Poor Tyler Mane. Sure, he was pretty lame as Sabretooth in the first X-Men, but that doesn't mean he should be passed over in the casting of X-Men Origins: Wolverine. After all, while he may not be a big name actor, he did just star in a successful movie (he was Michael Myers in the Halloween remake). But it appears Fox is trying to go with someone new as Victor Creed (aka Sabretooth) -- and by someone new, I don't mean an unknown; I mean someone who isn't Mane. According to CHUD.com, that someone was nearly Karl Urban, an actor familiar to fanboys as Eomer in the Lord of the Rings movies. But Urban's talks to play Creed apparently fell through, and now the studio is going for an even bigger geek-movie star: Gerard Butler. This is from another one of those tips from a "closely placed and highly trusted source," so take of it what you will. It could be true or it could not be, and even if it's true, the story is merely that Butler is being offered the role. He could very well not be interested.

But who cares what he thinks? The more important question is whether or not we are interested. Maybe if Gavin Hood were doing a 300 type of style for Wolverine -- specifically one that looked like Mark Texeira's art -- Butler would fit. Otherwise, the actor needs to be blonder, and naturally so. Maybe Butler could pass for the character with a bleach job all over, but I'd rather not be thinking about it being Butler with a bleach job all over. Remember this isn't necessarily Sabretooth we're talking about. He's likely not going to be in costume much. I wish I could find a picture of my ideal Creed look (it's from a comic about 15 years ago and he's in plain clothes, on a talk show), but I can't. I think all of the actors I always imagined were '60s western guys for some reason, anyway.

Additionally, CHUD.com has heard that Hood is trying to get Natalie Portman to play a character named Kayla. I think we should all just kind of ignore that information and hope that it is as untrue as possible.

I'm all for these guild awards, with their specific categories and distinct recognitions, but I'm not sure I understand the Costume Designer Guild's honor for "Distinguished Actor." If the reasoning is that the recipient of this award is someone who looks good in costumes, or makes costume designers look good, then Helen Mirren makes sense as this year's winner. But this reason doesn't explain why the guild is also giving Sandra Bullock an award. Suddenly, the logic falls apart -- especially for anyone who has seen Miss Congeniality 2.

The costume designers don't need to give actors any more praise. And Mirren certainly doesn't need any more trophies this year. To me, the guild's recognition of the different genres of costume design is interesting and appealing enough without some unnecessary star-kissing.

The categories for the Costume Designer Guild Awards separately acknowledge achievements for modern costume, period costume and fantasy costume. The lumping of these genres together into the Best Costume Design Oscar doesn't give credit to the differences between them, and it often ignores the difficulty of modern costuming, which many people assume is as easy as the everyday act of getting dressed in the morning.

The Academy has shortlisted another seven finalists for one of its award categories, and at least one movie on the list was a surprise to me. Click, which is considered by many critics to be one of the worst movies of 2006 (though is popular with "the people"), has been recognized for its achievement in makeup, and depending on how the Academy's makeup branch votes on January 20, it could even garner an Oscar nomination.

Of course, a lot of bad movies are nominated for Oscars, particularly in specific artistic and technical categories like Best Makeup, but typically with this category the nominations are obvious. 2000 winner How the Grinch Stole Christmas, for example, is perfectly apparent as having distinguishable makeup, if little else of worth. What does Click have in the way of significant makeup? Well, there is some special aging makeup -- designed by the master, Rick Baker, no less -- but does anybody, including the voting makeup professionals, really pay attention to aging makeup anymore? As I think should be the case with any Oscar category, the award should honor outstanding, innovative, monumental and pioneering work. Nothing less.

Last week, we asked you to take any or all of five movie titles: Mission: Impossible: 3, X-Men: The Last Stand, Poseidon, My Super Ex-Girlfriend, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Mens' Chest -- and make them into Chinese movie title translations. Quite a few of you rose to the task, and we had some very creative entries. But there can be only one (winner, that is), and the winner is (drumroll, please) ...

Lee! Lee wins a shiny new Cinematical t-shirt for these winning entries:

Mission: Impossible: 3 = Jumping on couch,Jumping off building ("did the translator actually watch this film?")

X-Men: The Last Stand =Mutants in Spandex and the
Weathergirl("enhanced translation")

Poseidon = Po Sigh Done ("sounds kinda like this")

My Super Ex-Girlfriend = Wonderwoman gone blonde and with a vengence !!! ("enhanced translation" since it isnt out on dvd yet)

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Mens' Chest= Pirates Chasing Pirates("literal translation")

Congrats, Lee. Please email me at kim (at) cinematical (dot) com with your shirt size (M, L or XL) and color preference (black or pumpkin), and your mailing address. Thanks to all our entrants!

First of all, be warned that there are major, major spoilers in the link below: a tipster to AICN claims to have seen a rough cut of X-Men 3, and he lays it all out in painstaking detail. Second, I'm not in a position to know if the guy actually saw the movie or not; you'll have to decide for yourselves when you read his report how plausible it is.

Now, warnings aside, if the report really is based on a screening, fans of the series and the comic might be profoundly disappointed when the film is finally released. Among other flaws, X3 reportedly has very little thematic connection to the first two films in the series, and some character traits and appearances even undergo transformations. While the plot is way too murky to possibly summarize here, the tipster has these two warnings: "FORGET WHATEVER you remember about [X-Men] and X2" and "...THIS IS STORM's movie, she is the main focus of this movie and is in about every shot." Scared yet?

In possibly better news, the report also includes a trio of pretty cool pictures of Famke Janssen as Phoenix. So, even if the movie sucks, at least she'll be badass.