Another day, another intriguing project from Ryan Kavanaugh and his Relativity Media shingle. According to Variety, their latest script acquisition is D. B. Weiss' Kashmir, which has already attracted the interest of director Jean-Jacques Annaud.

Weiss' script revolves around three ex-mercenaries who receive a tip as to the location of a terrorist who boasts a $30 million bounty on his head. For that kind of money, they decide to brave a trip into Kashmir, the volatile region between Pakistan and India. And because nothing is ever so simple as heading into a dangerous region to hunt a terrorist, all three men have their own reasons for the journey, and their working relationship is sorely tested.

The idea comes from those early days of the War on Terror, when the U.S. government actually was putting up wanted posters -- it's a sign of how much has happened that I can't remember if anyone ever collected on them. Annaud, ever the adventurist, has every intention of shooting as close as he can to Kashmir, and is traveling to Pakistan with Weiss for research.

While I'm a bit tired of terrorism plotlines, the story has all the classic marks of a Western -- and I'd love to see it tackled as such. Annaud certainly does grueling journeys (inner and outer) and sweeping vistas well, though the final result can be wanting. Here's hoping he can take the best parts of Enemy at the Gates and combine it with his eye for landscapes, and give us a good old fashioned bounty hunt.

Here's a round-up of some stuff (and things) currently causing waves online:

-- Moviefone has launched the latest installment of Unscripted, featuring stars Josh Brolin and Elizabeth Banks discussing their new film W. using reader questions and some of their own. Additionally, above you'll find some newly-released art for the film. Heh.

-- After breaking up with Paramount, Dreamworks has officially found a new f*ck buddy in Universal, so says Variety. The two signed a seven-year worldwide distribution deal.

-- Darren Aronofsky's The Fighter looks to be in trouble. Now that the writer-director is working hard on that Robocop remake, seems this other flick is being neglected. Brad Pitt has apparently dropped out, and Mark Wahlberg -- who's been training for the role for over a year -- doesn't seem to know the film's current status. All that being said, Slashfilm claims their scouting locations in Mass.

-- A few photos of Mel Gibson on the set of Edge of Darkness have appeared online, most of which show the man going full-Diddy, forcing some woman to hold an umbrella so the sun doesn't, ya know, shine on the poor man. In case you forgot, this film marks Gibson's return to acting as a homicide detective investigating the death of his daughter. See image to the right, click to see enlarge. [via Crabbies Hollywood]

-- A theme park in the UK is actually moving forward with a ride based on the Saw films, called Saw - The Ride. I bet folks will just kill to get on it. HAR! Apparently, we're looking at a ride with "beyond vertical drop of 100-degree from a height of 100ft, as well as a rather sinister sounding "three inversions" to add to the fun." Who's down? [via IGN]

Guillaume Depardieu, the 37-year-old son of Gerard Depardieu, died today in Paris from a bout of acute pneumonia. Depardieu, who's starred in upwards of 20 films, struggled with drugs and drinking over the years.

A few new images of Samuel L. Jackson and the late Bernie Mac in the new film Soul Men have arrived in the Cinematical inbox. Check them out in the gallery below.

From one sexy role to another: Carla Gugino will soon (hopefully) be on the big screen as Sally Jupiter, hero and pin-up girl of Watchmen, and now she's taking on another seductive role. Variety reports the gal will be the last point in the romantic love triangle called Every Day, which got cooking earlier this month. Liev Schreiber plays a guy who writes for a "semi-pornographic TV show" (that wasn't in the earlier news release!) that gets propositioned by his colleague (Gugino). But the man already has wife Helen Hunt at home, and this "strains his marriage to the breaking point." Could you resist if Gugino was tempting you?

Meanwhile, we've got Rachael Harris, who stood her own against mockumentary heavyweights in For Your Consideration (she played Mary Pat Hooligan, the actress who played the lesbian coming out to her family in Home for Purim). Variety reports that she's going to nurse Todd Phillips' The Hangover with the likes of Bradley Cooper, Heather Graham, and more. Graham is already playing a Vegas local, so maybe Harris will play the bride who might get left at the altar. But the actress isn't all laughs -- one of her upcoming films is The Soloist.

Lastly, we've got a cute, Korean hip-hop dancer on the way -- Som Dam-bi has signed onto Hype Nation. But this isn't just a tale of dancing: "An American dance crew goes head to head with a crew from South Korea," one that mixes hip-hop moves with at least one gun-toter. Oooh, it's like You've Been Served International!

With J.C.V.D. charming audiences everywhere and making the unlucky of us foam at the mouth to see it, the big question has become: Would this be the start of a great career twist, or a charming, but fleeting, aberration for Jean Claude Van Damme? Rather than taking it step by step, the dude has jumped head first into the deep end -- next up will be Van Damme's labor of love, Full Love, which he wrote, produced, directed, and stars in. It's supposed to be a personal story, but is currently all hush-hush. But now we've at least got a peek inside, courtesy of Twitch. They've posted five images from the film, including the thumbnail to the right. It doesn't show much, but one thing that's definitely not there -- JCVD splits.

Turning from possible success to definite success -- CNN reports that Tim Robbins has nabbed himself a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame. In the ceremony last week, the actor said: "I used to take the bus from here to Burbank to go to work. When the bus was late, I would walk up and down and throw my cigarettes down. Now I have the honor of having this done to my star."

Meanwhile, if you've dug the tunes coming out of Repo! The Genetic Opera, Horror-Movies.ca reports that the film's soundtrack will be up for free for one day only, today the 13th, on the flick's official website. Go now!

And one last nibblet: Variety reports that Mark Waters, director of films like The House of Yes, Mean Girls, and The Spiderwick Chronicles, is heading to TV to helm the pilot Eva Adams. Adapted from the Argentinian telenova Lalola, the series will follow a womanizer who gets turned into a woman and must endure what he used to dole out.

Success Stories:
Happy-Go-Lucky (Miramax)
Religulous (Lionsgate)
Ballast (Alluvial/Required Viewing)

One Brit edged out another, as RockNRolla, Guy Ritchie's zippy yet utterfully forgettable "return to form" Brit crime flick, narrowly claimed the #1 spot among limited releases, according to estimates compiled by Box Office Mojo. To my mind, though, Mike Leigh's much riskier Happy-Go-Lucky ($20,000 per screen at four theaters) is the surprise winner in the independent world, with a strking lead performance by Sally Hawkins as a preternaturally cheerful schoolteacher who sounds as though she could set teeth on edge as easily as she warms hearts. I'm curious but wary. The film will expand wider on Friday; if you've seen it, is it a tonic for difficult times or a passive aggressive form of torture?

Speaking of possibly unpleasant experiences, I'm also surprised by the excellent returns for Larry Charles' Religulous. The doc has earned more than $6.7 million in just two weeks; A. J. Schnack of All these wonderful things points out that it's the first doc since Michael Moore's Sicko "to score back-to-back multi-million dollar weekends." I grew tired of Bill Maher's smirking, self-righteous ridicule years ago, but perhaps I'm in the minority. If you've seen the doc, are you a big fan of Maher? Or is it the subject matter that made it a must-see?

Lance Hammer's Ballast deserves a big hand. Not only did Hammer write and direct a highly-praised drama, he decided to take on distribution duties as well, opening it at a single Manhattan theater the weekend before last. The earnings were not stunning, but very respectable for picture without stars. It expands to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Washington, Philadelphia and St. Louis before the end of October, according to indieWIRE. Will you check out Ballast if it opens near you?

(We first saw it back at Sundance, but the indie drama Good Dick is opening this weekend in limited release. So here's a reprint of our review from last January.)


By: Scott Weinberg

Yes, the title of the movie is "Good Dick," no, there's no character named Dick in the film, and yes, I definitely think that the flick's eventual distributor will change it to something a little less, well, tacky. But I believe a brave distributor will come along and show this fine little film some love -- despite its frequent proclivity for very frank and seriously explicit sex talk. Fortunately, the film comes from a very sincere and heartfelt place, which makes the few "uncomfortable" moments perfectly acceptable ... and frequently quite fascinating.

Jason Ritter and fantastic newcomer Marianna Palka star as a pair of unnamed twenty-somethings who don't "meet cute," don't fall madly in love, and don't really get along all that well -- yet they still make for one of the most fascinating on-screen movie couples in quite some time. "He" is a homeless video store clerk who has a desperate yearning for some romantic contact. "She" is a seriously unhappy young woman who seems to have a strong affection for hardcore pornography. "He," for some strange-yet-sweet reason, can see through her powerfully unpleasant exterior -- and he seems to be well and truly smitten with this dysfunctional female. "She" claims to have no affection whatsoever for her new sorta-boyfriend, but she also welcomes him into her apartment (and bed) time and time again. Oh, but she won't get physical. At all.

(We first caught Joe Swanberg's "Nights and Weekends" at Austin's SXSW Film Festival, but since it's opening in limited release this weekend, we're reprinting our review from last March.)

By: Erik Davis

Nights and Weekends marks writer-director Joe Swanberg's fourth consecutive film at the South by Southwest Film Festival, and it's quite possibly his strongest work yet. Here, Swanberg co-directs and stars alongside girl-next-door-with-an-edge Greta Gerwig – and the two play a couple struggling through the highs and lows of a long distance relationship. What we see is what we don't see, if that makes any sense, as Swanberg and Gerwig consciously chose not to hand this one to the audience on a silver platter. Case in point: There's really no narrative at all. One would think a film with no narrative would be the equivalent of recording you and your significant other watching TV on a Friday night – cuddled up, chitter chatter with a pause for a snack here and there.

On the surface, Nights and Weekends is just that – a regular night (or nights) with regular people who talk just like us or them or your friend with the huge crush on that guy we all kinda know. But look a little deeper and Nights and Weekends is so much more than "just another 'Mumblecore' flick about confusing relationships and missed opportunities." Swanberg and Gerwig do a tremendous job tapping into everything we love about our relationships, as well as everything we hate – and they do this with moments, glances, kisses and tears. No score. No set pieces. No set up and payoff. In an interview the morning after the film's world premiere, Swanberg told me that's exactly how he remembers his own life: as random scenes, conversations or smiles – a mixed fruit basket of love, lust, fear and disappointment.

I tried to get the YouTube version embedded up in here, but it looks like it's been yanked down -- which means you're better off going through the official Twilight website, which will direct you to the appropriate social networking site. Because what's more social than sitting in a quiet movie theater for two hours?

I tried to check out the trailer for myself, but between the always-twitchy MySpace and the various "blockers" I have installed on my browser ... it just didn't happen. So I'll leave it to those hardcore fans who already love the film (despite the fact that it doesn't open until the end of next month) to tell me how this new promo clip rates on the omg-O-meter. Also available at the official site is your chance to win an autographed Twilight baseball, which seems kinda silly because they should be giving away bats.

(Actually, skip the MySpaz site altogether. Watch the trailer in wonderfully diminutive "widget" style right here.)

I found myself asking one simple question during Ridley Scott's Body of Lies, a well-shot, big-name intelligence thriller that sees Leonardo DiCaprio's CIA man caught up in action in the Middle East -- namely, what is Body of Lies for? I don't mean that in the sense of asking what it supports or believes in -- although, with the film's mix of Hollywood heroics and sneering cynicism, you're certainly left with that question -- but rather in the sense of asking what it is that Body of Lies means to accomplish or communicate. Part of the film feels like an attempt at a sprawling, globe-trotting story of realpolitik and moral complexity, in the mold of Syriana or Scott's own Black Hawk Down; other parts feel like Dolby-pumped slam-bang action, in the mold of Tony Scott's Spy Game or the Bourne Films. And some of Body of Lies feels like a weird, surreal workplace satire, with DiCaprio's on-the-ground intelligence agent fighting, fussing and feuding with his D.C.-based superior Russell Crowe; if you hate having your boss hover over your shoulder second-guessing you, imagine how it feels to have your boss looking over your shoulder second-guessing you from orbit via satellite.

Adapted from David Ignatius' novel by The Departed screenwriter William Monahan, Body of Lies follows DiCaprio's Roger Ferris through a series of run-and-gun intelligence-gathering missions that start in Iraq and travel the globe in the name of penetrating, and breaking, a terror ring operating on a global level. Ferris works for Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe, beefy and drawling), who runs his section of the CIA with a true believer's fervor. Speaking to a group of political staff and elected officials, Hoffman tries to get everyone in line by getting everyone scared: "Our world as we know it is much simpler... to put to an end than you might think." Ed knows that in an age of asymmetrical warfare, America's seemingly unsophisticated opponents have big advantages; you can't tap someone's phone if they don't have one, can't crack their e-mail if it doesn't exist.

Welcome to the Indie Spotlight, our weekly roundup of the limited-release films opening outside the multiplexes all over this great land of ours. There are quite a few indie films debuting today, and while it's especially good news for movie buffs in New York City, the rest of us can make a note of the ones that look good and keep an eye out for when they come to our neck of the woods (wherever that neck may be).

Today we have, in alphabetical order: Ashes of Time Redux, Billy: The Early Years, Breakfast with Scot, Choose Connor, Fraude: Mexico 2006, Good Dick, Happy-Go-Lucky, Nights and Weekends, and Talento de Barrio. Here's the scoop on each of them, from widest opening to smallest.

Billy: The Early Years
What it is: A friendly, faithful biopic about the Rev. Billy Graham.
What they're saying: Nothing so far. If I had to guess, I'd reckon fans of the good reverend will find it pleasant, while those unfamiliar with or uninterested in him will find it boring. That's if I had to guess.
Where it's playing: About 300 locations throughout the southeastern quadrant of the United States, below the Mason-Dixon line and east of Amarillo.
More info: Here's the official site.

Talento de Barrio
What it is: Puerto Rican drama starring Daddy Yankee as a drug dealer who falls in love and becomes a reggaeton singer. I guess it's like a Puerto Rican Hustle & Flow.
What they're saying: The only two reviews available so far are very, very negative.
Where it's playing: About 20 screens in the greater New York City and Los Angeles areas.
More info: The official site lists the theaters it's playing in.