When we encounter prostitutes in the movies, they're almost invariably destitute, sick, absurdly dressed, and roaming the red light district in search of a client or a fix. That may well be accurate for a majority of women in the profession, but the rarely-glimpsed high-priced call girl is just as much of a curiosity. After he finishes The Informant with Matt Damon, Steven Soderbergh will direct The Girlfriend Experience -- a look at the life of a prostitute who commands a fee of $10,000 a night and earns over $1,000,000 a year. The filmmaker dropped a hint about this project over a year ago, but now plans for the movie are coming together, and we have a lot more details.

The movie, written by Ocean's Thirteen scribes Brian Koppelman and David Levien along with Soderbergh, will be shot over 14 days this fall, in the same improvisational style Soderbergh used for Bubble. It will also follow Bubble's controversial pattern of a simultaneous theatrical and DVD release. According to the Variety story, Soderbergh is considering casting an adult film actress, instead of a Hollywood star, in the lead role. The title refers to encounters where men pay not only for sex, but also for the woman to act like the perfect girlfriend in the experience.

Dear Lord, Soderbergh is prolific: if his two (already-completed) Che Guevara movies hit their 2008 release dates (they're premiering at Cannes), and The Informant and The Girlfriend Experience stay on track for 2009, he will have directed 13 movies in a 10-year span. The man loves to work. This new project is particularly intriguing since it looks like it might give us a well-researched look into a world that I, at least, know virtually nothing about. And it might also confound the usual arguments for why prostitution is a Bad Thing...

Goodfella, Raging Bull, and Taxi Driver Robert DeNiro is reportedly attached to star in The Winter of Frankie Machine. Brian Koppelman and David Levien are writing the adaptation of Don Winslow's novel; they wrote the poker classic Rounders, as well as the upcoming Ocean's Thirteen. Frankie Machine is about a former mob hitman/Vietnam vet who has put his gangster days behind him and now spends his time surfing when he's not busy operating a linen service, a seafood company, and a bait shop. And for two hours, he sells worms to fishermen and his past never comes back to haunt him? Of course not! When the son of a mob boss asks for Frankie's help in settling a dispute with another mobster, Frankie agrees. But soon he finds he's been set up and is next on the hit list. The story is said to deal with both Frankie's current adventure and also with him trying to figure out what in his past got him into trouble.

The Latino Review has the story here and a script review here. The reviewer calls it "the leanest, tightest script I read so far this year," and "a masterpiece," adding a little something you never heard from Pauline Kael: "The shit is hot." This does sound like a really cool story, and the book has earned several comparisons to Elmore Leonard's stuff, which is really all I need to hear to get on board. Sounds like a blast, and here's hoping it's got a touch of black humor to it, all of the best mob stories do. I don't need to see DeNiro in a wet suit surfing while firing a machine gun, but with this premise, it sounds like there's a lot of potential for some dark laughs. Regardless of how it turns out, I think we can all agree that it's got a pretty badass title. Color me interested in this one!