I've always been a fan of honest assessments in interviews -- I'm talking about those fleeting moments when an actor, actress, director, or anyone else in film backs out of the marketing machine for a second and speaks about their work honestly. It drives me up a wall when I see a talented person lather a bad movie/role in platitudes as if we won't figure out that they're lying. Sure, they have to help buzz for their projects, but sometimes a spade is just a spade.

Katherine Heigl has ticked off many recently for removing her name from Emmy contention because she doesn't feel the material she was given on Grey's Anatomy was worthy of consideration. It may be a bit too truthful, but isn't it accurate? Her character arc isn't the stuff of Emmy nominations. We complain when actors are given nods they didn't really deserve, but are equally put off when someone pulls their name out of the running for that reason. Or, is it just because she admitted it publicly? Or, that she's been very honest before? I wasn't entirely thrilled with the portrayals in Knocked Up, and was relieved that she admitted so herself, even if the film has given her a lot of success.

I was beginning to think that Katherine Heigl was sliding into a comfortable future of typecast romcoms and fluff fare on the big screen, with the occasional dramatic television movie to mix things up -- sort of like the next-generation Sandra Bullock. But now she has added some meat to her plate.

Variety reports that she will both produce and star in an adaptation of Escape, the memoir of Carolyn Jessop -- the woman who broke out of the FLDS (Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints) world and helped convict polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs (the man who so idiotically thinks that the more wives you have, the closer you get to heaven). At the age of 18, she had to marry a man 32 years older than her. With this man, she had eight children, suffered rape and abuse, and finally escaped the life and became the first woman to leave an FLDS life and gain full custody of her children.

Right now, there's no word on who will adapt the memoir, but maybe one of the Big Love folks will take this on. FLDS stories are all the rage these days.

So, what do you think? Can Heigl pull off the role?

In these supposedly progressive times, gender equality is one of those touchy issues relegated to the last paragraph of a trend piece nobody reads. When Katherine Heigl suggested to Vanity Fair that Judd Apatow's movies were sexist, the assertion came across like an after-the-fact shrug of acceptance. Ever the galvanizing provocateur, New York Times critic Manohla Dargis confronts the issue head-on with a thorough analysis of the gender bias in this year's summer blockbusters.

With "Iron Man, Batman, Big Angry Green Man" and other massive expressions of virility invading the box office, female roles appear to be relegated to the back of the multiplex. Dargis touches on the rumors that Warner Bros head Jeff Robinov believes no woman has been able to sell a movie since Julia Roberts (a point that Natalie Portman might contest, but not Paris Hilton) before sizing up numerous upcoming studio releases, with particular attention paid to Anna Faris, "who could be the next Judy Holliday but without the right material will, alas, probably end up the next Brittany Murphy." It's the kind of pronouncement that hits you in gut.

One of my favorite bloggers, Jim Emerson, gives Hollywood Elsewhere's Jeff Wells a virtual bitchslap for a recent post Wells made on his favorite topic: how he doesn't believe guys who look "normal" (i.e., to him, fat and ugly) really score with beautiful women. In a post last month titled "Eclipse of the Hunk," Wells starts off by talking about the opening of the Judd Apatow-produced Forgetting Sarah Marshall, then goes on to mourn the loss of sexy, buff leading men and the success of Judd Apatow's films, in which dorky guys like Seth Rogen and Jason Segel get the hot chicks. Emerson excerpts my favorite quote from Wells piece:

"Taking their place are guys who look like real guys, which means almost never slender or buffed, and frequently chunky, overweight or obese. And usually with roundish faces with half-hearted beard growth, hair on their backs, man-boobs with tit hairs, blemishes, and always horribly dressed -- open-collared plaid dress shirts, low-thread-count T-shirts with lame-ass slogans or promotions on the chest, long shorts and sandals (or flip-flops), monkey feet, unpedicured toenails."

Freaky Friday isn't the only movie where switching skin leads to a better understanding of a family member. In 1996, there was Wish Upon a Star, and it featured Katherine Heigl as Alexia, the older, popular, and way-too-purple-clad sister of Danielle Harris' nerdy Hayley. (Harris played the goth Tosh in Urban Legend.) Little sis wishes on a comet, hoping to get a little bit of Alexia's life and poof! They switch places!

Above you can check out the opening of the movie, where Heigl's character covers herself in pastels and gets ready for school. Obviously it's a school a lot more laid back than the one I went to, since she wears a barely-there mini shirt and stomach-baring tank top. It looks like she's trying out for a part in Clueless. If you can't get enough of a teen Heigl, head after the jump and see the sisters realize that they've switched bodies.

After being a bit unhappy with some of the portrayals in Knocked Up, what does Katherine Heigl do? She signs on to star in a new romcom called The Ugly Truth, which Christopher Campbell told you about in November. The flick will focus on a "romantically challenged" morning show producer who deals with a chauvinistic correspondent trying to teach her how to find love. There's nothing like saying Knocked Up is sexist and then signing up for a movie where she gets taught love by a chauvinist.

Now Variety reports that Gerard Butler will be the guy to "guide" her. He's going to play a man called Mike Alexander, who is the "host of a TV segment titled 'The Ugly Truth.'" Heigl's character is "reluctantly embroiled by her chauvinistic correspondent (Butler) in a series of outrageous tests to prove his theories on relationships and help her find love." Well, I guess he was just done with all that uber thoughtfulness from P.S. I Love You.

To give a little credit to the project -- it's teaming director Robert Luketic with writers Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith -- they're the team behind Legally Blonde, which was a surprisingly fun film that cut through a lot of stereotypes. But still. A film where a man who finds women, or whose behavior indicates that he finds them, to be inferior teaches a smart, successful, and attractive woman how to find love is condescendingly passe.

If, however, the description is painting a falsely poor light on the film, I sure hope they correct it soon.

Perhaps you have a friend who's a little obsessive about weddings, perusing the Sunday social pages with unnatural interest, reading about other people's engagements and weddings as passionately as some folks follow their favorite sports teams. If you've never met a woman like this, you might not believe it's possible for a normal, intelligent woman to harbor such an obsession for the whole idea of weddings, but they do exist, and 27 Dresses delves into the world of one such fictional woman, Jane (Katherine Heigl), while also pulling of the rather neat trick of making the very attractive Heigl appear to be the less attractive, more serious older sister to sexy blond baby sister Tess (Malin Akerman, who previously was a bright spot on Lisa Kudrow's short-lived HBO series The Comeback).

We meet Jane as a child, at a relative's nuptials -- the beginning of her obsession with all-things-wedding -- when young Jane rescues a potential wedding dress disaster with the creative use of her sister's hair ribbon. When next we see her, Jane is all grown up and rushing back and forth between two weddings in one night, frantically changing clothes in a taxi as she charges back and forth across Manhattan in order to be there for both friends on their big days. And yes, it's a little unrealistic (have you ever tried to get by taxi from one part of Manhattan to another on a weekend night?), but it's also a pretty funny and well-edited scene that somehow manages to work.

Judging by choreographer/director Anne Fletcher's choice of projects, she must have a thing for weddings. The Hollywood Reporter announced that Fletcher, who directed Katherine Heigl's latest foray into interchangeable romantic comedies (27 Dresses), has signed to direct another rom-com called The Proposal. Proposal stars Sandra Bullock as a publishing executive trying to avoid deportation to Canada by marrying her assistant (played by Ryan Reynolds). So, like most career women in the movies, she is demanding and bullying and pretty much forces her assistant up the aisle -- although if my assistant had abs like Reynolds I might do the same thing.

Peter Chiarelli penned the script and while Reynolds and Bullock have been attached to the project since last May, it took Touchstone some time to find the right director. Fletcher started her career as a dancer and a choreographer, and finally made her directing debut with Step Up (a teen dance flick). Keeping with her strengths, she will. Fletcher told THR, "The Proposal has great physical comedy, which I for one, and I think a lot of other people, love seeing Sandy in. Ryan has great physical comedy skills too, and I always thought, why isn't he doing romantic comedies? So I'm excited to get my fingers into this."

Physical comedy is great and all, but am I the only one who would appreciate a moratorium on wedding comedies for awhile? I know I'm not the only one who thought that 27 Dresses premise was a little, shall we say, 'retrograde' for a modern romantic comedy. Maybe I've just come to expect a little more than tired clichés about bitter career woman and matrimonial fulfillment. The Proposal is scheduled to begin production this spring and will be released in 2009.

Not long ago, Katherine Heigl was at the center of controversy after she had some choice words for the film that helped kick-start her big-screen career in a BIG way. That film was Knocked Up. And we had some choice words for her. Now, however, the gal is back in 27 Dresses, co-starring one of my favorite New Yawkers, Eddie Burns, and you can watch the two interview one another as part of Moviefone's latest Unscripted installment. After watching the video, I have to say Heigl is definitely back in my good graces. To say she's just a tad -- hmmm -- risque in this piece is a bit of an understatement. Case in point: Watch the part when they talk about Heigl's Emmy Award and the many different ways she utilizes it. I'd like to think she was joking. If not, then ... umm, yeah. Watch it yourself.

Their conversation doesn't stray too far from the movie, weddings, funky bachelorette parties and whether Heigl was a better kisser than Burns' wife Christy Turlington, but there's a fun, personal vibe there that's worth a watch. And for some reason, I came away from the whole thing with an urge to hang out with Heigl's father. Strange, I know, but you'll have to watch it to see what I'm talking about. 27 Dresses arrives in theaters on January 18, and you can check out their Moviefone Unscripted chat right over here.

Breaking news, hold onto your seats, people. The folks at Fox have just announced (well, late last night) that the release date for 27 Dresses is changing from January 11 to January 18. I know, it's gonna screw up your movie-going plans for next weekend, but don't blame us.

Apparently it's taking a while for the news to filter down, though -- as I was sitting down to write this, I was IMing with a colleague who was watching The View (no, I'm not telling which of my male colleagues watches that show, that would be cruel) and he saw an ad for 27 Dresses that still has the release date as January 11. Someone better get their ads changed out. Anyhow, here's the new artwork with the date change reflected, so you can rest easy knowing that you, at least, are better informed than people who watch The View.

The date change is moderately interesting for a couple of reasons: first, the date change squares 27 Dresses and Katherine Heigl off against another film targeted at about the same demographic, Mad Money, which stars Queen Latifah, Diane Keaton, and Katie Holmes. There was nothing really competing against 27 Dresses for the chick demographic group on the 11th -- the only films opening then are The Bucket List (depressing film about dying with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman) and In the Name of the King (directed by Uwe Boll, so what are the chances that one will be any good, really?).

With the move to the 18th, 27 Dresses will now be facing off against Cloverfield (scary monster) and Teeth (scary vagina)so it will be interesting to see how the box office numbers fall out. I'll be immersed in Sundance at that point, so I wouldn't be going to any of them anyhow, but which film are you most likely to check out that weekend?