Three - or four - of the weirdest things you'll hear today, I guarantee

Well, actually, the first isn't terribly weird, but it certainly is (with some reservations, of course) good to hear that the first big-screen installment of Tintin, to be called "Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn," is moving forward with huge names attached.

Paramount Pictures and Sony on Monday announced the start of principal production on the 3D motion capture animation film. Even better is that Billy Elliott himself, Jamie Bell, will be Tintin, and he'll be chased down by Daniel Craig as the evil Red Rackham.

For anyone unfamiliar with Tintin, he was the main character - a reporter, huzzah! - in Hergé's series of 24 comics. I have a couple of them on my shelf, and they're my favorite way to see if I can still navigate my way through anything in French.

Some other details from Monday's release (new and old) included that Steven Spielberg is directing the first installment in this planned trilogy, with Peter Jackson set for the second and a director-yet-to-be-named for the third. The movie, rather remarkably, is being written by veryfunnyman Edgar Wright, "Doctor Who" scribe Steven Moffatt and some dude named Joe Cornish.

And if Edgar Wright's on board, that means Nick Frost and Simon Pegg are too, to play the bumbling detectives Thompson and Thomson. They'll be joined by Andy Serkis, Toby Jones, Mackenzie Crook and Gad Elmaleh.

But enough about a movie that's not set to come out until 2011. As promised, here are the three weirdest things I encountered this morning, two of which fall squarely in the category of "a man's gotta eat," and the third of which just makes me ill.

First up, and I missed this because I didn't bother to tune in to any but the last 10 minutes of the Screen Actors Guild Awards show, much less anything from the red carpet.

Somewhere in that three hours or so, Golden Globe winner Mickey Rourke (who lost out that night to Sean Penn, which is how the Oscars will probably break down too) revealed that he has agreed to follow up "The Wrestler" by actually becoming one at Wrestlemania 25, in a showdown with former WWE champion Chris Jehricho.

While I've never been to a live Wrestlemania event, at some point in the '80s I did score what is still my favorite baby-sitting gig, getting a free ticket to watch one year's extravaganza on closed-circuit TV as long as I agreed to take my two young neighbors with me. I have no idea what the card was, but I do know Hulk Hogan was there, and that I had a blast.

But could it possibly be a wise move for Mr. Rourke to jump into the squared circle? Well, I can't see him getting any serious movie work out of the deal, but I can't imagine he much cares either. I'd have to assume he's 1)having a lot of fun and 2) getting paid more than I make in an entire year, so why not?

Next up, and as an avowed enemy of any reality TV, I must say much sadder news, the great Mike White will be appearing on the next installment of "The Amazing Race."

Remember Mike White? Before deciding to run around the world for our "entertainment," he was (and surely still is) a very funny writer and director, responsible for penning "School of Rock" and "Nacho Libre" (which, yes, I do like quite a bit) and directing "Year of the Dog." He's also written a screenplay, "Them," about the fact that giant ants are somehow our real rulers, that will hopefully someday be directed by the aforementioned Edgar Wright.

Well before that, of course, he wrote three episodes of the simply perfect "Freaks and Geeks" and even appeared on one episode as Kim Kelly's water-headed brother, Chip. I had been hoping he would return to TV again after his short-lived Fox sitcom "Cracking Up," but I certainly wasn't expecting it to be like this.

For CBS' reality show, he'll be racing with his pop, Mel White, described as a writer, filmmaker, professor, pastor and gay-rights activist.

The Whites will be seen racing against a deaf guy and his mom, a pair of dwarf sibling stuntmen, a pair of sibling Harvard Law grads, a pair of hot redheads, a pair of blonde flight attendants and a pair of twentysomethings from The Bronx.

Oh well. I guess it could be worse. Here's hoping this is just a fun diversion with dad rather than any kind of permanent career move into TV's alternate reality.

And finally, saving the worst for last - and, really, I can't believe I'm typing this - Hilary Duff is set to play Bonnie Parker in a new take on "Bonnie and Clyde."

Just stop for a second and try to take that in, and then I'll continue ...

OK, here goes ... writer/director Tonya S. Holly says she was inspired to create this sure-to-be abomination - which she says is a "new adaptation," of course, rather than a "remake" of the 1967 film, which finds a home on the list of my top 10 films whenever I bother to compile them - after she found newspaper clippings about the gangster duo in an abandoned house on her family's property.

The big question is, however, how do you get from there to casting Hilary Duff in the role made famous by Faye Dunaway (and some joker I've never heard of named Kevin Zegers as Clyde Barrow)? I used to have a co-worker, Dan Maley, who said he was OK with his kids being infatuated with Ms. Duff since she didn't swear, take her clothes off or do anything else terribly harmful to younguns. But does that mean she can act? (For full disclosure, I've seen her in exactly one thing, a single episode of "Joan of Arcadia," so I guess I really can't be the judge of that.)

I do know that if Bonnie Parker heard this, she'd shoot young Ms. Duff right in the face, but since I'm slightly less prone to extreme violence, I guess I'll just have to sigh and start getting ready for work. Peace out.

Vampires, vampires everywhere!

Eleven movies in four days is quite a bit, even for a weirdo like me, but I still have to say that the folks at the Rehoboth Beach Independent Film Festival put on one heck of a show.

I can't say any of the flicks I saw were awful, and well more than half of them were very good to outstanding. Though I'll be taking on full reviews of a few throughout the week, here's the breakdown:

Outstanding

Let the Right One In: Vampire mania is about to hit big time with something called "Twilight," which I'm way too old to enjoy, but there's another vampire movie out there now if you live in one of America's big cities (or many other places in the world) that's truly creepy. Swedish director Tomas Alfredson's "Let the Right One In" is the best horror movie I've seen in many years, and a movingly twisted love to story to boot. I'll offer a full review tomorrow, so please feel free to come back for that, but if you can, see this great flick as soon as possible. Besides, according to MTV, President-elect Obama is even reading the "Twilight" books along with his daughter Malia (as if he didn't have enough on his plate already), so maybe I'll have to give it a chance after all.

A Secret: Claude Miller's film about how World War II tore apart one family, and the personal act of betrayal at its core, is as dynamic as Truffaut flicks like "400 Blows," and I'm not exaggerating one bit when I say that.

In a Dream: This astounding documentary by Jeremiah Zagar starts out as a portrait of his father, Isaiah Zagar, who has covered 40,000 feet of Philadelphia with his beautiful mosaics. As it delves deeper and deeper, however, you get a painting of a very troubled man and the effect he has on the people all around him, including his devoted wife, Julia. Difficult but very entertaining all the same, like the best documentaries are meant to be.

The Grocer's Son: I have a fairly low tolerance for sentiment in movies unless it's delivered with a well-developed story to suit it's heart ("Chocolat," for example, is just a movie I simply can't stand.) Writer/director Eric Giuardo's simple story here is one many people will be able to relate to, about a son who returns from the city to run his father's small-town grocery after the pere suffers a heart attack. Funny, romantic and beautifully shot.

Man on Wire: The fun in this "documentary" about Frenchman Philippe Petit's high wire stunt between the Twin Towers in 1974 comes in trying to keep up with what is actual historic footage and what has been re-enacted for the sake of this movie. If that sounds corny, it really isn't. It comes off as one big trick you won't mind one bit falling for, and when you finally get to see Petit on the high wire it's well worth the wait.

Tell No One: Like "The Usual Suspects," this complicated but absorbing thriller from Frenchman Guillaume Canet is one I had to see twice to truly appreciate. After viewing it in August, I was sure the story - from a novel by Harlan Coben - just didn't add up, but after watching it again on Sunday I'm now fairly certain it does. If you can keep up, you get a flick with all the conventions of a truly mind-bending thriller, with the bonus of a great performance from leading man Francois Cluzet, action scenes that pulse with genuine intensity, and a "reveal" that just might be the best 30 minutes of film I've seen all year.

Very good

Trouble the Water: I thought that after watching Spike Lee's tremendous "When the Levees Broke" I'd never want to see another documentary about Hurricane Katrina, but husband-and-wife team Carl Deal and Tia Lessin certainly proved me wrong. Though their flick, produced by Michael Moore's shop, overreaches more than a bit, it's very effecting when it focuses on the husband and wife at its core, two people you will grow to love as you see their harrowing, handheld camera account of what it was like to be trapped in the attic as Katrina bore down on the Crescent City.

Good

Wendy and Lucy: I had extremely high hopes for this flick from director Kelly Reichardt, but I have to say it just left me more than a little cold. Michelle Williams certainly delivers a great performance as one half of the titular duo, Wendy, a truly down-on-her-luck woman who loses her dog, Lucy, and spends most of the movie looking for him. I'm really not giving too much away since not much happens in this flick at all, but I liked Reichardt's "Old Joy" quite a bit, so I'll definitely give her another chance next time.

Under the Bombs Philippe Aractingi's movie about the aftermath of Israel's 2006 bombing campaign in Lebanon certainly wasn't uplifting fare for a Sunday morning. In Lebanon's Oscar hopeful, Aractingi focuses on the story of a woman searching for her son and the cab driver who takes her on the very wild ride to try and find him. Almost all of the other "actors" who appear in the film are Lebanese people who survived the bombing campaign and tell their stories, giving the movie a very one-sided and didactic feel, even though the story has a genuine urgency to it.

Mister Foe This very odd little flick from director David MacKenzie stars Jamie Bell (yes, "Billy Elliott") as a teen with a nasty habit of spying on people and an even more troublesome oedipal complex. Even with a solid cast that includes Sophia Myles, Ciaran Hinds, Claire Forlani and Ewan Bremner (remember Spud?), this one just has a far-too-familiar feel as it tries to deal with some truly twisted subject matter.

And, finally ...

Mirageman: As silly as it is, I really can't fault this flick too much because it delivered exactly what it advertised: A Chilean flick about a superhero called, obviously, Mirageman. As our low-tech street vigilante develops into the people's hero, you do get a fairly sly commentary on tabloid news and just a fun way to spend 90 minutes or so.

I plan to write full reviews of at least "Let the Right One In" and maybe a few more in the coming days - before Bond! - so please feel free to check back, and have a perfectly passable Monday.