Editor’s note: Starlet arrives in theaters this Friday, but we already saw it way back in March at SXSW. Why don’t you re-read our review from then, originally published on March 12, 2012? There’s nothing quite like found money to bring out people’s true colors – and, in the case of Sean Baker‘s Starlet, the character that emerges from lead character Jane is surprising to everyone around her, especially herself. Baker’s film centers on Jane (Dree Hemingway), a Florida transplant who now wiles away her days in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley doing, well, what is it that Jane does? The gorgeous Hemingway spends most of her time driving around with her dog (Starlet, even though he happens to be a boy), getting high with her terrible roommates (an appropriately screeching and unhinged Stella Maeve and her dirtbag boyfriend James Ransone), and wearing clothing so short that it nearly becomes its own plot point. While it’s eventually revealed just what Jane does with her time and for her money, Starlet focuses on an undefined Jane in the film’s first half, a time period in which nothing much happen beyond the introduction of the film’s only major plot point, though that introduction takes less than five minutes. And though we do eventually get to know Jane more as the film plods on, it does not prove to be an ultimately rewarding experience. 

Somewhat incredibly, Spike Lee‘s remake of Chan-wook Park’s beloved new classic, Oldboy, keeps trucking right along. After months and months of casting rumors, informed chatter, (probably) uninformed chatter, and starts and stops, the film is set to star Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen, and Sharlto Copley (seriously, this sounds great, right?), but Variety now reports that one co-star has been replaced, thanks to some pesky old scheduling conflicts. The outlet reports that Nate Parker (who recently broke out with his solid work in Arbitrage) has had to leave the currently-filming project, with James Ransone stepping into his role (that of “a doctor who works with Olsen’s character”). While this may sound like a small role, Lee’s original choice of Parker, an actor who is poised for super-stardom, and his replacement pick of Ransone, who he has worked with twice before, indicates that this role might be beefier than it sounds. Why else pick a rising star and a trusted collaborator?