It's hard to say which event in midtown Manhattan on Thursday night was cooler: New German Cinema legend Werner Herzog in conversation with director Jonathan Demme at the Times Center, or the two crazed climbers who attempted to scale the New York Times building right next door just a few hours earlier. In some ways, the two occurrences worked together: It was later announced that one of the climbers did it in order to raise awareness about global warming, a relevant issue for anyone interested in Herzog's latest film, the remarkable Antarctica odyssey Encounters at the End of the World. Like most of Herzog's documentary work, it's a brilliant amalgam of gorgeous imagery and Herzog's personal philosophies. Not a scientist himself, he spends time in their company down south, seeking to understand their behavior ("Is this a big moment?" he asks when they nonchalantly announce the discovery of a new bacterium).

Demme, admitting that he and Herzog had just met earlier in the evening, opened the conversation by reading an effusive letter to Herzog written by Roger Ebert after the critic discovered that the director dedicated Encounters to him. Herzog seemed displeased that Ebert printed the letter ("Those things should stay between two men") but had only praise for his friend. "I salute him, a good soldier of cinema," he said. "We have very few left."

No woman, no cry, no Bob Marley. First, Martin Scorsese signs on to direct a Bob Marley documentary in February, which pretty much shuts down the biopic that Bob's widow, Rita, was putting together. Now, he's pulled out due to "scheduling conflicts," and the BBC reports that The Silence of the Lambs helmer Jonathan Demme has taken over.

The film is still set to be released on the 65th anniversary of the musician's birth -- February 6, 2010, so this change shouldn't disrupt anything. As for Demme's involvement, it shouldn't change things much. He's made docs on both the Talking Heads (Stop Making Sense in 1984) and Neil Young with Heart of Gold in 2006. And Ziggy seems cool with the whole change: "His empathy with my father's body of work and his unique understanding of the musical documentary form makes me confident that this film will be the ultimate celebration of my father's life."

Scorsese, meanwhile, still has other famous folks to keep busy with -- George Harrison, Theodore Roosevelt, and Frank Sinatra. Which one should go first?

As I mentioned in an earlier post, this is a very busy week for notable indie films coming to DVD for the first time. For fans of documentaries, at least three titles deserve mention.

Kudos to distributor Halo-8 Entertainment for unleashing Frank Pavich's N.Y.H.C. The title refers to the mid-90s New York hardcore music scene; the film itself was originally released on an underground VHS tape in 1999. Digitally remastered, the doc looks smashing, and, even if you're not a fan of the music, it's a terrific, well-told, engaging story. Musicians and fans open up about mothers, drugs, death, lyrics (one fan says, "You can't understand what they're saying, but if [the singer is] saying what he's saying he's saying, it's pretty cool"), day jobs, piercing, tattoos, violence, and above all, a love of music.

The two-disk edition features plenty of supplemental material, including deleted scenes, bonus segments, director's commentary, complete live performances of songs by the seven bands highlighted in the film, and more than three hours of updated interviews, in which those involved with the scene talk about what's happened to them. The DVD is available directly from Halo-8.

Jimmy Carter may not have gotten a lot of respect when he was president -- maybe the fact that he was called "Jimmy" had something to do with it -- but he's enjoyed a resurgence in recent years as his humanitarian efforts have reminded Americans what they liked about him in the first place. He's not a great politician, but he's an honest, good-hearted man with noble intentions.

And now filmmaker Jonathan Demme (Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense, Neil Young: Heart of Gold) has scored with a documentary about him, called Man from Plains. Now playing at the Toronto International Film Festival, it was at the Venice fest, too, where it picked up three prizes last weekend.

The international critics' jury give the film its top award, while the Human Rights Film Network gave it a prize for best feature film. It also received the Collateral Award for Best Biography, which is presented by the Bologna Film Festival in conjunction with the Venice fest.

Sony Pictures Classics is releasing the film theatrically in October. It follows Carter on his recent tour for his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, which caused a stir with its controversial subject matter.

Demme is perhaps best known as a director of fictional films, including Philadelphia and The Silence of the Lambs (for which he won an Oscar). But his documentaries have been widely acclaimed, too. Many people consider his Talking Heads and Neil Young movies to be among the best concert films ever made. So his portrait of Jimmy Carter promises to be interesting -- and apparently the people in Venice think so, too.

It goes to show, sometimes inspiration can come from the unlikeliest of places. Variety reports that Universal has just picked up the 'supernatural comedy' Jeff the Immortal. Written by Chris Bishop, the story revolves around "...a slacker who discovers he has supernatural powers but uses these new-found powers for selfish reasons." This is where the unlikely inspiration comes in; it turns out Bishop came up with the idea for Jeff the Immortal after watching the Christopher Lambert fantasy classic film Highlander. Instead of an immortal Scottish clansman embroiled in an epic battle, Bishop decided to go with aimless slackers -- this is a comedy after all.

Chris Bishop started his comedy writing career on The Drew Carey Show back in 1995, and has worked on and off in TV since then. Jeff the Immortal will be his first feature film script. Bishop has also just handed in a first draft to Warner Independent for the remake of Night of the Living Dorks (Nacht der lebenden Loser, Die), a 2004 German comedy about three losers who bungle a voodoo ritual and wind up as the living dead. On board to produce Jeff for Universal is Marc Platt Productions. Platt is also behind Angelina Jolie's comic book flick Wanted and the Jonathan Demme comedy Dancing with Shiva. Since Jeff is still in the early stages of production, there is no word on a director or star. But lately, comedies have proven they can pull in the box-office, so I would guess that Universal will want to get to work as soon as possible.

Those of us too young to remember Jimmy Carter the President will soon get to see Jimmy Carter the movie star. Of course, he's appeared in plenty of documentaries in the past, but the 39th President of the United States should receive his greatest cinematic distribution with Jonathan Demme's Jimmy Carter: Man of Plains. The doc, which we first heard about last December, has just been picked up by Sony Classics and is about to figure heavily in the festival season. It will definitely be shown at the Venice Film Festival, and then it will also be screened in Toronto, where Carter is expected to appear. Demme's last documentary, Neil Young: Heart of Gold, also received good distribution -- from Paramount Classics -- and went on to a domestic gross of about $2 million. Demme, who is best known as the Oscar-winning director of The Silence of the Lambs, has better luck with music documentaries than political (The Agronomist only broke a quarter-million). However, Man of Plains was produced by Participant Pictures, who gave us An Inconvenient Truth and Murderball, so hopefully it can follow up those hits with another.

Man of Plains is a book-tour road-trip doc (think Michael Moore's The Big One), which follows Carter as he promotes his 2006 best seller Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Via three months worth of radio, news and university appearances (though not Brandeis, which refused Demme's camera), the film features the former President speaking out about his quest for international peace and encouraging debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Like the book it showcases, the film should garner some controversy -- possibly even from former President Bill Clinton, who is one of the stronger critics of Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid (hopefully Demme got that important interview). Man of Plains features cinematography by Declan Quinn (Leaving Las Vegas) and editing by Kate Amend, who cut the Oscar-winning doc Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport. With this acquisition, Sony Pictures now has nine films playing at Toronto, including The Jane Austen Book Club and Persepolis.

There's a new script gearing up for production for Sony Classics, and while we know pretty much nothing about what it will entail, we do know the names behind it -- which aren't too shabby. Dancing with Shiva is a new ensemble comedy from Jenny Lumet, who just happens to be Sidney Lumet's daughter. While this is her first feature script, she has done a few roles over the years as an actress, her most popular being 1988's Running on Empty. Jonathan Demme has been tapped to direct and produce the film, and a solid cast has already been lined up.

Anne Hathaway, who just became Jane Austen, will star, with Sesame Street's Mr. Noodle, Bill Irwin (who I always mix up with My So-Called Life dad Tom Irwin), The West Wing's Anna Deveare Smith and that Dangerous Woman, Debra Winger co-starring. The movie will head into production after Demme finishes He Comes in Peace, which means sometime next month in the wonderful state of Connecticut. Since it's all coming together soon, we shouldn't have too long to wait to hear what this whole thing is about. Being that there isn't anything more to say on the project, I'll throw my dancing wish out there -- I want to see some Skinny Legs and All dancing the Dance of the Seven Veils, with an anthropomorphized can of beans, dirty sock, painted stick, conch shell and spoon -- preferably with Terry Gilliam directing. Now that would be a dance!

While out promoting her upcoming film Becoming Jane, Anne Hathaway told Blackfilm that she'll be shooting a film with Jonathan Demme this fall called Dancing with Sheba. Demme, as most of you are probably aware, is best known as the director of Philadelphia and Silence of the Lambs. Lately he's been helming more docs than narratives (with the exception of The Manchurian Candidate back in 2004), but will once again return to the world of fiction for a story about an ex-model-turned-drug addict who leaves rehab after an eight-month stint to attend her sister's wedding. Hathaway, who's been doing all she can to break the oh-so-cute mold folks have trapped her in with films like The Princess Diaries and The Devil Wears Prada, will play said ex-model.

According to Hathaway, the film is a dark comedy and Debra Winger has already been cast as her mother. Currently, Demme is looking for someone to play her sister. I've always wanted to see Havoc, because folks tell me it's a film that demonstrates just how nutty Hathaway can get when given the right material. I'm sick of watching her play cute and corny -- I'm itching to see the gal snort something rotten off the back of a truck (if you know what I mean). Hathaway claims her character in the film has been in and out of rehab for 10 years, which means the girl must have been doing some nasty things when she was a teenager. I imagine it will be tough to come out of rehab and go right to a wedding, so I'll be curious to see how far Demme takes her character. It is a dark comedy after all. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe Demme has directed a comedy since the 1988 flick Married to the Mob. Anne Hathaway shooting and snorting in a comedy directed by Jonathan Demme? Am I the only one excited about this project?

Actor Charles Napier's grin is nearly as scary as the late James Coburn's was. In fact, Napier's characters genuinely frighten me at times. I am thinking particularly of his role as psychotic bad guy Harry Sledge in the 1975 Russ Meyer movie Supervixens. For once, one of the men in a Russ Meyer film actually steals scenes away from the overly endowed, bare-breasted women. You thought Willem Dafoe was scary in Wild at Heart? He's a pale imitation of Harry Sledge. Napier flashes that grin and you just know something horrible will happen. I don't understand why the other characters in Supervixens trust him even for one minute.

Napier was in four Meyer films: Cherry, Harry & Raquel (in which he displays full frontal nudity, I'm told), Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, The Seven Minutes, and the aforementioned Supervixens. But you've surely seen Napier even if you're not a fan of Meyer's movies. He's played cops, judges and terrifying bad guys on a number of TV shows -- he even had one-episode roles both on the original Star Trek series and Deep Space Nine. Or perhaps you saw him as Marshall Murdock in Rambo: First Blood Part II. Napier's also had small roles in nearly all Jonathan Demme's films: A doomed guard in Silence of the Lambs, the judge in Philadelphia, and a hairdresser in Married to the Mob. And let's not forget he's the leader of the real Good Ole Boys band in The Blues Brothers. He's got a square jaw that rivals Bruce Campbell's.

It doesn't matter how old Charles Napier is or how harmless his character is supposed to be. When he grins in that lazy, slow-yet-homicidal way, all eyes turn his way and the scene is his. And a chill runs down your spine, while at the same time you feel slightly titillated. Did I say that last bit out loud? Well, watch him and judge for yourself.

SXSW released its complete list of features for the 2006 film festival today. It's a long, varied list and a little intimidating to absorb all at once. Depending on what type of films you want to see, you can look at the list in several ways:

The SXSW regular: "I see Joe Swanberg has a movie at SouthBy again this year (LOL), as do Jacob Vaughan and Bryan Poyser (The Cassidy Kids). Be nice to see them all again. Bradley Beesley is back, too, co-directing the documentary Summercamp with Sarah Price. Do you think the documentary Fuck is just a riff on The Aristocrats?"

The all-star premiere fan: "Ooooh, Hugh Grant And Dennis Quaid in American Dreamz, Kim Basinger and Danny DeVito in Even Money, Ben Stiller in Andy Dick's film Danny Roane: First Time Director, and Natalie Portman in V for Vendetta. How early should we get in line at the Paramount to see A Prairie Home Companion and Friends with Money?"

The arthouse film geek: "Can't miss the Wim Wenders film (Don't Come Knocking) and the Jonathan Demme documentary about Neil Young. Look, Richard E. Grant is directing a movie (Wah-Wah) that stars Gabriel Byrne. And it's a great chance to see some movies we missed at Sundance: Old Joy, Thank You for Smoking, Forgiving the Franklins, Awesome: I Fuckin' Shot That, and Kinky Boots."

Me: "Wow, look at all the cool documentaries. How many movies can I see in ten days?"