"She really found me at a point when I needed to be found." -- Jim Sturgess on Julie Taymor:

In 21, which hits theaters tomorrow, Jim Sturgess plays Ben Campbell, an M.I.T. student who's recruited into a group of Vegas card counters by a fellow student. In fact, the entire group is made up of students and its leader, Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey), also happens to be a professor at the University. The fact-based film was inspired by the book Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich, and most of what you will see in 21 really happened -- with certain faces, places, names and events changed to fit a more Hollywood-ized mold. Directed by Robert Luketic, 21 also stars Kate Bosworth, Laurence Fishburne, Aaron Yoo and Liza Lapira.

Sturgess is a relatively new face to Hollywood. His first major film role only came last year, when director Julie Taymor cast the soft-spoken Brit opposite Evan Rachel Wood in Across the Universe. From there, this musician-turned-actor appeared in the recent The Other Boleyn Girl before taking on his first lead role in a major Hollywood film, 21. Upon meeting him, one can immediately tell this boy has the looks and charm to carry him real far. He's already scheduled to appear in the star-studded Crossing Over and the flick Fifty Dead Men Walking. Cinematical sat down with Sturgess in New York recently to talk about 21, as well as his blossoming career.

For once, I'm happy to say that "death" teamed with the name Sarah Michelle Gellar does not mean that she's taking on another crappy horror remake. Variety reports that she's in final negotiations to star in the indie drama Veronika Decides to Die. Yes, this means she is taking over for Kate Bosworth who was attached to the film last September. One petite blonde out, and another sometimes-blonde in.

Adapted from Paulo Coelho's book by Larry Gross and Roberta Hanley, Veronika Decides to Die focuses on a depressed woman who gets reinvigorated by life after a suicide attempt. However, she won't have long to enjoy it because her attempt irreparably damaged her heart. But, oh so heart-tuggingly, dramatically, and romantically apt -- her damaged heart finds love and a new desire to live.

I'm teasing the plot because, well, it has the possibility of terrible cliche. At the same time, however, I'm happy to see Gellar go back to drama, and in something that came remind us why she was so huge on Buffy. Now if Alyson Hannigan could only find some sort of meaty role to tackle...

So even if you choose to ignore the somewhat 'white-washed' casting for the big-screen version of Bringing Down the House, if you are a fan of the book you can't help but notice that there seems to be very little that remains of the original (and fascinating) story of a group of 'math nerds' who became high stakes card sharks. Sony has just launched the official site for 21 starring Jim Sturgess, Kate Bosworth, and Kevin Spacey. Their site offers plenty of small video clips to watch and the usual downloadable offerings, but inexplicably they never give you the chance to play a little black jack of your own.

21 centers on "Six MIT students, in a blackjack team, [who] train to become experts in card counting and subsequently take Vegas casinos for millions in winnings. However, casino workers become suspicious and attempt to take down the team, using any means necessary." Sturgess plays Ben Campell, a numbers genius who is struggling to pay his bills. He is recruited into a team of card counters by his professor (as played by Spacey) and as to be expected, the good times don't last long. Ben starts to lose control and his mentor and friends turn on him just as the casinos are starting to catch on to the scam.

To be honest, as much as I enjoyed the book, I don't think I will be first in line for this one. Part of what made the book so interesting to me was that these were just regular people who became 'criminals'. The film seems to want to take a more Ocean's 11 approach right down to the music in the trailer, and, frankly, it's been done before. 21 hits theaters on March 28th.

It seems like just a few months ago we were enjoying the sights, the sounds, the smells and the cinema of South By Southwest 2007, but guess what? Now that it's January, the festival's only about nine weeks away! Awesome! So today we caught some slightly early news on what SXSW is cooking up for this March, and I must say I'm pretty impressed with what they snagged for their opening night film.

And that film is: Robert Luketic's 21, which is based on the book Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions. (You may remember Mr. Luketic from flicks like Legally Blonde, Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!, and Monster-in-Law.) Adapted by Ben Mezrich's book by screenwriters Peter Steinfeld and Allan Loeb, 21 stars Kevin Spacey, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Bosworth and Jim Sturgess. (Check out the trailer right here.)

And if that world premiere isn't cool enough, festival chief Matt Dentler has also divulged the following titles for SXSW '08:

At the Death House Door (Steve James & Peter Gilbert) "A sobering and powerful story of the wrongful execution of Carlos DeLuna and the Death House Chaplain, Pastor Carroll Pickett, who spent the last day of DeLuna's life with him."

Dreams with Sharp Teeth (Erik Nelson) "A documentary portrait of acclaimed author Harlan Ellison, as he looks back on his fabled and influential career as one of the world's top science fiction writers."

Flawless (Michael Radford) "In 1960s London, a talented but overlooked diamond executive (Demi Moore) is convinced to participate in a jewelry heist when a veteran janitor (Michael Caine) hatches a plan."

Run Fatboy Run (David Schwimmer) "An out-of-shape divorced father (Simon Pegg) makes one last attempt to win back the respect of his son, his ex-wife (Thandie Newton), and the community around him. All he has to do is finish his first marathon."

Wild Blue Yonder (Celia Maysles) "Celia Maysles had no idea her father and his brother Albert were pioneers of verite documentary filmmaking. Determined to uncover the secrets surrounding her background, Celia sets out on a quest to rediscover her father by using his own artistic process."

Expect a few more flashy surprises before the full SXSW slate is announced on February 5! Until then, feel free to browse through the SXSW website and decide if THIS is the year you're finally going to take my advice and attend the dang festival. (You do know it's a movie AND music fest, right? Interactive, too, and I do believe I've mentioned the indigenous BBQ more than once.)

At this point, I'm starting to think that it's contractually obligated that if either Kevin Spacey or Kate Bosworth appears in a film, the other automatically gets a part. OK, so maybe I'm exaggerating just a little, but you can't deny that the two seem to really enjoy working together. Yahoo Movies is now hosting the trailer for their latest collaboration, 21, the real-life story of six M.I.T students who develop a foolproof plan to win at Black Jack. The film is based on the book Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich (and I guess I don't have to explain why they chose to go with the new title 21 -- I doubt Sony wanted their audiences getting the film confused with a C-grade Queen Latifah comedy).

The story centers on a group of M.I.T math students who along with their 'mentor' come up with a new system of "counting cards" -- if you haven't read the book and don't mind a little math in your light reading then I would definitely recommend it. Although I wouldn't recommend trying out their system, unless you don't mind the idea of getting roughed up by pit bosses.

The film was directed by Robert Luketic, who isn't exactly a household name, but is probably best known as the director of Legally Blonde. The book was adapted for the screen by Allan Loeb (Things We Lost in the Fire) and Peter Steinfeld (Analyze That). Joining Spacey and Bosworth are Laurence Fishburne in what looks like the role of a casino boss (better known as "the Heavy" in the flick) and Jim Sturgess as the newest member of the gang. 21 is set for release on March 28th, 2008.

I don't know about you, but when I'm faced with a heap of laundry, I throw on some weaponry and become The Laundry Warrior. Okay, not at all. I actually throw loads into the machine, and distract myself with video games. Regardless, I'm fairly intrigued about any flick that pops up with a name like Sngmoo Lee's fantasy film, The Laundry Warrior. Variety reports that it's an English-language hero film currently getting ready to film in New Zealand on November 12.

But it isn't some totally obscure flick with a cast you wouldn't know. Under Lord of the Rings producer Barrie Osborne, the picture has collected a cast that includes Geoffrey Rush, Kate Bosworth, and Jang Dong-gun. With a $45 million budget, Laundry follows a fugitive Asian warrior played by Jang, who hides "in the American badlands, where he encounters the town drunk (Rush) and a beautiful, but troubled woman." Now, Variety doesn't have a nice, helpful paranthetical note for Bosworth, but I imagine she's the troubled gal that they mention.

After teaching at the New York Film School for a handful of years, this will be Lee's directorial debut. Producer Michael Peyser says: "We draw on two great milieux, the Samurai movie and the Western. We will deliver a stylized, partly anime feel, with the techniques of 300, but a look that is brighter." So, a Western Samurai movie shot like a bright 300 -- yay or nay?

It's Wednesday, and you know what that means -- time for The Write Stuff! This week Cinematical spoke with screenwriter Captain Mauzner. Mauzner has an interesting perspective on screenwriting because he's written two major films based on true events and actual people. He co-wrote 2003's Wonderland -- the story of the infamous "Wonderland Murders," which starred Val Kilmer as legendary porn star John Holmes. And he wrote last year's Factory Girl, the tale of Edie Sedgwick (played by Sienna Miller), Andy Warhol (Guy Pearce), and a Dylanesque "Musician" played by Hayden Christensen. We spoke about Mauzner's scripts, process, and the trickiness of writing scripts based on fact.

Cinematical: Are you working on anything right now?

Captain Mauzner: I am working on something right now, yeah. I'm adapting a book. It's a small book, it's called The Food Chain, by Geoff Nicholson. A friend of mine runs a small company and I'm adapting it with the hopes of directing it. It's kind of about food, sex, and cannibalism. Revenge, food, sex, and cannibalism.

Cinematical: Well, alright!

CM: It's a little dark comedy. It's fun. And what was nice about it was -- I've written so many things and a lot of them are true life stories, and they all seem to be about kind of deplorable human beings. And I think that my comfort zone is really kind of in the dark side -- the drug addicts, the deviants. And I think that as I've kind of gotten older and left that world myself, I guess you could say I've become less and less interested in it. You see these movies like Wonderland and Factory Girl and you could say "oh, they're like an argument against doing drugs." But I know for myself, there's always a glamorizing element to it. And as much as you want to say this is the downfall of these people, which it is -- and obviously there's nothing glamorous about the drug lifestyle, or the party lifestyle because it does lead to bad things. But just the act of writing about it or making these the main characters or trying to explain these people, I feel like that somewhat glamorizes it, or at least in my mind it was very glamorous. I had a very romantic notion, at like 14-years-old I discovered Bukowski and I was kind of off to the races. So I think that as I get older I'm ready to move on to maybe something light and happy. My family's always like "Why can't you write something that we can take Grandma to?"

Cinematical: So do you find when you're writing about drugs and debauchery, that you're not looking to condemn it and point a finger, you're just looking to present it and let the audience decide?

CM: Absolutely. I'm not looking to condemn it at all. I'm not looking to be moral about it. I believe in experimentation. I believe in doing kind of what you want and not having anybody else tell you what to do. I think that my fascination with it is always the "why." Why do people do this? I think that's kind of the fun of being able to do those kind of things is that you can live kind of vicariously through these people, and try to figure out the "why" without being judgmental.

Expect Sigourney Weaver to receive an Oscar nod for her work in The Girl in the Park, which got a warm reception at this year's Toronto fest. Weaver plays Julia Sandburg, a 40-something business executive and mother of two, including a toddler named Maggie. Julia's life, which we can sense has been planned down to the smallest detail, is unexpectedly shipwrecked when, during routine playtime in a park one day, Maggie goes missing under her nose. The child is not found, and her disappearance is tied to a string of similar abductions in the area, leaving practically no hope. Cut to fifteen years later -- Julia now looks to be in her late 50s and has spent the last fifteen years living a solitary, robotic existence, the disappearance having disintegrated her marriage, poisoned her relationship with her remaining child, and taken a toll on her mental health. Existing more or less as a shut-in these past years, her own relatives, including her son and new daughter-in-law, can hardly believe it when she turns up at a family function.

The son and daughter-in-law, played by Alessandro Nivola and Keri Russell, are budding suburbanites who are planning for a new child and have no intention of living their lives in the past, but the past is the only place Julia feels safe, and there seems to be little prospect of her returning to any kind of social normalcy. This is the lay of the land when Louise comes into the picture. A sleazy drifter and scam-artist in her young twenties, played effectively by Superman's dame Kate Bosworth, Louise meets Julia in the city by chance and picks up on her vulnerability, perhaps sensing she's some old, lonely lesbian who can be taken for a ride and cleaned out or more simply, someone who will feel sorry for her. During their first meeting, Louise gives Julia a phoney tale of woe, and in the space of a few minutes, Julia has her checkbook out and is shelling out for travel fare and medical expenses for an unborn child (which doesn't exist.) Louise then wisely disappears, but their interaction isn't over yet.

And if that doesn't win Cinematical's "Fun-Filled Post Title of the Day" then I don't know what will. No, Kate Bosworth is not offing herself anytime soon, but she will be starring in a new film called Veronika Decides to Die, based off Paulo Coelho's best-selling book. Emily Young (Kiss of Life) will direct the flick, which was adapted for the screen by Larry Gross and Roberta Hanley, with Das Films, Palm Star Entertainment and Muse Films producing. And besides, Boswoth can't die -- I mean, who would they get to play Lois Lane in Superman: Man of Steel? (If you answered "I dunno, a better actress," then we're both on the same page with regards to that one.)

In Veronika Decides to Die, Bosworth will play a woman who discovers that she only has days to live following a suicide attempt, and after recovering in a mental hospital, tries to make the best of the time she has left by falling in love and acting out a few of those "Look, I want to live!" montages set to whatever Norah Jones song is popular at the moment. Or something like that. This will mark Das Films' first project (out of 15 they currently have pending); Muse Films has produced several enjoyable indies over the years, including Buffalo 66 (God, I love that film -- what happened to you Gallo?), The Virgin Suicides and American Psycho. Veronika Decides to Die starts filming this winter in New York.

That's right. Kate Bosworth finally has someone to bury her in After.Life, the film she was negotiating to star in earlier this year. In January, I alerted you to her involvement in the project, and in February, Chris Ullrich shared the film's ghostly poster. Now iF Magazine says that Alfred Molina is her co-star, and we're all assuming that makes him the funeral director who buries her. What originally seemed like a possible movie-to-ignore has just gotten a little sweeter. I'm still not big on Bosworth Boos, but a good director (Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo) and a little Oc can definitely change my mind. Look at those eyes -- they're crazy!

With the cast in place, the search is on for the ideal, creepy funeral home in upstate New York. What they're looking for: "Preferably brick or aged stone - the house should be stately and old (e.g. Second Empire of Gothic Revival) with a sense of timelessness, history and permanence. It should be tall (at least two stories) with interesting architectural details (e.g. gables, mansard roof). The house should feel masculine with gravitas and understated elegance. It should be semi-secluded with a prominent front door and driveway. Surrounding large grounds a plus." Okay, now I'm not sure how many of you readers have traveled through upstate New York, but there is one house that is just screaming to be the IT locale.

Skene Manor. It is a sinister-as-hell house that is perched up on a hill. It's definitely got the architectural details and all the creepiness needed for a ghost story. Hell, it has its own eerie tale as well. While it was built by a Judge Potter in the 1860's, it became synonymous with the famous Skene family. Years ago, I had dinner there when it was a restaurant, and there's an old legend that Mrs. Skene was a woman with money and that after her death, her husband Philip would only continue to receive money if her remains were kept "above ground." To cash in, the restaurant created a fake coffin behind the bar, with a hand sticking out. After struggling to bring it back to its glory after it fell into disrepair in the '90's, I think some good, Hollywood money is just the thing the Manor needs. And really, is any place more perfect?

John Stockwell has found considerable success directing fairly dumb but undeniably entertaining movies about ...well, let's face it, about hot girls wearing next to nothing. But did you know he used to be an actor? This was news to me, but the guy's had some pretty major film roles, including a lead part in John Carpenter's Christine and "Cougar" in Top Gun. Stockwell's next directing project will be Middle of Nowhere, "a bittersweet romantic comedy about a clashing mother and daughter." Susan Sarandon will play the mother, Eva Amurri the daughter. Didn't Sarandon already make this movie once? It was called Anywhere but Here with Natalie Portman, and the premise seemed pretty tired back then. And Amurri was in that one too!

According to IMDB, Sarandon has no less than seven projects set for release this year, including Enchanted and the long-delayed Mr. Woodcock. She'll also play "Mom Racer" in next year's Speed Racer. Amurri is probably best known for her role in Saved!, and she'll next appear in The Education of Charlie Banks -- directed by (it pains me to write this) Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst! In Middle of Nowhere Amurri will play Grace, "a young woman whose irresponsible mother blows her college fund on her younger sister's beauty pageant campaign." Stockwell's directorial resume includes Crazy/Beautiful (the touching story of Kirsten Dunst's rack), Blue Crush (the powerful story of Kate Bosworth's rack), Into the Blue (the moving story of Jessica Alba's rack), and Turistas (the thought-provoking story of Melissa George's rack.)

Kate Bosworth, star of the surfing chick-flick Blue Crush and, of course, Superman Returns, has taken on a new and different kind of role with her most recent project After.Life -- that of a woman caught in the twilight world between life and death. When our own Monika Bartyzel told you about this film before, we had a few plot details, a star and a director to tell you about but not much else that gave real insight into the film.

Now, thanks to Bloody-Disgusting, we have art too -- in the form of a shiny new poster for the film. Unfortunately, the poster doesn't do very much to help us out in the insight department either. Sure, it shows Bosworth semi-reclined on what appears to be a table or bed, half-covered with some sort of sheet. But really, what does that say? To me, it looks like she's just tired and decided to take a little nap -- not exactly a compelling image making me eager to rush out and see the film.

Granted, this is just the teaser poster and in all likelihood a more comprehensive, and hopefully more exciting, poster will be forthcoming. Maybe its just me, but I kinda miss the days when marketing departments tried a little harder when it came to posters. Sure, there are still some really interesting ones, such as the posters for Crash, Walk the Line or An Inconvenient Truth but mostly they are just shots of the film's stars against a blue or white background and that's about it. Not that exciting. Let's hope the next poster, and the film, prove to be more interesting.

Kate Bosworth is slowly staking out her piece of Hollywood as she wracks up a film or two a year. She's had a number of fictional turns from surfer babe in Blue Crush to winning a date with Tad Hamilton. At the same time she's also taken a little bit of yin and yang in the biopic world, having both starred as Sandra Dee in Kevin Spacey's Beyond the Sea, and as Dawn Schiller, John Holmes' teen paramour, in Wonderland. And, obviously, she took on the famous Lois Lane for Superman Returns.

Now the flaxen-haired actress is zeroing in on a deal to star in After.Life, the first feature film for Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo, which Erik Davis first mentioned in August. The film follows a woman who is somehow stuck between life and death, but is about to be buried by a funeral director. If she's not alive, nor dead, I'm not sure how she can fight to not be buried. However, considering the strangeness that is Wojtowicz-Vosloo's short film, Pâté, which is like a mash-up of David Lynch and Baz Luhrman, I'm sure there will be some sort of other-worldly logic to be applied. The film already has a cinematographer in two-time Oscar nominee John Mathieson, whose work I particularly like in Plunkett & Macleane. Production will begin later in the year, and I'm sure in the upcoming months we'll have more information on the film, and if Bosworth seals the deal. Honestly, for all the quirk of Pâté, I'm not sure how Bosworth fits in a surreal world. She seems a bit to, for lack of a better word, vanilla for a strange landscape, unless this will be a much more subdued cinematic offering.

I think Kate Bosworth is looking to expand her horizons with her next couple of projects. First up is The Girl in The Park with Sigourney Weaver, and now she has bought the rights to a somewhat pulpy book with a bad girl twist. It can't be easy to escape gossip of a "Superman Curse" and even if you don't believe in that, there is the expectation to see if Bosworth can do something other than be "the girl" in the story. ComingSoon.net reported that Bosworth has bought the rights to the Catherine Hanrahan novel Lost Girls & Love Hotels; the author officially announced the purchase on her myspace page last Wednesday.

Hanrahan's novel follows a Canadian girl living in Tokyo who works as an English trainer for an airline and spends her nights in Tokyo love hotels with a gangster. There will be plenty for Bosworth to do with the story if she decides to star. The book has it all for an actress: drug and sex addictions, painful childhood memories, the Yakuza, and a missing girl. If nothing else, Bosworth has proven that she can do drugged out and damaged (Wonderland). I haven't read the novel, but some of the reviews I came across made me think that I should probably just wait for the movie.

[via ComingSoon.net]

Apparently, there's at least one other film besides Battle in Seattle looking for actors at the moment. Although, with all the recent casting news for that film, I'm kinda surprised there are any actors left who are actually looking for work. Luckily for Pulitzer-Prize-winning writer David Auburn, there are still one or two talented thespians left to come aboard his writing/directing debut -- the psychological thriller The Girl in the Park.

According to production weekly, Keri Russell, Alessandro Nivola and Elias Koteas have now been cast in The Girl in the Park -- which tells the story of a woman permanently traumatized by the disappearance of her daughter who then meets a troubled young woman that may or may not be the daughter she thought was long dead. As Matt reported previously, these newest additions to The Girl in the Park cast join Sigourney Weaver and Kate Bosworth who are already attached to the film playing the traumatized woman and the troubled young woman respectively.

First-time helmer Auburn is best known for his play Proof, which won both the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2000. More recently, he adapted his play Proof for the screen and scripted the film The Lake House starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. Auburn is obviously a talented writer -- but I gotta be honest and say I wasn't exactly blown away by The Lake House or Proof. That said, both those films were in the hands of other directors, not Auburn. With Auburn in charge of his own material this time, and with the cast he's assembled, perhaps he'll end up with a much better film in the end. Shooting on The Girl in the Park is scheduled to start November 13th in New York.