Bit by bit, the cast is falling into place. In March, Dermot Mulroney signed on to star in Run For Her Life -- the story of a father whose daughter needs a lung transplant. Since the young girl is low on the US list, he heads to Mexico to pay his way onto their list -- only to find out that they're killing thousands of kids for their organs. In June, Diane Kruger signed on to play his wife.

While there's still no young girl to be placed in the middle of all this (a Fanning maybe?), The Hollywood Reporter posts that Sam Shepard (The Notebook), Rosanna Arquette (Buffalo 66), Jordi Molla (Elizabeth: The Golden Age), and Vincent Perez (The Crow: City of Angels) have joined the mix. So, first is the source of all this intrigue -- Shepard is playing a DA who got an illegal heart transplant and persuades the couple to find one for their kid. Meanwhile, Arquette will play a pediatrician they talk to, Perez plays a doctor in a practice that "isn't quite what it seems to be," and Molla plays a corrupt cop.

Will Mulroney be a savior to everyone? Or, will he take some poor kids lungs to make his daughter better?

I was hoping for a chance to see The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford a second time before I wrote my review, but only to confirm my suspicions that it's a surprising near-masterpiece, certainly one of the year's best films, and the best Western to come across the range since Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992) and Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man (1996). I had been looking forward to the film, mainly because 2007 had previously yielded two very good Westerns in Seraphim Falls and 3:10 to Yuma (we'll say nothing more about the wretched September Dawn). I had also admired New Zealand director Andrew Dominik's previous and only other feature, Chopper (2000). But none of this prepared me for the scope, artistry and brilliance of this new film.

The drawback is that the 160-minute The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is going to be one of those "difficult" movies that doesn't get the recognition it deserves, mainly because it can't be quickly explained or understood, or broken down into a 30-second sound byte. It's not a sweeping, spectacular epic, but rather a quiet, wintry epilogue. It will be critiqued with single words: "long," "boring," "confusing." Nevertheless, it's in good company with Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, Jane Campion's In the Cut, Gus Van Sant's Gerry, George A. Romero's Land of the Dead, Terrence Malick's The New World, Brian De Palma's The Black Dahlia, Terry Zwigoff's Art School Confidential, Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, David Lynch's Inland Empire and William Friedkin's Bug -- all movies that will eventually have their day in the sun despite their current sad critical standing. The real hitch is that Jesse James chooses not to deconstruct the James myth, as would be the expected, rational approach in our post-modern age, but rather embraces it and expands on it.

It was officially announced today in The Hollywood Reporter that Sam Shepard has signed on to Descending From Heaven: The Strange and Extraordinary Tale of Claude Eatherly, A-Bomb Pilot (the title just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?). The film is being directed by Sandy Smolan and recounts the story of the pilot who was responsible for giving the "all clear" to drop the A-bomb on Hiroshima. Smolan was interested in filming the pilot's story upon first reading about Eatherly almost 20 years ago. "It's one of the great untold stories: He was one of the top pilots in the Air Corps, an all-American Texas hero. It's a dark comedic tale about the bomb and personal responsibility." Shepard has signed on to the play the father to the pilot, and I'm sure there will be tons of "Oscar-worthy" moments as Shepard has to deal with the aftermath of his son's actions.

Well, it seems like WWII is all the rage again, between Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima (both directed by Clint Eastwood) it seems like audiences are in the mood again for some good old fashioned war movies. Some might say it's just too bad that we all aren't as interested in the real live war going on as we are in the Hollywood versions. ...

[via ComingSoon.net and The Hollywood Reporter]

• Date Movie - Nowhere in the formula "Comedy = Tragedy + Time" does "Cruelty" figure in, something that this caca-palooza -- "from 2 of the 6 writers of Scary Movie" -- sets out to correct from the very first scene. When they introduce us to morbidly obese Julia Jones (Alyson Hannigan), it is with ridicule as they paint her as a hideous beast that makes men vomit and turn gay. Of course, when we remember that 2 of the 6 writers of Scary Movie were Wayans Brothers, whose stock in trade is that kind of cruelty, it makes sense (even if these are another two writers.)

A parody of romantic comedies like Bridget Jones's Diary, My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Hitch, this lame spoof goes for the easy laugh almost every time, beating to death with a golf club every gag with the subtlety of, well ... someone who beats someone else to death with a golf club. The "13" in the movie's "PG-13" rating would seem to be either a limit for either I.Q. or emotional age, as the movie's show pieces are either juvenile blue bits or have something to do with either poop, pee, puke or pus (the dreaded "4 P's"). Putting gifted comic actors like Fred Willard and Jennifer Coolidge in this stinky mess makes them both stinky by association, though as time goes by, the whole lot of them will only be guilty of contributing to a vast background of white noise that we will have learned to filter out when we grow up. Presently #64 on the IMDB's Bottom 100 of all time.
 

The difference between a small-scale dogfight and a real championship dogfight in 1957 is the audience. At the former, the all-male crowd is stereotypically country-bumpkin with faces and clothes covered in dirt. At the latter, rich folks are present, including women wearing their pearls and Sunday best. The surprise isn't that each has their own demographic, though; it is that either has any enthusiasts at all. Perhaps it is the illegality that draws them in, or maybe it's that gamblers will bet on just about anything.

While I was thinking about how dog fighting would be a tough-sell for a film like Walker Payne, which stars Jason Patric as a novice of the sport, I overheard some people in the audience discussing the contrary. They claimed the picture would be more marketable if the filmmakers cut out the dramatic story and just kept the dog fighting. If there are in fact people who enjoy watching pit bulls kill each other in a ring, then that edit would certainly make sense, since the film's narrative has very little going for it.

Why is it so hard for us to confront our problems? Are we lazy? Do we not have the time? Is it easier to run away from a situation and create larger problems, then it is to face the music? And what's so bad about music? When I was younger, in times of moronic behavior, my parents would always tell me to just "face the music." Instead of agreeing with them, I'd stand there with a puss on my face, expecting Mom to shovel out a boom-box and blast German techno music into my ears until, eventually, I caved.

Nothing against German techno, but that was my idea of bad music. So, in order for my problems to drift away, I figured I'd have to face this music until something clicked...or hurt - like my ears. And then it hit me: As hard as it was to listen to obnoxiously loud German techno music, it was much easier to get it out of the way fast (like ripping off a band-aid) then it was to avoid. Why let this uncomfortable anger towards German techno music ruin my entire day? They have a right to express themselves. And so do I.

While the above probably makes no sense whatsoever, so does avoiding your problems. So, while I call up the Lifetime Channel and pitch them "How I Learned to be a Better Person by Listening to German Techno Music," why don't you check out the following films. Put the suicide note down, we're running from our problems on this week's Trailer Park...