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.

Harry Potter and the turning point in the fight against unnecessary 3D?

Actually, the photo above, of course, has nothing at all to do with the main topic at hand, but it's so epicly good that I really couldn't think of anywhere else to start today.

In case you can't tell, it's the great Michelle Williams (easily one of my favorite young actresses) as Marilyn Monroe, and the resemblance is strong enough that it almost borders on creepy. It's from a film, shooting now, titled "My Week With Marilyn" and directed by Simon Curtis. Using the diaries of Colin Clark, an assistant on the set of the 1956 film "The Prince and the Showgirl," it tells the story of the production, which teamed Monroe with Laurence Olivier. Definitely something to keep an eye out for.

But the main event here today is what I sincerely hope will indeed be a turning point in the battle against 3D, or at least against the kind of crappy 3D conversion that's simply tacked onto too many movies after they've already been shot.

The news: The first half of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," set to come out Nov. 19, will only be released in traditional 2D and IMAX, rather than being converted into craptastic 3D.

A victory against one of the most ridiculous film gimmicks of all time? Not quite. Warner Bros. is hardly making some kind of artistic stand here - according to the studio's news release on this, they simply ran out of time.

And, making this news even more of a mixed bag, the studio still plans to convert the second chapter, set for release July 15, 2011, into 3D, which just makes the whole situation very strange.

Still and all, any time a major release (and does it get much more major than Harry Potter?) backs away from the 3D madness, I have to smile at least a little bit, no matter what the reason.

The only case of I know of in which a big-time director has so far just said no to 3D for reasons beyond simple timing is Zack Snyder's upcoming "Sucker Punch," set for release in March 2011. Last I had heard, at least, he was resisting all entreaties to mess with the mostly or perhaps now completely finished film, so here's hoping he and wife/producer Deborah keep up the good fight.

OK, enough of that. Just one more bit of good news today and then an epicly awesome trailer, because I have a full day of errands ahead of me. My wallet clearly tells me I should drop HBO, but every time I'm about to, they come up with something strong enough to keep me hooked.

Currently, "Boardwalk Empire" is even better than all the critical hype built it up to be, and though they're clearly acquired tastes, I really dig the comedies "Bored to Death" and "Eastbound and Down" too.

And now comes word of an HBO movie pairing that sounds just about perfect. I normally can only take Al Pacino in small doses, because his usual habit of simply yelling all his lines just gives me a throbbing headache, but if you re-pair him with David Mamet to tell the crazy story Phil Spector? That should indeed be a wall of awesome once it all comes together.

Finally today is the first trailer I know of for Peter Weir's "The Way Back," and you can tell already from this short footage that the movie starring Colin Farrell, Saoirse Ronan (hah, I spelled that right without cheating) and Mark Strong will be on the scale we should expect from the director of "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" (and oddly enough, nothing else between that 2003 film and now.) As you'll see from the clip below, the movie, set to come out soon hopefully everywhere, tells the story of a band of prisoners who escape from the Russian Gulag and then go on an epic journey back to the rest of the world. Enjoy the trailer and have a great weekend. Peace out.