Just what would you expect from a white, cutie student from The Jane Austen Book Club (or the dysfunctional son from Transamerica) and Spike Lee? Believe it or not, Lee is executive producing a new indie film called The Perfect Age of Rock 'n' Roll, and Variety reports that Kevin Zegers (the cutie student) and Jason Ritter (The Education of Charlie Banks) will star.

Written by Scott Rosenbaum, who is also directing, the film focuses on "a rock star (Zegers) who retreats to his Long Island hometown after his sophomore album flops." Oh, the woes of stardom. So, in this story, we'll also see the likes of Peter Fonda, Taryn Manning, Lauren Holly, Aimee Teegarden, and James Ransone -- plus, appearances by music names like Billy Morrison, Pinetop Perkins, Hubert Sumlin, and Sugar Blue.

There's not enough information to really get a handle on the story, but I'm in just to see who Peter Fonda will play. Production on the film has already begun in New Jersey, New York, and Los Angeles, so we should know more soon.

Oh, Hellboy, Vincent, or whatever character you prefer Ron Perlman has. The man has done about a billion different shows, movies, and parts, and if you look at his IMDb page, there's a sea of upcoming production red -- a whopping 17 gigs coming our way. I can't complain -- I really dig the man. And now, we're getting more; he's adding an indie film to make it 18.

The Hollywood Reporter posts that Perlman is teaming up with Taryn Manning, Joe Pantoliano, and Patrick Flueger to bring Shem Bitterman's 1998 play, The Job, to the big screen. The dark comedy focuses on "a hapless man named Bubba (Flueger) who is desperate to find a job and marry the woman he loves (Manning). A drifter (Perlman) hooks him up with a slick employment agent (Pantoliano), but after agreeing to the job, Bubba finds that he is in over his head."

That sounds like a crappy employment agent to me -- or, is this over-the-head gig something more unsavory, rather than just difficult? Production on the indie has started today in Detroit, so we should be able to see it soon enough. Have any of you out there ever seen the play? Do you think it's movie-worthy?

I dunno... There may be something to this "secret" thing. Just yesterday I wished that Henry Rollins would make the movie rounds again, and I wake up today to find out that he is. However, this is probably more a case of good timing, since I imagine this whole deal was made before my wish. Anyhow, The Hollywood Reporter has listed the cast that are a part of an upcoming action thriller currently called the Untitled Gehenna Project. It's strange, diverse, and kind of irresistible -- Cuba Gooding Jr., Taryn Manning, Ron Perlman, Henry Rollins, Valerie Cruz (The Dresden Files), and Ray Winstone have joined a cast that includes Jason London (the Dazed one, not the mallrat), Franky G (Saw), Zack Ward (Transformers), Stephanie Jacobson (Razor), Bill Moseley (Repo! The Genetic Opera), Sarah Ann Morris (Las Vegas), and Brandon Fobbs (The Wire).

The only thing more surprising than that group of actors is what they get to do. It seems that the film is about a group of elite soldiers who are on a covert mission "to retrieve a missing scientist from an undergound lab." Cruz sends them on the mission, and Perlman is the scientist -- so far, so believable. But get this -- the group consists of Gooding, London, G, Ward, and Manning. Yes, Taryn Manning is an elite soldier. While this strange collection of tough guys/girl are on their mission, they happen upon a priestly Rollins, "who tells them that an 'ancient evil' has been released, causing their greatest fears to come to life." (Team him up with Cheech's tough priest in Machete and they'd be an unstoppable force of religious power.) Rounding things out is Winstone, who is the ed-head of the group, and Moseley and Morris, who are part of the research team.

Keith Kjornes wrote the script, and it's going to be directed by Jason Connery, who just happens to be 007 Sean's son. The script sounds like any strange thriller, but man, this cast is weird enough that it could be completely enjoyable, in that pulp sort of way.

Remember that upcoming thriller about the woman who thinks it's a good idea to starve and isolate herself for a month to rid herself of her mental issues? Well, that's Waking Madison, and The Hollywood Reporter have posted the next round of cast members. Disturbia's Sarah Roemer is already set to star as the woman who "locks herself in her apartment for 30 days with no food, telephone, or outside stimuli," and Elisabeth Shue was cast as her doctor. Now we've got Frances Conroy, Will Patton, and word on Taryn Manning's character.

Conroy, who made a neurotic name for herself as Ruth Fisher on Six Feet Under, has been pretty well-cast as Dolly, "Madison's mother and a religious zealot who has her own mental-health issues," while Patton, who was most recently in A Mighty Heart, will play her dad, who is "loving but emotionally absent." Yet somehow, even though Madison has got a whole life of dysfunction, she thinks starving herself for a month will help heal her. Anyhow, Manning, whose casting has been listed on the film's website for a while, is playing Margaret -- "a fellow patient with sociopathic tendencies who resides at the psychiatric hospital with Madison." I'm not sure how Roemer's character can live in a hospital and an apartment, but we'll see soon enough. (Fie vague, confusing plot descriptions!) Production begins in New Orleans today.

While it might sound like some sort of Adam Sandler comedy, Waking Madison is actually an indie thriller from writer/director Katherine Brooks. A woman named Madison, who lives in New Orleans, is suffering from multiple personalities. She makes her money with phone sex, and "is doing everything she can to lead a normal life." A bunch of things happen to leave her desperate and suicidal, so she locks herself in her apartment for a whopping 30 days to try and heal herself. She has a video camera to use as a video journal, and vows to kill herself on the 30th day, if she doesn't feel more at peace by the end of her isolation. Variety says that she's without telephone or outside stimuli, but the film's website says she's doing it with the help of Dr. Elizabeth Barnes -- either the doc is in there with her, or has contact with her somehow. Of course, since this is a thriller, there's also a "climactic twist."

The way Variety describes it -- as a woman who locks herself away, alone, to cure her illness, sounds pretty silly, but considering the summary on the film's website, it sounds like this thriller will be more than that. Sarah Roemer, who was Shia LaBeouf's love interest in Disturbia, has signed on to star as Madison, and Elisabeth Shue, of babysitting fame, will play the doctor. On the film's website, Brooks says that they've also cast Taryn Manning as Margaret, Erin Kelly as Grace, and Imogen Poots as Alexis. It'll be interesting to see what Brooks makes of the female-centric cast, and I'm curious to see how Roemer will handle what looks to be a pretty intensive role.

While they haven't started filming, production begins in New Orleans on November 5, the indie's website is already pretty impressive. There's video, blogs, informations, chat rooms, forums, as well as a member's area where you can sign up for extra content and to even help pick the cast. It really seems like Brooks knows how to get the message out. Her own story, which is on the site as well, is pretty interesting to boot. She ran away from Louisiana at 16, to go to California with a measly $150, and ten years later she's become pretty darned successful. I, for one, can't wait to see what she does with this!

Oh, Taryn Manning. Sure, she occasionally tackles a different role here and there, but for the most part, she's made her career on a mixture of cinematic drugs, sex, and hooking over and over again. It's gotten to the point where you kind of wonder if that's what her career will amount to. But maybe it'll change now that's she trading in the needles for some flashy robotics. She is co-starring with Bill Pullman in the recently-wrapped Your Name Here, which Cinematical first told you about last year. (Note: The Matthew Wilder who wrote and directed this film is not the music guy.)

It's sort of a biography of Philip K. Dick, but it's being done sort of like Fur -- using his writing and fake world rather than being a straight-out biopic. (Pullman's name in the movie is William J. Frick.) MTV recently talked with the actress and got the scoop on the movie, which is currently being submitted for next year's Sundance. She plays Nikki, who is based on Victoria Principal (the woman Dick wanted to play the lead in Blade Runner).

As Manning describes it, Frick is "infatuated with my character... she starred in that movie Earthquake, and he is obsessed with her even though he has a wife. All around his office you see pictures of me. One day, he does a huge line, and the next thing you know he's in the back of a limo, and there I am!" Well, there she is as a robot. Manning says Frick "can't tell if it's a dream or I'm really there, and the next thing you know, I'm taking him into my world. [He thinks] we're going to live happily ever after." It's zany enough that it could actually be entertaining, and if Taryn is believed, it will be: "It's deep; the writer is great; and it's kooky. I think it'll be another cool cult movie."

I didn't know it at the time, but I was first introduced to Allan Moyle in Squeeze Play, when he was the "Wet T-Shirt Waterboy." The flick is an old, risque adult comedy that my friend and I would sneakily watch late at night during sleepovers (when we were way too young for the buttocks-ball-catching material). But it wasn't until the '90s that Moyle hit his stride, directing two music-laden, teen cult classics -- my beloved Pump Up the Volume and the goofy yet lovable Empire Records. After that, he was teen-tuckered out and made a few forgettable movies with Baldwin brothers and the surprisingly mellow New Waterford Girl. But now he has revisited some of his previous music magic with the quirky, Canadian black comedy -- Weirdsville.

The flick is pretty much Harold and Kumar meets Bubble Boy, but take away the Fabio-freaks and add in some Satanists. Wes Bentley's Royce and Scott Speedman's Dexter are stoners who hang out with a waifish escort named Matilda (Taryn Manning -- what a surprise). They owe a drug dealer named Omar (Raoul Bhaneja) a big chunk of change, so they strike up an agreement to sell drugs to pay it off. But Royce and Matilda speed through the stash in a marathon week of drugging, and now the trio is without the money or drugs to pay Omar back. Oh, and Matilda has OD'd and died.

Early on, I learned that with rites of passage comes horror and mayhem. Jason terrorized summer campers and Carrie got showered in pig's blood. As a teen, Randy's Scary Movie Rules taught me that sex and alcohol would lead to certain death. Yet I never really saw horror movies delve into high school graduation, let alone college. As grads plan to enter their adult life, I wonder what could be more fitting than throwing them into blood-filled turmoil while they're high on feelings of relief. I am, therefore, happy to report that Chris Moore, producer of Project Greenlight and the American Pie movies, will be handing us a serving of graduation mayhem in his directorial debut, Killers.

Taryn Manning, Agnes Bruckner, and Patrick Flueger are set to star as a group of college grads who conveniently decide to celebrate in a remote location. Unfortunately, their festivities turn into a nightmare as they're terrorized by a killer who forces them into a deadly game where they have to kill each other to survive. It sounds like the bases are covered. A cast of attractive young actors has been collected, and they'll be isolated, desperate, and at the whim of a sadistic killer. On paper, it reads like a classic horror film.

What promises to be more interesting, however, is the film's new director. Moore is known for his no-holds-barred criticism of directors on Greenlight. Will he be able to live up to his own standards? Or, will his directorial plans begin and end with Killers?

[via The Hollywood Reporter]

After writing and directing the wildly popular Pump Up the Volume, Allan Moyle picked up his filmmaking pace (to that point he'd been averaging about a movie every decade), and enjoyed moderate indie-style success with The Gun in Betty Lou's Handbag and Empire Records. Since then, however, it's been 10 years of relative silence (apart, I mean from his brilliant TV movie, Man in the Mirror: The Michael Jackson Story) from the director.

According to this morning's Variety, Moyle back, this time with an indie film with enough cute boys in it to guarantee both a release and a solid audience of teenage girls. Set to star Scott Speedman, Wes Bentley (where the hell has he been, anyway?) and Hustle & Flow's Taryn Manning, Weirdsville is about two "hapless slackers" - that's industry code for morons - who, while trying to bury the body of their buddy who (oops) just ODed, "stumble on a satanic cult performing a ritual." Oh, and it's a comedy. Of course it is. Written by Willem Wennekers, the movie is being produced by Darius Films, a small, Toronto-based company, and has already secured US and Canadian distribution - we should see it sometime next year.