City of Men?

How could something this cool have passed me by? I must really be slipping.

At Variety this morning, I stumbled across the rather cryptic note that Paramount has picked up distribution rights for a sequel to Fernando Meirelles' "City of God," entitled "City of Men." No word was given on whether or not Meirelles is involved, but as far as I can tell he is not.

Further investigation revealed that "City of Men" was a Brasilian miniseries following the characters from the movie, released in 19 episodes in 2003. Meirelles apparently directed a couple of episodes, and at least Douglas Silva is a holdover from the movie cast. Wow. This sounds like it was made just for me, so it got instantly added to my Netflix queue.

As for what exactly Paramount has acquired, I'm still a bit confused (it is, after all, rather early Monday morning.) If anyone knows more about this, please let me know.

Box office fallout

Is the megasuccess of "Jackass: Number Two" just a sign that we're all getting stupider? Probably, but so what.

In truly great news for a Monday morning, "Jackass" took in $28 milliion over the weekend, "Jet Li's Fearless" finished a strong second with $10.5 million (look just below for my review), and "All the King's Men" barely finished in the top 10.

Huzzah. If you haven't seen the numbers yet, let me put this in proper perspective. Finishing at No. 7 and bringing in only $3.8 million, it got beat by previous entries "Gridiron Gang," "Everyone's Hero" and even "The Black Dahlia," and only beat out the sublime "Little Miss Sunshine" by $1 million. A hearty thanks to everyone who just said no to this thoroughly unnecessary remake.

What's up this week? Not much good. Two Ashton Kutcher movies, in fact. "The Guardian," which apparently stars Kevin Costner and Kutcher, not Costner and Whitney Houston, as Coast Guard rescuers, and "Open Season," an animated flick in which Kutcher gets to mug with Martin Lawrence. Of the two, the second sounds slightly more promising, but I think I'll probably just say no to both.

Instead, I'll go for Todd Phillips' "School for Scoundrels," in spite of some negative buzz (yes, I know, this is yet another remake.) With Billy Bob and Napoleon as the leads, and Jacinda Barrett as the requisite eye candy, I've got to at least give it a chance.

"Studio 60" reminder

As solid as Aaron Sorkin's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" did in its premiere on NBC last Monday, it still got beat rather handily by its lead-in, a friggin game show.

It deserves much better. In tonight's episode, which an AICN spy says is better than the nearly flawless pilot and was written by Sorkin, we get to see the first skit new writers Matt and Danny come up with for the show. Folks, I've said it before, but this show, at least so far, is funnier and smarter than anything out there except "Gilmore Girls" (which returns tomorrow night!) Please, please, tune in tonight.