Time to play catch up with a couple of indie distribution deals that were completed during the past few days.

In the warm afterglow of Cannes, IFC Films acquired one more title to add to their stockpile, according to The Hollywood Reporter: Italian crime drama Gomorra. Directed by Matteo Garrone, the film is based on a best-selling book and follows five separate stories. "Set in the provinces around Naples," wrote our own James Rocchi, "Gomorra's a sweeping, stirring drama that has the shoot-and-loot tension of the best crime cinema but also has the scope and serious intent of great drama." Gomorra won the Grand Prix at Cannes, which is unofficially considered the "runner-up" prize. IFC plans a theatrical release and will also make it available day-and-date on its video-on-demand service; they are also seeking a cable TV deal of some sort.

Months after it debuted at Sundance, indieWIRE says that Sean McGinley's comedy-drama The Great Buck Howard has finally secured distribution from Magnolia Pictures. Cinematical's Scott Weinberg thought it "might be the most affectionate look back at old-school entertainment since Peter O'Toole boozed his way through My Favorite Year" and called it "a smoothly, strongly appealing comedy." Colin Hanks and Emily Blunt star as an ex-lawyer and a publicist, respectively, trying to help magician Malkovich make a comeback. Magnolia plans a fall theatrical release.

Emily Blunt has been all over the place in her short career, and recently has been reading lots of Jane Austen, and acting alongside greats like Tom Hanks and Alan Arkin. Now The Hollywood Reporter has announced that she is getting into some heavy drama with an upcoming feature called The Girl. HBO is currently circling the project that Gotham award winner David Riker wrote, and will direct --- one that probably won't head into production until the fall, after (hopefully) the writers strike is over.

Like Riker's La Ciudad, Girl is a story about immigration. It "focuses on a Texas woman (Blunt) who finds the daughter of an illegal immigrant who has become separated from her mother. Saddled with a child she doesn't wish to care for, the woman then searches for the child's mother, a quest that takes her south of the border." I guess that while she doesn't want to keep the child, she also doesn't want it to be handed over to the state. If that was the case, she could just go to New York City and get pneumonia. Still, I wonder how she just travels with a little Latin baby with no papers. I guess we'll find out soon enough!

One might not expect a sweet, funny and warm-hearted crowd-pleaser from the man who wrote movies like Sexual Roulette, Sonic Impact, and Venomous, but I guess filmmaker Sean McGinly has spent the last eleven years churning out schlock flicks just so he could get to something good. And I'm very pleased to report that his newest offering, a smoothly, strongly appealing comedy called The Great Buck Howard, is definitely the "big break" that McGinly's been working for. Backed by a fantastic performance by John Malkovich -- and some really fine work from young actors Colin Hanks and Emily Blunt -- The Great Buck Howard might be the most affectionate look back at old-school entertainment since Peter O'Toole boozed his way through My Favorite Year.

Hanks is a law student who despises law school, so (directly against his father's wishes) Troy Gable bails on higher education and lands a job as a road producer for a serious has-been of a magician. Formerly quite famous (he's been on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show over 60 times), Buck Howard is a relic of a more innocent time. Magician, mentalist, musician and comedian, Mr. Howard is "old-school entertainment" at its most sincere -- and sincerely forgotten. Troy and Buck strike up a professional friendship, although obviously their relationship is due for a few rocky moments.

Ever since her star-making role as Meryl Streep's proudly ambitious assistant in The Devil Wears Prada, Emily Blunt has been very much in demand for both big studio and smaller independent pictures. Currently she's a Sundance darling, showcasing her work in two films playing at the festival: Sunshine Cleaning, in which she's teamed with Amy Adams as sisters who become crime scene cleaners, and The Great Buck Howard, in which she plays "a fiery publicist hired to stage the comeback of a lifetime," according to the program notes.

Now it looks like she's set to play the gal pal of a rather hirsute fellow. Back in December, Scott Weinberg first passed on a report that Ms. Blunt had been (almost) hired to play Benicio del Toro's girlfriend in Mark Romanek's version of The Wolf Man, based on a script by Andrew Kevin Walker (Seven). MTV News spoke to her at Sundance, and she confirmed on Saturday that she has been cast and will begin filming in February.

I very much agree with Scott's description of Ms. Blunt as "mega-hot and seriously talented," and the romantic pairing of her with Mr. del Toro looks like a powder-keg of dynamite ready to explode. I look forward to witty banter being exchanged between the couple -- Emily with her pitch-perfect diction rolling bon mots off her tongue, as Benicio mumbles something incomprehensible in return. What a great contrast that will be when Benicio goes all lupine on her! Brilliant casting, I say. The only drag? We'll have to wait until February '09 to see the results.

I know I bitch and moan about horror remakes all the time, but every once in a while there comes a project that melts my cynicism and gets me all geeky. Universal's impending rendition of The Wolf Man is one such project, and I'm basing my early opinions on a few cool factors:

1. Benicio del Toro is going to star, and that's what I call good casting. OK, and this Anthony Hopkins guy is pretty solid, too.
2. Mark Romanek is directing, and if you've ever seen One Hour Photo (or, better yet, this DVD) then you know that's a good thing.
3. The screenplay comes from Andrew Kevin Walker, also known as the man who wrote the blisteringly awesome Seven and one very cool version of Sleepy Hollow.

And now, courtesy of CHUD.com, I have a fourth reason to get excited for this new version of The Wolf Man: The mega-hot and seriously talented Emily Blunt has been (almost) cast as the female lead. (Probably best known for a great supporting turn in The Devil Wear Prada, Ms. Blunt appeared in no less than four films this year: Wind Chill, The Jane Austen Book Club, Dan in Real Life and Charlie Wilson's War.) Plus, like I said, she's really pretty with a powerfully sexy accent.

Unfortunately the new Wolf Man isn't scheduled to make his big-screen appearance until February of '09 -- which will give us plenty of time to bring you all the newest developments.

As the end credits roll on Dan in Real Life, I imagine most people will have roughly the same reaction -- a smile and a shrug. You won't be angry at yourself for watching it, but you'll be hard pressed to remember the thing in two weeks. It's a relentlessly average movie, packed full of "nice" moments but lacking a single great one.

Steve Carell stars as Dan, a widowed advice columnist trying to be a good father to his three daughters, well played by Alison Pill, Marlene Lawston, and a very funny Brittany Robertson. A widowed man raising his three daughters is also the premise of the old sitcom Full House, and the comparison isn't far off. These daughters are fleshed out a bit more than the Olsen twins, but the relationship beats feel the same -- forced, cutesy, a little tired.

Dan and the girls go to visit their extended family in a lakeside Rhode Island cottage. Dan takes a trip to the local bookstore, and in a very Woody Allen-esque scene, he meets and develops a crush on a woman named Marie (Juliette Binoche). There's a "falling-for-each-other" montage that doesn't really convince, Dan gets her number, and heads home to brag about his new "hottie" and meet the girlfriend of his brother (Dane Cook). Surprise surprise -- his hottie and the girlfriend are one and the same -- Marie. Cue the laugh track.

They say life imitates art; what they never tell you is that you don't get to choose the art. So it is for a group of Sacramento residents in Robin Swicord's film The Jane Austen Book Club, adapted for the screen from Karen Joy Fowler's novel. The Jane Austen Book Club (both film and entity) begins as a group of friends try to distract themselves from various personal crises: Jocelyn (Maria Bello) is getting over the death of one of her prized show dogs; Sylvia (Amy Brenneman) has had her lengthy marriage implode on her unexpectedly. The older, oft-married Bernadette (Kathy Baker) comes up with the idea of a book club to get Jocelyn and Sylvia out of their funks. Sylvia's daughter Allegra (Maggie Grace) joins out of solidarity; Jocelyn recruits high-tech worker Grigg (Hugh Dancy) for the club in the hope that sparks will fly between him and Sylvia; Bernadette reaches out to the bookish, unhappy Prudie (Emily Blunt) as a fresh voice for the club's conversations.

At first, the club looks to Jane Austen because her bygone age of simplicity and civility seems like a nice break from the indignities of modern life; Swicord's title sequence shows nothing but traffic jams, mercurial vending machines, blaring stereos and more. But soon, the group finds that when you get past the petticoats and starched collars and period trappings, Austen's central concerns -- relations between men and women, within families, and within ourselves -- are all too relevant to their lives. Jocelyn, at one point realizing that the plot of the club's current novel might resonate too fiercely for the despondent Sylvia mutters offhand that "Reading Jane Austen is a freaking minefield. ..."

Our pals over at Sony Pictures Classics just sent us the first and only planned poster for The Jane Austen Book Club, a romantic dramedy hitting theaters on September 21. Based on the popular 2005 novel by Karen Joy Fowler, which the Washington Post described as something more than just "elegant chick-lit," the film revolves around a group of Californians who start what the title suggests -- a Jane Austen book club -- and then start to see parallels between the works of Austen and their own lives. The leads are Maria Bello as Jocelyn, rising star Emily Blunt as Prudie and Hugh Dancy as Grigg. There's also a supporting cast of well-known names, and the whole thing is being directed by Robin Swicord, who wrote the script for Memoirs of a Geisha and the Sandra Bullock romcom Practical Magic. Click on the image above to get the full-sized poster.

It was just announced by Variety that Aaron Sorkin has made a deal to write three films for DreamWorks. This would have filled me with excitement a couple years ago, but after watching an entire season of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, I don't know what to feel. I guess everyone should be allowed a misstep, but few shows have angered and frustrated me like Studio 60. Dreamworks CEO Stacey Snider remains confident, stating: "The quality of (Aaron's) work speaks to the kind of movies we want to make here at DreamWorks and we couldn't be happier to have him in our filmmaker family." Sorkin's three film scripts have all been pretty great -- A Few Good Men (an adaptation of his stage play), Malice, and The American President. This Christmas will mark his return to feature films with Charlie Wilson's War, which Mike Nichols is directing.

The first project Sorkin will write for DreamWorks is a drama called The Trial of the Chicago Seven. It "focuses on the trials of protestors at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, where clashes between demonstrators and police made it one of the defining events of the '60s." OK, Sorkin and politics, I'm intrigued. And making the project all the more exciting is its potential director -- none other than Steven Spielberg. Apparently Spielberg has been developing the project with Sorkin for a while, and hopes to direct the film. Charlie Wilson's War, from Sorkin's first screenplay in over a decade, stars Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Emily Blunt, and Amy Adams. That film will be a drama about covert dealings in Afghanistan. Hey, you know what would work well in a serious drama about Afghanistan? A look behind the scenes of a late-night sketch comedy show! Sound ridiculous? Then why did you think it would work the other way, Sorkin? Why? I'm sorry, I'm still recovering.

Of the two main actresses in My Summer of Love, I was more impressed by Nathalie Press. But it was Emily Blunt who garnered more notice, and it was Blunt who co-starred in a major release like The Devil Wears Prada, and it is Blunt who is now the bigger star. The whole situation reminds me of Heavenly Creatures; the performance I favored in that film was Melanie Lynskey's, yet it was Kate Winslet who rose to stardom. Anyway, like Lynskey, Press has not gone away. Unlike Lynskey, though, Price is continuing to get significant roles in smaller films rather than small roles in more mainstream films. Her latest announced part is the lead in a psychological thriller titled Knife Edge.

Knife Edge was co-written and is being directed by Anthony Hickox, who last gave us the direct-to-video Steven Seagal vehicle Submerged. Considering that the average rating for his films on the IMDb is about 4.5, Knife Edge probably won't be very good. However, it does co-star Oscar nominee Joan Plowright and Hugh Bonneville, both of whom are a far cry from Hickox's usual actor type (Dolph Lundgren, Julian Sands, Armand Assante), and it is being produced by the makers of Mira Nair's Vanity Fair, so maybe this could be the first step in the right direction for the filmmaker.

The plot of Knife Edge is about a Wall Street trader (Press) who moves to the British countryside with her young son. While there, the woman experiences nightmarish visions and involvement with her family lawyer (Bonneville). Although this movie may not do much for Price's career, she should still be remembered well for My Summer of Love and last year's Red Road. She will also soon be appearing in Telepathy, alongside Cillian Murphy, Sam Neill and Miranda Richardson, and in Peter Greenaway's Nightwatching. Unfortunately, she seems to have been dropped from the Brontë sisters movie and I highly, highly doubt -- much to the disappointment of one of our commenters -- that she would ever be cast in the Barbarella remake.