Which of these crazy movie ideas are real?

Actually, I probably shouldn't spoil it, but they all are, which doesn't make them any less bizarre.

1. Anyone who's been here before (and there are apparently somehow a few of you) knows that I'll watch Carla Gugino in just about anything. And even though I enjoyed watching her play a porn star who dresses like a nun in "Women in Trouble," even I wouldn't have guessed that one of her next movies would be called "MILF."

Really? Yes, really, but no matter what you might be thinking that means (keep it clean, people), the acronym here stands for "Mothers I'd Like to Fight", and the movie, which Gugino is apparently in talks to star in, would be a revenge story about a woman who, recently released from prison, returns to the street to take care of some unfinished business.

And yes, cheap, attention-grabbing acronym aside, I'd watch that, though I'd probably buy a ticket from the machine rather than have to actually ask for one to something called "MILF." Just sayin'.

2. Anyone who's been here before also knows that David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin's "The Social Network," about the invention of Facebook, is one of the movies I'm most psyched to see this fall. That said, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that in Hollywood, imitation is the most frequent substitution for inspiration, but I just really didn't think it would come quite so quickly.

Apparently at least some people who saw those YouTube and Twitter movie spoofs (I posted one here, and they're actually quite funny) didn't realize that they were meant to be a joke, because brace yourself now for the Google movie (and again, yes, really.)

According to Deadline, Ken Auletta's bestseller "Googled: The End of the World as We Know It" is being made into a feature film. The book tells "the biographical story of Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the famously private founders of Google, and their meteoric rise to becoming two of the most powerful men on the planet."

OK, that does make it sound like it could actually be pretty good, but could this please be the end of movies about computer breakthroughs (one can dream, I suppose, but since Peter Berg is actually making a movie from the game Battleship, I know it's futile.)

3. When a sentence starts with "Maggie Gyllenhaal and Hugh Dancy have signed up to star in a romantic comedy ...", it would probably just make me say meh, except for the sentence ends "... about the invention of the first vibrator."

Per Variety: "The period drama, titled Hysteria, centres on two doctors in Victorian London who experiment with an electrical device to treat irritable and angry women. Dancy and Jonathan Pryce will play the physicians."

That actually sounds pretty funny to me already, and just in case you were wondering if Gyllenhaal might play one of the test subjects, again, keep it clean - she's actually set to play the daughter of Pryce's character, assuming this ever gets made.

OK, enough of that. All I have left today is a picture that immediately caught my eye and Lewis Black's "review" of "Eat, Pray, Love."

First the picture. If Martin Scorsese weren't filming "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" in 3D, you could call it probably the movie I'm most psyched about for next year (actually, since it's based on a book I truly adore, it still is, but why the 3D? Sheesh.)

And even though Scorses has apparently also shortened the title from Brian Selznick's novel down to simply "Hugo Cabret," the story is still a real charmer. The book is about an orphan who lives a secret life in the wall of a Paris train station, where he gets drawn into the magical world of George Melies and his automatons. There's a lot more going on in the book, and it's all a lot of fun.

As you'll see from the first picture below, Asa Butterfield plays the titular Hugo, and Chloe Moretz is his young co-star, and if the sight of Hit Girl in period costume doesn't make you smile at least a bit, well, you probably don't smile enough. Enjoy.


And finally today, in a clip that I'd have to say is just about perfect for a Friday morning, here's Lewis Black's seriously funny "review" of "Eat Pray Love" from "The Daily Show." Black, who screams way too much for my taste, isn't always my kind of funny, but I guarantee that by the time he gets around to his "Eat, Pray, Love machete," you'll be laughing at this. Enjoy, and have a perfectly pleasant weekend. Peace out.

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Scott Pilgrim Vs. the effect of video games on movies

Complaining about the influence of video games on movies makes me feel more than a little like the old guy yelling, "Hey you kids, get off my lawn." And besides, this summer at least, I'm not all that sure it's a bad thing.

Now, to be clear, I'm certainly not talking about movies based directly on video games - I can't think of the last one of those that was any good. In fact, movies "based" on another medium, particularly '80s TV shows, generally raise a red flag for me (with this summer's "The A-Team" being a welcome exception ... what a big blast of fun.)

Instead, I mean movies that take on the feel of playing - or even better, somehow being in - a video game, with this summer's best example so far being Christopher Nolan's "Inception." Until being knocked from the No. 1 perch last week by the seriously funny and well worth seeing "The Other Guys," Nolan's flick rode a long winning streak to already more than $227 million at the domestic box office in spite - or perhaps because, your choice - of a plot that, like the best of video games. presents a puzzle with level after level of challenges for viewers.

And if all Nolan's tricks don't quite add up in your mind, you're far from alone. It took me two viewings to accept that even if everything he's cooked up doesn't add up perfectly (and I'm fairly certain it was never designed to), it's still pretty much a masterwork both visually and in terms of storytelling.

In an interview with the L.A. Times, Henry Jenkins, a professor of communications, journalism and cinematic arts at the University of Southern California, explained the game influence of "Inception" perfectly: " 'Inception' is first and foremost a movie about worlds and levels, which is very much the way video games are structured. Games create a sense that we're a part of the action. Stories aren't just told to us. We experience them."

Just how much more of an appetite is there for this interactive kind of filmmaking? That gets a major test this weekend with the release of "Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World," which packs the double geek bona fide of not only looking just like a really good video game but also being based on a fairly obscure series of graphic novels (and yes, though I'm well aware I should really be too old for "comic books," I have read the first two installments of this, and it has a visual and verbal wit that should be just right in Edgar Wright's flick.)

Like "Inception," the tale of Scott Pilgrim is indeed also a quest with many levels, in this case battles with "seven evil exes" to win the heart of Ramona Flowers. Even with a love story of sorts at its core, I'll be curious to see how "Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World" fares in a busy week that also contains all the action you can stand (and probably much more) with "The Expendables" and Julia Roberts starring in a more conventional romantic saga directed by "Glee" creator Ryan Murphy, "Eat, Pray, Love."

As for the overall trend of interactive movies, brace yourself for more, because it's not going away any time soon (there's even, of course, a sequel of sorts to "Tron," "Tron: Legacy," coming in time for Christmas.) And as for me, well, as long as the ride continues to be thrilling, I'll just be enjoying it while it lasts.