Last week I heard that Michael Mann was pretty well focused on directing Robert De Niro in Frankie Machine, a script by David Levien and Brian Koppelman that’s based on Don Winslow‘s “The Winter of Frankie Machine,” about an aging hit man who’s hounded out of retirement as the target of a hit himself.

Mann has had a hard time getting his projects set up since the financial failure of Miami Vice — two films that would have starred Leonardo Di Caprio (including an adaptation of For Whom The Bell Tolls) couldn’t get funded. I know he’s working on and may eventually direct a John Logan script called Empire for Columbia Pictures, with Will Smith starring. But Frankie Machine, which Martin Scorsese bailed out of directing last August, seemed…I don’t know, like a good and natural thing for Mann to direct. After reading it, I mean. Guns, intrigue, tough guys, good story.

So I called Mann’s office to ask if what I’d been told was true. “Inaccurate information” is what his assistant said he said. An hour or so later semi-retired PMK/HBH publicist Pat Kingsley called to reiterate that Mann hasn’t a clue what he’s doing next — maybe Empire, maybe he’ll concentrate on writing a script about Russian operative Alexander Litvinenko…who knew? I was fairly sure I was being lied to, but it didn’t seem important enough to make a big stink over. I let it go.

Tonight Variety‘s Michael Fleming reported that Mann has cut a deal at Paramount Pictures to develop Frankie Machine as a star vehicle for De Niro, with Alex Tse set to do a “major overhaul” of the concept under Mann’s supervision and De Niro and Jane Rosenthal, co-chiefs of Tribeca Films, producing.

Brian DePalma‘s Redacted won’t have its limited opening until 11.16, and yet it’s been playing twice daily — at 1:05 and 3 pm, no evening screenings — at the Silver Cinema in Norwalk, Connecticut, for the last few days. Obviously for a reason. Thanks to HE reader Mark Rochefort for providing the tip.

Now I’m told there’s a third Alfred Hitchcock project called Psycho/Analysis, based on a script by Psycho screenwriter Joseph Stefano. Like the Ryan Murphy/Anthony Hopkins Hitchcock project I mentioned this morning, it’s about the making of Psycho — but only as far as the screenplay was concerned.

I’ve flipped through about 20 or 25 pages, and it’s basically Stefano’s first-hand recollection of how Hitchcock came to hire him, how their conversations went as they got into the screenplay, how they came to know each other, etc. It’s not exactly a “movie” — it’s very “industry” but it’s mainly talk. And yet plain-spoken, well-written — a believable slice of adult Hollywood life. I’d pay to see it on stage in a New York minute, or maybe on HBO.

Psycho/Analysis was found in a sealed envelope following Stefano’s death on 8.25.06. It’s being produced by The Edge, the new independent studio formed and run by Jonathan Krane, Beau Rogers (Gods and Monsters) and Echo Bridge, the production company. They were reportedly trying to raise financing for it in Cannes this year.

Those American Gangster pirating stories (in New York‘s “Vulture” column and on Digg) are true. I’ve just visited the biggest pirate site and there it is, waiting to be downloaded. The “Vulture” item said the quality sucks — good. I hope they arrest the guy whose screener was used for the master. I don’t know how many illegal Sicko downloads happened last summer or how much it hurt the box-office (or if it had any serious impact at all), but I wonder how many Gangster steals will happen starting today.

Despite the de riguer practice of releasing unrated versions of films on DVD, six years ago Warner Home Video decided to release only the digitally covered-up version of Stanley Kubrick‘s Eyes Wide Shut (i.e., the one with the hooded CG figures standing in front of sex acts in the orgy scene) because, it was said, they wanted to respect Kubrick’s vision. In fact, Kubrick’s original vision didn’t include the cover-ups (which were inserted after his death in early ’99), so the WHV people who said this were totally full of it.

In any event, the just-released Eyes Wide Shut Special Edition DVD (which includes two discs) signals a major turnaround because it contains the unrated, uncensored, European version of the film. Whomever was insisting on releasing only the covered-up version has either seen the light, died or been fired.

That said, there’s a mistake on the packaging. The disk, it says on the back, is supposed to contain both versions of the film (unrated and rated), but pop in the disc and you see right away that only the European version is included. Totally fine with me — it should have been this version all along — but someone who works in the WHV packaging division screwed up. But please don’t fire them. .

“A nation is in peril. Bitterly divided at home, it vacillates between two warring dynasties. Threatened by dark forces abroad, it worries that a decisive moment is coming when one great empire will rise and another will fall. And a female leader is struggling to maintain her femininity while proving she can rule as well as any man.

“Watching Elizabeth: The Golden Age, I couldn’t help thinking of Hillary Clinton, quite possibly the next president of the United States, a woman who often seems to live behind her own plate of glass.

“I [also] wondered the same thing I always wonder when I watch candidates for the presidency putting themselves through the drudgery and the emotional starvation of a long, grueling campaign: is it really worth it?

“The film, and the Clintons, are reminders of all that gets bargained away in public life. At the end of Elizabeth the queen has defeated the Spanish Armada and governs over a golden age of prosperity on England’s shores. Blanchett appears as a living statue in white body paint. Behind her pane of glass, a queen is victorious, ferocious — and utterly alone.” — from Jonathan Darman‘s 10.24 Newsweek piece, “What Elizabeth teaches about Hillary Clinton’s challenge

Between the two Duelling Hitchcock films, HE’s money is on the Ryan Murphy/Anthony Hopkins version rather than Number 13, the comedy-thriller about young Alfred (Dan Fogler) finding his style as a British-based filmmaker in the 1920s. I’ve read an early draft of the Murphy-Hopkins script, written by John J. McLaughlin and largely about the making of Psycho.

16-month old draft of John McLaughlin’s ““Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho,” which Ryan Murphy will direct with Anthony Hopkins as Hitchcock.

The script also weaves in — a bit awkwardly, truth be told — a parallel story about the history of Ed Gein, the Wisconsin mass murderer who was the model for Robert Bloch‘s “Norman Bates” character. I could be reacting too conservatively here. Using the Gein story alongside the Hitchcock saga certainly lifts it out of the usual making-of-a-masterpiece mode a la RKO 281.

The late ’50s period trappings of Ryan-Hopkins film will be easy enough to recapture — the suits, cars, old phones, etc. I just hope that Murphy, a former journalist like myself, will really give it hell as far as putting the audience into the mood and emotions and sub-currents of America in 1959 and ’60. The ground-level enticement in the watching of any period film is that you might have a chance to really go someplace else for a couple of hours. To actually dive into and become part of a past life. Bennett Miller‘s Capote felt like a real time-machine piece; ditto Andrew Dominik‘s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

There was a research screening last night of Tim Burton‘s Sweeney Todd (Dreamamount, 12.21), and it played, for most viewers, as a very satisfying musical horror film. Not a gothic London period tragedy but a classic horror flick in the vein of Phantom of the Opera, says one observer. Oh, and it occasionally morphs into an out-and-out blood bath.

Tim Burton (l.) directs Johnny Depp (r.) during shooting of Sweeney Todd.

So says one guy who attended last night’s research screening of Burton’s film on the Universal lot. During the focus-group discussion “there was some doubt [expressed] that it would appeal to horror fans, even though it clearly is a horror movie, the songs notwithstanding,” writes Cinefantastique.com’s Steve Biodrowski.

“There seemed to be a misapprehension that ‘horror’ equated with Saw, and that fans of that franchise and others of its ilk would [therefore] not enjoy the Burton film,” Biodrowski observes.

“Personally, I think nothing could be further from the truth. The blood explodes in only a few scenes of Sweeney, but when it rains, it pours in unbelievably graphic gouts of gushing red. I can’t remember when or if I ever saw this much red splashed across the screen in a mainstream studio movie.

“More important, the Sweeney character” — portrayed by Johnny Depp — “fits the classic movie monster mold” a la The Phantom of the Opera, Biodrowksi contends. “He does horrible things, but the audience identifies with and even roots for him to dispatch his victims, who more often than not deserve what they get.”

Biodrowski’s piece seems fairly comprehensive, emphasis on the “seems.” The film apparently runs about 110 minutes sans end credits, according to another source. “Very brutal, very bloody,” this other guy says. The Envelope‘s Tom O’Neil will be pleased to hear that “Depp and company don’t skip on the singing” and that the “vocals are great.” The film has “five more weeks of sound mixing” to go, he says.

Everyone apparently loved it at the screening “except for a handful of people, one of whom complained that the film provides “no closure” (an assertion dispute by another who says “it may or may not show you exactly what happens to everybody, but it gives you enough information to figure it out satisfactorily”).

The “no closure” guy also sneered about Depp’s performance, saying that he had seen the actor in similar roles too often before; he called Sweeney “Edward Scissorhands possessed by Jack Sparrow.” This remark was obviously intended as criticism, although “the marketing people actually liked it,” reports one poster, “saying they would like to put the comment in their promotional campaign.”

Footage of Joy Division’s Ian Curtis intercut with Control‘s Sam Riley — posted four months ago, very nicely assembled. Thanks to HE reader Frank Booth for the heads-up.

Three Oscar-predicting lulus have turned up in BBC entertainment reporter Neil Smith‘s 10.24 article: (1) “Having won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar last year for Syriana, George Clooney could also be up for that prize for playing a conflicted lawyer in Michael Clayton“; (2) “Robert Redford‘s political thriller could figure among the Best Picture candidates” (3) “Hairspray could easily land [acting] considerations for Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken.”

Dan in Real Life star Juliette Binoche on the cover of the latest French Playboy. The magazine has recently undergone staff augmentations (“many big guys have joined the crew,” a reader confides, “big guys with the ability to attract big stars to pose for Playboy“). I could talk about Binoche having been born in March 1964, etc., but…how would a Playboy editor put it? That parted-mouth expression is all.