When I was a kid, I watched all the awards shows ... except the Tonys. Even when I was involved in theater as a teenager I wasn't a follower of Broadway. And I lived an hour away from Manhattan. But today's youths may be more interested in tuning in to the 2008 Tony Awards, because everyone's favorite boy wizard is among the presenters. Daniel Radcliffe will likely be there solely to promote his Broadway debut this fall, in Equus, but that shouldn't deter fans of the Harry Potter films, the latest of which, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, also opens in the fall. Despite the significance of Radcliffe's role in Equus (remember those sexy photos?), Radcliffe will presumably be dressed fully and sharply.

Other presenters include Laura Linney, Alec Baldwin, Marisa Tomei and Radcliffe's costar in both the Equus and the Harry Potter films, Richard Griffiths. This year's Tonys are also of interest to movie fans for its nominees, which include movies-turned-musicals Cry-Baby (4 nominations), Xanadu (4 nominations), The Little Mermaid (2 nominations) and Young Frankenstein (3 nominations), as well as the comic adaption of The 39 Steps (6 nominations), based on the John Buchan book that Alfred Hitchcock and others turned into hit films (with a fourth version reportedly in the works).

The Tony Awards will be held at Radio City Music Hall, and broadcast live on CBS, June 15.

Last month, I wondered how Jennifer Jason Leigh could sign on for an indie romcom starring Ashton Kutcher -- the man notorious for his bad romantic comedies. She was set to co-star in Spread, the classy-titled indie comedy where Ashton is a serial womanizer and Jennifer would be the thwarted lover -- so, not only a goofy Kutcher movie, but one where he gets to cast her off! But now, however, The Hollywood Reporter posts that one week after signing on, Leigh backed out of the project for undisclosed reasons. Her replacement will be -- Anne Heche.

Rumors suggest that Leigh is pregnant, but you can't help but wonder if she just got cold feet. Production is starting immediately, so it's not like the pregnancy worry would impact things that much right now. As for Heche, well, I'm less surprised about her casting, although maybe a Kutcher film isn't the best thing to follow up her success in Men in Trees. Eh, we'll have to wait and see. Maybe this will be a great romcom, and Jason Dean Hall's script and David Mackenzie's direction will make it all come up roses.

I've got to wonder now... According to IMDb, Laura Linney is attached. What on earth attracted Linney and Leigh to a Kutcher romcom?

Just after we headed into our new century, Bernard Schlink had a selection of short stories published called Flights of Love. One of the tales published in the collection was The Other Man. Just like its title suggests, the story is about a love triangle of sorts. After a man loses his wife to cancer, he receives a letter from her lover. What would seem like a huge blow to an already-mourning man actually does him good. The two men begin a correspondence, and the widower finds comfort in his letters to the other man.

Now Variety reports that writer/director Richard Eyre (Notes on a Scandal) has adapted the story with Charles Wood, and has put together quite a cast to star -- Liam Neeson, Laura Linney, Antonio Banderas, and Romola Garai. Sure, it's way too early to make any real judgments, but I'd be beyond surprised if this doesn't work itself into one hell of a film. However, I'm a bit curious about the plot. The story's layout sounds decent, but Variety describes the film this way: "the story of a husband who starts to suspect he's not the only man in his wife's life, and sets out to track down his rival."

If this is how the film will play out, that means he doesn't find out post-death, and that it's more a story of tracking down the other man than bonding, or finding comfort with him. On the other hand, a synopsis on IMDb says it's "the story of a widower's slowly-developing revenge against his late wife's secret lover," which "reveals to him his own compromises and failings." Who knows?! I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Production will get going next month, appropriately on Valentine's Day, in the UK and Italy.

The first feature from Tamara Jenkins, the Natasha Lyonne-headed Slums of Beverly Hills was a pretty darned decent late-90s film. Alan Arkin. Marisa Tomei. Jessica Walter. Mena Suvari. The cast rocked, and the film was dysfunctional fun. So, hearing that she's finally written another feature, one that stars Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman as a sister and brother who have to care for their dementia-ridden father... Well, that's just too good to ignore.

Just a few days ago, Cinematical posted a great exclusive clip from The Savages, where Nancy Lenehan is a dementia support group leader who doesn't take too kindly to early nibbles at the refreshment stand. (She might have been in a lot of stuff, but I don't know if I will ever see the woman as anything but Pat, the woman who turned demon for Dead Man's Party.) Anyhow, Jenkins and Linney recently took part in Variety's Screening Series to discuss the film, which Jenkins says: "kind of came bubbling up out of my dark recesses, and then I stuffed it in a drawer and didn't think about it for a long time."

Linney says: "It's one of the best scripts I've ever read." You can't get a much better thumbs up than that, since she has had her share of great films. She continued: "With films of this nature, you really just have to throw yourself off a cliff and go. You really don't have time for a lot of exploration. You have to do as much work as you possibly can before you start, and then hit the ground running and you do not mess around." Well, it doesn't sound like they messed around in any way that could possibly hurt it. Kim Voynar gave it a rave from Sundance, and we can finally see it for ourselves when it hits limited release on November 28.

I'm home now from the Telluride Film Festival, and we're heading into our massive Toronto coverage, but I wanted to give a quick wrap up of Telluride and those films heading from Telluride up north to the biggest market fest in North America. Telluride is a both a nice predictor of how those films playing both fests are likely to play at Toronto, and a restive break for the filmmakers and publicists before they have to hit the ground running at TIFF. The two fests are polar opposites: Telluride is a relaxing fest where the focus is all on the art of the film, Toronto is much more about the art of making money off those films. From a film journalist's perspective, Telluride is also where you have a chance to meet and chat with filmmakers in an environment that's not, as more than one filmmaker put it to me over Labor Day weekend, the big "dog and pony show" that is Toronto.

Labor Day, the last day of Telluride, is almost all TBAs, which makes it a nice weathervane for which films really played well at the fest. Those films that sold out screenings, that passholders weren't able to get into, will get TBA slots on Monday so everyone gets a shot at seeing them. Good thing too, because, as I've previously discussed, this year there seemed to be an awful lot of passholders who weren't able to get into films they wanted to see, and the poor folks who were just trying to buy tix had it even worse.

I mentioned the other day that the big buzz at Telluride was about Jason Reitman's film Juno, which sneak previewed at Telluride before heading to Toronto. The biggest indicator of Juno being a hit, aside from it being the film everyone was talking about in line, on the gondola, and in the coffee shop, was that it had not one, but two TBA slots on Monday. Sunday's TBA saw over 200 passholders turned away, so it's a good thing they added two more. The first Juno TBA Monday sold out again, and while I wasn't at the Galaxy for the final screening, I'd bet it was pretty packed as well. Good news also for Tamara Jenkins, whose film The Savages, starring Telluride fave Laura Linney (a tributee a couple years ago) and Phillip Seymour Hoffman, sold out the 600-seater The Palm, with (so I hear) well over 200 passholders turned away. Both films will screen at Toronto, so check them out.

The Hottest State is one of the most inauthentic films I've seen in a long time. Written and directed by Ethan Hawke, and from his own novel no less, the film plays out like some version of hell where everyone is being forced to perform in an acting class skit that will never end. The story follows William (Mark Webber), a 20-year-old aspiring actor who is hanging around the Manhattan bar scene when he runs into Sarah, the girl of his dreams. The casting of Sarah is the movie's fatal flaw. As written, she's an aspiring singer who is gaga over William, but Catalina Sandino Moreno is an actress who, it's clear from the get-go, can't sing a note and worse, seems ready to climb the walls to get away from her co-star throughout the picture. I've seen more sexual chemistry from two doorknobs. Watching this mess, you have to believe that Ethan Hawke, as talented as he is, must have realized he was making a colossal turkey but was too far into the thing to back out.

And that's only the start of it. The Hottest State is structurally odd -- something that's sometimes a necessity in the case of book adaptations, but especially true in this case, since what begins as a romance ultimately takes on the trappings of a thriller in the third act. I won't go into specifics in case you plan to see it for yourself, but let's just say that if the entire movie were on the same wavelength as the third act, I think we'd actually have an interesting, tough little film here. I also think Hawke must have known this too on some level, because it's only in the third act that his personality as a director begins to shine through -- interesting and creative camera choices, powerful acting moments and an earned level of tension that are present only during this part of the movie. The first two-thirds of the film are a cloying, obnoxious romantic fable about two young people bouncing around in Manhattan and down in Mexico, lounging around and pretending, for our benefit, that they actually love each other.

I've been told by a couple of people who've read The Nanny Diaries and seen the film that the latter is a pale, scrubbed imitation of the book -- to which I reply, 'when was that ever not the case?' I've never read The Nanny Diaries, but I enjoyed the film for what it was -- a jelly-lensed portrait of the awful egomania that exists in that biosphere known as the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Be warned -- this film rarely takes a step that's not telegraphed 20 minutes in advance, but that doesn't mean that the presentation isn't solid, the direction focused and precise, and the acting serviceable in the case of Scarlett Johansson and more so in the case of her two, older co-stars -- Laura Linney and Paul Giamatti, who reunites with his American Splendor team here. Linney and Giamatti play Mr. and Mrs. X -- the cheeky, pointless anonymity was granted to them in the book -- a couple of Manhattan blue-bloods who hire Johansson's naive student character as a live-in nanny for their young son, ridiculously named 'Grayer.'

Johansson meets Mrs. X in Central Park, when a slip of the tongue causes her to be swamped by dog-walking UES housewives who think they've happened upon the Rolls Royce of nanny applicants, as opposed to someone who 'barely speaks English,' as one mother complains in the film. She's soon moved into the house and is essentially performing the role of surrogate mother for the precocious Grayer while his mother attends to more pressing issues, like her husband's possible infidelity and finding the right Burberry jacket to put on. Directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini handle this opening act of the film with ease, quickly getting us into the fun stuff without going too far in making Johansson's character a poor Cinderella or another far-out character archetype. Instead, she's just a typical college-aged kid who has absolutely no idea where she's going in the world and thinks she can put off the big decisions for a few more months with some easy nanny work. She doesn't realize she's essentially sold herself into indentured servitude.

The immensely popular 2002 novel The Nanny Diaries had two writers, so it's only fitting that the movie version has two directors. Husband and wife team, Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, who were Oscar-nominated for writing 2003's American Splendor, have adapted the book, which tells the story of a young woman, played by Scarlett Johansson, who puts off some major life decisions by deciding to take short-term work as a nanny in the rare air of Manhattan's Upper East Side, where housewives carry business cards, children are treated as well-groomed fashion accessories and the husbands are rarely seen. I recently had a chance to speak with Berman and Pulcini about the special challenges of bringing this book to life as a movie -- anyone who's read it knows that it's a very interior, non-cinematic tome that even goes so far as to withhold the names of key characters from the reader. (Laura Linney and Paul Giamatti are credited as Mrs. X and Mr. X in the film) Here's the interview.

RS: Is this a world that you have first-hand experience with, or just a good story that came your way?

SSB: Well, we live in New York City. We live on the West side, we live across Central Park from the Upper East Side, which is really close, but like, you need a passport to get there. It's a whole other universe away. So, in a weird way, we were familiar with the world, because we would walk around and see women dressed in Burberry jackets with little dogs in matching Burberry jackets. We would see the world, but we were outside observers. It wasn't a world that we were intimately included in.

RS: So when you sat down to adapt this popular book, how much freedom did you give yourself to take it in new places, to make it your own?

RP: Luckily, we had a lot of freedom, because there had been other writers on the project before us, and the studio had come to the decision that it wasn't the easiest book to adapt. Even though it was immensely popular, it was very interior. It was very much a catalog of great details and observations, you know. So how do you open that up, cinematically? So I think they kind of welcomed our approach, and I know the writers have seen the movie and they're very happy with what we've done with it.

I saw Jindabyne at the Telluride Film Festival last year, and it is an artfully made, albeit somewhat dark, movie. The film is about what happens when a group of men in Australia go on a fishing trip to a remote mountain river, find the body of a dead girl there, and tether her body to a tree in the river so they can finish their fishing trip, rather than immediately calling the police. This decision has tremendous ramifications for the men, tearing apart their small town, their families, and their friendship. Laura Linney and Gabriel Byrne both turn in brilliant performances in the film, which was adapted from a Raymond Carver short story and directed by Ray Lawrence.

Jindabyne doesn't officially open (in limited release) until April 27, but you can still get geared up about it. Sony Pictures Classics has released a trailer for the film, which you can find at the links below. You can also read the review of the Jindabyne from Telluride, and check out our video interview with Laura Linney about the film.

Jindabyne official trailer:

WINDOWS MEDIA
www.sonypictures.com/classics/syndication/trailers/jindabyne/jindabyne_high.asx
www.sonypictures.com/classics/syndication/trailers/jindabyne/jindabyne_low.asx

REAL PLAYER
www.sonypictures.com/classics/syndication/trailers/jindabyne/jindabyne_high.ram
www.sonypictures.com/classics/syndication/trailers/jindabyne/jindabyne_low.ram

QUICKTIME
www.sonypictures.com/classics/syndication/trailers/jindabyne/Jindabyne_Trlr_300.mov
www.sonypictures.com/classics/syndication/trailers/jindabyne/Jindabyne_Trlr_56.mov

If this film was to come out a few years ago, say in the time of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and Bridget Jones' Diary, there would probably be a horde of chick-flick enthusiasts cheering, while the rest of the movie-going public gives it a collective....eh. However, The Devil Wears Prada seems to have changed things a bit -- some typical chick-flick fare unexpectedly became a big-buzz movie, mainly due to a certain Ms. Streep. Now, we've got The Nanny Diaries, which has its own high-calibre cast. If the just-released trailer is any indication, it hits all of the mainstays of quirky, mainly-for-ladies comedy, but this may or may not be a good thing.

The players: Scarlett Johansson, Laura Linney, Paul Giamatti, Alicia Keys and Chris Evans (I second Martha's huh?). The story: The X family get a new nanny and treat her terribly. She's frustrated, but she's also falling for a neighbour, Harvard Hottie. Wackiness ensues. The trailer looks fun, but I'm a bit concerned with all of the familiar bits. Sure, movies take from other movies, but while watching the trailer, my brain kept a running count of spoofs -- the music from Metropolitan as they scan the NYC neigborhood, the poor girl meeting the dashing beau at her low-riding worst, continually seeing him during embarrassing run-ins a la Bridget Jones, the challenging kid and the frazzled nanny like Uptown Girls, the advice reminiscent of Prada and of course, the spy-cam scene from Meet the Parents. Regardless, the film looks like fun, light fare, and it's hard to go wrong with Linney.