Cinematical

Getting the jump on other American distributors, Strand Releasing snatched up US rights to Cannes award-winner Poison Friends prior to its stateside debut at next month's New York Film Festival. The second feature from Emmanuel Bourdieu, the movie follows "a circle of college intellectuals who are duped by a seductive and charming pathological liar," exploring "the pretentiousness of the Paris-centric literary scene without pretension." And, if you're still not sure if this one is up your alley or not, this gem from Variety's review of the film should solve any indecisiveness: Bourdieu's film is "so unrepentantly French that viewers who enjoy truly Gallic pics can start (tastefully) salivating now." Ha! And yes, please.

If you can't get to NYFF to see the film, Strand is tentatively planning to have it in theaters next spring.

Before I get to the meat of this post, can we all just say "GRK!" a few times? Thank you.

For those of you who, like me, had never seen that glorious word until this morning, it's actually the name of the dog in a British series of children's books (yes, another one of those). The series so far consists of three books -- A Dog Called Grk, Grk and the Pelotti Gang and Grk and the Hot Dog Trail -- that follow the adventures of a 12-year-old boy and his dog (Grk!) as they "fight an evil dictator in Eastern Europe, chase dangerous criminals in South America and pursue other adventures in exotic locations around the world." Film rights to all three of the books were recently picked up by Xingu Films, the production company run by Trudie Styler (who, in addition to being Mrs. Sting, is also a sometime-actress and a very successful producer in her own right).

According to Styler, the series is ripe for the jump to cinema because it's about a normal kid (read: Not Harry Potter or Alex Ryder) who is simply "a citizen who does the right thing and becomes a young activist." Furthermore, "The stories are wildly entertaining and set in exotic places. It's done with the broad stroke of high adventure." So there, haters. Grk! The Hollywood Reporter compares the books to Hergé's Tintin series, which annoys me because nothing can ever be as wonderful as Tintin (and even if Grk does have a better name, there's no way he's as cool as Snowy), but they do sound pretty appealing -- anyone actually read the things?

The last we heard about John Woo's long-simmering The Battle of Red Cliff was back in February, at which point there were rumors that it actually might be moving forward. And now, a mere seven months later, the project finally has financing lined up, a cast in place, and a confirmed start date. Woo (if you will) hoo! For those of you who have forgotten, the movie is based on a classic Chinese novel, and tells the true story of "the final days of the Han Dynasty in the year 208, ... [covering] the war that established the Three Kingdoms period, when China had three rulers." The central battle of that war took place, as you might have guessed, at Red Cliffs, and involved as many as a million soldiers. Damn.

Surprisingly, the mutterings about the cast have turned out to be mostly true: This morning's Variety reports that the film will star frequent Woo collaborator (back in the Hong Kong days) Chow Yun-Fat, as well as Ken Watanabe, Tony Leung and Lin Chi-Ling, who apparently is a Taiwanese model. The IMDb also lists Andy Lau in the cast, but his presence is unconfirmed.

Production is expected to begin next March, with release planned for early 2008.

Apparently the people at upstart production company Big Beach have a bit of a "sunshine" fixation: They're going to follow up their smash indie hit Little Miss Sunshine with a project called Sunshine Cleaning. Not, just so we're clear, a sequel in any way -- they're just really, really into the word. According to this morning's Screen Daily, the film will star Amy Adams and Emily Blunt, and is "a character piece about a woman who starts up a business that cleans up after someone dies." Hmm. So we can pretend for the moment that it's about Harvey Keitel from Pulp Fiction, except as a woman? Sounds good to me. The movie is budgeted at about $7 million, and will be directed by New Zealander Christine Jeffs.

Sunshine Cleaning co-producer Glenn Williamson (Hollywoodland) spoke briefly about the project in Venice yesterday, and also offered a few details about another film with which he's involved, entitled Wonderful World. This one is another character piece with an even smaller budget -- $3-5 million, according to Williamson -- and will tell the story of "a cynical divorcee (Matthew Broderick) who starts a relationship with an African woman (Sophie Okonedo)." The film is being written by Josh Goldin, who will also direct.

Though it took a little while -- the film had its world premiere this past spring at Tribeca -- it's no surprise that Jake Kasdan's The TV Set has finally been picked up for US distribution. After all, it probably came fairly cheap (I realize it's all relative, but you know what I mean), and stars big names like David Duchovny and Sigourney Weaver; ThinkFilm certainly can't be blamed for taking a flyer on the thing.

A behind-the-scenes comedy about the television industry, the film stars Duchovny as a naive writer who "steers a fictional skein through a gantlet of stars, managers and a severe network exec (Weaver)." Kasdan spent the early part of his career in television (he directed episodes of both Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared), and the TV Set reviews in the trades all mention the impressive accuracy of his depiction of that world. However, they reviews also wonder how funny such an insider story will be to the general public; we'll all get to decide for ourselves when the movie hits theaters next spring.

Samuel Goldwyn Pictures seems to see a huge American audience for foreign, Kirsten Dunst-free period drama that no one else has noticed. To that end, they've picked up the rights to Michael Apted's Amazing Grace, a movie that phantom audience is sure to devour: The film stars a trio of talented actors who are also non-draws in the US (Ioan Gruffudd, Albert Finney and Romola Garai), and is a biopic of William Wilberforce, an 18th-century British abolitionist. Yes, 90% of America just fell asleep.

Now to me, this sounds awesome (as does the distributor's insane-yet-admirable plan to collaborate with Walden Media on a "comprehensive marketing initiative" addressing modern slavery, and urging social action) -- but you know I'm a history nerd who enjoys reading books about things like maps and 15th-century monarchs. And moviegoers like me will earn this film what, $4,000 on its opening weekend next February? If you're not yet convinced that everyone at SGP has lost their minds (albeit in a wonderfully ambitious way), get this: The release date has been schedule to fall on the 200th anniversary of Parliament's vote to end slavery in all British-controlled territories. If anyone cares about this, I will be the happiest wrong person on earth, but really, the chances seems very, very slim.

A guy stars on the one the best TV series of all time, and all he can get is a lame, second-banana gig in the Matrix sequels. Then he shows up on a show of debatable quality that everyone watches, and he's got jobs coming out of his ears. Yes, I'm talking about Harold Perrineau. And no, I'm not surprised, just a little depressed. Don't get wrong -- I'm happy the man's getting gigs, just a little resentful that it didn't happen during Oz.

My own pouting aside, things are looking damn good for Perrineau these days: In the past few weeks he's signed up for gigs in three upcoming films. The first is 28 Weeks Later..., in which his role as "an upbeat American Special Forces pilot who documents and leads to safety the families returning to London after the viral outbreak" sounds likely to be pretty small (I'm thinking, like, Richard Dawson in King Rat small here). The others, however, could be more substantial. He'll be playing Richard Roundtree (who in my mind is at least three times Perrineau's size) in Matthew Wilder's Philip K. Dick movie -- recently retitled Your Name Here -- because, at least within the weirdass world of Wilder's film, Roundtree is obsessed with Dick. So to speak. In addition, Perrineau will appear in the harrowing-sounding Gardens of the Night alongside John Malkovich, Jeremy Sisto and Diana Ross' little boy Evan.

Apparently someone has told all of Hollywood that the apocalypse is coming, and we can all be saved only be making MORE MOVIES ABOUT URBAN LEGENDS. And, because they have our best interest at heart, our friends in the movie industry have leaped to humanity's defense: On Monday, Universal bought a super-secret spec script about an urban legend on a college campus, and today comes the news that Intrepid Pictures (which, by the way, has a first-look deal with Universal) just picked up ... exactly the same thing. Yippee, we're saved!

Universal's pic is called Agony; Intrepid's is Mercy. And that's pretty much the only difference. Seriously. Though Universal is being coy for some reason about the details of Agony's plot, it's set on a college campus, and deals with an urban legend that -- shocker! -- turns out to be true. Mercy, meanwhile, is about "a college student who sets out to debunk the urban legend of the Mercy Killer ... only to discover that he is all too real and has chosen her as his next victim."

So basically, if you snuck in under cover of darkness and switched the scripts, no one would notice. Ain't Hollywood great?

According to the MPAA website, "One of the highest accolades to be conferred on the rating system is that from its birth in 1968 to this day, there has never been even the slightest jot of evidence that the rating system has deliberately fudged a decision or bowed to pressure." If that statement's patent absurdity wasn't already obvious to any follower of non-mainstream film, This Film Is Not Yet Rated proves it, with a celluloid middle-finger salute to the MPAA and the Leave it to Beaver-style fantasy image it sells to the public.

Despite proudly proclaiming that its board of directors includes "the Chairmen and Presidents of the six major producers and distributors of motion picture and television programs in the United States", the MPAA nevertheless insist with a sort of dreamy sanguinity on the film ratings board's -- made up of parents, we are repeatedly told, whose only interests are in protecting children and families -- absolute neutrality and invulnerability to outside influence. With that sort of material to work with, mocking the MPAA is like shooting fish in a barrel for a filmmaker as witty and skilled as director Kirby Dick. And mock he does: Via a multi-pronged attack featuring interviews with directors, detective work and side-by-side comparison of levels of obscenity, Dick creates an often-hilarious documentary that is both cutting and compelling; it's so engaging that even filmgoers who wouldn't dream of setting foot in an arthouse cinema will eat it up.

Though he stridently denied his interest in a remake just a few months ago, Peter Jackson has a long-standing love for 1954's The Dam Busters, a British film about a real-life secret squadron created to to destroy three crucial German dams during World War II. And, according to an exclusive interview he gave Screen Daily yesterday, Jackson is, in fact, producing that non-existent remake.* He actually inquired about the rights to the film years ago, before work on the The Lord of the Rings series had even begun. At that time he was told the rights were held by Icon, and that Mel Gibson was considering a remake, but they recently became available again, and Jackson snatched them up.

The film -- retitled Dambusters for our slick, streamlined times -- will be directed by long-time Jackson collaborator Christian Rivers, and the pair have already done extensive research for the project, including trips to England to interview the squadron's surviving pilots, and Germany to visit the rebuilt dams. Though Jackson told Screen Daily that he hopes to begin shooting by the middle of next year with a budget between $30 and $40 million, he and Rivers have yet to hire a screenwriter.

*There's no word yet on whether the offensively named dog will make it into the 21st century version or not.