John Cusack as Edgar Allen Poe? Bring it

If you were to hang a day on only bit of news, as I'm doing today because I'm soon off to watch the Braves probably lose to the Marlins with my old friend D-Eye, at least it's as cool as this.

Rumors had been swirling for a long time that James McTeigue was eyeing a project called "The Raven," a tale of Poe tracking a serial killer, inspired by his own stories, during the last days of his own life.

Being obsessed as I am with all things about Charm City, that was nothing but good news, and it's just getting better as filming is set to start this fall. Since he broke the news on his twitter feed, atrocious spelling and all, I'll let John Cusack himself do the honors:

officiali- will play edgar allen poe in fall-a-film called the raven, send any poe- gold - my way as i begin this journey into the abyss

I'm going to assume the man knows how to spell official and was actually just typing too fast, but either way, this should be sensational. I almost always like Cusack, but I can't think of the last movie he was in that I even bothered to go see, much less enjoyed (a quick check at the IMDB reveals it's "High Fidelity" - almost 10 years ago! - since I somehow managed to avoid both "Hot Tub Time Machine" and "2012").

And as for McTeigue, he's made one movie I truly love with "V for Vendetta" and one I endured with "Ninja Assassin." Yes, I really did go see the latter, but it was only because one of my sicker co-workers, Sharon, really wanted to. We walked in about two minutes late and a man was already getting samurai sawed in half - one of the tamer stunts in that bloodbath. My bet, though, is that "Poe" will be a lot more like "V for Vendetta," so I can definitely say bring it on. Stay tuned ...

After that, all I have today is one clip, but if you like Bruce Springsteen (and who doesn't?), it's a great one. Courtesy of Vimeo, it's a 3-minute-or-so sneak peek of the documentary "The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town'." That title pretty much tells you exactly what you're getting here, and the movie is set to come to HBO this October (to divert for a second, I finally managed to record Spike Lee's Katrina followup, "If God is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise." Not exactly cheery weekend viewing, but I can't wait to see it, probably not in one sitting, since it's FOUR HOURS long.)

But back to the matter at hand, coming after the movie in November will be a 3 CD set (I think) titled "The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story," which will feature 21 previously unreleased Boss tracks from the "Darkness" recording sessions (plus, I'd have to assume, the original album too.) Epic goodness there. For now, enjoy the clip, and have a great rest of the weekend. Peace out.

Bruce Springsteen - "The Promise: The Making of 'Darkness on the Edge of Town'" Sneak Peek from Columbia Records on Vimeo.

Why does Oscar hate music so much?

Actually, the big news about music this morning is that HBO has hired John Sayles to write and I would assume at least partly direct "Scar," an upcoming series about the childhood of Red Hot Chili Pepper Anthony Kiedis. Even though Sayles' last foray into music, the blues-tinged "Honeydripper," was just a mangled mess, Kiedis' colorful upbringing (with a father who sold drugs on the Sunset Strip) should make for entertaining fare.

But as is often the case on a Monday morning, I really start today with a beef. Though last night's Oscars broadcast was an enjoyable enough affair with some pleasantly surprising winners (but how in the world did Mickey Rourke not win?), the treatment of the best songs was simply atrocious.

And, even though they had already snubbed two worthy contenders in Bruce Springsteen's "The Wrestler" and Clint Eastwood's "Gran Torino" by failing to even nominate them, they still had two worthy contenders from A.R. Rahman's sensational "Slumdog Millionaire" soundtrack (a big winner) and a pretty solid tune from Peter Gabriel in "Down to Earth" from "Wall-E."

So why in the world couldn't they have at least offered those three separate performances, well spaced out and bookended by the Indian pop extravaganzas? I mean, really, if you can't mount a Bollywood-style musical number or two, what good is the awards show in the first place?

Instead, though Hugh Jackman got plenty of chances to ham it up (and do one grand musical number with Beyonce Knowles, who should have been a nominee and probably a winner for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Etta James in "Cadillac Records"), the Best Original Song nominees were crammed into one melody, with fairly disastrous results.

It started off well enough, with little A.R. Rahman (and, being a man of fairly short stature, I say little with the highest respect possible) surrounded by beautiful dancers and big drums for "O Saya," which only could have been better with an appearance from M.I.A. (now that she's had the kid and all.) Fair enough.

But then, John Legend - a k a the man who murdered what's left of R&B (sorry for that, but I really hate John Legend, and that shot of him in a coffin from "Soul Men" was just one of my favorite images from all of 2008) - came out to croon "Down to Earth," perhaps because Peter Gabriel knew how his work was going to be treated and refused to show up.

This was pleasant enough, John Legend notwithstanding, but then things really fell apart. Rather than anything even approaching the grand finale of "Slumdog Millionaire" for "Jai Ho" (I mean, really, didn't they already choreograph it for you perfectly, and weren't Dev Patel and Freida Pinto - as well as all those adorable kids - in the audience and ready to dance?), they just limped back into it with none of the grand delivery it deserved. Worst of all, poor Mr. Rahman was left to fight for air time with Legend, who producers thought would be a good idea to have show up for the end of "Jai Ho" (after less than a minute of it!) to sing some of Gabriel's tune at the same time. Simply dreadful.

Oh well. At least Rahman won for both score and for "Jai Ho," though "O Saya" is the better song. And I guess that's enough of a rant about a show that, like I said at the start, had at least a couple of pleasant surprise winners.

Penelope Cruz as Best Supporting Actress might only have been a surprise to me, but it was certainly a welcome one. She was perfectly charming in her acceptance speech, and it was worthy recognition for one of the best comedic performances of the year in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" (and the first Oscar win for a Spanish actress.)

And though I thoroughly enjoyed the disturbing Katrina documentary "Trouble the Water" when I got to see it at the Rehoboth Beach Independent Film Festival, I was happy to see "Man on Wire" (another flick I saw in Rehoboth) take home the big documentary prize. If you're a fan of heist flicks, than I highly recommend this flick (which must be out on DVD by now) about what might just be the ultimate caper, Philippe Petit's walk between the Twin Towers.

It was also, of course, cathartic to see Heath Ledger's family accept his Best Supporting Actor prize for "The Dark Knight," probably the most deserved award of the entire evening, and being a big backer of "Slumdog Millionaire" I was very happy to see it take home eight awards, including Best Director for Danny Boyle and Best Picture (I suppose I could have started with that, but it is a Monday morning, after all.)

And I'll leave you with the montage clip of 2009's coming attractions from last night's show. The best things to me were the glimpses of "Public Enemies," "Julie & Julia" and Larry David in "Whatever Works," and the most groan-inducing shot would have to be the one of Robin Williams and John Travolta in "Old Dogs." I have no idea how in the world they managed to leave out Disney's "The Princess and the Frog" with Anika Noni Rose, but even with that rather glaring omission, it's still a cool little preview. Enjoy, and have a perfectly passable Monday. Peace out.

Who got the bigger Oscar shaft, The Boss, Batman or Dirty Harry?

Before I dive into anything about the Oscar nominations, the coolest thing I found this morning was actually casting news for what should be a rather wickedly good movie from Alfonso Cuaron.

The "Children of Men" director's next flick will probably be what the IMDB still calls an "Untitled Alfonso Cuaron Project," a small film about a family living in Mexico City in 1971, but I'm talking about what should come next.

"A Boy and His Shoe" is described as a road movie about young folks traveling throughout England, Scotland and France, and if you've seen "Y Tu Mama Tambien" (and if you haven't, why not?), you know the man knows a thing or two about road movies. And, even better, according to the Froggy film site Cinempire (if I have my rusty French right), he's recruited French everyman Daniel Auteil and Charlotte Gainsbourg to star in it.

Still best known so far as the daughter of iconic French crooner Serge Gainsbourg, Charlotte is turning into a fine actress herself. I've liked her ever since Claude Miller's "The Little Thief," and she and Heath Ledger together were easily the best thing about Todd Haynes' "I'm Not There," Cate Blanchett notwithstanding.

Anyways, enough about that. On to the Oscars ...

I was asked by my boss to write something handicapping the Oscars for the actual Telegraph newspaper, and I will about a week before the show or so, but for now just a few gripes, starting with the shoddy treatment of "The Dark Knight."

Now, I didn't put it in my top five for the year ("Milk," "Slumdog Millionaire," "The Wrestler," "Tell No One" and "Let the Right One In"), so I wasn't terribly surprised or upset to see it didn't get a Best Picture nomination, but I really would have liked to see a Best Director nomination for Christopher Nolan's accomplishment.

According to some fun facts compiled by Variety, this is rather amazingly only the fifth time that all five directors of the Best Picture nominees also got a Best Director nod, and I would usually say huzzah to that. It just seems to make sense.

This year, however, can you really tell me that Stephen Daldry, who has now received Best Director nominations for each of his first three films ("Billy Elliott, "The Hours" and now "The Reader"), is deserving of yet another nomination while Nolan is shut out for creating something as epically entertaining as "The Dark Knight"? Now, I haven't seen "The Reader," and I realize that makes my argument rather ludicrous, but this is my rant, so deal with it.

One of the two people who might have a bigger beef than Mr. Nolan would have to be Clint Eastwood, who I just assumed was entitled to a Best Picture nomination every time he sat in the director's chair, but this time got a big bucket of nothing for "Gran Torino."

Now, I would normally celebrate the death of this sense of entitlement, but I found "Gran Torino" to be more entertaining than any Eastwood-directed movie I've seen since "Bird." It took a while to grow on me, but for a reason that probably reflects poorly on me: I found myself laughing at the saltier of Walt Kowalski's racial slurs, and it just me extremely uncomfortable for a good portion of the flick.

That said, once I've had time to think about it, Eastwood's tale about his friendship with a Hmong family that moves in next door is a naturally entertaining tale, even if he is still a mortal enemy of subtlety (examples: Did they really have to play the military music every time he pointed a gun or, AND IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE FLICK YET, PLEASE SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH, have him lying in the shape of a cross at the end of the flick?)

Those are small quibbles about a flick that while, again shouldn't have gotten a Best Picture nomination, should have at least garnered either a Best Actor nod for him, an Adapted Screenplay nomination for Nick Schenk or, at the very least, a Best Song nomination for his graceful theme song that plays at the movie's finish.

And, to wrap this up with the biggest head-scratcher of all, how in the world did they end up only nominating three songs in the Best Original Song category, "Jai Ho" and "O Saya" from "Slumdog Millionaire" and "Down to Earth" from "Wall-E"? The double nod for A.R. Rahman's "Slumdog" work (he's also, rightfully, nominated for Best Original Score) probably means they will cancel each other out for a "Wall-E" victory (actually, the "Wall-E" nomination that just made me smile was Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter and Jim Reardon with Best Original Screenplay for a movie that mainly features robot dialogue. Priceless.)

But, getting back to the songs, did they just get tired after picking three and stop? Along with snubbing Clint Eastwood's jazzy piano tune, they also ignored Bruce Springsteen's soulful theme song for "The Wrestler," which also closes out Darren Aronofsky's movie and is one of the Boss's best songs in years.

OK, enough about that. If I had to handicap it, I'd say the Best Picture race will be a three-way heat between "Slumdog Millionaire," "Milk" and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," and I guess you could do worse than that (though I've expressed here before my distaste for "Benjamin Button.") In closing, here's a video montage from the flick set to Springsteen's tune, since, amazingly, "The Wrestler" is STILL not playing wide enough to reach into my little corner of the world this week (though we do finally get "Frost/Nixon," "Rachel Getting Married" and "Slumdog Millionaire," so I should probably just be thankful.) Enjoy the song, and have a perfectly pleasant weekend. Peace out.