Movie Minesweeper - The Holiday Skin Edition

Here's another slate of Movie Minesweeper business before bedtime. Carole King continues.

- Blades of Glory screenwriters John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky have taken up the task of scripting Brothers of Invention. They're also the current scribes on The Jetsons, which Variety have linked pretty definitively with Robert Rodriguez. Yep: Rodriguez is working with screenwriters of Blades of Glory on a Jetsons film. Oh dear.

- Jimmy Olsen 2006 has joined the Cavemen sitcom.

- Brett Ratner may well be casting Paris Hilton in the Hugh Hefner movie. And why wouldn't he?

- TV viewers were pretty thin on the ground for the Live Earth gig. Indeed, the Princes Di shindig greatly outperformed it (in the UK at least). Which I find quite sad and a little bit embarrassing. All of this nonsense in the popular press about scientests being in doubt about the human contribution to climate change is not only ignorantly ant-scientific (there's actually a consensus amongst the scientific community) but is also risk killing millions, tens of millions or hundreds of millions in the next century.

- Jonah Hill has scripted himself a vehicle called Pure Imagination. He says, of his role, "I go through a bunch of traumatic stuff, and I develop an imaginary friend. Then what happens is I meet a girl, and we start dating…but the problem is I don’t know whether she [actually] exists [or] whether she’s a figment of my imagination.”

That's enough. Eyelids drooping. See you on the other side.

Rush Hour 3 Stills Aplenty

Here's a massive heap of images from Rush Hour 3. Click on any of them for the very hi-res version. Is Jackie Chan playing 'hole tempting' in the ninth one? Looks like it to me.

Download The Rush Hour 3 Trailer

KinoGovno are offering a direct download of the new Rush Hour 3 trailer. A better offering than MTV's tetchy page that tries to stream the clip, anyway.

Misjudged

The judges for On The Lot, the American Idol for filmmakers, have been announced: Carrie Fisher, Brett Ratner, Garry Marshall and Jon Avnet.

Dear lord. Oh dear lord. At least Fisher has some writing ability...

This show is going to be a lottery.

Brett Ratner In The Dog House

On January 30th, The Hannibal Lecter Collection is being released on R1 DVD. The three titles featured are The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal and Manhunter. You might notice that, first of all, they aren't being presented in narrative chronological order - and secondly, that Manhunter is included instead of Red Dragon, despite Red Dragon starring Anthony Hopkins as Lecter whereas Manhunter features Brian Cox in the role.

Both films were derived from the same book, and Red Dragon even managed to retain the novel's name - so why was it ousted for Manhunter?

Could it be a simple case of Manhunter being expected to shift copies where as Red Dragon would not? Perhaps Red Dragon might even be perceived as off putting?

Brett Ratner, director of the rejected film, is something of a whipping boy for critics and messageboard trolls alike, and yes, I can see why - his best film is easily The Family Man and not much of what makes that film work is anything he can be credited for. On the other hand, however, Manhunter was directed by Michael Mann and, if you ask me, his track record is even worse. He could only dream of making a film as good as The Family Man - that is, an admittedly wonky film that has a commendably spare narrative shape, and benefits from some great acting amidst the perfunctory mise en scene and ho-hum editing.

Of course, Mann is in the canon of auters and Ratner is not. Simple as that, isn't it? Sigh.