There's just something about Bret Easton Ellis' work on the big screen that I love -- the desperation mixed with a backdrop of insidiously upbeat '80s music. We've gotten Less Than Zero, American Psycho, The Rules of Attraction, and now The Informers. Word broke in May of 2007 that the interconnected collection of stories was going to be adapted, and now there's a trailer which you can see after the jump (beware of nudity and foul language).

It's the late Brad Renfro's last role, and one that should prove to be much eerier than Heath Ledger's stint as the Joker. It's got thumbsucking Lou Taylor Pucci as an entirely different sort of character, but Billy Bob Thornton steals just about every clip he's in -- and there's also the likes of Amber Heard, Winona Ryder, Mickey Rourke, Kim Basinger, Rhys Ifans, and Brandon Routh.

It looks like it could be just as good as its predecessors, but here's to hoping that the goodness is balanced with the box office this time around. Have you read the book? Do you think this trailer does it justice? And are you excited about the film?

You could put Zooey Deschanel in a 50-minute black and white silent film about brick walls and I'd still watch that sucker 10 times. Excuse me? What's a stalker? Ahem. Above you will find the trailer for The Go-Getter, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival wayyy back in 2007, and appears to be finally seeing the light of day. I, personally, haven't seen this movie, but James wasn't crazy about the film in his review; saying "this isn't filmmaking any more than unpacking an Ikea box and busting out the Allen key is to making furniture." However, Peter from Slashfilm announced it as one of his favorites from the year; calling it "Garden State meets Into the Wild."

Lou Taylor Pucci stars as a dude who steals a car and heads out on a road trip to find his brother following his mother's death. According to the trailer, along the way he meets up with Jena Malone, meets up with Maura Tierney, and all the while continues to build a phone relationship with the girl whose car he stole (played by my gal Zooey). The Go-Getter does look to have a bangin' soundtrack and some interesting cinematography, so it seems worth checking out. For you. Me? I was sold on starring Zooey Deschanel. (But I'm easy like that.)

Sometimes when I see a bit of casting news, I imagine a film not with the cast of actors, but with their previous roles. So, imagine what kind of ensemble can be put together with the upcoming romcom The Dream of the Romans. Variety reports that Jeff Daniels, Lauren Graham, Lou Taylor Pucci, Olivia Thirlby, and Kat Dennings have signed on for roles in the film, which will be the feature debut of writer/director John Hindman.

Romans stars Daniels as some sort of Rhonda Byrne -- a reclusive author who penned a book that "redefined spirituality for a generation." Unfortunately, his writing interferes with his desire to be left alone as many of his fans hunt him down, convinced that "he has all the answers." Two of them are Graham, who plays a struggling single mum, and Pucci, who plays a guy straight out of rehab. This is a romantic comedy, so most likely Ms. Gilmore will get to fall for Mr. Berkman. Or, maybe the backbone-lacking jerk from Chumscrubber will get some romance with Juno's friend or the 40-year-old virgin's stepdaughter.

iDeal's (the film's financer) Jana Edelbaum says: "This is a sparking piece of writing with vivid, wonderful characters." At the very least, it looks like a fresh jump into romcom territory, rather than the usual retread. The project just kicked off production in Philly.

When a movie shows up and takes a clear political stance, I find it's easier to judge its successes and / or shortcomings than when a flick dips a toe into the pool of social commentary and just waggles it around for a few minutes -- which probably explains why I both enjoyed and respected Mark Webber's Explicit Ills, an Altman-esque indie drama that has something to say about poverty, health care, and the importance of basic human kindness.

Brief, honest, and admirably to-the-point, Explicit Ills follows a group of seemingly unrelated South Philadelphia folks who try to lead normal, happy, anonymous lives -- but their station on the lower rung of the income scale means that even the most basic requirements remain frustratingly out-of-reach. (In one key scene, an excellent Rosario Dawson is denied asthma medicine for her sick little boy -- because she cannot afford the $55 price tag.) Alternate plot threads involve a pair of young druggies in love, a mega-clean couple who aim to open a health food store, and a cocky adolescent who (slowly) learns how to treat a lady.

While she's getting ready to film Eagle Eye in November, and also has a series of webisodes on the way, the unstoppable workhorse otherwise known as Rosario Dawson is going to be in yet another new movie. She's spending September in Philadelphia to be in a new indie flick called explicit ills., according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. The movie will mark the directorial debut of actor Mark Webber, who recently starred in Ethan Hawke's The Hottest State -- and who happened to win the Rising Star award at the Philly Film Fest.

The film is about "the effects of drugs and poverty and the choices that people make," which sounds like anything but an upper, although Mike Lemon, who cast the feature, says "it's uplifting." It's also quite reminiscent of Webber's own life. He was raised in the slums of North Philly by his single mom, and spent part of his youth homeless after a welfare fiasco. Dawson will play a woman who has an asthmatic son, but no insurance. The cast is looking to be an indie smorgasbord -- there's also Paul Franklin Dano, the big, silent brother from Little Miss Sunshine, the Pirates of the Caribbean voodoorific Naomie Harris, the infamous indie Thumbsucker Lou Taylor Pucci, and Roots rapper Tariq Trotter (who has had stints in films like Bamboozled and Perfume). Production will continue through the month, and I imagine we'll get to see it some time in the next year.

I'm a big fan of author Bret Easton Ellis' work. Since many of his novels rely on the inner workings of characters' minds, they can be difficult to adapt to the big screen. The film version of Less Than Zero made cocaine addiction look like Pretty in Pink. I know I'm in the minority, but I detested Mary Harron's American Psycho. The only adaptation I feel got Ellis exactly right was Roger Avary's excellent take on The Rules of Attraction. Now three more films are going to try and re-create Ellis' world. Darren Star is working on The Frog King with Joseph Gordon-Levitt. There is no director yet, but a movie version of Lunar Park has been announced. And director Gregor Jordan (Ned Kelly) has put together a cast for the film translation of Ellis' 1995 novel The Informers.

The Hollywood Reporter writes that Billy Bob Thornton, Kim Basinger, and Superman himself Brandon Routh are in "various stages of negotiation" to star in the ensemble film. The Informers is set in Los Angeles in 1983 and it tracks seven stories. The major characters are: a movie executive (played by Thornton), his wife (Basinger), his mistress, a rock star, a kidnapper, and a vampire (Routh, apparently looking to darken up his image). Rounding out the cast are Ashley Olsen as a "sexually promiscuous girl" (doesn't it seem like those twins are getting a ton of work these days?), Jon Foster (Stay Alive), Austin Nichols (John Monad on the baffling John From Cincinnati), and Lou Taylor Pucci (star of the very good Thumbsucker and the not very good Chumscrubber -- yes, they're different movies). Sounds like it could be a great flick! Now, whatever happened to Roger Avary's planned Glamorama movie? I would love to see that come to light. Did Zoolander steal its thunder?

It's a cliché that every avant-garde becomes an establishment -- but it's a cliché because it's true. When I refer to The Go-Getter, written and directed by Martin Hynes, as 'a Sundance film,' that's not because it represents the bold, the intimate, the personal and exciting; I call it 'a Sundance film' for the same reason grocery stores slap the most simple label on a generic product. Let's run through the elements -- and if it sounds like I'm going down a checklist, that's simply due to the fact that that's pretty much what Hynes does. A wounded, boy-man protagonist, played by a cute-yet-soulful actor (in this case, Lou Taylor Pucci) impulsively takes a long-distance road trip; along the way, he meets a variety of quirky characters played by big-name actors taking a break from better-paying jobs (Bill Duke, Jena Malone, Maura Tierney and more) and learns a lot about himself.

There's a threat of violence in the air, plus some minor crime -- our hangdog, haunted hipster hero has stolen the car he'll need for his voyage of inner discovery, and the owner of the car just happens to be a sassy, plucky, life-affirming sprite (played by Zooey Deschanel) who does not call the cops, but, rather, begins a flirty phone conversation with the person who jacked her ride, because she's a little crazy and a little sad and has been -- jeepers -- just waiting for someone like our hero to enter her life. Oh, and there's an ace soundtrack from a rocking indie artist, too! And dream sequences! And wacky tricks with a video camera!

Okay, I admit it. I've had a serious film-crush on Gael Garcia Bernal ever since I saw him in Amores Perros (It's all about the acting -- nothing to do with his gorgeous jawline. Really.) My crush further solidified with Y Tu Mama Tambien a year later. Bernal has been slowly and steadily notching an impressive number of solid roles on his belt, with The Motorcyle Diaries in 2004, and two films currently in arthouse theaters: Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep, and The King, directed by James Marsh.

As if that weren't enough hot roles for a serious young actor, Bernal has a starring role in Babel, debuting next week at Cannes, and four -- FOUR -- films in pre-prod. One of those films, Toto, is a soccer film, so Martha can start going into her soccer-movie ecstasies now. Also on his plate: O, Pasado, directed by Hector Babenco (Kiss of the Spiderwoman), about a man who ends a relationship but is still hounded by his ex; Deficit, which he is also directing (because, you know, he's just not busy enough lately), about a clash between two social classes at a family gathering in Mexico; and the one I'm personally most excited about, Master of Space and Time, another Gondry flick with a screenplay by Daniel Clowes (Art School Confidential, Ghost World). 

 Whew. I'm tired just thinking about everything Bernal is juggling, but I'm ecstatic to have so many opportunities to see him on the big screen. I love how Bernal is mixing up the Spanish films with stuff like Babel and the freaky-good Gondry films, too. All you pretty-boy actors out there who think you have to take roles in crap movies to build a career? Start taking notes, because Bernal (along with some other smart young actors like Joseph Gordon Levitt and Lee Taylor Pucci) is doing it right. And wouldn't I love to see Levitt and Bernal do a film together? You bet I would.

 

The commercial I saw for American Dreamz the other night introduces us to the main characters: The President; The Chief of Staff; The Wanna-Be Star; The Boyfriend; The TV Host; The Stage Mother. Unfortunately, those descriptions are about as deep as the character development gets in this tepid comedy from Paul Weitz, the director of About a Boy, In Good Company and American Pie. While no one gets it on with a hot dessert in Weitz's newest film, neither does the comedy ever get more than lukewarm. I suspect this is one of those movie ideas that sounded a whole lot better in the pitch meeting than when it ended up in theaters.  

Part of the problem is that the film doesn't really seem to know what it wants to be when it grows up. We have a wanna-be political satire about a dumb Southern president (gee, wonder who Dennis Quaid is supposed to be lampooning here?) who wakes up the day after his reelection and decides to start thinking. His sedated First Lady is played by Marcia Gay Harden (so obviously Laura Bush she might as well be wearing a "Hello My Name Is ..." tag), and Willem Dafoe, doing his best Dick Cheney impression, is the controlling Chief of Staff.

Then we have the would-be social satire of a reality TV show where wanna-be pop tarts perform for the votes of audience members, and things aren't always what they seem on camera. Weitz works again with Hugh Grant, his star from About A Boy, who plays Martin Tweed, the snarky, British, malcontented host of the show. If you're going to cast anyone in the part of a Simon Cowell-esque TV host, you couldn't do much better than to cast Grant in the part. Likewise, Mandy Moore (playing against type again, as she did in Saved!, by playing a nice girl who's really not-so-nice beneath the surface) is an excellent choice to play Sally Kendoo, who is so desperate to leave behind her "white trash rural Ohio roots" she would probably sacrifice her own mother (Jennifer Coolidge) for success.