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The Brontes are all the rage for adaptation right now. It's undoubtedly due to Edward and Bella bestowing their favor on Wuthering Heights, and had they chosen Great Expectations, perhaps we'd see Dickens adaptations flinging themselves to the big screen. I love corsets and cravats, so I'm not going to complain, and I'm certainly not going to whine if Cary Fukunaga gets this cast for Jane Eyre. Variety is reporting that Michael Fassbender and Mia Wasikowska are in talks to play Jane and Rochester for Fukunaga, and oh, how torrid it would be!

This is actually the second time Fassbender has circled a Bronte adaptation. Last May, he was said to be in talks for Wuthering Heights, but Ed Westwick stepped into that particular waistcoat. It's a shame. I think Fassbender would have made an excellent Heathcliff, and may have been the first one to actually snarl, bang his head against a tree, and slap people convincingly. But he will make a very simmering Rochester, and is the only actor who could top Toby Stephens' wonderful turn in 2006.

Wasikowska is still a bit of a dark horse. She's becoming one of those much-discussed names, but most of us have yet to really meet her until Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland hits theaters. She's very pretty, but is just "ordinary" (if that doesn't sound too terrible) enough to fit the part of plain Jane, and as an Aussie, she'll be able to turn on an English accent better than Ellen Page. If this is the Jane Eyre that makes it to the screen, I'll be happy. Let the eerie screams, mysterious fires, and lingering looks commence.

The director of Atonement, The Soloist, and Pride & Prejudice is jumping into the action pool? That's what The Hollywood Reporter indicates: Director Joe Wright, best known for Oscar-friendly drama, is about to sign on the dotted line to helm Hanna, which THR describes as a La Femme Nikita style project: "The story centers on a 14-year-old Eastern European girl who has been raised by her father to be a cold-blooded killing machine. She connects with a French family, forms a friendship with their daughter and goes through the pangs of adolescence. When the girl is dragged back to her father's world and discovers that she was bred as a killing machine in a CIA prison camp, she must fight her way to a free life."

Sounds to me like a fairly conventional, rather familiar tale -- so then why were Danny Boyle and Alfonso Cuaron both (briefly) attached to the project? I have to assume that there's more on the page than just another action flick to draw in directors like that. And to those who may doubt that Wright can handle high-end action, I recommend you take another look at the most talked-about sequence from Atonement (a long and staggeringly cool tracking shot of a horrific battlefield) and think about how that would look in a "fun" action film.

Also, I bet they change the title.

Tethered to reality by only a slender thread, Pirate Radio quickly cuts loose and floats off into its own imaginary layer of the Earth's atmosphere, where only good-hearted, pleasant-thinking, die-hard romantics can survive. Welcome home, Richard Curtis, where have you been?

Writer/director Curtis rose to fame on the basis of his screenplay for Four Weddings and a Funeral, featuring an ensemble of quirky yet appealing men and women chasing love and happiness, followed, notably, by his script for Notting Hill, but he's been writing off-kilter comedy sketches and episodic television for many years. Pirate Radio proves that his gift for writing witty one-liners and creating funny situations remains intact. His skills as a film director and shaper of material are a little more fuzzy and undefined, however.

As with Love, Actually, his previous directorial effort, Pirate Radio (AKA The Boat That Rocked) is filled with episodes that feel randomly assembled, knit together by proximity and happenstance more than narrative necessity. For all the laughter and positive feelings that Pirate Radio generates, it's a lightweight treatment of a potentially heavyweight subject.

I'm grateful for this Friday, because that's the day that The Men Who Stare at Goats comes out and I can stop seeing its trailer relentlessly attached to anything and everything I see (and given that I try to see most anything and everything out there, it's really only a 'me' problem, I suppose). One night, I had myself a triple feature and saw the preview not one, not two, but three times; as a pal put it, he had "more than a feeling" that I was getting sick of it.

Before that, it was a summer of Taking Woodstock time and time again, and it would already seem that Shutter Island's move to February will insure that I'll be sitting there, trying to piece the thing together for the next three months when not perfecting my New England Leo impersonation.

So, whether currently or in your own formative years, what trailers have you been just absolutely burnt out on? Did you and your friends quote along with them as they played? Were you actually ever turned off from seeing a film because you had it advertised to you too much? Come on, let it all out...

It's safe to say that every film starts out small, and that many of them then end up staying small for any number of reasons. Beyond that, only a lucky few make the leap to feature-length, and even then, it doesn't always turn out for the best. Saw was once a mere fraction of itself, a grimy and gritty little morality play unlikely to spawn a seriously successful franchise that just won't die. The minds behind Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow dedicated themselves for years to creating a low-budget trailer for the film, only to then be granted the chance to flesh out their pulpy serial throwback with millions more. Wouldn't you know it, District 9 just became the summer's least expected blockbuster to the tune of $100 million, and even that was born of a like-minded showcase reel.

And then there's Shane Acker, whose original short for 9 was a wordless little post-apocalyptic breath-taker that rightfully earned itself an Academy Award nomination in 2005. Once an expanded take garnered the support of a recognizable voice cast and producers like Tim Burton, his vision was well on its way to the big screen, and all things considered, it's a small wonder that this small wonder made it through the Hollywood machine with most (though not all) of its mystique intact...

In the last few years, Emile Hirsch has become a go-to resource for directors of all sorts of films: After starring in Sean Penn's Into the Wild, Hirsch took on the reins of Speed Racer, a massive, effects-driven action film from The Matrix's Wachowski brothers, and then collaborated on screen with Penn again, in a supporting but essential role in Gus Van Sant's Milk. In his latest project, Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock, Hirsch tackles yet another period character, this time playing a young Vietnam veteran who regains a little bit of his humanity when the iconic music festival descends on his hometown.

Cinematical recently spoke to Hirsch in an exclusive telephone interview about his role in Taking Woodstock. In addition to discussing the challenges of bringing a character to life whose behavior, if not very identity, has become as familiar to audiences as the imagery of Woodstock itself, Hirsch revealed some of the sources of inspiration he took for his portrayal, and talked about the futility of coming up with a strategy for one's acting career.

Cinematical: The character you played in Into the Wild had his own tragic past, but the way that he dealt with it was with a greater degree of serenity. Did you see any parallels or similarities when you took on this role in Taking Woodstock?

It's no accident that at the very beginning of the movie, the title shows up broken into three words, one on its own separate line: Taking. Wood. Stock. The immensely likeable comedian Demetri Martin plays Elliot Teichberg, a menschy young guy who is spending his summer at his parents' ramshackle motel in the Catskills in yet another attempt to stave off their foreclosure. He has a life back in NYC, sure, but his work as an interior designer and painter isn't going so well, and his friends are all leaving for San Francisco. Elliot, or Ellie as his parents call him, is the consummate Good Jewish Boy – he runs the local Chamber of Commerce, helps around the hotel, and withstands his Russian mother's browbeating (played by Vera Drake's Imelda Staunton).

It's only sheer luck and desperation that leads him to call the Woodstock folks after a nearby town decides they don't want a hippie invasion after all. The rest, as they say, is history, much to Elliot's bemusement. Obviously, though, the free love and plentiful drugs help grease the wheels of his own individuation, as the Summer of Love draws to a close and the darker era of Altamont and Manson creep closer.

For a guy who's a successful stand-up and burgeoning actor, it's hard to imagine a performer with as slight a presence as Demetri Martin. The comedian began his career just a few years ago with appearances and writing gigs on both The Daily Show and Conan O'Brien, and moved on to a special and eventually a series with his namesake. In his latest role, as the main character in Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock, he plays a young man inadvertently caught up in history-making events when he agrees to host a music festival in his hometown of Bethel, New York. Perhaps appropriately, his performance is a study in modesty, but it's one that will no doubt define him as an actor and establish his presence among mainstream audiences like never before.

Cinematical recently spoke to Martin in an exclusive telephone interview about his participation in Taking Woodstock. In addition to talking about the conception and creation of his increasingly familiar, but surprisingly featherweight persona, Martin talked about tapping into what director Ang Lee wanted for his period piece, and looked back on the legacy of Woodstock, particularly in the context of contemporary pop culture.

Cinematical: What was the process for you of developing this character? In a way it seems not completely dissimilar from the persona you have in your comedy, but at that same time it's not supposed to be you.

At Comic-Con, legends come a dime a dozen, and those are just the ones on the printed pages of the comics on the exhibition hall floor. But in Hall H, the epicenter of the convention's surprises, revelations and exclusives, true groundbreakers and history-makers are in comparatively short supply. This year, however, there were several, including James Cameron, Peter Jackson, Hayao Miyazaki, and Terry Gilliam; but even in such rarified company, Tim Burton stands head and shoulder above in terms of providing memorable, specific, and ongoing inspiration to the folks who like to look up at these filmmakers' latest projects.

Suffice it to say that a checklist of his most iconic films would be redundant, since virtually all of them qualify, either because of their source material, or his interpretation of it. But the filmmaker has two high-profile projects coming out in the next year or so, each of which applies his inventive style in different ways: first, there's 9, Shane Acker's computer-generated post-apocalyptic odyssey, which Burton is producing; and in 2010, there's Alice in Wonderland, his adaptation of the classic novel by Lewis Carroll.

In between Hall H panels, Cinematical caught up with Burton to discuss his work on 9 and Alice in Wonderland. In addition to talking about the technological opportunities and challenges presented on both films, he offered a few secrets about the forthcoming spectacle of Alice, and reflected on the filmmaking style – and substance – that has made his idiosyncratic body of work a happy home for outsiders and mainstream audiences alike.

Indie Roundup reviews the past week of news from the independent film community and provides a peek at what's coming soon.

Festivals. Its official name is the Traverse City Film Festival, but unofficially it's "the Michael Moore fest," thanks to the filmmaker's role as founding father. Good reports on the fifth edition, which wrapped last weekend, can be found at Spout (by Karina Longworth) and indieWIRE (by Thom Powers).

Deals. Image Entertainment acquired Adam Salky's Dare, which premiered at Sundance earlier this year. Emmy Rossum, Zach Gilford, and Ashley Springer star as "high school students that enter into an unusual triangle of friendship and love." Tim Grierson of Screen wrote: "As refreshing as it is legitimately sexy." Release plans have not yet been announced. [Per indieWIRE.]

Online / On-Demand Viewing. If you hurry, you can still watch the acclaimed documentary 45365 at SnagFilms for free. it's available through tomorrow (Thursday, August 6) as part of their SummerFest preview series. The doc examines life in Sidney, Ohio, as filmed over the course of nine months by two men raised in that small town.

If you're hungry for more (legal) online viewing, check out the newly-launched SpeedCine, a very simple search engine that lets you find out what movies are available to watch through various providers like Amazon, Hulu, and Netflix, either free of charge, for a one-time fee, or by subscription. It's in beta, which means they're still working on it, but right now it flies along very quickly and efficiently. I'm rather amazed -- and very pleased -- to see so many movies that are available at no charge.

Who won the battle for the Indie Weekend Box Office crown? Find out after the jump.