Sofia Coppola gave birth yesterday to a baby girl in France. The baby girl's name is Romy. Having kids always informs something of a change, or rather an enhanced perspective, to a writer/director's work. I'm very curious to see where Sofia takes us next.

I can't find the IMdB story from yesterday mentioning it, but apparently Borat star Sacha Baron Cohen has not been confirmed as playing Adolfo Pirelli in Tim Burton's Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd

Got an email from a reader asking what I thought about Kirsten Dunst's chance at an Oscar nomination, and I think the field looks more like this... The Definite 3 Penelope Cruz (Volver) Annette Bening (Running With Scissors) Helen Mirren (The Queen) The Mix Judi Dench (Notes on a Scandal) Kate Winslet (Little Children) Sienna Miller (Factory Girl) Beyonce Knowles (Dreamgirls) Meryl Streep (Prada) Don't Discount Julianne Moore (Children of Men) Rachel Weisz (The Fountain) Sienna's got the "IT" girl thing going for her, Beyonce might get some heat but who knows, and the other three are always excellent. Moore and Weisz no one seems to be banking on, but you never know. Weisz did win for "Gardener" and strong actors who've been up for it and won before can get put in based on name recognition.

Warren Ellis, comic book writer and power-blogger, has passed along confirmation that DC/Vertigo's hit 1990s comic book Preacher is on its way to HBO as an hourlong series, confirmed by creator Garth Ennis. Reads like Ennis isn't exactly pleased with something or another.

Tony Danza begins a stint playing the Zero Mostel/Nathan Lane-originated Max Bialystock in the Broadway production of The Producers (still billed as a New Musical) on 19 December. The fantastic Roger Bart returns to play Leo Bloom once again after moving up from Carmen Ghia, chili-bowl-cut commonlaw assistant extraordinaire. Danza is unexpected casting if I've ever heard it, though I think it could work. Others I'd like to see take a crack at a "different take" include John O'Hurley, Jonathan Pryce, Christopher Walken, and Kevin Spacey (yeah right, but I can see it).

I always thought it was unfortunate that Antonio Banderas' directorial debut was less personal of a

Robert Altman just received his first posthumous recognition, nominated for Best Director in the 2006 Independent Spirit Awards. You could have counted A Prairie Home Companion one of my favorite movies of 2006 before we lost him, but I wonder if Posthumous Award Syndrome is going to kick in and he'll get nommed for stuff he wouldn't have were he still alive to aggravate publicists and studio execs in new and exciting ways. He deserved the Oscar in 2001 for Gosford Park...but I digress. Who thinks Altman might take the gong instead of Eastwood or Scorsese? If it's a question of it being overdue...this is the Academy's last chance, and sentimentality wins often at AMPAS.

Ashley let me know Cheney's motorcade sped through downtown Monticello today. I thought it smart to post an advisory.

Robert Altman has passed on. One of my favorite times out in a long time was to see A Prairie Home Companion with Ashley (my fiancee). What a loss.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117945486.html?categoryid=18&cs=1

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1950258,00.html

Hollywood Elsewhere is tinseltown-centric, but the videogame industry is becoming more and more a part of that world. English dubs of CG movie sequels to videogame megafranchises courting bona fide Hollywood name talent (plus Mena Suvari) is just a piece of the larger integration of intellectual property crossover. I'm thoroughly convinced that the Godfather videogame is a sign of the apocalypse, but there are some good things coming out of the Silicon Valley/Hollywood crossbreeding: specifically the failed, horrendous genetic mutation-level failures going on. The telling sign is that a Japanese giant is specifically embracing a different path with their new console: The Nintendo Wii. You must have heard about it by now. It's the system your paralyzed-from-the-waist-down granddad can bowl on and everyone has on the Must Have list for Christmas. With this curiously-named machine, The Big N is poised to reclaim a massive marketshare they haven't had since the days when everyone "The Old Nintendo" and were blowing into cartridges. The tide-altering aspect of the new system is the control interface, which integrates motion-sensing technology to track the player's movement. Mo-cap has been used badly in the past by most of the major console manufacturers, most memorably by Nintendo themselves with a heavy-handed peripheral that was called The Power Glove. In a scene from The Wizard (finally on DVD), it was touted as the end-all-be-all of controllers, and wouldn't you know, now it is, just in a different form. What this lets you do, foe example, is swing your "Wiimote" and have your character on screen swing their sword/fishing pole/butterfly net/butcher knife. The brilliance of the thing is that you really don't have to be good with a standard game controller to be able to play. The game packed-in with every console features Tennis, Bowling, Baseball, Golf, and Boxing. You can just all around the room like the hopped-up-on-speed kids in the commercials, or you can barely move from your seat with the same result on-screen. The development team apparently started from a good place: drive a new user experience and please moms shopping for their kids. The company as a whole did good by the consumer by producing an apparent more than ample supply for the entirety of the holiday season. But what about this PS3 everyone is shooting each other or breaking into cars for? It's a hot item, but it's going directly after the hardcore gaming crowd that's been catered to by way of the system's very existence. The fact is, analysts and layman reporters alike are saying hold out on the PS3 and grab a Wii as fast as possible. Even software companies are saying they find the Wii preferable, probably due in large part to the 50% (or more) lower cost in developing a title on Wii vs. PS3. All this came through prior to reports (on launch day) that the PS3 may not have shipped in even smaller numbers than the reduced figure of 400,000. Nintendo stock is at an all-time high in Japan, mostly thanks to the huge sales of Nintendo's killer touch screen-enabled DS handheld, put in part thanks to expectations of their new Sony Killer. I worked on 10/26/2000, the launch day of the PS2, a system that became a huge seller mostly thanks to three games (Grand Theft Auto 3, its sequel, and

Not only is Larry King a great quality indicator thanks to his brand name quotewhoring for movies that are never worth your time, but he also carries no stock in the Internet as a viable means of communication. The science is still out, I guess. How little does he care for the internets? He's never used it nor is he aware of how it works on a very elementary level. Jeff Wells would say I'm falling to old media standards for reporting this days late, but c'mon, it's not like Larry King could even theoretically read this. I mean, who uses the internet, anyway?

Back in March, I highlighted a documentary I think is just as eye-opening as Super Size Me if not more important. Well, at long last, Maxed Out has acquired distribution through Magnolia according to Variety. If Super Size Me made you sick to your stomach, this will make you want to throw up each time you look at your credit card.

Variety today reported that the deal to have Sacha Baron Cohen play Adolfo Pirelli in Tim Burton's Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd has been made and he's set to absolutely steal the show. Cohen is king of the hill as far as anyone is concerned for the "music hall foreigner" characterizations he is so good at, and this will be a great showcase of just how over-the-top and at once restrained he can be. Many comic actors out there just scream "look at me, look at me" by sailing too far over the top, but Cohen is content to choose when to push the boundaries (or leave them in his wake) and when to hold back. Unlike many successful American comedians, he will probably not refuse non-leads, and instead choose the roles that are really worth his time, no matter how large or small they may be. Cohen's the real thing.

On an email group I'm a member of, a woman recently posted an item about Borat, specifically in regard to her absolute and utter loathing of the movie. Free of the significant degree of de-sensitization prevalent among many of the reviewers and members of the general public, reactions like these are out there and may be indicative of Middle America being left out of the loop. Are just as many turned off as turned on to the tune of "You Be My Wife"? Or is this a generational thing, like many parents just didn't get why Monty Python had to use such vile toilet humor and make jokes out of sex and foreigners? The Borat question of preference, in my mind, comes down to "would you like your broken-English-speaking foreigner portrayed by Sacha Baron Cohen, or John Cleese?" "Would someone of appropriate expertise PLEASE explain to us WHY this movie is so popular and WHY most of the reviews have been good? [Her husband] almost walked out. I thought it was the worse [sic] piece of %!$!$!# film I've ever seen. What am I NOT seeing here? Two hours of my life I will never get back. A part of brain is now irreparably damaged. "And I'm not stodgy about movies. LOVED Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle! I saw The Kentucky Fried Movie. HIGHlarious. I think I have a very clever and above average sense of humor. I get satire. I understand making fun of ethnic groups, women and gay people if done in the spirit of satire or in making a socio-political statement. Such was not the case, I believe. Making fun? HOW it was done made me ill. (Watching two hairy naked men rolling around fighting in a hotel room in the 69 position didn't make me feel great either. Among so MANY other things.) "I thought this movie to be on the level with the "Jackass" movies, made for an audience of frat boys and truck drivers (no offense to truck drivers and frat boys...well, maybe the frat boys....) What am I NOT getting here? Please to explain?"

http://www.defamer.com/hollywood/studio-60/studio-60-cancellationwatch-nbc-officially-picks-up-a-full-season-213808.php

Dimension Films passed on Castlevania based on the script turned in by Paul W.S Anderson (Resident Evil, Mortal Kombat, Alien vs. Predator). The teaser poster shown off at the AFM inspires no confidence ..."Dracula Begins"? ...are they serious?

Western Value

The remarkable thing is the execs aren't paying attention to the marquee value of a western in southern states, especially one that looks "traditional" (none of that Brokeback "nonsense"), and especially a movie with Jesse James at the center of it. No matter what stereotypes one ascribes to their citizenry, the southern states will go see something if it's good and feels familiar. It doesn't have to be full of right-wing sentiment and John Wayne machismo and bravura, as long as there's that homegrown struggle against the big bad world caving in on the West. The rebellious outlaw story is one that people who stay away from the cinema will go see. There just aren't many H&G (horses & guns) flicks out there anymore, and it's a damn shame. The West is dead in contemporary America, but that doesn't mean there are no stories left to tell. Well, what about Unforgiven? Hell, Open Range surprised a lot of people with how well it did. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada could have released wider than it did. That is, if the studios had put some faith in the audience being there. At SXSW 2003, AICN's Harry Knowles moderated "A Conversation With" Peter Fonda discussing his career, the state of movies, and a particular western. One of my favorite parts of that year's festival was the screening Fonda's little-seen directorial debut, The Hired Hand from the recently-restored print. DP Vilmos Zsigmond (Vil Ziggy, as Fonda affectionately referred to him) shot the movie with Fonda around the same time as (not sure if just before or after) Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller and just before Deliverance, and I daresay this movie has prettier pictures than the other two. The movie was art at a time when the studio wanted "Captain America" to make anything but a western. They let him make it, but castrated it by severely cutting its number of screens upon opening and promptly buried it after a two week run. The logic? No one wants to watch Westerns anymore...especially when they're long and not full of action sequences. Only thirty years later did people audiences have a chance to see it, and then, only in a limited re-release and festival tour, followed by a DVD that got severely under-marketed just as DVD was exploding. The barebones edition sold at Wal-Mart for under $10, but nobody knew it was there. People still want to see westerns, the studios just don't think they do. The audience never left, the studios just don't believe they're still around.

Not everyone out there is into musical theatre, but I am. It brings me great joy to bring news of a new musical about to close after less than a month: The Times They Are A-Changin'. The music of Bob Dylan as interpreted by Twyla Tharp and a cast of Cirque du Soleil-esque dancers dressed as clowns, dogs, and other bizarre things has happily gone the way of other massive flops after 35 previews and 26 regular performances (by closing night on November 19th). Carrie: The Musical comes to mind (which got legendarily terrible reviews as well, one from the inimitable Joel Siegel). The Best Week Ever posted a clip excerpting 30 seconds of Like a Rolling Stone as it was performed on The View. If the iFilm link weren't dead, I could point you toward the whole thing. I'll update later if I find it.