About 35 years ago, writer/director Barra Grant was an actress and one of the Daughters of Satan (who got to be married to Tom Selleck). But the on-screen days ended in the 70s, and now she is gearing up for her latest film, a new romantic comedy that has a pretty solid ensemble cast. Variety reports that the new feature, which is called HangingOutHookingUpFallingInLove, stars the likes of Richard E. Grant, Carrie-Anne Moss, Janeane Garofalo, Rita Rudner, Camryn Manheim, Caroline Aaron, and Johnny Pacar.

The film will focus on "a newly separated father having to learn how to date again with help from his teenage son who himself dreams of conquering one girl's heart." How... full of love. There's really nothing about the description that sets it apart from other romcom fare, or that makes it sound anything less than super-sappy, but I'm wondering if that spice will be left up to the cast. There's some snarky talent in the mix, which could make things considerably more interesting, or just be another romcom derailment (think The MatchMaker).

But that aside ... While I understand how some misspelled words or noticeably bad grammar can help make a film's name memorable, is that really the best way to go? Why have a 7-word title all smushed together as one?

It's not about that Canadian comic strip, nor is it a remake of one of the handful of movies that have the same title. Taking that same wedding phrase, the upcoming For Better or For Worse is a gay wedding screwball comedy written by Eric Kops, Brad Rowe, and Joshua Tunick, with Kops as the creator, Rowe as the producer and star, and Tunick as the director.

But the real kicker here is the cast. The Hollywood Reporter has posted that Janeane Garofalo, Rebecca Gayheart, Stanley Kamel, Ruta Lee, and Patrick Muldoon have signed on for the film. Oh, and those '80s TV stars? Soliel Moon Frye and Chad Allen have also signed on for roles. Yes, in one movie, we have both Punky Brewster and Our House's David Witherspoon... who also happened to play "Brian" in a few episodes of Punky. Be still my '80s heart.. Luckily Rudy, or Ralph, or Mallory isn't involved.

The flick follows "a grounded pair of grooms whose family threatens to go off the rails at their nuptials." Strangely enough, the grooms don't seem to have been cast yet, but the rest of the people make up the craziness -- Punky is all grown up as a lesbian minister who will preside over the ceremony, Lee will play one of the grooms' moms, Muldoon will take on the jilted ex role, with Allen being his new lover, Kamel will play a closeted neighbor, Gayheart will be, believe it or not, a wallflower sister, Rowe will take on the gig of family-man brother, and Garofalo will play Rowe's nanny, "who has a bombshell to drop."

It's sounds wacky, fun, and a bit irresistible due to its players. Now the question is: do the grooms show up in this, or is it all about the crazy group of family and friends?

In what seems like a repeat of last year, the 2008 Annie Award nominations include a Pixar movie and a movie about penguins. The top contenders for the 2007 Annies, which recognize the best in animation, were Cars and Happy Feet. The former ended up winning the big award, Best Animated Feature. However, a couple weeks later it was Happy Feet that won the corresponding Oscar, so the Annies can not be looked at to predict the Academy's decision. In 2008, though, the two awards should actually match. The only real contender for both the Annie and the Oscar is Pixar's Ratatouille. There isn't much chance of this year's penguin movie, Surf's Up, winning either award. If there's any minor competition for Pixar, it's from Persepolis. The other two nominees for the Best Animated Feature Annie are Bee Movie and The Simpsons Movie.

Ratatouille was the leader in nominations at 13, while Surf's Up received the second highest amount with 10. In addition to the top award, the two films are competing in the categories for writing (also competing: Simpsons and Persepolis), storyboarding (also competing: TMNT; Meet the Robinsons; Bee Movie), production design (also competing: Beowulf), directing (also competing: Shrek the Third; Simpsons; Persepolis), character design (no other competitors), character animation (no other competitors, but Surf's Up received two mentions here) and animated effects (also competing: Spider-Man 3; Disney short How to Hook Up Your Home Theater; Ratatouille received two mentions here). One category that Bee Movie seriously missed is voice acting, which features three nominations for Ratatouille -- for Janeane Garofalo, Ian Holm and Patton Oswalt.

One thing that is interesting about the Annies is how the awards can be distributed to many different movies. Last year, Over the Hedge won the directing, storyboarding and character design categories, Flushed Away won in writing, voice acting, animated effects, character animation and production design categories and Happy Feet took away no awards. Then again, the year before, Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit picked up ten trophies and then went on to pick up the Academy Award. So, the 2008 Annies could go any number of ways.

It's been over ten years since Janeane Garofalo co-starred with Uma Thurman in The Truth About Cats and Dogs. Back then, she was the "frumpy" gal who had to get Uma to be her body double when she started crushing on the cute photographer. All this time later, she's dealing with the dogs once again, and she definitely doesn't have a stand-in. Believe it or not, that picture to the right is the actress herself. It might be hard to recognize her these days (where did our ol' Garofalo go?!), but at least she's sticking with this dog thing. (She also co-starred in Dog Park years ago, and is now in a new pilot called Law Dogs -- although the latter doesn't actually have dogs in it, I don't think.)

She's hit Ottawa, Canada to star in a Lifetime movie tentatively called Binky. Once again, I ask: Where did our ol' Garofalo go?! Radar Online recently posted a quote with her talking about the role, saying that it is "about a dog, Binky, where my mother passes away and I inherit her Jack Russell Terrier, and I don't initially love the dog, but I go through my mid-life crisis while driving cross-country with [him], and it's one of those movies-journey taken, and then I love the dog." Jam expands a bit, saying that she's a rock critic sick of her job and her man.

Yeah, within the actress/comedian's many credits, you can find lots of questionable roles, but I'm sure I'm not the only one wondering what's going on with her. Maybe she is going through her own mid-life crisis -- she's already dramatically changed her look (again). Radar said it best after quoting her: "Radar was unable to determine if she was serious or debuting some of her best comedy in ages."

Most of the time when you interview a director, you're talking with them about their latest film; interviewing Mike Binder about The Search for John Gissing, a comedy about corporate backstabbing as an American executive (Binder) arrives with his reluctant wife (Janeane Garofalo) in London to smooth over a multinational merger with soon-to-be-outcast fellow executive John Gissing (Alan Rickman) sabotaging his every move, is a different story. It's not a recent film -- it was shot in early 2001, before Binder released The Upside of Anger or Reign Over Me -- but it's just coming to DVD now; the other thing is that The Search for John Gissing is, in fact, Binder's movie -- he's releasing it himself, selling it via the website www.thefreebird.com, and doing so without any studio involvement. Binder spoke with Cinematical about making The Search for John Gissing, working with star Alan Rickman, The Search for John Gissing's long road to release and his dream of what he calls "a big-ass pipeline" that gets his movies directly into the hands of fans.

Cinematical: The Search for John Gissing has taken a little while to get out there; let's talk about that gap between the making of the film and it being available.

Mike Binder: Well, it's a long story, but what happened was: I made the movie, and I cobbled together the money – I put up a lot of my own money, and some family and friends money, and I really just made it on the cheap. And we started playing it, and we got in a lot of festivals, and it played really well to audiences – but the only deals we could get were from people who wanted to own it. Forever. For doing nothing. And I also started, it was the type of thing where I felt, 'Boy, if I could go back in there for two more weeks, I could really open this up a little, do a little more work to it." So I thought I was going to do that, and I did some re-writing, and I was going to do two more weeks of shooting., and then I started doing The Mind of the Married Man; and then I started planning to the other two weeks of shooting, and I got the second series of The Mind of the Married Man, so I didn't do it then ... And then I went into The Upside of Anger, and it became too long, you know? And I owned it, and had lost all this money on it ... and I ultimately sat down one day and re-wrote the whole script. And I called it The Multinationals and really started over, and I thought "Okay, I want to do this without me and without Janeane (Garofalo) and maybe still with Rickman; I want to re-cast it and start over." And when I went back to the people who wanted to buy it, they wanted the rights, to do that, and I couldn't give those rights away. ...

Cinematical: Couldn't or wouldn't?

After months of rumors (the best of which involved Ray Romano and, I believe, Brad Pitt, which appeared briefly on the movie's wikipedia page), Coming Soon has managed to track down the official cast for Pixar's next film, Ratatouille. For those of you who missed the wonderful teaser, the movie is about Remy, a Parisian rat who, quite reasonably, dreams of being a great chef. What with him being a rat and everything, his foodie impulses are not welcomed by his family, particularly when he uproots the lot of them and moves them to Paris, where they take up residence in "a Parisian restaurant made famous by an eccentric French chef."

It has now been confirmed that Remy will be voiced by Patton Oswalt, and the chef by Brad Garrett (look, it's a fiesta of actors from sitcoms built around comedians!). Also appearing in as-yet unrevealed roles will be Brian Dennehy, Janeane Garofalo, Ian Holm and Pixar good luck charm, John Ratzenberger.

The film, which is being directed by Brad Bird and will inevitably be perfect, is due out in June of 2007.

[via Upcoming Pixar]

It's been awhile since we covered anything Scientology related and, I don't know about you, but I desperately need a fix. Janeane Garofalo, star of such classics as The Truth About Cats, Dogs and Why I Shouldn't Be Acting, is stirring up a bit of controversy after publicly backing the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project on her Air America radio show, Majority Report.

The program, which is based on teachings by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, helps those who worked in and around ground zero during the immediate aftermath of 9/11 heal their mind, body and spirit. While, on paper, it sounds like a wonderful thing to be doing, many have blasted the program and questioned its validity.

Personally, if Janeane hasn't been cast in a live-action version of Daria: The Adult Years, then I really don't care to hear anything from her. If she's so hell-bent on promoting Scientology through her radio show, then perhaps she should change it from Majority Report to Minority Report. Then, maybe Tom Cruise can step in and predict a future crime or something. Eh, just an idea.

In 1992, filmmakers D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus documented Bill Clinton's presidential campaign, resulting in a still-noteworthy chronicle of political contending titled The War Room. Twelve years later, co-directors Hegedus and Nick Doob (who was cinematographer for The War Room) followed the race of 2004, only this time their subject was interestingly not one of the candidates. Al Franken: God Spoke, which presents a year in the life of the title comedian/author/radio talk-show host, is a humorous, but more importantly illustrative, documentary about the weight of the media -- especially the comedic media -- on the last presidential election.

Franken, who got his break on Saturday Night Live, is one of today's most influential political humorists, and, along with Jon Stewart and Michael Moore, he represents liberal America's unfortunate dependence on jesters instead of kings. The film opens with the publication of his latest book, which attacks the Bush administration and conservative individuals such as Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly, then goes on to present the beginnings of his show on Air America Radio and observes the ensuing war between him and the right-wing media, particularly O'Reilly and Sean Hannity at Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. During an early scene, he tells a classroom of students, "I take what they say and use it against them." This practice is nothing new, yet somehow in a time when kids get their news more from comedy shows like The Daily Show than from newspapers, it makes someone like Franken an important political figure.