The Big Picture

Here we got early copy of new Borat book. Half is titled Borat: Touristic Guidings to Minor Nation of U.S. And A., and if you flip the book around other half is titled Borat: Touristic Guidings to Glorious Nation of Kazakhastan. So that is the first joke: the book is actually two books. The second joke is the price: $24.95. We got our copy for the price of free, and we didn't even have to run faster than American soldiers with guns to keep book thanks to the man in the funny U.S. And A mail truck who said they haven't used ponies to deliver the mail for many years. We would be angry if we had had to pay full retail monies for such book from Borat.

Still, many funny parts do exist in both sides of this two for one book. Be careful. The book won't explode in your hands, but it will destroy many innocences of children in whose hands this fall. Borat warns of the major consequences of letting children and women read it. "You will recall the story of Karylgash Utmanalybev -- 'the woman who read a book.' Her female brain was not sufficient powerful for such a thing and she became crazy inside head and killed her husband with her own leg chains and choke to death while eating her own shoe. If your wife start to read she will too have crazy thoughts."

We laughed at Borat's description of American system politik: "Although there is one Supreme Leader, US and A is split into fifty separate Sates (the smallest is Alabama, the biggest is Waterworld) and each one is ruled by its own Warlord. Most powerful is leader of Californias, Arnold the Barbarian." He identifies Barbara Bush as a former premier and IDs Courtney Love as Dolly Partons. We thought funny that among the significant dates in Kazakh history was 2002 A.D. "construction of Tinshein swimming pool is complete 2 years ahead of schedule." Five years later, the pool's "filtration system explode killing 3000 people." As we laugh, we asked why is this so funny?

If you laugh too, then 2 is your lucky number and you will like these 2 books that are in one by Borat.

Meryl Streep has played every possible role under the sun. Now it may be time for her to make the rounds in celebrity biopics.

She's going to be playing Julia Child in Nora Ephron's Julie and Julia, although it seems to focus more on an up and coming young chef on a personal quest to complete every recipe in Child's book, according to the Variety article. So it's possible Streep will be pulling a Val Kilmer in True Romance, just showing up as a ghostly spectre driving Amy Adams' character into action. That sounds like the kind of gimmick Ephron would use.

Their last effort together, The Brothers Grimm, was a lot of potential that didn't particularly come together well, but Terry Gilliam has managed to get Heath Ledger to re-team with him on a new project called The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, which sounds so much like The Adventures of Baron Munchausen that it brings about hope that Gilliam can run with this to come out of his minor slump and return to form.

The story, according to Variety:

A modern-day fantasy adventure that centers on Dr. Parnassus (Plummer), who has the gift of guiding the imaginations of others. With his traveling theater troupe, Parnassus offers audience members the chance to transcend reality by passing through a magical mirror.

The fact that the rest of the cast includes Christopher Plummer, Tom Waits and Verne Troyer can only be a great sign of things to come.

C'mon, Gilliam. Be awesome again.

Apparently there wasn't enough acrimony and betrayal between them in Closer, so Julia Roberts and Clive Owen are teaming up again to revel in some Duplicity.

According to Variety, It's got a sort of Mr. and Mrs. Smith vibe, as they play a married couple on opposite sides of a big business spy game who team up to pull off a caper, although with Michael Clayton's Tony Gilroy at the helm, who also wrote the Bourne movies, it might be a bit headier. But there probably won't be Vince Vaughn telling anyone he likes where their head's at, so it's a trade off.

Jim Jarmusch is set to make The Limits of Control with Focus Features, which is great news, because any time he puts something together means we've got one more thing worth watching.

The most amusing part of the Hollywood Reporter article announcing this:

As with Jarmusch's Broken Flowers, the production is set to sign an international collection of bankable stars to add commercial value to Jarmusch's characteristically offbeat work.

The fact that they can just assume they'll sign a bunch of bankable stars to an ensemble cast speaks to just how great and well-regarded Jarmusch's work is. Great people like to work with him. He's certainly offbeat, but he's just that cool. He's just that interesting.

If you don't believe me, check out Dead Man.

There's a new teaser poster out now for Conan, a relaunch of the fantasy conqueror franchise that Arnold Schwarzenegger rode to fame. Comingsoon.net has the poster, as well as the statement from Millennium Films that the new movie will be closer to Robert E. Howard's actual stories than Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer ever were.

Still, it's hard to imagine a new Conan movie topping this:

"Conan, what is best in life?"
"To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of the women."

With any luck, this also means we'll eventually get a new Red Sonja. What woman in Hollywood today is as imposingly badass as Brigitte Nielsen used to be? It's hard to say. Perhaps that's why they have such a hard time casting a Wonder Woman movie, too.

Any suggestions?

It's rare that a movie is clouded in as much secrecy as J.J. Abrams' big monster movie, but that may just be a big smokescreen. CHUD is reporting an early leak of the first trailer, set to debut with Beowulf on November 16, and the secret codename the project was given is apparently the actual name of the film: Cloverfield.

All we know is that monsters attack New York, and that apparently Abrams was inspired after taking his son to a store in Japan and seeing a bunch of Godzilla toys. He apparently thought America needed its own giant death monster, which is an argument that holds water, because of how godawful the attempt to import Godzilla was, although I personally still hold Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin responsible for that particular travesty, and I continue to be incensed that either of those two ever get jobs in movies. It could have worked, blast it!

Anyway, the trailer seems to be a bit worrisome, because it follows the same mold of having a giant monster and a bunch of little monsters, but we're also led to believe that it's a completely original creature, so no one in the crowd will be yelling "Godzilla doesn't lay eggs, you jerks!" That said, it also needs to watch out for falling into the other trap Emmerich did - ripping off The Lost World. Honestly, it was as if they just shoved in a few reels of Spielberg's Jurassic Park sequel right in the middle and CG'd Matthew "I Left My Talent In My Other Pants" Broderick over Jeff Goldblum.

Still, it's been a while since there's been a great giant monster movie that wasn't a remake of a classic, like King Kong. Abrams seems savvy enough so far to know how to pull this off correctly. Don't prove me wrong, Double J.

We're wading right into award season, so everyone's making their lists and checking them twice. The Envelope put out a list of Best Supporting Actress hopefuls, and it's an interesting compilation.

Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There - She's playing Bob Dylan. That's either going to be too weird or just weird enough.

Ruby Dee, American Gangster - Playing the mother of crimelord Frank Lucas, she's nearly 70-year thespian veteran who's overdue for high profile recognition, and the Academy loves that kind of scenario.

Romola Garai and Saoirse Ronan, Atonement - playing the same pivotal role at differing ages, Ronan the impertinent liar and Garai the repentant angster, either one of them could eke out a nomination, but not both.

Julia Roberts, Charlie Wilson's War - The sheer inertia of the We All Love Julia Roberts mantra might carry her into contention again, and this might be the most palatable of the recent wave of war-related movies, with its genial stars.

Jennifer Garner, Juno - A mother desperate to adopt a child in a teen-pregnancy dramedy with a hell of a cast. Somebody from this movie will get nominated for something. Everybody in it is great, and it looks like this year's Little Miss Sunshine.

Catherine Keener, Into the Wild - The troubled elder hippie that shows kindness to Alexander Supertramp in exchange for soothing her parental ache isn't a huge part, but Keener was perfect in it, and they've given awards to small roles before.

Queen Latifah, Hairspray - As great as she is, I'm doubtful on this one. I just can't see anyone nominating a movie starring John Travolta in a fat suit for an Oscar.

Jennifer Jason Leigh, Margot at the Wedding - The story of woman in the center of a tug-of-war between her sister and her fiance, from a director who specializes in dark, realistic family drama. Much like The Squid and the Whale, likely to be nominated but not likely to win.

Fernanda Montenegro, Love in the Time of Cholera - The surprise Central Station nominee is a surprise no longer, although it seems likely the result will remain the same and all the talking heads will say "for her, the nomination is the award," as condescending as it is.

Emily Mortimer, Lars and the Real Girl - The role of the confused but loving sister trying to rescue her shy and strange brother from his delusion that his Real Doll is a real live woman is the emotional core of the film, and it could satisfy the 'quirky' quotient, since a lot of the more offbeat choices are generally recognized in the Supporting and/or Screenplay categories.

Olympia Dukakis, Away From Her - Released back in May, this Alzheimer's aftermath drama could easily slip the voters' minds, but one can never count her out.

Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone - The horrible mother that Affleck Beta fights for regardless of the consequences, Adams owned the role and brought an incredibly realistic feel to the burn-out character. She should certainly get recognized for it.

Meryl Streep, Lions for Lambs - She's bandied about every year, but the movie, on the surface, looks to be a Redford polemic with too much of a "message." Then again, Crash shows that the Academy doesn't always shy away from the heavy-handed.

Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton - As soon as I walked out of this movie, I called her nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Her role as a desperate business leader nervously trying to play hardball in realms she can't handle is stark and completely real, far beyond the one-note suits that tend to represent evil corporations in movies.

American Gangster - It's getting a crazy amount of press, but you pit Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe against each other when it's not in Virtuosity, you'll have that. Denzel just never fails to deliver a magnetic performance, especially as a charismatic bad guy like Frank Lucas, heroin smuggling crime lord. It'll also be a treat to see Crowe back in the shoes of a dogged detective, as his great turn in L.A. Confidential is what put him on the map in the first place.

Bee Movie - Jerry Seinfeld's new direction after four years of work is this animated story about a bee who wants life outside the destiny of a drone. Check out my interview with co-writer Barry Marder for more on this family fare that's sure to open huge. If Barnyard can be a hit while featurin inexplicably male cows, this should cruise to success.

Martian Child - John Cusack as a distraught sci-fi author who responds to the death of his fiancee by adopting a child who insists he's an alien. Anytime both John and Joan Cusack get together on screen, it's a special occasion, and Cusack is not really known for picking bad projects, Serendipity excluded. Chances are, though, that this low-key drama is going to get swallowed up by the other two big fish in this week's pond.

Oscar buzz is already deafening for Johnny Depp in director Tim Burton's adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Broadway musical Sweeney Todd, and Entertainment Weekly checks in with the first of many Depp interviews that will start appearing as the movie's December 21 release date nears. Depp's characterization of the blood-thirtsty London barber explains his interest in the sure-to-be classic role: ''He makes Sid Vicious look like the innocent paper boy,'' Depp says. ''He's beyond dark. He's already dead. He's been dead for years.''

Singers say Sondheim's melodies can be incredibly tough. Why? It's real obtuse stuff. When you start to take those pieces apart, melody line by melody line, it's a lot of half-steps, which is not real easy to do. Kind of go G to A-flat to A to B-flat. It's super, ultra complicated, these notes that shouldn't work together at times. But he made them so.

Did Sondheim have any good advice for you? He said to me early on, it was much more about the acting work than the singing. He felt the singing was secondary to hitting the notes emotionally. I didn't believe him. [Laughs] I think he was probably saying that to make me feel better about what I was about to attempt.

Fancast lets you watch Depp videos by clicking here.

They were going to make a movie about Halo, the hugely popular X-Box game, but when the money fell through for some reason (seriously, they'll make D.O.A. Dead or Alive but not Halo?), Peter Jackson and Neill Blomkamp came up with District 9, and they're going to put that together instead, according to Variety.

The project grew out of a kinship that developed between Jackson and Blomkamp in New Zealand as they prepped a movie adaptation of the Microsoft game "Halo." Even though that process halted when co-financiers Universal and Fox balked at going forward, Blomkamp never left. Rather, he and Jackson continued to bat around ideas until they agreed on "District 9."

"For the last year, my team and I have had the pleasure of working very closely with Neill," Jackson said. "He has a passion and a command of the language of cinema that will result in 'District 9' fascinating people all over the world."

Blomkamp is best known for directing commercials and short films, and Microsoft recently engaged him to shoot three commercials for the product launch of "Halo 3." Though he grew up in Vancouver, Blomkamp was born in South Africa and will be returning to his homeland to shoot "District 9."

And they're off.

The movie world is set for now, but the television world is about to get a hell of a lot more reality schlock, because the Writer's Guild of America has voted to on strike, starting on Monday morning. There's a write-up at Hollywood Wiretap that delves into the details.

The committee vote was unanimous, and the most immediate hit will be felt in late-night television, where guys like David Letterman have said "Won't it be interesting to see what happens when I have to come up with everything myself?"

An angle not often seen, however, is the local fiscal impact.

The entertainment industry contributes an estimated $30 billion annually, or about 7 percent, to the economy of Los Angeles County, according to Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.

Kyser warned, “If tourists see that the entertainment industry is shut down, we worry they will think the entire city is shut down.” He also noted that restaurant business in the southeast San Fernando Valley - home to Universal Studios and the largest concentration of production - has already dropped 30 percent as anticipation of the strike grew in recent weeks.

Natalie Portman has signed a production deal with Participant Productions with her own company, Handsomecharlie Films, and the first project is one she's going to direct, a movie entitled A Tale of Love and Darkness, based on the memoirs of Israeli writer Amos Oz. She wants to make socially relevant movies, as Participant did with Syriana, Good Night and Good Luck and An Inconvenient Truth.

"We all have the same desire to make meaningful and artistically fulfilling films and are committed to the idea of stories leading to greater empathy and action for world issues," Portman said.

Participant prexy Ricky Strauss lauded Portman for her interest "in projects that entertain and empower." He added: "She has the heart of an artist and an activist. It just seems like a natural relationship, and we couldn't be more pleased."

Or so Reese Witherspoon said at the BAFTA/LA Cunard Britannia Awards last night, when presenting the British Artist of the Year award to Kate Winslet.

As you can see, she's very happy to tell us this, as reported in The Dish Rag.

"I always wanted to be a European movie star, wear giant sunglasses, elaborate neck scarves, smoke hand-rolled cigarettes, and have savoir faire and gravitas," Reese admitted onstage... "Imagine my good fortune when Kate Winslet moved into my neighborhood, rang my door bell and said, (insert British accent here) 'Dahling, Sam is off shooting, and I believe our children are the same age. Could they possibly have a play date and oh, by the way, it's almost 9 o'clock and I've had nothing to do drink, do you have any wine?'"

In her introduction of the evening's artist of the year winner, Reese couldn't tell any funny personal stories because "they're all too bawdy or tawdry or drunken to tell."

Who says crime doesn't pay? Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe topped the weekend's box office in their new movie American Gangster, a taut, violent depiction of Harlem drug lord Frank Lucas. But the real stories of the characters portrayed in the movie are even more interesting than the onscreen version and well worth the time spent reading a couple of stories. Former law enforcement agent Richie Roberts, played by Crowe, speaks to the New York Post in a revealing story that has him saying "The parts in the movie that depict Frank as a family man are ludicrous. They did it for dramatic purposes, you know, to make him look good and me look bad." For a bead on Lucas,, check out Marc Jacobson absolutely riveting 2000 New York magazine interview with the former drug kingpin that apparently inspired the film and his more recent followup interview with Lucas and his fellow drug peddler Nicky Barnes, a piece titled The Lords of Dopetown from which the following excerpt is taken:

MJ: Suppose each one of you got a pound. Frank Lucas’s business model against Nicky Barnes’s business model—head-to-head, who’s going to make the most money?

FL: That’s easy. The one who got the best dope, that’s who.

NB: Frank’s right. It is always about the product. Once I had a fight with a guy named Steve Austin. I had better dope. Steve knew it. He came up and knocked on the window of my car. “Yo, dude,” he said, “we don’t want you over here.” I said, “I’m gonna put my foot in your motherfuckin’ ass.” In those days, you didn’t shoot nobody because he was on your turf, you know. You had to have hand-to-hand combat. But the buyers didn’t care, because they followed the powder, not the guys who controlled the neighborhood.

MJ: When the movies come out, there’ll be a lot of controversy about whether you guys are being glorified. What about that?

FL: Nick is a good dude who should be glorified, not me.

MJ: Why do you say that?

FL: Because he’s a hell of a good guy.

MJ: But you were both in the same business.

FL: You in the same business as other writers. You don’t go to slit their throat. Do you?

MJ: Frank. I mean, c’mon.

NB: No one should be elevated because of what they did in the drug business. The way we operated—there was a lot of violence, like, ten to twelve homicides, to keep the whole operation running. You can’t glorify that. It’s not something Frank or I would tell any of our children to get into.

FL: Absolutely right, Nick.

NB: Heroin wreaked a lot of havoc and a lot of pain in the black community. I shouldn’t have done it. Maybe I was aware, but I just didn’t give a fuck. I wanted to make money, and that’s what I did. Looking back, I wouldn’t have made those decisions, but it’s a hell of a lot different and much easier to sanitize yourself after the fact.

FL: In our business, you get paid by fear. When the fear factor comes in, that’s when you start to make money. Violence is part of it. You ain’t gonna sweet-talk no motherfucker.

American Gangster, the much-touted and slightly underwhelming Denzel Washington/Russell Crowe crime drama, ended a box office slump and won the weekend, with $46.3 million, setting a record for the best opening for an R-rated crime drama in history, blowing away Sin City's old record of $29.1 million, Variety notes. Jerry Seinfeld's Bee Movie came in a respectable second with $39.1 million, beating expectations. The other wide-opener, John Cusack's Martian Child, came in seventh.

1. American Gangster - $46.3 million
2. Bee Movie - $39.1 million
3. Saw IV - $11 million
4. Dan in Real Life - $8.1 million
5. 30 Days of Night - $4 million
6. The Game Plan - $3.8 million
7. Martian Child - $3.6 million
8. Michael Clayton $2.9 million
9. Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married? - $2.7 million
10. Gone Baby Gone - $2.4 million

Sylvester Stallone has decided to completely forgo anything original for the rest of his career, it would seem, as now he's gearing up to remake the Charles Bronson classic franchise Death Wish. Variety says the screenwriters are going to be the same guys who wrote Terminator 3, the entirely forgettable entry into that series. MGM is very much in the recycling business these days. It's bread and butter is the never-ending James Bond franchise, but it's hoping to mine other ideas.

"Death Wish" fits squarely into MGM's long-term strategy of assembling tentpoles based on a 4,100-title library that encompasses post-1985 MGM fare plus UA, Orion, Polygram, Samuel Goldwyn and Cannon titles.

"We are looking at our library to determine which potential franchise properties make the most sense for us to produce, and 'Death Wish' was clearly one of that jumped out," said MGM chief operating officer Rick Sands. "We hope to get a deal done with Sylvester Stallone to direct and star, and like the 'Rocky' and 'Rambo' films, we see this as another potential franchise for him."

Jake Gyllenhaal and Jessica Biel are getting set to star in David O. Russell's political satire Nailed, about crazy special interest groups and the politicians who exploit them. Russell is co-writing the screenplay with Kristin Gore, daughter of former vice president Al Gore, Hollywood Reporter tells us.

Biel would play Sammy Joyce, a socially awkward small-town receptionist who has a nail accidentally shot into her head by a clumsy workman, eliciting wild sexual urges.

The uninsured Joyce goes on a crusade to Washington to fight for the rights of the bizarrely injured. She meets an immoral congressman (Gyllenhaal) who takes advantage of her sex drive and capitalizes on her crusade as Joyce heads into her own career in politics.

The picketing has started, and TV shows are going dark.

Last-ditch negotiations Sunday night failed, even as the WGA removed their DVD plan from the table, mirroring a move the studios made weeks earlier. The WGA says the studios didn't budge on any of their other demands, while the studios claim they did, and now people are gathered with signs outside of 30 Rockefeller Plaza and Viacom headquarters, among other locales. Hollywood Wiretap says it's not likely the strike will be over quickly, considering how far apart they are on terms. It's also created a lot of awkward situations.

One scribe told Variety that he was incensed after getting a WGA memo informing him that he would be required to picket the studio he works most closely with. The scribe said he's perturbed at the WGA for putting him in the position of being seen holding a picket sign in the sight of execs who have paid him big money to write projects.

"This is a potential relationship killer, and it's wrong of the guild to force me to picket the people who've done so much for my career," the writer said.

The picketing instructions also told WGA members to not talk to the press and to not bring hors d'oeuvres. "This is not a posh strike," one captain said in the message to members.

Further, the strike poses a dilemma for writers who are also producers or creators of their shows.

"I have to figure out how to strike and picket myself," said Spike Feresten, a former writer/producer "Seinfeld" who now has his own weekly talk show on Fox. "How do you egg yourself? How does that work?"

Hayden Christensen, the much-maligned man who helped perform the dark miracle of making Darth Vader uncool, is taking on the role of a lawyer charged with defending the infamous General Masaharu Homma, the man implicated in the Bataan Death March, in Beast of Bataan. Hollywood Reporter also tells us that Willem Dafoe and William Hurt may join the film as well.

Based on Lawrence Taylor's tome "A Trial of Generals," the