At the beginning of this year, there was news that Drew Barrymore and Ellen Page were setting their sights on Whip It! -- a flick about snarky chicks, toughness, and roller derby action. It sounded like a whole wackload of fun. The rumored March start date came and went without a sound, but now, luckily, things are on track for this summer. Even better: The Hollywood Reporter posts that joining Page and Barrymore on-screen will be Marcia Gay Harden, Kristen Wiig, Juliette Lewis, and Zoe Bell.

Page is playing Bliss Cavendar, a beauty queen who runs away to join the roller derby league in Austin, Texas. Harden will play her mom, an ex-beauty queen herself who wants her daughter out of the skates and back on the beauty circuit. Meanwhile, Wiig will play Bliss' rolling mentor, Malice in Wonderland, Lewis will be top star Dinah Might, and Bell will be "a medical technician moonlighting as derby star Bloody Holly." With first-time feature director Drew Barrymore taking on a role as Page's teammate, that's one heck of a roller roster.

I wonder if 5'1" Page will have to take on 5'8" Bell? Hell, I'm trying to imagine how she'd do against anyone, being as teeny as she is. We should find out soon enough -- the film heads into production this summer in Texas and Michigan.

When juries are put together for these film fests, chances are the everyday person wouldn't have the slightest idea who most of the people are -- perhaps they make ultra-arthouse films, or they work behind the scenes in some capacity. But for Sundance, they've collected a bunch of names that are pretty recognizable -- coming from both the world of big-budget film and indie wonder. The Hollywood Reporter has posted that Marcia Gay Harden, Sandra Oh, Quentin Tarantino, Jason Reitman, and Alan Alda are heading the list of 24 jurors chosen to hand out prizes at Sundance this year, which starts later this month.

There are six juries selecting the prizes, and this is how it is broken up:

Dramatic Competition Grand Jury -- Harden, Diego Luna, Oh, Mary Harron, and Tarantino.

Documentary Competition Grand Jury -- Michelle Byrd, Heidi Ewing, Eugene Jarecki, Steven Okazaki, and Annie Sundberg.

World Dramatic Competition Jury -- Shunji Iwai, Lucrecia Martel, and Jan Schuette.

World Documentary Competition Jury -- Ilda Santiago, Leena Pasanen, and Amir Bar-Lev.

American & International Shorts Jury -- Jon Bloom, Melonie Diaz, and Jason Reitman.

Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize Jury -- Alda, Michael Polish, Evan Schwartz, Benedict Schwegler, and John Underkoffler. (It's awarded to a film focusing on science or technology, and most of these names are in the biz.)

Ah, if only I could be there! Stay tuned to Cinematical for lots of Sundance goodies as the fest heats up.

After mining the soft-and-fuzzy (and yet still kinda grisly) end of Stephen King's literary catalog with The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, writer-director Frank Darabont may seem like an unlikely choice for tackling one of King's shorter, grimmer horror tales. After turning high-end King into Oscar statues and nominations, why go slumming in the shabbier-seeming sections of King's catalog? Darabont's proven he can warm our hearts with King's stories, but does he have what it takes to chill our blood with one of the author's less high-minded efforts?

The Mist answers that question with a firm "Yes," although you'll be hard-pressed to hear it over the shrieks and shouts coming from the screen and the audience. Darabont's made what can best be called a grade-A B-movie, full of jolts and jumps and classic monster-movie tricks played out with old-school showmanship and thoroughly modern special effects. The plot is vintage King, placing ordinary people in an extraordinary circumstance and watching to see who dies and who doesn't, who discovers hidden strength and who displays hidden madness. And no, The Mist is nothing new -- but it's superbly executed, and far smarter than it had to be. Apparently, Darabont read The Mist when it was published in 1980 and longed to make a film from it; instead, his debut was Shawshank, with The Mist in development limbo for years. The horror fan in me thinks it was more than worth the wait.

In a small coastal town, artist David Drayton (Thomas Jane) huddles in the basement with his wife Stephanie (Kelly Collins Lintz) and son Billy (Nathan Gamble) as a storm rages. The next morning, with the power out and downed trees everywhere, David takes Billy into town to get some food, some hardware to fix up damage to the house; it looks like the storm has passed, except for the weirdly dense mist rolling towards town. ... But, as the mist rolls towards the store, a man races in -- bloody and frightened. "Something in the mist! ... Shut the doors!" He claims something in the mist "took" one of his friends. It sounds insane. It is insane. But it isn't wrong. ...

After the release of the trailer for The Mist, I think expectations for the Stephen King adaptation rose significantly -- at the very least, I know Scott's did. Now, Ain't it Cool News has an early look at a new poster for the film, and it's only a slight let-down. To be fair, it's not a bad poster, it's just kind of there. Written and directed by Frank Darabont, The Mist is based on King's story that was originally published in the 1980 book, Dark Forces.

The story focuses on a group of townspeople trapped in a supermarket when a unnatural mist rolls into town, and if you have ever read a Stephen King book, you can probably guess what happens next -- containing the usual 'motley crew' in so many of King's works; an artist and his son, a religious zealot, and a soldier. Eventually the paranoia and fear combine and the situation inside the supermarket becomes as dangerous as the unknown creatures outside. Casting was finalized last winter with Thomas Jane as the protagonist David Drayton. Joining Jane are Marcia Gay Harden as the bible thumping Mrs. Carmody and Shawshank alum Bill Sadler.

It was a long road for the production, starting back in the 90's when Darabont put Mist on the back burner to focus on The Shawshank Redemption -- and I doubt many would disagree with that particular decision. When you consider Darabont's previous successes with Stephen King adaptations, it's going to be interesting to see what he can do with one of King's more traditionally 'scary' stories. The Mist opens November 21st.

The Invisible is typical David Goyer fare, in that it feels very much like a superhero origin story. The main character, played by Justin Chatwin, could be called 'Almost Dead Man.' After suffering a vicious beating at the hands of a couple of street hoods, his body lies expiring at the bottom of a ravine while his spirit has been knocked loose and is able to roam freely. He can see and hear everything, but other people can't see or hear him, and interestingly, he is able to touch and interact with his environment, but only in fantasy flashes. He can pick a book up off a desk and throw it across the room, but as soon as it hits the wall, its back on the desk. He can punch someone in the face and watch them be knocked backwards, but it didn't really happen, it's just his overactive ghostly imagination. Almost Dead Man is chiefly concerned with figuring out who tried to kill him and why, but I wish he wasn't, since it doesn't make for a really compelling story.

Goyer has one trick up his sleeve, as far as the plot is concerned. He tries, in a very screenwriter-ish way, to combine the film's main villain and love interest characters into one, but even that strains the credibility of the story to the point where we end up examining it more than we are engaged by it. The character in question, Annie Newton, is played by Margarita Levieva as a toboggan-wearing teenage punk who smashes windows, rips rides, and does pretty much everything you wouldn't expect from a girl who looks like she could star in her own Nickelodeon show. She's the one who Nick had the bad luck to cross paths with, and after she leaves him for dead, the film sets up its two parallel story lines. Nick is walking the earth as a coma-ghost and investigating his own assault, which will eventually lead him to Annie, and Annie is evading the cops, dealing with her untrustworthy fellow hoods and undergoing a crisis of conscience over committing what she thinks was a murder.

Just when you think the cast is gathered, three movies grab even more actors:

• You'd think that the likes of Rupert Everett, Emily Watson and Colin Firth would be enough for the walls of St. Trinian's to hold, but now there are even more names swimming around in the school full of infamous girls. First, we've got Toby Jones, who voiced the infamous house elf, Dobby, in the role of the bursar. Then we've got a collection of other school staff to be played by Anna Chancellor and two Imagine Me & You stars -- Celia Imrie and Lena Headey. Finally, the cast list has been topped off by some students -- model Lily Cole and Gemma Arterton (Or is there an Arteton as Variety lists?). Between this film and Jackboots on Whitehall, it seems all the tasty British actors are getting work!
• After pairing Jared Padalecki and Peter O'Toole in the Thomas Kinkade biopic The Christmas Cottage, Lionsgate has gotten Marcia Gay Harden to sign on as the painter's mother, Maryanne. At the rate of a new cast member every few days, we should have a full cast in no time! This role is a pair of comfy acting shoes for Harden, who won an Oscar for her role in Pollock, and has played a stressed out mom in many a movie. Hopefully Maryanne isn't the high-nerves of her Casa de los Babys character. Then again, no one can pull that attitude off like Harden. Well, except maybe Elizabeth Perkins. Could you imagine them snarking it up together!?
• Finally, remember Katherine Heigl's upcoming eternal bridesmaid movie 27 Dresses? It's about a poor woman who suffers the fate of the bridesmaid 27 times, and then finds insult added to injury when she has to do it again when her sister gets engaged to the man she loves? Well, Malin Akerman, who last played Liane in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, has signed on to play the tow-headed actress' sister. While you probably aren't very familiar with Akerman, you should be soon enough. She's got five movies on the way, two of which have already been completed -- Heavy Petting and The Brothers Solomon.

Looks like a few more actors have wandered into The Mist of Frank Darabont and Stephen King. According to Variety, Marcia Gay Harden and Toby Jones have joined a cast list that already includes the likes of Thomas Jane, Laurie Holden, Andre Braugher, Alexa Davalos, Bill Sadler, Jeffrey DeMunn and Amin Joseph. The flick is based on a rather strong Stephen King story about a group of folks who hole up in a supermarket when a sudden weather pattern arrives bearing undead beasties. Cool.

Everything else is pretty much old news: Frank Darabont will be adapting his third King story (after The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile); production's already underway; Dimension aims to get the creeper into theaters by the end of the year. Looks like King fans are about to enjoy a new cinematic resurgence; Dimension also has 1408 this summer and Cell some time next year. Plus I heard that George Romero was doing a movie of From a Buick 8, and that might be interesting ...

We hear it on the news twice a week, it seems: A young dead woman has been found on the road, in a ditch, back behind someone's barn, etc. We give the news a casual listen, perhaps offer a brief bit of sympathy to the girl's family, and then throw our focus back into our own lives. The world can be an ugly place; best not to dwell on the more horrific aspects of it ... until we have to.

Karen Moncrieff's follow-up to 2002's Blue Car is a decidedly unique take on the "serial killer movie." The Dead Girl is not a mystery, nor is it really a thriller. It's more of an anthology piece that introduces us to a collection of people on the periphery of a horrible murder. It's not a movie about the killer, per se, nor is it a character study of the victim ... except when it is. It's a tough movie to describe, a tougher movie to "enjoy," but an easy one to recommend -- provided you don't mind a little darkness, gloom and sobriety mixed in with your indie-style ensemble pieces.

Hey, there's nothing like nepotism, right? If your mom is Marcia Gay Harden, you can turn into a movie star with basically no on-screen experience whatsoever! Which is ... cool? Either that, or it will destroy your life, and you'll go down the drug-addled, alcohol-fuel path of humiliation trod by such luminaries as Drew Barrymore, Todd Bridges, and one or two Coreys. The contracts have been signed, though, and there's no turning back: Harden and her seven-year-old daughter Eulala Grace Scheel are starring in Home, an indie drama written and directed by Mary Haverstick.

In the film Harden plays a woman who, in an attempt to "break the cycle of addiction in her family," takes her kid on a summer roadtrip. (So, basically, it's either a lovely, nuanced story about family or a cliched piece of crap.) Marian Seldes, Michael Gaston and Candace Buckley are also in the cast; Home is currently shooting in Pennsylvania.