The other day the venerable Cole Abaius reported on a rumor that Matt Damon was no longer going to be making his directorial debut on an upcoming project about a sales executive who has his life changed when he travels to a small town. The reason Damon was backing off the project was said to be “script issues,” but this sounded absurd because Damon is a co-writer on the film and he still intends on starring in it. So how could he possibly have issues with the script that would preclude him from directing?

People best know Taylor Lautner for running around in jean shorts with no shirt on as the werewolf in the Twilight series, but that’s not all the actor has to offer. It turns out cutoffs and glistening abs aren’t what defines him, he contains multitudes. In order to branch out a bit and diversify his portfolio, Lautner is going to produce and star in his next film, which is going to be smaller, and more indie. Lautner and his production company Quick Six have acquired an article that appeared in ‘The New Yorker,” and if that isn’t indie sounding enough for you, he’s hired indie legend Gus Van Sant to come on and direct. Sources say that after the relative failure of his big budget starring vehicle Abduction, Lautner is looking to take his career in a different direction, away from being a big name action star. From this point on he only intends on working on projects that involve the best writers and the best directors. I’d say that getting Van Sant on board is a good start to that goal, so it will be interesting to see who he hires to adapt the “New Yorker” article. Putting together dream projects that you can star in isn’t a luxury that a lot of young actors have, it must be nice to be sitting on all that Twilight money. A lot of people are probably going to view his decision to only work with top people as presumptuous, but I [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]

On January 19th, 2008, Bryan Cranston had one claim to fame, Malcolm in the Middle. Certainly not a bad role, but it did place everyone’s opinion of what Cranson was capable of into a box. That all changed on January 20th, 2008. Breaking Bad transformed his career and made people realize that Cranston was more than a wacky dad on a FOX sitcom. Since 1984, Kelsey Grammer has had exactly one claim to fame, his famous role as Dr. Frasier Crane on Cheers and the spin-off Frasier. Much like Cranston, it’s a role that has come to define Grammer’s career and has allowed, like Cranston, for people’s opinion of the man’s ability to be put into a single box… That will all change this Friday thanks to the new Starz series, Boss.

I’ve no better, more eloquent way to put this — Gus Van Sant‘s Restless is awful, pandering, painfully acted, lazily written, up its own ass schlock. It’s bad. This is not the Van Sant that pulled beautiful, nuanced performances from his actors in Good Will Hunting, gave us solid, dark, indie-fare like Elephant, or even the almost total airball remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. This, perhaps, is a sign that Van Sant has taken his title as arthouse darling and run it completely off the rails.

Last year I came away from Cannes needing to tell as many people as possible to see Blue Valentine, which enthralled and emotionally jarred me thanks to a blend of compelling story-telling and two mesmerizing lead performances ranging from touching to explosive in the space of a few short minutes. Already, only two days in, I feel the same way about Gus Van Sant‘s Restless, the film that today opened the Un Certain Regard section of the festival. Restless is a similar tale of two entwined souls romantically entangled, but unlike Blue Valentine, which was all about the central pair’s relationship to the extent that it quite wonderfully presented them as living in an impenetrable and ultimately devastating bubble, Van Sant throws in a couple of narrative conceits and a hugely gripping hook that adds a different element to the film. Both films share a resolute focus on a final point: while Blue Valentine alludes to it (the relationship’s end) thanks to an alinear narrative structure, Restless reveals very early on that Annabel (Mia Wasikowska) has a terminal disease that will kill her inside three months, which gives the story both structure and that killer hook. This is no Bucket List – there are no grand, sweeping gestures, no life affirming to-do-lists to complete in order to feel complete before death. Instead we are offered a portrait of a young couple, both aged by their personal tragedies (one by her illness, the other by the death of his parents), yet unwilling and unable to cast [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]

Dear Mr. Franco, Before I say anything else, I just want to say, at the risk of sounding like a brown-nosing blogger writing a hypothetical letter to a movie star who most definitely will not read it, that I actually do appreciate what you’re trying to do. Many people would start a post like this heavy on the snark and in total dismissal of a star’s decision to construct their career as performance art. But I don’t. I think it’s kind of interesting. Kind of. We know you’re talented. And we know you like to explore a variety of avenues of expression. It’s not just that you’re actor, but an actor who can play Aron Ralston and Alan Ginsberg, convincingly, in the same year. It’s not just that you’re a filmmaker, but the filmmaker that made Saturday Night, which is more enjoyable than anything SNL has produced in years. It’s not just that you’re pursuing a PhD, but…well, I’m actually not familiar with your scholarship, but I’m sure you’ll publish something someday. Anyway, this is to say I’m writing from the perspective of a reluctant fan. But after Sunday night, you and everybody that respects you deserves a damn break.

Three names emerge as Summit starts aiming at Oscar-caliber talent for the top job on its monster.

Could this Tom Robbins journey through immortality and beets be Oscar-caliber? You’re damned right it could.

This week’s Culture Warrior gives an exhaustive review of the decade that you won’t find anywhere else on the Interwebs.

Some movies are meant to be slow. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. Slow can be beautiful.

The lovely folks over at Focus Features are really excited about their film Milk being nominated for 8 Academy Awards. Who wouldn’t be, right? And to celebrate all of their nominations, including Sean Penn’s Best Actor nod and one for Best Picture, they have put together two brand new featurettes.

No one likes a sell out. But selling out goes both ways. This time of year, directors sell out in a different way. I’m talking about all the major mainstream Hollywood directors who “sell out” to do the award film released at the end of the year.

In the wake of California’s Proposition 8, a film like Milk is both socially relevant and an eerie reminder of how this nation hasn’t really progressed in the past 30 years.

Kevin Carr looks at Australia, Four Christmases, Transporter 3 and Milk, in theaters this week with the FSR Report Card.

It’s the Big, Fat Thanksgiving Special! Kevin and Neil beam into the Magical Virtual Studio in the Sky two days early to get ready for their Thanksgiving feast which will keep them napping through the weekend.

To put it simply, Gus Van Sant’s upcoming film Milk, which stars Sean Penn as California’s first openly gay elected official, Harvey Milk, looks fantastic.

Early on in Paranoid Park we see its adolescent protagonist, Gabe Nevins, from the rear as he walks towards a bench in an overgrown field to sit down and write something—a memoir? a letter?—that he calls “Paranoid Park”.