Friday fun: Of "Parenthood," time travel and more

After that rather sublime photo of Sir Ian McKellen from the set of "The Hobbit" just well, because, I like it, we actually start with TV and NBC today because it's that time of year, and they keep picking up shows I really like.

This one isn't all that surprising, since I think "Parenthood" did very well last season and got stronger as the year went on, but it's still good to know that one of my favorite TV dramas is getting a full third season starting next fall. The show, created by "Friday Night Lights" guru Jason Katims, is indeed soapy and sometimes awfully dopey too, but it has a great cast led by Lauren Graham (welcome back!) and Peter Krause, and it's just full of humor, humanity and heart, the perfect mix after a long day of work. And besides, I challenge anyone to point out a more entertaining hour in the past year on network TV than the "Parenthood" finale, which was just a doozy.

So, great news there, but now on to some movie tidbits. If it indeed seems like just about anything can be fodder for a movie idea these days, you're right, but before you judge this too quickly, remember: At least its not somehow "based" on a board game.

This one, in fact, springs from a classified ad in something called "Backwoods Home Magazine" (yes, really). Here's the text of it: "WANTED: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke ... You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before."

And even though the ad was unfortunately just a joke (and a pretty great one at that), that hasn't stopped Big Beach and the Duplass brothers from picking up on it, and even hiring some dudes named Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly to, respectively, direct and write this. And I'd leave it at that, except that this is also attracting a pretty first-rate cast.

The flick, to be titled "Safety Not Guaranteed," is about a trio of magazine employees who investigate the ad, and it will star Kristen Bell and Aubrey Plaza, and has somehow just added the rather sublimely funny Jeff Garlin of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," too. Stay tuned ...

In other movie news, Martin Scorsese has agreed to be really, really annoyed by Lars Von Trier for something that will definitely be bizarre, but could be a lot of fun, too. Scorsese has apparently taken up the challenge issued by Von Trier to be tortured by the latter in a remake of his own movie, "The Five Obstructions."

The original, which I haven't seen, had Von Trier challenging his mentor, filmmaker Jørgen Leth, to remake his 1967 picture “The Perfect Human,” five times, with different conditions, or ‘obstructions’ each time (and these are per The Playlist, hence the quotes) — "in Cuba, with no shot lasting more than 12 frames, in ‘the worst place in the world,’ but without showing that place, in any way he chooses (as a punishment), as a cartoon and, in something of a twist, a version already made by Von Trier himself, but with narration from Leth."

Sounds like pretty wicked fun, and though when this was first rumored with Scorsese, the thought was the movie might be "Taxi Driver," nothing has been confirmed yet. What I do know is that, before that, the next movie Scorsese will be making is "Silence," starring Daniel Day Lewis and Benicio Del Toro and set to begin filming early next year.

That is about a group of Jesuit priests who travel to Japan in the 17th century to try and spread the Gospel. Sounds like perfect Scorsese material, and keep an eye out before that for his next movie to hit theaters (unfortunately in 3D), "Hugo Cabret" (shortened from the title of a book I adore, "The Invention of Hugo Cabret"), starring Hit-Girl Chloe Moretz and Asa Butterfield and coming out Nov. 23.

OK, this has gone on longer than I intended already today, but there's one more movie in the works that caught my eye this morning. Director Jay Roach, when he's not making screwball comedies like "Meet the Parents" or that "Dinner for Schmucks" remake, also manages to make pretty good political dramas, as he did for HBO with "Recount" and is now doing for the network again with "Game Change," about the 2008 Obama-McCain race. And in another project, he's combining those two paths for something called "Rivals" that sounds like it was just tailor-made for me.

Set for release in August 2012, it's set to star Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis as two politicians jockeying for position in a small congressional district in South Carolina. I'm laughing at that already, so I'm definitely in. And with that, I'm off. Have a great weekend, and definitely go see "Bridesmaids." Peace out.

Yes, there will be a new Wes Anderson movie

After his last two flicks I wasn't completely sure I really wanted this day to come, but it seems there really will be another Wes Anderson movie, and it will indeed be opening the London Film Festival in October, and then supposedly get a very wide release in the U.S. beginning Nov. 13

And to that I can at least conditionally say bring it on, in large part to the new gallery of photos from "Fantastic Mr. Fox" that they've just put up at the movie's official site, which so far has little else on it.

The pictures, however, are well worth a visit, because they reveal an attention to detail, especially in the Fox family home, that compares favorably to - and I know I'm getting my hopes up way too high for what is an animated children's story, albeit a classic one - the Tenenbaum home in "The Royal Tenenbaums," by a nose my favorite Anderson movie.

With George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Michael Gambon, Willem Dafoe, Owen Wilson and even Jarvis Cocker providing voices, it should at least hopefully be a lot of fun.

And in other good news, I was proven even more wrong than usual when - even after the positive reviews came pouring in - I just couldn't believe that any movie directed by Ben Affleck would be fairly great. Well, anyone who's seen that flick, "Gone Baby Gone," will probably agree that it was one of the best of 2007, and now he's back with a cast that sounds really promising.

Affleck will star in and direct "The Town," based on the novel by Chuck Hogan, and he'll be joined by Jon Hamm of "Mad Men" and, in even better news in my book, Rebecca Hall of "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" (and, I like to point out, "Starter for 10," just because it's a fun little British teen romantic comedy very few people have seen.)

Affleck is playing a bank robber who becomes smitten with the teller of a bank he held up (Hall, natch), and Hamm is an FBI agent on his trail. The teller, of course, makes the robber want to go straight, but she is also the FBI's golden ticket to catching Boston's most wanted bank robber.

Sounds pretty standard to me, but with that cast, I'm in.

And fans of "How I Met Your Mother" - of which you can still count me one, even if it slipped a bit last season - might be curious to know that Ted himself, Josh Radnor, has apparently directed his first movie.

Radnor also wrote the script for "HappyThankYouMorePlease" (wow is that a bad title), which stars Malin Akerman, Kate Mara, Richard Jenkins (huzzah!) and even Buster Bluth, Tony Hale.

In what sounds a heck of a lot like "HIMYM" itself, the comedy "follows the lives and loves of six New Yorkers not quite ready to embrace adulthood. Sounds awfully meh to me, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.

And speaking of "Mad Men," I'll close with an extended Comic-Con clip from AMC's coming update of "The Prisoner," which I had thought was going to premiere directly before or after "Mad Men" finally returns Aug. 16 (the day after I get back from Mexico!)

It now seems AMC's "new" show won't appear until November, but with Sir Ian McKellen as the mysterious interrogator I'm gonna tune in for at least a few episodes, and the nine-minute-or-so clip (I did warn you) actually raises some hope that this might have been a good idea in the first place. And with that, it's off to the salt mine. Peace out.

Will the X-Men mutate into ... sassy brats?

I'm not sure this is the move that's gonna get the masses to tune in for genuine classics on Sunday nights, but adding Laura Linney (for my money the best actress working right now) is certainly a good one for PBS' Masterpiece Theatre (oops .. that's somehow "Masterpiece Classics" now, I believe.)

Linney will replace Gillian Anderson when the series returns Jan. 4. The 2009 installment, which runs through May, will include four works - "Little Dorrit," "The Old Curiousity Shop" (with Toby Jones), "Oliver Twist" (with Sophie Okonedo, huzzah!) and "David Copperfield" (with Harry Potter, Maggie Smith and Sir Ian McKellen) - as part of "The Incomplete Charles Dickens." Also coming this season will be "Tess of the D'Urbervilles (the premiere) and apparently yet another version of "Wuthering Heights."

I can't say I'll tune in for all of it, but I'm on record as saying I'll watch just about anything with Laura Linney in it, so (even though she's just the host) I'll probably have to at least check out some of the Dickens stuff.

But today's post is about something rather less haughty - Josh Schwartz's impending entry into the real of the X-Men. Sounds like a disaster in the making, I know, but bear with me.

I often fail to remember how old I'm supposed to be (don't you have to to watch TV nowadays?), but even I didn't bother to tune in for Schwartz's "The O.C." With his two current shows, however, you can count me a solid fan.

I know I have no business watching "Gossip Girl," but it remains just the most addictive brand of trash. Besides, thanks to Schwartz, the show has a surprising amount of heart, and lately it's had Wallace Shawn to boot too, so what's not to like?

His other current show, "Chuck," is one I've just recently come around to but am now hooked on enough to become a weekly viewer. It certainly does get more than a bit repetitive as seemingly every new character turns out to be an evil Fulcrum agent (Chuck's ex .. really?!?!), but it's still a very funny spy game.

But does any of this fluff qualify Mr. Schwartz to take on the "X-Men" franchise? From the outset it has to at least be said he certainly can't do any worse than Brett Rat did with the utter crapfest that was "X-3," and they're handing Schwartz a (one can only assume sassy) young wave of mutants for "X-Men: First Class."

Schwartz will pen the flick based on the comic book series (which I haven't read), and will probably step into the director's chair too, though he doesn't yet have any experience in that realm. Given his TV record, we should at least expect this to be fun - and hopefully not too stupid - as it introduces characters like Angel, Beast, Cyclops, Iceman, Jean Grey and Professor X at the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning. And "Chuck," as sublimely silly as it is, features action sequences a cut above most of what you get on TV nowadays, so I'd say there's some hope on that front too.

Whether Schwartz manages to pull this off or not, it seems we're still gonna get a big dose of "X-Men" in the near future (not all that surprising given that, as bad as it was, Ratner's flick took in a rather impressive $456 MILLION worldwide.) Next summer will see Hugh Jackman in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" (Origins? Really? Why the heck do we need that?) and probably in 2010 we'll get Sir McKellen as Magneto in another "Origins" flick.

Well, I've certainly said enough about all that, but I'll just close by saying I'm now thoroughly convinced that Baz Luhrman's epic "Australia," coming next week with Mr. Jackman and a certain Aussie you may have heard of named Nicole Kidman, will be a real winner (and at a reported cost of at least $120 million it certainly should be!)

A simply splendid glimpse of "Where the Wild Things Are"

Even though they put their stamp clearly on the pic, I just want to make clear that this was swiped directly from A.I.C.N. It was just so pretty that I couldn't resist.

In quite possibly the longest interview I've ever read, the site's Moriarty engages director Spike Jonze about all kinds of subjects, including (eventually) when - if ever - we'll get to see his take on "Where the Wild Things Are." I still have no idea if it will look anything like what Spike imagined when he first took on my favorite childhood tale by Maurice Sendak, but word from the director is it won't be until at least next October until we finally get to find out.

A true shame that, but enjoy this truly beautiful pic - which was enough to bring a broad smile to my face even at the very early hour that I rise - and have a perfectly passable Wednesday.