with their romantic quasi-farce All About Steve. The early reviews are in, and you might say they could be... better. But how bad could Steve really be? Let's take a sampling after the jump.
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Whether you're looking forward to the lightcycles or simply excited to hear the Daft Punk soundtrack, you'll be pleased to hear that Tron Legacy's been given a release date of December 17, 2010. Less happy to receive the news will be Seth Rogen and Michel Gondry, who just announced their geek-baiting Green Hornet would claim that same date. Could be worse, guys: They could move up Green Lantern and really confuse people. [Coming Soon]
· Chace Crawford's new Wonderland spread is determined to make the next list of ridiculous Gossip Girl photoshoots.
· Has David Fincher cast Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Timberlake, and Andrew Garfield in The Social Network?
· Mike White is reuniting with Laura Dern (so good in his underrated Year of the Dog) for a new HBO comedy.
· Jason Reitman is busy adapting the Joyce Maynard novel Labor Day, potentially as his next project.
· On Jon Gosselin's unique style, Tim Gunn ranted, "It is what I refer to as the slobification of America. If you want to dress to feel as though you never got out of bed, then don't get out of bed." Fine, I'm sleeping in my XXL gray tee and Ed Hardy "tiger ass" jeans tonight. Comfy!
It doesn't have vampires, it doesn't have wolfcake, and it doesn't have its own touring fan conventions. (Yet.) But as of today, Australia's bestselling Tomorrow series of books -- perhaps the most popular young-adult literature franchise you've never heard of -- has a leading lady for its upcoming big-screen adaptation. Paramount is in, and Pirates of the Caribbean/Collateral/G.I. Joe scribe Stuart Beattie will adapt the novel as his directing debut. Oz is abuzz -- but can it cross over?
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Or so writes Time correspondent James Poniewozik in an exhaustive new preview of The Jay Leno Show, reporting that the host will "need one for seated-comedy bits." Hopefully they'll be a little better-developed than his monologue test-drives to date ("The Amsterdam city council wants a bailout of the prostitution business..."), but! Poniewozik also reports a consolation for affiliates at the end of it all: Leno will relay straight into local news without a commercial break. Can those fancy scripted cop procedurals do that at 11 p.m.? Oh. Well, it was worth a shot. [Time]
We all knew John Waters is something of a fine-art obsessive -- but obsessive enough to give up filmmaking for a late career change? Sequestered at the end of a lengthy, loving Waters profile in the new issue of Modern Painters, the 63-year-old director recounts the difficulty of getting his long-developing Christmas film Fruitcake off the ground, adding casually that the project represents 50 percent of his remaining movie output:
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America is nothing without a biannual dance craze, and Hollywood is nothing without the imperative to commit that fad to film for all time (and hopefully a low- to mid-eight-figure gross). So get ready for Jerkin'! It's not what it sounds like, alas, but it is the hip new-ish thing that required some investigation this morning at Movieline HQ. A few key discoveries -- with video -- follow the jump.
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· It had to happen eventually: Fox plans to revive its $300 million-generating franchise masterpiece Big Momma's House, recruiting writer Randi Mayem Singer to work out a screenplay for the series' third installment. The best part of the story: "Log line is under wraps." I'd like to see Singer go meta, dramatizing a behind-the-scenes duel between the Sony suits who greenlit White Chicks 2 and the Fox suits who reacted with this, both jockeying for market share in Hollywood's ultra-competitive Pandering Minstrelsy bracket. Anyone got a better idea? [Variety]
Nick Cassavetes sics his lawyers on New Line, Boondock Saints II finds an outlet, and much more Hollywood Ink after the jump.
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· It may just be late in the day and I'm seeing things, but doesn't it seem like InStyle accessorized Jennifer Connelly to look like Frankenstein, Dracula and the Mummy? I mean, don't get me wrong -- she totally pulls it off.
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Megan Fox, we've missed you! Sure, it hasn't been so long since Fox beguiled us with her willingness to say anything during her last Transformers press tour, but those two months since have felt like years spent wandering around in a dry, quote-less desert. Now, though, the Fox is back on the hunt to promote Jennifer's Body, and she's brought her A-game: In an interview with Wonderland magazine, she compared Michael Bay to history's greatest monster.
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If there's anything we've established thanks to Avatar, Watchmen, and Arrested Development's Tobias, it's that blue is the sexiest color you can coat your characters in (with the possible side effect of making them look completely ridiculous). Now, even Guy Ritchie's getting in on the act -- he's set his Sherlock Holmes follow-up, and it'll star someone big and blue. Who?
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Katherine Heigl will take a five-episode hiatus from Grey's Anatomy so that she can work on a new romantic comedy, Life as We Know It, directed by Greg Berlanti (who co-wrote the Green Lantern script). Heigl's absence will be explained on screen and will begin with November episodes, possibly coinciding with Ellen Pompeo's maternity leave. Shonda Rhimes forewarned fans this summer when she said prophetically, "Eventually, everybody is going to leave the show [...] Season 6 is about finding the longevity of the show and figuring out if there is a future for this show beyond these characters." [Entertainment Weekly]
