After it took him 7 years to release his sophomore film, Capote, for which he was nominated for a directing Oscar, it wouldn't have been surprising to discover that Bennett Miller had no follow-up planned. Maybe he would become another one of those filmmakers who take a long time between projects. Personally, I was hoping that he'd go and do another documentary, a la The Cruise. Maybe this time he could follow his friend Sarah Vowell around on a historical vacation of some sort.

Well, he didn't have anything up and running immediately following the Oscars, but now he is about to get started on developing The Immortalist (which he will direct off a script by Dante Miller), a drama that Miller says is, "not a science fiction film, but a drama set in the very real world of those pursuing biological immortality. It's a pursuit that attracts some extremely brilliant, wealthy and influential people; it also attracts tragic figures. The story follows one such person on his disturbing foray into it." Paramount Vantage has already picked up the rights to U.S. distribution.

[via MovieWeb]

• Capote - Truman Capote spent five years researching In Cold Blood - the book that would be his last - and sophomore director Bennett Miller's film is a telling and rather literate fly-on-the-wall dramatization of that time. The biggest appeal is Philip Seymour Hoffman's bravura Oscar-winning performance as the eccentric author, which he takes beyond mere affectation and into full-on obsession as Capote's research into the 1959 murders of a Kansas family consumes him in every way. It is nice to see professional seether Catherine Keener in another nice-gal role, here as Capote friend and soon-to-be To Kill A Mockingbird scribe (Nell) Harper Lee. Miller and writer Dan Futterman (adapting Gerald Clarke's book) do not quite commit to a direction for the story, and humanizing killer Perry Smith (a dependable Clifton Collins Jr.) is time unwisely spent, though Hoffman, who also produced, sees that we remember the film for other reasons.

I was very sad to find out that Ungawa, the Capuchin monkey I had hired from trainer-turned-bunk junking director Soso Whaley for a CD cover photo shoot, had died. Ungawa had picked the Oscars for me a couple of years ago, and while he went 0 for 6 (being far more interested in the popcorn I baited the photos with), it was a whole lot of fun to host him, and the kids that showed up were delighted by his delightful simian antics, none of which involved flinging poo.

This year, I was disappointed to find that my second choice to pick this year’s Oscars - Antony, the world-renowned anteater that Whaley also trained - had recently died of old age. He had appeared in a number of television shows and films, including Baby It’s Cold Outside.

A striped-knee tarantula named Klaus stepped up this year. While he was not as entertaining as a monkey (and what is?) or as goofy-looking as an anteater, he was a consummate professional, and his predictions were not entirely without rhyme or reason (if you can ignore the fact that he was not so much choosing as he was running away from us):

When you're a kid and have dreams of some day gracing the stage at the Academy Awards, often you may make a few strange and unusual bets with your friends as to what you may say should you have the chance to speak to millions of people across the globe.

Best actor front runner, Philip Seymour Hoffman, made one such bet....and it could come back to bite him in the ass. When he was 16, Hoffman, along with friends Bennett Miller (director of Capote) and Dan Futterman (writer of Capote) got a tiny bit wasted one night. Hoffman explains, "We had this friend at the time, Steven, and we all made this drunken pact that if one of us ever won the Academy Award, that we would bark the whole acceptance speech. We were very serious. Literally, we were like, 'I'll do that. I will definitely commit to that."

Now that they're all grown up and their film, Capote, may play a big role at this year's Oscar ceremony, what have the men decided to do? Well, according to Hoffman, when they met back up with their friend Steven recently, he reminded the Oscar-nominated actor that the bet was still valid...and Hoffman isn't happy. ""The thing is you can't just bark, you have to bark until they pull you off (the stage). Let's hope I don't have to get up there." Oh, what I would give to see this go down.

Last week, Newsweek guessed at who the Oscar nominees for Best Director would be, gathered the five men they chose together, and let them loose. The resulting two hour conversation touched on topics from politics to the cost of making movies; from Oscar ad campaigns to The Facts of Life* and is worth a read, if only because it's rare to get so many talented, prominent people in a room together. Oh, the five directors? George Clooney, Ang Lee, Paul Haggis, Steven Spielberg, and Bennett Miller. So yeah, it was a pretty good guess.

*A bit of utterly bizarre Oscar trivia: Paul Haggis was a writer for The Facts of Life when George Clooney was on the show. I wonder how much money you could have won from of the pair of them by betting that two decades later, they'd be nominated for the best director Oscar - in the SAME FREAKING YEAR.

Like virtually every other awards panel this winter, the Directors Guild of America yesterday named Ang Lee best director for Brokeback Mountain, his obscure film about gay cowboys (who yes, we know, aren't technically cowboys). As Erik pointed out when he revealed the nominees for the award, the Academy and the DGA almost always agree on this category: in the 57 years both awards have been handed out, on only six occasions have their honorees differed. This announcement, then, is sad news for Lee's fellow nominees, Bennett Miller, Paul Haggis, George Clooney and Steven Spielberg, the one surprise in the bunch.

Interestingly, one of the six exceptions to the DGA-Oscars rule involved Lee: in 2001, the DGA honored him for his direction of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon but the Academy preferred Traffic, and named Steven Soderbergh their best director.

After announcements came from the WGA, PGA and SAG, the Directors Guild of America (DGA) decided to join in on the fun and shovel out their choices for feature film today. Is anyone else as excited as I am? Anyone? Anyone? Though Steven Spielberg was snubbed by the other three guilds, the DGA tossed him a bone. That's right, he's on the list. You can rest safely now. The other picks include George Clooney for Good Night, and Good Luck, Paul Haggis for Crash, Bennett Miller for Capote and Ang Lee for Brokeback Mountain.

Munich marks Spielberg's tenth nomination (of which he's won three) and Lee has won once. This is the first nomination for the other three directors. An interesting statistic shows that the winner of the DGA's award for outstanding directorial achievement has been the same as Oscar's choice the past 51 out of 57 times. Last year, Clint Eastwood (who gets a lifetime achievement award this year) won both for Million Dollar Baby. This leads me to believe that everyone in the DGA is psychic, and I think that's pretty cool. The winner will be announced on January 28th at the 58th annual DGA awards dinner.