Between Martin Scorsese with Boardwalk Empire, Michael Mann with his upcoming series Luck, Tony and Ridley Scott with The Good Wife, David Fincher with his upcoming House of Cards, Steven Spielberg with too many upcoming projects to name, and an ungodly amount of smaller names that have directed various pilots, many filmmakers have been trying their hand at a smaller screen. While that’s great, it isn’t enough. So it’s time to discuss what other filmmakers would be suited well for the idiot box. Here are seven filmmakers that should try their hand at television.

That’s Not Safe For the Lobby. I love making up new acronyms. Spread that one around, please. Do to my contractually obligated word limit on posts (at least 100, unless I can use “Verfremdungseffekt” correctly), I’m including this opening statement, but you’ve already skipped over it anyway. Normally for a poster, I might write about the artistic/salesmanship quality of who it will draw in or how it builds on a long and storied history of one sheet movie marketing, but for this new poster for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the nipple piercings speak for themselves. And they speak more than 1,000 words:

A couple days ago a red band trailer for David Fincher’s upcoming adaptation of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” hit the Internet and made the rounds among movie blogs and message boards. It wasn’t really clear if it was an unintentional leak, or if it was put out to look as an intentional leak as a bit of viral marketing that fit in well with the hacker status of the female protagonist, or maybe if it was just a trailer released without much fanfare due to its pseudo NSFW status. But none of that really matters anymore. Now we’ve got an officially released trailer for the film that looks a heck of a lot like the leaked one, but is all high definition and pretty, and doesn’t have any bits that are naughty (sorry, side boob lovers). So what does this trailer have in store for us? Nothing shocking really; but enough to get my blood pumping anyways. This little bit of advertising is quick, kinetic, and full of energy. It’s got a hip re-imagining of a Led Zeppelin classic, a very digital, very typical of David Fincher aesthetic, very gorgeous production design. Also, it probably can’t help but remind me a lot of that one movie I saw… you know, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. The trailer is a reminder that I’ve already heard this story, already solved this mystery, already lived alongside these characters, and it can’t help but feel awfully familiar. But it looks awfully damn pretty [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

David Fincher gets obsessed about things, and he’s clearly never read “The Hitchhiker’s Guide” because panicking seems to be something he can’t take his mind off of. The most recent incarnation of this passion comes in optioning Jason Starr’s thriller novel “Panic Attack” for a possible forthcoming project under his Panic Pictures banner. According to Vulture, Fincher has already hired Ted Griffin (Ocean’s Eleven, Matchstick Men) to write the adaptation. This will mark a move even further away from his Benjamin Button phase and back toward the earlier point in his career where people threatening to kill other people was the main focus. In other words, Fincher is looking to give audiences a reason to panic again. Plus, this will be a departure of sorts for Griffin who has written rom-com fare like Killers and Rumor Has It… in recent years. The story focuses on a psychologist named Adam Bloom who shoots a burglar who’s broken into his home. Instead of praise for protecting his wife and child, Bloom is made into a monster by the media because he just so happened to empty an entire clip into the would-be thief. To complicate the emotional, public hell – the burglar’s partner has a mind for revenge. It sounds perfect and perfectly Fincher-esque. If Kevin Spacey gets involved, chills will already start climbing up the back of my spine.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly movie news round-up that comes from the land of the ice and snow, from the midnight sun where the hot springs blow. A-ah-ahh-ah! When it first hit the web, the consensus was that this red-band trailer for David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was nothing more than an illegal leak of someone video taping in a European theater. But since then, after some inspection, speculation and hearsay, it’s now believed to be a strategic leak in accordance with the styles of Lisbeth Salander. That could be the case. Lending credence to that theory is the fact that the audio is pretty clean, there’s an MPAA warning on the trailer (which was supposedly recorded in Europe) and days later, Sony has not taken it down. Either way, it’s a wicked trailer. If it’s a plant by Sony, it’s a brilliant maneuver.

Sympathy for Delicious is Mark Ruffalo‘s directorial debut. It explores themes of faith, selfishness, and also artistic integrity. It chronicles the story of a man, Dean (screenwriter Christopher Thornton), who discovers he has the gift to heal others. Ultimately, he selfishly uses this gift to his profit alone. He’s a sellout. Instead of doing something bold and wonderful, he does the opposite. One could apply that idea to many actors working who don’t act under the purest of intentions. Some see it as a business and some see it as an art form, and Mark Ruffalo falls into the latter category. Ruffalo reminded me quite a bit of his character Paul from The Kids Are All Right. He didn’t come off as an oblivious hipster, but one of those rare people — mainly, actors — that seemed completely comfortable in his own skin. Even over the phone, there was a laid back and open quality to him that set a smooth and easygoing tone for the conversation. The actor/director was nice enough to make the time for an interview while on the set of another one of his little ensemble indies, The Avengers, and we discussed at length the challenge of keeping artistic integrity in a business, the themes of Sympathy for Delicious, finding realism in take 100, and even Michel Gondry.

What is The Week That Was? Lets take a guess here, shall we? If you’ve been reading this site for a while, you’d know that we put a lot of words on the internet. Chances are that you didn’t have time to sit by your computer screen and wait for every single update. Though if you did, congrats, you’re our favorite. That said, by Saturday the rest of you might be struck with the depressing realization that you didn’t read all of the best articles the FSR staff put together this week. But don’t worry, I’ve got you covered with a round-up of all the best that this site had to offer over the course of the last seven days. Go forth and enjoy.

The historical biopic based on a best selling book “Cleopatra: A Life” has had Angelina Jolie set to star for a while now, but it has yet to find a director. First it was rumored that James Cameron was going to direct, but then he committed to doing Avatar sequels instead. Then it looked like Paul Greengrass might come on board, but he wound up going off to do Memphis. Maybe the problem Cleopatra is having is that her standards are too high. Instead of only going after the biggest directors in Hollywood, she just needs to get out there and start dating. The big problem standing in the way is that Angelina Jolie reportedly has quite a bit of say-so that goes along with her attachment to the film, and she is very particular about who she wants directing. I mean, just look at her filmography and you can tell that she only works with the best. This lady does top notch stuff. Who knows what The Tourist would have looked like if she didn’t hold out for the most talented people in the business to sign on? Jolie’s eye for talent has now looked toward The Social Network director David Fincher. He has had talks about the possibility of taking on the project, but it is questionable if his schedule will allow for it. Famously, his next project is the English language version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and with that film comes two sequels. And [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

I can’t speak for the rest of the world, but the biggest thing I use the instant streaming feature on Netflix for is to catch up on TV episodes from days past. In a mere two hours I can knock out three episodes of an hour long drama, and six of a half hour sitcom. It’s very enjoyable to watch these programs with ZERO advertising, even the kind that is seen through services like Hulu. This year alone, Netflix signed a major deal with CBS to begin streaming classic, and is currently airing programs on the service, but today news came out of what is quite possibly their boldest move in their TV game. According to Deadline, the service is going to begin airing 100% original content. And I don’t mean airing programs twenty four hours after they air like they do with all the Starz programming, I mean brand new programing will air exclusively on Netflix and only Netflix. The first series that will be featured is reportedly the upcoming David Fincher and Kevin Spacey produced remake of the British television series House of Cards.

Every day, come rain or shine or internet tubes breaking, Film School Rejects showcases a trailer from the past. If a fresh new detective and a wizened black detective who’s getting too old for this shit get called into investigate an obese man stuffed full of spaghetti, you know things are about to turn for the worse. Today’s trailer drives us all the way out to a field and shows us our true nature. They don’t call them deadly sins for nothing. Think you know what it is? Check the trailer out for yourself:

What is Movie News After Dark? This is a question that I am almost never asked, but I will answer it for you anyway. Movie News After Dark is FSR’s newest late-night secretion, a column dedicated to all of the news stories that slip past our daytime editorial staff and make it into my curiously chubby RSS ‘flagged’ box. It will (but is not guaranteed to) include relevant movie news, links to insightful commentary and other film-related shenanigans. I may also throw in a link to something TV-related here or there. It will also serve as my place of record for being both charming and sharp-witted, but most likely I will be neither of the two. I write this stuff late at night, what do you expect?

If there’s one thing that’s really great about the Academy Awards it’s the manner in which they decide who gets nominated and, ultimately, who wins for each category. It makes little sense to have directors vote on who did the best acting, or musicians deciding on who had the most splendid photography, or screenwriters deciding who made the best non-scripted picture. Professionals in their field decide on which other professionals in their same field did the most exemplary work to represent their profession.

And thank God, because I can’t imagine how you would define what constitutes great directing. The job encompasses so much that great directing can be equally applied to someone obsessively anal about their “vision” just as much as someone who relies on spontaneity and ad-lib to achieve the best results. It can be applied to someone with incredible photographic technique and an eye for scene setup, and another who seems to have little regard for visual appeal. As the matter of fact, as of last year it no longer even matters whether you have a penis or not.

I absolutely have no clue what constitutes great directing despite having my own opinion, which carries no weight because I’ve never done it in my life. I probably couldn’t direct traffic let alone tell someone to film me doing it from a specific spot and focus on my anxiety in close-up and then cut to a slow-mo clip of me weeping when drivers don’t pay attention to me. If I could do that then maybe I’d have an idea what a great director really does.

Thankfully, I don’t have to as the Best Director is decided upon by others who have been there, done it and conquered it in their own way to acknowledge how difficult it must have been to focus all collaborators’ attention to the right areas at the right times to arrive altogether at the same, desired destination; which is ultimately arriving at a final product they can all be proud of.

Here are this year’s nominees for Best Director:

This article is part of our Oscar Week Series, where you will find breakdowns and predictions for all of the major categories. As you may know, Robert Ebert is promising $100,000 to anyone who can predict every single Oscar win this year. Going 24 for 24 is an impressive feat, unless you have an ethically questionable friend that works at PricewaterhouseCoopers. But, if you have that, why would you be wasting your time on a measly $100,000? Exactly. I don’t have that friend, but I have a graphing calculator and a lot of free time, so I came up with the predictions that I’ll be submitting to Ebert’s contest. I’d better not get a subscription to Red Book or something  for sharing my email information with him. Check out who I think will win the awards on Sunday (written in bold), tell me why I’m dead wrong, and put your money where your mouth is by entering the contest yourself.

New updates abound for the troubled pre-production of the 23rd film in the James Bond franchise. For a while work on the film had come to a standstill when its studio, MGM, was forced into bankruptcy. But recently, MGM got a bunch of their financial woes sorted out, acquired some new leadership, and the green light on more Bond seemed to be glowing. The only problem was that MGM didn’t have the resources to distribute the film themselves, so they had to find another studio to sign on to handle the distribution duties. Enter Sony. Sony was the studio with the rights to Bond 21 and 22, which ended up being Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace. Before these productions we were still in the Pierce Brosnan era of Bond, and while that started pretty strong the petals had come off the rose a bit. After decades of James Bond being a dark haired gent that had over the top, cartoony adventures, Sony took a big risk by pushing fair-haired Daniel Craig into the Bond role and changing the look and feel of the series to something more grounded and real. And they spent a lot of money promoting the changeover. That’s a lot of time, effort, and money put into a franchise that got handed over to MGM. Sony didn’t like this, Sony wanted back in. And getting the distribution rights to Bond 23 was their ticket to doing so. But there were several other studios vying for that [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

It’s unclear whether her dragon will be on the left or right buttock, but Rooney Mara has definitely evolved from a brash young college student in The Social Network to whatever the hell this is. The pictures are great, but they’re also not from the film itself, so it’s difficult to get all that excited. Still, Mara looks like she’s about to stab the cigarette butt into her artist’s eye as a tip for the ink job before (hopefully) going to get a sandwich. If that’s the attitude of the film encapsulated in photo form, then God Bless David Fincher. Check out the full pictures after the jump.

This year, someone who has never won a DGA award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement will win a DGA award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement. The filed includes three first-time nominees – Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan; Tom Hooper for The King’s Speech; and David O. Russell for The Fighter – as well as two returning nominees – David Fincher for The Social Network (who was previously nominated for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and who has won several commercial directing awards from the DGA) and Christopher Nolan for Inception (who was previously nominated for The Dark Knight and Memento). None of these directors has won the award, which means the Director’s Guild of America’s pattern of celebrating new talent (even talent that’s been around a decade) will continue. In the past 25 years, the DGA has only had 4 repeat winners – Ron Howard, Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood and Oliver Stone. With this list of nominees, it’s guaranteed that yet another new name will join their ranks.

It’s that time of the year again: that brief span of time in between Christmas and New Year’s when journalists, critics, and cultural commentators scramble to define an arbitrary block of time even before that block is over with. To speculate on what 2010 will be remembered for is purely that: speculation. But the lists, summaries, and editorials reflecting on the events, accomplishments, failures, and occurrences of 2010 no doubt shape future debate over what January 1-December 31, 2010 will be remembered for personally, nostalgically, and historically. How we refer to the present frames how it is represented in the future, even when contradictions arise over what events should be valued from a given year. In an effort to begin that framing process, what I offer here is not a critical list of great films, but one that points out dominant cultural conversations, shared trends, and intersecting topics (both implicit and explicit) that have occurred either between the films themselves or between films and other notable aspects of American social life in 2010. As this column attempts to establish week in and week out, movies never exist in a vacuum, but instead operate in active conversation with one another. Thus, a movie’s cultural context should never be ignored. So, without further adieu, here is my overview of the Top 10 topics, trends, and events of the year that have nothing to do with the 3D debate.

The movie world is so affected by Jon Favreau’s departure from the Iron Man franchise that there’s even speculation that some sort of BFF break-up between the director and Robert Downey Jr was to blame. That will most likely never be proven (until the tell all book comes out in three decades), but it’s clear that fans are reaching for any sort of explanation that rationalizes why the man who was at the forefront of the Marvel solo launch would choose to walk away from his creation in its adolescent phase. The reason, however, is less important than the simple fact that leaving was absolutely the right thing to do.

Armie Hammer can remember back to his high school days when the craze of Facebook started being whispered around the hallways, and he caved to peer pressure and joined. Now, he’s playing two people in The Social Network with the benefit of some great CGI. Luke Mullen sat down with the star to discuss playing twins, working with David Fincher, and the musical quality of Sorkin’s writing.

The Social Network is nothing new, but that’s kind of the point. Its structure creates a story of uniquely American ingenuity, individualism, and capital that we’ve seen often, one that follows beat-for-beat the formula of young, ambitious, humble beginnings to meteoric rise toward contested success to the people that really mattered being inevitably pushed out of the way. It is in The Social Network’s belonging to that subgenre which draws apt comparison to films like Citizen Kane, Sweet Smell of Success, or There Will Be Blood – not qualitative comparisons, mind you (the very title of Citizen Kane has become an inescapable and meaningless form of hyperbole in that regard), but comparable in terms of basic narrative structure and genre play. Such narratives are perhaps more common in films depicting less legitimate business practices – gangster films – which also catalog the rise in stature but fall in character of an outcast who uses the system for their own advantage. From starry-eyed associations with questionable made men (Timberlake’s Sean Parker and the debaucheries of success associated with him) to the inevitable “hit” on one’s kin in the best interest of the business (Zuckerberg and Parker firing Eduardo Saverin), The Social Network is something of a Goodfellas for geeks. Why is it that the first major studio film about the phenomenon of social networking feels like such a familiar movie? Why does it resort to well-honed, expertly crafted but familiar cinematic territory instead of pioneering unexplored terrain analogous to the phenomenon [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]