Things don't seem to be going smoothly for Matt Dillon. For the second time this year, his lead role is going to someone else. First it was Cadillac Records. Now it's Francis Ford Coppola's Tetro. The Hollywood Reporter has posted that Vincent Gallo has signed on to star in Coppola's next directorial gig, with no reference to the previously-attached Dillon.

Gallo, meanwhile, signs on for the project after throwing a big stink about his previous gig, Giallo. Back in February, he was less than pleased that Dario Argento had cast daughter Asia Argento, and wanted out: "I'd rather not be in a movie with her. I'm not a fan. I was a fan of her father's. I'm retiring." I guess Javier Bardem and newcomer Alden Ehrenreich can feel honored that Gallo is willing/interested in working with them!

With production beginning at the end of the month in Buenos Aires, the film focuses on two brothers, played by Gallo and Ehrenreich. They're "torn apart by rivalries and betrayal," older bro Gallo heads to Buenos Aires, and younger brother Alden goes there to find him. Bardem will play an Argentinian literary critic and Maribel Verdu is Tetro's love interest.

Before the rain pooed on my parade and the poo rained on my parade at the Independent Spirit Awards Saturday, I had a pretty great time. The highlight for me was being "on set" for a series of interviews between Martin Short's Jiminy Glick and various celebs. I was just tipped off by the good folks at Netflix that those conversations have hit youtube, and if you're a fan of the character, you may want to check them out. Here's Jiminy with Matt Dillon, with a never foxier Illeana Douglas, with the always youthful Dennis Hopper (an interview that opens with a depantsing), with Ed Begley, Jr, with Juno director Jason Reitman and his father Ivan, with Aaron Eckhart, with John Waters, and with Allison Janney. They could all stand to be edited down a bit, but there's a lot of good stuff in there. If I had to direct you to the funniest couple of discussions, I'd recommend the Illeana Douglas and the Ed Begley, Jr, which contains graphic mouth-to-mouth.

I intended to run a live blog from the show, but the internet connection went out -- one of the dangers of doing a live show from a tent in the rain! I did get to see some cool people up close and personal. Philip Seymour Hoffman (a winner for Best Male Lead) charmed the little press room in a fun Q & A with Savages writer/director Tamara Jenkins (a winner for Best Screenplay) and it was a thrill to meet Scott Frank, a screenwriter I truly admire. He won Best First Feature for The Lookout, one of my favorite 2007 films. I always question what they deem "independent," but I do appreciate that the Indie Spirits have special honors -- like the John Cassavetes Award -- to honor the truly independent and low-budget films each year. Did anyone watch the broadcast? I know it's not the biggest awards show of the year (or even the weekend), but the show was really entertaining. Have favorite moments or disagreements with the winners?

Cinematical is live at the 2008 Independent Spirit Awards! Our own Patrick Walsh will report back throughout the afternoon.

Jiminy Glick just wrapped up a graphic conversation with indie legend John Waters and now he is asking Maria Bello what it's like to show her "down there hair" on camera. Oh wow, now he's humping her. Now he's asking Allison Janney if Juno is a film about people who won't tolerate Jews. "Jew? No!" The man is insane. He's interviewing The Office's Rainn Wilson now, who's looking mighty unkempt and unshaven considering he's hosting the show. And now the two are engaged in a huge pillow fight. There's Dennis Hopper! What does Jiminy ask a legend like this? "Why do men have nipples if they're not supposed to breast feed their pets?" Of course.

He just told Matt Dillon he was excellent as Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump, and followed that up with a rave about his work in Saving Private Ryan. Dillon was in neither film. The red carpet is heating up, I just saw Kate Beckinsale, Tom Wilkinson, and now Aaron Eckhart -- who is discussing Mormonism with Jiminy. And now the skies have turned an unsettling gray, the winds are picking up, and I have a feeling a lot of expensive dresses are about to get destroyed. I'm gonna take shelter, but I'll be back.

For more photos and coverage, head on over to Moviefone.

It's funny how you can get completely used to seeing a name, and then used to its absence, only to have it pop up again, years later, out of nowhere. Skeet Ulrich has been steering clear of the big screen (or the big screen has been steering clear of him) for a while now. The last time he had a movie out, it was the 2001 flick Chilly Dogs. There was also Soul Assassin, Nobody's Baby, and Takedown -- which was a Hackers sequel that somehow flew off the radar even with a jam-packed cast. But now things are changing for the Jericho star. He's got a new movie on the way, and maybe this will be his reintroduction to the wide world of film.

The Hollywood Reporter has posted that he has nabbed a role in the upcoming flick, Armored. This is that Matt Dillon gang of thieves movie that Peter Martin blogged about back in October -- the one that also has Columbus Short attached. Ulrich is taking on the role of Dobbs -- "a scruffy member of an armored truck company who plans to empty a truck of its $10 million." The thieves all somehow got themselves the armored car gig, so there's one HR person somewhere who is really, really crappy at their job . Sweetening the pot, I hope as thieves -- THR says that Laurence Fishburne, Fred Ward, and the best Professional to ever hit the screen, Jean Reno, will co-star.

Some things never change while others come and go, but no matter what happens, it's a comfort to hear that Skeet can still grab a scruffy role.

Imagine you went to a bat mitzvah and Steven Spielberg was there. Now, imagine he came up and talked to you. And then he got you an acting gig. An acting gig starring in a Francis Ford Coppola film. So, maybe that's not exactly how it went down for Alden Ehrenreich, but nonetheless he was apparently "discovered" by the Schindler's List director -- via a video shown at a bat mitzvah Spielberg attended -- and he is now cast in a major role in Coppola's Tetro, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Ehrenreich joins the film's star, Matt Dillon, who has been attached from the beginning; the two actors will play brothers. Also added to the film is Spanish actress Maribel Verdú (Pan's Labyrinth; Y tu mamá también) as Dillon's character's girlfriend. Javier Bardem may also sign on, if his schedule allows, to play an Argentine literary critic named Unknown.

Originally the film was described as being about rival Italian immigrant families, which could still be the case, but now the main story is said to focus on the younger brother (Ehrenreich), who head to Buenos Aires in order to find his older brother (Dillon), who left the family many years before. Whatever the plot, though, Tetro is sure to be a good film with this cast. I will be disappointed if Coppola doesn't hire some of my local Argentine favorites (Ricardo Darín; Norma Aleandro; Mía Maestro; any of these deserve the exposure). One thing we probably don't have to worry about is whether or not young Ehrenreich will be any good. Spielberg has a good record with young performers, from Drew Barrymore to Joseph Mazzello to current favorite Shia LaBeouf, so we can trust this latest protege will deliver the goods. Tetro begins shooting in Argentina in February.

It's difficult to underestimate the significance of The Clash in rock 'n' roll. They belong on any serious list of the top five rock 'n' roll performers of all time, and their 1979 masterpiece London Calling belongs on any list of the top five albums. But beyond that, do we know who they were? Julien Temple's new documentary Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten attempts to answer that question, although if you want to know more about Mick Jones, Topper Headon or Paul Simonon, it'll have to wait for another movie. This is Strummer's world, and we all just wish we were living in it. The movie begins, like any biography, with Strummer's parents. His father was a diplomat that moved from country to country; Strummer was born in Turkey as John Graham Mellor, and later insisted on being called "Woody" before adopting his legendary moniker.

The singer, songwriter and guitarist attended art school, lived as a squatter in an abandoned London flat and busked on the street before forming his first band, a rockabilly unit. But when he saw the Sex Pistols play, he decided to move in a different direction. The Clash was born, and with it a series of extraordinary shows and five great albums. But only the movie's first hour is dedicated to the Clash. As Strummer intones on the soundtrack, they made every conceivable mistake: success went to their heads, too many drugs, etc. They even made up a few new ones. The band grew successful, they began squabbling and they lost their direction. Temple includes a terrific sequence in which he intercuts two performances of "White Riot," one from a small club in 1977 and one from a giant stadium in 1983, brilliantly illustrating how big they grew and how far they fell.

Since his Academy Award-nominated turn as a racist cop in Crash, the ever-reliable Matt Dillon has starred as Charles Bukowski's alter-ego in the drama Factotum and played a hapless husband in the disappointing You, Me and Dupree. He also appeared recently in supporting roles in Kevin Bacon's drama Loverboy and opposite Lindsay Lohan in the family comedy Herbie: Fully Loaded. That selection of parts has been typical throughout Dillon's career, as he's moved easily between the independent and studio worlds and is equally at home in both comedies and dramas.

Now The Hollywood Reporter says that he's in final negotiations for two more roles, both crime-related. Dillon will play a detective who intercepts the plans of a group of bank robbers in Bone Deep. The article doesn't say whether Dillon is working for the police or on his own, only that the robbers are trying to pull off a $20 million heist. John Luessenhop is set to direct; he previously made the prison drama Lockdown. I'm hoping Bone Deep will give Dillon a chance to play a sleazy detective, possibly related to his sleazy high school teacher in Wild Things. Few people combine sleaze and charm like Dillon.

Armored features another gang of thieves, this time "armored car guards who plan to empty their truck of $10 million," according to THR. Hmm, does that mean they're more modest than the thieves in Bone Deep? Will the two gangs run into each other while they're trying to get away? No word on what part Dillon would play, but Columbus Short, who just turned down The Green Lantern, will co-star. Nimród Antal (the excellent Kontroll and the surprising Vacancy) will direct. Before those films come out, we can anticipate Dillon in Old Dogs, Nothing But the Truth and Cadillac Records.

It's hard to believe that it's been almost a year since indie film director-writer-actress Adrienne Shelly was murdered shortly after finishing her last film, Waitress, starring Keri Russell. The Adrienne Shelly Foundation, established to honor Shelly's memory, will give grants and scholarships to "support the artistic achievements of female actors, writers, and directors who are either working on current short and feature film projects, new productions, or are seeking to transition from acting to writing and directing."

The Foundation's inaugural benefit to raise funds to support its grant and scholarship fund will be held November 12, 2007 at NYUs Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, followed by a VIP reception. The evening's program will include a live performance by Alanis Morissette, followed by a reading of Shelly's screenplay The Morgan Stories. A bevy of stars, including Morissette, Matt Dillon (with whom Shelly co-starred in Factotum), Edie Falco, Mary-Louise Parker, Paul Rudd, Ally Sheedy and Gina Gershon (and more TBA), will perform the reading.

The gala event will also serve as the kick-off for the Foundation's eBay Celebrity Auction, which will auction off about 25 "celebrity items and experiences." I think it's a cool idea to do the auction through eBay, where they can reach anyone, whether they live in NYC or not -- it gives people outside Manhattan an opportunity to support the Foundation while also winning some cool auction items. What can you bid on? Things like walk-ons and set visits to your favorite TV shows, lunch with various celebs, celeb-autographed items, Sundance Film Fest VIP passes, and tickets to concerts and television shows (ooh! They have tickets to Rachael Ray! My 10-year-old would SO love to have those! Back off away from that item, the rest of you ... they're mine!).

You can view the full list of auction items on the eBay site. For more info on the gala affair, and how to get tickets to it or be a sponsor, check out the Adrienne Shelly Foundation's website.

I'm excited enough that Rod Lurie is returning to politics with Nothing but the Truth, a film loosely associated with the story of Valerie Plame. But I'm becoming more excited that it will feature a wide range of talented actors, from Kate Beckinsdale to Alan Alda to Matt Dillon to Vera Farmiga to David Schwimmer to Edie Falco to Harry Lennix to the just-announced Angela Bassett and Noah Wyle. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Basset and Wyle join the ensemble as supportive figures. Bassett is to play editor-in-chief to Beckinsdale's reporter and Wyle is to play the lawyer defending Beckinsdale's character, who ends up in jail for not revealing a source.

More than 13 years after being nominated for an Oscar (for What's Love Got to Do with It), I'm happy to see Bassett getting more meaty roles. In addition to this part, which will probably be too small to garner too much recognition, she is set to star opposite Don Cheadle as the titular wife in the biopic Toussaint, and she's sure to be seen by millions and millions in Tyler Perry's next movie, Meet the Browns. Wyle, too, is deserving of making his mark on the big screen now that he's done playing Dr. Carter on E.R. Coming up for him is a father role in the 1963-set coming-of-age film Boy of Pigs and his directorial debut, a romantic comedy titled Prince Test.

The interesting thing about Nothing but the Truth is it somewhat seems to combine Lurie's The Contender (possibly my favorite political film ever), which also focused on a woman under heavy scrutiny, and his recent box office disappointment Resurrecting the Champ, which similarly dealt with the world of journalism. For the sake of this great cast, I hope Nothing but the Truth is closer to the success level of the former.

Mozart. Loretta Lynn. Bobby Darin. Ray Charles. The list of musical biopics goes on and on, but they're usually about the voices, or fingers, that brought the music to life -- the faces on stage, not the faces behind the scenes. According to The Hollywood Reporter, however, we're about to dip behind the scenes for a biopic about Leonard Chess, the man behind Chess Records. The new project, Cadillac Records, was written by Darnell Martin, and she* will direct it as well. (She's the woman behind Prison Song, which she co-wrote with Q-Tip, and she also directed the real-time, eerie L-Word episode "Losing the Light.") To top that off, Matt Dillon is in final negotiations to star.

I can only hope that the film wrenches Dillon out of his cycle -- crappy flick after crappy flick, with a small handful of good stuff mixed in so that we don't completely write him off. Usually, a decent actor at least tries to balance the two, if not only go to the crap once in a while for a big paycheck. I mean heck, both Michael Caine and Peter O'Toole are unforgettable actors who have headed schlock -- but they've also had enough good roles to sustain them. But maybe Dillon's tide is finally turning.

Chess, born Lejzor Czyz (changed, I'm sure, to offer vowels to the consonantly-challenged), grew up in Poland before moving to Illinois in the twenties. A few decades later, he and his brother were into the black nightclub scene of Chicago. They soon joined Aristocrat Records, which they later renamed Chess Records when they took control and flooded it with notable talent. The label took on names like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, and Etta James. Production will begin this January in New Jersey and Chicago. Can you see Dillon as the man behind such R&B greats?

*Edited to correct sex. Thanks to reader Diana!