Cinematical

If I know our Eugene Novikov at all, his face is like mine in that it registers somewhere between the two pictured at the right when it comes to the news that The Brothers Bloom, writer-director Rian Johnson's follow-up to his nifty noir Brick, has been bumped back from October 24th (an admittedly crowded weekend) to a limited bow on December 19th, followed by a wide release on January 16th of 2009.

When the fairly reliable Box Office Mojo first mentioned the change, I balked at the thought, but now Johnson has confirmed it on his own message board, saying "There were a few reasons for the move: October and November are crowded as hell, it's a tough tough market, especially for a smart unique film like ours, and we'd have a week or two at the most to sink or swim. Whereas concentrating on a couple markets for awards consideration in December, then pushing the wide in the more open January slot just seemed like a better use of resources."

Wait -- what's that? Eugene gets to see it in a week's time up at Toronto? Excuse me, but I'm suddenly feeling much more like Bang Bang...