Odd Number On Poster For Lynch Documentary

The poster for the Lynch documentary (Lynch by name, Lynch by subject) has a curious addition - see the (one)?. Is there already a sequel planned?

Movie Minesweeper - The Poland Thinks Tinky Winky Is Gay But So What If He Is Edition

Here's a bunch of links for you - some of which will look mighty familiar to regular film ick readers.

- First familiar story: Johnny Depp may play Alexander Litvinenko. We told you about this in January.

- Second familiar story: Guillermo del Toro is to make a movie of Tom Manning's Runoff. We told you about this in April.

And now some less directly familiar stories.

- Michael Madsen is doubtful about the future of the Sin City franchise. Maybe this is a familiar story after all - I've been doubling my bet on this one never appearing every week or so for the last few months now. Everything I hear tells me we'll be very, very lucky to ever see another Sin City film. I've also been told today that Rodriguez is locked for Land of the Lost (with Will Ferell) as well as the previously announced Barbarella, but I've yet to confirm this with a second source so... watch this space.

- Indiana Jones and the City of Gods starts shooting this week. I found this link at Coming Soon.

- Some pics of Kate Winslet playing dress-up for hubby have appeared online.

- Not everybody is enjoying the guerilla marketing campaign for The Dark Knight.

- A remake of A Tale of Two Sisters is about to start shooting, so why do we know so little?
- Eli Roth slightly misrepresents the BBFC and praises the MPAA.

- BroadwayWorld have gone behind the scenes of the Finding Nemo musical.

- Catweazle (the thinking child's Worzel Gummidge, I feel) is to be a 'major motion picture'. John Henderson is to direct, but Catweazle creator Richard Carpenter is on board in some capacity.

- A Captain Thunder... sorry, Thunder Captain promo reel has popped up online. Don't expect too much.

- No link for this last story, I'm afraid - it appeared in print, but Home Media Magazine have announced that the deleted scenes on the Inland Empire DVD have been edited into a 90 minute parallel story. They also report that Lynch's original cut of the film was nine hours long.

Watch David Lynch's New Film Absurda Now

It's much better than Inland Empire. Enjoy.

Lynch And Lynch 2

David Lynch is the subject of Lynch, a feature length documentary about his creative processes, such as they were during the making of Inland Empire. There's half an hour of it, this excerpt retitled Lynch 2, on the upcoming Inland Empire DVD.

The director has decided to remain anoymous, being credited only as blackANDwhite, though Lynch's reps insist this isn't David, I suspect it may be Lynch Junior.

Interestingly, the documentary shows a number of difficult days on set with Lynch admitting he has no idea what he's doing, what he should do next, or how to communicate to any of his collaborators.

The DVD of Inland Empire will also contain interviews with Lynch and Laura Dern (hey! Maybe she's blackANDwhite... or maybe Jeremy Irons...?), something called More Things that Happened (deleted scenes, I'd imagine) and, taking a leaf out of Robert Rodriguez' book, David Lynch cooking Quinoa.

The long promised commentary track hasn't materialised. Neither did the long promised masterpiece though, eh, David?

Freddie Francis Has Died

Freddie Francis has died. He was one of the greatest of all cinematographers. I'm very saddened by this loss to film and filmmaking.

Here's a selection of his films the cinematography of which, I believe, speaks for itself.

Sons and Lovers. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. The Innocents. Night Must Fall. The Elephant Man. Dune. Return to Oz. Clara's Heart. The Man in the Moon. School Ties. The Straight Story.

Unfortunately, he never directed photography for another film after his incredible work in The Straight Story. Goodbye, Freddie.

Twin Peaks Fans Forced To Double Dip

According to a review of the imminent Twin Peaks season 2 DVD set, fans will be forced into a double dip if they want the full compliment of extra features.

Apparently, a complete set of both seasons will be issued before year's end, and will contain new and exclsuive bonus material; unfortunately, none of the bonus material from the separate season sets will be carried over.

I feel like I'm being conned, though I know I'll buy both anyway. Shame on me.

Kicked, Bitten And Scratched

Naomi Watts has signed to star in Kicked, Bitten and Scratched, a romantic comedy adaptation of Amy Sutherland's animal training memoir. Todd Louiso and Jacob Kosoff are writing the script. You'll probably recognise Louiso as an actor - making mixtapes in Jerry Maguire, being delicate in High Fidelity - but he also directed Love Liza and, again with Kosoff, wrote the upcoming Ben Stiller and Jason Schwartzman comedy, The Marc Pease Experience.

I'm looking back at Naomi Watts' CV here, and this one hardly stands out. A good part of the reason for this is, of course, how varied her CV is. I think I saw her first of all in Flirting - if I did see For Love Alone, the previous film she made, I certainly have no recollection of it. And I must have seen her in Home and Away, if only for a brief glimpse as I channel hopped, or while I was visiting soap-addicted family.

As for her brief appearance in Joe Dante's Matinee, I wish I could picture it now. I believe she was in a mock up of something like a Kurt Russell/Disney family film. I adore Matinee, but I never picked up the DVD (so far) - mainly as the R2 version is bare bones and pan-scanned to 4:3. Inexcusable.

...and the little pieces of Tank Girl that I really, honestly, deeply loved (cumulative running time: under four minutes) weren't any pieces with Watts in - through no fault of her own. They just weren't Jet Girl scenes. Thinking back on it now, though,

So, I guess, Mulholland Drive was, for me as much as the rest of the movie watching world, the moment Naomi Watts really started to matter a little bit more. After that film, she was a talking point, a star, one of the ingredients of a film that one would be likely to discuss rather than ignore.

And I guess that's when it started getting wobbly. The quality of the films that Watts has opted for since David Lynch foist her into the limelight has been genuinely unpredictable. King Kong and I Heart Huckabees were wonderful; 21 Grams, Stay and The Ring 2 were most definitely not; the first Ring and Le Divorce watchable but far from essential.

What's interesting, though, is that she's some kind of off-centre star. Somehow, Watts doesn't slot so readily into the big, generic movies like Julia Roberts or (Watts' best friend) Nicole Kidman. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it looks to me like there's something vague around the edges of Naomi Watts' public image, and I always find it impossible to predict the style, budget or genre of her next film.

Maybe it's just because she finds it hard too. A girl has to work, right?

Secret Surprise Film Directed By Quentin Tarantino, David Lynch, The Coen Brothers, Lars Von Trier And Wong Kar Wai... And More

There's a very exciting film project on the cards, but only the luckiest of us will get to see it - well, any time soon, at least. It looks like Quentin Tarantino, David Lynch. the Coen Brothers, Lars von Trier, Wong Kar Wai, Michael Cimino, Ken Loach, Wim Wenders, Chen Kaige, Abbas Kiarostami, Emir Kusturica and Nanni Moretti are amongst the directors behind the camera for this incredible king-of-all-films.

Sound too good to be true? Well, not quite actually.

This year, the Cannes film festival marks it's 60th anniversary and as a special celebration, an anthology of shorts by winners of the Palme d'Or is being compiled. The only director confirmed as absent so far is Pedro Almodovar, who appears to be too busy with his frightening sounding new film.

It isn't clear if this incredible seeming collaborative collage of shorts is ever going to see the lght of day outside of the festival, but I would sincerely hope so. Keeping something so desirable, and most likely very enjoyable, from the film fans of the world would strike me as arrogant and selfish.

Both Peaks At Once

Contrary to some previous reports, the entirety of Twin Peaks Season Two is to hit Region 1 DVD in the same big box set, and as soon as April 10th at that. DVD Times have the official word.

David Lynch Is A Soldier In The Infowar

Infowars are featuring a video clip of David Lynch discussing 'alternative 9/11 theories'. Here's a comment from the site:

"Lynch's decision to make public his views is another encouraging sign that 9/11 truth and visualizations such as Loose Change are crossing the boundary between "the alternative" and the mainstream, permeating Lynch's decision to make public his views is another encouraging sign that 9/11 truth and visualizations such as Loose Change are crossing the boundary between 'the alternative"'and the mainstream, permeating the collective consciousness of accessible culture, just as Lynch's work has done over the past four decades."

Somebody should tell them that Inland Empire has all the hope of "permeating the collective consciousness of accessible culture" that, I dunno, a Crispin Hellion Glover record has of topping the Billboard charts.

Let me remind you that David Lynch has been campaigning to set up Yogic Flying launchpads, as it were, across the world. Just wanted to put that out there (and trust me - it is out there).