I don't like picturing Jessica Lange dating Haley Joel Osment, but that is what popped into my head while reading about Sammy. The romantic comedy follows a relationship between a woman who communicates with animals (à la Lange in Broken Flowers) and a man who communicates with the dead (à la Osment in The Sixth Sense) . The script has been written by Delia Ephron, but instead of being directed by her sister Nora, the project has Lasse Hallstrom attached.

I pretend that I dislike Hallstrom as a director, but honestly the only film of his I've bothered to see is The Cider House Rules. Still, I have noticed that his career hasn't been going so well of late. His next film The Hoax is due in a month, and he's also set to direct Daughter of the Queen of Sheba, either of which could turn his luck around (he also mentioned plans for The Royal Physician's Visit last fall), but lowering himself to the level of a paranormal rom-com is not a good direction to go in. Seriously, what was the last successful romantic comedy with fantasy elements? I understand that Hallstrom could be desperate enough to make studio fluff, but unless he simply needs the paycheck, he can't hope for much good to come out of this.

If there is one filmmaker out there who doesn't need to plagiarize, it is Jim Jarmusch. For the past twenty years he has been making some of the most original films in America. Partially his work is too simple to be a copy, but mostly it is too concerned with style over script to necessitate his ripping someone off. In the world of screenwriting, though, there is always that someone who thought up an idea first, before that other person who managed to make the idea into a film. In the latest case, Jarmusch is being accused of plagiarizing his latest film Broken Flowers. Reed Martin, a freelance journalist and professor of film marketing at NYU, says that his own script, "Heart Copy" (formerly "Two Weeks Off") is similar right down to Jessica Lange's animal communicator character and the pink envelope catalyst. Further cause for him to think that his work became Broken Flowers is Martin's claim that his agent, Glenn Rigberg, gave copies of the script to Julie Delpy and Sharon Stone (both actresses appear in the film) and Focus Features co-president David Linde. His lawsuit against Jarmusch, Vivendi Universal Entertainment, Focus Features and Rigberg, was filed in March. He is seeking $40 million, the film's theatrical gross.

The thing about Broken Flowers is that some of its themes have to do with coincidence and the abstract connections that our minds are prone to make. I haven't seen Martin's script so I won't assume that his accusation is based entirely on the brain's tendency to make associations seem more significant than they truly are, but I think the chance of this is high.

In his defense, Jarmusch wrote in an email to the Boston Globe, "I had never had any contact with him or his work. I'd never even heard of him. I still haven't seen the work he claims I copied. Anyone who is familiar with my films and my writing process will know that his claim is ridiculous."

Überhip Swedish rockers The Hives are apparently unsatisfied with music scene ubiquity, and are setting their sights on movies. Band leader Holwin' Pelle Almqvist ("Howlin'" being a traditional Swedish name) promises fans,"It's going to be available on DVD, which is the leading format for movies these days and it's going to contain us basically being ourselves, being other people and playing music."

Okay, sounds innocuous enough, but then, the horror: "We have no idea what's going to happen, but it's going to be good. There's not too much writing involved [so how is that different than, say, Deuce Bigalow: You're A Peed-On Gigolo]? - it's mostly improvisation." For the love of all that is holy - no! Even the most skilled filmmakers like Jim Jarmusch stumble (for the most part) with such unscripted, stream-of-unconsciousness as Coffee & Cigarettes (2003), a high profile example of why improv on film should be considered by Amnesty International to be a crime against humanity.

If you're looking for cool Scandinavian rockers on film (no, not ABBA), dust off your VHS deck and check out 1989's too-cool-for-words Leningrad Cowboys Go Amerika.

• Jim Jarmusch's Broken Flowers topped the indie box office take this weekend, with Wong Kar Wai's 2046 coming in a very respectable second. Broken Flowers took in over $780K its opening weekend - not a bad take, considering that Jarmusch's Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, only took in $3 mil total. Looks like long-time indie fave Jarmusch might be on his way to his biggest commercial success to date.
• Beverly Kills, a film about an aging drag queen out for revenge (a screen shot from the film is at right), which has been making the festival circuit, has scored distribution from TLA Releasing. The film won the best men's feature award at the Fort Worth Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. TLA will release the film in mid-2006.
• The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till, a documentary about the murder of a black man in Mississippi in 1955, has been acquired by ThinkFilm US. The two men tried in the case were acquitted by an all-white jury. The film's New York premiere will take place at the United Nations through the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, with attendees including Mos Def and Al Sharpton.
• Organizers of the Toronto International Film Festival, which kicks off September 8, has announced the addition of 29 international documentaries to the festival lineup, including the world premieres of Sydney Pollack's Sketches of Frank Gehry, Lian Lunson's Leonard Cohen I'm Your Man, and The Heart of the Game, a film about a girl's basketball team which finds success under a maverick coach.