Surprise, surprise! We will be getting to choose what sort of semi-true Philip K. Dick production we want to check out. As I told you earlier this month, Taryn Manning and Bill Pullman have already shot Your Name Here, a part biography/part creative embellishment about the author. Now, according to The Hollywood Reporter, we've got another one gearing up -- the adaptation of Dick's semi-autobiographical novel, Radio Free Albernuth, which began filming this month. The pic will be the feature directorial debut for The Getaway producer John Alan Simon, who also wrote the screenplay.

The Ironic lady herself, Alanis Morissette has signed on to co-star with Jonathan Scarfe (The Poet), Shea Whigham (All the Real Girls), Katheryn Winnick (Failure to Launch), and Hanna Hall (Halloween). Alanis is playing Sylvia, "a woman who shows up in the vision of a record label executive named Nick (Scarfe) as a glamorous singer." But there's a twist -- she's actually "an ordinary woman in unexpected remission from lymphoma who, after appearing in Nick's visions, gets a job as his secretary." Through shared visions and spirituality, they become soul mates. Basically, the typical, funky Alanis fare. I mean, she has been the top holy dog, after all. Morissette says: "I am a big fan of Philip K. Dick's poetic and expansively imaginative books. I feel blessed to portray Sylvia, and to be part of this story being told in film."

It'll definitely be an interesting addition to her repertoire. She got famous getting slimed on You Can't Do That on Television, then uber-famous for her music (the second round, not the super pop stuff), from there, Kevin Smith made her God, she smooched Sarah Jessica Parker on Sex and the City, did a few more movie and TV stints, and most recently, appears in Jeff Goldblum's mockumentary, Pittsburgh. Maybe one of these days she'll combine the music and spirituality and play some sort of traveling Christian musician. But for now, she's just going to have visions.

At SXSW 2005 I was invited to have dinner with a few new friends and filmmakers -- one of whom was the achingly adorable Laura Breckenridge, who was there to support her movie Southern Belles (which is now on DVD and quite charming). Since then the doe-eyed doll has played small parts in flicks like Havoc and Loving Annabelle, but it was her work on WB's TV series Related that (I thought) offered her the best chance at a wider audience. And then the show was cancelled.

But now Ms. Breckenridge has signed on to star in a horror movie, and that makes me very happy indeed. One of my favorite "up & coming" actresses working in my favorite genre: The spoooooky one! Yep, according to THR, Laura and a bunch of other attractive young people (Katheryn Winnick, Jessica Lucas, Keir O'Donnell and Tad Hilgenbrick) have signed up for Amusement, a horror movie penned by Jake Wade Wall (aka the guy who has the When a Stranger Calls remake to atone for -- and who also wrote the impending Hitcher remake) that focuses on three young women (and two boyfriends) who must contend with a serial killer from their childhood. The director of Amusement will be John Simpson, he of the under-the-radar (and underrated) thriller Freeze Frame.

According to the IMDb, it looks like the intimidating character actor Kevin Gage is also on board, and I can only assume he'll be playing the part of "serial killer." Production on Picturehouse's Amusement is about to get underway in Budapest.

According to iMDB, William Tyler Smith's Kiss Me Again is the third film to go by that name (the fourth if you count Di er wen, a 1960 film from Hong Kong whose title translates to the same). In 1931 William A. Seiter directed an operetta-style musical called Kiss Me Again, in which Edward Everett Horton took a break from the fruity sidekick roles to play a singing soldier. The 1925 silent version of Kiss Me Again starred Clara Bow under the direction of Ernst Lubitsch. Though I can't provide personal testimony to either film (the former is obscure and the latter is believed to be lost), any combination of the above names on a marquee would instantly stir up ideas of sophisticated sex farce. It's not clear if first time feature-maker Smith meant to reference -- or if he was even aware of -- the other Kiss Me Agains, but his film plays as though he's trying to approximate a genre that he's not very familiar with. According to the press notes, Kiss Me Again wants to be a social issue film, which is laughable enough that there's no use dwelling on it. With its slacker savant hero, punk pop soundtrack, and embarrassingly elementary understanding of female sexuality (not to mention contemporary queerness), Kiss Me Again feels sort of like a direct-to-video sequel to Chasing Amy. Except that at least Kevin Smith is occasionally capable of writing funny jokes.