What's up next for Gus Van Sant?

Though he's made many movies I love, Gus Van Sant really is just about the most maddening of moviemakers.

For every "Elephant," "Paranoid Park" or "Drugstore Cowboy," there's crap like his shot-for-shot remake of "Psycho" (which, yes, I really did sit through just to see if he really did it that way and, yes, he did) or "Good Will Hunting" (I know almost everyone loves that movie, but I guess I'm just a cynical kind of dude - I really can't stand it.)

And it's really hard to tell from the trailer below where his next flick, "Restless," set to come out Jan. 25, will fall. As you'll see, "Restless" tells the story of a 16-year-old girl (Mia Wasikowska) who has been diagnosed with a terminal illness and falls in love with an off-beat boy (Henry Hopper) who likes to attend funerals and is suffering from the death of his family — which somehow produces the ghost of a young, Japanese kamikaze pilot from World War II.

Got all that? Like I said, this really could go in just about any direction, but I go see everything Gus Van Sant makes, and Mia Wasikowska has yet to pick a movie I haven't at least liked, so I'll definitely be there assuming this opens wide enough to reach my little corner of the world. And if you haven't seen "Elephant," probably my favorite Van Sant movie, do yourself a favor and rent it. Enjoy the trailer.



And coming before that, Dec. 3 (I believe, but it keeps changing), will be a more guaranteed mind freakout, Darren Aronofsky's "Black Swan." The movie stars Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis as two young ballerinas who take their competition to an extreme level. Four beautiful posters for the flick have just come out, and just by looking at them, you can tell there will be a whole lot more going on than you find in that brief description. I've added my favorite here below, but to see them all, click here to visit Empire Online.


And finally, what's better to wrap up a short Saturday report than bee hive tether ball? In case you couldn't tell already, this clip comes from "Jackass 3D," which I'm not sure I'll have time to catch this weekend but I certainly support in spirit, and will certainly catch before it leaves the theaters. I do know that I'll be going to see "Red" this afternoon, and am really looking forward to it. Enjoy the clip, and have a great weekend. Peace out.

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For Friday, a treasure trove of clips

Actually, with "The Other Guys" opening today and getting generally very good reviews, let's start with easily the craziest news I could find this morning, and it's about director Adam McKay.

In what would have to be a pretty big reach for the Gary Sanchez production company he runs with Will Ferrell, it seems that McKay has hired screenwriter Jesse Armstrong, co-writer of the sublime satire "In the Loop" (rent that immediately if you somehow haven't seen it), to pen the script for a biopic of Lee Atwater. And if you like political film at all, you know how potentially good this news is.

And just in case you've forgotten about Atwater, he was a prominent GOP strategist who, while he didn't quite engineer the rise of Republicans in the South, certainly channeled their power for George H.W. Bush and others to take advantage of (and, by the way, created that "Willie Horton" ad - remember him?) Far from my favorite dude in history, but certainly a colorful character, and Armstrong should have plenty to work with in all the dirty tricks he pulled in a successful career in politics. Stay tuned.

OK, after that today, it's indeed all about clips, and I've got four or - depending on the time - five that caught my eye this morning, starting of course with "Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World." Though surely a gimmick, this interactive trailer that lets you click anywhere in it while it's running to get little nuggets of info about the flick is also extremely addictive as a time-waster. Enjoy, and certainly go see the flick when it opens next week.



Next up, if you have to make movies in 3-D, what more noble use could there be than to shoot a dude being catapulted high into the air in an outhouse? That's right, the "Jackass" boys are back on Oct. 15, and they really will be in 3-D (hence the title, "Jackass 3D.") And I'm certainly not afraid to admit that the antics of Johnny Knoxville and his crew are just the perfectly silly thing to get me laughing on a Saturday afternoon, so I'll be there to see it. Enjoy.

Jackass 3D

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And speaking of satire, there's one coming up that, if it's done right and with no mercy, could be really funny. Called "Butter," it takes on the 2008 Democratic presidential primary and takes it into the competitive world of butter sculpting (yes, really, I couldn't make that up.) In the flick, set to come out sometime next year, Jennifer Garner plays an ambitious butter sculptor in the Midwest who finds her rise challenged by a young black girl with a talent for the art (if you can really call it that.) I'm already laughing at the possibility for funny here, so enjoy this five-minute behind-the-scenes clip from Entertainment Tonight, which thankfully doesn't contain its usual habit of talking over all the footage.



It's been so long since the last "Narnia" movie, and they really just do have such an old-fashioned feel to them (even with all the nifty special effects), that it's pretty easy to forget all about them, but I liked "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" quite a bit, and "Prince Caspian" was even better, so you can certainly count me as amped for the third installment, "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader," set to come out Dec. 10. Here, straight from the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" DVD and courtesy of Narniafans.com, is the the second trailer I've seen for the flick. Enjoy.



And finally, the transition from swelteringly silly summer to more prestigious fall should start early this year with Anton Corbijn's "The American," set to come out Sept. 1 and star one George Clooney. This is only a brief TV spot, but the flick, starring Clooney as an American assassin who gets one final assignment to complete in Italy before retiring, is one of the movies I'm most looking forward to for the rest of this year, so enjoy, and have a great weekend. Peace out.