Her first Hollywood production (Things We Lost in the Fire) didn't pan out so good, but perhaps Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier will do better with romantic comedy than with serious drama. She's set to direct Lost for Words, a Universal Pictures release that may star the bumbling Brit Hugh Grant and Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi. With such diverse international talent , it's easy to imagine that the movie's title will also be a good description of the set between takes.

The plot of Lost for Words actually has to do with film set communications. Grant is in negotiations to play a movie star appearing in a film directed by a Chinese woman (Zhang). He develops feelings for her, but unfortunately he initially becomes involved with her flirtatious translator. So, if he's to confess his love for the non-English-speaking filmmaker, he must do so through this other woman, whose heart he must first break. I guess he isn't aware that love is a universal language and he could simply just point to his heart and then to her and then they can have a perfect, wordless affair.

Lost for Words was scripted by Jamie Curtis (Spice World) and Oscar nominee Dan Mazer (Borat). Bier is also kind of an Oscar nominee; her last Scandinavian production, After the Wedding, was up for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2007 Academy Awards.

"This is the man Hugh Grant dubbed 'Fang Lee' after making Sense and Sensibility with him," so says a new article in The Age about Ang Lee's apparent reputation for being a cruel taskmaster on his movie sets, although in Lee's defense the piece doesn't offer a great deal of examples to support its premise and comes across more like a hook to write up an otherwise boring piece about Lust, Caution. In fact, the closest it comes to naming names is offering the vague assertion that Heath Ledger once claimed Lee pushed him to the brink of physical endurance during the shooting of Brokeback Mountain, which doesn't sound like a damning accusation even if it's taken in context. But who cares about context? Lets have some more hyperbole: Lee is "the industry's Clark Kent," according to the piece. "Under that mild-mannered exterior -- consisting of a gentle-to-inaudible speaking voice, self-deprecating manner and an overall Zen calm -- lurks a driven obsessive, a Caligula among directors."

According to the article, Lee reportedly spent 100 hours to film a ten minute sex scene in Lust, Caution, but he defends his exactitude as a necessary part of the job. "None of us enjoys it," he's quoted as saying. "By nature it's very uncomfortable, draining and painful. We're just common people. It felt pretty harsh. But we used the pain. We enjoyed the pain." Okay, maybe that last line tags him as a bit of a weirdo, but I rarely believe stories about directors being unreasonable on the set, and if you want to know why, check out the making-of documentary on the DVD of The Shining. There's a great moment when Kubrick loses his cool at Shelley Duvall for not hitting her mark, and you can see how little moments like that can create a 'reputation,' but it still seems like something that's all in a day's work.

In case you didn't know, baked beans are the new weapon of warfare. With this latest bit of news, I'm beginning to think that all the creativity in Hollywood is getting sucked into the fury of stars dealing with insidious paparazzi. Last year, some elderly bystanders were caught in the laptop crossfire between Denise Richards and two unauthorized photographers on the set of Blonde and Blonder. Now, we've got some gassy baked beans flying through the air of London. Forget all the sequels and remakes, when will Hollywood put out a film that brings all these stories together? They're too strange to just die on the pages of a paper here or there.

It seems that photographer Ian Whittaker ticked off Hugh Grant this week, which sent the British actor into a fury near his home in the British city. While the police won't confirm that it was Grant, they stated that a 46-year-old man was arrested after an allegation of assault on April 24, and will have to return to the station next month. According to the story flying around, it started off as a simple fight, with Grant kicking the photographer and kneeing him in the groin. But then, things get interesting. Somewhere, somehow, he had a family-sized tub of beans, which he threw at the photographer, leaving him "bruised, battered and covered in baked beans." The photographer claims that Grant got even nastier, telling him that he hoped Whittaker's two children would die of cancer, but the actor refutes the quotes. Moral of the story? If you're paparazzi, stay away from Hugh Grant. Or, if you're either a fan or friend, stay away from Grant's house, because no one should be eating that many baked beans.

I guess because I'm not a dedicated Hugh Grant fan I don't quite understand the impulse to handcuff myself to him. It might not have been the actions of an overzealous fan, but that's what happened to the star at the Dutch premiere of the romantic comedy Music and Lyrics with Drew Barrymore. Hollywood.com reported that Dutch TV personality Cielke Sijben from 101 TV approached Grant as he walked the red carpet at the Amsterdam Pathé theatre and without saying a word, calmly shackled herself to him. It is assumed that Sijben was performing a prank for a show for the network but that didn't make the incident any less bizarre for those nearby.

An onlooker at the event commented, "It was incredible. She appeared from nowhere and Grant couldn't believe it was happening." Police later arrested Sijben, but not before Grant had to stand attached to her for almost ten minutes before fire fighters could arrive to cut the handcuffs. Grant said nothing while waiting to be freed, but as soon as the cuffs were off he went back to working the press line alongside co-star Drew Barrymore. After Grant had fulfilled his publicity obligations he was described as seeming to be "relieved when he disappeared into the theatre--she could have been a maniac." Not to mention that the sensation of wearing handcuffs probably brought back some unpleasant memories.

"Extraordinary how potent cheap music is."

-- Noel Coward

Music and Lyrics is a nice, light, bright romantic comedy -- a demonstration of the best and the worst of modern romantic comedy in action, in fact -- that only winds up winning you over because it's not hard to have a good time watching Hugh Grant be charming and Drew Barrymore be sweet. I mean, they're good at those things, so in many ways the success of Music and Lyrics is just the triumph of watching professionals at work. Grant is Alex Fletcher, who used to be one of the members of Pop!, an '80s pop band whose work evokes not-entirely-pleasant memories of Wham, A-Ha and ABC. Making a living off of royalties and mall appearances, Fletcher could nonetheless use a big break -- which he gets, as popstar-of-the-moment Cora Corman (Haley Bennett) asks Alex to write her a song.

Alex is a melody man -- and he knows this. After looking for hired-gun co-writers, into Alex's life wanders, in true modern romantic comedy fashion, the last thing he ever expected. ... Namely, substitute plant watering contractor Sophie Fisher (Drew Barrymore), whose idle under-her-breath musings on Alex's music suggest that she may be a natural songwriter. Can the two of them not only finish a hit song before the end of the week but reconcile their growing attraction and affection? Do objects fall down when you drop them?

It's not my fault that when I see the phrase "romantic comedy," my eyes get all glassy and my brain starts thinking about pizza. I happen to be a huge fan of some really great "rom-coms," you know. There's When Harry Met Sally... and Say Anything... and, OK, basically any movie title that ends with an ellipses is a brilliant romantic comedy.

Oh, Serendipity! That one I liked. Of the dozens and dozens of pre-packaged chick-flick rom-coms I've seen, I kinda liked Serendipity. Oh, and Wimbledon. Kinda. Is that weird? I think I also liked that one with Hugh Jackman and the time travel. Oh wait, no, I didn't.

So when I stopped by trailer central to see what new goodies were on display, I offered an involuntary eyeball-roll for Music and Lyrics, which stars Hugh Grant as a has-been pop-star and Drew Barrymore as his late-career muse. And, god help me, I actually liked this trailer. Wait a sec, hold on; I gotta go watch the Transformers trailer one more time. Just to boost my testosterone levels.

I was actually feeling pretty positive about Music and Lyrics -- until I realized it was written and directed by Marc Lawrence, the man who gave you Life with Mikey, The Out-of-Towners, and three of Sandra Bullock's most rotten movies. Still, I do think Hugh Grant can be pretty funny (given the proper material) and I'll always have that Gen-x crush on Drew Barrymore (no matter how old the two of us get), so I suppose things could be much worse. The thing could star Debra Messing and Paul Walker.

Music and Lyrics opens on Valentine's Day, so go find a date right now before they all run out.

It's funny how Hugh Grant might have started off as the adorably foppish romantic lead, but he has come to fully embrace his potential as the "smarmy jerk" that some of us suspected was lurking underneath all along. Maybe that sounded a little harsh, because lately what we've seen of Grant is the softening of the two extremes in romantic parts with a bit of "edge" -- there's an association you don't to often make, Hugh Grant and "edge".

Comingsoon.net has a look at the poster for Music and Lyrics, a new romantic comedy starring Grant and Drew Barrymore. Grant plays a washed up '80s pop singer who gets the chance for a comeback. Unable to write a song, he finds an unlikely writing partner in Barrymore, who'll be playing one of her many variations of the hot, weird girl. The whole thing sounds predictably cute and fuzzy with maybe a laugh here and there. The comedy back up for the romance includes TV alum Brad Garrett from Everybody Loves Raymond and Kristen Johnston from 3rd Rock from the Sun. The poster itself is kind of plain -- but with romantic comedies, most of them are. Music and Lyrics was written and directed by Marc Lawrence, and the film will be released on the gag-inducing date of February 14th, 2007.

My brother emailed me last weekend asking what I knew about Paul Weitz's American Dreamz, the new satire from the brilliant/idiotic (depending on your point of view on teen sex comedies) mind that brought us American Pie. Because I'm a helpful sister, I went to the IMDB and read him the summary - it turns out that, were he still living in LA (he's not), he could have gone to an advance screening of the thing. Basically, he just wanted to know what he'd missed by moving to the Midwest; based on the screening reports just posted at AICN, the answer is "not much."

Though it's sometimes a challenge to see the movie through the hyperbole in AICN's fan reports, one thing comes through clearly here: the movie is a bit of a mess. At best the narrative is poorly constructed ("very jumpy," if you will); at worst it's "90 minutes of 'Bush is dumb, American Idol is dumb,' man-handled by a writer incapable of reconciling the two concepts." Ouch. But hey, at least Dennis Quaid is good! Go read for yourselves, if you're curious about the film. Two warnings, though: one of the reviews is filled with annoying, over-the-top profanity, and both are heavily spoiler-laden.

Crappy or not, American Dreamz is released in the US on April 21.

In a shocking turn of events, a foreign remake of an American film just won a ton of major film awards - who would have guessed such a thing was even possible? Last night, though, it happened, when Jacques Audiard's The Beat That My Heart Skipped - a remake of James Toback's Fingers, which starred Harvey Keitel - made a mockery of the Cesar Awards (yes, those are the proverbial French Oscars). In a sweep so massive that the director described it as "embarrassing," Audiard's film took home eight of the 19 available awards, including those for best film (a category in which it beat out France's best foreign film Oscar nominee, Merry Christmas) and best director.

Also being recognized at the ceremony were Hugh Grant, who one can assume stammered charmingly while accepting his career achievement (?!) award, and Million Dollar Baby which, bizarrely, was named best foreign film.