Odds: Tuesday - Mr. Moto, Maggie, "Miss."

By Alison Willmore on 08/01/2006

It's confirmed: Heath Ledger=The Joker. In other casting news, Empire reports that Bill Pullman is in talks to play Philip K. Dick in "Panasonic," an indie biopic of the writer to be  directed by Matthew Wilder.

In the Washington Post, Paul Farhi writes about how Scarlett Johansson's scrappy cub reporter in "Scoop" is one in "a long line of cinematic print reporters. With occasional exceptions, newspaper people usually get the hero treatment in movies and TV shows." That's as opposed to TV (We are mad as hell! We aren't going to take it anymore!) — and there are hardly enough films on web-based journalists to generalize.

At the Boston Globe, Ty Burr outlines why "Miami Vice" is a great summer flick and "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" is not:

"Miami Vice" [is] the most fun I've had in a movie theater in months.

I feel dirty even saying that. It stars Colin Farrell; it's based on a TV show that was '80s camp even while it was on the air -- how can such a film be taken seriously? Because: (a ) it's not meant to be, and (b ) its craftsmanship is nevertheless of the highest and most serious order. Moviegoers have responded; the film was the first to topple "Pirates" from its perch at the top of the box-office.

In this week's New York Times DVD column, Dave Kehr writes about Fox Home Video's box set of the first four Mr. Moto films, which starred Peter Lorre, unlikely enough, as the Japanese "adventurer, explorer, soldier of fortune."

In the San Francisco Chronicle, John Clark interviews Eva Marie Saint about John Frankenheimer's "Grand Prix," which also recently came out on DVD, and a few other films:

Q: So I guess you didn't have any blue-screen scenes. Not like Hitchcock.

A: The Mount Rushmore scene (in "North by Northwest") was done on a stage. It was made of rubber. The Parks Commission wouldn't allow us to deface the real Mount Rushmore.

Q: Is it true that he treated actors like cattle?

A: False, false. He didn't give much direction to the actors. He just shot what he had in mind. He took such good care of us. I called him my sugar daddy.

Q: I'll bet he liked that.

A: He did.

Entertainment Weekly's Missy Schwartz profiles Maggie Gyllenhaal, who has four releases in the next four months. Also in EW, Owen Gleiberman writes about the silliness of the Sundance bubble phenom, and wonders if "Little Miss Sunshine" will be its latest victim:

Yet even if Little Miss Sunshine succeeds brilliantly in the real world, to me it will always be, in spirit, the quintessence of Sundance bubbledom: a festival hit that generates excitement not because it's original, or even very good, but because it represents the alternative to what's alternative.

+ "Batman" Goes for "Brokeback" (E! Online)
+ Bill Pullman As Philip K Dick (Empire)
+ It Pays to Be a Print Journalist -- in Films (Washington Post)
+ Is a well-crafted movie too much to ask for? (Boston Globe)
+ New DVD’s: Mr. Moto Collection (NY Times)
+ SPEAKING OF DVDS: EVA MARIE SAINT (SF Chronicle)
+ Maggie, Maybe... (EW)
+ Will 'Miss' Hit? (EW)