manure Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Yesterday we shared with you the competition slate for the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, which, depending on the paper you read, was full of the dark and disturbing or the sad and melodramatic. Good to know we'll be smiling in the cold mountains of Utah come January. Today, the Sundance Institute has announced their non-competition films; this includes the Premieres section, which is usually full of studio flicks -- stuff that's set to debut in theaters the following month or so, and films that feature big stars; the big guns. Then we have the Spectrum section (with 16 dramatic films and seven docs), the Midnight section (eight films), and the Frontier section (six films).

Among the ones that stand out to me at first glance are:

• I Love You Philip Morris (Premiere), with Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor playing prison lovers.
• Adventureland - The director of Superbad follows that flick up with a comedy set in a theme park.
• The Informers (Premiere), based on the popular Bret Easton Ellis novel, and starring Billy Bob Thornton, Kim Basinger, Winona Ryder and Mickey Rourke.
• Moon (Premiere), which is that freaky space flick starring Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey.
• Manure (Premiere), starring Billy Bob Thornton as a manure salesman.
• Spread, starring Ashton Kitcher as a guy who seduces older women. (Wonder if he's right for that role?)
• Helen ( Spectrum), starring Ashley Judd as a psychiatrist who fights her own depression.
• The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle (Spectrum) -- I just love that title.
• Spring Breakdown (Midnight), starring Rachel Dratch, Amy Poehler, Parker Posey, Will Arnett, Rachel Hamilton.

As we do every year, Cinematical will be on the ground in Park City, Utah bringing you reviews, interviews and enough Sundance flavor to send a brisk mountain chill through your soul. Check out the full non-competition slate (with descriptions) after the jump.

There's a whole slew of female casting notices that have popped up over at Variety:

While Six Feet Under has been dead and buried for a while, two of the show's alums have got new feature gigs. Justina Machado, who played Vanessa on the show, has picked up a role in Eddie Murphy's A Thousand Words. Unfortunately, there's no word on who she'll play -- perhaps someone who steals some of Murphy's last words from him? She was great at nagging on Six Feet. Meanwhile, Momma Fisher, Frances Conroy, has picked up a gig in the Polish brothers' Manure, as a character named Agnes May. THR says she will be "a longtime secretary" at the manure business.

Then there's Kate Jennings Grant. She has picked up a role in The Rebound, that Catherine Zeta-Jones-starring May-December romcom. She'll play Catherine's best friend, Daphne. But before then, we'll get to see her play Diane Sawyer in the upcoming film Frost/Nixon. (That's pretty spot-on casting -- visually, at least.)

Finally, there are a few stars for Rotimi Rainwater's new indie film Truckstop -- Rachel Miner and Mimi Rogers. Mimi, of course, is the ex of Tom Cruise, back in the days before young wives and Scientology buzz, while you might remember Miner from her role as Dani in Californiacation. According to Rainwater's MySpace blog, the film focuses on "a high school student with cerebral palsy who works at a Truckstop and befriends Vicki, the local prostitute." They become friends, overcome obstacles, etc. Unless things have changed since initial contact was made, Miner will play the prostitute.

Recently, Eugene posted about Mark and Michael Polish's latest film, the wonderfully titled Manure. The flick, which just went into production, stars Billy Bob Thornton, Tea Leoni, and Kyle MacLachlan, and it's about manure salesmen in heartland America during the '60s. It sounds strange, but sort of irresistible with Billy Bob and Kyle. And now, there's one more.

Variety reports that Ed Helms has picked up a role in the film, which makes him one of a trio of manure salesmen. More specifically, he'll "play Chet, a womanizing manure peddler." That seems ... antithetical. But it's more than just manure and women. David Mullen threw up a blog post about shooting the film on May 23, and gave some more details. The film focuses on these salesmen as they try to compete with "new aggressive modern fertilizer salesmen." Billy Bob is the lead manure salesman, Tea plays a woman who inherits the ailing company, and Kyle is the lead fertilizer salesman.

That's not all -- the Polish brothers plan to have the whole movie done in brown tones, and you can see a really excellent still exemplifying the look in the blog post. History, browns, and manure, here we come!

Mark and Michael Polish may not be as well-known a fraternal filmmaking pair as Joel and Ethan Coen, but they could out-weird the Coens any day of the week. Their films range from virtually inscrutable (Northfork) to very strange (Twin Falls Idaho) to merely offbeat (The Astronaut Farmer), but it's clear they won't be getting hired to direct the sequel to Alvin and the Chipmunks. So instead, they've formed their own production company, Prohibition Films, and are shooting two new projects back-to-back.

The first is entitled Manure, a title they should reconsider if only to make lazy film critics' jobs a little harder. Starring Billy Bob Thornton, Tea Leoni, and my man Kyle MacLachlan, the movie will explore the world of manure salesmen in 1960's heartland America. Upon reading that I frowned for a moment, but then realized that had you asked me who would be most likely to write and direct a movie about manure salesmen in 1960's heartland America, I would unhesitatingly have said the Polish Brothers.