My first thoughts after watching the new trailer for Marty Scorsese's Shutter Island were ... "it looks damn creepy ... I dig it!" The trailer is over on Apple right now (watch it here in several different formats) and it sorta looks like a ghost story; a nifty psychological thriller for the director who took home Oscars the last time he had a feature narrative on the big screen (and I say feature narrative because if I simply said "movie" you'd all jump on me with "Nooooo you're wrong -- his last film was the Rolling Stones doc, Erik. How about you fact check blogger!"). Fact. Checked.

Based on the Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone) novel, Shutter Island stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo as a couple of U.S. Marshals who travel to the remote Shutter Island to investigate the disappearance of a murderess/patient at the island's strange loony bin where, naturally, a guy like Ben Kingsley runs the show. I swear, Kingsley totally knows how to creep you out with those freaky eyes and that bald head and that icy stare. Goose bumps. Film looks good; it almost feels like Marty took what could've been a simple thriller dumped into theaters in the middle of winter starring Jessica Alba and That Guy Who Guest Starred on Gossip Girl and turned it into a pretty meaty (and enticing) fall (or winter) snack attack.

What do you think?

The thing I've always loved about Martin Scorsese is that the man lives to tell you a story. He piles on the details and approaches every angle -- and as a result he creates living breathing people -- and thanks to him, his crime flicks are about as close to the mob as I need to get. When Casino was released in 1995, it was considered Scorsese's return to the world of crime after taking a little diversion with films like Age of Innocence and Cape Fear. But, the comparisons between Casino and Goodfellas were inevitable, and unfortunately Casino was branded the inferior film. Now I'm not denying the genius of Goodfellas, but I stand by the fact that Casino is a kick-a** film in its own right.

After yesterday's news that Martin Scorsese will direct a Frank Sinatra biopic, people are asking: Who will he cast in the lead? In fact, some people are even going the extra mile and asking: Whom will he cast in the lead? That's how important this is!

The obvious answer is Leonardo DiCaprio -- not because he's particularly well-suited to the role, but because he's Scorsese's muse and good-luck charm, having appeared in the director's last four films (including Shutter Island, due out this fall). But Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood Daily, citing her usual no-named sources, says the studio wants a different superstar: Johnny Depp.

My gut reaction to this is that it's typical studio knee-jerk casting: "Let's get the most famous, most popular actor in Hollywood! He's perfect for the part because he's the most famous and the most popular!" But I concede Depp looks enough like a young Sinatra that it wouldn't be completely ridiculous, and obviously he's a good actor. So maybe it could work. (That picture is him in Public Enemies. The hat and old-school suit definitely helps his Sinatraness.)

Depp can sing, as we learned in Sweeney Todd, though Finke says that doesn't matter, as Sinatra's own recordings will be used in the film. But that doesn't mean there won't be, say, scenes set in rehearsals, or other non-performance settings, where the actor (or a voice double) would need to sing a bit. Then again, singing is one thing -- singing like Frank Sinatra is something else. Can Depp do it? Can anyone do it?

For more, Moviefone has picked 10 actors as potential candidates for the role. Vote for your favorite right over here.

Over at Deadline Hollywood, Nikki Finke is reporting that Martin Scorsese will direct and produce a film about the life of famed singer Frank Sinatra for Universal, after the studio acquired the project from Mandalay Pictures and secured the hard-to-get blessing from the Sinatra family. Tina Sinatra will executive produce, along with Phil Alden Robinson (who's also writing the script) and Gary LeMel.

Right now there's no word on casting, though logically we all must turn to Scorsese's latest muse, Mr. Leonardo DiCaprio. One imagines his name will creep its way to the top of the list, though, in my opinion, DiCaprio looks a little too boy-ish to play Sinatra. Maybe he'd pass for really young Sinatra (especially the hair and the eyes), but even so I think it would take a little work to turn DiCaprio into a convincable Frank. It also depends on whether the actor playing Sinatra will perform Sinatra's songs, or if they'll simply lip-sync? That little factor could introduce a whole new crop of actors, some of which may be complete unknowns. Would Scorsese cast an unknown in the lead? Doubt it, but it'll be fun to watch this one come together assuming Finke's reportage is true.

Who do you think should play Frank Sinatra? Is DiCaprio our only solid option?

UPDATE: Variety has confirmed this to be true.

More than 30 years ago, Martin Scorsese decided to spend an evening -- more than a day, really -- filming his friend Steven Prince as he told all kinds of strange and fascinating stories about his life. The result was the short documentary American Boy, which had no official release in 1978 but floated around "unofficially" for decades. Tommy Pallotta saw one of these bootleg copies when he was in college, and never forgot it. He and Richard Linklater included one of Prince's stories from American Boy in Waking Life. And more than 30 years after American Boy, Pallotta and Linklater spent a similar evening hearing more of Prince's tales, which are the backbone of Pallotta's documentary American Prince. Both films screened back-to-back at SXSW.

Steven Prince in American Prince has mellowed a lot -- he sits comfortably in a chair sipping cognac and genially relating stories about his years in Hollywood. You might remember him as the gun salesman in Taxi Driver, and he had a few other minor roles in films, as well as working on some other Scorsese films. As a result, he has some very colorful stories to share with the guests in the room as well as the film's audience. The setting of the documentary might remind you of Steven Tobolowsky's Birthday Party, which played SXSW in 2005, but more tightly focused, and without a lot of interaction from the other guests.

Click image below to view full poster

Cinematical has just received this exclusive poster and two clips for American Prince, a documentary directed by animator/filmmaker Tommy Pallotta, who was a producer on Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly. The film takes a look at Martin Scorsese's 1978 documentary American Boy, which never has had an official release, and which only a few people have seen (generally as a bootleg). Pallotta follows up with the film's subject, Steven Prince, 30 years after Scorsese's film. Prince is probably best known to many of us as the guy who played the gun salesman in Taxi Driver, but apparently both documentaries reveal an extremely colorful life. I can't wait to find out the details.



American Prince will have its world premiere at SXSW this Saturday, March 14, with an encore screening on Tuesday, March 17. Scorsese's American Boy will be shown right before this film, a documentary double-feature you won't want to miss if you're in Austin next week. Check out one clip below (which happens to be the first couple of minutes of the film), and another clip after the jump.

Aside from the obvious cachet of being Chris Nolan's writing and directing follow-up to The Dark Knight, next year's Inception has the most intriguing teaser description I've heard in a while: it's billed as a sci-fi action film "set within the architecture of the mind." I have no earthly idea what that means, though I'm imagining something like the old "Body Wars" ride at Epcot Center, where you were shrunk to microscopic proportions and went on a simulated flight through the human body. Light saber battles on the parietal lobe! What? No takers?

As with every other movie coming out in 2009 and 2010, Leonardo DiCaprio is now attached to star. I mock DiCaprio's ubiquity, but I'm never sorry to see him: over the past few years it's become clear that he's a pretty brilliant guy. He knows how to pick material, too; he's fond of prestige projects, but he seems to have an eye for the good ones. His next film is his fourth Martin Scorsese collaboration, Shutter Island. And Inception is sci-fi from one of Hollywood's smartest screenwriters (and I'm not even necessarily talking about The Dark Knight).

Anyway, speculation on what an action film "set within the architecture of the mind" might entail, if you please. I'm sticking with my "Body Wars" hypothesis until further notice. In 3D, of course.

I just love a good list, I really do. You can't tear me away from those Top 100 AFI specials, so for me, there is no such thing as a bad list -- even if I disagree with it. Because, isn't that half the fun of talking about movies in the first place? EW has just released a list of the top 25 active directors (which I guess was a nice way of saying 'no dead guys allowed'), and there are a few surprises, but luckily they haven't gone crazy and pronounced Joel Schumacher as the misunderstood auteur of our time. So who did make it to the top of the heap? Well, it's the usual suspects: Spielberg, Scorsese, Tarantino, Soderbergh, and The Coens rounding out the top ten. But there are some nice surprises to the list as well, like Judd Apatow, Jon Favreau, and Ron Howard (whose directorial talents don't always get the respect they should).

But, we film geeks love a good debate, and Anne Thompson has started us off with some passionate commentary on EW's choices; including a slap on the wrist for their habit of relegating directors of a certain age, gender, or race to the top 50 -- I told you she was feisty. So even though I think EW got it right most of the time, I am going to have second Thompson when she says, "their order does not compute." I like Zak Snyder as much as the next girl, but I'm not sold that he deserves the #16 spot on the list when P.T. Anderson is at #22, and Woody Allen didn't even crack the top 25.

Well, ladies and gentlemen start your engines; what do you think of EW's list? Are there any glaring errors? And if you had make a list of the best and worst working directors today, who would you nominate?

Sound off below....

I was beginning to think that Martin Scorsese was on a merry-go-round of music and organized mayhem, since he's been quite busy balancing crime with big-screen concert-going. But just as it looks like he's in a rut, Scorsese throws us something from left field. Well, not quite left field since we heard about it back in 2006, but close enough.

Variety reports that he's "determined" to make Silence next. Based on the Japanese novel, the film will follow a few Jesuit priests who head to Japan in the name of Christianity, only to discover that converts are being persecuted in defiance of Western influence. Marty has been sitting on this sucker for eons (he wrote a script of the Japanese novel ten years ago), and was set to film it in Vancouver in 2007. But now it's headed to New Zealand (Canada, sheep land, same difference?!), and Marty is negotiating with Daniel Day-Lewis and Benicio Del Toro to star, with Gael Garcia Bernal also entering talks.

I've been itching to see what he'd make of The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, but you can't blame a guy for getting a decade-old project into gear, especially when you've got Daniel and Benicio ready to star. But will it still have "implications related to the war in Iraq"? And how will he fare on "Japanese" turf?