Behold, the trailer for the new "Indiana Jones" movie!

I was going to headline this post with my admittedly rather juvenile and profanity-laden reaction when I found out I could watch the trailer for "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" this morning, but decided the folks who run the family-friendly newspaper I toil for daily probably wouldn't appreciate that.

And now, thanks to the fine folks at Ahorahollywood.com (which, if you can read Spanish, is just a sensational film junkie Web site), you can see it too. I don't want to say too much about it, but after a way-too-long intro it's just all kinds of cool. Enjoy, and if you have the time, read on for a bit more news after the clip.



Tivo alert: Great shows to return soon

CBS and NBC have announced their immediate plans to air something that doesn't flow from the reality toilet, which means the return of a few shows that I tune into reliably each week.

CBS has announced that "How I Met Your Mother" (and, unfortunately, with it "Big Bang Theory" and "Two and a Half Men") will return to the air March 17.

NBC, meanwhile, has staged a two-tier rollout for its lineup of Thursday comedies. Fans of "My Name is Earl" (of which I'm not much of one) will be treated to a fresh, one-hour episode April 3. Fans of "The Office" (yes!!!) and "Scrubs" (bring that on too!) will have to wait until April 10 for new shows.

Good and bad news about a Valerie Plame movie

Continuing with the international flair today, this is translated from the great French site Cinempire.com, so bear with me.

I've been curious about what would happen with this ever since I first heard the earliest snippets about a possible Valerie Plame movie, because as anyone who's been here before probably knows, I just love me some spy movies, especially ones grounded in reality. Billy Ray's "Breach," for example, about the master spy Robert Hanssen (Chris Cooper), was easily one of my favorite movies of 2007.

And now comes word that Nicole Kidman (heard of her?) will be playing Ms. Plame, the CIA agent who was outed by the Bush administration because they had a beef with her husband. I realize this is far from a minority opinion, but I love Nicole Kidman, as much for her acting skills as for her ability to (almost) always pick great roles. Though it came under a lot of critical fire, I thought she was great at playing a truly detestable character in Noah Baumbach's "Margot at the Wedding," and for one from the vault, I guarantee watching her early supporting turn with Thandie Newton and Noah Taylor in the Aussie flick "Flirting" will make you smile.

But this news is still a bit of a mixed bag, since it comes from Doug Liman, a director who I've just come to respect less and less. I was certainly with him through "Swingers" and the rather criminally underrated "Go," but I couldn't find much to enjoy in "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," and this weekend's "Jumper" looks like a similarly empty spectacle. I hope he still has the chops for this much more serious fare, but I certainly have my doubts.


Emile Hirsch in "Milk"

"Milk," the upcoming biopic about the assassinated San Francisco pol Harvey Milk, should be a real return to top form for Gus Van Sant (although I can't really say he's not on top of his game already, since I have yet to see "Paranoid Park"; I can, despite the fact that it has only about 20 words or so of dialogue, highly recommend his school-shooting flick "Elephant.")

And the Milk flick has assembled easily one of the best casts for 2008 flicks. Emile Hirsch, shown on the set in the above photo courtesy of JustJared, will be playing the activist Cleve Jones, who came up with the idea for the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. Also already on board are Sean Penn as Milk (Oscar, anyone?), Josh Brolin as the assassin Dan White and Victor Garber as S.F. Mayor George Moscone, who was also killed by White. James Franco, Diego Luna and surely some women will also be featured in what should be one of the best flicks of this year. And that's about all I've got for today. Peace out.