She might not be able to wear animated miniskirts and fly around as Tinker Bell, but Brittany Murphy is going to get the chance to have a breakdown. The Hollywood Reporter posts that Murphy is teaming up with Thora Birch, Tammy Blanchard, and Marc Blucas for a new psychological thriller helmed by Sean McConville called Deadline.

Similar to The Shining, Deadline stars Murphy as a writer who decides to go to an abandoned house to write a screenplay. But instead of serial killers who don't die or weird kids on trikes, a "bout of writer's block and other unforeseen events lead her to a psychological breakdown." I assume that the rest of the players are accompanying her to the house, or live nearby or something, unless there are flashbacks or weird apparitions.

However it's being done, it'll be great to see both Murphy and Birch get creepy again. My favorite Brittany film was Don't Say a Word, and Thora handled eerie fare well in The Hole (that British school kid movie that also starred Keira Knightley and had both of them locked in a hole in the ground). (It'll also be nice to see Birch in something again -- her last films came out in 2006, although she has a handful of projects in the works now.) And also, Blucas -- will he be good like Riley, good with a tough shell exterior like Animal in Prey for Rock & Roll, or bad, bad, bad? Shooting began Wednesday in Louisiana.

Oh, the struggling and dreaded Tinker Bell movie. Two years ago, we learned that Brittany Murphy had signed on to bring words to Tinker Bell in a new series of films. Last year, there was behind-the-scenes, executive trouble. This year, in April, pictures were released. Now, poor Brit is out.

Hollywood Newsroom reports that Brittany has been canned, and Mae Whitman is in. The post details all the woes with the Tink series, as well as Murphy's current decline -- from Ashton dumpage, to rumored drug use and a marriage to a man with a lot of legal trouble. This isn't exactly Disney-desired behavior, and it seems that her voice was lacking some sort of magic in the role -- not entirely surprising. Also, get this: "The story didn't work, too many fart jokes and lesbian innuendos." Fart jokes for Tink? What were they smoking when they originally put this together?

But now John Lasseter is working through this new Tink series, and one of the big changes is the voice -- Mae Whitman. HN mentions her role in Independence Day as the President's daughter, and her voice work on flicks like The Jungle Book 2, but she's also the strange teen paramour Ann Veal from Arrested Development. Remember her?

The post also includes a Lasseter-introduced clip from the upcoming movie, so you can check her out in action over at HN. Tinker Bell hits shelves this October.

In these supposedly progressive times, gender equality is one of those touchy issues relegated to the last paragraph of a trend piece nobody reads. When Katherine Heigl suggested to Vanity Fair that Judd Apatow's movies were sexist, the assertion came across like an after-the-fact shrug of acceptance. Ever the galvanizing provocateur, New York Times critic Manohla Dargis confronts the issue head-on with a thorough analysis of the gender bias in this year's summer blockbusters.

With "Iron Man, Batman, Big Angry Green Man" and other massive expressions of virility invading the box office, female roles appear to be relegated to the back of the multiplex. Dargis touches on the rumors that Warner Bros head Jeff Robinov believes no woman has been able to sell a movie since Julia Roberts (a point that Natalie Portman might contest, but not Paris Hilton) before sizing up numerous upcoming studio releases, with particular attention paid to Anna Faris, "who could be the next Judy Holliday but without the right material will, alas, probably end up the next Brittany Murphy." It's the kind of pronouncement that hits you in gut.

Chalk up another missed opportunity for Lindsay Lohan, as it now appears the gal will not be starring in the upcoming flick Poor Things, no matter what Shirley MacLaine tells us. Lohan originally dropped out last year when she was admitted to rehab (first or second trip for her, I forget?), and now according to The Hollywood Reporter, they're looking at Brittany Murphy as a possible replacement. I say 'looking at' because negotiations with Murphy haven't even begun yet; she's just one actress they're eying for the role. Poor Things also has a new director in Scott Marshall (Blonde Ambition), who replaces Ash Baron-Cohen after the dude dropped out over "creative differences."

Poor Things tells the story of two female con artists who befriend and then murder homeless men for their insurance policies. Sounds interesting enough, although I never knew the homeless were known for their phenomenal insurance policies. The film already stars Shirley MacLaine and Olympia Dukakis (as the two female con artists, I believe), as well as Rosario Dawson and Channing Tatum. HR also says that Murphy was cast in Sin City 2; a project we haven't heard much about as of late. I assume she'll be reprising her role from the first film. No word on when Poor Things will finally go into production, but we'll let you know.

It was never a big surprise when Brittany Murphy lathered herself in a bunch of comedy -- her roots were in sitcom land. There was Drexell's Class, Kids Incorporated, Parker Lewis Can't Lose, Blossom, Sister, Sister... Still, most of her comedies have been pretty crappy, and nothing like the wonder that is Clueless, so I'm always happy to hear about another thriller she's signed onto. (I loved her in Don't Say a Word.) Variety reports that the actress has signed onto a new indie noir thriller called Across the Hall.

Heading into production next week under the directorial eye of Alex Merkin, the thriller focuses on "a love triangle between a young man, his best friend and his fiancee." Murphy is starring along with Mike Vogel (Cloverfield) and Danny Pino (Cold Case) -- who I presume will be the friends. If you're familiar with Merkin, this should sound familiar, as it's an expanded feature from his Adrian Grenier-starring short film of the same name. Have any of you seen it?

Meanwhile, Murphy's Ramen Girl is slated for release some time this year, and the period drama The White Hotel next year. The latter will be interesting -- she's playing an opera singer.

I love George A. Romero for what my Cinematical colleague Ryan Stewart does not -- the "symbolism bat," which allows Romero the freedom to use zombies to comment on whatever he wants. To me, that's a strength, not a weakness. Plus, Dawn of the Dead made me afraid of shopping malls, Day of the Dead made me claustrophobic and Land of the Dead made me wish I didn't work for a corporation.

His latest, George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead, debuted at Toronto and fairly well divided audiences. I've heard from supporters, detractors and those in the middle -- Scott Weinberg was on the positive side -- but I can't wait to see it for myself. And hey! Romero made it completely independently, so that's in his favor. Jason Morgan at AMC's Monsterfest blog points to Box Office Mojo, which lists a release date of February 15, 2008. (Our friends at Moviefone also have this release date.) However, neither The Weinstein Co. site nor the film's MySpace page confirm the date yet, so plan your life accordingly.

Another independent horror film just found its leading lady. Brittany Murphy has signed to star in the psychological horror flick 3:30 a.m., according to Variety. Murphy has dipped her feet into the horror pool in the past (The Prophecy II, Cherry Falls, arguably Don't Say a Word). Mick Davis wrote and will direct 3:30 a.m., which is "about a young woman who leaves Gotham after the death of her father to work in a country hotel." The film is said to explore "the connection between dreams and reality." Davis is credited as a co-writer of The Invisible, one of the worst-reviewed movies of the year, but also wrote the original Swedish version; he is currently filming Dylan, starring Kevin McKidd as the Welsh writer Dylan Thomas. 3:30 a.m. is scheduled to begin filming in January 2008.

You know, we're leading with Brittany Murphy and Jason Lee, but they're only the mainstream, comedic tip to the talent that is coming from the upcoming fantasy comedy The Other Side. There is Giovanni Ribisi (Lost in Translation), and I wouldn't be surprised if he got the gig due to his connection with Lee -- they were both in I Love Your Work, plus an untitled short that Lee directed last year and he's appeared in a few eps of My Name is Earl. But the cast also boasts Jim Broadbent, Tim Roth and Lili Taylor listed in the news from Variety, and IMDb lists even more -- Anjelica Huston, Fiona Shaw, Eddie Izzard, Rupert Friend, Eddie Griffin, Dave Matthews... You get the picture.

Directed by producer David Michaels, Other Side comes from the pens of Michaels and Phil Reeves, and it focuses on a grad student (Murphy), who is spending her summer working at a science institute on a remote northern island. While there, "she discovered an eccentric community of characters who are hiding a secret about a terrible tragedy that took place many years before." Lee, for one, is playing: a hippie, chauffeur, pilot, butler, bartender and bait shop clerk. Between him and the rest of the cast, I would say that they picked just the right people to pull off an "eccentric community," although I find it smirk-worthy that Murphy will play a scientist. This is a comedy, so I imagine she will be a very, very cute and giggly scientist. However, how interesting would it be if she was the one believably serious actor in the piece? I mean, she has completely 180'd before.

There's this fantastical film made a few years ago called Neverwas that, aptly, almost never was. While it had an all-star cast, the movie never saw the light of day, save a screening at TIFF and some releases outside of North America. After a few years in the never-ether, the film is finally getting an absolutely bare-bones release on DVD. The directorial debut of Joshua Michael Stern, who previously penned a little-known thriller called Skeletons, Neverwas is the next generation of Hook. If you think back to 1991, you might remember when Robin Williams was a grown-up Peter Pan, heading back to Neverland. Although the green-tighted hero was played by an adult, Hook was definitely a clear-cut family film. Neverwas, on the other hand, has its grown-up hero, but it is not the children's film that it seems to be.

Aaron Eckhart plays Zach Riley, an up-and-coming psychiatrist who is adamant to take a job at a mental institution, and convinces the head doctor (William Hurt) to hire him. One of his patients is Gabriel Finch (Ian McKellen), a strange old man who is convinced that Zach is Zachary Small, a children's book hero who will help him save his kingdom of Neverwas. He is partially right -- Zach's father was the book's writer, T.L. Pierson (Nick Nolte), and he used his son as the model for the heroic character. Pierson is actually the reason for Zach's interest in the hospital. The writer suffered from depression, and killed himself while Zach was still a boy. Years later, Zach is haunted by his memories of his father, surely amplified by the reminders around him, and the fact that Pierson spent time in the same institution.

We hear it on the news twice a week, it seems: A young dead woman has been found on the road, in a ditch, back behind someone's barn, etc. We give the news a casual listen, perhaps offer a brief bit of sympathy to the girl's family, and then throw our focus back into our own lives. The world can be an ugly place; best not to dwell on the more horrific aspects of it ... until we have to.

Karen Moncrieff's follow-up to 2002's Blue Car is a decidedly unique take on the "serial killer movie." The Dead Girl is not a mystery, nor is it really a thriller. It's more of an anthology piece that introduces us to a collection of people on the periphery of a horrible murder. It's not a movie about the killer, per se, nor is it a character study of the victim ... except when it is. It's a tough movie to describe, a tougher movie to "enjoy," but an easy one to recommend -- provided you don't mind a little darkness, gloom and sobriety mixed in with your indie-style ensemble pieces.

It's not the type of role you would expect to find Brittany Murphy in, but I suppose the girl is set on trying some new things. Apparently, the actress is in negotiations to star in The White Hotel, an adaptation of the D.M. Thomas novel. It's taken a whole lot of time to finally bring White Hotel to the big screen -- at one time, folks like Barbra Streisand, Meryl Streep, Isabella Rosellini and Nicole Kidman were in talks to star. Just the fact that Murphy has now entered the equation (after all those fantastic names disappeared) goes to show that either folks were desperate for a female name (any name!) or Murphy really really impressed the right people. Which one do you think is most likely true?

Story follows an opera singer (Murphy) who looks to Sigmund Freud for help in post-World War I Vienna after she's haunted by dreams of a white hotel. Together, they begin to decipher those dreams, which include premonitions of the future and the Holocaust. Simon Monjack will direct off his own script, and there's currently no other casting announcements. Since Murphy grew up in New Jersey, her Jersey/NYC accent usually cuts through her dialogue and, more often that not, it takes away from the performance -- except when it's intentional. However, I had the chance to see a different side of Murphy recently in The Dead Girl. Although she once again took on a tough-girl role, her accent was gone and thus I enjoyed her on screen presence more than I have in the past ... even if her performance was a little too much. With that said, I have a feeling the girl has something special in her -- but will we ever see that special something? That's the question.

I really don't know where I stand on Brittany Murphy. I actually watched Almost Home for lack of something better to do. When she made her way to Clueless, she seemed fun, but I think my interest waned with her weight. However, I found myself seeing Love and Other Disasters at TIFF, and was actually entertained. I'm not sure if it was the movie itself, the crappy film I had seen earlier in the day, or if I was under the influence of fan girl exuberance. Regardless, I'm actually intrigued by her upcoming movie, Ramen Girl.

Earlier this year, Erik Davis shared casting news. Now, Movies Online has released part of an interview they conducted with the waif. While the short synopsis does the film no justice, it sounds like more than a bubble-gun remake of Lost in Translation. The start is typical -- girl follows boy to foreign country, he goes off and girl is left to her own devices. After a little wandering, she decides to learn the art of ramen, which is news to me, since my ramen knowledge goes no further than Montana going nuts for it on the Real World: Boston .

I'm sure this is still sounding sketchy, so let me throw in the twist: Since it takes place in Japan, half of the film will be in Japanese, and according to Murphy, she's the only one speaking English for most of it. If she can throw off the silly, romantic comedy gimmicks that seem to hover around her like Pig-Pen's dirt, she might be able to make something new of her career.

Call me old school, but I like my children's films to actually be written for children. With the glut of animated films flooding the kiddie film market, it seems that studios -- and the people they hire to write the scripts for them -- are convinced that the only way to get parents to take their tykes to the theater to see a kids' movie is to fill them to overflow with adult references, and Happy Feet is the latest offender. The film opens with a female penguin, Norma Jean (voiced by Nicole Kidman), swaying seductively through a crowd of male penguins. The female is drawn with an inflated chest, presumably to simulate a large bosom. Real female Empire Penguins don't have boobies, of course, but I suppose the filmmakers thought that real men can't manage to sit through a 90-minute film with their kids without some simulated penguin cleavage to keep their attention. Norma Jean moves through the males, singing, until her attention is caught by Memphis (Hugh Jackman), who channels Elvis and says things like, "Whoa, Mama" a lot.

In case you're interested, here are some casting tidbits from the past couple of days:

• Talk about lining up a decent cast for a first-time director, Sissy Spacek is set to join Ian McShane in the comedy Hot Rod, SNL writer Akiva Schaffer's directorial debut. Also starring in the film will be Schaffer's SNL buddies (and Lonely Island partners) Andy Samberg and Jorma Taccone. The film, which we've previously discussed, reminds me of that Simpson's episode where Bart attempts to jump Springfield Gorge in order to impress his friends. Pam Brady, who occasionally writes for South Park, penned the script. Hmm, could a South Park writer be borrowing from The Simpsons?
• Damn, Feast of Love is turning out to be some feast all right, having recently added an additional eight people to its cast. Pic, which already stars Morgan Freeman, Greg Kinnear and Radha Mitchell, has tacked on Jane Alexander, Alexa Davalos, Toby Hemingway, Selma Blair, Stana Katic, Billy Burke, Fred Ward Erika Marozsan and a Partridge in a Pear Tree. Davolos will play the lead role; a sensual free spirit who interrupts the lives of a group of friends from Oregon and changes them in unexpected ways. Geez, and here I didn't even think that may people lived in Oregon.
• Emmy-winning actress Tammy Blanchard is currently in talks to star opposite Brittany Murphy in The Ramen Girl. Director Robert Allan Ackerman will make his feature film debut with this story about an American girl stranded in Tokyo who decides to survive by learning how to be a ramen noodle chef. Blanchard would play a drug-addicted American escort who befriends Murphy's character and, hopefully, the two will share stories over a wonderful dish of warm noodles. Yum.

You may not know this about me, but I am addicted to IMDb. Every now and then, as I'm sitting here working late on a Saturday night, I stop and think to myself, "Gee, I wonder what Brittany Murphy is up to next?" Actually, it's not always Murphy. Sometimes I'll get the urge to go IMDb Jennifer Jason Leigh, or Sarah Polley, or even Juliette Lewis -- heck, once I even checked in on old Corey Haim. Once I get the idea in my head, it's stuck there like a bad '80s rock ballad, and until I give in and satisfy that IMDb jones, it just sits there in my brain, nagging at me.

Anyhow, this time it was Brittany Murphy for some reason -- perhaps because Chris was recently ragging on her Tinker Bell gig -- so I checked her out. And, holy cow! She's got a LOT on her plate these days. In addition to aforesaid Tinker Bell madness, Murphy has no fewer than five films on her slate (if you count the voice work in Happy Feet, that animated penguin flick from Warner Bros.) -- and some of them actually look to be (potentially) good.

Ten years after winning the Sundance Grand Jury Prize for his film The Brothers McMullen, writer/director/actor Edward Burns continues to regurgitate the same worn-out themes of love, marriage, friendship and family. With his latest film The Groomsmen, once again, Burns chooses a quaint New York City suburban neighborhood as his setting, while also managing to surround his wooden acting with a decent supporting cast. However, with a script that has more pot holes than the Long Island Expressway, The Groomsmen lacks a tremendous amount of focus, thus leaving its audience desperately in search of an exit.

With only one week left until his wedding, Paulie (Burns) is in a funk. Though they've been together for awhile, according to his friends, the only reason Paulie is marrying Sue (Brittany Murphy) is because he accidentally got her pregnant. Regardless, something is bothering Paulie and, unless he can sort out his issues in one week's time, there's a chance he may make the biggest mistake of his life.

While Sue is off placing the finishing touches on her wedding, as well as preparing their house for the arrival of a new child, Paulie spends this time hanging out with his groomsmen at the local bar, the golf course and the softball field. His lack of enthusiasm towards the future frustrates Sue and the two end up arguing (about the same exact thing) over and over throughout the film. It's this sort of redundancy that ultimately prevents The Groomsmen from rising above the surface. Instead, Burns chooses to drown his characters in repetitive dialogue until, eventually, the lights come on and you realize an hour and a half of your life has just been wasted.