Friday news, with Catwoman, Kenneth Lonergan, Jonah Hill's foul-mouthed "Sitter" and more

That, of course, is Anne Hathaway in costume as Selena Kyle/Catwoman in Christopher Nolan's upcoming "The Dark Knight Rises," riding a motorcycle with an apparently monstrously large front wheel. And I have to say, now that we've seen Bane and Catwoman, nothing about the slow reveal for this flick so far has me thinking it will be anywhere near as good as "The Dark Knight," but I live to be proven wrong (and manage to accomplish it almost every day.)

And moving on, in other movie news, does anyone remember the name Kenneth Lonergan?

If not, I wouldn't be terribly surprised, but before he pretty much disappeared completely from the world of movies, he managed to make easily one of my favorite flicks of the '00s (and really, of all time) in "You Can Count on Me." If you've never seen that little movie starring Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo as an estranged brother and sister trying to, well, simply deal with life, I'd recommend tracking it down as soon as possible.

And with that movie being a pretty solid arthouse hit, Fox Searchlight signed writer/director Lonergan to make a followup titled "Margaret." Here's what, at least when Lonergan began shooting the movie in 2005, it was to be about, courtesy of AICN:

MARGARET centers on a 17-year-old New York City high-school student who feels certain that she inadvertently played a role in a traffic accident that has claimed a woman's life. In her attempts to set things right she meets with opposition at every step. Torn apart with frustration, she begins emotionally brutalizing her family, her friends, her teachers, and most of all, herself. She has been confronted quite unexpectedly with a basic truth: that her youthful ideals are on a collision course against the realities and compromises of the adult world.

Sounds like pretty heady stuff, and looking at the cast list, I'm fairly certain that Anna Paquin, way back then, played the teen at the movie's center. It was also set to (and still does) also star Matt Damon, Ruffalo, Rosemarie DeWitt, Allison Janney, Jean Reno, Krysten Ritter and, from "You Can Count on Me," Matthew Broderick and Kieran Culkin.

But between then and now, a number of odd things happened, most importantly that Lonergan had no idea how to end his own movie. It clocked in at three hours-plus, and he ended up in court with studio folks about his inability (or unwillingness) to shorten it.

Well, I tell you all that to tell you this: Lonergan's "Margaret" is now finally set to come out in at least some corners of the world and in some form on Sept. 30. And even with such a tortured past, I'll be there to see whatever comes out of all this.


And in news of a movie that should turn out to be much more fun, Louis Leterrier is cooking up a first-rate cast for his magical police tale "Now You See Me," which is about, according to Variety, "a crack FBI squad in a game of cat and mouse against a super team of the world's greatest illusionists, who pull off a series of daring bank heists during their performances, showering the profits on their audiences while staying one step ahead of the law."

Sounds like nothing but big fun to me, and now comes word that Ruffalo and Amanda Seyfried are about to join a cast that already features Melanie Laurent of "Inglorious Basterds" and Jesse Eisenberg. Not sure exactly which roles the latter two will play, but I do know that Ruffalo will play the head FBI agent and Seyfried an expert at building the criminal team's magical devices.

I hope I never get too old to enjoy this kind of thing, and in the same vein, thanks to the recommendation of always-welcome reader Jeremy Jirik, I've also just started reading "Midnight Riot" by "Doctor Who" scribe Ben Aaronovitch, and it's exactly what the title promises. Highly recommended summer reading.

And to segue into today's clips, I'm also sure I'll never get too told for seriously raunchy R-rated comedies, when they're done right (which I'm certainly not expecting from "The Change-Up," so I think I'll just say no to that.) Even if David Gordon Green's "The Sitter" indeed just looks like a mix of "Superbad" and "Pineapple Express" with foul-mouthed kids, it still also looks like exactly the kind of comedy I can dig. Here, courtesy of IGN, enjoy this first red-band trailer, with an appropriately foul introduction from Jonah Hill and his young co-stars, and keep an eye out for the movie on Dec. 9.

More The Sitter Videos

And finally today, here's the second trailer I've seen for the single movie I'm most looking forward to for this fall, Tomas Alfredson's "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy." Just as the director made wintery Sweden, the setting of his simply fabulous vampire tale of sorts, "Let the Right One In" (still streaming on Netflix, if you've somehow never seen it), such a key part of the story there, you can tell from this UK trailer that he'll drop us fully right in the middle of cold-war era Britain for the spy games in Le Carre's novel. The movie's rather amazing cast features Gary Oldman (as the mole hunter George Smiley), Colin Firth, Mark Strong, John Hurt, Toby Jones, Tom Hardy and Benedict Cumberbatch (from the BBC's "Sherlock"), so keep an eye out for this in the USA on Nov. 18, and enjoy this new trailer. And if you'll excuse me now, I'm off to do some swimming and then catch a matinee of "Rise of the Planet of the Apes." Peace out.

Christopher Nolan: 2D's caped crusader?

When reading the big news about Christopher Nolan's third Batman movie, I got the distinct impression that he could have walked into Warner Bros. and told them he was going to make it an animated musical called "The Dark Knight Prances," and they would have simply said "OK."

After all, when your movie makes almost as much as "Titanic," I suppose you have at least a bit of pull. And thankfully, Nolan is choosing to use this as a force for good, and hopefully putting the final nail in using 3D for anything beyond children's movies.

Along with the title, "The Dark Knight Rises," the only other thing that Nolan revealed about the 2012 flick this week was that when asked, he indeed told Warner exactly where they could stick their 3D. Beyond this being simply great news, it also just makes perfect sense, since Nolan already uses a unique technology for his cameras, and therefore has no need for such useless gimmicks.

That's all he's really revealed so far, except for that the Riddler won't be the big bad this time around, but on both of those counts I'd say so far he's off to a great start.

In other actual movie news today, Wendell Pierce, aka Bunk from "The Wire" and Antoine Batiste on "Treme," has somehow landed a part in "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn." I have no idea what part he will play, and even less about what's going on in the "Twilight" movies, but I just had to laugh at that.

And before we move on to something even sillier involving Mad Man Roger Sterling, there's also a good bit of news about a movie that will come out in at least some corners of the world very soon, and it sounds like a potentially great one.

Who doesn't like a good kung fu movie? Well, I do, so "Bruce Lee, My Brother" sounds tailor made for me. Drawn from the memories of Lee's siblings, the $4.6 million Chinese production will take a look at his life growing up in Hong Kong. Someone named Aarif Lee, no relation to the kung fu master, will play the young Mr. Lee when this comes out Nov. 27, so keep an eye out for it if you can find it.


After I stopped laughing at the idea of Roger Sterling's memoirs actually being published, I had to think to myself, yeah, I'll probably buy that. After all, when you're feeling down, what could possibly be a better pick-up than some words of wisdom from "Mad Men"'s best character?

The book, to be called "Sterling's Gold," will hit bookstores in November. And though John Slattery's picture will appear on the cover, the book itself springs completely from the mind of "Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner.

So, what will you get if, like me, you spring for this bit of silliness? Here's a sampling from the preface:

The book consists of “a few things overheard, a few things to live by, and hell, a few things I’ve apparently said and had repeated to me the morning after a party when I called to make amends."

Instead of a straight forward memoir, it will instead be a collection Sterling's "witticisms," divided into chapters with very basic names such as “On Clients”, “Things to Say to Creatives”, “On the Art of Seduction… and What to Say to Close the Deal”, and “On Some Memorable Colleagues.”

And just in case you doubt that Roger Sterling can be an inspirational figure, here are some examples of his accumulated pearls of wisdom:

You want to be on some people’s minds. Some people’s you don’t.

The day you sign a client is the day you start losing them.

Being with a client is like being in a marriage. Sometimes you get into it for the wrong reasons and eventually they hit you in the face.

Don’t you love the chase? Sometimes it doesn’t work out. Those are the stakes. But when it does work out — it’s like having that first cigarette. Your head gets all dizzy, your heart pounds, your knees go weak. Remember that? Old business is just old business.

When a man gets to a point in his life when his name’s on the building, he can get an unnatural sense of entitlement.

Remember, when God closes a door, he opens a dress.

I certainly don't think I can add anything wiser than that, so with that, I'll just wrap it up and wish everyone, with the help of Roger Sterling, a perfectly bearable Thursday. Peace out.