Nowadays, computer-generated imagery makes it possible to create just about anything the mind can conceive, but there is nothing quite like a man-made recreation of an ancient civilization to inspire awe. As Monika Bartyzel told us last month, Alejandro Amenabar has been busy preparing his next film, Agora, which takes place in Ancient Egypt. Rachel Weisz will star as an astrologer/philosopher battling to save "the collected wisdom of the world" as religious riots flare and threaten the fabled Library of Alexandria. Max Minghella will also star as her slave (nice work if you can get it).

Agora is being filmed on the island of Malta, and Times of Malta has a picture of one of the giant sets. (Click through for a large photo.) The article says that the production marks a series of firsts for the island, including the fact that "many Maltese are being employed in roles and crew positions that are usually taken up by foreigners."

Pre-production on the island began last October, with 76 shooting days scheduled. The English-language film is due to wrap by the end of June. Agora marks the long-awaited return to directing for Amenabar, who last made The Sea Inside. That claustrophobic drama was a change of pace for Amenabar, who previously had been known for making thrillers like Open Your Eyes and The Others. Agora is definitely his most ambitious production to date, but it sounds like it could be a promising combination of intelligent thrills and historical drama.

[ Via Latino Review ]

Back in February, I briefly mentioned through a casting bite that Alejandro Amenabar was gearing up for his next film, and had cast Rachel Weisz and Homayoun Ershadi from The Kite Runner. Now Variety has fleshed out the whole project. It's called Agora, the filmmaker wrote it with Mateo Gil, and it will be Amenabar's second English-language feature, after The Others.

Rachel Weisz and Max Minghella (Art School Confidential) star in the film, which takes place in Ancient Egypt. More specifically, Weisz will play the astrologer-philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria, in Roman Egypt during the fourth century. "Trapped in the Library of Alexandria as religious riots flare on the city's streets, Hypatia battles to save the collected wisdom of the ancient world. Meanwhile, her slave Davus (Minghella) is torn between his love for his mistress and the freedom he could attain by joining the rising tide of Christianity." Aside from Ershadi, Oscar Isaac, Ashraf Barhom, Michael Lonsdale, and Rupert Evans have roles.

Amenabar plans to use a "hyper-realist approach" to bring Alexandria to life, and says: "We want the audience to see, feel and smell a remote civilization as if it were as real as the present day." To me, it definitely sounds worth is, and is certainly better than Weisz doing a million Mummy sequels. Are you ready to get dirty in Ancient Egypt?

The Dylan Thomas romance feature, The Best Time of Our Lives, hasn't even begun shooting yet and Cillian Murphy and new co-star Sienna Miller have already signed on for another film together, along with Max Minghella and Emma Booth. Instead of jealous husbands and romantic rivalries, they'll be doing the Hippie Hippie Shake. Sounds like saccharine sixties sock hop, doesn't it? Well, it makes more sense when you hear the full title of the memoir it's coming from -- Richard Neville's Hippie Hippie Shake: The Dreams, the Trips, the Trials, the Love-ins, the Screw Ups: The Sixties.

Neville (Murphy) was the co-founder of Oz, a sixties re-plant from Australia that stretched artistic technique in magazines just as much as it stretched the limits of content. Just like Lenny Bruce was pestered stateside, Oz and its creators found themselves part of the longest obscenity trial of its time. In 1970, in an attempt to get back in touch with youth, they had a bunch of school kids edit an issue. Between the young help and the "obscene" content, they finally pissed off the Obscene Publications Squad enough and found themselves in court. Neville and the other defendants were first found guilty, but an appeal was successful -- as long as they stopped publishing Oz.

The film will be directed by Beeban Kidron, whose past films don't prove that exciting. She helmed To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. That being said, she also won a BAFTA award for a television adaptation of a Jeanette Winterson novel, so maybe she can make something better than her more bland cinema forays. On the other hand, Lee Hall, who wrote Billy Elliot, is adapting the memoir, so that should mean good things. The film gears up this fall.

A few month ago, we reported the exciting news that a film version of Michael Chabon's The Mysteries of Pittsburgh was in the works. (For those of you not familiar with the book, it's a coming-of-age story set in Pittsburgh during the 1980s, and focuses on Art Bechstein and the unconventional group of friends he makes during his last summer "of his youth.") At that time, Sienna Miller, Peter Sarsgaard and Max Minghella were already signed to star in the film, with Minghella playing Bechstein. It looks, however, as if things have changed: Production Weekly is reporting that Jon Foster (known primarily for his work on NBC's summer series Windfall, and a starring role in Stay Alive) is now playing Bechstein, and there's no indication of what might have happened to Minghella. The PW story also reveals that Mena Suvari has joined the cast in the role of Phlox, a "worldly, exotic, and slightly eccentric" member of Bechstein's posse.

The movie is slated to go into production in early September under the direction of screenwriter Rawson Marshall Thurber.

Michael Chabon is in the news again. Last week, Erik reported that Natalie Portman was considering a role in the screen version of Chabon's mindblowingly wonderful The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (for fans of the book, Chabon himself offers a great update on the movie over at his blog, including what elements of his work will be included, and which have been cut from the screenplay), and now Production Weekly is reporting that the cast is in place for The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, which is based on Chabon's first novel. Set to star in the film, a coming-of-age story set in 1980s Pittsburgh, are Sienna Miller, Peter Sarsgaard, and Max Minghella. The novel focuses on Art Bechstein (to be played by Minghella), and the group of friends he meets during "the last summer of [his] youth." Among the group are "the witty and beautiful Arthur Lecomte [uncast], "the equally stunning Jane (Miller), her boyfriend, the legendary Cleveland (Sarsgaard), and worldly, exotic, and slightly eccentric Phlox [also uncast]." Whoa. So, if nothing else, this is going to be a damn pretty movie.

One of the main concerns of the novel seems to be sexual identity; it'll be interesting to see in what direction screenwriter-director Rawson Marshall Thurber takes the film. (Personally, I'm immediately prejudiced against him because he's wearing a Manchester United jersey in his IMDb photo.) Production begins next month in Pittsburgh; the film is due out in 2007.

Talk about getting mileage out of a metaphor. On our Sundance video podcast, James Rocchi cracked that last year's Sundance hit Saw reminded him of David Fincher's Seven ... as performed by the Max Fischer Players, the grade school company spearheaded by the protagonist of Rushmore. I tried to come up with my own analogy to bring to the table, in discussing Art School Confidential, Terry Zwigoffs latest collaboration with Ghost World creator Daniel Clowes, but James' framework just seemed so very apt. So, in 25 words or less: Art School Confidential is exactly what would happen if the Max Fischer Players tackled Heathers. In other words, it's a stilted satire of teenage passion and apathy, sex and death and crime. And like a classic Max Fischer production (if such a thing exists), it's so concerned with aping style that it never bothers to consider its characters as people.