No, it's not another sequel to the Neve Campbell/Denise Richards classic! The extremely likable Lauren Ambrose (Claire on Six Feet Under, Denise Fleming in Can't Hardly Wait) will voice a character in the upcoming adaptation of Maurice Sendak's beloved childrens' book -- Where the Wild Things Are. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Ambrose is playing KW -- "one of the giant characters in the land of the Wild Things. When a young boy named Max visits their strange world, KW and company turn him into their king."

Ambrose is taking over the role from Michelle Williams. Apparently Williams got along well with the filmmakers, but "her voice didn't match their original vision of how the Wild Things should sound." Where the Wild Things Are mixes flesh-and-blood actors, computer animation, and live-action puppetry. I can't wait to see it, I adored the book as a kid and I love pretty much everyone involved with the film. Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation -- a couple of my favorite flicks) will direct, and wrote the screenplay with Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, one of my favorite books). You can go into the Wild in Fall 2008.

A good indicator of an unnecessary subplot is one that never seems to cross paths with the A-story -- it's a problem that afflicts the new film, Starting out in the Evening, starring Six Feet Under's Lauren Ambrose and film and stage veteran Frank Langella. Ambrose plays Heather, a feisty graduate student obsessed with the works of a minor, undervalued novelist, Leonard Schiller, played by Langella. Schiller is long past the point of imagining that he will be widely recognized in his lifetime for his work, and has settled into the quietude of old age, but Heather is so determined to gain access into his private world that she brazenly positions herself as a sexual thrill for the 70-something man, and he somewhat half-heartedly takes the bait, leading to a believable but half-cocked courtship and an interesting exploration of a completely lop-sided relationship. Good fodder for a feature-length motion picture, but for some reason director Andrew Wagner also shoehorns in an entire relationship drama centered about Lili Taylor, playing the lovesick, 40-something daughter of Schiller.

The notoriously press-shy Lauren Ambrose was not readily available to speak about her role during the film's recent press jaunt, but that's a shame, because her character is far and away the most intriguing aspect of the film. Heather is very believable as one of those early-20s graduate students who seem to have crammed a lifetime's worth of reading into the years when they could have gotten some fun out of life, making for an inherently sad but also clever and resourceful personality, able to stand toe to toe intellectually with someone who has fifty years on her. The best scenes in Starting Out come closer to the beginning of the film than the ending, when Schiller is continually rejecting Heather's entreaties to be his chronicler-muse-companion. Although he keeps telling her no, she keeps coming up with reasons to jam her foot back in the door, like some kind of bookworm stalker who knows exactly how to keep from being confronted with a final, stern rejection. These early scenes are spot-on and very well-executed.

Technical advances bring artistic opportunities. Admittedly, I've seen my share of indifferent films shot on digital video, but at the same time, DV's also given us some of the best performances in recent memory -- Vera Farmiga in Down to the Bone, Patricia Clarkson in Pieces of April, Maggie Gyllenhaal in Sherrybaby. And, to that list, we can now add Frank Langella's performance in Starting Out in the Evening -- and those of Lauren Ambrose and Lili Taylor, as well. Langella plays Leonard Schiller -- a novelist trying to finish one more book, even though his other works are seemingly long-forgotten. But a graduate student, Heather (Ambrose), comes to call; she's working on a thesis about his earlier novels, and would like to interview Leonard for it. He's not interested -- too much work, too little time -- but something about her tenacity and insight wins him over. ...

... and perhaps it shouldn't. Ambrose's Heather is captivating and complex from the outset -- left to her own devices in Leonard's apartment she immediately starts casing the joint. She's smart and swift and manipulative -- but, in a weird way, not maliciously so. And soon she gets the measure of Leonard's life -- writing, writing and more writing, punctuated by the company of his daughter Ariel (Taylor) from time to time. Ariel's breezy and mostly together -- and in a relationship she's not crazy about, still thinking about her ex, Casey (Adrian Lester). Ariel would very much like to be a mom, but things aren't working out that way; maybe they never will.

So many motion pictures are driven by big conflict and big concepts that the subtlety and small-scale motions of Starting Out in the Evening sneak up on us; both Leonard and Ariel are so obsessed by the idea of how much time they have left that they're missing out on what's happening during the time they have now. And both of them come to a very different understanding of time and its unstoppable forward motion. ...

There's an indie film that has been off the Cinematical radar, but might just be something to look out for in the future. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Roadside Attraction has secured the worldwide distribution rights to Andrew Wagner's indie drama called Starting Out in the Evening, based on the 1999 novel by Brian Morton. The film, which premiered at Sundance in January, boasts an impressive cast of Lauren Ambrose, Frank Langella and Lili Taylor. Roadside plans to release it in the states this November, just in time for a nice awards push for Langella's performance -- it's one that THR gushingly called "astounding." What might be even more-so is the fact that the performance could come from a shoot that lasted only 18 days.

The story revolves around a forceful grad student named Heather (Ambrose). She's writing her thesis on a novelist named Leonard Schiller (Langella), and hopes this will be a huge step to her own literary success. She meets him, finding him to be: "Old, fat, bald, leaning awkwardly on a cane" -- the vision of her literary hero a bit dashed. Meanwhile, he's been struggling on the same book for ten years, as his health deteriorates. There is also Schiller's daughter (Taylor), who is struggling with her desire for a child and her marriage to a man who doesn't want to have one. Heather invades his world, a seductive and challenging pressure in his life. I'm not sure how much more you can ask for -- an interesting story, great actors, glowing reviews and some indie flavor.

If you're a fan of mild-mannered dramedies about small-town life, you could do a lot worse than Diggers. Scripted by television actor Ken Marino -- he also plays the main dramatic role and plays it well -- the film centers on the trials and tribulations of a community of blue-collar clam-diggers in mid-70s Long Island. There's a big corporate entity that is moving in on the island and intends to squeeze the locals out of the clam business once and for all. Some of them, like Hunt (Paul Rudd) are thinking of shaking up their lives, trying their luck in the big city and starting new relationships, while others like Lozo (Marino) are reluctant to embrace any kind of change, small or large. Lozo is such a traditionalist, in fact, that his old-fashioned view of the world ends up setting the stage for the film's most effective scene, a confrontation with his wife over her desire to end a pregnancy she doesn't want. Women's rights and Jaws references -- this is a film 70s-lovers can really warm to.

Maura Tierney, most known from TV's ER, plays Gina, the central female character. She's a sister to Hunt and love interest to a local do-nothing called Jack (Ron Eldard) and is a general anchor-character of the story -- one that all the other characters sort of swirl around. In fact, one of the things Diggers usually does well is to make most of the significant characters seem like they are the central character whenever its time for their story to kick into gear. A lot of thought clearly went into the film's structuring, which is refreshing. The mixture of comedy and drama is a little more uncertain, though -- some scenes feel like the script said 'comedic hijinks ensue at this point' and the actors sort of had to wing it. The comedy gets a little too physical for my taste. Marino has certainly shown here that he has the chops to write a real story with real dramatic and comedic moments, and the film would have benefitted by leaving some of the artificial comedy on the cutting room floor.

About a week ago, I went to see a screening of Diggers, which is an ensemble dramedy opening in late April, starring Paul Rudd, Lauren Ambrose and a few other notable names. It's a passable assemblage of talent with a few laughs and a few interesting moments, but I didn't give it much more thought than any of the dozens of other movies I've seen recently. Over the weekend, however, much to my surprise, someone pointed me to a listing on Amazon for the film's DVD, which is dropping in stores in early May! I had completely forgotten that Diggers was a film from Mark Cuban's company, and considering that most day-day style releases have thus far chosen to beat people over the head with their day-dateness, I guess this new strategy of not drawing attention to the day-dateness is a more successful one, since people like me never gave a second's thought to the film's near-simultaneous theatrical-DVD release when watching or evaluating the film.

I'm still a little ambivalent over the whole day-date issue, although I know that companies like Cuban's are out to make legitimate, quality films and not the kind of dreck that we usually associate with 'straight to DVD.' Still, if I were just a movie-goer instead of someone reviewing films for a living, I think my inherent laziness might have made me miss the theatrical release and just wait for the DVD, and I know a lot of other people would make that choice as well. And I do believe it's a sad thing in general that we have that choice, since nothing can come close to replicating the experience of actually going to a movie theater. I will have to give this issue some more weighty thought as I search through my Easter basket for any missed bubble gum.

Such is this business that sometimes you see the movie before you see the preview. I saw Diggers at a screening a few days ago, and now the trailer has popped up over at Moviefone. I can tell you that the trailer is a pretty fair representation of the film, which is about a bunch of clam diggers in mid-70s Long Island, who struggle with life, love and dreams of moving away to the big city. There's a pretty even balance between humor and drama, as the trailer depicts, but the one thing that struck me as odd -- I'll be writing about this in my review of the film as well -- is that even though Lauren Ambrose of Six Feet Under fame is second-billed in the trailer and touted as the film's leading lady, she has only a few, truncated scenes and her character has substantially less time than the other players. As a fan of her work, that was a little disappointing.

Aside from Ambrose, the main players are Paul Rudd and Maura Tierney as a brother and sister who just lost their lifelong clam-digger father, Ron Eldard as a comedic lowlife who is trying to date Maura Tierney and Ken Marino as a hothead father who struggles with whether or not he should give in to the corporate bad guys who are trying to take over his territory. Marino has a couple of knockout scenes, and overall I'd say his role is the cherry of the bunch and could propel him into more substantial acting roles after this. There's also a good gag in the film about Jaws still playing in theaters -- I believe it takes place in September 1976 -- but was Jaws really still in theaters, even with the old releasing style, over a year after it opened? I wonder. Anyway, Diggers is scheduled to drop on April 27.

If I described Diggers as being about "four old friends who struggle to (finally) mature in the face of grown-up stresses, miseries and generally unpleasant turns of event," you'd probably respond with something like "Oh yeah, just like 45% of all indie/comedy/dramas I've seen this decade." And you'd be right -- it's not a stunning sense of originality that makes Diggers worth watching; it's the actors, combined with the asset of a surprisingly insightful screenplay that does the job. It's amusing to note that while screenwriter Ken Marino's old State-mates are out banking huge coin writing chaff like Let's Go to Prison and Herbie: Fully Loaded, his first screenplay is a much more personal and low-key affair.

While Diggers would most likely be labeled a "drama," the truth is that there's a lot of solid wit to be found here. It's just couched in between a lot of (surprisingly compelling) melodrama, which helps the 'funny bits' to succeed more often. Plus, Diggers is packed with really strong performances, particularly from likable folks like Paul Rudd, Lauren Ambrose, Sarah Paulson, Josh Hamilton, Maura Tierney and Ron Eldard. Marino gives himself a very juicy central role, but the guy manages to steal every scene he's in, so it's not like it's a bad thing. (His scenes with Ms. Paulson are really quite excellent.) Rudd, Eldard, Hamilton and Marino make for a quietly compelling quartet of old pals; the guys exhibit a clear and casual chemistry that helps the semi-familiar material go down a lot more smoothly.