What Just Happened has opened the Karlovy Vary Film Festival to a less than enthusiastic crowd, which I don't find particularly surprising, but Robert De Niro has other things to talk about.

Variety reports that he talked about the possible actors' strike at a press conference this weekend. De Niro said: "I do not think it is a good time to strike now. The issues could be resolved over the next couple of years (without strike action)." He also noted that he didn't think actors have "done their homework" to get a good deal, and that "I do not know if it is the right time to be doing this at all with the economy the way it is." Between the economy and the wake of the last strike, it certainly seems like the worst possible time, although I'm sure some would say a few years is a long time to wait.

While that gets sorted out, De Niro is looking to the future. He says that we should expect at least two more films between him and Martin Scorsese because it's "a lot of fun" to work together. De Niro is currently working on the first of these projects, to be ready for 2009, but does not want to discuss it. (He noted earlier that he was "superstitious about talking about it.")

Meanwhile, there's also The Good Shepherd. He is hoping to make two sequels to the CIA Cold War drama: one detailing 1961-1989, and another that brings Edward Wilson (Matt Damon) to the present day. There's definitely enough material to talk about, but what do you think? Is it time for more Shepherd?

Even the weirder artists of the twentieth century have been attracted to the allure of Hollywood filmmaking, and Salvador Dali was no exception. In the fall of 1941, the surrealist painter hosted a masquerade party at Pebble Beach during one of his regular visits to the town. Called "Surrealism Night in An Enchanted Forest," the fundraising event, intended to assist European refugee artists, brought out a number of stars, including Bob Hope and Ginger Rogers. It was here, the story goes, that Dali became attached to a major studio production called Moontide. The great German emigre Fritz Lang was hired to direct the movie, and asked Dali to create a three-minute nightmare sequence for the film. Unfortunately, after the incident at Pearl Harbor later that year, Twentieth Century Fox deemed the project too bleak. Lang was replaced, and Dali's nightmare sequence went with him.

Although inspired by the movies, Dali didn't always have the easiest time making them. He would get another chance to inject his hallucinatory vision into American cinema with the hypnosis scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound, but it's his unrealized projects that truly indicate the scope of the painter's ambition. So many ideas, such little time. Dali: Painting and Film, a breathtakingly unique exhibit currently on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, surveys Dali's completed cinematic works in addition to tidbits from the ones that never came to fruition. Marvelously structured to show how his paintings were intentionally cinematic, the exhibit contains all the obvious highlights from Dali's movie career alongside lesser-known productions. The importance in film history of his collaborations with Luis Bunuel remain uncontested; two large screens in separate rooms showing Un Chien Andalou (where the opening eye splicing retains its original gross-out impact) and L'Age D'Or attest to that. Fewer visitors, however, might know about Dali's collaboration with the Marx Brothers on a deliriously strange movie that sounded too good to be true.

I'll always remember reading a review of Casino where a reviewer said that even a mediocre Martin Scorsese movie is better than the 'best' movie made by any other director. That particular piece of wisdom has always stuck with me whenever I was plunking down my hard earned dollars on a Scorsese film that wasn't necessarily 'my thing' -- cough, Kundun, cough. So with that in mind, you can be sure that I'll be there on opening day for his new thriller, Ashecliffe (formerly Shutter Island). The Boston Herald recently scored some pictures of star Leonardo DiCaprio and Scorsese on the set of the period thriller, with the added bonus of getting to see DiCaprio brandishing some firearms (thankfully, it was for the movie).

The film is based on a novel by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River), and centers on two U.S. marshals who are sent to investigate the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane. Things start to go downhill when a riot on the island has them trapped, and not to mention some events that are outside of the realm of the everyday. Mark Ruffalo joins the cast as DiCaprio's partner, and Michelle Williams also stars as DiCaprio's wife. The film immediately brings Spellbound to mind, and knowing what a Hitchcock fan Scorsese is, I will look forward to seeing Scorsese work in a few of those 'master of suspense' touches.

Ashcliffe is scheduled to arrive in theaters on October 2nd, 2009.

No woman, no cry, no Bob Marley. First, Martin Scorsese signs on to direct a Bob Marley documentary in February, which pretty much shuts down the biopic that Bob's widow, Rita, was putting together. Now, he's pulled out due to "scheduling conflicts," and the BBC reports that The Silence of the Lambs helmer Jonathan Demme has taken over.

The film is still set to be released on the 65th anniversary of the musician's birth -- February 6, 2010, so this change shouldn't disrupt anything. As for Demme's involvement, it shouldn't change things much. He's made docs on both the Talking Heads (Stop Making Sense in 1984) and Neil Young with Heart of Gold in 2006. And Ziggy seems cool with the whole change: "His empathy with my father's body of work and his unique understanding of the musical documentary form makes me confident that this film will be the ultimate celebration of my father's life."

Scorsese, meanwhile, still has other famous folks to keep busy with -- George Harrison, Theodore Roosevelt, and Frank Sinatra. Which one should go first?

It looks like Frank Sinatra's youngest daughter and film producer, Tina Sinatra, has let the cat out of the bag. While talking with Sun Media recently, she discussed a new biopic on the way, from Universal, that would focus on dear old Rat Pack Dad. She started by cryptically saying that the man who would take on the film was "the most prominent Italian-American filmmaker" in Hollywood. First, they guessed Coppola, and then Martin Scorsese. Later, she confirmed that it was, indeed, Marty.

But according to Sinatra, this won't be a big gangster picture. The movie will show him innocent of true involvement with the Mafia: "I don't want him to be driving the getaway car. That would not be fair. But I trust him (Scorsese) implicitly." It seems that Scorsese is in "a reflective period and is willing to present the truth about her father." From the way Sinatra is talking about Marty's involvement, it sounds like he is in final negotiations, but hasn't yet signed.

Should this all get squared away and signed, it will be at least the sixth celebrity name added to Scorsese's roster in the last 4-5 years. There was Bob Dylan in 2005, then the Rolling Stones with Shine a Light, plus the upcoming George Harrison and Bob Marley docs, and The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt.

But what say you? Are you ready for Scorsese to take on Sinatra?

Last year, a screenwriter making his directorial debut -- Tony Gilroy -- went and got himself a Best Director Oscar nomination. William Monahan already has an honest-to-goodness Oscar on his mantel for writing The Departed, but it looks like he'll soon get a chance to broaden his horizons. He's picked up the rights to a 2002 novel by Ken Bruen called London Boulevard, and plans to direct the film himself. It's a crime story about an ex-con who gets a job as a handyman for a rich actress but soon gets embroiled in the violent underworld he used to call home.

Remember the news that we were going to see the first Bob Marley biopic? Well, according to The Hollywood Reporter, it's not going to happen any time soon.

The problem centers on obtaining the rights to Marley's music for the film. Despite the fact that the film is being produced by Marley's widow, Rita, the sale of her book rights naturally didn't include rights to use any of the music. But one would assume, given the connection, that using Marley's music would be a given.

Not so. Because Martin Scorsese's documentary has already licensed the songs (and the documentary is being produced by the family owned Tuff Gong Pictures and Steven Bing's Shangi-La company), there is a great reluctance to license them for the movie. There is suspicion that the Marley family is using it as a negotiating tactic to up the licensing price, a claim their lawyer steadfastly denies.

Concert films are constantly at war with themselves. If the musical act is transcendent, then a filmed document will never come close to reproducing the experience of seeing and hearing the act live, in the same way that an ordinary photograph can only serve, at best, as a reminder of a moment. Even a great, exact reproduction is still just a copy, not the original. If the act is merely average or worse, then why bother to record it?

The Rolling Stones have been captured performing in concert on film or tape numerous times, so the challenge that lay before Martin Scorsese was to do something different. After all, this is the man who redefined concert films with The Last Waltz in 1978, in which he eschewed the prevailing wisdom that a concert had to include generous allotments of time devoted to the concert goer's point of view. Instead, Scorsese kept the action tightly focused on the stage, allowing the audience to enjoy the interplay between the members of The Band and various guests who shared in the group's final performance. He balanced that with lively interviews; in the process, he helped to establish Robbie Robertson as a viable solo personality in the eyes of the film industry.

I should amend the previous paragraph to read like this: "The challenge that lay before Martin Scorsese was to do something different or so I thought!" As it turns out, my expectations for Shine a Light were far too high.

One day after the latest Martin Scorsese/Leonardo DiCaprio film, Shutter Island, got sold to some European territories, they've added even more irresistible cast members. There's already Leo, Patricia Clarkson, Michelle Williams, Mark Ruffalo, and Ben Kingsley. Now The Hollywood Reporter has posted that Max von Sydow, Emily Mortimer, and Jackie Earle Haley have signed on for roles.

Based on Dennis Lehane's novel, the film is a period piece about two U.S. Marshals (DiCaprio and Ruffalo) in 1954 who investigate the disappearance of a murderess from a hospital for the criminally insane on Shutter Island in Massachusetts. "Chaos ensues for the two as they encounter a web of deceit, a hurricane, and a deadly inmate riot that leaves them trapped on the island." Von Sydow will play a hospital physician, and it looks like Clarkson is not the one who will get to play Rachel Solando -- it will be Mortimer. As for Haley, it looks like he'll be making the most out of his post-Watchmen uber-tough physique (the man is an absolute powerhouse these days) -- he'll be playing an inmate. Production will begin March 6.

Cinematical has just received these exclusive photos from Martin Scorsese's upcoming Rolling Stones documentary, Shine a Light. The film, which premiered at this year's Berlin Film Festival to rave reviews and is due out in theaters on April 4, provides extensive coverage of the band's two-night engagement at New York's historic Beacon Theater. Additionally, the doc also features historical footage, interviews and behind-the-scenes footage from decades past. Shine a Light marks Scorsese's third musical-themed documentary, after he previously covered the Band and Bob Dylan in The Last Waltz and No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, respectively. Next up, apparently Marty will be filming a documentary on the life and times of Bob Marley.

A Rolling Stones show directed by Martin Scorsese? I'm there. You? Check out the gallery below for more images from the film. Shine a Light hits theaters on April 4.