Opening today, the best movie almost no one in America will get to see

If you'll allow me to vent a little bit, easily one of my favorite books of all time, "The Damned Utd," has been made into a movie (with the final word stretched out to United), but I now find it's opening today, but not ANYWHERE near me.

I checked Access Atlanta just in case an hour drive would deliver it to me. Nope. I checked the movie release schedule to see if it's ever slated to play wider than L.A. and N.Y. As far as I can tell, nope. Sheesh.

If you've never heard of this book, I really can't recommend it highly enough, whether you are a soccer fan or not (and don't even get me started on just how we're getting screwed with Saturday's U.S.-Honduras World Cup qualifier.) The piece of historical fiction by David Peace gets inside the mind of football manager Brian Clough for the ill-fated 44 days he led Leeds United, a team he admits he hates even as he takes the helm.

Though the Clough family has taken issue with both the book and movie, Peace's work is a fascinating psychological portrait, and it keeps up a brisk pace as it jumps back and forth between Leeds and Clough's earlier triumph at Derby County. And just in case you're reading this and do happen to live in a place lucky enough to get this flick, here's a little more incentive: It stars Michael Sheen as the manic Mr. Clough and features a screenplay from Peter Morgan, writer of "The Queen" and other works.

For the rest of us, I suppose it's just "Couples Retreat," but I can't imagine there's any chance you'll catch me anywhere near that one. It's more than a little depressing that something that looks so stupid was written by Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau, making it, I suppose, their "follow-up"-of-sorts to "Swingers." Oh well. I'm sure they all had fun filming this in Bora Bora or wherever with Ralphie from "A Christmas Story," and as for me, I think I'll take the chance to catch up with Ricky Gervais' "The Invention of Lying" before it surely leaves theaters after this week.

And, since at least my Friday is a little better with a little "Damned United," here's a four-minute-or-so clip from the flick of Brian Clough's first day on the job at Leeds. Enjoy, and catch this if you can. Peace out.

Information overload? A slew of good movie news

I managed to see Paul Haggis' "In the Valley of Elah" Monday, and while I can report it's Haggis' best movie yet and the first one he directed that I almost entirely enjoyed, i'm still wrapping my mind around it so can't say much more than that. In the meantime, here's a ton of news about people I always like to hear about.

First up comes a serious case of trading up by Spike Lee, and confirmation at the same time that his next movie should be a great one.

It's been hard to tell exactly what Spike will sink his teeth into next, but it seems the WWII drama "Miracle at St. Anna" will indeed be next on his plate. And, in even better news, it seems that Wesley Snipes has dropped out of the lead and been replaced by Derek Luke, easily one of my favorite actors.

Though almost noone saw it in theaters, Luke starred in, for my money, one of the best movies of 2006 with Phillip Noyce's South Africa drama "Catch a Fire." In "Miracle at St. Anna," he joins an impressive ensemble that already includes John Turturro and James Gandolfini. Luke, who also stars in the upcoming "Lions for Lambs," will play one of four members of the Army's all-black 92nd Division who get separated from their squad behind enemy lines. The soldiers, bitter about racism and the feeling that their own government treats its enemy better than it does them, finds humanity in the small Tuscan village of St. Anna (filming in Italy forced Snipes to pull out because of his tax troubles.

You can now officially list as one movie that I'll report just about every detail I can find on, so get used to it now.

Confirmation that I'll watch Catherine Keener in anything

Easily the highlight of my Friday worknight was an e-mail exchange with Nell Minow, a k a Yahoo's Movie Mom, about the virtues of Catherine Keener. On the list of leading ladies, I think I'd only list Helen Mirren above her among my favorites.

And, as Nell and I agree, she's so good that we like her in movies that have relatively few other virtues, as this next one just might prove. Even with the reliable Joe Wright, director of the upcoming "Atonement," at the helm, "The Soloist" just kind of makes me say meh.

Although I liked Jamie Foxx quite a bit in "The Kingdom," just about the last thing I want to see him do is make another musical biopic, this one about Nathaniel Ayers, a homeless musician with schizophrenia who dreams of playing at L.A.'s Disney Hall. Robert Downey Jr. (huzzah!) will play the Los Angeles Times correspondent who found Ayers on the streets of L.A., and Ms. Keener will play his editor. Like I said, this sounds like way too much schmaltz for me, but it's always worth keeping an eye on a cast like that.

And, for you fellow Catherine Keener fans out there, you can also look for her in "Hamlet 2" with Steve Coogan, Charlie Kaufman's "Synecdoche, New York" and Spike Jonze's "Where the Wild Things Are."

Berg nabs epic kidnapping tale

With Peter Berg rising rapidly on my list of favorite directors and season 2 of "Friday Night Lights" coming at 8 this Friday, now comes word he's got his hands on a new project that could be tons of fun.

Universal has apparently signed Mr. Berg to direct a movie based on John Pearson's book "Painfully Rich: The Outrageous Fortune and Misfortunes of the Heirs of J. Paul Getty." It's an often sordid tale that involves kidnapping and other high crimes and misdemeanors, so it should make for a compelling flick.

Berg's currently wrapping up "Hancock," his summer 2008 flick starring Jason Bateman (huzzah again!), Charlize Theron and a certain actor you may have heard of named Will Smith, and is then (I think) signed to direct a flick about Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro, so he'll be fairly busy for the foreseeable future.

A "Queen" sequel? Bring it on

Though Helen Mirren rightly got most of the acclaim for playing her highness in Stephen Frears' 2006 flick "The Queen," Michael Sheen's Tony Blair was just about as amazing an accomplishment. And now, thankfully, it seems we'll be getting more of it.

Did anyone out there know there was a prequel of sorts to "The Queen," another Tony Blair flick penned for Britain's Channel 4 by Peter Morgan and titled "The Deal"? I didn't, but it's being added to my Netflix queue now if I can get it. Rounding out the series to make a trilogy, Morgan is now at work on a new flick which will be about Blair's relationships with American presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, with Sheen returning as Mr. Blair.

In "The Queen," Morgan and Sheen painted Blair as a wiley pol who nonetheless had a seemingly insatiable desire to be liked by everyone he encountered, so this next chapter should be another nice fit. Though Morgan will stop short of Blair's rather unpopular decision to back W. wholeheartedly on the war in Iraq, you can still expect some enticing palace (or, I guess, Downing Street) intrigue.

Morgan also recently finished a rewrite of "State of Play" for director Kevin Macdonald ("Last King of Scotland") and a draft of the adaptation of John le Carre's "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy." Stephen Frears, director of "The Queen," will apparently be handing the reins for the next chapter to British director Tom Hooper, who has episodes of "Eastenders" and "Prime Suspect" listed among his credits.

I always suspected so ...

Though he was more than happy enough to pocket the big Hollywood checks, you can apparently count Jackie Chan (and me) among the legions of people who just can't stand Brett Ratner.

Chan wrote on his blog, according to Yahoo, that when he made the first installment of the "Rush Hour" series in 1998 he only wanted to test the U.S. market and didn't have high hopes.

"When we finished filming, I felt very disappointed because it was a movie I didn't appreciate and I did not like the action scenes involved. I felt the style of action was too Americanized and I didn't understand the American humor," Chan wrote.

He said he made the sequel because he was offered an "irresistible" amount of money to do it and made the recently released third installment to satisfy fans of the series.

Chan said "Rush Hour 3" was no different from the first two installments for him.

"Nothing particularly exciting stood out that made this movie special for me ... I spent four months making this film and I still don't fully understand the humor," he said, adding the comedic scenes may be lost on Asian audiences.

I thought the first "Rush Hour" was funny (and harmless) enough, but didn't bother with the other two. As far as his heart goes, it certainly sounds like Jackie Chan really didn't either.

‘Bottle Rocket’ to get Criterion treatment

Be warned: If it's at all possible you just might see Wes Anderson news on this site every day until I get to see "The Darjeeling Limited." Especially when the news is as good as this.

According to the reliably entertaining MTV movies blog, it seems Anderson's "Bottle Rocket," of which I am the proud owner of a very worn out VHS copy, will someday be getting the Criterion DVD treatment it surely deserves.

“We’ve just begun work with the Criterion Collection to do ‘Bottle Rocket’ on a new DVD that’s going to have all kinds of stuff," he told MTV. "There’s a lot of ‘Bottle Rocket’ that was on the cutting room floor, so we have a lot to work with on that one.”

Though I'd rank "Bottle Rocket" third in the Anderson Oeuvre, behind, respectively, "The Royal Tenenbaums" and then "Rushmore," it's still a damn fine flick well worthy of Criterion respect.

Yes, Will Smith can do anything he wants to ...

IGN is reporting this one simply as a rumor, but it was way too funny for me to pass up.

Perhaps only to prove he can, it seems Will Smith is behind a remake of "The Karate Kid" that would star - get ready - his currently 9-year-old son Jaden. I'd be more put off by this if I could manage to stop laughing.

"Deadwood" officially dead?

Sorry to leave things on a down note, but I did want to pass along what the great Ian McShane, a k a Al Swearengen, had to tell Cinematical about the possibility of two "Deadwood" movies to wrap the story up.

It seems Mr. McShane told the Cinematical folks that, as we all feared, HBO has indeed killed the idea.

"I just got a call on Friday from ... a dear friend of mine, who told me that they're packing up the ranch," McShane said. "They're dismantling the ranch and taking the stuff out. That ship is gonna sail. Bonsoir, Deadwood."

He went on to add: "You feel cheated? Imagine how I feel! We all do. We all do. It was one of those one-off jobs that you do which has got an extraordinary creative brain behind it, and it kept getting better, and the actors were great. It was a fabulous place to be and work. It was a workshop cum theater cum film. It was an extraordinary time. But everything has to come to an end, babe."

I guess it does, but that doesn't mean I have to be happy about it. Being constantly behind on things, I just finished season two of "Deadwood" and intend to watch the final season before moving on to season four of HBO's greatest series, "The Wire," come December. Though season one was better than No. 2, count me among the many big fans of this Western who are very sad to hear it won't be revived anytime soon.

"Golden Compass" goodness

Whew! Long report today, so anyone who made it this far indeed deserves a reward. Here's a pretty good "Golden Compass" featurette to enjoy. Peace out.