Writer and director Paul Schrader doesn't have too many screenplay credits under his belt, but most of the ones that do reside on the list are beyond impressive. The man is responsible for Taxi Driver, American Gigolo, Raging Bull, The Mosquito Coast and The Last Temptation of Christ. Then the 90's came, and he traveled around the ratings map for a bit, and heck, he is even responsible for bringing Touch to the big screen. (If you don't remember it, that might not be a bad thing.) Now, it looks like he might have re-discovered his earlier success with his upcoming film -- The Walker, a movie that Cinematical first posted about last year.

The film stars Woody Harrelson as a gay, social escort to a number of Washington DC wives in the 50's. When one of his closer lady friends (Kristin Scott Thomas) finds herself on the edge of a scandal abyss, he helps by covering for her -- thereby turning the heat on himself, and forcing him to find the true culprit. Coming Soon now has linked to the film's website, which has a trailer for the film, as well as to YouTube, which is actually showing the first seven minutes of it. Between the trailer and the clip, it looks like Harrelson has successfully wiped away the granola and yoga to portray the "gay weather vane," as his character calls himself. All of the other performances look great as well, at least those by the main ladies -- Kristin Scott Thomas, Lily Tomlin and Lauren Bacall, as the trailer and clip focus on them. But we can't forget that Willem Dafoe (who we see only briefly in the trailer) and Ned Beatty also star, along with Mary Beth Hurt and 2006 Silver Bear winner and old Run Lola Run co-star Moritz Bleibtreu. The film is currently traveling through the festival circuit with some great reviews, and will head into limited release this December.

Screen legend Lauren Bacall has never been one to keep her opinions to herself. At a press conference in Berlin for her new film, The Walker with Woody Harrelson, about a high-class male escort, Bacall spoke about the negative impact that television has had on the movie business. Bacall was quoted as saying, "I think there are still people who really want to do good work. Unfortunately, in television, sometimes they want to do good work but a lot of the time they're doing terrible work - and I think that has affected moviemaking badly." Bacall never quite explained what that effect was, and as much as I hate to argue with a screen icon, personally I would disagree.

TV shows like 24, LOST, and The Sopranos have definitely raised the bar on what to expect from a television show. In some cases, critics think that TV might even surpass Hollywood fare. Whether Bacall is debating what makes a legend or standing up to the House of Un-American Activities, she isn't afraid to speak her mind. When you've managed to survive for over sixty years in the movie business, you have probably earned the right to. What do you think -- is the proliferation of bad television hurting the movies?

I feel guilty every time I watch How to Marry a Millionaire ... and somehow I end up watching it once every couple of years. I worry I am betraying feminism by choosing to watch a movie with lines like, "Of course I want to get married. Who doesn't?" and "I know you better than you know yourself." The 1953 film follows three models who pool their money to rent a fancy apartment as part of their scheme to lure and catch rich husbands. It ought to be terribly distasteful, and indeed it is at times. By the end, I'm not particularly pleased for the women and their fates, but instead feel sorry for them. The scene in which they show off their modeling talents is almost degrading.

Despite the Fifties sexism, How to Marry a Millionaire is a lot of fun to watch, primarily due to the cast. Lauren Bacall plays the smartest of the trio of golddiggers, setting her sights on millionaire oilman William Powell, who is always charming (and a welcome relief from the usual Texas oilman stereotypes). Her roommates are Betty Grable and a bespectacled Marilyn Monroe. Monroe is wooed by a suspicious "millionaire" with an eyepatch played by Alexander D'Arcy (the singing instructor in The Awful Truth), and Grable is stuck with Fred Clark, (stuffy Mr. Babcock in Auntie Mame). If you're a fan of The Simpsons, here's your chance to see Rory Calhoun in person, playing a forest ranger, and standing and walking just like the greyhound puppy that delights Mr. Burns.

For every annoying line that recalls sexual stereotyping of the era (including Monroe's butchering of a Dorothy Parker witticism), the film offers a delightful bit of dialogue or business: Bacall trying to convince Powell that she finds older men terribly attractive: "Look at that old fellow whatshisname in The African Queen!" (who happened to be married to Bacall at the time), Grable insisting that a band on the radio must be Harry James (Grable's ex-husband), and a dream sequence in which Bacall and Monroe are both fantasizing about millionaires ... but Grable is dreaming about food. The women's resourcefulness and clever schemes are admirable even in an awful cause. How to Marry a Millionaire was one of the first films shot in Cinemascope, and the wide aspect ratio is preserved on DVD. You can enjoy every guilt-inducing moment in gorgeous color and sound.

Eventually every block in Manhattan should have an extra nickname in addition to its actual address. Enough famous things happen in the borough, I'm sure. One of these famous things was the growing up of Humphrey Bogart at 245 W. 103rd Street. Over the weekend, super-fan Gary Dennis, a video store owner who campaigned for the honoring of Bogie and Lauren Bacall, who was married to the actor until his death in 1957, joined other fans in the drizzling rain to declare that block of 103rd Street "Humphrey Bogart Place."

"I'm happy he is honored," Bacall said at the event, "of course, it's only brass on a wall." Only brass? Certainly Bacall has never taken delight in learning about the city's history via plaques, which I've gotten more into since reading Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation. Just the other day I learned that a building I pass sometimes in Brooklyn was the first multi-family home in the borough. Okay, so maybe most people don't care about that stuff, but everyone cares about movie trivia, right? With all the movies shot in New York, perhaps the city could put up more plaques and rename more streets to showcase where film shoots occurred. The most obvious I can think of is the corner of N. Moore and Varick, which should definitely be renamed Ghostbusters Place if it hasn't been already.

It appears that Paul Schrader is more into American Gigolo now than most of us were 25 years ago, because he's once again mining that territory for a film. And to the dismay of maybe only me, Richard Gere (Every time I look him up on the IMDb, I giggle anew when I remember that his middle name is "Tiffany." I'm a bad person.) will not be involved. The new film, which beings shooting this week in the UK, is entitled The Walker, and centers on the writer/director's "vision of what his American Gigolo protagonist would have become when he hit 50." This time the character, to be played by the frighteningly-close-to-50 Woody Harrelson, is an "escort of society ladies" in DC, whose gifts are, in Schrader's words, "more social than sexual. He's this society walker who has his lady friends, and a boyfriend on the side." A boyfriend, eh? And the plot thickens...

Among Harrelson's clients will be the still-stunning Lauren Bacall; other cast members include Ned Beatty, Lily Tomlin, and English Patient pals Willem Dafoe and Kristen Scott Thomas.