I doubt if Amy Adams will get another shot at Oscar anytime soon, but two years after she wowed us in the otherwise forgettable Junebug she's at least on the right track toward becoming a respectable movie star. This year alone she will be covering the important territories of a mainstream starring role (Disney's Enchanted), a supporting role opposite bankable, award-winning bigwigs (Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Phillip Seymour Hoffman in the Mike Nichols-directed Charlie Wilson's War) and a co-starring role in a highly-marketable indie (Sunshine Cleaning, with fellow newcomer/Oscar nom Emily Blunt). Now she's got another great role lined up for 2008. She will star alongside Frances McDormand in the pre-war odd-coupling Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.

Though the film will be directed by Bharat Nalluri, whose last feature was The Crow: Salvation (he also helmed the recent TV-movie Tsunami: The Aftermath), with a script by The Full Monty's Simon Beaufoy and Finding Neverland's David Magee, and with two strong actresses, it will likely be a strong film. The plot centers on a dowdy governess (Dormand, as the Miss Pettigrew of the title) sent by mistake to the home of a nightclub singer (Adams) who could use a helping hand. The governess ends up helping the singer get better organized and the singer ends up helping the governess get a man -- you know, the old reciprocal back-scratching, life lesson learning, new buddy acquiring story we all love to see again and again. Hopefully it can extend to the real world and McDormand can help Adams score another Oscar nomination and Adams can help McDormand regain some wider appeal.

Every great music group deserves its own biopic, and Milli Vanilli is no exception. Don't laugh, and don't try to deny you liked "Blame it on the Rain" and "Girl You Know It's True" before the duo was infamously outted as being fakes. I have no problem admitting to still owning the cassette and listening to it for novelty effect every so often. But if you somehow lost your copy, you may look forward to a possible soundtrack to the new film about the group coming soon from Universal.

Jeff Nathanson, who previously wrote about a famous fraud for Catch Me If You Can, is working with Fabrice Morvan and the estate of Rob Pilatus in order to script the Milli Vanilli story from their point of view. He is also set to direct the movie. He has his work cut out for him, as it will be difficult to get audiences to accept the duo as a tragic pair and not the joke they still are thought of as. Especially out of respect to Pilatus, who committed suicide in 1998, the tale will have to be told as a serious drama. If it need mock anything, it would do fine to ridicule the pop music industry. But it shouldn't go so far as to treat the guys like victims.

It is hard to tell if Nathanson will pull it off, even with regular Spielberg producer Kathleen Kennedy overseeing things. Nathanson's directorial debut, The Last Shot, wasn't much of a success with critics or audiences, and even if he actually makes a great film about Milli Vanilli, the chances of it appealing to moviegoers might be probably pretty slim. Not everyone is as nostalgic as I am.

I don't greet this news with the jaw-dropping astonishment I felt when I reported on the pending musical version of Showgirls, but I am scratching my head a bit. Not that I think it's necessarily a bad idea either, but I just don't understand what there was about Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can that made somebody say: "This is great, but it would be even better if DiCaprio was leaping like a gazelle and Hanks was delivering his lines in a deep baritone. And maybe they could all dress like cats ..." This, of course, is one of the many reasons why I don't work on Broadway.

Apparently someone has given this some serious thought because, according to fansite Spielbergfilms.com, the staged musical version of Catch Me If You Can may finally have an opening date. The production has been in development for several years, but the show is likely to debut in the Spring of 2008. Written by Terrence McNally, Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman, the show will be directed by Jack O'Brien with choreography by Jerry Mitchell. Casting has not been completed, but names like Nathan Lane, Christine Ebersole, Tom Wopat and Matthew Morrison have been connected to the project during its pre-production phase in 2005-2006.