WWMD: What Will Marty do?

Although I promised a review of "Pirates 3," I just can't bring myself to do it. Just in case anyone in the world hasn't seen it yet, here's the short version: The first 90 minutes can be really boring, but the last hour is almost worth the wait. I could watch pirates fight for three hours and you'd never hear a complaint from me, but I could have done with less of that pesky exposition (and more Chow Yun Fat, damnit!)

But enough about that. What I really want to talk about, and haven't for some time now, is Martin Scorsese. I've been wondering for a long while where he's gonna turn next, and the UK's Guardian newspaper seems to have the answer, maybe.

Without a definitive quote from Marty on the subject, the Guardian confidently states that he will next turn to Japan to shoot "Silence," a story about Jesuit missionairies in 17th century Japan set to star Javier Bardem.

"It raises a lot of questions about foreign cultures coming in and imposing their way of thinking on another culture they know nothing about," Scorsese told The Associated Press. Sounds like Marty has modern politics on his mind too, and that can only be a good thing.

Unfortunately, the Guardian piece also stated any Japan shooting won't take place until Summer 2008. Sheesh. Give a man a Best Picture Oscar and he thinks he's entitled to a long vacation, I guess.

But word that he was even able to pick a project, maybe, is good news in itself. Among the selections rumored to be on his plate: "Silence;" "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt," another biopic starring Leo DiCaprio; a flick based on Brian Selznick's children's novel "The Invention of Hugo Cabret," about a 12-year-old orphan who lives in the walls of a Paris train station in 1930 and a mystery involving the boy, his late father and a robot; and finally "Long Play," a rock 'n' roll epic being penned by "The Departed" scribe William Monahan.

Of all those, "Silence" and "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" sound the most interesting to me, so I'm glad he's turned his sights to one of those. And I'll be even happier if someone has solid proof that the great man is even working at all.

A Kazakh answer to Borat?

Apparently the glorious nation of Kazakhstan isn't going to get over the hurt of "Borat" anytime soon.

Miss Kazakhstan (and just in case anyone wants to make a joke about that, I've included a picture of the rather lovely lass) said her country is preparing its own movie in response to "Borat," the hit comedy that portrayed the Central Asian nation as bigoted and backward.

Gauhkar Rakhmetalieva, a contestant in tonight's Miss Universe beauty pageant, said her government is filming the movie to show the nation's positive sides.

"In the end we have to understand that it was only a joke," Rakhmetalieva said. "The advantage is that now our country is world famous. As people are looking toward us, we have the opportunity to show how we really are: a modern country with infrastructure and a very developed culture."

Well, OK. If that's what you have to do, so be it. What would be much more fun, however, would be to send in a Kazakh team to do a real expose on America, and maybe Sacha Baron Cohen's Britain too. Although "Borat" was plenty scathing and funny from start to finish, there's surely more they can find to embarrass us with. And somehow I think that would be much more fun to watch than any propaganda film about the glorious nation of Kazakhstan, even if it would star the rather radiant Ms. Rakhmetalieva.