David Fincher coming to TV with ... my favorite miniseries of all time?

Without exaggeration, the "House of Cards" trilogy - based on Michael Dobbs' book of the same name and starring the late, great Ian Richardson - really might be just about the best thing I've ever seen on TV, outside of maybe "Freaks and Geeks."

The story takes place at the end of Margaret Thatcher's reign as British prime minister, and Richardson stars as Francis Urquhart (often none too kindly abbreviated as F.U.), the Conservative Party chief whip who weasels his way into more and more power by any means necessary.

Now, it seems that David Fincher is getting set to make his TV debut as the executive producer and - for the pilot at least - I'd imagine director of an hourlong U.S. drama based on at least the first chapter of "House of Cards" (though I'd imagine if it ran long enough they'd get to the second and third chapters, "To Play the King" and "The Final Cut," too.) ... (On second thought, scratch that, because unless I'm somehow mistaken, we yanks aren't much for kings.)

Though I loved "The West Wing," and indeed go back and watch it from time to time, a show that delves into the darker (most people would say natural) side of politicians could certainly be a lot of fun, and the source material is just impeccable. My only real worry about this is that much of the salacious fun of the original was driven by Richardson himself, who dived into it with all the wickedness he could muster. Replacing him with an American counterpart will be a very tall order, but assuming this gets picked up by a network sometime soon, I'll definitely be tuning in to see how it all turns out.

All I have except for that today is a couple of videos, the first of which comes from a movie opening in some of the country tomorrow but, unfortunately, nowhere near me, Jared Hess' "Gentlemen Broncos." Though his movies, especially "Nacho Libre," are just silly beyond any reason, I just dig them. I'm not much of a moralist, and if I wanted to be I'd most certainly fail, but there's gotta be a place in our world for the squeaky clean but more than a little askew view of Mr. Hess. That said, here's a couple of scenes from his new flick, about the exotically geeky world of fantasy literature. Enjoy.



Next up comes the second trailer for director Joe Johnston's "The Wolfman," which stars Benicio del Toro as the titular man-beast and is set to come out in February. Though my instincts would tell me to beware of this one, everything I've seen so far makes it look like it's gonna be a whole lot of silly fun, and sometimes you just can't ask for more than that. Enjoy, and have a perfectly pleasant Thursday. Peace out.