Thursday fun, of Clint Eastwood, baseball and Marilyn Monroe, too

Actually, before we get into any of that, Fox really knows what it's doing with "The New Girl," the only new sitcom I've committed to watching every episode of (though I caught No. 2 of "Suburgatory," and that was pretty wickedly funny, too.)

I'm not talking about replacing "the black guy" after only one episode with another one, but instead realizing that the reason people tune in is to see smart, funny women clearly having a lot of fun.

It starts with Zooey Deschanel, of course, and she's been a trooper so far, and now they're wisely adding "Party Down" star Lizzy Caplan for a three-episode arc, hopefully beginning very soon.

She will, of course, play the love interest of one of Jess' seriously douchetastic roommates, but having her back on TV at all is indeed reason to, if you'll excuse me for saying it, "Party Down" (especially since that show is truly dead and gone ... forever.)

But the best news I came across this morning was that with the, well at least relative, success of "Moneyball," there's going to be at least one more potentially great baseball movie coming, which will hopefully continue that welcome trend.

Clint Eastwood said his turn in front of the camera in "Gran Torino" would be his last acting gig, but it seems he's taken to that retirement vow about as well as Brett Favre did the first few times. As for "Gran Torino," I really didn't get it the first time I saw it, but despite it's almost thorough lack of subtlety (even by Eastwood's standards), it's a pretty darn fine little flick.

And now, perhaps as a favor to his longtime assistant director, Robert Lorenz, Eastwood is set to star in Lorenz's full directing debut, "Trouble With the Curve." The baseball flick will be about a baseball scout (Eastwood) who is losing his vision with his age. He and his daughter take a final road trip to Atlanta to check out a prospective talent.

That, frankly, sounds like a heck of a lot more fun than Eastwood's upcoming directing effort, "J. Edgar" on Nov. 9, and the world is certainly a better place with more baseball movies in it, so stay tuned for more on this whenever I can find it.

And finally today, in an admittedly short report, where better to leave things than with Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe in the upcoming movie "My Week With Marilyn"? Even in this trailer, you can tell that, along with nailing Marilyn's look just about perfectly, this will, not surprisingly, be another nuanced performance from Williams. The movie, set in England during the filming of "The Prince and the Showgirl," tells the story from the perspective of her lovestruck young assistant as Marilyn worked with Sir Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) in the movie and also happened to be on honeymoon with her husband, Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott), at the time. Juicy stuff, so if you're lucky enough to live in a "limited" market, keep an eye out for this one on Nov. 4. Peace out.

Baseball still on the brain, with Bennett Miller's next and more

It may be a slight exaggeration to say, as my friend Bob Connally did very well, that Wednesday night was "The Greatest Night of Sport You Will Ever See" except that for fans of certain baseball teams, it really was.

Even if you had no dogs in that fight, the final American League playoffs spot being decided in two dramatic games finishing three minutes apart showed just why baseball is not just America's pastime, but also its greatest sport, even if football is king for the moment.

And really, there's no better way to follow up that glorious night (especially for fans of one seriously cursed team from Charm City) than by going to see "Moneyball" if you missed it in week one, since it's the best baseball I've seen in many years, and one that thanks to Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill and just some whip-smart writing will appeal just as much to people who somehow don't understand the allure of baseball as it will to diehard fans.

There's a solid chance that, though personally I'll be giving my money to "50/50" with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen, "Moneyball" could finish in the top slot in week two given the baseball buzz, and that would certainly be well-deserved.

And I tell you all that to tell you this: "Moneyball" director Bennett Miller has just signed Steve Carell to star in his next movie, which will tell one of the truly odd stories to come out of my old and now new again corner of the world, that of John du Pont.

That name may not mean anything to lots of people, but certainly the Du Pont chemical company does. John, the heir to its sizable fortune, was a rather serious amateur wrestling fan, to the extent that he built a training facility called Foxcatcher on his Pennsylvania estate that attracted many of the country's top wrestlers. Until, that is, Du Pont, a paranoid schizophrenic, shot and killed Olympic gold medal-winning wrestler David Schultz (Du Pont died last year in a Pennsylvania prison at age 72.)

Just as with "Moneyball" and baseball, this is clearly an intriguing tale even if you don't care at all about wrestling (as a never terribly good former high school wrestler, I do, and coincidentally, Thomas McCarthy's wrestling movie "Win Win" still stands as my favorite movie of 2011 so far - rent it now.)

I have to assume that Carell would be playing Du Pont, but there's no confirmation on that just yet ... stay tuned.

There's also news out there about two of my other favorite filmmakers, Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, who also coincidentally enough happened to make another of my favorite baseball movies, 2008's "Sugar." After that they made "It's Kind of a Funny Story," which while more than a bit uneven, was exactly the kind of human story that I look for in small-scale movies, and either one is well worth a rental.

For their next movie, the duo will direct (and I assume, as with their past movies, write, too, but not certain of that yet) something described as a "character drama" and titled "Hate Mail." It will be about the interweaving stories of several New Yorkers who receive said types of deliveries, and while that doesn't sound like the most intriguing of premises, they haven't let me down yet, so I'm in.

And finally today, before I close with one video clip, think of all your dream candidates to play James Bond. Daniel Craig is indeed pretty good, and he should be great as Mikael Blomkvist in Fincher's take on "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," but just think how amazing it would be if the role were to go to Stringer Bell.

That's apparently an old rumor, but being a now fairly old dude, I heard it for the first time this week as Idris Elba was making the promotional circuit for season two of "Luther," which premiered on BBC America (and my DVR) this week. Far from simply the first "Black Bond," which Elba rightly dismissed the significance of in interviews, what he would instead be, as fans of "The Wire" know, is someone who would give the character even more of an edge than Craig did, and a welcome boost of new energy.

In the meantime, police procedurals don't get much better than "Luther," in which Elba plays the titular lead detective. Season one is available now streaming from Netflix, and it's well worth tracking down.

And I'll leave you today, before I go swimming, help my dad spread some gravel for a greenhouse and then go see "50/50," with this clip for Roman Polanski's "Carnage," definitely one of the movies I'm most looking forward to for this fall/winter. Having seen the play it's based on by Yasmina Reza, I can tell you that it's one seriously wicked war of words, and with the movie starring Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz and John C. Reilly, it should be just as great. Enjoy this clip of Reilly describing his past experience in a "gang," and have a perfectly pleasant weekend. Peace out.

Sunday thoughts, of "Moneyball," Katherine Heigl (yes, really) and more

Considering the first poster for Bruce Robinson's "The Rum Diary" was just a picture of Johnny Depp in a fedora (probably enough to market a movie), the one above is certainly an improvement, and hopefully visual proof that Robinson's big comeback will play everywhere once it finally opens on Oct. 12.

Why should you care? Well, Robinson, before pretty much disappearing from the face of the Earth, managed to direct at least one perfectly entertaining movie with "Withnail and I," an oddity well worth tracking down if you've never seen it. After about 10 years off from directing any kind of feature films whatsoever, I'm thinking he'll have a winner on his hands with this one, starring Depp as a rather debauched American journalist in Puerto Rico and based on the novel by Hunter S. Thompson.

Can't wait to see how all that turns out, but in the meantime I can tell you, as many critics already have, that this weekend's "Moneyball" is a pretty great little flick and one of a definitely dying breed: The grand baseball movie. It combines enough of a rah-rah story with what's essentially an action movie in which the words are the weapons (thanks to Aaron Sorkin) and a buddy movie in which Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill are just extremely funny.

So, why isn't that enough to knock "The Lion King" from the top of the box office? It still might, but the tracking I saw has "Moneyball" coming in a fairly close second. Please, people, just trust me: Even if you're not a baseball geek like me, this movie is just thoroughly entertaining.

And word has come down this weekend that Pitt is now being courted for something else that could be a lot of fun. Doug Liman, who way back in the day directed "Swingers" and much more recently "Fair Game," is set to helm a flick based on the Japanese novel "All You Need is Kill," with Pitt in his sights to play the lead. So, what's it about? Per Comingsoon.net:

There's one thing worse than dying. It's coming back to do it again and again. ... When the alien Gitai invade, Keiji Kiriya is just one of many raw recruits shoved into a suit of battle armor and sent out to kill. Keiji dies on the battlefield, only to find himself reborn each morning to fight and die again and again. On the 158th iteration though, he sees something different, something out of place: the female soldier known as the B*tch of War. Is the B*tch the key to Keiji's escape, or to his final death?

Sounds like pretty trippy stuff, and Pitt hasn't made a bad movie (at least that I'v bothered to see) in quite a while now, so stay tuned.

OK, on to a short clip show, starting with "60 Minutes," which I only bother to watch when I know in advance they have something I'll be interested in, and tonight that should certainly be the case. As you'll see from the clip below, tonight's show will feature "South Park" creators Trey Park and Matt Stone, giving a glimpse of how they put together (and voice just about all the characters for) what is still one of the most scathingly funny shows on TV, now rather amazingly about to enter the second half of its 15th season in early October. Enjoy this preview clip.



Next up, a slew of clips from what should be the silliest movie of this fall season, but hopefully one that will be as fun as any movie apparently based on the Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots game should be, "Real Steel." That alone should tell everyone all they need to know about this, which stars Hugh Jackman and somehow the great Anthony Mackie, too. Enjoy these clips courtesy of Collider, and keep an eye out for the movie, which will definitely dethrone "The Lion King" on Oct. 7, if nothing else has accomplished that feat in the meantime.