As rumors go, at least the latest one surrounding director Paul Thomas Anderson makes a lot more sense than some of the other talk surrounding the gifted director. The Anderson fan site, Cigarettes and Red Vines, has reported on a rumor that's been gaining speed over the last few days: namely, that Anderson will direct the Las Vegas drama Power Play for Paramount. Play has been making the rounds at the studio for 10 years now and was picked up for Robert Evans to produce. Originally, Jack Nicholson was slated to star, and even then, Anderson's name was being bandied about to direct.

Variety Editor-in-Chief Peter Bart wrote the story about "a forward-looking Native American who, having made a fortune on his reservation, decides to take on the gambling elite in Las Vegas. The Vegas players do not take this invasion lightly, especially since their new competitor has also plunged into the exotic world of Internet gambling." Anderson is known to take his sweet time in between projects (much to my dismay), so until we get confirmation, a gal can still dream that we'll see another film by Anderson before too long.

Remember, this is all just idle speculation at this point, so stay tuned to Cinematical for the official word.

[via Big Screen Little Screen]

I spent three days at the very first Marfa Film Festival, plus two days in transit -- more than 1,000 hard miles of driving -- and it was worth every effort to get there; even the post-fest illness that felled me for an entire week. I saw wonderful outdoor screenings, enjoyed some good docs and short films, and witnessed the debut of two music videos directed by Heath Ledger. Oh, and met many friendly local residents, talented filmmakers, and visiting film lovers.

Located in West Texas, roughly halfway between El Paso and San Antonio, the town of Marfa (population 2121) has the rare distinction of being the setting for two recent films that won Academy Awards: No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. Some of the sets for the latter film are still standing, and I traveled there on a sunny afternoon with a small group of intrepid friends over a bumpy, curving, tail-bouncing dirt road that stretched for miles across a ranch just south of town. After depositing our load of bottled water for the opening night reception that would begin a few hours later, we wandered around the fictional town of Little Boston.

As authentically aged and real as the buildings look, it's not a real town, of course, it's a set, meant to evoke Bakersfield, California, circa 1911. Check out the gallery for pictures of the Blood set, visiting filmmakers and other sights of the festival. Read on for more about the festival itself.

"So, ladies and gentlemen, if I say I'm an oil man, you got to agree."

Some will argue that There Will Be Blood should have taken home more Oscars; how it was not only a better film than No Country for Old Men, but a more relevant one -- what with its themes of religion and greed. But it's probably best not to think about such things. We're lucky to have received two of this century's greatest films in one year, and each will be remembered for decades to come. With There Will Be Blood, the brilliant Paul Thomas Anderson has given us his American epic, set in California at the turn of the 20th century. Daniel Day-Lewis (who deserves every inch of that Best Actor Oscar) plays a hungry oil prospector who'll stop at nothing (and sacrifice almost everything) to build an empire of his own. He'll soon find out that, while he most certainly has enemies, the greatest evil is not buried deep below the ground -- it's, instead, deep within him.

Not many people care to admit it, but Hollywood is run by fear. Fear is an emotion generated by things that are not known or understood, and in the movie business, no one ever knows what's going to happen. (William Goldman was right when he said, "Nobody Knows Anything.") All those accountants, producers, publicists, entertainment TV shows, ad campaigns, etc. are all an attempt to get a handle on the unknown, an attempt to control the uncontrollable. Anything can happen. The world's biggest movie star can jump up and down on a couch and suddenly become a weirdo outcast. Or the star of a dismal turkey like Showgirls can turn around and find herself cast in a Woody Allen film. This fear, in essence, is why so many movies are so bad. The more investors and business people try to control their investment, the more they clamp down on it, and the more it gets smothered.

See, movies can live and breathe like an organic life form, but they have to have a chance. If brave producers step back and let the movie come to life in the hands of a genuine artist, they could wind up with something extraordinary like Joel and Ethan Coen's No Country for Old Men (229 screens), a film that somehow pleased critics both highbrow and middlebrow, won a handful of Oscars and has nearly grossed $75 million. This film has already entered the cultural canon as a classic of cinema. More or less the same can be said of Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood (224 screens), which, having lost the Oscar for Best Picture, is now in a position of being an underrated underdog. But those are exceptions to the rule. No one is immune to the fear: a few years back the Coen Brothers teamed up with sleazy producer Brian Grazer, of all people, and came up with their first dud, Intolerable Cruelty.

Just caught There Will Be Blood on DVD last weekend, and though it's after the fact, I'm pretty convinced now that it should have won Best Picture. I haven't yet explored the DVD (which comes out on April 8), but I definitely encourage you to pick this flick up and watch it again, or watch it for the first time. In my opinion, one of the best films in the past 10 years. Without a doubt. But anyway, came across this very cool Paul Thomas Anderson tribute video today and thought we'd share it with you. It's six minutes long, and covers only five films (Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood), but it's cut brilliantly and worth a watch if you, like me, are a die hard PTA fanboy. Whoever cut this must have gotten their hands on a copy of the There Will Be Blood DVD (no, not me -- this would've taken me five years to cut together), so in case you want to go into that film fresh, you may want to skip this.

Additionally, this dude also made videos for Quentin Tarantino and The Coen Brothers, among others. Check them all out if you have some time to kill.

Are films political? Do they fall into left-wing and right-wing camps? I would imagine that not all films have an agenda. Some films can be considered "great uniters," in that they bring together agreeing audiences from all over, films like the $200 million hits I Am Legend (264 screens) and National Treasure: Book of Secrets (177 screens) or a critical favorite like There Will Be Blood (339 screens) that has pleased nearly everyone who has seen it. Of course, There Will Be Blood is about a snaky, sinister, blustery oil baron willing to sacrifice his family, country and humanity for the allure of black gold, which may or may not have a little something to do with current events. (Not to mention that director Paul Thomas Anderson dropped the word "Oil" from the title of the source novel and replaced it with the word "Blood.")

In recent years it has been determined that film critics are a liberal bunch, educated, well-read men and women of letters, who can see and comprehend the human condition in films from different cultures all over the world. Or, they're sometimes known as pompous, ponderous, pretentious, conceited, snooty know-it-alls, lacking in good old-fashioned horse sense. "Why can't you just enjoy the movie," is a question very often asked of critics. Rambo (201 screens) is a fascinating case. It's impressively violent, but very grim and not much fun. Rambo debuted and reigned during the Reagan era (Rambo: First Blood Part II grossed three times the amount of the new film, even with 1985 ticket prices). Bringing him back in a decidedly different political atmosphere didn't seem to work, though the film was screened for the press and earned a few good reviews. It's now starting a downslide, and it's still shy of breaking even on its $50 million budget.

How about this wild-eyed and enthusiastic photo of pretty much the most intelligent film critic in America? Unfortunately, Jonathan Rosenbaum has served notice that he's leaving his staff position at the Chicago Reader after 20 years, in favor of more occasional appearances in print and on the Internet, and the chance to write about other matters besides movies. It's a good time to retire; cinema, once the bravest of the popular arts, is now too often just a part of the entertainment bandwidth, sampling itself relentlessly, following trends like it used to set them.

The 65-year-old critic has been a long-time champion of foreign film, particularly when they're handled poorly by distributors, shelved or re-cut (as Miramax did so many times during the 1990s). His book Movie Wars is essential reading about how studios lead the critics and mislead the public; as he puts it in his 2007 top ten list, the problem is that "each film is supposed to be important when it comes out and is then forgotten soon afterwards." The books Placing Movies and Movies as Politics are two excellent introductions to Rosenbaum's well-informed polemics.

He is, perhaps, at his best when doing a minority report; his essay on Eyes Wide Shut, reprinted in Philip Lopate's collection American Movie Critics, needs to be read by anyone who feels Kubrick's last film is a neglected masterpiece. Rosenbaum dared to fight a lot of the accepted wisdom of his day, such as the suggestion that Woody Allen was better than Jerry Lewis or that Clint Eastwood's Bird is a masterpiece. An exit interview is visible on YouTube, with Rosenbaum describing his plans for the future, elevating the reputation of Ishtar and cutting There Will Be Blood down to size. It's the critic in me that makes me say that this two-part YouTube video goes on for a couple of minutes too long. ...

The double-role has been a favorite for movie audiences for a long time. Actors as different as Lon Chaney and Ronald Colman have indulged in the two-actors-for-the-price-of-one roles. In The Dark Knight, Aaron Eckhart will get to do a two-fer, playing a character who didn't get nearly enough to do in that Joel Schumacher fiasco. (Though I did very much enjoy the bifurcated Tommy Lee Jones' use of the pluralis majestatis, the royal "we.") Few double-roles, however, are as roundly a good time as Brian De Palma's Raising Cain, a reviled but rich melodrama derived in equal parts from Psycho and the equally scandalous Peeping Tom. Preposterous, invigoratingly silly, and done to a technical turn by Hitchcock's most devoted fan, this forgotten thriller gives John Lithgow -- kindly actor and easy-going TV star of Third Rock from the Sun --a chance to show his hulking, evil side.

I

After spending 2006 having the crap scared out of him by Daniel Day Lewis, Paul Dano could probably stand to work on something just a little more light-hearted. The Hollywood Reporter announced that Dano has signed to star in the independent romantic comedy, Gigantic. Dano will star alongside Zooey Deschanel, and plays a mattress salesman who falls in love with a young woman at the store where he works. I can only assume that Deschanel, fresh off of M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening, will play that young woman.

So far, no other cast has been named other than Frank Harts (Miracle at St. Anna). The relatively tiny cast leads me to believe that the film is going to be a pretty small affair. Although now that Dano still has some of that post-Oscar buzz surrounding him (despite being snubbed for a nomination), it could raise the profile of the film ever so slightly.

Gigantic will be directed by first-timer Matt Aselton, who also helped to write the script alongside Adam Nagata (also making his feature debut). Production is set to begin this March in New York, but a date has yet to be confirmed. After Dano finishes up work on Gigantic, he's off to work on another indie film, The Good Heart. Heart will reunite Dano with Brian Cox (the two worked together on L.I.E. back in 2001) in a story about an older man who befriends a young homeless man and makes him is protégé. Well, so much for Dano making more happy-go-lucky flicks. Gigantic is expected to be released later this year.

I have such a huge Oscars hangover this morning. Did anyone theme it for the night? I cooked some mean-ass burgers in honor of Juno, then attempted to make a few milkshakes (in honor of There Will be Blood) before realizing I had no ice cream. Anyone get nutty and make Ratatouille? Anyway, when it comes to the day after the Oscars, talk usually surrounds the big surprises. What were the shockers? Personally, I totally thought Transformers would walk away with at least one Oscar for special effects or sound, and Marion Cotillard winning best actress came somewhat as a surprise. I mean, a French actress winning best actress for a foreign language film that practically NO ONE saw?

And Tilda Swinton? Really? Do cracked-out single mothers not mean anything to the Academy voters? Amy Ryan definitely should've won in that category. Other surprises -- who the hell let Gary Busey onto the red carpet? Did you see him lick Jennifer Garner's neck? Poor girl. Unfortunately, her husband was f**king Jimmy Kimmel at the time and couldn't be there to rescue her. But anyway, last night's biggest upset? In your opinion, who was it? (And is it okay to say that my new crush is Marion Cotillard. Holy crap did she look fantastic!)