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Cannes has La Croisette and the world premieres and the yachts and the red carpet mishegoss, but Venice is no slouch when it comes to excellent directors and exciting premieres (and oh yeah, the parties). This year's line-up has plenty to offer cinephiles from around the world. And for you betting types, take note that Abel Ferrara and Werner Herzog will both be there; Herzog will be showing his "re-imagining" of Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant, which so incensed Ferrara that he wished dire bodily harm upon Herzog and star Nicolas Cage.

I'm also particularly excited about Alex Cox showing Repo Chick, a sequel to his fabulous 1984 film Repo Man. Other super-cool stuff includes Steven Soderbergh's The Informant! with Matt Damon and his creepy mustache, Grant Heslov's The Men Who Stare at Goats, starring George Clooney, and [REC 2], the sequel to the Spanish horror film from Jaume Balaguero. Michael Moore with also be there with his new film, Capitalism: A Love Story. And audiences will finally get a look at the long-awaited Cormac McCarthy adaptation, The Road, starring Viggo Mortensen.

Ang Lee, who himself has won two Golden Lions at prior Venice festivals, is heading up the jury.

The full list is after the jump. Let us know what you think about the line-up and what you're eager to see.

It may not be a celebrity story to rival the endless coverage of Michael Jackson's death, but actor Rupert Grint, who plays ginger-kid Ron Weaseley in the Harry Potter films, is reportedly recovering from a mild case of swine flu.

Grint's management said that he took a few days off from work on the adaptation of the series' final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which will be released as two movies. The next flick in the franchise, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince hits theaters on July 15.

Swine flu aside, it must be something of a relief for Grint -- along with fellow Potter stars Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson -- to be finally seeing the end of the J.K. Rowling gravy train. While the massively popular film series gave the trio instant celebrity and all the opportunities that brings, they've been chained to the Potter films for half their lives. Grint, who was 13 when he made the first film, turns 21 in August, and seems to have made solid choices so far in building his career. Along with a fair amount of British radio and TV voiceover work, he was praised for his role in 2006's Driving Lessons opposite Laura Linney and Julie Walters.

Who would have thought four little words on a banner would have caused such a commotion. Variety reports that Paramount and MTV films are hoping to cash in on some of the 'righteous indignation' over a young student whose high school suspension became a national free-speech debate. The deal was struck with Joseph Frederick (the student in question), his father Frank, and Doug Mertz, the local attorney who took his case. All three made life rights deals for the film.

In 2002, Frederick (along with several friends) held up a banner with the words 'Bong Hits 4 Jesus' during the Winter Olympics torch relay, passing through his home town of Juneau, Alaska. Even though he was not on school property at the time, his principal ordered that he be suspended from school for 10 days for supposedly violating their drug policy (c'mon, he wasn't even doing said 'bong hits' at the time!) Supported by family and friends, Frederick took his suit to the Supreme Court. The court ultimately ruled that "a school principal may, consistent with the First Amendment, restrict student speech at a school event when that speech is reasonably viewed as promoting illegal drug use".

Mark Poirier (Smart People) will write the script, but there is no word on a cast or director yet. Producer Michael Shamberg (who has already worked on true-life dramas like Erin Brockovich and World Trade Center) tells Variety, "The tone is 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,' about a young man standing up for his rights." He adds, "The heart of this story is the relationship between a father and son. Frank Frederick was an insurance adjuster facing the loss of his job if his son didn't back down" So even though they might have lost the case, no one is making a feature film about Frederick's principal, so I guess Frederick and family will get the last laugh after all. So, do you think the title will stand? And what in the world does 'Bong Hits 4 Jesus' have to do with the Winter Olympics?

Here's something you don't see everyday: Participant Prods. is teaming up with Broken Lizard producers Jay Chandrasekhar and Julia Dray on a new comedy called Taildraggers. For those who aren't familiar with Participant Prods., that's like saying Al Gore decided to co-direct a film with the Jackass boys. Participant, who's known more for their politically and environmentally aware films (Syriana, An Inconvenient Truth, Fast Food Nation) is making this their first geared toward a younger audience. That's not to say Taildraggers won't come with a friendly message attached; in fact, part of the plot includes uncovering "a plan to dig oil from the Alaskan nature preserve."

After playing Super Troopers, hedonistic swingers and competitive beer drinkers, it appears at least one Lizard will this time take on "a small Alaskan airline who face a bitter rivalry with a local taxi company." Man, we must be talking about one small airline if their biggest rival are a bunch of taxis. Unlike their previous films, however, Taildraggers will be written by Will Gluck, and not the entire Lizard team. In fact, I don't even know who that is. No word yet on whether the rest of the clan (Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske) will be involved, but since none of them are mentioned, it seems Taildraggers will be more like a Liz production, then something put out by the entire Lizard crew. No word on a director or a start date, but if Chandrasekhar decided to step behind the camera, then look for some of his good pals to show up and lend a hand.

Of all the bad behavior we see on screen, is smoking really the one we need to worry about? Since the '90s, the tobacco industry claims to have denied requests from the movie industry to use their products, but most of the time they just went ahead and used them anyway.

The Guardian reports that tobacco giant Philip Morris will be putting ads in industry papers like Variety, and The Hollywood Reporter, asking studios to no longer use any of their brands in feature films. Media critics have often accused cigarette makers of using movies as free advertising, but lately most of the attention was unflattering; images of dying Marlboro Men and sinister corporate thugs in movies like The Insider and Thank You For Smoking. Since there has already been a policy in place for years about product placement with little effect, you have to wonder whether these ads will really do anything -- well, other than making Philip Morris look like good corporate citizens. You really can't take their complaint very seriously when they're unwilling to even sue studios for breach of copyright.

Other than a return to a "production code" style of policing the movies -- an idea that should make everyone just a little uncomfortable, I doubt a few half-hearted protests from Philip Morris will make the movies hang a "no smoking" sign.

I'm sure most documentary filmmakers hope for some kind of attention for their film; whether it's acclaim or controversy, it all helps sell tickets. On the other hand, I'm not so sure that any filmmaker would like to be accused of being an apologist for a terrorist.

Variety reports that Canadian audiences and critics have accused a Canadian filmmaker, Jean-Daniel Lafond, of exactly that. Lafond's newest documentary, American Fugitive, is the story of David Belfield, an American who assassinated the former press attaché to the Shah of Iran in 1980. After the murder, Belfield immediately fled to Canada, and eventually Iran, where he still resides. Authorities finally located David Belfield (aka Hassan Abdulrahman) in 2001 when he turned up in the most unlikely of places -- as an actor in the Iranian film Kandahar.

Critics have complained that Lafond's film makes excuses for Belfield by presenting theories that the assassination was part of a deal with Reagan as part of attempting to free the hostages in Tehran, as well as claims of anti-Americanism. Lafond has denied these accusations: "It's simply an attempt to understand this guy, not to judge him. I was never sympathetic to Hassan's action, and he knew that."

The film has only had a limited release in Quebec so far but, can any film really bounce back after that kind of press? If what happened at the box-office for Death of A President is any indication, then I guess not.

There are plenty of ways to promote a movie, but Sweet Land by Ali Selim might be the first to try and use the label "Environmentally Friendly" as a selling point. The real question is: Do audiences even care?

The environmental impact of movie making is something most of us have never given any thought to -- after all, it's not exactly the sexiest topic in the industry. Yahoo! News spoke to Sweet Land director Ali Selim about the decision to run a "carbon-neutral" production. What that means is that the production calculated all of the carbon dioxide emitted during the production. The total was measured against the productions investment in renewable energy -- Selim chose to invest in a reforestation project in Germany and a windmill project in Jamaica. The emissions report cost the filmmakers five thousand dollars to perform plus the cost of their investments. Selim extended this eco-friendly way of shooting into all aspects of the production. He encouraged the crew to carpool, maximized location shooting to limit traveling, and even used natural light whenever possible.

Sweet Land is not the first film to use this model, both Syriana and An Inconvenient Truth commissioned similar reports. As admirable as Selim's method might be, is "environmental friendliness" the best marketing strategy? It seems pretty unlikely that an audience would flock to a movie because it got great "emission reviews." Would a film's impact on the environment impact your decision to see it?

It is sad but true that one of the most important aspects of the movie business is making a profit. An article in the New Yorker follows two men who might have found a way to mathematically predict the formula for a successful film.

Written by Malcolm Gladwell, the article focuses on Dick Copaken and Nick Meany, who have developed a system that they say can predict a hit. The process breaks down story ideas into different categories. Each category would have a score attached to create a "report card" for the story, to see which combinations were a success at the box office. They run that information through a data mining computer to search for patterns. Those patterns are what could help predict when a film is going to be a success.

A University of Arizona computer scientist used a similar process to successfully predict the winners of greyhound races. The process spotted a pattern in race grade statistics that would predict winners that human "experts" rarely paid attention to. The objectivity in Copage's system is maybe its greatest selling point: "It doesn't care about maintaining relationships with stars or agents or getting invited to someone's party. It doesn't care about climbing the corporate ladder. It has one master and one master only: How do you get to bigger box-office? Nobody else in Hollywood is like that." Already motion capture is changing how we look at actors -- is it that far-fetched to think a computer-generated script could be next?

[via New Yorker]

The owner of Evangelical Christian camp Kids On Fire, which was featured in the Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady documentary Jesus Camp, has announced the camp is closing its doors. The Christian Post spoke with camp owner Pastor Becky Fischer about the closing, and the recent acts of vandalism directed at the church. Camp administrator Reverend Winston Titus blames the release of the film for directing hostility toward the Assemblies of God organization. "Right now, we just want it to be over, any publicity just stirs things up," Titus said.

One of the subjects of the film, Ted Haggard, has also made claims of manipulation in the way he and his church were represented -- you can read the filmmakers rebuttal to that charge here. Both Ewing and Grady made the decision to not include narration or commentary in the film to avoid putting a personal spin on the subject. This is the second film for Ewing and Grady -- their first, The Boys of Baraka (which made the Oscar short list for Best Doc last year), focused on a group of boys from the Baltimore slums who enrolled in a two-year program to attend a boarding school in Kenya. While wildly different in subject matter, both films shared a common vision of children in extreme circumstances.

Since I wasn't raised in a religious home, the force of Evangelical beliefs is a bit overwhelming, if not a little scary. While Jesus Camp confirmed a lot of my own fears about religious intolerance and zealotry, I felt the film never tried to push a particular point of view. If you've seen Jesus Camp, Cinematical readers, let us know what you think about it. Does it paint Evangelical Christians, and the camp itself, with an unbiased brush? And is the film to blame for the camp shutting down?

[via Movie Blog]

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Jesus Camp: Grooming Kids to be Religious Fanatics?

The first thing that came to my mind reading this story was Robert Wuhl in Good Morning Vietnam describing Bruno Kirby's hapless DJ, "I know funny and he's not it." That pretty much sums it up doesn't it? While there may not be one formula for comedy everybody knows when something just isn't funny.

One of the most famous quotes about comedy is "dying is easy, comedy is hard" and The Guardian has compiled a list of comic performances that John Patterson describes as "Murderers of Mirth.' There aren't many surprises on his list; Sean Penn, Uma Thurman, Russel Crowe, and Daniel Day Lewis. It got me thinking, what were the performances that made me cringe? Here is what I came up with. Number one would have to go to Helen Hunt in The Curse of The Jade Scorpion --I 've never seen Woody Allen comedy fall so flat. Number two would be Ralph Fiennes in Maid In Manhattan -- comedy doesn't work when you look like you're heading to the gallows, Ralph; and last but not least, Sylvester Stallone in Oscar --t here's not much I can say that the critics and the box office didn't already. So those were my top 3, how about you? What performances do you think deserve to counted among the worst?

[via Guardian-Film]