Movie Minesweeper - The Retirement Age Edition

I'm getting too old for this. film ick isn't my day job, you know: it costs me money. Sometimes I just don't have the patience. But I never have the choice.

And now I've vented a little, I feel better. I'm listening to The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas by They Might Be Giants. That should cheer me up a little bit.

- Is Halle Berry the next Barbarella? Probably not. Maybe. I found the link via JoBlo.

- Mark Wahlberg has confirmed Darren Aronofsky's directorship of The Fighter. No start date has been locked, however. Wahlberg said "If it aint like Raging Bull, then it aint worth doing" but I beg to differ. For one thing, we already have Raging Bull. For another thing, Raging Bull is actually rather bad.

- Nicole Kidman is headed to Monte Carlo. The film is to be directed by Tom Bezucha, previously guilty of The Family Stone.

- The site for Derren Brown's US show is now a go. If you don't watch it you're making a mistake. This man is one of the two greatest illusionists since Harry Houdini.
- Paramount have already reaped 1 billion dollars in the US this year.

- I don't need to update you at all on any forthcoming (or not) Spider-Man, Superman, Batman, Harry Potter, Ocean's, Bourne, Hulk, Mummy, Indiana Jones, X-Men, Fantastic Four, Hellboy, National Treasure or Wolf Man films because The Hollywood Reporter have done it for me.

- 'Angry Sherriff' Don Murphy listened to the fans re: Transformers and now the NYTimes have a piece on his approach. If only he'd listen to me about We3 and... er... give me the job of directing it.

- Spielberg has a finger in Aaron Sorkin's pie, lending finance and production muscle to the Broadway incarnation of The Farnsworth Invention with an eye to later turing it into a movie.

- Anywhere Road have snapped up the distibution rights to Brad Gann's Black Irish.

- Cartoon Brew have a wee piece on Barry Purves new Stop Motion book.

- Peter Berg is to produce and direct Gone Like the Wind, a based-on-fact story about the slaughter of a kentucky Derby winner because he'd broken his leg. Euthenasia for wounded sporting animals - discuss. The original Vanity Fair story was written by Berg's cousin Buzz Bissinger, and you can currently read it online.

- 3:10 to Yuma has been brought forward a month. That is, out of prestige season. Because it isn't much good?

- Stellan Skarsgaard is to star in the improbable sounding Patrick 1,5. This one is about a gay couple adopting a kid sight unseen, believing him to be 18 months old but actually, ending up with a fifteen year old homophobe.

- Mama, I'm a Big Girl Now might be on the Hairspray soundtrack CD, but it isn't in the film. On the other hand, The New Girl on Town was nixed from Boradway but it has been used for a montage sequence in the film. Stream the entire soundtrack courtesy of AOL - if you live in the US.

- Sam Rockwell has been talking Star Trek. And so has William Shatner - who seems to think there's a spot for Leonard Nimoy in the script.

- Hannah Montana is headed to the big screen. Miley Cyrus is the next...? Hilary Duff? Lindsay Lohan? Christy Carlson Romano?

- Leonardo DiCaprio as Hugh Hefner? Maybe. Though probably not.

- The Pirates of the Caribbean MMO game has been delayed. All the same, I bet it rolls out in a glitchy version and needs a whole string of patches.

- Richard Kelly is still promising Southland Tales news without actually delivering any. Wake me up when it hits DVD will you?

- Universal have snapped up the rights to Beware the Moon, a documentary on the making of An American Werewolf in London. I hope it's good.

- I heard Ricky Gervais and Chris Rock discussing Badge Buddies during the Live Earth concert but I didn't think for one second it was actually real. They just seemed to be making it up as they went along. What do you think?

- Leonard Hartman is adapting Water for Elephants into a screenplay.

- Season 7 of 24 has gone back to the drawing board.

- The full programme for this year's Fantasy Film Fest has been published. My picks? Paprika, Edmond, I'm a Cyborg But That's Okay, Tales From Earthsea and Bug have all been widely seen elsewhere, so how about The Last Winter, Stuck, Dead Daughters and The Deaths of Ian Stone. The title of the last one there is very amusing to me, but, chances are, you wouldn't find the in-joke at all amusing.

And as we come to close on this Minesweeper, I'm listening to Laughter in the Rain by Neil Sedaka.