Film fans already got a glimpse at the early days of The Beatles’ career with 1994’s Backbeat, a dramatization of their days working the club scene in Hamburg. Now there’s a new film in the works that is going to tell the story of their last days together as a band. Richard DiLello worked as a gofer for The Beatles’ late-career recording company, Apple Records, between 1968 and 1970, and his written account of his time there The Longest Cocktail Party is going to serve as the source material for the new film. During his time working at Apple, DiLello established personal relationships with each member of The Beatles, as well as their closest friends and family, and his book is told from his own perspective, watching this huge world crumble with outside eyes. The film version of The Longest Cocktail Party is being produced by a team consisting of Michael Winterbottom, Oasis’ Liam Gallagher, and Winterbottom’s longtime producing partner Andrew Eaton. The screenplay is being adapted by Four Lions writer Jesse Armstrong, and Winterbottom himself intends on directing. That makes perfect sense, as he already has experience directing a film called 24 Hour Party People, so The Longest Cocktail Party shouldn’t be much of a stretch. The biggest hurdles in the way of getting a film like this together are going to be affording the rights to enough of The Beatles’ catalogue to put together an appropriate soundtrack and finding the right actors to bring the iconic quartet to life. [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]

There’s a lot of dancing going on in this trailer for Michael Winterbottom‘s Trishna. Typical Bollywood style numbers with their elaborate flair. Intimate undulations between two people falling in love. The kind of dance moves that happen between sheets. They’re all there, and they all look stunning. Winterbottom seeks to confound here a bit, combining several elements from past films and making something that looks nothing like anything he’s done before. There’s a dash of 24 Hour Party People, the sensuality of 9 Songs, and maybe even a taste of A Mighty Heart‘s dramatics, but over all, this story of star cross’d lovers looks like a new animal. It stars Freida Pinto and Riz Ahmed as the daughter of a rickshaw owner and the son of a land developer that only have eyes for each other. How much do you want to bet that their love is forbidden? Sink down into the poetry of it all for yourself:

The Trip was a Michael Winterbottom-directed independent comedy that recently opened in the US to pretty decent critical buzz. It featured comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon as less than happy bedfellows traveling the countryside of northern England and eating at fancy restaurants. The story was that they were writing reviews for a magazine, but really the plot was just an excuse to get Coogan and Brydon together to riff on comedy bits, duel with Michael Caine impressions, and get on each other’s nerves. The results were rather humorous, and it’s looking like there is going to be a sequel. Or, at least, there will be a sequel to the BBC series. You see, The Trip actually started as a six part series on BBC2. In a kind of strange move, the six episodes were edited down to one feature length release for US theaters. In a Q&A at this week’s Latitude Festival, producer Andrew Eaton revealed that Winterbottom was going to send Coogan and Brydon on another trip, this time to Italy. This guarantees that the original fans of the series in the UK will be getting more odd couple action from the duo, and points to the fact that we might be getting another movie here in the US as well. If the content is there, and all you have to do is pay someone to make an alternate edit, why not give it another go in the US? Or maybe they’ll strike a deal to get the [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 my personal suggestion that you read and re-read that headline because even though I wrote it, I’m still re-reading it, rubbing my eyes like a kid who just found a $20 bill on the sidewalk (aka infinite money), and trying to figure out if it’s real. Michael Winterbottom, the man who directed 24 Hour Party People, the man who directed 9 Songs, the man who apparently loves movies with numbers in the title – is going to be teaming with Jack Black for a comedy. That’s insane. And wonderful. According to Variety, Winterbottom will be directing Bailout, an adaptation of Jess Walter’s “The Financial Lives of the Poets,” which tells the story of a man who finds himself without a job, but with a wife that’s cheating on him and a father who is fast approaching senility. His luck turns when he comes face to face with an interesting (and illegal) business opportunity, and hilarity ensues. There seems to be a trend of down-on-their-luck figures being celebrated (the latest being Will Ferrell in Everything Must Go), but there’s been mixed success. Maybe people aren’t too keen on watching recession-hit characters during the recession. Maybe they should bring back Charlie Chaplin. However, this project sounds far too weird not to be great. Winterbottom is a diverse talent that can do dark drama and sharp comedy with equal skill, and it’s refreshing to see Black take on something that’s on the other side of the world from Gulliver’s Travels. I haven’t [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]

Michael Winterbottom’s ‘The Killer Inside Me’ has attracted a lot of controversy for its savage violence. But worse than that, it’s spectacularly boring.

An adaptation of Craig Murray’s “Murder in Samarkand” with Michael Winterbottom at the helm and Steve Coogan in the starring role is sadly stalled indefinitely.

In The Killer Inside Me, Alba will play a prostitute in the world of a West Texas Sheriff, played by Casey Affleck, who finds himself transforming from boring small town cop to ruthless, sociopathic murderer.