When news broke about Jim Jarmusch's next film back in November, The Limits of Control, it was said that JJ regular Isaach De Bankolé would star, along with "an international collection of bankable stars." Well, they're certainly living up to the promise so far. Reuters reports that the filmmaker has once again grabbed Bill Murray and Tilda Swinton for roles, both of whom appeared in Broken Flowers, as well as Gael Garcia Bernal. That fills the old comedy contingent, the drama power, and the young Mexican boy-crazy crowd.

It turns out that this will be a road movie of sorts -- how, they're not saying. We know that De Bankolé will play an outlaw doing some sort of job in Spain, and Reuters adds that he's a loner, but that's it. Since the road comes into play, I imagine either he'll try to hook on to some innocent roadtrippers to escape the area, or maybe they'll be his accomplices -- but that latter doesn't work with the loner deal. The film shoots this month in Spanish cities like Seville, Madrid, and Almeria, so hopefully we'll hear more soon.

Meanwhile: Swinton has been busy all over the literary world, from filming Burn After Reading, to some Narnia, to Lewis Carroll and a stint as Lady Macbeth, Bill's spent some time getting Smart and leading the City of Ember, and Bernal has been busy with a number of foreign projects from Mammoth to Pedro Paramo.

It's difficult to underestimate the significance of The Clash in rock 'n' roll. They belong on any serious list of the top five rock 'n' roll performers of all time, and their 1979 masterpiece London Calling belongs on any list of the top five albums. But beyond that, do we know who they were? Julien Temple's new documentary Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten attempts to answer that question, although if you want to know more about Mick Jones, Topper Headon or Paul Simonon, it'll have to wait for another movie. This is Strummer's world, and we all just wish we were living in it. The movie begins, like any biography, with Strummer's parents. His father was a diplomat that moved from country to country; Strummer was born in Turkey as John Graham Mellor, and later insisted on being called "Woody" before adopting his legendary moniker.

The singer, songwriter and guitarist attended art school, lived as a squatter in an abandoned London flat and busked on the street before forming his first band, a rockabilly unit. But when he saw the Sex Pistols play, he decided to move in a different direction. The Clash was born, and with it a series of extraordinary shows and five great albums. But only the movie's first hour is dedicated to the Clash. As Strummer intones on the soundtrack, they made every conceivable mistake: success went to their heads, too many drugs, etc. They even made up a few new ones. The band grew successful, they began squabbling and they lost their direction. Temple includes a terrific sequence in which he intercuts two performances of "White Riot," one from a small club in 1977 and one from a giant stadium in 1983, brilliantly illustrating how big they grew and how far they fell.

There's nothing like a little Jim Jarmusch to get the blood flowing.There's Johnny Depp traveling the frontier in Dead Man. Or, perhaps some Coffee & Cigarettes with the wonderful Tom Waits. Or even something like Broken Flowers that has Bill Murray looking for a long-lost son while Jeffrey Wright goes nuts with the channeling of Nancy Drew. (I would love a whole movie with Wright as a zany sleuth.) Now, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Jarmusch is teaming up with Focus Features again, who will deal with the film's worldwide distribution, for his next project -- the currently-titled The Limits of Control.

The movie focuses on "a secretive, mysterious outlaw" played by Jarmusch pro Isaach De Bankolé, who is "in the process of completing an undisclosed criminal job around Spain." Like Flowers, the actor will be teamed with "an international collection of bankable stars" to up the appeal to wider audiences. He has, however, had his own share of high-profile flicks, nabbing parts as Steven Obanno in Casino Royale, and Neptune in Miami Vice. (Although my favorite role of his is his stint as Timothy in Manderlay -- iffy movie, good role.) Either way, the casting plan worked last time, as Flowers nabbed the Grand Prix award at Cannes, and was the filmmaker's highest-grossing film. Production begins in Spain this February.

Forget a singing career, American Idol appears to be a better jumping ground for acting. So far, one Idol contestant has gone on to win an Oscar, and now Season 5 runner-up Katherine McPhee is building up a movie career. Currently, she's working on the comedy I Know What Boys Like (aka the Anna Faris Playboy Bunny movie), in which she plays a pregnant hippie in need of a makeover, and she just told MTV that she already has her next project lined up. Titled Success, the indie drama begins shooting in November, and the singer-actress compared its dark style to that of the Coen Brothers and Jim Jarmusch. She also said it features great writing and well-developed, quirky characters. Unfortunately, she couldn't give away any of the film's plot or much else, really, but she did reveal a bit about her character, which she says is a nice, sweet girl who seems to end up having to compete for the attention of a guy, though she admits it is much more complicated than that. Could Success be the same thing as "the dark romantic comedy" The Last Caller, which was announced back in June as McPhee's big-screen debut? Maybe.

McPhee isn't about to concentrate solely on her acting career, though, and already has plans for her second album, with which she wants to become the female John Mayer. Of course, Mayer doesn't do movies in addition to making music, even though he should (he was a great Henry Higgins in 6th grade -- I should know, I played his butler -- hmm, I wouldn't mind playing McPhee's butler, but in real life ... ). Meanwhile, Season 5 winner Taylor Hicks probably won't last as long in the limelight, considering he had the lowest-selling Idol debut, and doesn't seem to be trying for a film career. I have to salute McPhee, who was also rumored to be considered for the role of Wonder Woman, for being able to transcend her Idol loss -- if for nothing else, hers and Jennifer Hudson's success with movies should certainly make everyone dismiss From Justin to Kelly as a reason not to go from Idol to Hollywood.

Something about Into the Wild drove massive amounts of people to see it this weekend, propelling Sean Penn's drama into the #1 spot on the specialty box office charts. Playing at just four locations, Into the Wild earned an impressive estimate of $50,310 per screen, according to Leonard Klady of Movie City News.

Cinematical's Kim Voynar described it as "one of the most polarizing films playing at Telluride this year ... even as we feel anger at Chris for hurting his family, or frustration at his choices, or fear for what will happen to him, a part of us has to admire his courage in taking a leap that most of us would never be able to take." James Rocchi had strong feelings as well: "As the credits roll at the close of Into the Wild, you don't feel like you've celebrated a life spent on the road less traveled; you feel like you've just witnessed a slow-motion suicide."

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford was the other major limited release; it performed quite respectably with a per-screen average of $29,460 at five locations. I thought the film was glacially paced, incredibly gorgeous visually, and richly detailed in period authenticity and character. James Rocchi wrote: "Anyone looking for beauty and transcendence and a meditation on the West starring a terrific ensemble will be more than rewarded." Jeffrey M. Anderson was even more impressed: "Certainly one of the year's best films, and the best Western to come across the range since Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992) and Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man (1996)."

With such fierce, big name competition, other indie films opening this weekend fared less successfully. Larry Fessenden's environmentally-themed thriller The Last Winter played at two theaters for a $4,150 per-screen average, while Ray McKinnon's comedy Randy and the Mob brought in an estimated $3,020 at each of five locations. Ann Hu's drama Beauty Remains snagged just $1,310 per-screen at two screens.

Museums haven't been completely separate from film, especially in the art world, where modern art installations often include video imaging. So, it wouldn't be surprising to hear that two leading museums are involving themselves in film. However, I'm not talking about art installations, but full-length films. Both Musee d'Orsay and the Louvre, Paris' leading museums, are joining the cinematic world by underwriting films by internationally-acclaimed directors.

For Musee d'Orsay's 20th anniversary, the museum has chosen to work with four filmmakers to create a series that includes different plots, but centers around the museum. The filmmakers in question: American Jim Jarmusch, France's Olivier Assayas, Chilean Raoul Ruiz and Chinese director Hou Hsia-Hsien. Each will star veteran French actress Juliette Binoche and will range from a tribute to the French classic, The Red Balloon, that has the balloon sailing into d'Orsay, to a film about what the building was before -- a train station and hotel.

The Louvre is being a little more secretive for its first foray into film financing. Out of the three upcoming films they plan to co-produce and co-finance, only one has been discussed in any detail -- Faces by Taiwan's Tsai Ming Liang, who was a winner at the Berlin film festival for The River. Jean-Pierre Leaud will star, and the film will take place completely in the museum.

This is, obviously, a great way for museum's to advertise themselves abroad and keep their names on the tips of the world's tongues -- the same motivation that drove Greece to allow Vardalos to be only the second director to shoot at the Acropolis (the last being Coppola for New York Stories). What are your thoughts? Should museums dip their toes in this area?

No one likes to be called "aging" or, God forbid, "old," but it happens to the best of us eventually. The years go by and your mind gets a little fuzzy, the music gets a little too loud from those darn kids next door and if your an independent filmmaker, you might start to wonder why you struggle each year, barely making a living, producing or directing films most people may never see. At some point it has to hit you that doing this for the rest of your life is a much shorter trip than it used to be.

A recent New York Times story takes a good look at the "aging" independent filmmakers out there who, with their work, and struggle to find work, help define exactly what it means to be an independent filmmaker. As the article states, many of them toil in virtual obscurity, producing films that are lucky to find a home on the festival circuit, let alone a place at the local multiplex or in your DVD player. Even the ones that have achieved some measure of success in the past are having a much harder time of it in the modern filmmaking world.

People like Hal Hartley, Mary Harron, Todd Solondz, Lisa Cholodenko, Jim Jarmusch and even indie-godfather John Sayles (his Lone Star and Matewan, both featuring the fantastic Chris Cooper, are two of my favorite films of all time) are having to make films for far less money than before, take jobs doctoring scripts for others (in Sayles' case) or they are forced to leave the business completely. Some directors, like Cholodenko and Harron, are even resorting to -- gasp -- directing TV to make ends meet. It's not exactly in keeping with their indie film street cred but heck, it pays the bills. And according to Harron, directing TV is also a great "corrective" for a director's ego. Something that many directors could probably use every so often.

The news that arthouse legend Hsiao-hsien Hou is working on his first film outside Asia has been drifting around the web for a few weeks now, but details about the project are few and far between. Currently shooting in Paris, the film is reportedly called Orsay and revolves around a little boy and his Chinese student babysitter "who inhabit the same imaginary world. Throughout their adventures they are followed by a strange red balloon." The film's working title was Ballon Rouge, and the presence of the balloon is clearly a tribute to 1955's Le Ballon rouge; Juliette Binoche will play the boy's mother.

Interestingly, the film is apparently not a stand-alone project. In fact, it's the first installment in a four-film series, created to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Paris' Musee d'Orsay. The other directors involved? Oh, no one important -- only Olivier Assayas, Jim Jarmusch and Chilean director Raoul Ruiz. Damn, that's a museum with some pull! Hopefully the films will at least get limited runs here in the US.

If there is one filmmaker out there who doesn't need to plagiarize, it is Jim Jarmusch. For the past twenty years he has been making some of the most original films in America. Partially his work is too simple to be a copy, but mostly it is too concerned with style over script to necessitate his ripping someone off. In the world of screenwriting, though, there is always that someone who thought up an idea first, before that other person who managed to make the idea into a film. In the latest case, Jarmusch is being accused of plagiarizing his latest film Broken Flowers. Reed Martin, a freelance journalist and professor of film marketing at NYU, says that his own script, "Heart Copy" (formerly "Two Weeks Off") is similar right down to Jessica Lange's animal communicator character and the pink envelope catalyst. Further cause for him to think that his work became Broken Flowers is Martin's claim that his agent, Glenn Rigberg, gave copies of the script to Julie Delpy and Sharon Stone (both actresses appear in the film) and Focus Features co-president David Linde. His lawsuit against Jarmusch, Vivendi Universal Entertainment, Focus Features and Rigberg, was filed in March. He is seeking $40 million, the film's theatrical gross.

The thing about Broken Flowers is that some of its themes have to do with coincidence and the abstract connections that our minds are prone to make. I haven't seen Martin's script so I won't assume that his accusation is based entirely on the brain's tendency to make associations seem more significant than they truly are, but I think the chance of this is high.

In his defense, Jarmusch wrote in an email to the Boston Globe, "I had never had any contact with him or his work. I'd never even heard of him. I still haven't seen the work he claims I copied. Anyone who is familiar with my films and my writing process will know that his claim is ridiculous."