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?

Cinematical just received this exclusive poster for What Just Happened? (click to enlarge), which comes to us from director Barry Levinson (Rain Man, Wag the Dog). Based on producer Art Linson's memoir What Just Happened? Bitter Hollywood Tales from the Front Line, the film stars Robert De Niro as a middle-aged Hollywood producer who tries to juggle an actual life with an outrageous series of crises in his day job.

As you can see from the poster, however, this puppy is packed with talent. You've got De Niro, Sean Penn, Bruce Willis, John Turturro, Stanley Tucci, Catherine Keener and the list goes on. When What Just Happened? premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival, Cinematical's James Rocchi described it as "movie geek heaven," saying De Niro produces "his best 'sly' comedic work since (probably) Wag the Dog." And how can you not love that poster and its tagline? Hilarious. Really looking forward to seeing this one when it arrives in a few months. (Check out the full synopsis after the jump)

What Just Happened? is set to hit theaters on October 3.

Nothing fancy this week. I'm tossing darts at the latest trailers and writing up whichever ones I hit. Time now for a random sampling.

Righteous Kill
Robert De Niro and Al Pacino doing a cop movie together? Sounds like a license to print money. The last police drama I saw was the tepid We Own the Night which really soured me on a genre that has already been beaten to death on television, but the star power behind this one sets things at a whole new level (despite some of the uninspired comedies with which De Niro has padded his resume). Our two stars play a pair of world weary police detectives who have no sympathy for the scum who make a mockery of the justice system. Apparently they aren't the only ones who feel this way, because our heroes are soon on the trail of a vigilante killer. As with most teasers it's hard to get a feel for the movie. We get the basic idea of the plot followed by lots of quick cuts set to The Stones' "Sympathy For the Devil." I'm still probably going to see this, but more for who's in the film than what's in the trailer. Here's Monika's take on the trailer.

The Incredible Hulk
The onscreen representation of Marvel Comics' jade giant has come a long way. I first saw him as a crappily animated character who barely moved in the Marvel Superheroes animated series in the 1960s, then as a body builder wearing grease paint and green tights (easier than applying makeup to his shins, I suppose). And let's not forget the 80s animated incarnation whose clothes would magically reappear when he returned to human form. The all CGI version seen in Ang Lee's Hulk made many mistakes, but I think the biggest one was to make his face too sympathetic. The Hulk is not a superhero, people, he's a monster and should look like one. That problem appears to have been addressed in this latest incarnation. This is one badass Hulk, and his foe -- the equally gamma irradiated Abomination -- looks pretty cool too, though his head is tiny. I never thought Eric Bana had much screen presence, and what we see of Edward Norton as the new Bruce Banner has a lot more appeal.

Pictures can only say so much. Now, finally, we can see the action behind the icons for the upcoming Righteous Kill. You remember the flick, right? Jon Avnet's new crime drama brings together Al Pacino and Robert De Niro as two old, tough, New York City cops who are hunting down a vigilante killer, and the teaser is now online over at Yahoo.

It's not much of a tease -- the trailer pretty much lays out the whole story, rather than taunting us with just a voiceover, or a few vague scene shots. I have to say... It looks decent. I'm not thrilled, but I'm also not disappointed. The teaser starts out as some big-beat 8-Mile intro, and then dips into the ever-classic Sympathy for the Devil. It's rather apt, but really, this whole flick isn't about the story. It's about the players.

They may be weathered cops, Pacino and De Niro are two men that make age look tough. And while they might be the draws, and the reason this flick is getting so much buzz, there's also a solid cast behind them -- Carla Gugino, John Leguizamo, Donnie Wahlberg, Brian Dennehy, 50 Cent, Dan Futterman... And, you might notice in the beginning of the trailer that the freed bad guy is Terry Serpico, that tough guy from Michael Clayton, who is almost a dead ringer for Anthony Michael Hall. Separated at birth? I think so.

Righteous Kill will shoot its way to audiences on September 12.

If you're a ravenous movie nerd like me, than there's very little in Barry Levinson's "inside baseball" Hollywood movie What Just Happened? If, on the other hand, you don't know a whole lot about studio politics, the angst of test-market screenings, and the tricks that movie-makers (or, more specifically, movie-sellers) will pull just to get a festival screening and a huge opening weekend, then you'll most likely get a whole bunch of chuckles out of the flick. To those who know about this stuff all too well, the comedy should still make for an interesting enough diversion -- thanks mainly to a massive, colorful cast and a few solid jabs that hit Hollywood right in the kisser.

Based on producer Art Linson's book What Just Happened? Bitter Hollywood Tales from the Front Line, the film version tells the story of one very successful Hollywood producer, and the ways in which he juggles multiple professional crises, as well as some prickly domestic issues at the same time. Robert De Niro is our movie producer, doing his best "sly" comedic work since (probably) Wag the Dog. John Turturro is the archetypal agent: skittish, shifty, and packing a nasty ulcer. Stanley Tucci is the writer who needs our protagonist for professional reasons, but pursues his ex-wife (Robin Wright Penn) for other activities. Michael Wincott is the drug-infested director whose ultra-edgy film is being mangled by horrifying studio boss Catherine Keener.

Toss in some supremely amusing "self-mocking" performances from movie stars Bruce Willis and Sean Penn, and you've got the makings of a flick best described as "movie geek heaven." And while What Just Happened? is by all means a colorful and generally pretty funny expose of modern-day Hollywood, it often feels like Levinson and Linson (he also penned the screenplay adaptation) are content to preach to the choir. It's meant to be outrageous and unbelievable how art turns into pure commerce, but there have been plenty of Hollywood satires that demolish the "test screening" mentality, the "beleaguered producer" conceit, and the oh-so-cynical insinuation that Hollywood has no integrity whatsoever. So while much of the material in What Just Happened? is insightful and accurate ... it's just not all that new or shocking anymore.

Hey, remember that film that received so much hype and controversy only to be released with a whimper and a lot of negative reviews? I'm talking about Death of a President, a non-comedic mockumentary focused on the (fictional) assassination of George W. Bush. I thought it was a terrible movie, and not because I thought it was tasteless. I actually thought the idea was interesting; I just didn't think it was executed well in the style in which it was done. But plenty of others, including my friends and colleagues, liked the darn thing. It even played for a few months (mostly on Saturday nights) at the Pioneer Theater here in New York. Most astonishing, though, is the fact that it won an Emmy Award the other night. Actually, it was an International Emmy, for Best TV Movie/Mini-Series.

I didn't even know the International Emmys existed until the other night. I was walking down a Manhattan street and saw all these people in tuxedos walking up the red carpet to the ceremony. I didn't recognize anyone, but now, for all I know, one of the monkey-suited gents I walked past was DOAP filmmaker Gabriel Range. Not that I would have told him I disliked his movie -- once he had the statue in hand he wouldn't have cared what I thought anyway. Still, Robert DeNiro was apparently at the event, presenting a special award to Al Gore. Others who not only attended but also won include British actor Jim Broadbent, Dutch actor Pierre Bokma, French actress Muriel Robin and Stephen Fry, who features in the Best Documentary-winner Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive.

Putting together last week's list of my favorite screenplays of the 2000's was relatively easy. I came up with about ten worthy candidates and narrowed from there. When I started putting together this week's list -- my favorite screenplays of the 1990's -- things got a lot more complicated. I had a much larger list of worthy candidates to choose from. It made me realize that a) the 90's, particularly the late 90's, was a genuinely incredible time for film, and b) I was going to have to split my list into two halves: 1995 -- 1999 and 1990 -- 1994.

So, in support of all the great screenwriters currently on strike, what follows is my favorite screenplays produced between 1995 and 1999. Read that last sentence carefully! If you've got movies you'd add to or subtract from my list, I would love to hear them, but make sure your choice fits the criteria. On my 2000's list, I was getting comments like "How DARE you not include Citizen Kane, you freaking idiot?"

Now then, with all apologies to the scripts it killed me to leave off (Office Space, A Simple Plan, As Good As it Gets, Chasing Amy, Lone Star, Three Kings, Swingers, Jackie Brown, Kingpin, I could go on and on), here is my alphabetical list:

It's not much of a secret that Francis Ford Coppola did The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II in order to work on more personal films, particularly The Conversation. So, it isn't that surprising to find out neither those two nor The Godfather: Part III are among his personal favorites. According to Page Six, Coppola considers his five best films to be Apocalypse Now, Rumble Fish, The Rain People, his upcoming Youth Without Youth and, obviously, The Conversation, which also happens to be my favorite of his work. This shortlist comes from the next issue of Time magazine, which also includes a continuation of a lengthy two-part profile on the filmmaker. Within the article, Coppola suggests that it's his films that took awhile for critics to appreciate, like Apocalypse, or awhile for audiences to discover, like Rain People, that he prefers.

None of this should upset his fans; they still love The Godfather trilogy, and at least his other monument, Apocalypse, is included. It isn't like he selected Jack or Captain EO. Also in Time is Coppola's clarification of his alleged chiding of Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino and Jack Nicholson, which apparently was taken out of context. He told reporters at the Rome Film Festival, where Youth premiered last month, that his comments in GQ weren't true, that he has "nothing but respect and admiration" for the three actors, who he considers the best in the world, as well as his friends. However, he wouldn't address the original comments specifically for Time's article. Other things that were discussed in the profile include Coppola's next film, Tetro, which will begin shooting in Argentina in February, despite the recent robbery. Youth Without Youth, which sounds a lot better to me since Coppola lumped it with my own favorites of his films, is set to hit U.S. theaters (NYC and L.A.) December 14.

Any fan of modern crime fiction has got to be a little jazzed about this news: The long-in-development adaptation of Don Winslow's crime novel The Winter of Frankie Machine now has a star and a director -- and it's the same team who gave us the modern crime classic Heat. Variety reports that Paramount's production, which has been on their development slate since the studio bought the rights to Winslow's novel pre-publication back in 2005, is moving forward with Michael Mann on-board to direct the long-attached Robert De Niro in the lead role. Winslow may be the best crime writer you've never heard of; his California Fire and Life is certainly my pick for one of the best page-turning thrillers of the past 20 years, and his decades-spanning, border-crossing drug epic The Power of the Dog is a knockout as well. The Winter of Frankie Machine will be shooting from a script adaptation by Brian Kopplman and David Levien (Rounders, Oceans 13), following the reluctant re-criminalization of Frank Machianno -- veteran, small businessman, surfer and ex-killer -- as all his old allegiances and alliances draw very close around him.

In a lot of ways, Winslow's book is about how easily civilized, upstanding San Diegan Frank Machianno goes back to being Frankie Machine, descending Dante-style into Hell to try and get out; it's a juicy part for De Niro, one similar to some of his more iconic roles and yet very different; Winslow's book makes no bones about the age of its protagonist, and Frank's sense of honor will make for ripe stuff in the hands of the men who created the principled-yet-predatory jewel thief Neil McCauley in Heat. With Mann on board as the director, this film just moved up several notches on my radar; now, if we can just get Peter Berg to return to that film version of California Fire and Life he was supposedly attached to, it'd be a very good time to be a fan of California crime on the big screen. ...

Well he might not have his Capone yet, but Brian DePalma is still determined to bring his Untouchables prequel to the big screen. MTV Movies Blog reports that DePalma will likely make The Untouchables: Capone Rising his next film. DePalma tells MTV that they still have not cast their Capone (played by Robert De Niro in the original film), but that he was looking for an actor with "...that street animal sexuality" -- and this just might be me, but Nicolas Cage is not the first person to come to mind with that particular description (although, I guess it doesn't matter now). Gerard Butler (300) is attached to play Jimmy Malone -- a role made famous by Sean Connery (I can still picture the overacting 20 years later... "You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. *That's* the *Chicago* way"). But, it did get the man his only Oscar, so you can never tell.

DePalma told MTV that the story will focus on "[Jimmy Malone]'s relationship with Capone during Capone's rise". News of a prequel first emerged around this time last year; so here we are a year later, and not all that much has been accomplished. DePalma did make assurances that the film would be keeping as much of the original feel of the 1987 flick as possible, saying, "I would like to use a lot of the original music from 'The Untouchables,' (which means the amazing score from Ennio Morricone will return) and the original locations in Chicago." I wonder if that will include giving the cast some snazzy costumes from Armani again. Until DePalma finds his Capone, though, he probably won't be 'rising' anytime soon.