Chuck vs. a fourth season: We all win

OK, I've seen it from enough sources now, but first at the Hollywood Reporter, that "Chuck" will in fact be back for a fourth season that I'm just gonna accept it as the truth and smile about it.

Details are still sketchy, but it looks like a fourth season will have 13 episodes, and that sounds about right to me. No word yet on when exactly we might see this, but I'd imagine next January would make sense.

The official word won't come until Monday morning, I think, when NBC unveils its upfront, but like I said, take this at least as a done deal. And now that NBC and the fans have shown "Chuck" the love, like I've said here once before, it's time for the show's creators to give us something in return: An epicly good, over-the-top big bad for season four.

Though the show has been as funny as ever this year, with only 13 episodes coming in the next season (and precious few left this year!), the opportunity is certainly there for some focus when it comes to the storytelling and a proper villain for Team Bartowski to set its sights on. Is that really too much to ask?

But enough quibbling on what is, after all, a great day. In the bigger picture, I think I can perhaps take my extremely tiny bit of credit now that my strategy of not watching one single network reality show since the first season of "The Real World" has finally paid off.

The big four are still gearing up, but what I've seen so far is a lot of scripted series ("Wilde Kingdom" from "Arrested Development" creator Mitch Hurwitz at Fox, Michael Chiklis in ABC's superhero show "No Ordinary Family" and NO ROCKFORD FILES at NBC) and not much reality TV at all. I'm probably dreaming here, but if that cancer is indeed finally starting to go into remission, it's a banner day for us all.

And in just a bit of movie news, there are a couple of tidbits out there today that are truly delightful for fans of animation and good comedy.

"Kung Fu Panda" was already my favorite animated movie of 2008 (yes, better than "Wall-E"), and now the 2011 sequel "Kung Fu Panda: The Kaboom of Doom" is getting some script touching up from ... Charlie Kaufman?

Yes, really. He's apparently put about two weeks into reworking the script, probably not enough to turn it into "Being Kung Fu Panda," but hopefully still enough to make it at least a bit of a trip.

And after directing the severely underrated "Role Models" (rent that already and be ready to laugh) and originating with "The State," Ken Wain is now reuniting with Paul Rudd and even bringing Jennifer Aniston along too for his next comedy, "Wanderlust."

In a story that sounds a heck of a lot like "Lost in America," the duo will play a married couple who flee the big city for life on a hippie commune, or something like that. Rudd is always money when it comes to funny, and I can certainly take Jennifer Aniston when she picks smart comedies, and this one written by Wain and fellow "The State" vet Ken Marino (the duo behind "Role Models") certainly should be. Stay tuned ...

And with that, I'll cut it short today, because I've started to at least slightly take on the clutter in my living room by offering some of my books for sale at Amazon. I've sold three since Wednesday, but that of course means I know have to actually send them out. I'll leave you with this prediction: "Iron Man 2" will win the box office this week, and by a pretty wide margin over "Robin Hood." Just a hunch. Have a perfectly great weekend. Peace out.

Will Tim Burton ever again have an original idea?

I wonder what would happen if Tim Burton ever encountered an original idea. Would his head - or perhaps his entire body - explode? He certainly must think so, because though the man is clearly a talented director (and yes, I really liked "Alice in Wonderland" quite a bit), he's also just as clearly incredibly insecure.

Rather than take a chance on anything even slightly out of the norm, he's instead signed on to direct a stop-motion animation adaptation of "The Addams Family." And yes, that Addams Family. Sheesh. I've never actually seen the movies that have already sprung from the horror/comedy franchise, but I did see a YouTube clip of Christina Ricci breaking down the real origins of Thanksgiving as Wednesday, and that was nothing but extremely funny (what ever happened to her, any way .. I mean, "Black Snake Moan" really was just about as horrible as it could possibly be, but was it a career killer?)

Actually, I've learned something from this news, so I guess I should be grateful. Did anyone else know the Addams Family actually originated as a New Yorker cartoon? Burton claims his movie will tap into this original spirit and show a "sharper wit than could be placed into a '60s family TV series." OK, fair enough, but you can't color me as anything but skeptical at this point. And besides, as great as "The Nightmare Before Christmas" was, please don't ever forget that that was actually directed by the great Henry Selick, not Burton. 'Nuff said on all that.

"Inception" details emerge and sound friggin great

There will certainly be many contenders for the movie of the summer (and my dark horse money is on Phillip Noyce's "Salt"), but there really can't be many at all that come burdened with higher expectations than Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight" follow up, "Inception." And as details emerge about what exactly it might be about, you can count me as more and more jazzed to finally see it.

He turned up for the big Warner Bros. event on the last day of ShoWest, and here's some of what he had to say about "Inception."

As he introduced a video clip from the flick, which I unfortunately can't find online, he described it as "an action film told in a grand scale by a character played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who runs a team of people who have access to a technology that allows them to enter people's minds through their dreams." He said there was shooting in six different countries to create all the dreamscapes. Here's a bit of how Collider, for which I occasionally contribute, described some of the footage:

The footage started with Leo cocking a gun and his voiceover saying, "There's one thing you should know about me. An inception is an idea that's like a virus, it's highly contagious. The small seed of an idea can grow to define or destroy you."

What follows are eerie visuals with people floating and the ethereal string chords build, as we see Leo sitting at a table in an ornately adorned room explaining to Ken Watanabe and Joseph Gordon-Levitt what they do:

"In the dream state, your consciousness defenses lower," he tells them. "It makes your thoughts vulnerable to theft, called extraction. So you can actually train your subconscious to defend itself from the most skilled extractor."

Watanabe asks how he knows that to which Leo replies, "Because I AM the best extractor."

It all sounds more than a bit like "Memento" writ on an extremely grand scale, which would be just fine with me. And Marion Cotillard, Cillian Murphy, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and, inevitably I suppose, Michael Caine all appear in this too, so you can bet I'll be among the masses buying my ticket when this finally opens July 16.

A couple of biopics I can get squarely behind

The first thing I thought when I heard a Cesar Chavez biopic was at least in the early stages of development was, how has it taken so long? After all, he's a hero to millions of Hispanics and gringos alike, and his life would just make a grand tale.

It seems that screenwriter Keir Pearson and producer Larry Meli agree, and have optioned the life rights of the labor activist Chavez, and will be producing this with Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna's Canana Films. Pearson, by the way, won an Oscar for co-writing "Hotel Rwanda" with director Terry George, and also has, among other projects, a biopic of Roberto Clemente in the works for HBO and Playtone.

And just in case anyone really hasn't heard of Chavez, he dedicated his life to improving the working conditions of California farm workers, eventually co-founding the National Farm Workers Association, which would later become the United Farm Workers.

Though it's of course far too early to be talking about who could pull this role off, Garcia Bernal would certainly seem to be a perfect choice. What say you?

In other, crazier, biopic news, it seems that independent filmmaker and writer David Miller is hard at work with his son, Jordan, on a movie about the truly odd and troubled Texas outsider musician Daniel Johnston. And yes, I know there's already been a documentary about Johnston, the very compelling "Devil and Daniel Johnston," but can you imagine how much fun (well, maybe that's not quite the right word) the right actor could have with this role?

Here's what he to say about the project to Pedestrian, via the Playlist:

I've got a few things going — we're doing a Daniel Johnston biopic and I'm Producing and Writing and Gabriel Sunday our star [from "My Suicide"] he's going to be Directing and playing young Daniel. It's going to be an epic super hero story and it's going to be a narrative biopic so it doesn't really cover any of the same stuff that the famous "Devil And Daniel Johnston" Documentary that won Sundance in 2005 covers.

How are you going to portray older Daniel Johnston?
That's a really good question. We're either putting Gabriel in a fat suit or there's so many people that are reaching out that are huge Daniel Johnston fans. Philip Seymour Hoffman and John C. Reilly for example, Johnny Depp's a big Daniel Johnston fan though we'd like him to play the older brother. But we haven't really arrived at that yet — we're just in the scripting process at the moment but once we get the script finished we'll be able to get a better handle on what the budget will be.

Nothing like dropping some big names to get attention, but I'd imagine he's right that a lot of actors would indeed be interested in the chance to take on the life a true American original.

And with that, I've got to go to the job that still somehow pays me, but I'll leave you with the trailer for the next Jennifer Aniston movie I'll be seeing (hint: It won't be "Bounty Hunter.") "The Switch," which I believe used to go by the much funnier name "The Baster," is a comedy starring Aniston and veryfunnyman Jason Bateman, and you can watch the trailer below Enjoy, and have a great weekend (and if you can, go see Roman Polanski's new flick, which I'll be doing Saturday afternoon.) Peace out.

"Se7en" creators back together again, and lots of other good news

OK, there's a lot of news out there today about movie people I really like, so let's just get right into it. Well, actually, it starts with the director of one of my favorite documentaries jumping into something I'll never see, but it's all gravy after that, I promise.

If you haven't seen "Man on Wire," which I had the pleasure of seeing at the 2008 Rehoboth Independent Film Festival, you're really missing out on a magical documentary. Director James Marsh mixed live footage from tightrope artist Philippe Petit's several stunts with "Cops" style re-enactments that certainly would have been disastrous in lesser hands to make something truly magical. Rent it immediately if you haven't seen it.

Now, however, it seems that Marsh is jumping into fictional features with something I'll never see, both because I have little time for the "found footage" subgenre of horror flicks and also because just as a rule I never see movies that take the rather simple step of demonizing the Vatican. "The Vatican Tapes" will center on a series of events that unfold after a tape gets leaked from the Vatican that displays an exorcism that goes wrong.

Like I said, all that just makes me say a resounding meh, but I've been wrong at least once before, and probably already today.

OK, enough of that, now onto the good stuff ...

"Se7en" team to reunite

You know, when I first heard David Fincher was gonna take on something as crazy as "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," I was sure he'd make it just delightfully twisted, but it was just so banal that it has to qualify as one of my biggest movie disappointments of the last five years or so.

And I should probably keep that in mind before I get too geeked up about this new news, but I just can't help it. It seems that Fincher and "Se7en" screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker are teaming up to take on the Max Ehrlich novel "The Reincarnation of Peter Proud," which is apparently about a college professor who begins having recurring dreams and nightmares and, realizing they are images of a past life, decides to search out the source of his visions.

Sounds just as intriguing as "Benjamin Button" did on paper, but I've decided to put most of the blame for that disaster on screenwriter Eric Roth for making it way too "Gump"-like, and keep the faith that Fincher and Walker can come up with something much better.

And Fincher is about to start shooting a movie based on the creation of "Facebook" (which I'm somehow on), "The Social Network," which was penned by Aaron Sorkin. Yeah, I'll watch that.

"Black Swan" assembling stellar cast

When I first heard that Darren Aronofsky's fifth feature film was going to be something called "Black Swan," a supernatural drama set in the competitive world of New York City ballet and starring Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis, you could already count me as at least curious. And now the news about it just keeps getting better.

According to the always very reliable /film, Winona Ryder, Vincent Cassel and Barbara Hershey have all now joined the cast. Ryder will play a rival ballerina who has been getting all the lead parts but is now nearing the end of her career. Cassell will play the director of the ballet school's new production, "Swan Lake," and Hershey will play Portman's character's mother. All sounds great to me, and this apparently is about to starting in NYC very soon (if not now.)

Duncan Jones picks his next project

Duncan Jones' "Moon," which I had the pleasure of seeing at this year's Atlanta Film Festival 365, is easily one of the best movies of 2009, featuring a remarkable performance from Sam Rockwell. If you haven't seen it, rent it as soon as it comes out Jan. 12 and I guarantee that if you like smart science fiction, you'll like this one.

And now it seems that Jones has picked his next project, something called "Source Code." All I really know about that is that it's apparently about "a soldier who wakes up in the body of a commuter who must solve the mystery of a train explosion," and Jake Gyllenhaal is set to play the soldier. Sounds more than a little meh to me, but with Mr. Jones in charge, I'm sure I'll come along for the ride. This is set to go into production early next year.

"Mad Men" creator Weiner hitting big screen

If you watch "Mad Men" (and if you don't, why the heck not?), then you know the season three finale was a real doozy, featuring the simultaneous demise of Don and Bertie's marriage and rise of Sterling, Cooper, Draper and Price. I can't wait to see what will happen next summer, but now it seems that "Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner has set up his first feature film from a script he wrote during his "Sopranos" days.

The romantic comedy "You Are Here" will apparently star Jennifer Aniston, Bradley Cooper and Zach Galifianakis, and, because Mr. Weiner clearly has his priorities straight, won't start filming until after Weiner and co. shoot the fourth season of "Mad Men," which was predestined to run for five seasons.

OK, anyone who actually stuck around through all that today certainly deserves a reward, and here's the best I've got. Broken Lizard's "Super Troopers" remains one of my very favorite silly comedies, and one I like to watch once a month or so, but the guys really haven't come close to being even nearly that funny since. Here's hoping their new feature, "Slammin' Salmon," will be a return to form, but I can't say I have terribly high hopes. As you can see from the trailer below, it somehow stars both Michael Clarke Duncan and Cobie Smulders of "How I Met Your Mother." Enjoy, and have a perfectly pleasant Tuesday. Peace out.

Scab-free "Futurama" - plus two tantalizing trailers

Actually, there's at least a rumor out there today that's crazy enough I should really start out with it (and it's not the fact that Rob Marshall will be stepping in to direct "Pirates of the Caribbean 4," which I really couldn't care less about.)

It seems that, at least according to the Hollywood Reporter's Risky Biz blog, "500 Days of Summer" director Marc Webb may now be tapped to helm another big-screen take on "Jesus Christ Superstar." Take a second to digest that.

As for his first flick, which I saw a few weeks ago, I'd say like Summer herself I was in a state of "like" rather than "love" by the end. The two leads, Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon Levitt, have charm to spare, as does most of the movie, but I couldn't help but feel an evolving sense of stasis since going in you knew at least sort of how it was going to end.

I will say two things in its favor: It's easily the best "romantic" movie I've seen so far this year, and as far as break-up movies go, it's just miles and miles and miles better than that turd of a flick "The Break-Up," starring Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn. Man, did that stink. As for "500 Days of Summer," I'd say if it's playing anywhere near you, take a chance on it for a fun summer diversion.

And as for Universal's apparent plans to remake Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical, which was already made into a wacky little flick by Norman Jewison, I'd say it could certainly work and will make a ton of money, and Webb can certainly do it. Myself I'd call marginally interested at best. I am, however, always interested in "She & Him" by Deschanel and M. Ward, which I'm listening to right now. Priceless.

Now to what for fans of good, smart, funny sci-fi can only be great news. I had a sneaking feeling that the news Twentieth Century Fox was recasting for the upcoming new episodes of "Futurama" on Comedy Central was just a negotiating ploy.

The main thing "Futurama" has going for it, beyond the fact that it's just thoroughly entertaining, is that it has a devoted fan base of folks like me. Going to the trouble of making new episodes after you've alienated everyone by firing the entire cast would really defeat the entire purpose of bringing it back.

Thankfully, it's not to be. It seems all the main cast members - Billy West, Katey Segal, John DiMaggio, Maurice LaMarche and Tress MacNeille - have all now signed for the new season of 26 episodes at a little less than they wanted but more than the studio was initially offering before breaking things off. So now I'm certainly in when this finally comes back in mid-2010 or so.

And in one other really good bit of TV news, it seems I will indeed be holding onto my HBO for a bit longer after this season of "True Blood," because the "Seinfeld" reunion of sorts on "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is turning into more than a minor affair.

I assumed they - Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander and Michael Richards - would only agree to it for one episode, but apparently I'm wrong (yes, I'm used to it by now.) When the show returns in September (I think), the "Seinfeld" angle will be a "major arc," with all the cast members appearing in at least five episodes, according to HBO. Rather than an actual "Seinfeld" reunion, Larry David says it will instead be more about why that would be such a bad idea in his mind and what everyone's been up to in the last 11 years (wow, really?) In the case of Richards, at least, that should be pretty fascinating.

OK, now on to the trailers. The first, which I think actually came out yesterday and was pointed out to me by Movie Mom Nell Minow, is the first trailer for Wes Anderson's "The Fantastic Mr. Fox," and I have to say it looks at least as good as I could have hoped. If you're gonna tell a classic children's tale, I'd much rather watch it in this appealing stop-motion style rather than with even-more-souped-up 3-D gadgetry. Enjoy, and stick around for one that gets me even more giddy.



Finally, as far as I know, this is the first trailer for Hayao Miyazaki's "Ponyo" that contains a lot of the Western voice-over, and though as usual the dubbing doesn't match up at all with the moving mouths, it still looks amazing. Seeing Ponyo turn from goldfish into little girl is just great, so here's hoping this really does open "NATIONWIDE" as Disney has promised on Aug. 14. And if you'll excuse me now, I'm off to see Judd Apatow's "Funny People" and hoping I'll like it a lot more than some of the critics have. Peace out.

When bad movies happen to good people

This may seem like an odd choice for a list, but it came to me as I surveyed the rather depressing slate of new releases this weekend in wide-release world.

Though I can finally, and will, go see "There Will Be Blood" again, the other choices just do nothing but make me cringe, which in two cases is a real shame because the flicks star two people who I really like.

Paul Rudd almost managed to walk away with "Knocked Up" even though he was surrounded by a slew of very funny people, but I just don't think there's any way I'll be able to watch him sleepwalk through "Over My Dead Body" this weekend. Likewise, Steve Zahn's performance as Glenn Michaels in "Out of Sight" stands up as one of my favorites, but is there really anything that can be good about "Strange Wilderness," which, as far as I can tell, appears to be a stoner comedy about Bigfoot?

This dose of the January movie blues got me to thinking about actors and actresses I usually like and their most regrettable (in my eyes, at least) movie roles. Here goes:

Billy Bob Thornton
Just how bad was Billy Bob in "School for Scoundrels"? I think the answer can be summed up thusly: Even worse than Jon Heder, who has been basically playing an increasingly lame version of "Napoleon Dynamite" since that extremely likable flick thrust him upon the world. There's just not one good thing I can say about this thoroughly unnecessary Todd Phillips remake, so please don't rent it for any reason whatsoever.

Kirsten Dunst
It feels a little rotten to pick on Ms. Dunst so severely, but a look through her movie resume turned up three movie I just can't stand, even though I still do like her most of the times she turns up in movies. The big three: "Spider-Man 3," in which she looked just as miserable as everyone else in Sam Raimi's disaster; "Marie Antoinette," which was just one of the most empty movies I've seen in many, many years, and "Elizabethtown." In regards to the latter, I have just one question: How in the world could you (the formerly great Cameron Crowe) manage to make a movie in which Kirsten Dunst flirts on the phone whilst taking a bath, and still manage to have it just suck from start to finish?

Tim Roth and Naomi Watts
OK, I haven't seen "Funny Games," Michael Haneke's English-language remake of his own movie, yet, but I've seen the rather wretched trailer so many times now that it feels like I've seen the flick at least twice. I'll never bother to see the real thing, so if you do and there's some redeeming value here that I'm just missing please let me know.

Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston
Did anyone enjoy "The Break-Up"? When it comes to romantic "comedies" I usually have little time for flicks that delight the masses, but here's one case where just about everyone I know just hated watching Vince and Jen yell at each other for 90 minutes. Just an amazingly bad movie.

Paul Giamatti
OK, we're getting into a stretch here of people who it really pains me to include on this list, but when you appear in a movie as bad as "Lady in the Water" I really can't give you a pass. Granted, Mr. Giamatti did work very hard to try and save this, but M. Night's "fairy tale" just had very little wonder to it at all and was, frankly, just a tremendous bore.

Samuel L. Jackson
I decided to give both Sam the man and Christina Ricci a pass for "Black Snake Moan" because, as much as I just detested that Craig Brewer movie, I'm willing to concede that maybe I just didn't get it. With "Freedomland," however, I can state unequivocally that Mr. Jackson just made a horrendous choice. Richard Price has written some fairly great books, but this flick which also starred Julianne Moore just had no business ever getting made.

Catherine Keener
I love Catherine Keener more than just about any actress (except for maybe Laura Linney) in the entire world, but Nicole Holofcener's "Friends With Money" just made me want to claw my own eyes out to make it stop. The duo have made two much better movies in "Lovely & Amazing" and "Walking and Talking," and they're set to collaborate again soon on something that's still just called an "untitled Nicole Holofcener project," so there's plenty of great stuff coming and already here to help wipe this blight from my memory.

Audrey Tautou
I made a pledge to myself to never watch "The Da Vinci Code" which I unfortunately broke once the movie came out on DVD. I really have to learn to trust my instincts a lot more, because although the movie as a whole was one big stinker, watching Amelie just mope her way through it made it all the more painful to watch.

And there you have it. Two that didn't make the cut simply because I still have to end this at some point and go to my paying job were Penelope Cruz in "Vanilla Sky" and Owen Wilson in "The Darjeeling Limited." Please feel free to add any movies that have just made stars you like look really bad, and let me know if there's any reason at all to go see either "Over Her Dead Body" or "Strange Wilderness" this weekend. Peace out.