In this day and age, why can't someone be both? Jessica Biel's dramatic turn as a stripper in Timothy Linh Bui's Powder Blue, which just hit DVD and Blu-ray, has been competing for attention with the theatrical release of Stephen Elliott's Easy Virtue, which opened in New York and Los Angeles before expanding this weekend. Throw in the tempest in a teacup about her interview with Allure Magazine, in which the actress was quoted as complaining that her beauty was causing her to miss out on more serious roles that instead went to Natalie Portman or Scarlett Johansson, and it may be hard to know what to think of the actress.

I don't know if the Allure quotes are accurate are not, taken out of context or completely made up, but watching her in Easy Virtue made me forget all the career stuff and gossip and get caught up with the characters and the story. That's not something I expected from a period piece based on a play by Noël Coward. Biel plays Larita, an American race car driver from Detroit who marries the young, very British John Whittaker (Ben Barnes) after a whirlwind romance. John takes her home to meet his very proper mother (Kristin Scott Thomas), his remote yet welcoming father (Colin Firth), and his two flighty sisters (Kimberly Nixon and Katherine Parkinson).

It wouldn't be fair to say that Biel steals this very funny film (with a more serious streak that's gradually revealed). For one thing, Firth is exquisitely good; for another, Elliot's direction is quite engaging. Still, Biel is something of a minor marvel in the role.

Deals. Michel Gondry's doc The Thorn in the Heart may not have generated much positive buzz when it premiered at Cannes last week, but it impressed the folks at Oscilloscope Laboratories. They acquired North American rights to the film and are planning a theatrical release, according to indieWIRE. Thorn examines the life of Gondry's aunt, a schoolteacher for more than 30 years in rural France. David Hudson at IFC's The Daily gathered links to the coverage, in which one critic calls Thorn a "glorified home movie" and another predicts that "normal people will simply walk out of it," while others defend it as "a lovely, minor-key ode" and "mildly diverting."

Box Office. Stephen Elliott's Easy Virtue led the way, earning a very tidy $110,443, according to Box Office Mojo, which averages out to $11,044 per screen. Jessica Biel gives her best performance so far as an American race car driver who marries a young British man (Ben Barnes) after a whirlwind romance, and then must deal with his stuffy mother (Kristin Scott Thomas), curiously distanced father (Colin Firth), and flighty sisters. It's a romantic comedy with dramatic depth, light on its feet yet unafraid to stand still and contemplate fate and mortality.

Expanding into 52 theaters in its second week of release, Rian Johnson's con man comedy The Brothers Bloom rode a wave of appreciative reviews to a per-screen average of $7,394, just a little ahead of Olivier Assayas' critically-acclaimed family drama Summer Hours, starring Juliette Binoche. (We've embedded the lively trailer for the latter title below.) The highly-praised doc Burma VJ opened on one theater with a modest take of $5,554 -- not bad on a crowded weekend.

After the jump: The festival beat goes on in Seattle and at Silverdocs.

Big news: another beautiful actress laments that her good looks limit her acting choices. Jessica Biel says that being so attractive "really is a problem ... I just want an opportunity," she told Allure for their June issue, on sale next week. "If you don't like the audition, then don't hire me! But if you don't want to even see me - that's hurtful."

The quick conclusion to draw is that Biel is seriously delusional, that she's another spoiled, overpaid pretty girl. "Wah wah wah! Poor, poor, pitiful me!" However, none of the interview is online, only quotes that are scattered among various online outlets, so it's impossible to evaluate the context of her quote. Biel may, in fact, be delusional about her own abilities; on the other hand, what's wrong with yearning for the opportunity to demonstrate a wider range of her skills, and not to be judged by her looks alone?

Of course, thousands (if not millions) of less attractive people will never get to have the opportunities that she currently enjoys, limited though she may feel they are. Given a choice between a more talented, average-looking actress and a less talented, more traditionally-attractive actress, guess who wins the role? It reminds me of a scene in James L. Brooks' Broadcast News: when the handsome news reporter William Hurt asks, "What do you do when your real life exceeds your dreams?," the less attractive but more talented news reporter Albert Brooks responds: "Keep it to yourself!" Good advice for Jessica Biel. You can watch her strip down for a dramatic role in Powder Blue, now available on DVD, or catch her in Easy Virtue, due out in theaters on Friday.

[ Via E! Online ]

For a business that is notoriously slow to develop groundbreaking creative projects, the film industry can be remarkably quick when it comes to cashing in on proven success. Thus, when the romantic comedy He's Just Not That Into You -- timed for release to capitalize on Valentine's Day earlier this year -- grossed an estimated $94 million for New Line Cinema / Warner Brothers, the company decided to prepare something similar for Valentine's Day next year, reports the New York Times.

Since He's Just Not That Into You featured an ensemble cast of notable actresses (Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Connelly, Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Aniston), the new project, imaginatively titled Valentine's Day, hopes to pack Julia Roberts, Anne Hathaway, Jennifer Garner, Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, and Shirley MacLaine into a storyline about "would-be romantics working their way through a tangle of circumstances in Los Angeles." None of the women have signed on yet, nor has the company's director of choice, Garry Marshall, nor has Ashton Kutcher, whose name has also been floated, but potential Green Lantern Bradley Cooper has agreed to play a man in the movie.

Lionsgate has sown up Halloween with the Saw franchise, so, strictly from a business perspective, this makes good sense. Of course, just packing "names" into a movie for the sake of names won't necessarily work. Still, if Valentine's Day is successful with big stars and establishes a new franchise for New Line, they could populate sequels with less-expensive stars and turn a decent profit for years to come.

When David O. Russell started piling on the projects, I thought that meant that Nailed was completed, that all of those money woes and stoppages hadn't ruined the film ... but it looks like they did, unless some magical fairy flies over and fixes things. In a chat with the Orlando Sentinel, Jessica Biel said: "I had an incredible experience with David and the rest of the cast. It made me a better actor. For all that, I'm devastated that it's not finished and who knows when it will be and will come out. I still have my fingers crossed that something good will come of it, that it will be finished."

That doesn't sound entirely bad, like maybe Russell just hasn't finished it yet, but The Playlist quashes those hopes, saying: "the film is, according to one of our sources, unfinished, missing key scenes and has been basically abandoned by the principle post-production players. " So much for supposedly finishing production.

While I've been digging the work Russell is moving towards, I'd give it all up for a little Nailed. Biel as a waitress who gets shot in the head with a nail, gets plagued with wild sex urges, goes on a crusade for victims of bizarre injuries, and falls for a congressman? It's Russell brilliance and it's got to hit the screen. Anyone out there know a fairy, genie, or other successful wish granter?

[via Movieline]

From distinguished presenter to sleazy stripper? Jessica Biel was last seen looking all gorgeous and glamorous on the Academy Awards, wearing a lovely gown as she recapped the technical awards show that she hosted. Next time you see her on the small screen, she'll be taking off her clothes.

Timothy Linh-Bui's indie drama Powder Blue, in which Biel plays a Los Angeles stripper, will bypass a theatrical release and go straight to home video, according to High-Def Digest. Image Entertainment will release the film on DVD and Blu-ray on Tuesday, May 5.

Is this just a hiccup in Jessica's career? She appeared in two high-profile projects in 2007: Next with Nicolas Cage didn't do so well, while I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry with Adam Sandler was a smash. Stephan Elliott's Easy Virtue, an adaptation of a Noel Coward play, debuted on the fest circuit last fall. Our own Eugene Novikov called it "a droll and witty delight" and felt that Ms. Biel "gives easily the best performance of her career," yet it doesn't look like it has US distribution*. Maybe David O. Russell's upcoming romantic comedy Nailed will get things back on track for her.

Even without the possibility of Biel doffing her duds, Powder Blue looks like it will be worth a rental just to see what director Timothy Linh-Bui does with the material. His previous film, Green Dragon back in 2001, was quietly effective, and his new one also stars Forest Whitaker, Ray Liotta, Patrick Swayze, Kris Kristofferson, and Lisa Kudrow. Here, once again, is the trailer, which is definitely NSFW unless you work in a strip club.

*Easy Virtue does have distribution, and it will hit theaters in limited release on May 22, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

The first trailer for the indie Powder Blue has arrived online, and it's one of those montage previews full of quick erotic cuts (did Jessica Biel just pour hot wax down her naked backside?) set to a familiar indie-centric score. Do we have any idea what this film is about after watching the trailer? Not at all, but it sure as heck looks enticing enough to warrant a screening.

Here's what we know of Powder Blue: It follows four Los Angeles residents (a mortician, an ex-con, a suicidal ex-priest and a stripper) who are brought together on Christmas Eve by a mixture of circumstances, and it stars Jessica Biel, Ray Liotta, Forest Whitaker, Patrick Swayze and tons of other people (wiki description after the jump). The trailer itself screams Crash, and if it was up to the editor, we probably would've received two and a half minutes of half-naked stripper Biel ... but who's complaining? No release date yet, and, surprisingly, this isn't playing at Sundance ... so until we find out when and where we can watch this flick in full, enjoy the trailer below ... and then screencaps of Biel and Swayze in a pimped-out blonde wig (doesn't he look like a member of Poison?) in the gallery beneath that.
Warning: NSFW

A highbrow festival like Toronto doesn't offer many opportunities to laugh, and I was grateful for this one. Easy Virtue, an adaptation of an early Noël Coward play, is a droll and witty delight, a superb showcase for its cast, and a return to fine form for The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert director Stephan Elliott, who last turned in the unsettling but incomprehensible Eye of the Beholder nearly 10 years ago. Where most TIFF films seemed to glower at me from the screen, this one winked and smiled.

Noël Coward may seem a strange choice for Elliott, whose films have favored the bizarre and the obscure. I don't know what attracted the filmmaker to this project, but I'm glad that something did. The material may seem almost purely verbal, all clever turns of phrase and sardonic interjections (what Americans think of as "Britishness"), but Elliott is constantly concerned with how the movie looks and sounds. Fittingly, he manages to give it a curious, otherworldly feel. This is most pronounced in the opening sequence, which marries choppy black-and-white footage, odd angles, and a jazzy soundtrack to introduce us to the characters and transport us to a universe that is ever so slightly off-kilter. It's a welcome recognition that these hyper-literate, impeccably constructed old comedies – Coward, Wilde, etc. – don't take place in a world quite like ours.

While it stars some great names in the world of film, we haven't heard too much about Easy Virtue. But now, as it gears up for that spanky Canadian festival known as TIFF, CinEmpire has published a whole slew of pictures -- a retro Jessica Biel, Colin Firth, Ben Barnes, Kristin Scott Thomas, and more.

The film focuses on an American divorcee (Biel) who has to meet the parents (but hopefully without the cat milking). But unlike Stiller's version, she's already tied the knot with a sexy young Englishman (Barnes), so Mom (Scott Thomas) and Dad (Firth) can't stop the wedding. But I'm sure there'll be lots of dirty looks, and more than one smirk, like the one above.

Virtue is yet another romcom, but at least it heads back in time a little, and originally comes from a Noel Coward play that Alfred Hitchcock adapted years ago as a dramatic silent film. Good or bad, we'll find out soon enough.

[via The Bad and Ugly]

Imagine you're a green alien living happily among other green aliens on a tiny planet somewhere. Then one day an astronaut from Earth shows up and starts terrifying everyone. And he has the voice of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson! Except maybe contractual stipulations demand that he not be called "The Rock" anymore. Still! Scary!

That's the premise of Planet 51, a computer-animated comedy that has finally, after some shuffling, been acquired by Sony and scheduled for a Thanksgiving 2009 release. The voice cast includes Johnson, Gary Oldman, Justin Long, Seann William Scott, John Cleese, and Jessica Biel. The directors are a trio of video game programmers named Jorge Blanco, Javier Abad, and Marcos Martinez, and the script is by Joe Stillman, who co-wrote the first two Shrek films.

As we reported last November, Planet 51 was originally picked up by New Line and would have been that studio's first CG release. Then New Line was folded into Warner Bros., so the film became that studio's property, and they planned to release it next summer. But according to Variety, Planet 51's producers wanted it to come out this November instead -- and that didn't work for Warners because they're already releasing a Harry Potter film in that slot. So they let the film go, and now Sony has it. The producers will get their November release date, but it'll be 2009, not 2008. Presumably, everyone's happy now.

But should they be?