Dog days or flick finds? What to expect from the movies of August

Starting off with some funny, the banner above that welcomed the cast of "Community" back to the set this week for the filming of season three, and was tweeted by star Joel McHale, pretty much perfectly captures the comic spirit of the show, as do two of its upcoming multi-episode guest stars.

In season three, the great Michael Kenneth Williams, aka Omar from "The Wire," will join the show as Greendale's new biology teacher (I'm laughing at that already), and in potentially even better casting, John Goodman will play the vice dean of the School of Air Conditioning Repair, the only program at Greendale that gets any kind of good recognition.

Great news all that, and keep an eye out for the return of "Community" on Sept. 22, but here today its otherwise all about the movie slate for August, a month that gets a bad rap, but still often delivers some comedies that are, if you'll forgive the truly groan-worthy pun, august. Here's a look at some of what's coming up in the next month.

Aug. 5: "The Change-Up"
For a truly funny guy, Jason Bateman has managed to make some seriously wretched "comedies" since "Arrested Development" ended, and it certainly doesn't look like this frat-boy "Freaky Friday" of sorts also starring "Green Lantern" Ryan Reynolds will do anything to change that course.

Aug. 5: "Rise of the Planet of the Apes"
When exactly did the term "prequel" become the go-to idea when movie producers are lacking anything resembling an original thought? I can't pinpoint it, but even with engaging stars such as James Franco and Freida Pinto (from "Slumdog Millionaire"), I really can't see this one as being anything but one of the most unintentionally funny movies of this summer.

Aug. 10: "The Help"
In what I think will be one of the gigantic sleeper hits for the rest of this year, Emma Stone leads the cast of this flick based on the very popular novel by Kathyrn Stockett, which I read and mostly enjoyed. She plays Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, an awkward Southern socialite who organizes the black maids of 1960's Jackson, Miss., led in the movie by Viola Davis, to tell their stories.

Aug. 12: "30 Minutes or Less"
For that perfect combination of clever and just plain crude, director Ruben Fleischer's follow-up to "Zombieland" should be the flick to look out for this August. In it, Jesse Eisenberg gets a bomb strapped to his chest by unsavory characters Danny McBride and Nick Swardson and is forced to rob a bank. And hijinks will surely ensue.

Aug. 19: "One Day"
I've probably seen the trailer for this flick starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess more than any other this summer, but that hasn't made it look any more appealing. Granted, I'm not the target audience for romantic comedies like this one about two college friends who agree to meet for one day each year of their lives. It is, however, from "An Education" director Lone Scherfig, so here's hoping I'm wrong about this one and it turns out to somehow be a winner.

Aug. 26: "Our Idiot Brother":
If the entire secret to making funny movies would be simply to stock them with funny people, this flick somehow starring Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel, Emily Mortimer, Adam Scott and Rashida Jones would be an automatic success. And if director Jesse Peretz lets Rudd be truly funny as the titular "Idiot," I'm betting it will be.

Aug. 31: "The Debt":
By far the most serious wide-release movie of the month could also be a surprisingly big hit, with Joel Madden directing an espionage thriller about a trio of retired Mossad agents (Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson and Ciaran Hinds) who find a celebrated 1966 mission in which they tracked down a Nazi war criminal called into question. Exactly my kind of spy games.

Oscar predictions: Who should and will win

Actually, the main question that pops into my mind about the Oscars this morning is why in the world do they wait so long between announcing the nominees and declaring the winners? Rather than building suspense, it really just sucks a lot of fun out of it as all the other awards get to go first, adding up to kudos overkill.

Still and all, they are the Oscars, so I'll tune in. And here are my predictions of who will win - and my picks of who should win - on Sunday night's broadcast.

Best Supporting Actress
The nominees: Amy Adams, "The Fighter"; Helena Bonham Carter, "The King's Speech"; Melissa Leo, "The Fighter"; Hailee Steinfeld, "True Grit"; Jacki Weaver, "Animal Kingdom".
Should win: Jacki Weaver. If you haven't seen this gritty Australian gangster flick, definitely rent it if only to see how Weaver runs her family of two-bit crooks with her unique version of a mother's love.
Will win: Amy Adams and Melissa Leo should cancel either out here, with Hailee Steinfeld emerging as the winner, and why not? She really should be in the Best Actress category, but she was funny, fierce and fragile all at once in the Coen brothers' flick.

Best Supporting Actor
The nominees: Christian Bale, "The Fighter"; John Hawkes, "Winter's Bone"; Jeremy Renner, "The Town"; Mark Ruffalo, "The Kids Are All Right"; Geoffrey Rush, "The King's Speech".
Should win: John Hawkes, who as uncle "Teardrop" held all the cards he had about the movie's main mystery very close before playing them with perfect precision to help his niece find out the truth about his brother.
Will win: Unless he gets steamrolled by the "The King's Speech" express and Geoffrey Rush, who should really be a Best Actor nominee anyway, Christian Bale will run away with this for throwing himself so completely into the role of crack-addicted boxing trainer Dickie Eklund.

Best Actress
The nominees: Annette Bening, "The Kids Are All Right"; Nicole Kidman, "Rabbit Hole"; Jennifer Lawrence, "Winter's Bone"; Natalie Portman, "Black Swan"; Michelle Williams, "Blue Valentine".
Should win: Michelle Williams. Along with Ryan Gosling, a major omission from the Best Actor field, she made up one half of the doomed couple at the center of Derek Cianfrance's great movie, and made her heartache surprisingly compelling - if not exactly fun - to watch.
Will win: This is easily the strongest category of the night, but in a battle mainly between Annette Bening and Natalie Portman, Portman will prevail for her portrayal of Nina, the ballerina driven way beyond the brink of madness in "Black Swan."

Best Actor:
The nominees: Javier Bardem, "Biutiful"; Jeff Bridges, "True Grit"; Jesse Eisenberg, "The Social Network"; Colin Firth, "The King's Speech"; James Franco, "127 Hours".
Should win: James Franco, who is the co-host of this year's Oscars broadcast with Anne Hathaway, took us on the full ride of emotions in Danny Boyle's exhilarating "127 Hours", even as he was trapped in a hole for most of the movie.
Will win: There's no stopping the king here, so Colin Firth will prevail for his pitch-perfect performance of stammering monarch George VI.

Best Director
The nominees: Darren Aronofsky, "Black Swan"; David O. Russell, "The Fighter"; Tom Hooper, "The King's Speech"; David Fincher, "The Social Network"; Joel and Ethan Coen, "True Grit".
Should win: Darren Aronofsky turned what easily could have been a schlocky B-movie (and often still is) into a superb psychological thriller with "Black Swan," and for that he should be rewarded.
Will win: There's nothing people hate more here than a Best Director/Best Picture split, but I think that's what we'll have, with David Fincher winning Best Director for turning Aaron Sorkin's whip smart script about the creation of Facebook into an equally fun movie.

Best Picture
The nominees: "Black Swan", "The Fighter", "Inception", "The Kids Are All Right", "The King's Speech", "127 Hours", "The Social Network", "Toy Story 3", "True Grit", "Winter's Bone".
Should win: Debra Granik's "Winter's Bone", a coming of age tale/film noir set in the Ozarks, has long been my favorite movie of 2010, and time has done nothing to change that.
Will win: The early buzz was for "The Social Network", but the late mojo is behind "The King's Speech", which will prevail, and as a period piece that has managed to become the people's champ without being stodgy, I can certainly live with that.

And there you have it. Please feel free to let me know of any of these you think I just got completely wrong and, for an awards list that's always much more fun (and a lot shorter) than the Oscars, check out the Bob Awards here. Always a great read. Peace out.

Oscar surprises - the good, the bad and the ugly

Actually, before I get into any of that, and it really was a pretty great year for interesting movies getting deserved Oscar nominations, there are three tidbits of perhaps fresher news out there that caught my eye this morning.

First up, with "Red" hitting DVD shelves this week (and my home player this weekend), Summit has announced that a sequel to the octogenarian comic book hit is on, and to that I can only say bully. If you happened to stop by yesterday, you know I pretty much love the original, which captured the comic book feel nearly perfectly and was just a whole lot of fun.

So far for the sequel, Summit has hired brothers Erich and Jon Hoeber, who wrote the script for the first movie, but as yet no actors. I have to assume, though, that if they come up with anything even pretty good, Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, John Malkovich and hopefully even the great Brian Cox will all be back for more. Stay tuned.

In other news, fresh off his Oscar love for "The Social Network," it seems that Aaron Sorkin is headed back to TV with something that could be fascinating - at least if its a lot more "Sports Night" than "Studio 60." He has told the BBC he's working with HBO on a series that would be set back stage at a cable news show.

Now, I can only take those shows in very small doses, and the only one I watch with any regularity is "Morning Joe," but they're still certainly an interesting petri dish of ideas and bombast for Sorkin to play around in, assuming this is happening as he says. Unfortunately, it seems that Keith Olberman, who I was hoping was now gone from TV pretty much for good, may be back on this as a character of some kind.

And finally, before I get into the Oscars, buzz has been building about an Alfred Hitchcock biopic, which I'd be hesitant about if it weren't coming together so well so far. Though it's hard to call it high art, there are very few documentaries that I've seen in the past 10 years or so that are more entertaining than Sasha Gervasi's "Anvil: The Story of Anvil," which chronicles the misadventures of Canada's hardest-working heavy metal band (yes, really).

For his next project, Gervasi is now in talks to direct an adaptation of the Stephen Rebello book "Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho," which would be about exactly what the title says. Even better, Sir Anthony Hopkins, who's hamming it up this week in his own "horror" movie which I won't be going to see, "The Rite," is now in talks to play Hitchcock himself. Nothing but potential perfection there, methinks.

OK, on to the Oscars, which contained some surprises this year, most of them good for once. Being a glass half full kind of dude on my best days, I'll start with the good, and try my best to make that portion longer. Here goes.

The good

All the love for "Winter's Bone": I've made it no secret around here that Debra Granik's coming-of-age film noir of sorts set in the Ozarks is, by a pretty wide margin, my single favorite movie of 2010, so I wasn't terribly surprised that it managed to sneak into the Best Picture top 10 (to brag just a bit, I managed to predict the 10 nominees here a week ago, correctly tapping this and "127 Hours" for the final two spots.)

What I didn't expect, but certainly support, is acting nods for both Jennifer Lawrence (Best Actress) and John Hawkes (Best Supporting Actor). Though she'd get my vote for carrying this movie with a fragile but still unwavering will, I don't think Lawrence has any chance in a category that will probably belong to Annette Bening or Natalie Portman (of the two, I'll take the latter in "Black Swan"). Hawkes, likewise, will probably get knocked out by Christian Bale's electric turn as Dickie Eklund in "The Fighter," but any recognition of his key role as uncle "Teardrop" is welcome in this little corner of the world.

And for an award that "Winter's Bone" might actually win, it's great to see writer/director Debra Granik nominated for best adapted screenplay, though if I were a betting man, I'd say that award will ultimately go to Sorkin for "The Social Network."

Michelle Williams: Granted, I only manged to see "Blue Valentine" last week, and so it's very fresh on my brain, but Williams' nomination for Best Actress brought the biggest smile to my face Tuesday morning. Along with Ryan Gosling (more on that in a bit), she dragged viewers smack into the middle of a romance that burns extremely bright thanks to her passionate performance before of course crashing equally hard, and it would have been a much more uncomfortable viewing experience if she weren't so magnetic at the center of it all.

Jacki Weaver: That may not be a name familiar to very many people, but it should be, especially with "Animal Kingdom" now out on DVD. In that truly gritty Aussie gangster flick, which made my top 10 for the year, she plays the menacing but fiercely loyal matriarch of the doomed Cody small-time crime clan, and steals every minute ehe's allotted. This category will probably go to either Helena Bonham Carter for "The King's Speech" or Melissa Leo for "The Fighter," either of which would be fine, but I'd much rather see youth be served with Hailee Steinfeld in "True Grit" (though she really is a leading actress, of course!), or even better, the long shot Weaver somehow come out on top.

"The Illusionist": My co-workers were grumbling yesterday about how in the world "Despicable Me" could have been left off the list for Best Animated Picture, and I'm with them there. Disney's "Tangled" also got shafted, and while that doesn't really bother me at all, it does raise a bigger question: Why only three nominees in this key category? I mean, we all know "Toy Story 3" is going to win, but three is still a ridiculously small number. At least they did manage to squeeze in Sylvain Chomet's "The Illusionist," an odd little movie that, like Chomet's "The Triplets of Belleville" before it, has practically no discernible dialogue at all. What it does, have, however, in telling the story of a magician who adopts a young traveling partner who thinks his tricks are real, is a lot of humor and heart, exactly what I look for in a great animated movie.

The bad:

The best director category: Say what you want to about "Inception," but no director took more chances this year than Christopher Nolan, so with that flick nominated for Best Picture, why not Nolan for Best Director? This doesn't really miff me as much as some, but it is a real head-scratcher. More important, I think, is how in the world did the Academy manage to recognize no women in this category? Lisa Cholodenko was certainly a possibility for "The Kids Are All Right," but I really think that's the weak link in the Best Picture field. Much better would have been Granik, who delivered nothing short of a masterpiece (a term I try not to throw around a lot, but it's deserved here - watch it already!) with "Winter's Bone." Apparently handing one Oscar to Kathyrn Bigelow was enough for a while. Sheesh. I predict a split decision here, with "The King's Speech" winning Best Picture by sheer momentum, but David Fincher taking Best Director for "The Social Network."

Ryan Gosling: Also among the office Oscar chatter I heard yesterday was that Julia Roberts threw a party just last week to throw her weight behind Javier Bardem being nominated for Best Actor for "Biutiful" (which I haven't seen). Who knows if that had any effect, but if so, it's a real crime, because how in the world do you nominate Michelle Williams for "Blue Valentine" but not her worse (relationship-wise) but at least equal (acting-wise) half? Simply maddening, but if you haven't seen this movie yet, just do while you can, because in spite of its difficult subject matter, it really is a joy to behold.

Cinematography: It was a pretty banner day for "127 Hours," which certainly made me cheer. Oscar co-host James Franco got a much-deserved Best Actor nomination, Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy are rightly up for Best Adapated Screenplay, and it of course snuck into the Best Picture field (and into movie theaters in my little corner of the world this weekend - bully). But how in the world were Enrique Chediak and Anthony Dod Mantle not recognized for the beautiful camera work that made both the euphoric highs and depressing lows (there are more of the former, thankfully) just shine so bright on screen? I just assumed this was a lock, because along with being an all-around great film, it just looks like nothing else that hit theaters in 2010, and how many movies can you really say that about?

OK, there you have it. I'm off now somewhat late to the job that still actually pays, but please feel free to add any Oscar surprises of your own that just made you smile or grown, and have a perfectly passable Wednesday. Peace out.

2011 movie outlook: 20 flicks I'm really looking forward to

Predicting how any year will turn out during its first week is, of course, the definition of a fool's errand, but I've certainly been called worse, so here goes: Twenty flicks I'm definitely looking out for this year, in order of release date:

"The Cabin in the Woods": The fact this was delayed for many months simply for some post-filming 3-D conversion certainly isn't promising, but in better news, it is a horror movie from the minds of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"/"Angel" mastermind Joss Whedon and co-conspirator Drew Goddard, so I'm in. (Jan. 14)

"Cedar Rapids": Ed Helms of "The Office" stars in this Miguel Arteta comedy about insurance salesmen at a conference in the titular city. This looks like the broadest kind of comedy, so here's hoping it plays wide too. (Feb. 11)

"Jane Eyre": Mia Wasikowska, easily one of my favorite young actresses, steps into the now-all-too-familiar role, but with "Sin Nombre" director Cary Fukunaga in charge and the truly haunting feel of the trailer, I'm betting this will have something new to offer. (March 11)

"Paul": Director Greg Mottola reunites the "Shaun of the Dead"/"Hot Fuzz" comedy team of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost for this flick about two geeks who encounter the titular alien on their way to Comic-Con. (March 18)

"Sucker Punch": If anything, director Zack Snyder's first movie based on an original idea - about a young woman who fights her way out of a mental institution - just might be too crazy, but I'm almost certain it will be a heck of a lot of fun, too. (March 25)

"Source Code": Director Duncan Jones follows up his fantastic debut, the seriously smart sci-fi flick "Moon," with this fairly generic sounding thriller about a man (Jake Gyllenhaal) who changes bodies with a soldier to stop a train bombing. Hope for the best here. (April 1)

"Your Highness": If you're looking for more than high stoner comedy, stay away, but director David Gordon Green proved he's a master of it with "Pineapple Express" and he's back with more this time around - with James Franco, Natalie Portman, Danny McBride and Zooey Deschanel all in tow. (April 8)

"Hanna": Saoirse Ronan reunites with "Atonement" director Joe Wright for this tale of a young lady raised by her father, an ex-CIA agent, to be the ultimate assassin. Right up my alley. (April 8)


"Water for Elephants": Sara Gruen's best-selling novel, easily one of my favorites, gets a cast worthy of the grand historical romance it unfurls at a traveling circus: Robert Pattinson, Reese Witherspoon, Christoph Waltz and Hal Holbrook all star in one of the movies I'm most looking forward to for next year. (April 22)

"African Cats": The Disney Nature movies have all been beauties to behold, but this one should finally have a great story to match as it focuses on two families, one of lions and one of tigers, and what they do to survive and thrive in Africa. (April 22)

"X-Men: First Class": After reviving the comic book movie with the big ball of fun that was "Kick-Ass," director Matthew Vaughn now tries to breath much-needed life into the mutant saga, with a new class including James McAvoy as Professor Charles Xavier, Michael Fassbender as Magneto and even Reel Fanatic fave Jennifer Lawrence as Raven/Mystique. (June 3)

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2": It will certainly be a bit sad when the grand saga ends, but part one - while not the best of Harry's flicks - set the stage for a rousing finale. (July 15)

"Cowboys and Aliens": Movie titles just don't get much more straightforward than that, and unlike, say, "Snakes on a Plane," this one should deliver all the fun it promises. When aliens invade the old American West, they find they have to take on not only Indiana Jones, but James Bond too. (July 29)

"30 Minutes or Less": "Zombieland" director Ruben Fleischer serves up what should be a second helping of very funny with this flick about two fledgling criminals who strap a bomb to the chest of a pizza delivery boy (Jesse Eisenberg) to get him to rob a bank. I promise it will be a whole lot funnier than I'm making it sound here. (Aug. 12)

"The Help": Another of my recent favorite novels, Kathyrn Stockett's "The Help," comes to the big screen with a great young actress (Emma Stone) in the lead role of Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, a Southern woman who convinces a group of Mississippi maids to tell their stories in the '60s. Sounds more than a little "Oprah" to me, and it is, but it should also be a lot of fun to watch. (Aug. 12)

"Moneyball": There are few genres I love better than a great baseball movie, and this flick based on Michael Lewis' book about the Oakland A's should hopefully deliver exactly that. Features Brad Pitt as bean counter Billy Beane and Philip Seymour Hoffman as A's manager Art Howe. (Sept. 23)

"The Muppets": After what seems like at least a three-year wait, there will indeed be a new Muppets movie next November, with this shortened title and our beloved puppets staging a show (of course) to save their theater from some evil oil barons. (Nov. 23)

"Hugo Cabret": It should be a banner year for literary adaptations, as now Martin Scorsese takes on this great children's novel by Brian Selznick about a boy who grows up in the walls of a Paris train station and encounters the world of George Melies' automatons. With Asa Butterfield as young Hugo and Hit-Girl Chloe Moretz co-starring, I can't see how even thoroughly unnecessary 3-D will ruin this. (Dec. 9)

"The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn": No less than Steven Spielberg directs the first installment of an expected trilogy as the young Belgian detective finally comes to the big screen and, this time out, hunts for treasure on a sunken ship. (Dec. 23)

"We Bought a Zoo": Director Cameron Crowe - at last - returns to making movies with what should be a fun ride, the story of a man (Matt Damon) and his family who indeed move to the English countryside and buy and operate a zoo.

And there you have it. I'm more than certain there are some I've forgotten, so please feel free to let me know what they are or just sound off on your favorites. Peace out.

Men of the year: My favorite male movie performances of 2010

I waited to compile this list until seeing "Black Swan" and "The Fighter" as a truly odd double feature last Saturday, and that day yielded one entry here I expected and one that caught me by surprise.

It's still dangerous to do it before The Dude surely abides this week in "True Grit" and without having seen the performance of Oscar favorite (if I'm reading the cards right) Colin Firth in "The King's Speech," but I'm fairly confident that with those two exceptions I've seen most of the best movies of 2010, so here goes: My favorite male performances of 2010, in order only of release date until the very end, for which I've saved my vote for the best.

Leonardo DiCaprio, "Shutter Island": Sure, Leo played pretty much the same constantly stressed out character in both this and "Inception" this year, but he was better here as FBI agent Teddy Daniels in this flick based on the Dennis Lehane novel, which is so good that it will likely end up on my overall best movies of 2010 list, too.

Ricardo Darin, "The Secret in Their Eyes": In this Argentinian film noir, Darin's character undergoes a rather epic journey, returning to both the scene of a brutal crime from his career as a legal inspector and reuniting with an unrequited but still smoldering love, and his performance carries us every step along the way.

John Hawkes, "Winter's Bone": The key to this Debra Granik movie, another film noir of sorts and, like "The Secret in Their Eyes," also shown this year by the Macon Film Guild, is the mysterious motivations of all the characters Jennifer Lawrence's Rhee Dolly encounters while searching for her missing father - and the most important of those is Hawkes' Teardrop (yes, really), who plays his cards close until the end and makes this my vote for the best movie of 2010.

Steve Carell, "Despicable Me": Can a voice-only performance really be one of the best of the year? When it's as good as Carell's as the criminal mastermind with a heart Gru, absolutely, and besides, even though "Toy Story 3" will rightly get most of the animated kudos this year, this was just a thoroughly charming flick.

Kevin Kline, "The Extra Man": I was expecting the worst from Kline in this, and so was that much more pleasantly surprised by how restrained he was as the "gentleman" Henry Harrison, whose sole job is squiring wealthy widows around NYC. Both Kline's performance and the movie overall, out now on DVD, are winning portraits of the kind of eccentric New York that's now all too rare.

Kieran Culkin, "Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World": Comedy rarely gets is just due in awards season, and for my money, no one was funnier this year than Culkin as Scott Pilgrim's gay roommate who constantly pops up to provide a snarky commentary of sorts in the best movie that virtually no one saw in 2010.

Kodi Smit-McPhee, "Let Me In": Matt Reeves' "Let Me in" would have been a completely soulless remake of the clearly superior vampire movie "Let the Right One In" if it weren't for the performances of the two kids at the story's core. McPhee and Chloe Moretz draw us deep into the doomed world of young Owen and Abby and, against steep odds, improve on the performances of the kids in the original movie.

Vincent Cassel, "Black Swan": The two things that surprised me about Darren Aronofsky's movie is just how much of a B-movie schlockfest it really is (albeit about the ballet, of course), and just how good Vincent Cassel is as the ballet director who expertly manipulates his young dancers, never with overt menace but an equally dangerous charm.

Christian Bale, "The Fighter": Bale's extreme measures - and weight fluctuation - to get into his roles would be easy to mock if there clearly weren't more than madness to his method. Here, he's on the very gaunt side as Dicky Eklund, the crack-addicted brother of Mark Wahlberg's titular "Fighter" and the main thing that helps David O. Russell's movie rise above the pack of standard sports underdog flicks.

James Franco, "127 Hours": As I said, the best for last, and this year it's by a pretty wide margin. As Sam Rockwell did last year in the seriously smart sci-fi flick "Moon," Franco dominated almost every frame of Danny Boyle's movie, and never once lets the viewer get bored of watching him. From the exuberance of the beginning of Aron Ralston's perfect day to the extreme desperation of being trapped under a rock for the titular "127 Hours," Franco takes us along every inch of this often very hard to watch journey, making the payoff all the more rewarding at the finish. Just an all-around excellent performance.

And there you have it. Please feel free to let me know of any I may have snubbed (in the honorable mention, I've already got Christopher Plummer in "The Last Station", Michael Nyqvist in "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"/"The Girl Who Played With Fire" and George Clooney in "The American"), and have a perfectly endurable Monday. Peace out.

A one-star turkey? Sheesh

Actually, before we get in to that, there's two bits of interesting news out there today about James Franco and the one-season wonder that launched him.

Franco, who apparently won a Golden Globe for playing James Dean in a 2001 TV movie I have never seen, is returning to the scene of "Rebel Without a Cause," but this time to look at the rather juicy life of Sal Mineo.

He's optioned the rights to the new book "Sal Mineo: A Biography" (way to put a lot of thought in to that title!) by artist and photographer Michael Gregg Michaud for his Rabbit Bandini shingle to so far at least write and direct a movie from, but I'd imagine he'll probably want to play Mineo in this too.

In his short life, before being murdered at age 37 in West Hollywood by a pizza delivery man, Mineo of course got to hang with Dean, Natalie Wood and other beautiful people, and became (at the time) the youngest performer nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his work in "Rebel Without a Cause."

And in much better news that I would have to assume would involve Franco, Judd Apatow has let slip that for next year he's plotting a 10-year-or-so reunion of the cast of "Freaks and Geeks," the one-season wonder that also just happens to be easily one of my all-time favorite TV shows, for Paleyfest 2011.

Given that, along with Franco, the cast also featured Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, Lina Cardellini and veryfunnydude Martin Starr, this would have to be a very hot ticket, and if I were anywhere near L.A., I'd certainly be there.

But for the second weekend in a row here at my local multiplexes, the entertainment options are looking surprisingly bleak, especially since I at least thought it was the holiday movie season.

How much do I like going to the movies? Enough that I even went to see "Warrior's Way" last week, and even though it was a truly awful flick, Kate Bosworth's guaranteed-to-garner-a-Razzie performance made it well worth the price of a matinee ticket.

And this week, there is the third "Chronicles of Narnia" movie, which I'm quite looking forward to, but also "The Tourist," which has landed as much more of a dud than I would have imagined.

When the word came down on Tuesday that the movie, starring Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp (heard of them?) and directed by "Lives of Others" helmer Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck (try saying that five times fast!), wouldn't be reviewed until midday Wednesday, still well in time for me to include it in the entertainment section I lay out each week, I wasn't worried ... yet.

What I wasn't expecting, however, was a one-star review from Christopher Kelly of the Dallas Morning News, calling it an empty charade of a flick that's much too in love with itself. Roger Moore (the Florida movie critic, unfortunately, not James Bond), who is usually the more kind of the two, gave it two stars, but was really just as harsh in his assessment.

Sheesh. Just to make sure, I checked Rotten Tomatoes, and it's only at 27 percent positive, so I guess that seals it. I had been looking forward to this one for much of the year, but that's why I, at least, still read and cherish movie critics: To be warned when a real turkey arrives in fancy duds. Oh well. At least there's Narnia.

And tonight, there's something really cool coming to NBC for its best show, "Community." Though the entire Thursday night comedy block will be doing Christmas episodes (including an hour-long "The Office," so hopefully no "Outsourced"), "Community" is - not surprisingly - upping the ante by making a stop-motion episode in the vein of all the old TV Christmas specials. This episode, which supposedly teaches Abed (the supremely funny Danny Pudi) about the meaning of Christmas, should be a real hoot. Enjoy this brief preview, and have a perfectly pleasant Thursday. Peace out.

Review: Danny Boyle's exhilarating "127 Hours"

As hokey as it sounds, "127 Hours" is the kind of movie that makes you (or at least me) think about what constitutes a "perfect day," and for me the day I saw Danny Boyle's fairly amazing new flick was one of them.

For a brief replay, here goes: A rare Friday off beginning with a mile swim (about as close as I'll ever get to the kind of extreme sports Aron Ralston likes), a trip to Atlanta to see "127 Hours" and eat at the Original Pancake House (a Texas crepe - excellent), then home again to watch "Winter's Bone" on the Blue Ray, which on second viewing still stands up as the best movie of 2010.

I tell you all that to tell you this: One of the many charms of Boyle's movie is that we are dropped right into the middle of what we can tell is at least at the beginning Ralston's perfect day, and Boyle dives into it with every trick in his bag (and a few too many, but I'll get into that later.) It's the energy that flows throughout the flick, before, during and after the nightmare we all know is coming, that makes this not just watchable but often a real joy to behold, even when it's only James Franco on screen alone for long stretches.

It's both Franco and Boyle that give this flick, right from the start, the trademark of Boyle's best movies, unvarnished - yet always unsentimental - optimism. Filmed (rather amazingly, given its cohesive feel) by two directors of photography, Enrique Chediak and Anthony Dod Mantle, the Utah landscape Ralston gleefully rides into comes to vibrant and beautiful life, and Franco embraces it with all the goofy energy he can muster.

And just when you're thinking Ralston's ideal day couldn't get any better, he runs into two beautiful young women, played by Amber Tamblyn and Kate Mara, who just happen to be lost (yes, if this weren't certainly a true story, it does often seem completely unbelievable), leading to one of the movie's best - and most prescient - scenes: When the three of them do a several hundred foot freefall between two rock walls into a clear blue pool of water. This moment just perfectly captures the mix of fear and exhilaration that drives "127 Hours."

But as sunny and fun as all this is, we know it's all just a 30-minute-or-so setup for what we know is coming (I'm going to have to assume anyone reading already knows), the moment when Ralston, having left his new friends behind, falls into a very narrow valley and gets his arm pinned under a boulder for the titular "127 Hours." Now, I've never seen "Castaway," because I just couldn't bring myself to watch Tom Hanks on screen alone for nearly two hours, so I can't make any comparison, but I can tell you that for several reasons, "127 Hours" doesn't become any less engaging once it's Franco all alone for a very long stretch.

First up is the work of Boyle's two cinematographers, who take us right into the hole with Franco, and with acute use of camera angles, make it feel just as uncomfortable for us as it was for Ralston. And Boyle himself makes a wise choice in not using anything approaching standard flashbacks as Ralston's mind inevitably starts to wander when left to its own devices. Instead, we get several arresting flights of fancy, including a vision of Ralston's future and, best of all, a feel-good montage of soda pop commercials that take his mind away for a little while.

Inevitably I suppose, Boyle does occasionally get bored with this scenario, and lets his hunger for camera tricks get the better of him on a few occasions, particularly with the use of water. Yes, we get it, when water flows it can look really cool on screen, but by the fourth or fifth (or yes, maybe as many as 10th) time, it just gets extremely old.

But what really holds this all together as a cohesive work is Franco himself, and after watching him and thinking about it, I really couldn't think of anyone else who could have pulled this off. I saw an interview with him in which he said Boyle almost didn't hire him because the director thought he was high. That's funny in itself, but it also perfectly captures the mood Ralston is in when this adventure begins.

Once its just him on screen, Franco lets his performance naturally turn more introspective, always leavened with enough humor to make this all go down so well, especially when he interviews himself and lays out exactly why the trip was so ill-fated to begin with. He makes it a coming-of-age tale that's at times very poignant, and unless Colin Firth manages to swipe it away from him, will most likely have co-host Franco (with Anne Hathaway - enough pretty for you?) celebrating on Oscar night.

And, of course, there's one more thing to deal with, and if you don't know what happened to Ralston, please DON'T READ THIS PARAGRAPH. Knowing what Ralston had to do to get out of that hole, I had my sweater in my hands, ready to cover my eyes (and it did at several points - yes, I'm just a big wuss.) Though Boyle certainly could have made it more bloody, he nonetheless makes it very hard to watch as Ralston methodically saws off his own arm with the smallest of pocket knives. Grueling to watch, for sure, but the payoff when Ralston finally works his way out and back to the light of day is more than worth the squirming in your seat.

The bottom line: This isn't Danny Boyle's best movie (for me those are still "Trainspotting' and "Shallow Grave"), but it's one brimming with energy and great storytelling. Highly recommended for a perfect movie day. Peace out.

The best movie of 2010 getting all kinds of kudos

Though Pixar's "Toy Story 3" comes in a close second, I haven't seen a better movie this year than Debra Granik's "Winter's Bone," and now that it's awards season, that great flick is starting to garner some very well-deserved recognition.

First this week, it really came up big at the Gothams, winning the awards for Best Feature and, perhaps even better, Best Ensemble Performance, because Jennifer Lawrence and John Hawkes also delivered the best two performances I've seen on screen this year.,

In the Best Feature category, it prevailed over some heavy hitters in "Black Swan," "The Kids Are All Right" "Blue Valentine" and "Let Me In." (I don't want to be hateful about it, but I thought "The Kids Are All Right" was severely overrated - at best a TV movie with exceptional acting from Annette Bening. And as for "Let Me In" even being on this list, that's a disgrace.)

On a personal side note, I was disappointed to see that "Summer Pasture," a truly odd but endearing documentary about Tibetan nomads that I saw at the Rehoboth Beach Independent Film Festival, didn't win in the category of Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You, which went to something called "Littlerock."

And now on top of that, "Winter's Bone" has also notched the most Independent Spirit Award nominations with seven, and in all the major categories (including for Lawrence and Hawkes.)

In case anyone's curious, here are the nominees in the major categories:

Best Film
* 127 Hours
* Black Swan
* Greenberg
* The Kids Are All Right
* Winter’s Bone

Best Director
* Darren Aronofsky – Black Swan
* Danny Boyle – 127 Hours
* Lisa Cholodenko – The Kids Are All Right
* Debra Granik – Winter’s Bone
* John Cameron Mitchell – Rabbit Hole

Best Actor
* Ronald Bronstein – Daddly Longlegs
* Aaron Eckhart – Rabbit Hole
* James Franco – 127 Hours
* John C. Reilly – Cyrus
* Ben Stiller – Greenberg

Best Actress
* Nicole Kidman – Rabbit Hole
* Annette Bening – The Kids Are All Right
* Greta Gerwig – Greenberg
* Jennifer Lawrence – Winter’s Bone
* Natalie Portman – Black Swan
* Michelle Williams – Blue Valentine

Best Supporting Actor
* John Hawkes – Winter’s Bone
* Samuel L. Jackson – Mother and Child
* Bill Murray – Get Low
* John Ortiz – Jack Goes Boating
* Mark Ruffalo – The Kids Are All Right

Best Supporting Actress
* Ashley Bell – The Last Exorcism
* Dale Dickey – Winter’s Bone
* Allison Janney – Life During Wartime
* Daphne Rubin-Vega – Jack Goes Boating
* Naomi Watts – Mother and Child

Best Foreign Film
* The King’s Speech
* Kisses
* Mademoiselle Chambon
* Of Gods and Men
* Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

Best Documentary
* Exit Through the Gift Shop
* Marwencol
* Restrepo
* Sweetgrass
* Thunder Soul

Best Screenplay
* Lisa Cholodenko, Stuart Blumberg – The Kids Are All Right
* Debra Granik, Anne Rosellini – Winter’s Bone
* Nicole Holofcener – Please Give
* David Lindsay-Abaire – Rabbit Hole
* Todd Solondz – Life During Wartime

And if you haven't seen "Winter's Bone," I really can't recommend a rental any higher. I think it's sitting on my local redbox right now, so I plan to watch it again this weekend.

Granik's film, which takes place in the Ozarks, drops you deep into a side of America that I have to assume just about anyone who happens to read this has never seen.

As it starts, Rhee Dolly (Lawrence) gets a knock on the door of the home she shares with her two younger siblings, and a sheriff's deputy says her deadbeat father, who is due in court in a few days, has put up their house as a guarantor of his appearance.

From there, it's part film noir, part coming-of-age very fast in extremely tough circumstances and all very entertaining. Just watch it already.

And all I have after that today is something that's pretty old by now, but it's so cool that I just have to finish with it. I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that I'll never be able to stop paying for HBO. "Boardwalk Empire" has just gotten better and better this fall, and shortly after wraps up will come something even better, "Game of Thrones." I still have no idea when exactly this will hit the air, but it will be in winter or spring of 2011, and you can be sure I'll be eagerly tuned in for every episode of this series based on the books by George R. R. Martin. Enjoy the trailer below, and have a perfectly passable Wednesday. Peace out.

The South will rise again .. in comedy

Actually, if the South ever does rise again, please, dear God, let it be in comedy (and not the Jeff Foxworthy kind), because that's easily the most harmless thing we (and I've lived here 10 years now, so yes, I can say we) could be good at.

And thankfully, Jody Hill, David Gordon Green and their running mates are already well off to a good start in that department.

Hill has struck comic gold in my book with "East Bound and Down," his HBO show starring Danny McBride as pretty easily the world's biggest asshole. In movies, he's been uneven, with "Foot Fist Way" being nothing but bitterly funny but "Observe and Report" being just an unfunny mess. I'd imagine the latter has probably taken him out of the feature film game for a while, but if my N'awlins hotel room wi fi lets me check (yes, I'm on vacation!), I will. Actually, he's on the books for something called "L.A.P.I." to star McBride next year, so bully.

Green, on the other hand, made the deliriously funny "Pineapple Express" and is set to follow that up in April with "Your Highness" (pun, I'm sure, fully intended), with some very funny people in tow. As you'll see from the trailer below, it's some kind of tale about princes and princesses, and it stars McBride, Natalie Portman and definite Reel Fanatic favorites James Franco and Zooey Deschanel. Enjoy the first trailer I know of, and keep an eye out for "Your Highness" on April 8.



OK, after that today, I just have one more clip, and then the first poster I know of for the comedy I'm actually most looking forward to for 2011. First, the clip, and it brings me no joy at all to confirm that Pixar is now clearly in the tired sequel game. In case you need any evidence, behold the first full trailer I know of for "Cars 2," set to crash and burn (OK, almost entirely likely not) next summer. In better news, Michael Caine is somehow in this, and any world in which he seems to be in one out of every 10 movies or so is just a better place to live to me. "Enjoy" the trailer.



And to close with some potentially good news to wash that away, there is apparently a Joe Strummer biopic in the works, and if it's done right (and completely nonlinear), I say why not? Todd Haynes could certainly have a lot of fun with this. No word yet on who will play the patron saint of conscious punk, but as soon as I hear word on that, you will too.

And I'll leave you today with the first poster I know of for "Paul." Given that it's directed by "Superbad" helmer Greg Mottola, and was written by and stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, yeah, I'm gonna watch that when it comes out in February. And if you'll excuse me now, I'm off to walk around the Garden District and then go see Kermit Ruffins at Vaughan's Lounge tonight, assuming I can get in. Yeah, New Orleans pretty much rules. Peace out.

What's that I smell?

There are so many jokes about stink colliding in my head that I'm just gonna have to let them go and play this one straight and let you imagine the consequences:Yes, Mike Myers really is going to play a live-action Pepe le Pew.

Let it sink in for a few seconds just how amazingly bad that is going to be, and then I'll move on to a couple of bits of actual good news in a very short report because I stayed up way too late last night watching the Braves get shut out by a 13-year-old girl (and man can she pitch.)

First up is that someone named Tom Vaughan (who I had never heard of) is going to be directing a movie based on one of my favorite satirical novels, "Boomsday." The book is by Christopher Buckley, the same wiseacre who penned "Thank You for Smoking," and the wickedly sharp story is about a Washington D.C. publicist/blogger who gets in over her head when a politician uses her suggestion that all Baby Boomers commit suicide in order to save Social Security as a campaign selling point.

If you're not laughing at that, then this clearly won't be a movie for you, but trust me, the book is a real smart hoot. And a quick look at Mr. Vaughan's resume shows he directed the thoroughly charming little British romantic comedy "Starter for 10," starring James McAvoy and Reel Fanatic fave Rebecca Hall, so this is now definitely something to keep your eyes on (and trust me, if you can find it, "Starter for 10" is well worth a rental.)

After that today, there's just a bit of great TV news before a couple of clips. "Sons of Anarchy," which has inevitably centered on the search for Jax's son Abel this season, has just been reviewed for a fourth 13-episode run next year by FX. Great news there, because the show has only improved on last year's doozy of cliffhanger, and while it's not quite on the level of a "Mad Men," the motorcycle gang show is still one of the best dramas on TV right now.

OK, like I said, I'm already running behind (no way to start a day), so I'll leave you with a couple of trailers I found this morning. First up comes the second (I think) trailer for the third "Narnia" movie, "The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader," set to come out (unfortunately in 3D) on Dec. 10. Though they haven't caught on on the big screen as well as "Harry Potter" or the "Lord of the Rings" movies, I just have a soft spot for the innocence and wonder of the "Narnia" tales, and this one should be fantastic. Enjoy.



And finally today comes the second full trailer I know of for Danny Boyle's "127 Hours," which for me is the next absolute must-see movie coming up on the calendar (now that Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's "It's Kind of a Funny Story has, rather inexplicably, not opened wide enough to reach my little corner of the world - at least yet.) As you'll see from the trailer, though the movie is about a climber (played by James Franco) who gets his arm trapped under a boulder for the titular amount of time, it still seems to be brimming with energy and optimism. Enjoy the trailer, and have a great weekend. Peace out.

For Thursday, a very large cache of clips

Anyone who's been here before knows that I love trailers, good bad and otherwise. I almost never arrive to a movie late enough to miss them.

So, I've spent so far an hour or so of my morning watching some (hey, it was from 6-7 a.m., so what more productive thing was I really supposed to be doing?), and here are the best eight or so clips I could find.

Actually, it starts today not with a trailer, but with what purport to be the first 10 minutes of "Easy A," and having watched this through once (and laughed out loud several times), I believe it to be genuine. Not everyone will want to have the first 10 minutes of a movie revealed, but hey, it's not like there are any real secrets here. All it reveals is that, in case you didn't know already, "Easy A" is going to make a genuine star of natural comedienne Emma Stone. Enjoy.



OK, now on to some actual trailers, and this being fall, there are some real heavy hitters (pun fully intended for the first one) coming. First up comes the first trailer I know of for David O. Russell's (remember him?) "The Fighter." Russell's first feature film since "I Heart Huckabees" in 2004 stars Markie Mark Wahlberg as boxer "Irish" Micky Ward and Christian Bale as the brother who trained him before he went pro in the early 1980's. It indeed looks like a pretty typical sports underdog tale, but with Amy Adams and Melissa Leo also starring in this, I'm hoping for much more when it opens wide Dec. 17. Enjoy.



Next up comes one that I haven't heard too much about, but since it comes from "The Lives of Others" director Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck, it should be a real winner. As you'll see from the trailer, Johnny Depp plays the titular "The Tourist", who gets framed for murder and all kinds of other juicy stuff after a perhaps-not-chance encounter with Angelina Jolie on a train. The moral clearly seems to be that, even if you're Johnny Depp, always be suspicious when an insanely beautiful woman strikes up a conversation with you. Enjoy the trailer, and keep an eye out for the movie Dec. 10.

Anyone who's been here before also knows that, although I didn't bother to see his last movie, "Why Did I Get Married Too?", I have a whole of time for Tyler Perry. His previous movie, "I Can Do All Bad All By Myself" with Taraji P. Henson, was very entertaining, thanks in large part to a small turn by Gladys Knight (yes, really). For his next movie, due out Nov. 5, he will for the first time adapt the work of someone else, here the play "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf" by Ntozake Shange. The story, which is about nothing less than existence from the perspective of 20 nameless black women, is an ambitious undertaking, and I'll be sure to see it on the opening weekend for curiosity if nothing else. As you'll see below, it boasts a strong cast, with Phylicia Rashad, Kimberly Elise, Thandie Newton, Whoopi Goldberg, Loretta Devine, Anika Noni Rose, Janet Jackson and even Macy Gray. Enjoy the trailer.



Still with me? Then here's some more. Danny Boyle's "127 Hours," about the titular amount of time climber Aron Ralston (to be played by James Franco) spent trapped under a boulder in a Utah valley, is reportedly so intense that it caused several fainting spells and possibly a seizure too in Toronto. While the latter is certainly unfortunate, that doesn't make me any less excited to see this when it finally comes out Nov. 5. Enjoy the clip below, which features Franco, Amber Tamblyn and Kate Mara.



OK, we're in the homestretch now. After reading yet another rave review of "Let Me In," the still thoroughly unnecessary English-language remake of the sublime "Let the Right One In," this one at Collider.com, I've now given in to the very real possibility that Matt Reeves has really come up with something fairly great here. Below are eight clips from the movie starring Hit-Girl Chloe Moretz and Kodi Smit-McPhee and set to come out Oct. 1. I think they'll make a bit of a believer in you, too. Enjoy.



I buried this one more than a bit because, after the disaster that was the interactive trailer for "Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World" (which, as several people pointed out to me, played the most annoying music even without clicking on it), I'm really not sold on the concept. You can judge for yourself, however, with this interactive trailer for David Fincher's "The Social Network," which I'm really looking forward to seeing when it comes out Oct. 1. The "interactive" comes because if you click on the trailer while its playing, it pops up little windows with facts and links you can follow about the movie. More than a little annoying to me, but enjoy if you do.



And where better to wrap things up today than with a genuine oddity? This bit of animation apparently springs from a question Fincher asked Werner Herzog as Herzog was in Toronto promoting "My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?". As you'll see below, Herzog apparently witnessed Joaquin Phoenix getting into a doozy of a car accident, and then rescued him from it. Enjoy, and have a perfectly bearable Thursday. Peace out.

For Wednesday, a small cache of clips

Danny Boyle's "127 Hours," coming Nov. 5, is certain to be one of the more difficult films to watch this fall, but I'm betting on one of the best too.

The story of climber Aron Ralston, to be played by Freak James Franco, will certainly be a claustrophobic one once he gets trapped. If you're unfamiliar with the story, it's the true saga of mountain climber Ralston, who got trapped for the titular "127 Hours" in a Utah canyon and, well, had to go to extreme measures to get out.

What's great about this first teaser trailer is it starts with all the style and optimism of Boyle's best flicks and then just smacks you with what it's really about at the very end (and it looks great full screen.) Enjoy.



OK, it's TV from here on out today, and I probably should have started with this one, because it's just going to be an awesome epic dose of awesomeness, to exaggerate just a little.

Once you watch this clip, and if you like zombie movies (and who in the world doesn't?), however, I think you'll agree it's not exaggerating by much at all. AMC announced yesterday that Frank Darabont's "The Walking Dead," based on the comic by Robert Kirkman, will make its debut appropriately enough on Halloween and have, initially at least, a six episode run.

You know, of course, from the title alone what this is all about, and the trailer certainly doesn't disappoint. It lures you in with a slow beginning before the mayhem really begins just up the road from me in Atlanta, where the zombie apocalypse will certainly begin when it really does happen. Enjoy.



And finally today, anyone who's been here before knows I'm a rather avid fan of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, especially when they're simply out to be extremely funny. If you've ever watched HBO's "The Ricky Gervais Show" or listened to any of their podcasts, you know there's a third wheel when they're at their best, one Karl Pilkington. Though presented (and mocked and bullied) by Gervais as an idiot, Pilkington is also, in his own way, a bit of a comic genius, and now he's gotten his own series.

To be broadcast on the UK's Sky1, it's called "An Idiot Abroad," and springs from Pilkington's observation on a podcast that, if I remember this right, the Seven Wonders of the World are "a bit crap" (though he himself has never left England to actually find out.) Well, Gervais and Merchant of course jump all over that and send Pilkington around the globe, and as you'll see from the trailer below, the results are predictably silly. Enjoy the trailer, keep an eye out for this and let me know when it appears on this side of the pond, and have a perfectly passable Wednesday. Peace out.

Fast forward: 10 movies I'm amped to see this fall

Since it's still hot as, well, August outside, what better time than now to look ahead to a time when the weather is cooler and the movies are reliably better, fall.

And just to clarify, on my movie calendar, fall starts in September and ends in November, no matter what the calender says. That said, here are 10 movies I'm definitely psyched to see this fall.

9/1: "The American": George Clooney stars as a hitman who's given one final, inevitably complicated, assignment to complete in Italy in this sure-to-be-cool thriller from director Anton Corbijn, who made the Ian Curtis biopic "Control."

9/3: "Machete": Whether or not Robert Rodriguez's revenge pic starring Danny Trejo (developed from the fake trailer of the same name that appeared in between the two halves of "Grindhouse") is any good, with a cast that also somehow includes Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Don Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Steven Seagal and even Lindsay Lohan, it should be anything but boring. Enjoy the latest trailer.



9:15: Never Let Me Go: Here's one case where I'm definitely glad I haven't read the book first, because Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, which has been made into a movie starring Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley and Andrew Garfield, is about students at a boarding school with a mysterious secret, and I don't want to already know what that is going in.

9/17: Easy A: I'm surely too old for teenie adaptations of classic works, but this take on Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" just looks extremely clever, and star Emma Stone is a natural comedienne. Enjoy the trailer below.



9/17: "The Town": Ben Affleck's directing followup to "Gone Baby Gone" features a stellar cast - including Jeremy Ritter, Reel Fanatic fave Rebecca Hall and Don Draper - in a Chuck Hogan novel about bank robbers in Boston and the FBI man who's out to get them.

9/24: "It's Kind of a Funny Story": Co-directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, who made last year's seriously satisfying baseball/immigration drama "Sugar," return this time with the story of a teenager who checks himself into a mental institution and ends up getting housed in the adult area, where he meets Zach Galifianakis and all kinds of other colorful characters. The one movie I'm most looking forward to seeing this fall. Enjoy the trailer below.



10/1: "Social Network": The creation of Facebook may not exactly sound like a riveting story of American ingenuity, but I'm betting that in the hands of director David Fincher and with a script from "West Wing" creator Aaron Sorkin, this flick starring Jesse Eisenberg and Justin Timberlake will be a real winner.

10/1: "Freakanomics": If too many cooks don't spoil the soup, this documentary based on the best-selling book about the often bizarre rules of causality from six directors - Heidi Ewing, Alex Gibney, Seth Gordon, Rachel Grady, Eugene Jarecki and Morgan Spurlock - should be a surprise hit this fall.

11/5: "Fair Game": Spy games are always best when they're based on a true story, so even if it's clearly old news by now, you can count me in for director Doug Liman's take on the story of outed CIA agent Valerie Plame (Naomi Watts), with her husband being played by Sean Penn.

11/5: "127 Hours": Director Danny Boyle kind of snuck up on Oscar voters to take the top prize with "Slumdog Millionaire," and I think he just might do it again with the story of mountain climber Aron Ralston, played by James Franco, who survived the titular 127 hours trapped under a boulder in a Utah canyon.

So there you have it. Please feel free to let me know of any I've snubbed (and remember that there will be some great ones in December, but that's not on this list) or any you're really amped to see this fall, and have a perfectly passable Tuesday. Peace out.

Catching up with some news and clips

Many of these things may have indeed happened while I was on vacation with mi hermano in New York and Philly, but they're all fascinating to me, so if you want to, please feel free to read on.

Easily the best news, and fresh I think, is that HBO has set the return dates for two of my favorite TV comedies, and is in fact packaging them back to back this September. "Bored to Death" and "Eastbound & Down" will indeed premiere as a block beginning at 10 p.m. Sept. 26, and I can only say bring it on.

If you've never seen "Bored to Death," and I'm sure there's many more than a few of you who haven't, I really can't recommend many TV comedies higher. The show from novelist Jonathan Ames (if you haven't read his "Wake Up, Sir!", do so right away) is about a struggling writer (Jason Schwartzman) who decides to list himself as a private eye on Craig's List. As he goes on various misadventures in New York City, he's often joined by co-star Zach Galifianakis and, even better, Ted Danson, who steals every minute he's in as a crazed magazine editor.

"Eastbound & Down," from the Southern-fried comedy shop of Jody Hill and friends, is a more bitter pill to swallow, but in its own way almost as funny. At the end of season one, Danny McBride's Kenny Powers had burned all his bridges in his pathetic attempt to return to the big leagues as a pitcher, and if I'm not mistaken, the new season will at least in part have him hurling in Mexico. That should be a hoot, so if you've never seen this little odd show, give it a chance.

In another bit of TV news, though I'm now thoroughly convinced there will never be an "Arrested Development" movie, two of its funniest actors will be reuniting on creator Mitch Hurwitz's new show, "Running Wilde," starting Sept. 20 on Fox.)

In the show, Gob Bluth plays a rich callow dude (sound familiar?) who falls in love with a crusading environmentalist played by Keri Russell. And now comes word that in a casting change, the extremely funny David Cross will play a radical environmentalist who competes for her affections for at least seven episodes. Nothing but funny there (or at least here's hoping, because Hurwitz's last show, "Sit Down, Shut Up," was just a flaming turd.)

And finally, both because this is nominally supposed to be about movies and because I love Sam Raimi at his best, he's attached to direct something that could be all kinds of fun (and I'm not talking about that "Oz" prequel, which even with Robert Downey Jr. as the wiz himself should just be terminated with extreme prejudice.)

After that, I suppose, Raimi has set his sights on adapting the graphic novel "Earp: Saints for Sinners," from a script by the novel's author, Matt Cirulnick. As the title implies, this would indeed be about the Western hero Wyatt Earp, but transport him into a future in which he takes on outlaws in a ravaged society where the only boomtown left is Las Vegas. Now, having sat through "Spider-Man 3" I know Raimi can fall as much as anyone, but this just sounds like fun to me.

OK, from here on out it's all about clips, the first two of which come directly from Roger Ebert's newsletter, which really is a must-read if you love movies (and at $4 a year, it's a real steal too.)

First up comes the first proof that this fall and winter are going to be all about James Franco, and as a devoted "Freaks and Geeks" fan, that's just fine by me. Later, in December (I think), he'll star in Danny Boyle's next flick, "127 Hours," as mountain climber Aron Ralston, who became trapped while climbing in Utah and had to go to desperate measures to survive. You can count that as one of the very few flicks I'm most looking forward to for the rest of the year, but before that, on Sept. 24 if you live in one of America's bigger cities, you'll be able to see him as the poet Allen Ginsberg in "Howl." Here, courtesy of the Ebert crew, is the first trailer I know of. Enjoy.



I thoroughly enjoyed Ben Affleck's directing debut with "Gone Baby Gone," so you can certainly count me as psyched for his sophomore effort, "The Town," based on the novel "Prince of Thieves" by Chuck Hogan and set to come out Sept. 10. The rather stellar cast includes Gossip Girl Blake Lively, Jeremy Renner, Reel Fanatic fave Rebecca Hall, Jon Hamm and Chris Cooper in a Boston flick about a bank robber and his contacts with the FBI, amorous, contentious and otherwise (sounds more than a little like "Out of Sight," which is fine with me.) Enjoy the first trailer I know of.



Next up comes the first American trailer for Woody Allen's "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger," which, even with the awful narration that also was the only blemish on his sublime "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," looks like it should be another winner. The cast includes, Josh Brolin, Naomi Watts, Anthony Hopkins, Antonio Banderas and the simply stunning Freida Pinto, so we at least know there will be a lot of pretty people, hopefully doing very funny work when this comes out (and hopefully everywhere) Sept. 22. Enjoy the trailer.

And where better to finish up today than with more silliness from the Muppets? We'll have to wait until Christmas 2011 for the new Muppet movie, "The Greatest Muppet Movie Ever Made," being cooked up by Jason Segel, Nicholas Stoller and James Bobin. In the meantime, thankfully, Jim Henson's creations keep popping up in new YouTube creations like this latest clip of the Swedish chef cooking up some popcorn shrimp, with predictably disastrous results. Enjoy the clip, and have perfectly passable Wednesday. Peace out.