Quickhits: The Devil Loves Baseball, Williams to Paris, Paquin to Canada, Eckhart to Bill

by Martha Fischer Apr 5th 2006 // 10:06PM

More odds and ends than you can shake a stick at:

I have to admit that I'm sort of amused by this concept: a movie about someone who actually followed through on their threat to move to Canada when Bush was elected. Entitled Blue State, the film stars Anna Paquin as the mover (which is funny, what with her being from Canada and all) and Breckin Meyer as the token male, and will be produced by Paquin Films - bet you can't guess who owns that sucker.

You know that movie Woody Allen is going to make in Paris? Well, he's taking a Brokeback wife along: Michelle Williams has reportedly agree to star. She'll be playing, well, one of a bunch of Americans. In Paris. For the love of God, Woody -- throw us a plot-bone!

Because we can never get enough heartwarming stories (Has anyone actually tested that? Personally, I hit my limit about 13 misunderstood youths ago.), Aaron Eckhart has ridden the Thank You for Smoking wave into yet another one. Eckhart's personal story of redemption is called Bill, and he'll star as "a man fed up with his job and marriage who bottoms out when he catches his wife cheating. He finds a catalyst for a resurgence when he reluctantly mentors an unruly teen." Ah, the unruly teen. How many lives have they saved? The movie starts shooting next month.

When I tell you that Universal has acquired a story about a small town "saved by baseball," what do you imagine? A touching, period piece? Or perhaps a story about a town triumphing unspecified tragedy by coming together behind an underdog high school team? Ah, but you'd be wrong -- gloriously, bizarrely wrong! In fact, Time of the Their Lives is about people who literally DON'T DIE because they play baseball. (I hope this doesn't mean that they actually play 24/7. How impractical would that be? Not to mention boring.) Then, somehow, a misguided kid gets the town involved in "a winner-take-all game between townsfolk and the devil's ringers" for his own soul. While I admit the whole thing doesn't make a lot of sense, it sounds more than weird enough to be interesting. Right?

Tags: Aarn Eckhart, AarnEckhart, Anna Paquin, AnnaPaquin, baseball, Bill, Blue State, Breckin Meyer, BreckinMeyer, cinematical, film, Michelle Williams, MichelleWilliams, movie, Time of the Their Lives, Universal, Woody Allen, WoodyAllen