Between brothels and blues, here are some new bits of casting:

• First up, there's Love Ranch, the film we've been telling you about that focuses on the first legal brothel in Nevada. After the initial casting of Joe Pesci and Helen Mirren, the roster has slowly grown, adding likes of people from Bai Ling to Bryan Cranston. Now The Hollywood Reporter says that sex-goddess Gina Gershon is also spending some time at the Love Ranch. She will play, not surprisingly, a veteran at the brothel, working alongside a newcomer played by Scout Taylor-Compton. But the real story is in a "dangerous love triangle" with Pesci, Mirren, and Sergio Peris-Mencheta, who plays a South American boxer. Cranston (playing a senator) somehow gets "entangled in their sordid affairs."
• Meanwhile, THR also reports that the cast for Chess, the dueling Leonard Chess biopic, is slowly coming together. Aside from Alessandro Nivola, whose casting I told you about earlier this month, there's also David Oyelowo and Jon Abrahams. While Jeffrey Wright is playing Muddy Waters in Cadillac Records, Oyelowo will tackle the icon in this production. He hasn't built up the same cred yet, but he certainly isn't a shoddy casting move -- aside from The Last King of Scotland, Oyelowo is known for being the first black actor to play an English monarch for the Royal Shakespeare Company (he played Henry VI). Jon Abrahams, well, you might not know his name (I didn't recognize it) but there's a good chance you're familiar with him -- Kids, Boiler Room, Meet the Parents, Boston Public, House of Wax, or any of his other roles. He will play Chess' younger brother Phil, "who worries when Leonard becomes involved with a singer who has been signed to their label." I'm still more intrigued by the other film in the works, but again, I think a lot will bank on Etta James and the rest of the casting.

It's hard to believe that it's been almost a year since indie film director-writer-actress Adrienne Shelly was murdered shortly after finishing her last film, Waitress, starring Keri Russell. The Adrienne Shelly Foundation, established to honor Shelly's memory, will give grants and scholarships to "support the artistic achievements of female actors, writers, and directors who are either working on current short and feature film projects, new productions, or are seeking to transition from acting to writing and directing."

The Foundation's inaugural benefit to raise funds to support its grant and scholarship fund will be held November 12, 2007 at NYUs Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, followed by a VIP reception. The evening's program will include a live performance by Alanis Morissette, followed by a reading of Shelly's screenplay The Morgan Stories. A bevy of stars, including Morissette, Matt Dillon (with whom Shelly co-starred in Factotum), Edie Falco, Mary-Louise Parker, Paul Rudd, Ally Sheedy and Gina Gershon (and more TBA), will perform the reading.

The gala event will also serve as the kick-off for the Foundation's eBay Celebrity Auction, which will auction off about 25 "celebrity items and experiences." I think it's a cool idea to do the auction through eBay, where they can reach anyone, whether they live in NYC or not -- it gives people outside Manhattan an opportunity to support the Foundation while also winning some cool auction items. What can you bid on? Things like walk-ons and set visits to your favorite TV shows, lunch with various celebs, celeb-autographed items, Sundance Film Fest VIP passes, and tickets to concerts and television shows (ooh! They have tickets to Rachael Ray! My 10-year-old would SO love to have those! Back off away from that item, the rest of you ... they're mine!).

You can view the full list of auction items on the eBay site. For more info on the gala affair, and how to get tickets to it or be a sponsor, check out the Adrienne Shelly Foundation's website.

I gotta say, there was a time when actress Gina Gershon was my "freebie" -- a term us married folk use to describe an actor or an actress who we'd be able to shack up with if, ya know, the opportunity were to present itself; no questions asked. Of course, everyone knows that if Gina Gershon suddenly decided that my fat ass was the most attractive thing on the planet -- and that she simply needed to [blank] my brains out right away -- there's no way my wife would be cool with it. "Sure honey, she's your freebie -- have fun doing God knows what with Gina Gershon!" Yeah. That might happen. Gershon has since slipped off my radar a bit, but she's back (and looking hotter than ever) in the new indie flick Delirious, starring someone that's not so hot (but very entertaining to watch), Steve Buscemi.

Anyhoo, big blockbusters aren't the only films testing the viral marketing waters. Delirious director Tom DiCillo has helped put together a pretty hilarious video in which he asks Gina Gershon to come to a hotel room for an interview about the film. Once Gershon is there, she soon realizes that DiCillo's promotional plans are a bit more risque than she had hoped. Yup, he wants her to shoot a porn. From there, things just get nutty -- and, well, you'll have to watch for yourself. In the pic, Buscemi stars as a paparazzi photographer with dreams of making it big time. He soon befriends a homeless kid (Michael Pitt), hires him as an assistant, but then gets jealous when the dude strikes up a relationship with a hot pop star. Gershon plays a casting director who .... spoiler spoiler spoiler. Mmmm .... Gershon. Um, but yeah -- the film arrives in theaters next week. Go see it; I've heard it's a blast. Oh, and beware of foul language. Lots of it.

Hi, there -- here's my first celeb sighting at Sundance. (A little background: Moviefone does a star-interviews-star [or sometimes director] video show called Unscripted) The first one I got to watch tape this go-round was for 'Delirious.' One of the stars of that film, Gina Gershon, and director Tom DiCillo sat down and chatted. That's what they mostly did -- they got through maybe two questions each -- and they were cool. They obviously know each other well and get along; great rapport. And, not surprisingly, DiCillo was pretty damned funny ... the movie comments on celebrity, and DiCillo ragged on it as well (e.g., he claimed he'd read in the tabloids that Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston were going to, like, fight to the death, and Brad Pitt was O.K. with that -- he'd just take the winner).

He also said that with his first movie, 'Johnny Suede,' he'd turned down bringing it to Sundance, because back then it was known as the Granola Fest, with crunchy movies about a little girl living on a farm who could see God through her dog. And Gina was gorgeous (actually better looking in real life than she is on screen, if you can believe that), if a little nervous. She needed reading glasses to see the questions on the monitor -- it was adorable. Unfortunately, I haven't seen the movie yet -- ironically, it was screening at about the same time as this taping -- but I've heard great things about it. Don't believe me? Read Scott Weinberg's review.

Satire is not a blunt instrument. In the hands of an overzealous filmmaker, jokes and pointed barbs can readily fly over your head, leaving you to think "Hey, wait, was that supposed to be funny? Cuz it kinda was." (Or, even worse, the satire is presented in such a ham-fisted fashion that the insight ends up buried beneath moronic punchlines) Such is quite definitely not the case in Delirious, a poker-faced but insightful and amusing comedic drama that takes square aim at pop stars, paparazzi and stargazers without ever settling for the obvious joke or the predictable punchline. This comes as no big surprise to me, considering that the writer/director of Delirious is Tom DiCillo, frequent Jim Jarmusch cinematographer and rather astute filmmaker in his own right. (DiCillo gave us Johnny Suede, The Real Blonde and -- one of my favorite movies about filmmakers -- the excellent Living in Oblivion)

Delirious is the tale of a kind-hearted but depressingly unfocused homeless kid called Toby (played brilliantly by Michael Pitt) who starts an unlikely friendship with a fast-talking paparazzi photographer named Les (Steve Buscemi, as good as he's ever been) and somehow manages to find himself in close proximity to K'harma Leeds, a teen idol pop sensation who is as beautiful as she is obtuse. (As the pop star, Alison Lohman is nothing short of stellar; she avoids the really obvious digs on Lindsay, Brittney and Paris ... but she sure does nail 'em to the wall anyway)

You know that really sexy actress who played a lesbian in Bound and a stripper in Showgirls? Yeah, Gina Gershon, right. Well, did you also know that Gina and her brother Dann just wrote a kid-friendly horror book called Camp Creepy Time? Yep, they did. And guess what? DreamWorks bought it to make a movie version! And here's the best part: They hired a really solid screenwriter to bang out the adaptation.

According to reliable sources, Camp Creepy Time (which won't hit bookstores until May) is about a young boy who discovers that what oughtta be an idyllic summer camp -- is actually a haven for aliens who love nothing more than turning human children into hideous monsters and shipping them across the cosmos as exhibits for interstellar zoos. Nifty! (That sound you're currently hearing is the clackity-clack of the Gershon siblings working on the sequel.)

Turning the as-yet-unpublished book into screenplay form will be Richard LaGravenese, whom astute movie fans will fondly remember as the guy who wrote The Fisher King, The Ref and A Little Princess. His previous page-to-screen adaptations also include The Bridges of Madison County, Unstrung Heroes and The Horse Whisperer. (Plus his very first screenplay was Rude Awakening, and I think that movie is pretty funny.)

Anyway, yeah: summer camp, aliens and monsters. I smell a smash hit as I sit here kicking myself for not hatching this concept five years ago.

[Thanks to Variety for the news and the pic.]

Claudia Myers' Kettle of Fish is, in many ways, a throwback, but this is not a bad place to throw back to every now and then. Recalling all manner of classic screwball romantic comedies, from When Harry Met Sally ... back to The Awful Truth, it's essentially really well-done fluff that makes full use of the greatest unnatural backdrop in the world, New York City.

As per the conventions of the genre, a sometimes whimsical, sometimes melancholy jazz score propels the proceedings, which concern the adventures of Mel (a surprisingly no-longer-boyish Matthew Modine), a full-time bachelor and sometime saxophonist with deep attachments to a ramshackle railroad and a goldfish named Daphne, but who is otherwise incapable of commitment.

• Bee Season - Richard Gere as a rough-boy sailor in An Officer and a Gentleman? OK. Richard Gere as a singing and dancing attorney in Chicago? Convincing enough. Richard Gere as a Jewish husband (of Juliette Binoche) and father exploring the mysteries of God through the flawless spelling of his daughter? Oy. Many parts of this existential drama about the ways in which a brilliant 11-year-old (Flora Cross) affects her family are sketchy, as no one of the characters is well-drawn enough for us to care about them too much. Genius was captured far better in films like Little Man Tate and Searching For Bobby Fischer.