So I just returned home from checking out the New York Film Festival's closing night film, Persepolis, which is an amazing little animated flick about a girl coming of age during the Islamic revolution. Sony Pictures Classics is releasing it in December, it might get nominated for a Best Foreign Language Oscar (it's currently France's selection, so we'll see), and, heck, it might even win. An Oscar! For a film starring an animated girl from Iran! Go figure. The theater was pretty crowded, because from what I gathered people were still interested in films featuring women in the lead roles. I know I am. By now you probably see where I'm going with this -- in case you haven't heard yet, Warner Bros. chief Jeff Robinov is still simmering in some hot water over comments he allegedly made; how, ya know, he doesn't want to make any more female-driven films because ... The Invasion and The Brave One didn't do so well? Yeah, I don't get it much either.

Nikki Finke, the blogger over at Deadline Hollywood who broke the story, continues to go on and on about the fiasco, while, I imagine, folks over at Warners are scrambling to correct this PR nightmare. Finke reminds me of that girl from Can't Hardly Wait who runs around throughout the entire film trying to get people to sign her yearbook. Whatever happened to that girl after everyone completely dissed her? Where did she go after high school? What is she doing now? Let me take a wild guess ... Anyway, I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around this whole thing. If it's true, and Robinov did say those things, then why is he blaming the actresses? I asked a friend of mine, who saw both The Invasion and The Brave One, if he didn't like the films because of Kidman and Foster. His answer: "I didn't like them because they sucked. Kidman and Foster had nothing to do with that." And why did he go to see them in the first place? "I like Kidman and Foster." Heh. (I wonder if they changed the name to Legally Blonde: Invasion of the Purse Snatchers, if, then, people would've showed up to see it?)

I tried reading Finke's reports, but I just got a headache. They're filled with lines like, "And then a Warner Bros. rep told me ..." and "Three studio insiders claimed to have ..." and "When I got off the phone with the agent whose rep used to be a studio exec ..." Who gives a sh*t? Should we care about this story at all? Seriously. Warner Bros. could make 70 films in a row about homosexual kangaroos from Egypt, and it still wouldn't change the fact that my electric bill is too high. Should we boycott Warners? No. Why? There are very few guarantees in life: 1. A lot of folks making the decisions in Hollywood are morons. 2. 300 is and will always be a pile of crap. 3. Female-driven films simply don't do well at the box office unless they star Reese Witherspoon doing her best Valley-girl accent, and 4. There will always be something better worth seeing on any given weekend, be it on DVD or in the theater. Like Persepolis. So let Warners make their testosterone-laced, male-driven films, and the rest of us can go about our lives knowing there will always be a choice when it comes to what we watch, when we watch it and who we watch it with. Isn't that what's most important here?

T

I wasn't there, but by all accounts one of the highlights of this year's Con -- which was a little tepid on the news front -- was Kate Beckinsale's odd behavior at the panel for her upcoming film, Whiteout. After joining the panel in media res, she apparently peppered her statements with a string of sexual non sequiturs and then mentioned that she enjoyed being beat up on camera. After the panel was over, she joined the post-panel roundtables only to bail out of them halfway through. Again, I wasn't there, but that's the scuttlebutt from those who were on the ground. Anyway, I'm actually looking forward to her upcoming film, Whiteout -- for some reason, movies set in the Arctic always intrigue me. I have no idea why, but there you go. Above is the teaser poster, unveiled at the Con and being hosted by ComingSoon.net. The film is set to hit theaters sometime in 2008.

This is one I've been looking forward to for a long time, ever since the casting was first announced, and now after a long and complex production, a trailer has arrived, courtesy of Moviefone. It looks pretty good, although I have to say I didn't expect to find myself more attracted to the action elements than the creepy parts, but that's the case. The trailer is a little too busy and fast-paced to send out a horror vibe -- it skips pretty quickly through an entire set-up with the alien arrival, the pod people acting funny, and then the body snatchers attacking poor Nicole Kidman and her kid. I think I would have preferred something more creative, like maybe one session with the psychiatrist character played by Kidman, where a patient says or does something really weird, and boom -- that's your trailer. There's still time, Warner Bros! But I can live with this one for a start.

We finally get to see and hear Daniel Craig's character do his thing here, with a quasi-American accent, no less. For some reason, I think he's going to do some good work in this film. I haven't read the script or anything, it's just a hunch -- he's not one to sign on to a project without a gameplan. As I said, the best part of the trailer, for my money, is that car chase sequence -- the one that they shot during the late period when the Wachowskis were working on the film, and where Kidman suffered a minor injury. There's a nice shot where an entire horde of body snatchers attach themselves to the car and Kidman just floors it anyway. In a month or so, I'm going to have to do what is always the hardest part of my job -- try to put down all the stuff I've heard and read about the film, and go watch it with a blank slate. The Invasion hits theaters on August 17.

The Sunday edition of The Scotsman is reporting today that Sue Quinn, a locations manager for Warner Bros. has been seen in the far north of Scotland, around the area of Cape Wrath, known for its spectacular cliffs and caves. According to the paper, the Harry Potter producers are considering using the caves and cliffs to shoot the climax of the sixth film of the series, when the heroes must travel along a coastline in search of the soul of Voldemort. Among the areas Quinn is known to have checked out include Smoo Cave, a 200 ft. long, 130 ft. wide cave, the Clo Mor cliffs, which are nearly 1,000 ft. high, the Cape Wrath arches, which contain a string of caves, a rock tower called Stac Clo Kearvaig that rises 130 ft., and the Whaligoe Steps cave, which is in a bay enclosed by two sea cliffs. The paper also notes that the Scotland locales are thought to be in competition with similar locations in Ireland and New Zealand.

A harbor master who took Quinn out on his boat to scout the locations told the paper that "she was taking thousands of photographs of the cliffs, caves and rocks. She seemed to be very interested in Smoo Cave and the stacks in particular. Warner Bros. would not comment for the paper, but a spokesperson for VisitScotland said "It would be great if filming for the next Harry Potter movie took place here. 'Set-jetting' is an increasingly popular trend." There's still plenty of time, of course -- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince isn't scheduled to hit theaters until November 28, 2008.

Warner Bros. has just released to the web a big batch of new high-res stills from the upcoming Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Scrolling through the pics tells me absolutely nothing about the plot of the film, but maybe you'll have a different reaction. Most of these are classic strike-a-pose publicity stills, with the main characters pointing their wands at the camera or just doing a serious 'wizard face' instead. There's one must-see pic, with a creepy, open-shirted Gary Oldman putting his arm around Harry like as if he (Oldman) were some '70s rock guitarist and Harry was a naive groupie, backstage all of two minutes. There's another weirdly interesting photo of Harry sitting in a chair, with a bunch of people in priest (or judge) robes behind him -- it looks like he's about to face the Spanish Inquisition. Anyway, this should hold you Potter fanatics over for at least another week or so, right? Enjoy.

The folks over at Bloody-disgusting.com are hosting about 20 new pics from the long-delayed but now approaching release Warner Bros. horror film, The Reaping. The film stars Hilary Swank as a former missionary who now has gone the complete opposite direction and debunks miracles for a living, and ends up coming into contact with some miracles that might not be debunkable. Of the new pics, the most arresting one is of a person with bright red hair who has been killed in some way that seems like slow roasting over an open flame. Another shows Swank approaching what looks like a screen door with some kind of special dagger in her hand. There's also a spooky one of a little girl peering into the camera while a bunch of people behind her seemingly engage in some kind of ritual -- they are all covering their faces with both hands.

Most of the other pics in the bunch are pretty non-informational -- a lot of people staring at giant bugs or shining flashlights into a dark corner, and stuff like that. The Reaping is currently scheduled to hit theaters on April 6 -- Joel Silver recently defended the long delay in an interview, stating that the many special effects just took a long time to complete. With the new release date, it will go head to head with Grindhouse, which strikes me as odd. The Reaping isn't exactly counter-programming to Grindhouse -- is this a wise move?

With only one day off to enjoy their huge Oscar win, it seems some of the folks involved with The Departed are ready to re-team and get back to work. Not on a Departed sequel, mind you, but on another Hong Kong remake created by the same folks (Alan Mak, Andrew Lau and Felix Chong) behind Infernal Affairs. (I assume the idea is to just follow these guys around for next few years since everything they touch seems to turn to Oscar gold.)

Warner Bros. acquired the rights to Confessions of Pain, and tapped Departed scribe (and Oscar winner) William Monahan to pen the script. Leonardo DiCaprio will produce via his Appian Way and potentially star in the pic. Story follows a police detective and a private detective (both good friends) who team up to investigate the murder of the cop's father-in-law. From there, I take it, things unravel and people die. The original film was only released last year. I shall assume the debate will begin all over again; which film was better: the original or the remake? For those that have seen both Infernal Affairs and Confessions of Pain, which film did you enjoy more? And, is it possible for the latter to be more successful that its Oscar-winning older sibling?

There's no doubt about it -- I am a huge Paul Feig fan. Most people have no idea who the man is, but if you're at all familiar with Freaks and Geeks, The Office, Arrested Development and Undeclared, then you're familiar with his work. For those of you who dig awkward childhood stories, I will also suggest reading Feig's book Kick Me -- simply hilarious stuff right there. Recently, Feig left the world of television to get his feet wet directing feature films -- his second, Unaccompanied Minors, is due out December 8.

Well, Warner Bros. is so happy with Minors, they've just signed Feig to do another film for the studio, one he will re-write and eventually direct. It's called Smooth Operator, and Feig describes it as "a high-tech version of Cyrano ... or like a Hitch-meets-Rush Hour." Story revolves around a pimped out CIA agent who's placed in charge of training a computer nerd on how to seduce a female operative. As you can imagine, the nerd needs a little bit of help in that area. And who better to tackle nerds than Paul Feig.

One of the things Feig intends to do with the script is beef up the physical comedy, something he's not so accustomed to -- obviously, from looking at his prior work, the man is more about character and less about pies to the face. It will also be the first time Feig adds a bit of action to his repertoire. However, he goes on to say, "I am first and foremost into character writing but the last few years I've wanted to try to bring back stuff I used to watch, movies from John Hughes, Blake Edwards, and stuff like the Three Stooges." It should be interesting to see if he succeeds ... I know my fingers are crossed.

In what's sure to be a fabulous on-screen duo, Warner Bros. has decided to finance and distribute The Bucket List (which Martha told you about back in June, though at that time a studio was not yet involved), bringing Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman onboard to play the lead roles. Not for nothing, but I don't even need to know what the plot for this film will be -- just knowing these two old school pimps are starring is enough to guarantee my ass inside that theater on opening night.

And speaking of old school pimps, Rob Reiner will direct with folks eying a late October production start. In case you're wondering, pic will revolve around two men (Nicholson and Freeman) "who break out of a ward for terminal cancer patients and embark on a road trip, knocking items off a list of things they want to do before kicking the bucket." There's still no word on budget, but who cares -- I'll take a road-trip flick from these boys anytime, anywhere.

The movie download sites are going to have to find new ways to compete, as they aren't going to be duking it out with boasts of who has what studio's films for much longer. Pretty soon both will offer the same movies from all the major distributors. Just one day after Disney announced that it would be releasing its movies on CinemaNow, Warner Bros. has made an announcement that its films will be available on the website, too. Warner Bros. is already selling movie downloads through Movielink, having joined in the original deal announced on April 3, and the studio now joins MGM and Sony as having relationships with both of the sites. Warner's titles, which include TV shows, went on sale today.

Well since I haven't yet gotten a response from yesterday's post, I will assume that either none of our readers has tried CinemaNow or Movielink, or none will admit to being ripped off. Maybe now that the Harry Potter films are available on CinemaNow, a fan may check the site out and report to us about it. Please.