Up-n-coming, 8/9.

"It is almost a year to the day before Columbia Pictures will be releasing The Pineapple Express, but David Green showed a small group of friends the most up-to-date cut yesterday afternoon," writes Michael Tully, who finds the film "absolutely fucking h-i-l-a-r-i-o-u-s." And there's a followup entry, too.

"Following his talky, highly regarded indies Funny Ha Ha and Mutual Appreciation, Andrew Bujalski wrapped his latest micro-budget feature Tuesday in Austin," blogs the American-Statesman's Chris Garcia. Bujalski tells him "the still-untitled film is a lot like his others: 'chatty, using a small crew and unprofessional actors.' He adds, 'I won't know what it's about until it's all put together.'" Wha-hoa, update! Matt Dentler has more and pix!

"We're about to enter the golden season for cinema, with film festivals, the awards race, and studios finally releasing their best," writes Gabriel Shanks at Modern Fabulousity. "After getting even more excited by this list, I decided to compile my own: what I'm looking forward to, what I'm worried about, and what I'll be avoiding at all costs."

For indieWIRE, Jason Guerrasio checks in on five indies in production:

• Beautiful Darling, James Rasin's doc about Warhol superstar Candy Darling.

• Blindness, Fernando Meirelles's adaptation of Jose Saramago's novel, written by Don McKellar and starring Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover, Gael García Bernal, Yusuke Iseya and Alice Braga.

• Keep Coming Back: "William H Macy prepares for his feature film directorial debut, which will begin shooting early next year and stars Salma Hayek, Steve Buscemi, Mos Def and Victor Rasuk."

• In On the Hook, Frank Langella and Elliott Gould star in Richard Ledes's adaptation of Alain-Didier Weill's thriller.

• Joe Leonard and Jace McLean team up on Sons of Liberty.

"I've been reading David Peace's novel The Damned Utd, which is a fictionalised rendering of legendary football manager Brian Clough's 44-day reign at Leeds United in 1974, and it's a fascinating recreation of what Peace sees as the most conflicted, sociopathic example of sports leadership in history," blogs the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw. "Peter Morgan is reportedly scripting the movie version... It's an inspired choice."

Also:

• "In 1988 Eddie 'The Eagle' Edwards soared high above the mountains of Calgary, Canada, arms flapping, and landed with a wobble to finish last in the Olympic ski jump competition," writes Dan Glaister. "Now Eddie's humble achievement is to be celebrated in a Hollywood film, starring Steve Coogan as Eddie."

• Emine Saner reports that Jerry Bruckheimer's "forthcoming epic, which won't be released for three agonising years, is G-Force, a film about a group of guinea-pig commandos working for a government agency to prevent an evil billionaire taking over the world - an idea of such genius that it is a wonder nobody has thought of it before."

• And: "Nicole Kidman will play a woman who is haunted by a ghost in a remake of the Colombian horror Al Final del Espectro."

Online listening tip. The Observer's Jason Solomons talks with Atonement director Joe Wright.

Online viewing tip. Ted Z points to the trailer for Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind.

Online viewing tips. "Over at the website for his film, Tom DeCillo is posting a very funny series of video podcasts in which he parodies the insanity involved in promoting an independent film - in his case, Delirious, which opens August 15th," blogs Scott Macaulay at Filmmaker.

Posted by dwhudson at August 9, 2007 9:18 AM