Did you know this? I'm not exactly sure why, but news about Serious Moonlight isn't really getting released. I posted about the project back in October -- the film was written by the late Adrienne Shelly, is being produced by her widower, and had Cheryl Hines (who co-starred in Waitress) attached to direct. Sure, it's not the biggest selection of names, but after the shock that was Shelly's murder, and the positive reaction to Waitress, one would think that news about the feature would continue to roll in, especially when bigger names signed on.

While reading Lou Lumenick's current post about Meg Ryan, he mentioned the film and its stars -- Kristen Bell and Justin Long. So, I headed over to IMDb, and yes, the cast stars Veronica Mars and the ol' Apple guy, plus Ryan and Timothy Hutton. Did some press release get lost? The film was cast, and is already in post-production!

The big screen is about to get lymey. Variety reports that Derick and Steven Martini's dramedy Lymelife is finally getting made, and it's got a solid cast along for the ride. Alec Baldwin and Emma Roberts lead the pack, followed by Cynthia Nixon (Sex and the City), Rory Culkin (Zodiac), Kieran Culkin (Igby Goes Down), Jill Hennessy (Crossing Jordan), and Timothy Hutton (The Last Mimzy).

A retro piece taking place in late '70s Long Island, the coming-of-age project focuses on "two families who fall apart when precarious relationships, real estate problems, and Lyme disease converge in the heart of suburbia." It's a film that the brothers have been trying to get made for years. The project was developed during the 2001 Sundance Filmmakers Lab, and experimental scenes were even shot with Kieran. (He's since been replaced by Rory, as he's grown too old for his original role. He'll now play an older brother.) Heck, even Baldwin has been attached to the project for years, so while the film might have struggled to get to this point, there's something in it that has a long-term hold on two of the main players.

Filming gets underway next week in New Jersey, and the picture has a tentative release date for January 2009.

Stephanie Daley revolves around the actions of its titular character, a quiet, well-spoken sixteen-year-old girl played by Amber Tamblyn, who gets herself pregnant on the first try, carries the child to term and then delivers it in an isolated bathroom during a ski trip and suffocates it with toilet paper. Collapsing from blood loss in the snow minutes afterwards, her situation is immediately discovered and becomes a sensation for the media, which tags her with one of those disposable, insensitive monikers designed to grab a fickle audience and hold them for a few minutes: 'the ski mom.' In a neat dramatic contrivance, Daley, as preparation for her criminal trial, is ordered to be evaluated by 40-something forensic psychologist Lydie Crane (Tilda Swinton) who is heavily pregnant after a long and draining struggle to be so -- a struggle that included a prior pregnancy resulting in stillbirth. We eventually learn that, against the wishes of her now distant husband, Lydie chose to have that stillborn disposed of like medical waste rather than be given a name or a funeral service.

Tamblyn's role in Stephanie Daley's double act is largely a thankless one, since her task is to be mostly inscrutable during her interview sessions with Swinton's character, giving the audience no 'in' as to why an otherwise mannered, seemingly thoughtful girl would take such a drastic step to rid herself of a baby instead of seeking out an abortion or carrying and then giving it up for adoption. When Stephanie does speak, she often talks about being judged by God or spouts one-liners so loaded as to make the audience feel that they may be watching a character trying to make a play for an insanity defense -- at one point, she casually references a 'jinx' that hovers over her existence. Are we supposed to view Stephanie as remarkably contemplative for her age or just as a teenager who has seen enough Law & Order to know that she better come up a damn good reason for why she did what she did? That there's no clear answer is dramatically intriguing up to a point, but it's also frustrating.

The always-reliable Timothy Hutton is front and center in the Spanish sci-fi production The Kovak Box -- but it's 78-year-old veteran character actor David Kelly who steals the movie whole. That's not to imply that the pair of performances is all that Daniel Monzon's flick has to offer; on the contrary, it's quite the nifty little mind-bender that I'd heard it was. Sort of a feature-length Twilight Zone episode that gets progressively stranger and more aggressive as it plays on, The Kovak Box is a low-key, compelling and surprisingly crisp little experience.

Hutton plays a famous science-fiction writer named David Norton. He and his girlfriend are attending a conference at a swanky hotel on the island of Mallorca. Things go more than a little haywire after Norton's girlfriend (actually, fiancee by this point) leaps out of the hotel window and splatters herself all over the street. (I'm not spoiling anything; this scene arrives within the first seven minutes.) Meanwhile in another section of the island, a young woman called Silvia picks up her phone, hears a tinny recording of Billie Holiday's "Gloomy Sunday," and promptly leaps out her own window. Unlike Norton's fiancee, Silvia survives her plummet.

Movie folk usually don't put enough effort into naming their flicks. While there are a lot of great movies out there, many of them have the blandest and simple names you can get. The Spider-Man series is a group of blockbusters, yet they don't even get a secondary title. It's just "2" or "3" tacked onto the name. No one seems to be happy with the name "Live Free or Die Hard," but that won't stop anyone from going to see Bruce Willis kick some arse. So, when a title comes out that seems particularly witty, different, innovative or fun, there's a good chance I'll shell out cash to see what it's all about. If it has a good cast, that's all the better, and the upcoming Multiple Sarcasms seems to have both.

Variety has released the cast list for the cheap, $2.5 million upcoming film -- Timothy Hutton, Mira Sorvino, Dana Delany, Stockard Channing and Mario Van Peebles. You can also add Tom Skerritt to that list, as Hutton listed him among the cast in a recent interview. The film is about an architect in 1979, played by Hutton, who decides to completely give up his career as an architect and become a playwright. He risks everything to write his play, and finds his life falling apart when he does so. His only support lies with his best friend, played by Sorvino. He finishes the play while damaging his other personal relationships and then gets it on-stage. Hutton describes it as "an interesting story of the choices you make and what you sacrifice along the way." I can dig it. I know someone who did something very similar, so it's definitely a believable story. Sarcasms will be the debut for Paramount alum-turned-writer/director Brooks Branch, and is filming in New York.

While many people are still recuperating from Sundance, I'm getting excited about the SXSW film festival even if it is six weeks away. When you have a big film festival practically in your backyard, you can't help but look forward to it. The festival has just announced more of its scheduled features, many of which are world premieres. The premieres include Al Franken: God Spoke, the title of which should be self-explanatory; The Life of Reilly, about Charles Nelson Reilly's one-man show; Fired!, a documentary about employment based on an upcoming book by actress Annabelle Gurwitch; Heavens Fall, based on a real-life 1930s trial, with a cast that includes David Strathairn and Timothy Hutton; and The Oh in Ohio, which reminds me of the days when all good indie-rich festivals included at least one Parker Posey movie.

The best-known and most likely to be popular title on this list isn't a world premiere, though, and it already played in Austin to a select crowd at the Butt-Numb-A-Thon last year: V for Vendetta. The full line-up of SXSW feature films will be available next week on the film festival page.

[via Matt Dentler]