Vanity Fair has a W preview, complete with cabinet photo. I can't wait to see this thing, which will come in right under the wire--it's supposed to open October 17. Whoa.

[Posted by Jeff Sneider]

Moviehole reports that Anna Faris will not be playing Linda Lovelace in an upcoming biopic of the "Deep Throat" star, much to the displeasure of horny fanboys everywhere. On the bright side, Megan Fox has a movie called "Whore" coming out. Sounds like a, um, great career move.

In Contention's Kris Tapley takes a look at the Top 10 Performances You're Underestimating For Oscar and while I certainly haven't seen "Revolutionary Road" yet, I can't argue with his #1 pick Michael Shannon, who was so good last year in "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" that I'd let him call me Chico anytime.

Lots going on at AICN this week. Moriarty takes a look at Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman's script for "Kick-Ass," adapted from Mark Millar's popular comic. And speaking of beloved comic properties, Moriarty thinks the Coen Brothers should direct the next Superman movie. Elsewhere, Massawyrm calls "Let the Right One In" the single best vampire film since "Near Dark," while Mr. Beaks interviews "Fright Night" director Tom Holland, who briefly discusses a possible remake of "The Abominable Dr. Phibes," which, quite frankly, would be the coolest idea in the history of cool ideas. If only Vincent Price were around to pass the torch...

According to Dread Central, Brett Ratner may direct "Conan" for Nu Image. I'm actually a Ratner fan, but it's the property that doesn't excite me. Unless they cast Mickey Rourke. Then I'd definitely be interested.

In other news I don't care about, Alicia Keys and Jack White's theme for "Quantum of Solace" is online. Why do people get so worked up over this stuff? I'm waiting to hear it for the first time during the actual movie... which looks pretty amazing.

And finally, ESPN's Sam Alipour reports that LeBron James' Spring Hill Productions has teamed with Mayhem Films' Gordon Gray and Mark Ciardi ("The Rookie," "Miracle," "Invincible") and scribe Robert Eisele ("The Great Debaters") to bring the story of 59-year-old Sul Ross State football player Mike Flynt to the bigscreen. Apparently, Tommy Lee Jones and Bruce Willis are circling the $30 million drama. FYI, Alipour's Media Blitz column is a must-read on ESPN's Page 2.

Am I the only one surprised by how well Burn After Reading is doing at the boxoffice? Remember, before No Country for Old Men, the Coens were hit or miss at the boxoffice, mostly miss. They were lucky if their pics got to $25 million! So why is this nihilistic nasty little movie doing so well? Even those who figured the CIA comedy would open on star power and marketing prowess didn't think it would actually play with audiences. But clearly, it is--prognosticators expect the movie to score this weekend, again!

Several theories explain this unexpected b.o. phenomenon:

1. It's the stars, stupid.
Brad Pitt, Brad Pitt, Brad Pitt. He's hilarious in the trailers and TV spots. And he and George Clooney--as a womanizer, just the way women want him--are playing bumbling fools, just like the rest of us. The range of hideous hairdos may have been another factor. Tilda Swinton joked at the Burn After Reading press conference in Toronto that she was chasing the Javier Bardem bad haircut prize--but that Pitt had won it. Face it, the Coens grabbed a money cast.

2. If you make them laugh, they will come.
Again, the movie is funny, which was clear in all the marketing materials. And as Colin Firth confessed to Peter Bart re: Mamma Mia, all the stars in this movie seem to be having a grand old time. No one has had more fun spewing f-words than John Malkovich.

3. The Fran McDormand factor.
Audiences love her, as demonstrated by another surprise hit, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. She warms up the place. She gives the freezing cold Coens some heart, a little light in the darkness--even if she does set the whole crazy plot in motion because she wants plastic surgery.

4. Audiences like filmmakers to break the rules.
This movie violates more conventional Hollywood rules and regs than I can tell you--mainly, it keeps killing off people you've come to like. And nobody seems to mind. Hollywood studios, take note.

5. No Country for Old Men widened the Coen's fanbase.
Clearly, adapting Cormac McCarthy's genre-friendly modern western and going all the way to the Oscars to the tune of $74 million made the Coens more of a household word. The movie hit the zeitgeist just right with Javier Bardem's implacable force-of-darkness villain. And somehow Burn After Reading is hitting it too. As institutions crumble all around us and few authority figures seem to have any reasonable solutions, the movie's message that nobody knows anything--nor cares--is right on target.

6. It's the best movie out there.
Burn After Reading opened against a particularly weak field of competitors, from the remake of The Women (which only made Focus Features target the femme audience more fiercely) to the DeNiro/Al Pacino pairing, Righteous Kill. BTW, Focus spent a small fortune marketing this baby.

All of which helps to explain why Burn After reading still looks strong heading into the weekend. Lakeview Terrace is a movie I have no desire to see (it just seems too unpleasant, and scored a 42% Rotten Tomatoes rating) and Dane Cook and Kate Hudson in the R-rated My Best Friend's Girl is another must-to-avoid. I hear good things about Ghost Town (tracking 80% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), especially Ricky Gervais, but it's not expected to open strongly.

Here's the Fandango Five Ticket Sales (as of 9/18/08 9:00 a.m. PT):

Movie Fandango User Rating % Fandango Sales

Burn After Reading “Go” 14%

High School Musical 3: Senior Year “So-So” 9%

Fireproof “Go” 8%

The Dark Knight “Must Go” 6%

Righteous Kill “Go” 5%

And the Fandango Weekly Poll (as of 9/18/08 9:00 a.m. PT):

Samuel L. Jackson stars this week in Lakeview Terrace. Of the Jackson's movies below, which is your favorite?

Pulp Fiction 41%

A Time to Kill 16%

The Long Kiss Good Night 14%

Star Wars: Episode III 13%

Jurassic Park 9%

The Incredibles 7%

Here's the new trailer for screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's directing debut Synecdoche, New York, which stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Michelle Williams, Samantha Morton and Tilda Swinton Emily Watson. The movie has to be seen to be believed; this trailer is honest about the pic's concerns. It doesn't gussy up the material to make it more accessible. As you can see, the movie is simultaneously hilarious and grim.

Indie vet Peter Broderick read Mark Gill's zeitgeist-shifting sky-is-falling speech on the state of the independents and thoughtfully worked out a response of his own, A Guide to the New World of Distribution, designed to be a helpful primer for indie filmmakers trying to navigate in today's treacherous marketplace.

Brett Ratner is talking to everybody these days. He speculates about what his and J.J. Abrams Superman would have been. And he's working on the Eddie Murphy Beverly Hills Cop sequel.

Meanwhile, fans of Bryan Singer's Superman Returns starring Brandon Routh (wait until they see Zack and Miri Make a Porno) are up in arms over Warners' plans to take a different direction with the franchise. "Clark Kent" sent this memo to the media and Warners execs:

This letter is being sent on behalf of the group of Superman fans who were appalled by the article on the Wall Street Journal (Aug.22,08) reporting that Warner Bros. was planning a new Superman film to 'reintroduce' the movie franchise, thus implying that there will not be a sequel to our beloved "Superman Returns", and possibly, the casting of another actor to replace Brandon Routh, who was widely approved and applauded by many fans and film critics across the world, regardless of their view on the film itself.

This news has caused a great many heated discussion among Superman fans all over the world, most typically on fan site forums and messageboards of various film-related media on the internet.

On August 26th of this year, a small group of Superman/Brandon Routh fans at Brandon Routh.com and BlueTights Network, one of the most renowned Superman sites in the world, started the campaign to express our dissatisfaction of WB's alleged 'new strategy' and to demand them to recast Brandon Routh as Superman in the future film again. Clairecheaux, one of the most respected members of the forum, has named this as the: "BRB! - Bring Routh Back!" campaign.

Fox Walden's marketing department was impressed by the numbers racked up by high-pitched YouTube phenomenon Fred (created by 14-year-old Nebraskan Lucas Cruikshank), whose 18 webisodes have received more than 50 million hits --more than Miley Cyrus or the Jonas Brothers, according to CNN. "Fred's current season has over 1.8 million views already and has been the #1 and #2 Most Viewed, Most Discussed, and Top Favorite videos on YouTube last week," gushed a Fox Walden publicist.

So Fox Walden's marketers, seeking to hijack Fred's audience of kids under 18, contacted Cruikshank about doing some promotion for Gil Kenan's upcoming family film City of Ember. (Nickelodeon also hired the teen, for a text messaging commercial.) They flew Cruikshank out to LA from his Nebraska hometown--his first flight to the coast, to act in a dream sequence in which he becomes the star of The City of Ember. He shot the episode with Ember's Tim Robbins and Saoirse Ronan. The promo will post on YouTube September 18.

Here's the CNN Fred story:

Related Fred links on the jump:

After Telluride, Toronto and a taste of NYFF press screenings here in New York, as this cartoon suggests, I'm ready to go home.

The packed Walter Reade press screening of NYFF opener Laurent Cantet's The Class, which won the Palme d'Or, played a little flatter than I expected. Sony Pictures Classics is releasing. (How many times is Patrick Goldstein going to write about Michael Barker and Tom Bernard out of Toronto? I don't disagree with his take on them; it's just that he's written the same story before.)

The Class is terrific three-camera cinema verite that combines some of Mike Leigh's advance improv prep methods with throwing a real teacher (Francois Begaudeau, author of the book Entre les Murs) into a situation with real kids and seeing what high energy results. Cantet directed the action and asked for certain beats and content. He wanted an energetic first take, and then worked on the scene going forward, but he says much of the subsequent "acting" was as good as the first take.

The ping-pong ball interaction between the teacher and the kids is infuriating and exhilarating. Cantet has points he wants to make--so the film is a tad didactic. But the movie leaves wriggle room in terms of what's at stake and who's right or wrong. It rings true. All too true.

I saw Gary Giddins, David Edelstein, Andrew Sarris and Molly Haskell, David D'Arcy, Bill Wolf, Kathleen Carroll, Jamie Stuart, and sat next to a young guy who runs a site called nycmovieguru who ranks films on the Wizard of Oz scale: heart, brains and courage. On that basis The Class gets a 7, 9 and 9 out of ten from me. Pas mal.

The European Film Academy is giving an honorary European achievement in world cinema award to Dogma Movement founders Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, Kristian Levring, Lars von Trier, and Thomas Vinterberg. I would love to show up for this event in Copenhagen on December 6, because this group is bound to say something outrageous when they accept their award, especially Peck's Bad Boy Von Trier.

Projections 15 (Faber & Faber) described the Dogma movement this way:

"In 1995, a group of Danish filmmakers rocked the film world, establishing a revolutionary set of rules for filmmaking, and invading film festivals and cinema screens with a distinctive, rough and not always comfortable look. Thus Dogma was born... without doubt it has exerted a strong influence on filmmaking and has set an astonishing example for filmmakers all over the world, demonstrating that it is possible to make successful films on a low budget, in a small film nation, and without a tripod."

Here are the goals and rules of the Dogme collective from Wikipedia:

The goal of the Dogme collective is to purify filmmaking by refusing expensive and spectacular special effects, postproduction modifications and other gimmicks. The emphasis on purity forces the filmmakers to focus on the actual story and on the actors' performances. The audience may also be more engaged as they do not have overproduction to alienate them from the narrative, themes, and mood. To this end, Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg produced ten rules to which any Dogme film must conform. These rules, referred to as the "Vow of Chastity," are as follows:
Filming must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in (if a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found).
The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. (Music must not be used unless it occurs within the scene being filmed, i.e., diegetic).
The camera must be a hand-held camera. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. (The film must not take place where the camera is standing; filming must take place where the action takes place.)
The film must be in colour. Special lighting is not acceptable. (If there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera).
Optical work and filters are forbidden.
The film must not contain superficial action. (Murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.)
Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden. (That is to say that the film takes place here and now.)
Genre movies are not acceptable.
The final picture must be transferred to the Academy 35mm film, with an aspect ratio of 4:3, that is, not widescreen. (Originally, the requirement was that the film had to be filmed on Academy 35mm film, but the rule was relaxed to allow low-budget productions.)
The director must not be credited.

Here's a list of Dogme movies. And GreenCine blogger David Hudson's Dogme primer. These films had a huge impact on subsequent movies, and on the general trend toward authenticity even in such studio films as Paul Greengrass's Bourne movies.

Anticipating the coming financial apocalypse, Spoutblog turns to dystopian cinema for guidance.

GreenCine's Dave Hudson reports on current difficulties faced by the venerable Cahiers du Cinema, which needs a bailout. I made it into the Cahiers pages once with a Film Comment piece I co-wrote with Mitch Tuchman on George Lucas. What a trip.

It was all-too predictable. Take a venerable show like Ebert & Roeper At the Movies, remove the critics who had built up some sort of following over the years, and replace them with a new format, younger critics and a critics' panel. (Obviously, star Roger Ebert losing his voice was not something anyone could fix.)

While older Ben Mankiewicz (of the fabled Hollywood Mankiewicz family) fits into the format and will presumably settle in and lose his awkwardness, younger Ben Lyons (son of critic Jeffrey) seems too wet-behind-the-ears and perky to lend credence as a serious film critic. And Disney-ABC should lose the "critics round-up," which smacks of insecurity. Either we trust these two "authorities" or we don't. The Two Bens will have to earn it, and that's it.

The "critics" panel is even less trustworthy than our two new critics, except for IFC's Matt Singer, who could easily take over a spot on the show, as far as I'm concerned. He has natural authority and charm and knows a lot about movies.

Here's the tell-tale video, in case you've missed the new show.

And here's Lyons, blogging from the Toronto Fest, where he hobnobs with celebs and poses for photos with the likes of Keira Knightley.

Judging from the comments here and a plethora of emails I've received---along with hopeful predictions that Disney-ABC will throw out the show forthwith--the new show is alienating stalwart watchers. Presumably the plan was to build a younger, bigger fanbase.

Here's a typical email:

"Mankiewicz acquits himself reasonably well, but the bulk of it's a train wreck. I guess if they were able to build an entirely new audience, it would be a decent reboot. But I doubt that will happen. And in doing so they'll have lost almost the entire audience who watched and appreciated the show for what it was. I don't see fans of Siskel & Ebert (or even Ebert & Roeper) coming along for the ride."

Disney-ABC, having made their disastrous move, may try to see if these two guys stick. Word from inside the show: The station managers are in revolt, and the station head at ABC Chicago stormed into the studio in the 9th hour of taping and reportedly said, "I've done telethons that took less time."

BTW: At the NYFF I ran into the NY Post's Lou Lumenick and asked him why he never got back to me on thwacking Ebert at the Toronto Fest. He looked uncomfortable and still had no comment. He's just waiting for it to go away.

Kim Voynar, one of Cinematical's top critics, has returned to her old Seattle haunts and has finally ankled her post as managing editor and film festivals editor for Cinematical (which exploits its contributors with microscopic pay). She will continue to feed her own Film Essent blog.

James D. Stern's L.A.-based Endgame Entertainment is on a roll.

As expected, Stern sold North American and Australian rights to his showbiz documentary Every Little Step to Sony Pictures Classics. The deal was in final stages Monday after the film won raves from auds and critics at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Endgame funded and produced Every Little Step, a behind-the-scenes look at auditions for a revival of the Broadway classic. Filming started back in 2005 as the show auditioned some 1,700 actors/singer/dancers hoping to land a slot on the 2006 Chorus Line. The pic blends audition footage with vintage material from the original 1975 production. The moving doc plays like a reality-TV show crammed with winners and losers as talented hoofers put themselves on the line. It’s a likely awards contender for best doc.

Stern and Adam Del Deo both produced and directed. The team also made docs So Goes the Nation and The Year of the Yao. Stern also produced shobiz productions The Producers, Hairspray, Stomp and Legally Blonde.

Endgame's other Toronto pics were Brothers Bloom, starrng Mark Ruffalo, Adrien Brody and Rachel Weisz, which Summit acquired in December 2007, and Stephen Elliot's romantic comedy Easy Virtue, based on the Noel Coward play, starring Jessica Biel, Colin Firth, Ben Barnes and Kristin Scott Thomas, which is also expected to sell. Endgame has also co-financed past releases I'm Not There, Hotel Rwanda and White Noise.

William Morris Independent repped Every Little Step in the sale. The agency's New York Theatre department was involved in early discussions on the project because they repped the attorney and the estate of A Chorus Line creator Michael Bennett, who died in 1987. William Morris Independent's Rena Ronson sold the Japanese rights to the film to Shochiku early on, and took the project to Endgame, which put up the lion's share of the budget.

[Sharon Swart contributed to this report]

J.D. Walsh, the director of this viral Obama video of One Day More from Les Miz, knows what he is doing.

Here's the Broadway version:

I never met the late great David Foster Wallace. Yes, I devoured his magazine stories--including this classic David Lynch Premiere piece--as well as his other writing, but my former Premiere colleague Glenn Kenny, who edited Wallace and befriended him, has written up something on his blog.

BTW, here's a DFW story in The Atlantic. And Time's appreciation by Joel Stein. And Slate.

[Photo by Nancy Crampton]

So far, the big winner on the fall fest circuit, based on critical, audience and exhib reaction, is Slumdog Millionaire, the pic that Warners let get away.

That makes Fox Searchlight, the distrib that grabbed Slumdog and The Wrestler, another big winner coming out of Toronto. Based on its $6-million budget, The Wrestler looks to be a success, but it will be a tougher sell for Searchlight, which acquired it for under $4 million, than Slumdog, which is a more upbeat crowd-pleaser. Clearly director Darren Aronofsky steered The Wrestler to Searchlight when Lionsgate thought they had landed the picture. That's about messy multi-pronged negotiations.

Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker scored a sale to Summit, but it was modest ($1.2 million) because the filmmakers insisted on a wide release to differentiate the film from other Iraq War movies via arresting visuals in TV spots. So part of the cost of acquiring North American rights to the film was the marketing commitment.

The rest of the fest field were small movies that may have to settle for small distribs, if any. "This lack of 'breakouts' continues from the past several festivals," observes Picturehouse prexy Bob Berney. "IFC continues to be able to pick up interesting films for low cost for their VOD system, and Che is a great one for them. By Cannes, there will be more films available and probably some new buyers as well. The good films will find distribution on some level, even if the deals aren't as robust as a few years ago."

IFC is another winner, buying Che and Everlasting Moments and screening seven pics at the fest. "A space has opened up for them and Magnolia too," says one specialty distrib exec. "They're going to have a lot of films available to them."

One could say the losers were the sales agents who didn't unload their slates by fest's end. It may be time to come up with a new model for how to do sell pics at fests, because the old one doesn't seem to be working anymore. Fanning bidding wars doesn't work when two big movies sell at a major fest and so many little companies are waiting to spend as little as possible on what's left. Says one Oscar campaigner: "There's no rush anymore."

[Photos: top, Danny Boyle, director of Slumdog Millionaire; IFC topper Jonathan Sehring and critic Leonard Maltin at the Indie Spirit Awards]

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler nail Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton, if you ask me:

UPDATE: Here's a one-stop-Palin-info site. Here's The Chicago Tribune on the show.

And Matt Damon questions Palin's credentials on CBS News RAW:

With Cannes, Telluride and Toronto, behind us, New York Film Fest press screenings are now under way. Here’s a wrap-up of what I’ve seen and learned:

Ten Best Movies in Telluride/Toronto
1. Everlasting Moments: Jan Troell’s period masterpiece is the likely Swedish Oscar submission (IFC).
2. Slumdog Millionaire: Danny Boyle’s Toronto audience award winner is both a likely hit and awards contender (Warners/Fox Searchlight).
3. The Wrestler: Darren Aronofsky directed has-been actor Mickey Rourke as a down-on-his-luck wrestler to likely awards contention (Fox Searchlight).
4. The Hurt Locker: Kathryn Bigelow’s Iraq War thriller breaks out tough-guy Jeremy Renner (Summit, 2009).
5. Flame + Citron: Ole Christian Madsen’s riveting WW II thriller won’t be the Danish Oscar submission (IFC).
6. Every Little Step: Jim Stern’s moving Chorus Line doc plays like a reality TV show full of winners and losers as dancer/actor/singers put their talent on the line to gain a slot in the revival of the Broadway hoofer classic. It’s a likely awards contender for best doc (juggling distrib offers).
7. I’ve Loved You So Long: Philippe Claudel’s two hander about two sisters could earn French-speaking Brit Kristin Scott Thomas best actress kudos (SPC).
8. Burn After Reading: The Coens return to their darkly comic roots with a skilled acting ensemble led by Brad Pitt, George Clooney and Fran McDormand (Focus Features).
9. Happy-Go-Lucky: Mike Leigh and actress Sally Hawkins could follow Vera Drake into the awards derby (Miramax).
10. Kisses: Lance Daly’s Irish runaway movie starring unknowns turns from black-and-white into color (weighing distrib offers).

Next Best:
11. Adam Resurrected: Paul Schrader directs Jeff Goldblum in a bravura performance as a charismatic showman who survives the holocaust but loses his mind (seeking distrib).
12. Zack and Miri Make a Porno: Kevin Smith is back in raunchy, gut-splitting form with two strong actors, Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks (Weinstein Co./MGM).
13. Easy Virtue: Stephen Elliott (Patricia, Queen of the Desert) directs a witty culture-clash comedy well-delivered by Ben Barnes, Jennifer Biel, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Colin Firth (seeking distrib).
14. Is There Anybody There? John Crowley’s family comedy stars Michael Caine in a brilliant performance as a senior fighting senility (seeking distrib).
15. Brothers Bloom: Rian Johnson’s ambitious second feature, a con-man caper comedy, showcases Rachel Weisz’s skills as a charming light comedienne (Summit).
16. Me and Orson Welles: Richard Linklater’s 1937 picture of the Mercury Theatre features uncanny Welles impersonator Christian McKay, a glowing Claire Danes and teen throb Zac Efron (seeking distrib).
17. Public Enemy Number 1, a work in progress from France, hangs on the powerful incarnation of notorious real-life French gangster Jacques Mesrine by Vincent Cassel. Filmed over one year in two parts, this film may be combined with number two into a single movie by distrib Senator for its 2009 U.S. release.
18. Dean Spangler: Peter O’Toole and Sam Neill shine in this strange, slow-burn New Zealand fable about reincarnation (seeking U.S. distrib).

Best Cannes Leftovers at Telluride/Toronto:
1. Il Divo: Paolo Sorrentino’s exhilarating e-ride through 70s and 80s Italian politics, while accessible, is considered too arcane for stateside release (seeking distrib).
2. Hunger: UK director Steve McQueen directs Michael Fassbender in a breakout perf as Irish activist Bobby Sands (IFC).
3. Waltz with Bashir: Iraeli Ari Folman’s animated doc could be nominated in both animation and doc categories (SPC).
4. Wendy and Lucy: Kelly Reichardt directs Michele Williams in a heart-rending performance as vulnerable woman on the road who loses her dog. Williams could be a long shot for year-end kudos consideration (Oscilloscope).
5. The Good, The Bad and the Weird: Kim Jee-woon’s non-stop kimchi western could score with action fans (IFC).
6. Synecdoche, New York: Not surprisingly, first-time director Charlie Kaufman spins a tale you have never seen before, with a sprawling ensemble led by the depressed (natch) Philip Seymour Hoffman (SPC).
7. Che: Steven Soderbergh’s bio-epic wound up as two movies in Spanish instead of one movie in English, but it’s still a must-see for Benicio del Toro’s portrayal of the controversial revolutionary (IFC).
8. Adoration: Atom Egoyan’s explores a tangled web of family history and memory (SPC).
9. O’Horten: Bent Hamer paints a precisely rendered, poignant portrait of a retiring train engineer trying to imagine life without trains (SPC).

Toronto Disappointments:
Rachel Getting Married: Jonathan Demme’s movie about a dysfunctional family wedding features great actors and musicians and dizzy camera moves: eventually all three get irritating (SPC).
Blindness: Fernando Meirelles locks the audience up in a nasty prison full of piss and poop and murder and mayhem and madness and doesn’t open the doors until the movie’s almost over (Miramax).
Flash of Genius: producer-turned-director Marc Abraham turns the story of a Detroit inventor (Greg Kinnear) who fights Ford and loses all into a straight, old-fashioned, dull tale (Universal).

The latest Changeling trailer has gone up. The Clint Eastwood drama stars Angelina Jolie in a true story about a woman in the 1920s who fought L.A. City Hall. Changeling debuted to solid reviews at Cannes in May, didn't show at Toronto and will screen at the upcoming New York Film Festival.

Clint has another movie coming up in December, Gran Torino, in which he plays a curmudgeonly Korean War veteran who attempts to reform a Korean kid who tries to steal his vintage car. It continues to amaze me that when most directors are hard-pressed to deliver one movie a year, this guy keeps coming up with two. The question is, which movie will be the one that goes all the way to the Oscars?

[Posted by David S. Cohen]

Industrial Light & Magic is letting out only a few details of its first foray into feature animation, Rango, which it will be animating for Paramount and director Gore Verbinski. ILM president Chrissie England told us it would be "a hybrid, a mix between photorealistic CG visual effects and animation," adding "With Rango we are in the unique position to take advantage of this convergence and do something truly groundbreaking."

Here's a little more on what that means:

The trailer for John Patrick Shanley's film adaptation of the Broadway play Doubt goes up on Apple Friday.

The play is a dynamic, provocative piece. Judging from my exclusive preview of the trailer, in the movie, three strong actors form a triangle in a titanic power struggle. Representing the force of the old ways is Meryl Streep as the older nun who sees a popular, younger, hipper, kinder form of Catholic authority--priest Philip Seymour Hoffman--threatening her power. Her accolyte is sweet, trusting younger nun Amy Adams. Streep and Hoffman each try to persuade Adams to take their side. Viola Davis, another explosive actor, plays the mother of the little boy at the center of the drama unfolding at Madison St. Nicholas School. These actors are laying it down: yelling, cajoling, screaming, fighting for their lives:

Miramax is releasing this meaty picture December 12. It's a slam dunk for Oscar consideration with performances like these. I'll have to see the movie to know for sure how far it will go. The question mark is director Shanley, who won an Oscar for writing Moonstruck, but didn't fare so well on his first directing gig, 1990's Joe Versus The Volcano. We can assume that Shanley is more in control of his own material here.

Doubt is in the Zone, with the talent on board: producer Scott Rudin (No Country for Old Men) helped Shanley assemble an Oscar-friendly support team: cinematographer Roger Deakins (Old Men and The Assassination of Jesse James), editor Dylan Tichenor (There Will Be Blood), costume designer Ann Roth (The English Patient), and production designer David Gropman (Cider House Rules). As for the music: here's new news: it's Howard Shore (The Lord of the Rings).

UPDATE: Someone who has seen Doubt writes:

"It's a knockout. I had read the play and the movie took it way beyond. Meryl Streep is definitely on the best actress list. Shanley's direction is very 'on.'"

My informant has also seen Frost/Nixon:

"It was just as good -- it will be head-to-head between these two powerhouse smart, adult play adaptations. Frank Langella will get a best actor nomination for portraying Nixon, and Michael Sheen might very well get a best supporting as Frost. In each case, I think the screenplays will be nominated -- J.P. Shanley and Peter Morgan, both for adaptations of their own plays."

Whoops. Critic Lou Lumenick was so annoyed by an incessant tapping on his shoulder in a Toronto screening of Slumdog Millionaire Saturday that the high-strung NY Post scribe blindly thwacked the guy in the dark behind him, rather than look to see that voiceless critic Roger Ebert was communicating with him in the only way he knew how.

Ebert responds in print on the fracas.