If Harvey Weinstein didn't exist, someone would have to invent him. One week his garbage gets recycled into source material for The Village Voice, the next he and his brother Bob cut a 95-film, multi-year deal with Showtime and resurrect Scream. And then he gives a wide-ranging interview with The Hollywood Reporter which includes his explanation for why The Weinstein Co. created Third Rail Relasing, a new distribution label. Is it to showcase undiscovered independent gems? Introduce the world to global filmmaking talent?

No, it's for dumping the garbage. He told THR: "We should have had Third Rail two years ago, t's a good way of differentiating between what we really believe in, and what has been for ancillary value."

Third Rail recently released Death Defying Acts, with Guy Pearce and Catherine Zeta-Jones, admittedly only to fulfill a contractual obligation. Other barely there releases this year include music doc Lou Reed's Berlin, Hong Kong action flick Flash Point, and Aussic croc thriller Rogue. (I really liked the latter two, by the way.) The widest release (48 theaters, per Box Office Mojo) was George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead, which made just under one million dollars. But I guess Harvey didn't "really believe" in any of them.

They say truth is stranger than fiction. To that I say "you obviously haven't seen Naked Lunch," but reality is certainly a fertile ground for film makers and today we've got five trailers for films based, to varying degrees, on real events.

The Perfect Game
I've never enjoyed watching sports so baseball movies usually leave me cold, but this one has a couple of things going for it: a true tale of a bunch of kids rising up from poverty to become world champions, and former drug culture icon Cheech Marin playing a priest. Based on true events, a former coach for the St. Louis Cardinals (Clifton Collins Jr.) takes a group of poor Mexican kids under his wing and teaches them the fine art of baseball, which ultimately leads them to the 1957 Little League World Series. There are the usual sports metaphors: "Love ain't like baseball," says Collins' character. "Yes it is," replies one of his bright eyed proteges. I'm teetering between cute and cringe-inducing on that one, but this kind of rags to riches story is pretty appealing and the period setting is pretty cool. The Perfect Game hits theaters on August 8.

Cinematical has just received this exclusive poster for Death Defying Acts, starring Guy Pearce, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Saoirse Ronan and Timothy Spall. The film follows famed magician Harry Houdini (Pearce), who, while on a tour of Britain in 1926, enters into a passionate affair with a Scottish psychic (Zeta-Jones). Ah, but this psychic has plans of her own, and, along with her daughter (Ronan), attempt to con the magician by using the one event that's plagued him for many years: the death of his mother. Back when Death Defying Acts premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, our own Scott Weinberg said it was "lovely to look at and packed with some solid doses of charm and wit ... this is full-bore Hollywood fantasy all the way."

Death Defying Acts arrives in theaters in NY and LA on July 11.

Lovely to look at and packed with some solid doses of charm and wit -- but sorely lacking in historical accuracy and romantic chemistry -- Gillian Armstrong's Death Defying Acts tells the story of a brief but (mildly) interesting relationship between Harry Houdini and a beautiful con woman in the summer of 1914. How much of the film is actually factual I have no idea, but I do know that Harry Houdini looked more like Gene Wilder than Guy Pearce, but hey ... this is full-bore Hollywood fantasy all the way. Only some of the names are unchanged to keep you interested.

So, fine: Guy Pearce as Harry Houdini. I'll bite. And the guy delivers a fine and firmly affable performance; I just never really bought him as THE Harry Houdini. As the single mother with a flair for fake fortune-telling, Catherine Zeta-Jones is just as lovely as ever. Her character isn't given too many shades to work with beside "sneaky" and "doe-eyed," but the gal oozes old-school movie-star vibes whenever she walks across the screen. And young Saoirse Ronan makes for a plucky little sidekick / daughter, just in case you happen to bring your kids to the movie.