The news that Dreamgirls Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson has been cast as Forest Whitaker‘s daughter in Winged Creatures, which Hollywood Wiretap’s Pete Hammond reported exclusively earlier today, is supposed to quicken our pulses. I’m stilll trying to understand why this film is called Winged Creatures. (Sorry, but I naturally flashed back to Larry Cohen‘s Q — a film about the winged serpent called Quetzlcoatl.)

Winged Creatures is about a group of disparate people who are commonly affected by a “tragic shooting” in a diner. Question: has there ever been such a thing as a benevolent, easy-going, positive-minded or good-time shooting? Aren’t all shootings, including the shootings of animals, inherently tragic?

Other Winged costars are Jackie Earl Haley (playing another abused/abusive, fucked-up guy), Guy Pearce, Kate Beckinsale, Dakota Fanning, Embeth Daviditz and Josh Hutcherson. The director is Rowan Woods (the somewhat dull Little Fish); the producer is Robert Salerno (Babel).