Alpha Dog director Nick Cassevettes and producer/financier Sidney Kimmel wanted their film, a controversial, taken-from-real-life, River’s Edge-like drama about a pack of teens dealing with the death of one of their own, to be released wide, or at least wide-ish (1000 screens or thereabouts). New Line, however, wanted to platform it. So the guys have jumped ship and now Universal has agreed to distribute it in a wide-ish fashion in early 2007, or a bit more than a year after Cassevetes’ film played at Sundance ’06. Something about this explanation in Variety doesn’t ring entirely true. Methinks there’s more to it.

If you take the time to read this review of Milos Forman‘s Goya’s Ghost (Warner Bros., late ’06 — wide release early ’07) and particularly the description of the alleged Natalie Portman nude scene, it tells you straight away it’s a torture scene. (Portman’s character is put through major Spanish Inquisition suffering because she’s suspected of being Jewish.) Anyone who reads this through and then goes “whoa…a Natalie Portman nude scene!” (as some guys in the talkback section do) is effin’ diseased and needs professional help. Ghost also stars Javier Bardem, Stellan Skarsgaard (as Goya) and Randy Quaid.

There’s something here…a straight-shooting, mid ’60s Truffaut-ish quality…not modelish (which is what’s so appealing)…with that frank expression and those friendly-knowing eyes, she could have starred in Bed and Board or Two English Girls (assuming she can act)…her name is Jennifer Laemlin, and she may not even know who Francois Truffaut was, but she’s been very gracious and accomodating as I’ve sat and typed away inside Le Cafe qui parle (where she works) for hours and hours on end — Thursday, 6.1.06, 2:10 pm.

(a) Cafe on Boulevard de Courcelles — Thursday, 6.1.06, 12:05 pm; (b) ditto; (c) Outdoor banner for La Rupture on front facade of Pathe Wepler in Place Clichy — Thursday, 6.1.06, 12:40 pm; (d) One gallon equals 3.8 liters means that the more expensive gas on the right is selling for 6.34 Euros per gallon…right? And the slightly less expesnive “super” is going for 5.92 Euros per gallon — Thursday, 6.1.06, 12:55 pm; (e) View from just outside the Champs Elysee screening room where I saw The Road to Guantanamo this morning; (f) Graffiti on bathroom door inside facilities at Parc de Monce — Thursday, 6.1.06, 11:20 am; (g) Lunchtime snoozers at Parc de Monce — Thursday, 6.1.06, 12:25 pm; (h) I’m pretty sure you can’t buy lemon-flavored Tic Tacs in the U.S.; (i) Indian restaurant on rue Ruisseau near internet cafe that I’ve never gotten around to eating at, despite high recommends from the locals; (j) A single futon on the floor with electricity that shuts down if you run the heater, the kitchen hot plate and the bathroom fan at the same time is what you get for a weekly $500 rent in Paris these days , and with no accessible wi-fi (which sucks).

In Focus interviewer Mike Russell asks, “Is Superman Returns the unofficial Superman III?” And SR screenwriter Michael Dougherty replies, “Okay, uhm, it’s funny…I think Bryan [ Singer] and Dan and I need to sit down and discuss this answer before we talk to too many other reporters. My personal belief — and I know Bryan has been quoted as saying differently — is that this is not Superman III. I don’t feel like it’s appropriate to discount Superman III and IV, because a lot of people put a lot of hard work into them, and even if you don’t like them or don’t think they’re up to a certain quality, they’re still Superman movies.” And then SR screenwriter Dan Harris says, “It√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢s complicated. If this is a sequel to I and II, then everything in I and II happened. But if we√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢re picking and choosing what we want — which is what I think is what happened, using our memories of Superman: The Movie to build our back story √ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Ǩ¬ù then I can guarantee that it’s not the specifics, but the broad strokes of those movies that are part of the Superman we√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢re making.” — from Russell’s In Focus interview with the screenwriters (June ’06 issue).

Harry Knowles is reporting that Darren Aronofsky‘s The Fountain is going to be be released by Warner Bros. on 10.13. The darkly intellectual fantasy flick was a Cannes no-show because Arnofsky would settle only for a competition status and the powers-that-be wouldn’t give him that.

“The whole point of a remake is to either improve upon a flawed film, or to bring a new and/or different perspective to a classic tale. The Omen does neither, [being] essentially a shot-for-shot remake of the [Richard Donner] original, but with weaker performances and more deliberate ‘jump scares’ to get the teen girls screaming and gripping their boyfriends in fear. In many ways it’s disturbing how much director John Moore has adhered to the original film, so much so that those familiar with it in any way will very quickly get irritated or bored with this rehash. Even those new to the tale will find its now somewhat dated material and the inherent flaws from the original still visible, despite various attempts to hide them by ‘jazzing up’ the horror quotient.” — from a review by Dark Horizon‘s Garth Franklin. (Here, also, is the view of critic Paul Byrnes of the Sydney Morning Herald.)

Brad Pitt was going to have two movies coming out in the early fall…but no longer. Alejandro Gonzales Innaritu ‘s Babel (Paramount Vantage, 10.6) is the keeper and Andrew Dominik‘s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Warner Bros., 9.15) is not. Warner Bros. publicity confirmed today that they’re delaying Jesse James‘s release until early 2007. This is being done, I’ve been told, “due to Brad Pitt’s shooting schedule for Oceans 13.” What…he’s going to be too busy making an ensemble film with 12 other guys to find time to do publicity for a couple of weekends? Sure thing. I can guess what’s actually happening, but when I get something solid I’ll pass it along. If any industry readers can fill me in (anonymously, of course), the usual confidences apply.

This one-sheet for Mel Gibson‘s Apocalypto (Disney, 12.8) really puts the zap on my head…something like that. Handsome, striking, quietly haunting…an image that sticks and stays. Reactions?

An amusing, well-written, for-some-reason very believable (as far as this stuff goes) AICN review of The Break-Up from “Masswyrm”. I believe it because the guy knows how to write, because he has a straight-arrow tone of voice, and because he says he’s married (and sounds married). The Break-Up tracking may be upticking (I’m now hearing opening weekend may hit the high 20s) but between this guy’s review and Brian Lowry‘s in Variety, this film looks effin’ doomed with the just-make-me-laugh crowd. And maybe, just maybe something that maladjusted hombres like myself might find a way to get into. I love these two portions: (a) “I just can’t get over the fact that this film is being released in the summer. It’s not a summer film. This is a fall release, something for the cinephiles to wash the taste of summer blockbusters from their palate. Closer in tone to The Good Girl, War of the Roses and the last half of Chasing Amy, this film is anything but heart-warming” and (b) “First, the good news. The Break-Up is a fantastic film of wonderful clarity, depth, insight and honest to god character driven comedy. The bad news? You’re probably gonna hate it. No, seriously. A lot of people are gonna hate the living shit out of this movie.” The more I hear stuff like this, the more I start to think I might enjoy it, or at least admire it. Maybe.

My read on Warner Bros.’s decision to release Superman Returns two days earlier — on Wednesday, 6.28 instead of Friday, 6.30 — is that the marketing cats are figuring Bryan Singer’s humungously costly film will be pretty much over and done by the time Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest comes along on July 7th, so why not go for the moolah by stretching out the 4th of July weekend as much as possible? I haven’t called my pallies with the tracking reports, but the general expectation is that Superman Returns will pull in…I don’t know what to write here. Those angry Ain’t It Cool guys have been gunning for this film for months now. Will geek sentiments matter? Do geeks ever matter when it comes to huge tenpolers? Is a figure of $140 to $145 million over the six-day weekend on-the-money, optimistic, a bit short…what? What are HE readers expecting? How interested?

I didn’t even watch the Indiana Jones DVD box set that came out in October 2003, so you can bet your ass I never would’ve paid for a limited deluxe “Indiana Jones Trilogy” DVD~set inside a “leather-bound box with additional deleted scenes, making-of docs, two large trade paperbacks and several CDs worth of John Williams’ scoring”…no effin’ way. But had this package been released I would have probably tried to score a freebie from Paramount Home Video or, failing that, tried to convince my homies at West L.A.’s Laser Blazer to let me rent one for a weekend. In any case, this is a good rant by Cinematical’s Mark Beall because…well, in his own words: “You are now looking at your piddly little boxed set with scorn and contempt, once again hating George Lucas and his fan-destroying DVD marketing. I wouldn’t fret if I were you, though, this [October 2003] set has double-dipping all OVER it, which means you’ll probably be able to pay another large chunk of cash for what you should have been able to buy the first time around.”