My indie pick of the week is Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited; which our own Monika Bartyzel has already reviewed elsewhere. My next pick is a film that Cinematical's Scott Weinberg recommended: Death at a Funeral. The title may be misleading: it's a comedy directed by Frank Oz (Little Shop of Horrors, What About Bob?) and Scott described it as "a very broad, very British and very funny farce ... that will definitely appeal to people over the age of 30." MGM's DVD includes an audio commentary by Mr. Oz, another by screenwriter Dean Craig and actors Alan Tudyk and Andy Nyman, and a gag reel.

New Oscar winner Javier Bardem also starred in last year's Goya's Ghosts, a bio-pic directed by Milos Forman; Ryan Stewart wrote: "It just comes across as odd and indicative of a serious lack of directorial focus." He further stated: "If it were not the work of a major director, it's hard to imagine why anyone would suffer the mental agitation of trying to figure out how its various pieces fit together ..." Ryan explained his disappointment very well, but if you're a glutton for punishment -- or a huge, huge fan of Bardem and co-star Natalie Portman -- you might decide to rent the DVD from Samuel Goldwyn, which includes a behind-the-scenes featurette.

What in the name of...? Anthony Hopkins goes way, way, way off the deep end with Slipstream, a straight-outta-crazyland film written and directed by the actor in some sort of feverish attempt to mimic the work of former The Elephant Man collaborator David Lynch. It's Hopkins' very own Inland Empire, minus the inspiration and double the stylistic wackiness, with so many flash cuts, insert shots, freeze frames, rewinds, fast-forwards, color changes, perspective switches, discordant soundtrack noises and repeated scenes (featuring cast members in various roles) that it takes only a few short minutes for one's brain to start hurting from madness overload. And that isn't even a full list of all the tricks and gimmicks employed throughout this awe-inspiringly loony evisceration of Hollywood, the filmmaking process and - given its own awfulness - maybe art-house cinema as well. Who knows? To say Hopkins is going for something a tad more avant-garde than the standard fare in which he usually participates is to say that black is slighter darker than white. Slipstream is straight-up bonkers, a deliberately unintelligible and aesthetically insane head-trip into the fractured mind of its protagonist, screenwriter Felix Bonhoeffer (Hopkins).

You'd think that after an epic geek classic like TRON, the writer/director would at least have a successful career for a number of years to come, if not many of his future years. However, after making the sci fi flick, Steven Lisberger's film work pretty much tanked. He followed the sci-fi classic with Hot Pursuit, and then directed one more -- Slipstream -- before slipping off the radar. After that, he wrote a TRON sequel, but that never got anywhere and things looked grim. He says that he became jaded until a fan perked him up. Variety is reporting that the writer/director took on the brainchild of IGN's Jessica Chobot, and penned a new futuristic film called Soul Code, which Reliant Pictures has just bought.

As the story goes, the two chatted at a TRON screening, and he was taken by her idea. He then wrote the script about a "tech pioneer who has perfected a way to download and transfer a person's memory. [The] script examines what happens when her memory is placed into a much younger woman's body," and now he gets to direct it as well. It's definitely got the makings for a cool story -- one to please both geek and non-geek crowds. I'm hoping they dip into not only the ramifications of memory transferral, but how much, if any, mannerisms and actions go with that. I'm thinking something like the Faith/Buffy switch. Lisberger says: "Jess is not a film person -- she was a fan -- and that was refreshing. She wasn't double-thinking what the audience wants; she was the audience." I'm hoping she's thought about the mannerisms (or that he has, for that matter), but what would you like to see with Steven's return to science fiction?

When I got my Entertainment Weekly Fall Movie Preview in the mail the other day, I was excited to see that Anthony Hopkins' Slipstream was to be released October 26. But the film, which is Hopkins' debut as a screenwriter (he has directed before), didn't seem to have a distributor. Well, now it has one, but it's a bit smaller than I would have expected or hoped. Strand Releasing picked up domestic rights and will give the film a limited release on the date given by EW. The real exposure will apparently come with video, as Sony will put out the DVD sometime (probably early) next year. Hopkins recently won directing and acting honors for Slipstream at the Locarno International Film Festival, but the film is supposedly not even worthy of theatrical distribution. Variety's review from Sundance says, "without the name of Hopkins and those of cast members mixing usually reliable stars and actors, project would be commercially DOA; only a minuscule theatrical window seems possible, with most curiosity seekers wading through the undoubtedly extras-filled DVD."

Well, call me one of the curiosity seekers. Slipstream, which co-stars Christian Slater, John Turturro, Michael Clarke Duncan, Jeffrey Tambor and Camryn Manheim, is described by Hopkins as "a comedy of the absurd," and that is actually good enough for me. Of course, mainstream audiences don't share the same interest in weird stuff, so I guess the small release is fair. Another thing that doesn't really appeal to normal moviegoers is films about filmmaking, and Slipstream is set in the movie biz. It follows a screenwriter (Hopkins) working on a murder-mystery who has trouble discerning the difference between the real world and the one he's written. According to the Hollywood Reporter synopsis, "his brain begins to implode, captured in the film through a nonlinear, hallucinogenic narrative." I can't wait, even if it is as bad as they say.

Wednesday marks the kick-off of the 60th anniversary of the film festival in Locarno, located on Lake Maggiore in the southern part of Switzerland (nearest to Italy). The signature event of the festival is the Piazza Grande program, where up to 8,000 people can watch one or two movies each night on a giant screen in the open air. If, like me, you're stuck at home, they have a webcam set up to make you jealous. The picturesque setting looks like a really fun way to see Knocked Up, The Bourne Ultimatum, or Hairspray. Planet Terror, Robert Rodriguez's full blown 105-minute version of his Grindhouse segment, will be shown, along with a warning: "Some scenes might hurt spectators feelings." But there are also screenings of Hou Hsiao-hsien's Flight of the Red Balloon, Luchino Visconti's 1951 Bellissima, the world premiere of Kenneth Bi's The Drummer, documentaries, short films and other non-Hollywood fare.

Of the 19 films in the International Competition, 13 are world premieres and 11 are by first or second-time filmmakers. I've already written about Thieves, from Spain; there's also Anthony Hopkins' intensely personal Slipstream, George Ratliff's critically-berated Joshua and Masahiro Kobayashi's newest, The Rebirth. Extraordinary Rendition, from the UK, has an explosive subject: the kidnapping of terrorist suspects by the CIA. Argentine director Sandra Gugliotta, who previously made the starkly affecting drama A Lucky Day, returns with another personal drama, Las Vidas Posibles. In the other sections, stand-outs include Chris Fuller's exciting youth drama Loren Cass, which played at CineVegas and earned a rave review in Variety. With so many world premieres and generally less-heralded films in the program, I'm hoping that a few more will break out and get some good reviews so we can learn more about them. The Locarno festival runs from August 1-11.

We reported a few months ago on Anthony Hopkins' painfully personal, ambitious-sounding Slipstream, which he wrote, stars in, directs, and also composed the music for. The movie, which is being made with a small-ish indie budget, is a noir-comedy "about a man, who's caught in a slipstream of time falling back on itself and he remembers his own future," and stems from Hopkins' own "wild thoughts about God, life and death." Hey, I said it was personal.

Already in the ensemble cast with Hopkins are Gena Rowlands and superstar thespian Christian Slater, and that duo has recently been joined by a massive flood of actors, all of whom are apparently eager to work on the weirdest-sounding (apart, maybe, from The Science of Sleep) project of the last year or so. According to today's Hollywood Reporter, all of the following are now caught (ah ha ha) in Slipstream: John Turturro, Camryn Manheim, Jeffrey Tambor, S. Epatha Merkerson, Fionnula Flanagan, Christopher Lawford and Michael Clark Duncan. Whew.

Production began this week in LA; no word yet on a possible release date.

Between bouts of chewing scenery and turning in the occasion great performance, Anthony Hopkins has been working on the screenplay for Slipstream, a movie he not only wrote and composed the music for, but will also direct. The film, which sounds ambitious to say the least, is "about a man, who's caught in a slipstream of time falling back on itself and he remembers his own future." Oh boy. I'm not saying, mind you, that this HAS to be a disaster, but how in the world is Hopkins going to portray that story without it being either incomprehensible or incredibly I Love Life! cheesy? He's also so close to the project that it's hard to imagine he'll be able to see any possible flaws, what with it being loosely based on his own "wild thoughts about God, life and death" and all.

Set to star in the film alongside Hopkins (yes, he's acting in it, also) are Gena Rowlands and -- wait for it -- Christian Slater. That's right, Anthony Hopkins is going to be directing Christian Slater. I bet neither of them every dreamed this day would come. According to Production Weekly, many of the film's stars will be playing multiple roles; production begins this summer.