The first trailer for City of Ember has just arrived online (watch it above or over on the film's official site). Cinematical premiered the teaser poster for City of Ember not long ago, and it looks like the folks from 20th Century Fox and Walden Media are itching to get the buzz going on this one by debuting a trailer long before the film's October 10th release date. This will also be the same trailer that plays in front of Prince Caspian this weekend. Based on the best-selling novel, City of Ember was produced by Tom Hanks and stars Bill Murray, Saoirse Ronan, Tim Robbins, Martin Landau, Toby Jones and Harry Treadaway. Directed by Gil Kenan (Monster House), the synopsis for Ember looks like this:

"For generations, the people of the City of Ember have flourished in an amazing world of glittering lights - underground. But Ember's once powerful generator is failing . . . and the great lamps that illuminate the city are starting to flicker. Now, two teenagers in a race against time, must search Ember for clues that will unlock the ancient mystery of the city's existence, and help the citizens escape before the lights go out forever."

What say you? I think it definitely has potential, especially with that cast. (Seems like a cool book, too.)

Cinematical has just received this exclusive teaser poster for City of Ember (click to enlarge), due out this October 10th courtesy of 20th Century Fox and Walden Media. Based on the best-selling novel from Jeanne Duprau, City of Ember was written by Caroline Thompson (Edward Scissorhands) and directed by the very talented Gil Kenan (Monster House). Oh, but the talent doesn't stop there -- check out this cast: Bill Murray, Saoirse Ronan, Tim Robbins, Martin Landau, Toby Jones and Harry Treadaway. And did I mention it was produced by Tom Hanks?

And here's a synopsis for ya: "For generations, the people of the City of Ember have flourished in an amazing world of glittering lights - underground. But Ember's once powerful generator is failing . . . and the great lamps that illuminate the city are starting to flicker. Now, two teenagers in a race against time, must search Ember for clues that will unlock the ancient mystery of the city's existence, and help the citizens escape before the lights go out forever."

Early buzz tells us the film looks gorgeous, so that's definitely a good sign. We've also been told that the first trailer for City of Ember will debut in front of Prince Caspian this weekend. (Chalk up another reason to hang with those peeps over in Narnia.) Once again, City of Ember arrives in theaters on October 10th.

So who's excited for this one?

So far, there are only a few actors officially attached to Oliver Stone's W., the epic biopic about our current commander-in-chief. Josh Brolin was cast as President George W. Bush back in January, then recently Elizabeth Banks was chosen as his wife, First Lady Laura Bush, and last week James Cromwell and Ellen Burstyn were locked into the roles of former President George H.W. Bush and former first lady Barbara Bush, respectively. Unofficial casting bites, though, include a lot of other big name actors. Jeffrey Wright is reportedly in negotiations to play Colin Powell, Tommy Lee Jones is supposedly being sought for Donald Rumsfeld, Robert Duvall has been rumored to be the choice for Vice President Dick Cheney and now both Paul Giamatti and Toby Jones are being named as potentials for the part of Karl Rove (who Giamatti may have already channeled for his character in Shoot 'Em Up).

So much for all those casting updates for (and comments asking about how to get cast in) Pinkville, Oliver Stone's latest Vietnam war movie. Thanks to the writer's strike, the movie is now delayed indefinitely, according to Variety. United Artists put the stop on the production because both Stone and Pinkville screenwriter Mikko Alanne are members of the WGA, and more script-tuning is needed. Apparently the film is fully written, but there were expectations that things would be changed while filming is taking place -- something Stone is known for -- and that's not allowed to happen during the strike. The movie now joins Angels & Demons (aka The Da Vinci Code 2), which was the first major feature to be delayed because of the strike. Yet unlike that higher-profile film, Pinkville may not be easily started when the strike is over. There are now possibilities the cast will change or that United Artists will be less interested in doing such a serious picture right off the disappointment of Lions for Lambs.

It will be a shame if Pinkville is on hold for too long. And it will be too bad if the ensemble cast is broken up. Just last week I was getting all excited for Michael Pitt. Before that, I was already into the group of actors brought together: Bruce Willis, Woody Harrelson, Channing Tatum, Michael Peña and Xzibit (plus Toby Jones, who was announced with Pitt). However, with rescheduling now there may be a chance that Sean Penn could come back to the film, as he was originally reported to be attached.

The cast and crew was set to begin shooting in a few weeks in Thailand, so now obviously there are a lot of people out of work who are likely praying for the strike to end asap. Once given a new greenlight, Pinkville will be Stone's fourth feature film to deal directly with the Vietnam war, following Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July and Heaven and Earth (unless he somehow squeezes another in before this one -- who knows how long UA will keep this on hiatus?). This time Stone is focusing on the terrible My Lai Massacre and the trial of the U.S. soldiers involved.

Oddly enough, The Hollywood Reporter has two new casting announcements today, despite Friday's announcement from UA. Jason Behr (The Grudge) is set to play Lt. Stephen Brooks, commanding officer at My Lai, and Cam Gigandet (Who's Your Caddy?) is cast as guilt-ridden soldier Fred Widmar.

I've been waiting for Michael Pitt to break out big for years now -- ever since Murder By Numbers, I think (he was noteworthy a year earlier in both Bully and Hedwig and the Angry Inch, but not quite as promising). He still has a chance, especially if he takes the part of Lt. William Calley in Oliver Stone's Pinkville. According to The Hollywood Reporter, he's currently in talks for the role, and if he's smart he'll just go ahead and grab it. Calley is the central figure in the Vietnam war film, which deals with the investigation into the 1968 Mai Lai Massacre; the Army officer was the one found guilty of giving the orders that sparked the incident. Pitt would join an ensemble cast that already includes Bruce Willis (or as I like to call him, Bruce Billis), Channing Tatum (another young actor continually teetering on the verge of stardom), Michael Peña (previously seen in Stone's World Trade Center), Woody Harrelson and Xzibit, who just joined on this week. Also joining the film is Toby Jones (Infamous), who will portray Lt. Andre Feher, the chief warrant officer who tries to convince Willis' character, Gen. William Peers, that the U.S. Army is responsible for the massacre.

With Pinkville, Pitt would be sure to make up for the mediocre year he's had. Between starring in Tom DiCillo's embarrassingly awful Delirious and the apparently abysmal Silk (it has an astonishingly sad 8% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes), the actor has been really struggling to get his due notice. He does have other intriguing projects in the pipeline, however; next year he can be seen co-starring in Michael Haneke's Funny Games U.S., a remake of the filmmaker's own earlier work, and he's set to star as a young Christopher Walken (sorta) in Abel Ferrara's King of New York prequel, Pericle il Nero. It seems that Pitt might prefer working outside of Hollywood, but the guy should at least do a good ensemble piece every now and then, and there's not many better Hollywood directors he could work with than Stone.

This Frost/Nixon is turning into the "character actor" event of 2008. All they need is Steve Buscemi! The cast includes Frank Langella, Michael Sheen, Kevin Bacon, Sam Rockwell, Toby Jones, Matthew Macfadyen, and now the great Oliver Platt is on board as Bob Zelnick. Zelnick was the executive editor of the Frost/Nixon interviews. Ron Howard is directing the film, Peter Morgan (writer of Oscar bait The Queen and The Last King of Scotland) is adapting his Broadway play, which is a dramatic retelling of the post-Watergate interviews between British talk show host David Frost (played by Sheen) and former President Richard Nixon (played by Langella). Sheen and Langella will reprise their stage roles, Langella just won a Tony award for his performance.

I'm a big Oliver Platt fan, he's a welcome addition to just about any movie. I remained supportive even through the 1999-2000 "dark period" when he appeared in pretty much every bad film released, including the jaw-droppingly terrible trifecta of Bicentennial Man, Gun Shy, and Ready to Rumble. Today brings two bits of Platt casting news -- you television fans will be pleased to learn that he has also just been cast in a recurring role on the FX drama Nip/Tuck (Apparently he's only appearing in works with slashes in the title these days). Platt will appear in five episodes as "Freddy Prune, the producer of a TV show on which Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh) and Christian Troy (Julian McMahon) serve as consultants," Remember, the boys are in Hollywood this season. Nip/Tuck (a guilty pleasure if ever there was one) is a favorite of mine, and I'm very interested in the Frost/Nixon subject matter, so this is a good time to be an Oliver Platt enthusiast.

Unless you want to count his voice stint in Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties, and I'd rather not, it has been a few years since Bill Murray has been on-screen. Getting back into the swing of things, Mr. Murray has signed on to star in City of Ember, the latest Walden Media cinematic adaptation. He will be joined by Dobby-voice Toby Jones and the girl who outs Keira Knightley in the upcoming Atonement, Saoirse Ronan. This will be the sophomore helming effort for Monster House director Gil Kenan, and the adaptation is coming from an old-pro and quirky stories -- Caroline Thompson. Her pen has previously whipped up worlds like Edward Scissorhands, The Secret Garden and Corpse Bride.

City of Ember is a funky-sounding young adult book about an almost light-less city, where there is no moon/star light, only yellowish floodlamps. With the understanding of fire and electricity lost, the inhabitants are stuck in their small city, and live a direction-less, mundanely happy existence -- one that isn't even thwarted by the increasingly empty shelves of their vast storerooms. After 200 years, the people of Ember were supposed to get directions about how to leave, but the corrupt mayor lost them years ago. In typical Y-A fashion, two twelve-year-olds, Doon and Lina, plot to get some answers, foil the mayor and find a way out. So, I'd say Saoirse is probably Lina, and Murray will probably be the mayor, so who would Jones play, because it sure isn't a twelve-year-old! Production will start this summer in Belfast, and 20th Century Fox already has a release date -- October 10, 2008. In the meantime, I'm going to hope for a funky Christopher Pike adaptation to get in gear, and zoom me back to my youth -- one that isn't, of course, anything like Fall Into Darkness.

So much for my belief that St. Trinian's is the best cast movie in production right now. The film, which began shooting in March with top-notch British talents like Emily Watson, Colin Firth and Rupert Everett, has just added a young, American actress to sour up the mix. According to Variety, in a report from Cannes, Mischa Barton has joined the cast, which also includes Brits Toby Jones, Lena Headey, Stephen Fry, Celia Imrie, Anna Chancellor, Lucy Punch, Fenella Woolgar and possibly (still rumored, and not actually British) Richard E. Grant. To quote my favorite Sesame Street game: "One of these things is not like the other."

Hopefully Barton will simply be playing the bland girl from the States who happens to be studying at an English girls' school, and will not be expected to pull off an accent. Either way, she'll at least make the elder cast appear even greater. The former O.C. actress joins rising stars Jodie Whittaker (Venus), model Lily Cole, Talulah Riley (Pride & Prejudice), Tamsin Egerton (Driving Lessons), Juno Temple (Notes on a Scandal), Gemma Arterton and possibly (still rumored) singer Amy Winehouse, all of whom presumably play students at St. Trinian's, which they save from going bankrupt. St. Trinian's still seems to be, as Cinematical writer Monika Bartyzel called it, "a British film fan's wet dream," but thanks to the casting of Barton, the dream has gotten a little bit drier.

Despite the seemingly never-ending delay of The Assassination of Jesse James by The Coward Robert Ford, there is still plenty of news for fans of Sam Rockwell. The Hollywood Reporter has announced that Rockwell, along with Toby Jones and Matthew Macfadyen have signed on for the film version of the Peter Morgan play Frost/Nixon. The play is based on a series of television interviews between disgraced president Richard Nixon and David Frost that took place in 1977, in which Frost managed to get Nixon to admit to his role in the Watergate break-in. Last year, Christopher reported that Ron Howard was set to direct, and the script was adapted by Morgan himself. Also returning to the project from the stage version are Frank Langella (Nixon) and Michael Sheen (Frost). Rockwell will be playing James Reston Jr., Frost's head researcher.

This latest announcement came just a few weeks after Monika reported that Rockwell had signed on to star in the Chuck Palahniuk adaptation Choke. Frost/Nixon is set to start production this summer, which might cause a bit of a tight schedule for Rockwell since Choke was reportedly set to start later this month. Rockwell also has the upcoming thriller Joshua set for release this July, and Snow Angels with Kate Beckinsale later this year. So even though Jesse James might still be in limbo, it doesn't look like Rockwell is having any trouble finding work.

Just when you think the cast is gathered, three movies grab even more actors:

• You'd think that the likes of Rupert Everett, Emily Watson and Colin Firth would be enough for the walls of St. Trinian's to hold, but now there are even more names swimming around in the school full of infamous girls. First, we've got Toby Jones, who voiced the infamous house elf, Dobby, in the role of the bursar. Then we've got a collection of other school staff to be played by Anna Chancellor and two Imagine Me & You stars -- Celia Imrie and Lena Headey. Finally, the cast list has been topped off by some students -- model Lily Cole and Gemma Arterton (Or is there an Arteton as Variety lists?). Between this film and Jackboots on Whitehall, it seems all the tasty British actors are getting work!
• After pairing Jared Padalecki and Peter O'Toole in the Thomas Kinkade biopic The Christmas Cottage, Lionsgate has gotten Marcia Gay Harden to sign on as the painter's mother, Maryanne. At the rate of a new cast member every few days, we should have a full cast in no time! This role is a pair of comfy acting shoes for Harden, who won an Oscar for her role in Pollock, and has played a stressed out mom in many a movie. Hopefully Maryanne isn't the high-nerves of her Casa de los Babys character. Then again, no one can pull that attitude off like Harden. Well, except maybe Elizabeth Perkins. Could you imagine them snarking it up together!?
• Finally, remember Katherine Heigl's upcoming eternal bridesmaid movie 27 Dresses? It's about a poor woman who suffers the fate of the bridesmaid 27 times, and then finds insult added to injury when she has to do it again when her sister gets engaged to the man she loves? Well, Malin Akerman, who last played Liane in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, has signed on to play the tow-headed actress' sister. While you probably aren't very familiar with Akerman, you should be soon enough. She's got five movies on the way, two of which have already been completed -- Heavy Petting and The Brothers Solomon.

Looks like a few more actors have wandered into The Mist of Frank Darabont and Stephen King. According to Variety, Marcia Gay Harden and Toby Jones have joined a cast list that already includes the likes of Thomas Jane, Laurie Holden, Andre Braugher, Alexa Davalos, Bill Sadler, Jeffrey DeMunn and Amin Joseph. The flick is based on a rather strong Stephen King story about a group of folks who hole up in a supermarket when a sudden weather pattern arrives bearing undead beasties. Cool.

Everything else is pretty much old news: Frank Darabont will be adapting his third King story (after The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile); production's already underway; Dimension aims to get the creeper into theaters by the end of the year. Looks like King fans are about to enjoy a new cinematic resurgence; Dimension also has 1408 this summer and Cell some time next year. Plus I heard that George Romero was doing a movie of From a Buick 8, and that might be interesting ...

The only award Casino Royale picked up Sunday at the British Academy Awards (BAFTAs) was for Best Sound. It was nominated in nine categories -- ten if you count the publicly voted Rising Star Award, which did go to Casino Royale actress Eva Green. But it would have been very shocking if the 007 movie had beaten The Queen for the Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film. Oh wait; The Queen didn't win it either. Surprisingly, The Last King of Scotland won Best British Film, as well as Best Adapted Screenplay (for Jeremy Brock and Peter Morgan, who also wrote The Queen) and, of course, Best Actor for Forest Whitaker. The Queen did win for Best Film, though, and also took the obvious prize for Best Actress for Helen Mirren.

Some of the other unexpected wins were Paul Greengrass for the David Lean Award for Direction and Alan Arkin for Best Supporting Actor for Little Miss Sunshine, which won for Best Original Screenplay. Other prizes went to Pan's Labyrinth for Best Film Not in the English Language, Best Makeup & Hair and Best Costume Design, Children of Men for Best Cinematography and Best Production Design and Babel for the Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music. For the most part, the British Academy disagreed with last week's London Film Critics Circle Awards, which gave added honors to specifically British performers like Emily Blunt, Toby Jones, Michael Caine and Leslie Philips. However, Casino Royale fared badly with the critics' choices too.

Last year's best actor, according to almost everyone in America, was Philip Seymour Hoffman. This year's is Forest Whitaker. But who is the better of the two? Luckily in the U.S., critics don't have to damage their brains deciding. In London, however, critics do. Thanks to later release dates in the UK, Capote is considered a 2006 movie there. So are Good Night, and Good Luck, The Squid and the Whale and The Upside of Anger. All four are featured among the nominees for the London Film Critics Circle awards, which will be presented February 8.

At least Hoffman hasn't been pit against Toby Jones, the other portrayer of Truman Capote, in Infamous. The former is in the Actor race while the latter is recognized in the British Actor category.

Neither Capote nor Good Night, and Good Luck, both of which were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar were considered by the London critics for Film of the Year. Their five picks were limited to more current releases, including The Queen, which received the most nominations, with seven.

Is it obvious that The Queen is recognized so well by the Brits? Well, considering it is a British film, it qualifies for more categories than other top contenders for the major awards. It is the only title to be listed in the Film of the Year and British Film ("The Attenborough Award") categories and Helen Mirren has been nominated for Actress and British Actress, an honor she shares with Judi Dench. Without the double mentions, The Queen would be tied with The Last King of Scotland for five noms.

"Rain is good," Truman Capote mumbles as a soft downpour begins while Dick Hickock and Perry Smith are preparing to climb the steps of the gallows. What he means is the rain will add some texture to the climactic ending that has delayed his novel -- the death of its main characters. Even though Hickcock and Smith were stone cold murderers of an entire Kansas farm family, Capote was seized with anxiety about wishing them dead so that his "non-fiction novel" about their crimes could end on a perfect artistic note. The author's ability to hear and recognize such a note is vividly portrayed in the opening scene of Doug McGrath's Infamous, where singer Peggy Lee (Gwyneth Paltrow, returning the favor for Emma) is inexplicably overcome by emotion while singing a ballad on stage. The lump in her throat stops her mid-croon, causing all heads in the room to turn. Capote's eyes glisten as he watches in silence while Lee composes herself. To him, this is just another interesting life moment that must be re-packaged into art.

If all of Infamous were as original and insightful as that early scene, it would be easier to shake off the extreme deja-vu experience of watching the film. Although its allegedly based on a different source book than its sister film Capote, released a year ago, the similarities between the two are so numerous as to warrant a shot-by-shot comparison. If you saw Capote, you've seen about 80 percent of Infamous, so it's a big compliment for me to say the remaining 20 percent is good enough to make it worth watching. Apart from Peggy Lee in the prologue, the only important character that didn't already get a once-over in Capote is grizzled old socialite Babe Paley, played here by Sigourney Weaver, who should work more often. Paley was one of Capote's famous "swans" who loaded him up with the gossip he would secretly funnel into his next book, Answered Prayers. He promised anyone who would listen that the book would be an American answer to Proust's Remembrances of Things Past, with a million salacious anecdotes and half-truths regurgitated as high art.