Back in January, I blogged about the BBC show The Thick of It getting the feature treatment. The film, tentatively titled In the Loop, will be set in the same world as the television show, but it hadn't been determined whether the same characters would pop up. According to the latest post over at The Hollywood Reporter, it seems that the production is going half-fresh. This is particularly noteworthy because the actors are James Gandolfini, David Rasche (United 93), and ... My Girl Anna Chlumsky. Yes, Anna his swam out of the ether and right to BBC remakes!

The film will focus on the inner workings of US and British government agencies and international relations, Chlumsky will play a State Department official, Gandolfini will play a general, and Rasche has signed on to play an undersecretary of state. On the British side of things, Peter Capaldi, Chris Addison, and Paul Higgins from the series are starring with Tom Hollander and Gina McKee.

Bad movie lovers, rejoice -- your prayers have been answered. Here is a craptacular bonanza the likes of which hasn't been seen since Howard the Duck. Actually, this film climbs to even dizzier heights than that one, climbing and climbing until it reaches the outer troposphere of good-badness. Rarely have I seen such an explosive boomerang of misdirected creativity. Land of the Blind supposedly drops us into a 'nameless' time and place, but the problem is that there's nothing nameless at all in writer/director Robert Edwards' universe. Recognizable history, architecture and costuming have all been boosted from the real world and re-arranged to some confusing purpose. The film's focus is on a Stalinist dictator with British henchmen who lives in a giant Hindu palace, enjoys American basketball, attends pagan funerals where bodies are set afire, and watches vaudeville routines. It's as if some sample-happy Martian Quentin Tarantino decided to make a film about life on Earth for an audience that knew nothing about it. There's nothing wrong with anachronism, of course. The HBO western drama Deadwood mixes and matches language from different eras, and the result is brilliant. The problem with Land of the Blind is that there is no artistry whatsoever in the usage. Everything is willy-nilly.