Bibbidi Bobbidi Booyah

JA from MNPP here - having had their way with the Snow White story (to great financial success one time, and notsomuch the other), Hollywood is setting its sights upon her downtrodden floor-scrubbing slash mouse-touching sister-princess next - Cinderella is going to be turned into a live-action whirylgig by the director Mark Romanek, from a script by Chris Weitz.

I'm a big fan of Romanek's (I am not one of the poor unfortunate souls who found Never Let Me Go anything less than terribly impressive, but I've loved him way back to his videos for Nine Inch nails) and while I'd rather he not get sucked back into the big Hollywood machinery again (trying to make a movie out of Wolf Man wasted several years of possible output from him)... well, I can't say no to the cast that's circling this thing, now can I? Cate Blanchett is talks to play the Wicked Stepmother, while there are three girls mentioned by Variety as being up for the role of the glass-slipper gal, including Saoirsie Ronan - Hanna reunion!

Hanna was basically a fairy tale itself - Red Riding Hood with head-shots. So much that I can't help but fill out Cinderella's cast with all of Hanna's featured players. Eric Bana as the King! (As long as this King goes swimming in his long-johns too, of course.) Olivia Williams as the Fairy Godmother! Michelle Dockery and Jessica Barden as the Evil Stepsisters! Tom Hollander and his co-thugs as the mice! Okay this really needs to happen, I have convinced myself.

With Six You Get Link Roll

Movies.com has all the distribution deals from TIFF so you can see which films are coming your way in 2013
Deadline Kate Winslet's Titanic screen test!
Culture Monster Cate Blanchett and Isabelle Huppert to team for Jean Genet's The Maids. Alas, not for the screen.

Pajiba 20 Lessons Hollywood can learn from this summer
Flickr Truly amazing photoset of California billboards from 1974/1975 including billboards of Oscar interest

Today's Must Read
"Extraordinary Machines" by Steven Hyden which looks back at the celebrity coupledom of Paul Thomas Anderson and Fiona Apple, the way they were, and the way they are now divergent.

It had been his intention to write a conventional 90-minute comedy for Adam Sandler, whom he met while tagging along with Apple when she performed on Saturday Night Live in 2000. What he actually made was more like a Fiona Apple song — a disorienting mishmash of bright melody and percussive dissonance, with a main character who was odd and oddly compelling and prone to oddly explosive, out-of-nowhere outbursts. Unfortunately for Punch-Drunk Love, Fiona Apple songs were still a few years away from returning to fashion, and the film died at the box office.

It's a really insightful piece about two of showbusiness's most fascinating artists. So go read it.

From the Wilds of Woody-land

JA from MNPP here. I was looking up pictures of Peter Sarsgaard on Tumblr - don't tell me you haven't yet seen that shot of him jogging in shorts shorts making the rounds - when I stumbled upon some pics from the set of Woody Allen's new movie currently filming in San Francisco that seemd worth sharing.

What continues being delightful even when Woody's movies don't - yes I'm looking at you To Rome With Love - is seeing him mix up all the famous actors he gets to play with in surprising ways - why sure, I'd love to see Judy Davis play Allison Pill's mother! How astute of you, good sir. (TRWL needed more cast interaction - imagine if Greta Gerwig and Penny Cruz had fallen under Roberto Benigni's haphazard charms while managing their own plots!)

Seeing Sally Hawkins and Bobby Cannavale and Cate Blanchett and Louis CK all standing around gives me hope this next one will toss some of Woody's specific sort of thespian frission our way. Woody gets whoever the heck he wants in his movies - make use! (And hire Diane Keaton next time, dammit!)

Sudden Flashback: Ladies in Waiting

I always forget that Emily Mortimer and Kelly Macdonald were Cate Blanchett's right-hand (and left-hand) girls in Elizabeth (1998).

(And Daniel Craig was in it, too!)

None of those ladies had to wait long for their careers to blossom... though in the case of Emily & Kelly maybe the careers should've blossomed more spectacularly. Aren't they great? Lovely & Amazing Emily can next be spotted in the comedy Our Idiot Brother (opening in August) and Kelly is playing "The Grey Lady" (aka Helena Ravenclaw) in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (opening... well, you know when.)

Cinema de Gym: 'Bandits'

Kurt here from Your Movie Buddy. In my attempt to tone up and shed a few (as I feared, the life of a writer can be waistline-hazardous), I've found new inspiration. The gym I attend has a theater in the back where, instead of watching The View with headphones, you can do your cardio in the dark with a daily film that plays on a loop. It's surely not the place to go if you're looking to catch up on your Bergman or Powell & Pressburger, but, by god, at least it's something. Even with a trainer who kicks my ass and drafts a new routine each month, I'll take all the incentives I can get.

On that note, I've opted to use this extra motivator as a writing opportunity – a chance to chime in on the gym's staff picks and voice the opinions that brew while I'm huffing it on the elliptical. Fitness and film writing – it's my kind of win-win.

For the inaugural "Cinema de Gym" post, we have Barry Levinson's Bandits, a 2001 love-triangle crime comedy I'd never seen. In this setting, catching things for the first time is fun in that I'm forced to draw as much as I can from a 20-30 minute snippet (okay, sometimes it's 15). Besides, I dare say a lot of these flicks are not of the must-see-it-from-end-to-end sort. With Bandits, I entered during a barroom scene where a red-headed Cate Blanchett is consoling the bar's only other patron, a characteristically un-dashing Billy Bob Thornton, who's suffering from some fatiguing ailment. Rather than whiskey, Cate wants to get some warm milk for this milquetoast, who, it turns out, is lactose intolerant.

Bandits: Bruce, Billy Bob and Blanchett

Enter Bruce Willis, all smirks and hubris, who breaks up the excessive appropriateness of Grover Washington Jr.'s "Just the Two of Us" playing on the soundtrack (err, in the bar). From the interactions (and, hell, from the casting), it's clear Bruce is the leader of the Bruce-Billy Bob criminal duo, and that Cate is the third wheel whose affections they're fighting over. Cate and Billy Bob hit the dance floor, a brotherly brawl ensues, and Bruce and Billy Bob crash through a glass window onto the ground outside. "I can't do this anymore," a desperate Cate says, peering down at them. "Together, you're the perfect man."

Well, to each her own, Ms. Blanchett. 

Garity squares off with JonesCut to: January Jones? The soon-to-be X-villain plays some type of accomplice to our lead quarrelers, along with Troy Garity, Soldier's Girl star and son of Jane Fonda. The crew is gearing up for their One Last Job, which, naturally, still attracts Cate for some reluctant involvement.

Where the film goes from here is, well, to its end, and I'll spare you the spoilers even though I don't recommend. Let's just say there's a haphazard bank heist, but Dog Day Afternoon this is not.

Conclusions?

1. Seeing early Blanchett is fun.
2. Billy Bob really needs to get back to work.
3. Bruce Willis has never tired of playing Bruce Willis (shocker).
4. Barry Levinson is a hugely recognizable name, but hardly one that guarantees quality.
5. You've seen Bandits before, even if, you know, you haven't seen it before.

Have you seen it before?