Well, since it seems that the very few out there who still respect what I have to say about movies, and horror movies in particular, either didn't read or didn't mind my mild admission that I only like Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, I feel a little bolder about bringing another piece of quasi-blasphemy to light: at this time last year, I hadn't seen Dario Argento's treasured Suspiria, and when I eventually did, I was distinctly underwhelmed. Perhaps it was too dated, perhaps I was too jaded, but I was relegated to sitting back and just plain 'respecting' another classic of the genre.

That makes me no more oblivious to the fact that it's sacred enough that a remake announcement is cause for cringing. Making matters a little less cringe-inducing, though (in my opinion), is Bloody Disgusting's confirmation that Natalie Portman is to star in the 2010 incarnation. She's smart, she's sexy... in short, this Oscar nominee could wander curiously around the halls of my eerie ballet academy any day.

However, I still find the reports that David Gordon Green is attached to direct a little hard to swallow; I'm still coping with the fact that he directed the very funny and relatively mainstream Pineapple Express. Maybe a why-not stance would be most fitting at the moment.

Suspiria remake? Portman starring? What do you think?

While the text accompanying the images might be in Italian (any readers want to lend a hand and translate?), the pictures that Dario Argento threw up for his new film Giallo speak for themselves. You can see one above, plus lots more on Argento's site of Adrien Brody (who plays Inspector Enza Avolfi) -- both doing his thing and chatting with Argento, plus a little bit of blood and death, and a few shots of Emmanuelle Seigner (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), who plays Linda. The pair team up in the film to find her sister, who has been grabbed by a serial killer named Yellow.

While this is sure to be eerie, the whole back story to this flick amuses me. Vincent Gallo signed on in January to play the killer to Ray Liotta's Inspector. Then Gallo backed out because he didn't want to work with Dario's daughter, Asia. But now Ray and Asia are out, Adrien and Emmanuelle are in, and good ol' Vinnie should've waited it out (Yellow is now being played by newcomer Byron Deidra).

Giallo is due out next year.

In describing today's best directors, three terms are generally used (and overused): Maverick, Genius and Auteur. A "maverick" is now used to describe virtually anyone who makes a movie without using Hollywood money. An "auteur" is used to describe anyone who writes as well as directs. And "genius" is used to describe anyone who makes a halfway decent film. I'm taking these words back. In reality, a "maverick" should be a button-pusher. It's a filmmaker who is so radical and daring that even high-minded, forward-thinking critics sneer at their work, people like Vincent Gallo or Catherine Breillat. These people are so dangerous that they have trouble making and distributing films. Harmony Korine, director of Mister Lonely (5 screens) is very much a maverick. Korine has pushed many buttons and many envelopes over the years and though I love his work, he's someone I wouldn't want to invite to my house. (He scares me.)

Werner Herzog, director of Encounters at the End of the World (1 screen), is also a maverick (and, incidentally, a buddy of Korine's). His physically dangerous films have probably had insurance companies slamming the door in his face, and his co-workers have included people who might not be fit for polite society. (At the very least, most of them would turn heads.) Some of his actors have reportedly threatened to kill him. It cracks me up that, because Herzog's documentary Grizzly Man was such a hit, Herzog was allowed to make his new film for the Discovery Channel. I'd really love to have been in on that board meeting. Did they really know who they were dealing with? At the same time, Herzog is also an auteur: all of his films have the same roaming curiosity, fearlessly exploring man's tenuous connection to nature, from Aguirre navigating the Amazon looking for El Dorado, to Timothy Treadwell seeking to befriend the bears.

In 1977, Italian horror director Dario Argento made Suspiria, which is arguably his best-known and best-loved film. In 1980, he released Inferno, which I haven't yet seen. I never realized until recently that these two films were the first and second parts of a proposed trilogy, the "Mother Trilogy." Apparently, these two ambitious, supernatural films didn't perform as well as expected and the money people encouraged Argento to go back to his simple giallo efforts. That he did, and he continued doing so for 27 years until finally he found his chance to complete his trilogy with the new Mother of Tears. Fortunately, all that time allowed his daughter Asia Argento (who was 2 years old when Suspiria was made) to grow up into a sexy actress who could star in his film.

Coincidentally, in many ways there's some similarity between Mother of Tears and Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part III (1990). They both took decades to produce after the first two parts were completed in close proximity; they both come from directors of Italian descent; and they both feature the director's daughters in the third installment. They're both disappointments in comparison to the originals, but taken on their own terms, they both work remarkably well.

I was just about to eat lunch when ComingSoon.net directed me to this super violent and gory clip from Mother of Tears, the latest flick from Italian horror legend Dario Argento. Now I've lost my appetite. Before you click on the link (which brings you to an exclusive from ShockTillYouDrop.com), be warned: you may lose your lunch or have some serious nightmares or both. Also, it's likely not very safe to watch the video at work.

The film is the final installment in Argento's The Three Mothers trilogy, which also includes the horror classics Suspiria and Inferno. Mother of Tears stars the filmmaker's goth-sexy daughter, Asia Argento (unfortunately best known in the States as Vin Diesel's co-star in xXx), as an American studying abroad at the fictional Museum of Ancient Art in Rome. She unearths a sort of Pandora's box-like urn that unleashes a witch known as the Mother of Tears and the apocalyptic chaos that comes with her.

Reviewing from the Toronto Film Festival last fall, Cinematical horror hound Scott Weinberg called the film, "the master's best flick since ... hell, since at least the mid-'80s ... fans of the old-school Argento splatter-fests will find a handful of truly gruesome sequences here, while those who are on the lookout for a bleak yet tongue-in-cheek tale of the apocalypse will most likely appreciate what's in Tears." Now we can see what Scott meant by "truly gruesome."

Mother of Tears opens in limited release this Friday.

An Academy Award winner and two beautiful women have joined the cast of the latest thriller from an Italian master of horror. Adrien Brody will star as a police detective investigating a serial killer in Giallo, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The film will also star Emmanuelle Seigner (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, La Vie en Rose) and Elsa Pataky (Asterix at the Olympic Games, Snakes on a Plane). The great Dario Argento will be at the controls in the director's chair.

Brody steps into the gumshoe role originally filled by Ray Liotta and Seigner will take over the part intended for the pregnant Asia Argento. Monika told us about the casting and the basic premise in January: a serial slasher played by Vincent Gallo is on the loose. THR updates that, saying the tale "revolves around an American flight attendant who teams with an Italian investigator to search for her missing sister who has been abducted by a serial killer known only as Yellow."

What's better for a Thursday than super-exciting money news?!?! Enjoy:

• Cassandra's weak box office Dream hasn't tarnished Woody Allen's relationship with the Weinstein Company. According to Variety, they have decided to distribute his next film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona. TWC has got the North American rights, and will release the film later this year (right now, it is still in post). Allen's latest film stars Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall as American girls who visit Spain "and become amorously entangled with a couple" -- Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz. The likes of Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell weren't enough to bring the audiences in last time around, but can this cast do the trick?
• On the more indie side of things, Variety reports that Jada Pinkett Smith's directorial debut, The Human Contract, will be sold internationally by Lightning Entertainment, who will debut footage at Berlinale. The film stars Jason Clarke and Paz Vega as a "repressed advertising exec and a recklass woman" who are in a relationship. Very complicated, eh? Jada also pops up in the film, as does good ol' Ted Danson.
• Finally, we're back to the Weinsteins. Just in case Woody flops again, they've also picked up Dario Argento's upcoming horror flick Giallo. (Posted on pay-site Screen Daily, found on Ace Showbiz.) Once Dario is done filming Vincent Gallo as a creepy serial killer, the Weinstein Company will distribute the movie in the U.S. and Latin America.

Where could the Italian horror master go after The Mother of Tears? Our Scott Weinberg called it "the master's best flick since ... hell, since at least the mid-'80s." That leaves a pretty big wake to fill, and Variety reports that Dario Argento is planning to follow it up with Giallo, "an English-language homage to the genre that made him a cult helmer." (Aside from meaning Yellow, Giallo is also the word given to pulp thrillers in Italy.) The flick is being produced by the LA-based Hannibal Pictures, and comes from a screenplay by Damned writers Jim Agnew and Sean Keller. But what of its stars? Take out the "i," and you've got one -- Vincent Gallo -- who will be joined by Ray Liotta and Dario's daughter, Asia Argento.

In usual horror form, the movie "will revolve around serial slashings of some very attractive women being investigated by a solitary cop, played by Liotta, who engages in a cat-and-mouse game with the psychopathic perpetrator," Vincent Gallo. Someone must've been watching Dirt last season and thought there was way too little blood when Vinnie came to visit. He's definitely the right sort for this role, and I wonder if his penile fixation will find its way into the flick in any way. It'd fit with the whole attractive woman angle. As for vixen Asia, there's no word on who she'll play -- perhaps a would-be victim that Liotta has to save.

When production gets underway this February in Turin (where he shot Tears), Argento aims to put together a movie that taps into the director's 70s thrills, like The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and Suspiria. Thoughts?

The Toronto International Film Festival ended Saturday, but the deals keep trickling in. The latest: The Weinstein Co. has picked up DVD rights to The Mother of Tears, the latest film by legendary Italian horror director Dario Argento. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film will be handled theatrically by Myriad Pictures, which produced it. The plan is to pop it into select theaters sometime early next year.

The Mother of Tears is the campy and bloody finale to Argento's unofficial trilogy that also includes Suspiria (1977) and Inferno (1980). Our resident gorehound Scott Weinberg liked it well enough, calling it "Argento's most satisfying experiment in a few decades." It stars the director's daughter Asia Argento (an actress and occasional director in her own right) as a museum curator in possession of an evil urn. I like The Hollywood Reporter's description: "Beautiful witches appear, and a scary monkey chases the unfortunate curator." It's bad enough to be chased by a regular monkey, but a scary one?! Forget it!

Dario Argento has directed about 20 films and written 20 more. Most of them have appeared in the United States in some form, often as midnight screenings or at cult-favorite film festivals. Asia Argento, a chip off the ol' block, wrote, directed, and starred in 2004's controversial The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things.

I was fortunate enough to interview Italian horror legend Dario Argento a few hours before sitting down with his latest movie, Mother of Tears, and when I asked the director how his world premiere screening went down the night before, his face lit up. I'm paraphrasing here, but Mr. Argento said something very close to "An excellent audience. They were screaming, clapping and laughing at all the right spots." Flash forward to my press screening a few hours later and, yep, there was lots of appreciative laughter from the audience -- in between all the gasps, groans, shrieks, and walk-outs. (Yes, I counted at least a dozen walk-outs. I can only assume that these people know nothing about the graphic nature of Dario Argento's films.)

Had I not spoken to Mr. Argento prior to seeing (and yes, enjoying) The Mother of Tears, I might have wondered about all that laughter. I mean, this is supposed to be a harsh and nasty piece of apocalyptic horror, right? So the chuckles and muffled giggles had me a bit confused at first. And then I started to settle in with the tone of the flick, and I walked away entirely positive that Argento wanted the movie to be half spooky and half ridiculous. If I'm right and that was his intention, then I'd offer the opinion that Mother of Tears is the master's best flick since ... hell, since at least the mid-'80s.