If you were checking out the casting bites back in August, you might recall that Meryl Streep was looking to sign on to a new romantic comedy penned by Father of the Bride and Irreconcilable Differences scribe Nancy Meyers (which Meyers will also direct). The film was said to focus on a love triangle, and now Variety reports that the beaus fighting for her affection will be: Alec Baldwin and the just-signed Steve Martin.

But still, we know nothing about the plot other than the fact that both will play rivals fighting for Streep's affections, and that this mysterious project will leap into production during the month of romance -- February.

At the very least, it looks like this could bite on the question: Which do ladies prefer -- the sexy guy or the funny man? Baldwin comes from a pack of bros so sexy that his last name became a term for hotness in Clueless. As for Martin, well, he might be a wild and crazy guy, but he's also a bit of a goof.

If you had your choice, who would you pick?

Yesterday, Jeff Wells over at Hollywood Elsewhere put up the poster for the new comedy My Best Friend's Girl, starring Kate Hudson, Dane Cook, Jason Biggs and Alec Baldwin. The poster (which premiered online earlier this summer) is boring in the extreme, making the film look like your typical snoozerific rom-com, and the digital altering on the photo makes everyone involved look rather ... freakish.

My first reaction on seeing the poster was, "Boy, somebody's screwing up the marketing on this film," quickly followed by "Hey, I don't remember Dane Cook's complexion looking quite so dewy-fresh ... "

I've seen the red-band trailer, which is actually pretty funny, if you can overlook the more misogynistic elements (or at least, in my own case, overcome the feminist tendency to be immediately annoyed by blow-job jokes) , and the film being marketed in that trailer and the film being promoted on this poster are not the same film. Not that it looks like something I'd choose to see over a good indie flick, but if I wanted a lightweight comedy film, and I'd already seen Tropic Thunder and Pineapple Express, and couldn't find anything else to do here in Seattle on a nice day, I'd maybe see this.

He's already made a documentary about the quest to meet his father, and now Adrian Grenier is heading for doc land again for what sounds like a pretty funky endeavor.

The Hollywood Reporter posts that Grenier has nabbed a number of big names that include Alec Baldwin, Whoopi Goldberg, Eva Longoria, Paris Hilton, Rosie O'Donnell, Martin Landau, Noam Chomsky, and Lewis Black for his new documentary titled Teenage Paparazzi. While this sounds like it could be centered on the phenomenon of Lindsays and Britneys, the film will focus on Grenier's "relationship with a 14-year-old paparazzo who took his photo," while also discussing the culture of fame.

But here is where things take an interesting turn -- the film "will interweave the relationship portrait with philosophical interviews in the style of Ricard LInklater's Waking Life." If that means just a bunch of discussions, cool. If that means that those discussions will be rotoscoped, that would be awesome. RIght now, the film is getting shopped to distributors, but hopefully we'll find out more soon.

When I was a kid, I watched all the awards shows ... except the Tonys. Even when I was involved in theater as a teenager I wasn't a follower of Broadway. And I lived an hour away from Manhattan. But today's youths may be more interested in tuning in to the 2008 Tony Awards, because everyone's favorite boy wizard is among the presenters. Daniel Radcliffe will likely be there solely to promote his Broadway debut this fall, in Equus, but that shouldn't deter fans of the Harry Potter films, the latest of which, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, also opens in the fall. Despite the significance of Radcliffe's role in Equus (remember those sexy photos?), Radcliffe will presumably be dressed fully and sharply.

Other presenters include Laura Linney, Alec Baldwin, Marisa Tomei and Radcliffe's costar in both the Equus and the Harry Potter films, Richard Griffiths. This year's Tonys are also of interest to movie fans for its nominees, which include movies-turned-musicals Cry-Baby (4 nominations), Xanadu (4 nominations), The Little Mermaid (2 nominations) and Young Frankenstein (3 nominations), as well as the comic adaption of The 39 Steps (6 nominations), based on the John Buchan book that Alfred Hitchcock and others turned into hit films (with a fourth version reportedly in the works).

The Tony Awards will be held at Radio City Music Hall, and broadcast live on CBS, June 15.

The big screen is about to get lymey. Variety reports that Derick and Steven Martini's dramedy Lymelife is finally getting made, and it's got a solid cast along for the ride. Alec Baldwin and Emma Roberts lead the pack, followed by Cynthia Nixon (Sex and the City), Rory Culkin (Zodiac), Kieran Culkin (Igby Goes Down), Jill Hennessy (Crossing Jordan), and Timothy Hutton (The Last Mimzy).

A retro piece taking place in late '70s Long Island, the coming-of-age project focuses on "two families who fall apart when precarious relationships, real estate problems, and Lyme disease converge in the heart of suburbia." It's a film that the brothers have been trying to get made for years. The project was developed during the 2001 Sundance Filmmakers Lab, and experimental scenes were even shot with Kieran. (He's since been replaced by Rory, as he's grown too old for his original role. He'll now play an older brother.) Heck, even Baldwin has been attached to the project for years, so while the film might have struggled to get to this point, there's something in it that has a long-term hold on two of the main players.

Filming gets underway next week in New Jersey, and the picture has a tentative release date for January 2009.

Remember that mushy-sounding, Irreconcilable Differences-esque movie starring the Fanning sisters that's in the works? About a little girl who sues her parents for divorce after finding out she only exists to serve as a genetic match for her dying sis? It's called My Sister's Keeper, and it just got a whole lot better-sounding. According to Variety, Alec Baldwin has joined the cast, which also includes Cameron Diaz as the mother of Dakota and Elle Fanning. Baldwin fortunately won't be playing the girls' daddy; instead he's set for the role of an attorney representing the younger, wrongfully-conceived sister. He will be going up against Diaz, whose mom character is also a former trial lawyer and will be defending herself. It's still unclear if the father role will be significant, or if the parents are now divorced, separated or simply not cinematic equals. Of course, the production has until its February start date to let us know the actor for that part.

Baldwin, who previously worked with Dakota Fanning on The Cat in the Hat, was able to sign on to My Sister's Keeper thanks in part to the writer's strike, which has halted the shooting of Baldwin's hit TV series 30 Rock (though Variety points out he is contractually allowed to schedule a movie, who's to say it would have happened with this, at this time?). I've just recently become addicted to the show specifically because of him, and hope his attorney character is close in tone to his NBC executive character, Jack Donaghy. Yet something -- perhaps the subject matter of the film -- tells me that won't be the case. Nick Cassavetes (The Notebook) will be directing from a script by Jeremy Leven (The Notebook), which was adapted from the novel by Jodi Picoult, while Mark Johnson (The Notebook) produces.

The documentary Running with Arnold has been landing distribution deals left and right, and not just in the U.S., according to Variety. Distributors in other countries also seem to think that a documentary about Arnold Schwarzenegger's political career will be a box-office and home-entertainment draw. I caught the movie during its world premiere at SXSW this year. I found it entertaining, but as I noted in my review, relying a little too heavily on cheap shots to make certain points. You might remember that at least one of those cheap shots caused some difficulties between director Dan Cox and Alec Baldwin, who asked to have his voiceover work removed from the film. Baldwin's narration appears to still be intact.

Netflix's distribution arm Red Envelope Entertainment has bought the U.S. distribution rights for Running with Arnold. The movie will be released in theaters starting on Jan. 18, 2008, with Lantern Lane Entertainment handling the theatrical distribution. No date is available yet on a DVD release. In addition, Latido has sold distribution rights for the documentary about the Governator to media outlets in Japan, Canada, and Denmark, as well as to a Scandinavian TV channel. Deals for distribution in Germany and the UK may be in the works, but there's no word on Austria, where actor/politician Schwarzenegger was born.

[via Matt Dentler's Blog]

Last night, Vanessa Redgrave accepted a career achievement award during the Hamptons International Film Festival. Of course, if you know anything about the actress besides her work, you know that she doesn't bite her lip in awards situations. In the seventies, she was nominated for an Academy Award for her supporting performance in Julia. Members of the Jewish Defense League protested the ceremony, the Academy got death threats, but Redgrave still won the Oscar, and in her speech, she said she wouldn't be influenced by "a small bunch of Zionist hoodlums - whose behavior is an insult to the stature of Jews all over the world, and to their great and heroic record of struggle against fascism and oppression."

The JDL continues to be less than a fan 30 years later, regardless of the actress supporting Israel's right to exist and fighting against Anti-Semitism. Chairman Shelley Rubin said before the appearance: "Even though many in the motion picture industry happen to be Jewish, any and all of them responsible for giving her work or honoring her as the Hamptons International Film Festival has done evidently suffer from either self-hatred or idol-worship." Meanwhile, festival chairman Stuart Match Suna said: "I'm a Jew who's visited Israel twice, and it's a very complex geographical, religious, and political situation there. Vanessa is a true artist who cares about humanity, and artists need to be provocative and provoke thought." I guess he's not one of the fans of summer fluff that rule the box office.

Anyhow, the night included a talk with fellow actor Alec Baldwin, and Redgrave discussed California spending more on prisons than schools, to which he said: "You're not going political on me now? Because you know I have no tolerance for that bullshit." She continued with: "We're losing all our human and democratic rights in all countries all over the world. If every politician devoted their entire attention to the well-being of children, they'd change everything in 10 years." That's not so incendiary, right? Then again, I don't think her acceptance speech was enough to label her a terrorist, like some have.

Hey, remember Jason Biggs? Since starring in Woody Allen's Anything Else, he hasn't really appeared in ... anything else. Okay, so he co-starred in Jersey Girl and Eight Below, but he hasn't done anything of notice in years -- except for that hysterical short film, The Glitch, of course. I was beginning to think I might see him in the next American Pie direct-to-video sequel before I see him in a big-screen starring role again. Fortunately, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Biggs just got a new gig playing Dane Cook's best bud in Lionsgate's Bachelor No. 2. In addition to Cook, he joins Kate Hudson, Alec Baldwin and Lizzy Caplan (Mean Girls), who just signed on as Hudson's roommate.

As we told you previously, Bachelor follows a guy named Tank (Cook) who makes a living by giving women the worst dates of their lives. Hired by dumped men, Tank's promise is that he'll make the exes come crawling back. However, when his friend (Biggs) is the one broken up with, Tank ends up falling for the dumper (Hudson), making it a tough decision whether to stay loyal to his buddy or follow his heart. Yeah, in some ways it sounds a bit like Cook's upcoming movie Good Luck Chuck -- in which he sleeps with women who then go on to marry their next beau -- with a bit of the competitive love triangle thing from his Employee of the Month thrown in. Bachelor will be directed by Pretty in Pink and Some Kind of Wonderful's Howard Deutch, but I wouldn't count on anything similar to those John Hughes classics, even with the love triangle storyline. So far this decade, Deutch's most notable work has been The Whole Ten Yards.

Other Biggs movies that could see the light of the projector one day include Michael Ian Black's The Pleasure of Your Company (aka Wedding Daze, aka The Next Girl I See), which MGM has been sitting on in the U.S. for almost a year now. He's also got another movie that seems to have changed names since the last time we wrote about it: Over My Dead Body, which was formerly titled How I Met My Boyfriend's Dead Fiancee (phew! good thing they changed it) -- though THR still gives the longer name.

The Hollywood Reporter is ... reporting that the great Alec Baldwin has joined the cast of the Dane Cook comedy (isn't that an oxymoron?) Bachelor No. 2. Baldwin was not expected to take on any acting work before resuming his Emmy - nominated role on one of the funniest comedies on television -- 30 Rock -- this month. I guess the opportunity to work on a project of this caliber was too difficult to resist. In the film, Cook will play Tank, a guy who is "hired to take girls on horrible dates so they crawl back to the boyfriends they dumped." Tank "struggles with his libido and the meaning of friendship when his best pal needs his help with the girl who dumped him." That girl will be played by Oscar-nominee Kate Hudson, who you'd think would be fleeing from this genre after the dismal You Me and Dupree.

It took me about five minutes of re-reading the plot descriptions of both films that Bachelor No. 2 is different from the upcoming Cook vehicle Good Luck Chuck. Chuck, opening September 21st, is about a guy who girls want to have sex with so they can meet the man they're going to marry. But then he falls for one of them. Um ... really? These movies don't strike anyone as a trifle similar? Oh well. Cook has got the right idea knocking out as many film roles as he possibly can, while he can. I imagine we're about two years away from never hearing his name again. First-timer Jordan Cahan wrote the script for Bachelor, and Howard Deutch is directing. Deutch had a glorious run directing John Hughes scripts in the 80's -- he did Pretty in Pink, Some Kind of Wonderful, and The Great Outdoors, but it's all kind of been downhill from there. Speaking of Bachelor No. 2, why don't I take this opportunity to recommend the excellent Aimee Mann album of the same name?

Alec Baldwin just can't catch a break lately. Monika told you about the status of his directorial debut back in January and now we're finally starting to hear more about its release. Trouble is, Mr. Baldwin doesn't want you to see the thing! In addition to directing, Baldwin produced and starred in the film, an update of The Devil and Daniel Webster. The movie wrapped in 2001, and has experienced nothing but problems since. It will finally be released this Friday, and oh dear, that's -- dun dun duh! -- Friday the 13th! If you're trying to find the film at your local multiplex, good luck. It is only being released in six cities (Las Vegas, Rochester, Fort Myers, Columbus, Albuquerque and Santa Fe), and you'll have to look for it under its new title: Shortcut to Happiness. Oh, and Baldwin's name won't even be listed as director or producer. It has been removed and replaced with an "Alan Smithee" -- style fake name -- Harry Kirkpatrick.

Despite Baldwin's many talents and a solid cast that includes Anthony Hopkins as Daniel Webster, Jennifer Love Hewitt as The Devil (?), Kim Cattrall, Dan Aykroyd and Jason Patric, the film has been called "one of the greatest train wrecks of all time." Where did it all go wrong? Apparently producers didn't like the more serious cut Baldwin submitted, and they recut the film into a pure comedy. Baldwin was naturally upset. To make matters worse, two of the films investors became entangled in legal woes after they were investigated for bank fraud. On top of all that, one of Baldwin's producing partners sued him for her cut. A source close to Baldwin tells the New York Post: "Alec doesn't recommend unrecognizable films to his fans. This is not an Alec Baldwin film. He's in the movie but he has nothing to do with it. His name was taken off as producer and director six years ago, but he couldn't get it taken off as an actor." So, I have to ask ... if any of you live in one of the six cities listed above and don't mind taking one for the team -- would you check it out and tell us if it's as bad as it sounds?

There may not be a Sopranos movie in the pipeline, but that doesn't mean Hollywood has officially whacked the Mafia. The LA Times reports that someone has finally landed the rights to produce a biopic on the life and times of infamous gangster, Lucky Luciano. Throughout the years, several Hollywood studios have tried to snag the rights away from Luciano's family, who have been reluctant to give them up. But now, producer Joseph Isgro (Hoffa) has somehow managed to land the goods, and he claims to have already approached a "specific A-list actor" to play the lead role. He's also said to be "wooing several actors from The Sopranos to join the cast." Considered the father of modern organized crime, Luciano was named one of the 20 most influential builders and titans of the 20th century. But he also helped orchestrate a number of gangland killings, as well as a massive international heroin operation, along the way.

According to Isgro (who's repeatedly denied his own ties to the Mafia), the film will cover all of Luciano's life, but focus mainly on his time in prison and the period after he received a presidential pardon for using the Mafia to help the government during World War II. Apart from actors, Isgro has also interviewed potential writers and directors; one of which is Charles Matthau, son of Walter Matthau. Currently, New Line is in talks to distribute. I'm not sure who they're going after to play Luciano -- hopefully it's not Christian Slater, who played the man in the 1991 flick Mobsters. There are a number of actors who could pull off the role; I guess it depends on whether they're willing to age-up a younger actor or age-down an older one. If I had to take a wild guess, I'd say Alec Baldwin might be a good fit. What do you think?

Fox has tasked William Wisher, a screenwriter of very inconsistent quality who is responsible for both T2: Judgment Day and Judge Dredd, to put pen to paper for a big WWII adventure story about post-Pearl Harbor action. The project, which is currently moving forward with the old-school title of Escape of the Pacific Clipper, is about a crew who try to get a Boeing B-314 back from New Zealand to where it belongs after the sneak Japanese attack on Hawaii. According to Variety, the "crew races against the Japanese and Nazis to make it home," which sounds like it could make for a pretty good adventure story, if the elements come together. Interestingly, Pan Am honcho Juan Trippe is a character in this story. Since Alec Baldwin played Trippe in The Aviator, and he also played Lt. James Doolittle in Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor, I say why not let Baldwin reprise both roles here? Hell, I just saw the latest Milos Forman film where Natalie Portman plays dual roles, and her characters even end up in the same place at the same time. Why not?

Wisher also wrote The 13th Warrior and Exorcist: The Beginning, and did polishes on both of the most recent Die Hard films, so I'm not really sure what to think about his ability to pull it off, but I guess we'll see. In general, I like the fact that Fox is gambling on big WWII-era epics like Australia and this; we'll keep you posted as more Pacific Clipper details become available. On another note, the Variety story also mentions that Wisher has another project in the pipeline called Pilgrim. That one is an espionage drama set in the modern-day Middle East, which will be directed by John Moore.

I'm sure I don't have to explain why Alec Baldwin didn't show up at last week's roundtables for Brooklyn Rules, the 1980s mob drama that opened Friday, in which he plays a ruthless Gambino enforcer, but most of the principal cast as well as the director were on hand to discuss the film. Rules stars Freddie Prinze Jr. as a Brooklyn bum who is trying to look out for his two best friends in the neighborhood while courting Mena Suvari's character, an uptown girl who is worried about getting close to a guy who might have mob connections. The film was shot over two and a half years ago but a bad distribution deal kept it sitting on the shelf until things could be worked out for a limited release. Thanks to an actor showing up forty-five minutes late at another junket nearby, Cinematical's intrepid reporter (me) missed the first few interviewees for Rules -- director Michael Corrente was apparently a hoot -- but I was able to sneak into the roundtable room just in time for Prinze and Suvari. Below is a sampling of the numerous questions asked by all the assembled journalists and the answers, so enjoy.

Freddie Prinze Jr.


The film depends a lot on the chemistry of the three friends -- how did you work on establishing that?

FPJ: Michael was very smart -- the director, Michael -- in the regard that, during the rehearsal process, he'd start a conversation casually. He'd start a conversation casually, and be like ... this is the way Michael talks not me ... "Who's the first broad you nailed?" So I would begin to discuss the first woman that I slept with, and you'd start talking about how horrible you were, and it was like ten seconds long and she was like 'what?' and it was really embarrassing ... and then the other guys would start to chime in, and they'd crack jokes on you. Then you'd find out that it was even less with them, and ha ha ha, and then Michael would say "Now read the scene right now!" and we'd just go right into the scene with that same type of energy and that same type of vibe. That really developed a lot of the dialogue and the pace that was required for the scenes that we were gonna do. As far as chemistry, we just lucked out.

Scott and I were confined to a trailer that, I kid you not, was smaller than this table, and he would just chain-smoke and I had a really bad habit of chewing tobacco, and so the door had to be closed because it was cold and so the smoke's in there and we'd watch that one scene in True Romance with Christopher Walken, and we'd do our Walken impressions. His was much better, but my Roger Rabbit was better. And we would watch movies, and Scott and I, we just got along. I guess some of it was that he has a father in this business, I had a father in this, and the sons coming up a chip on their shoulder and then a few years later, 'I don't have a chip on my shoulder, you can just get f*cked!' and then after that it's more like 'I have a chip but I'm dealing with it ...' We both were sort of at the same age, emotionally, so it was very easy for the two of us to bond. Jerry and Mena had the nicer half of the trailer, where they had their own rooms, and it's just hard not to get along with Jerry. I don't know anyone who doesn't like him.

A B-movie Goodfellas down to its bones, Michael Corrente's new film Brooklyn Rules even begins with a 'this is where I live'-style narration in which a young man takes us through the ins and outs of his Italian-American neighborhood, giving us a guided tour of the world we're about to spend 90-odd minutes in. The difference between Scorcese's classic and this is that we're not in the 60s, but the mid-80s -- we see two people arguing over the time logistics of Back to the Future at one point -- and the main character is not a criminal per say, but is only on speaking terms with the life. Michael Turner (Freddie Prinze Jr.) is a scrapper who, we're led to believe, is putting his nascent wiseguy instincts to the most harmless possible use, cheating on tests in a pre-law program at Columbia University. It's here where he will meet Ellen, (Mena Suvari) an uptown girl who is pretty happy in her whitebread world, and will begin to feel himself pressured to choose one world or the other.

If the movie I've just described is from Mars, there's a whole other movie going on in there that's from Venus. That movie features Alec Baldwin as a cold-eyed Gambino associate -- the film is steeped in actual 80s New York mob lore, specifically the murder of boss Castellano and subsequent rise of Gotti -- and aims to be a serious and bloody mob movie. Baldwin's character, Caesar, is recruiting Michael's friend Carmine (Scott Caan) into the mob and whenever Caesar enters the picture, things take on a much darker tone, and violence is usually right around the corner. Baldwin proceeds exactly as if entire movie is focused on him -- maybe that's what they told him -- and because he's such a good actor, he drags the energy of the story towards his B-plot and inadvertently sucks the air out of the film's A-story, which is all about Michael's relationship with Ellen and his attempt to transact an amiable divorce from his old neighborhood. It's an odd problem for a film to have, but it's one that makes Brooklyn Rules fairly lopsided.