It's October and I have to admit that I'm feeling a little empty without my annual Truman Capote movie. In 2005 there was Bennett Miller's excellent Capote and then last year came Douglas McGrath's Infamous, which, surprisingly, was equally good. I mean, couldn't some enterprising filmmaker have conjured up a movie about Capote's emotionally wrenching experience writing Breakfast at Tiffany's or something? But while I'm on this subject, those two movies proved a remarkable double feature, highlighting two different approaches to the exact same subject matter. Neither movie suffered, but each did something of its own uniquely well.

That was a rare opportunity, but there are always interesting pairs of movies out there for different reasons. For example, Steve Buscemi is currently starring in two movies, Interview (4 screens), which he directed, and Delirious (1 screen), directed by Tom DiCillo. In both, he plays a kind of desperate, pathetic journalist. With his increasingly saggy, sour face, he brings a kind of parasitic feel to the job, but there's still something captivating about him. He's one of those great "ugly" actors they used to hire back in the 1970s: people who look like people instead of movie stars. He is superb at soulful cowards and failures, often with a temper, and he has graced some of the best films of the past 20 years (Reservoir Dogs, Fargo, Ghost World, etc.)

I was hoping for a chance to see The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford a second time before I wrote my review, but only to confirm my suspicions that it's a surprising near-masterpiece, certainly one of the year's best films, and the best Western to come across the range since Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992) and Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man (1996). I had been looking forward to the film, mainly because 2007 had previously yielded two very good Westerns in Seraphim Falls and 3:10 to Yuma (we'll say nothing more about the wretched September Dawn). I had also admired New Zealand director Andrew Dominik's previous and only other feature, Chopper (2000). But none of this prepared me for the scope, artistry and brilliance of this new film.

The drawback is that the 160-minute The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is going to be one of those "difficult" movies that doesn't get the recognition it deserves, mainly because it can't be quickly explained or understood, or broken down into a 30-second sound byte. It's not a sweeping, spectacular epic, but rather a quiet, wintry epilogue. It will be critiqued with single words: "long," "boring," "confusing." Nevertheless, it's in good company with Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, Jane Campion's In the Cut, Gus Van Sant's Gerry, George A. Romero's Land of the Dead, Terrence Malick's The New World, Brian De Palma's The Black Dahlia, Terry Zwigoff's Art School Confidential, Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, David Lynch's Inland Empire and William Friedkin's Bug -- all movies that will eventually have their day in the sun despite their current sad critical standing. The real hitch is that Jesse James chooses not to deconstruct the James myth, as would be the expected, rational approach in our post-modern age, but rather embraces it and expands on it.

One of the films we're most looking forward to covering for you at Toronto (or Telluride, should I be so lucky as to find it on the schedule there next Thursday) is The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. The film delves into the private life of Jesse James (played by Pitt) as the Ford brothers, Charley (Sam Rockwell) and Bob (Casey Affleck), trusted members of the notorious outlaw's gang, plot to kill him. Watch Moviefone's exclusive trailer (above), and check out the film's official website and IMDb page for more details; we'll have a review up of the film as soon as possible after TIFF opens, so check back for more.

Thanks to people like Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood and Lawrence Kasdan, I'm a huge fan of the Western genre. (Yes, Lawrence Kasdan. What of it? Silverado rocks!) So when I read that Warner Bros. was bankrolling a Western with Brad Pitt as Jesse James and Casey Affleck as the man who (finally) put Jesse in a pine box, I was more than a little intrigued. Then I learned that Andrew Dominik (Chopper) would be directing, that Ridley Scott (one of my favorites) was producing, and that the supporting cast would include Sam Rockwell, Zooey Deschanel and Ted Levine. I was officially psyched for this movie.

Unfortunately that was about two years ago. So where the heck is the movie already? Its release date has been pushed around more violently than a Big Mac at a vegan rally, but what gives? It's got BRAD PITT in it, right? How tough is it to release a Brad Pitt movie these days? Well, according to The L.A. Times, the flick's been met with some pretty unfriendly test screening audiences. Reports also indicate that director Dominik has his preferred cut, but Pitt and Scott also have a version that they like. One of the cuts apparently runs over three hours long; WB wants something more Clint Eastwood-y, whereas Mr. Dominik seems to be shooting for something a bit more Terrence Malick-ish. Good thing they have three-time Oscar winner Michael Kahn helping out in the editing room.

Seems to be a prickly issue all around, but the thing only cost about $30 million, which is probably about as low-budget a studio Western as you'll ever find these days. Based on the book by Ron Hansen, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is presently scheduled for release on September 21. And I bet they shorten the title too.

You might remember my news in November that The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford was gearing up to come out next month. Now that we're just days away from February, there is still no release date for the film. IMDb does have a bunch of European release dates for the end of the year, but it's easy to change or bump those even further, so I doubt that's any indication of a North American release date. Personally, I think they got held up by the exorbitantly long title.

Sam Rockwell, who plays Robert's brother, Charley Ford, recently talked to the Calgary Sun, and gave a few more details on the film while out promoting Joshua at Sundance. From the mouth of Rockwell: "I haven't even looped it. They're still editing it." He continues to say that the film was long, so they're making some cuts and "fine-tuning" it. I would assume the film will play like a pitch-perfect masterpiece after over a year of cuts and tuning! The meandering completion of the film doesn't seem to have dashed Rockwell's hopes, and he describes it as a movie with "a lot of indie sensibility."

I'm just going to go out on a limb and say that they're also all smacking themselves for casting Brad Pitt over Christopher Eigeman, like I suggested in November. Look at that picture of Jesse James above. Robert Ford didn't shoot James, the famous outlaw just jumped in a time machine to become a delightfully verbose indie actor!