It's happening again. We damn remakes for treading on old territory, but that's nothing compared to those who get into dueling biopics at the same flipping time. In a chat with MTV, Alessandro Nivola revealed that there's a competing Leonard Chess biopic on the way, saying: "I'm gonna play Leonard. They've only just put my deal together. The rest of the cast is just now gonna start coming together." Obviously, this is a project trying to jump on the bandwagon. It might not be surprising to get dueling Hitler pics, or any other well-recognized figure, but it's not like Chess was on the tip of everyone's tongues before the recent movie news.

What does Nivola think about there being 2 Chess pics? He asks why there shouldn't be 8, likening the man to Al Pacino in The Godfather 2. He went on to say: "He was a ruthless businessman and not much of a family [man], somebody who's a powerful, charismatic person, but morally ambiguous." I'm sorry, but ruthlessness doesn't mean we should have back-to-back pictures. And, I'm really glad that Nivola isn't in charge in Hollywood. Good lord, can you imagine how many almost-the-same movies there would be?!

I think this whole thing will come down to casting. While I usually stick with the first of these sorts of pictures, I wonder if the other production will shoot itself in the foot with their casting of Beyonce as Etta James. That didn't even go over well with most Beyonce fans, so I imagine that if pic #2 could find great people to play the great musicians, it might have a chance. Otherwise... Nivola, I'm sorry, but I'm sticking with Adrien Brody.

And besides, if they want to cover music men who did sneaky things back then, they could always take on Herman Lubinsky -- the man who royally screwed over Jimmy Scott.

The original version of The Eye was a solid ghost picture, steeped in local culture and grounded in reality. It wasn't a classic, but it was effective, cycling through familiar rounds of slowly building tension followed by inevitable release. The overall atmosphere was gloomy, with only the faintest glimmer of hope. The new version of The Eye is a patchwork quilt that doesn't hold together with the same degree of focus (apologies in advance: it's difficult to avoid ocular references). There are suggestions of ambition, of a desire to infuse the heroine with greater control of her own destiny, but in the end the new version is neither better nor worse than the original -- just different.

Blind since the age of five, concert violinist Sydney Wells (Jessica Alba) undergoes a double cornea transplant and immediately begins seeing things she ought not. Her concerns are quickly waved away as normal, both by her eye surgeon and by Dr. Paul Faulkner (Alessandro Nivola), a specialist in helping cornea transplant patients adjust to their new vision. As Dr. Paul explains, Sydney has to teach her brain how to interpret all the images associated with things she has only heard, smelled, or tasted before.

The directing team of David Moreau and Xavier Palud handle the early scenes with a restrained flourish, making it clear with a montage the practical challenges Sydney faces in navigating through her "new world." A blurry party scene, in which Sydney "meets" her friends and co-workers for the first time, their faces bobbing up in a well-intentioned but confusing melange, also scores points in setting up Sydney's point of view.

If creative media is to be believed, transplants are very risky business -- and we haven't even been hit with the wave of genetic repossession yet! I'm not sure if anything will ever beat Lindsay's evil hand on Angel, but we're about to get a taste of something even more creepy -- Jessica Alba's evil eye. In October, there was a weird, silent trailer for her upcoming horror film, The Eye. (Remake of the Hong Kong horror film, also known as The Eye, but translated literally -- Seeing Ghosts.) Now MySpace is hosting the exclusive full trailer, with voices and all!

Alba plays Sydney Wells, a blind concert violinist who finally gets the gift of sight when she gets some cornea transplants. That is, after she gets over the initial blur. She gets an unnerving surprise party, and then starts to see dead people. But this isn't some Sixth Sense sort of sight -- these dead guys are creepy, and they're not just moping around. People are falling out of closed windows, hovering above the ground, and even popping up in her peephole. This, in turn, makes her a bit crazy, demanding to know where her eyes came from as she runs around, smashes a mirror, and somehow loses the ability to properly select a floor in an elevator. The trailer is alright -- not especially creep-inducing, but necessarily bad either. I think this will be one of those films that we'll have to wait and see. It'll hit theaters February 1, 2008.

Jessica Alba's latest, The Eye, is about a blind woman who has an eye transplant that enables her to see into the supernatural world. It's a remake of twin brothers' Oxide Pang Chung and Danny Pang's 2002 Hong Kong horror film Gin Gwai. The new film was directed by David Moreau and Xavier Palud, with re-shoots (uh-oh) by Patrick Lussier. It was written by Sebastian Gutierrez, who scripted Gothika and Snakes on a Plane (uh-oh again). The trailer is up online over at Yahoo Movies, and you've probably got some questions. Will this one be any better than the average crappy horror flick? Are we talking more The Ring or more The Grudge 2? If Jessica Alba were really blind, could she learn to love a monster like me? Maybe you should take your pretty little eyes over there and check out that trailer, Mogambo!

The trailer feels like more of a long teaser. There is no dialogue, just some pulsing music, and quick flashes telling the story in images. It's nicely done but not mind-blowing. A few moments stood out, like the floating feet and the nice little jump at the end. I also like the bit where she appears to be painfully squeezing fluid out of her eye. It reminded me of trying to put in my contact lenses while hung over. The Eye co-stars Alessandro Nivola (Junebug) and the always delightful Parker Posey. I saw Posey for a half second in the trailer, and no Nivola, but I guess when you've got one of the most beautiful women in the world in your movie, you want to put her front and center. Cinematical visited the set of The Eye back in April, and if you'd like to read a discussion with Miss Alba regarding the film, you can find it here. The Eye is due in theaters on February 1st, 2008.

Expect Sigourney Weaver to receive an Oscar nod for her work in The Girl in the Park, which got a warm reception at this year's Toronto fest. Weaver plays Julia Sandburg, a 40-something business executive and mother of two, including a toddler named Maggie. Julia's life, which we can sense has been planned down to the smallest detail, is unexpectedly shipwrecked when, during routine playtime in a park one day, Maggie goes missing under her nose. The child is not found, and her disappearance is tied to a string of similar abductions in the area, leaving practically no hope. Cut to fifteen years later -- Julia now looks to be in her late 50s and has spent the last fifteen years living a solitary, robotic existence, the disappearance having disintegrated her marriage, poisoned her relationship with her remaining child, and taken a toll on her mental health. Existing more or less as a shut-in these past years, her own relatives, including her son and new daughter-in-law, can hardly believe it when she turns up at a family function.

The son and daughter-in-law, played by Alessandro Nivola and Keri Russell, are budding suburbanites who are planning for a new child and have no intention of living their lives in the past, but the past is the only place Julia feels safe, and there seems to be little prospect of her returning to any kind of social normalcy. This is the lay of the land when Louise comes into the picture. A sleazy drifter and scam-artist in her young twenties, played effectively by Superman's dame Kate Bosworth, Louise meets Julia in the city by chance and picks up on her vulnerability, perhaps sensing she's some old, lonely lesbian who can be taken for a ride and cleaned out or more simply, someone who will feel sorry for her. During their first meeting, Louise gives Julia a phoney tale of woe, and in the space of a few minutes, Julia has her checkbook out and is shelling out for travel fare and medical expenses for an unborn child (which doesn't exist.) Louise then wisely disappears, but their interaction isn't over yet.

I just don't know... Christopher Walken as a conman? He's Annie Hall's suicidal brother. He's the dancing pimp from Pennies from Heaven. Sometimes, he even sees the future. Walken is the farmer looking for Sarah, Plain and Tall. He's known for his uber comedic roles like zany inventor Calvin Webber in Blast from the Past. He's not a criminal. When has he ever done something like that? Heh, I kid. While it is entirely not surprising that Walken has just signed on to play a conman in a new film, it is nice to see him get a starring role.

Walken and Alessandro Nivola (Laurel Canyon) have signed on to star in Five Dollars a Day. It's a road movie about an older conman (Walken) who is proud that he can life on $5 a day, and his son (Nivola) who has gotten thrown in the slammer for one of his dad's crimes. Variety says that the con artist is pitted "against his more conservative son," so perhaps Nivola will try to bring his dad down in exchange for his own freedom? According to IMDb, the flick's about them reuniting and going on a cross-country road trip together, so we'll see. Nigel Cole, the man who brought us Calendar Girls, will direct the feature, from a script by Neal and Tippi Dobrofsky. The movie will head into production in New Mexico and Atlantic City next month.

Lionsgate recently invited Cinematical out to the set of The Eye, a new supernatural thriller starring Jessica Alba, Alessandro Nivola, and Parker Posey, and directed by David Moreau and Xavier Palud. They were shooting in downtown Los Angeles and ironically, the weather was completely sunny and beautiful all weekend but they had to make it look like a nasty gray downpour was happening. Come Monday morning, it was completely gray and rainy for real throughout Los Angeles, just the way the filmmakers would have wanted it. The sheer amount of work involved just to make it look like it is raining when it's not (they don't just crank the knob on a hose) is pretty impressive, and it makes you realize how much work has to go into something so simple.

We watched them coordinate massive amounts of water, corral extras, block actors and meticulously plan out camera shots. There was a massive amount of work going into this, because it's the first time we see Allison (Alba) in the film. Besides the pouring rain, she has to juggle a violin, her bag, a cane, an umbrella, and pull it off like someone who has been doing it for years. Oh yeah, and she's also blind. All of this information in a single shot helps not only establish the look and feel of the film, but it tells you loads about Alba's character without a single line of dialogue.

The Eye is a remake of the Chinese film Gin Gwai, directed by the Pang Brothers, about a young woman who has been blind for most of her life, then has a corneal transplant that restores her vision. However, she has difficulty dealing with the transition, and begins to hallucinate. Her new vision not only allows her to see what we see, but she can peep into the 'spirit realms' as well. She sets out to discover the mystery behind her vision, and to learn more about the donor of her corneas. The original is more about the mystery of it all than about spooky ghosts and ghouls flying around, and hopefully this remake will stay true to that. We're all starting to feel a bit burnt out on the Japanese horror remakes.

I'm not sure what the more newsworthy piece of information is -- that more people have been added to the cast of The Eye, or that Sarah Michelle Gellar, Asian Thriller Remake Extraordinaire, isn't one of them. In a bit of a twist, this remake is actually pulling together a decent cast, which makes me wonder if this will be more like The Ring, and less like The Grudge. As Scott Weinberg previously reported, Jessica Alba is set to star in the film about a blind woman who has a cornea surgery and begins to see dead people -- leading her to find out what happened to the eye's previous owner.

Variety has now reported that Alessandro Nivola and Parker Posey have signed on to co-star. Nivola had his own stint in The Ring, if you mean Danielle Steel's made-for-television version. However, he's probably more recognizable from flicks like Face/Off, Mansfield Park and Laurel Canyon. Ms. Posey, well, she's had two second-sequel horror stints with Scream 3 and Blade:Trinity, so its nice to see her starting at the beginning, where a movie has a better chance of being good. It's not a bad cast thus far, but I can't help but wonder if it's the right cast. Can you imagine Alba finding out that her eye is possessed? I just can't imagine her emoting this half as well as Posey, who has quirky body movements down to a science.