A short Thursday report long on fun news

If you skipped Derek Cianfrance's "Blue Valentine" last year, either because of its mind-boggling NC-17 rating or simply because the subject matter sounded so depressing, fix that right away with a rental, because in many ways the movie is a real joy to watch.

It is indeed about a marriage that's imploding in front of our eyes, but the acting from Michelle Williams (rightly nominated for an Oscar) and Ryan Gosling is nothing short of amazing to behold, and the story goes on a journey well worth exploring that will make you smile and laugh more than it will make you blue. The "future room" alone makes this movie well worth renting (it's out on DVD now, so check it out).

And even better comes big casting news about Cianfrance's next movie, the crime drama "The Place Beyond the Pines," which reunites him with Gosling. He will play a biker who, after having a child, begins robbing banks to support the baby. And now comes word that Bradley Cooper will play a rookie cop who's on his trail.

Filming will start in July, and Cianfrance is a real talent to keep an eye on, so stay tuned for more on this whenever I find it.

In other news about a director I can't get enough of, it's now guaranteed that even people in my little corner of the world will get to see Tomas Alfredson's follow-up to the simply sublime "Let the Right One In" (still streaming on Netflix), a remake of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy."

The news is that Focus Features has taken over distribution from Universal and has set an awards season U.S. release date of Nov. 18, and best of all, will apparently do so in glorious "wide release."

Bully to that, because Alfredson has compiled a stellar cast for the Cold War spy saga based on the John Le Carre novel, starting with Gary Oldman as George Smiley, the British spy charged with uncovering a Russian mole in his ranks, and also featuring Colin Firth, Ciaran Hinds, Tom Hardy and Mark Strong.

Bring it on already, even for people like me, who live in tiny burgs!

And finally (and inevitably) today, Paramount is finalizing an option deal to develop a movie based on "Furious Love," an account of the public love affair of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, and is ready to hand it off to one Martin Scorsese to direct.

Scorsese is currently wrapping up "Hugo Cabret" starring Chloe Moretz and Asa Butterfield (based on one of my favorite novels, "The Invention of Hugo Cabret," so bully to that) for a Nov. 23 release, and after that he has a number of potential projects on his plate. Included among those are "Silence," a tale of two Jesuit priests (potentially Daniel Day Lewis and Benicio Del Toro, imagine that) in 17th century Japan, the hitman drama "The Irishman" and a Frank Sinatra biopic.

Though any of those would be a natural fit, I'd imagine he would gladly put them all on hold to jump on this, given his interest in Hollywood history and how simply juicy the story is. Burton and Taylor were both married when they met on the set of "Cleopatra" in 1960, and began a public romance that inflamed the paparazzi. They eventually married in 1964, divorced in 1974, remarried in 1975 and separated for good in 1976.

And with that, I'm off to the job that still pays my bills, so have a perfectly pleasant Thursday. Peace out.

A Friday full of fun stuff - and at least one serious thing

This post does indeed include the final movie shot by photo journalist Tim Hetherington, but it's a Friday morning, so let's start out with some potentially very fun TV news before we get into anything like that.

So far, this "news" only comes from the New York Post's page 6, but here's hoping it's true, because it could be rather great.

Aaron Sorkin is at work on a pilot for HBO titled "More as the Story Develops," which would star Jeff Daniels as the host of a cable news show. If it's anywhere near as good as what Sorkin did for cable sports news with "Sports Night," still his best work, I'm definitely in. And according to the Post at least, he's just about perfectly cast the executive producer role played by Felicity Huffman on that show, this time with Marisa Tomei.

One other thing that is definitely about to happen, though I'm not entirely sure I want to see it again after all this time, is the return of Patsy and Edina to the BBC. Yes, Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley are apparently in the final stages of a deal to make three new episodes of "Absolutely Fabulous."

Like I said, I'm more than a little skeptical that they can still bring the funny, but if Dawn French is back as Saunders' co-writer/conspirator, I'm in for at least three episodes to find out.

OK, now for something serious, but I promise I'll move on quickly after that. As most everyone knows by now, Tim Hetherington, a photo journalist who went on to co-direct the Afghanistan war documentary "Restrepo" with Sebastian Junger, was killed recently while covering the current conflict in Libya.

An incredibly sad thing that, and as my friend and Telegraph photographer Grant Blankenship pointed out, just as we honor the brave men and women who fight to protect this great country, we should likewise honor those brave enough to report on it. 'Nuff said.

And with that, here is "Diary," a short film that is the last one Hetherington made before he died. It's well worth 20 minutes or so of your Friday morning, and here's how Hetherington himself describes it:

'Diary' is a highly personal and experimental film that expresses the subjective experience of my work, and was made as an attempt to locate myself after ten years of reporting. It's a kaleidoscope of images that link our western reality to the seemingly distant worlds we see in the media.

Enjoy, and then stick around for two videos that I promise are more appropriate for a Friday morning.

Diary (2010) from Tim Hetherington on Vimeo.

This next clip, while not as funny as I might have hoped, does come with some news to introduce it.

Ruben Fleischer, director of the simply fantastic "Zombieland," has now wrapped "30 Minutes Or Less" and moved on to prepping his next flick, "The Gangster Squad," and he's about to get a great cast for it.

The flick, based on a series of L.A. Times articles, tells the true story of a secret police task force that went after Meyer Harris "Mickey" Cohen, a high-profile gangster who was a member of the "Jewish Mafia" in the 1940s. And, according to Variety, Sean Penn is in talks to take the lead in this, with Ryan Gosling and Josh Brolin expected to quickly follow suit if he does.

And in the meantime, here's the first red band trailer for Fleischer's next movie, "30 Minutes or Less," set to come out Aug. 12. As you'll see from the trailer, it stars Jesse Eisenberg, veryfunnyman Aziz Ansari and Danny McBride in a story about two guys (Eisenberg and Ansari) who are forced to rob a bank. Like I said, I'm hoping the movie itself will be a damn sight funnier than this trailer which, being of the red band variety, make sure you watch with headphones if you're at work. Enjoy, and then stick around for the trailer for what could be a real charmer/sleeper this summer.

More 30 Minutes or Less Videos

OK, finally today comes the second trailer I've seen for the British flick "Submarine," which looks like it was made just for me. It looks like your typical coming-of-age movie, but from what I'm seen so far I'm still betting on very funny and very charming, much like the criminally overlooked "Rocket Science" from a few years ago (rent that already!). It also doesn't look like the kind of movie that has any prayer of playing in my little corner of the world when it comes stateside on June 3, but now that it somehow sports the words "Ben Stiller presents," who knows. Enjoy, and have a great weekend. Peace out.

The best movie you'll probably hear nothing about from the Oscar nominations.

If I'm reading things right, you won't be hearing the two words "Blue Valentine" very often - if at all - when the Oscar nominations are announced Tuesday morning.

Which will be a real shame, because Derek Cianfrance's movie is the first "romance in reverse" that actually hooked me right from the start.

Until now, these types of movies have ranged from good-but-far-too-cute ("500 Days of Summer") to so bad I'd claw my eyes out to make it stop ("The Break-Up"). The difference with Cianfrance's movie is that you never doubt, even at its darkest moments, that these were two people who were once completely, even desperately in love ... or so we think at the start.

And it certainly doesn't hurt when the couple at the story's core is played by Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling, who throw themselves so thoroughly into the story that it has an intimacy - and though the word is used far to often, it's right here, "raw" feeling - that we often feel like we're watching something we shouldn't be, home movies or certainly private moments that never feel like they've been staged. It's a genuine accomplishment, and though it can make for some uncomfortable viewing at several points, Cianfrance and his actors earn every high, low and in between they deliver.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. As the movie opens, we see the couple's daughter, Frankie, searching for her dog, who has gotten out of its pen. Interestingly, if you've seen Kelly Reichardt's "Wendy and Lucy," you know that that movie also starred Williams as a woman who loses her dog, just about her only prized possession left in the world. Here, however, the dog is just a stepping-off point to show us how each character reacts to it.

Gosling's Dean, who we quickly learn is in many ways just a big kid himself, gets Frankie to eat her oatmeal by eating it "like a leopard," which means bite by bite off of the kitchen table. Williams' Cindy, meanwhile, tries to hold things together, getting ready for her job as a nurse and to get Frankie off to school. It's one of the many great scenes in "Blue Valentine" that sets up a dynamic that Cianfrance plays with for the rest of the movie, using tricks of time to bring us in and out of the relationship to see how they've reached this point in the space of five years or so (I can never really tell how old kids are, so that's a guess on my part.)

Other movies have certainly tried this gambit before. If you live in Macon, the film guild is showing Claire Denis' "White Material" on Feb. 13. That movie does so expertly as it tells the tale of a white family in Africa trying desperately to hold on to the coffee plantation they call home. And "500 Days of Summer" did so too, but Cianfrance doesn't rely on the cutesy day markers that set up each scene in that flick, instead dropping us in and out of scenes we never really feel completely comfortable watching, and often only in snippets, leaving the end of each to be revealed as the movie unfolds.

I don't think I'm spoiling anything by saying we come into this as Dean and Cindy's marriage is imploding faster than at least one of them (Dean) knows it. To try and escape from the reality of their dog escaping - and everything else that is clearly wrong just below the surface - they ship Frankie off to her grandfather's (the great John Doman, Lt. Rawls from "The Wire") house and, at Dean's insistence, go off to spend the night in the "Future Room" at a sleazy motel. And even if you think you can picture that, you can't until you see it - a space-themed room complete with a revolving bed, which for the two doomed lovers indeed becomes a world apart, a hotel room at the end of their world.

Cianfrance plays up that for all the humor he can and finds plenty of other moments of levity to make this almost as sweet as it just as often is better, but its in the little slights between Cindy and Dean that you subtly find out how they've come to where they are now. Watch out, in particular, for what happens when Cindy runs into an old flame at the liquor store on the way to the "Future". It seems like a harmless enough encounter, and you don't find out until later just why Dean reacts to the news as he does. Cianfrance reveals this piece by piece, and believe me, it's a mystery that pays off big as the story develops.

I've gone on long enough about this for sure, but there are two other scenes worth mentioning, among many that just get seared on the brain. During their courtship, which earns every moment of cute that comes before the cold, Williams' Cindy tells perhaps the most inappropriate joke you'll ever hear in a movie, but its in the reaction to it, by both her and Dean, that you learn just why they at first, at least, belonged together.

And there's a true moment of grace (which you don't find in movies nearly often enough nowadays) just before they first meet, as Dean is moving an old man's belongings to a nursing home. It's just one more piece in the "Blue Valentine" puzzle that draws us deeper into the story, and makes it worth following all the way to the end we know is coming.

There's a lot more I could say about this - such as this is one of the only movies to truly show what happens when a guy refuses to grow up - but the bottom line is this: Derek Cianfrance's "Blue Valentine" is about as raw as a romance can get on the big screen, and one that burns with as much passion as any I can remember before flaming out, so if you can find it playing near you, definitely go see it while you still can.