Studio film

Variety is reporting that Gus Van Sant and Bret Easton Ellis will be working together to write the film about the suicides of Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake:

PalmStar Entertainment, Celluloid Dreams and K5 Film have acquired screen rights to "The Golden Suicides," a Vanity Fair article written by Nancy Jo Sales.

Van Sant, who helmed "Milk" and is prepping the Columbia Pictures drama "Restless," is involved only as writer at this point.

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Duncan and Blake formed a popular couple on the downtown New York and Venice, Calif., art scenes. She was one of the first videogame designers for girls, and his "digital paintings" -- kaleidoscopic images shown on plasma screens -- established him as a rising star on the circuit.

The couple descended into a paranoid spiral when the artists developed a consuming belief that government and religious organizations were conspiring against them. She killed herself in 2007. Blake found her body on the floor of their bedroom, and walked into the Atlantic Ocean a week later, ending his life.

Photograph by Yo! Venice

The Spike Jonze film 'Where the Wild Things Are' hit theaters today, and boy are we excited. And nervous. We've been waiting for this film like it's senior prom, desperately wanting it to be perfect, knowing sheer heartache is just a broken heel away-

The LA Times was less than impressed with the flick, but we're not letting that get to us cause our favorite critics had better things to say:

John Powers for Vogue:

Far from being some sort of debacle, Where the Wild Things Are is such a magical piece of filmmaking I'm tempted to curse it (at least commercially) by calling it Art.

Joe Morgenstern of the Wall Street Journal:

"Where the Wild Things Are" honors the book in every imaginable way, and in ways no one could have imagined until Spike Jonze and his collaborators came along.

Manohla Dargis of the New York Times:

[I]t startles and charms and delights largely because Mr. Jonze's filmmaking exceeds anything he's done in either of his inventive previous features, "Being John Malkovich" (1999) and "Adaptation" (2002). With "Where the Wild Things Are" he has made a work of art that stands up to its source and, in some instances, surpasses it.

RWWAAAAR!!!

We're big Barbie fans here at the FBLA, but the news that our favorite fashion doll is going live-action leaves us feeling uneasy. Allowing a mere mortal to portray the fantasy icon seems like a disaster in the making. Especially cause the doll so closely resembles a tranny.

The Hollywood Reporter has details of the movie deal:

After months of negotiations, Universal has acquired the rights to the iconic Mattel toy to make a live-action feature.

Laurence Mark, whose credits include "Jerry Maguire" and "Julie & Julia," is producing.

Barbie, celebrating her 50th anniversary as one of the top toy brands in the world, has never been adapted into a live-action film, though not for Hollywood's lack of trying. Mattel has been extremely protective of the toy, which has generated billions of dollars, wanting nothing to tarnish the polished image.

So why allow a live-action movie now? Mattel must need the money.

Oh, and Barbie and her images are the trademarked, copyrighted property of Mattel, whose lawyers scare the hell out of us.

Spike Jonze had the sense to put his ex-girlfriend Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in charge of the music for his upcoming film Where the Wild Things Are. The soundtrack for the film won't be released until September 29, but the single "All is Love" can be heard streaming on the film's MySpace page.

The single is credited to "Karen O and the Kids", an eclectic group of musicians Karen gathered for the soundtrack. The 'Kids' are:

Tristan Bechet (Services)
Tom Biller (Afternoons)
Bradford Cox (Deerhunter)
Brian Chase (Yeah Yeah Yeahs)
Dean Fertita (Queens of the Stone Age)
Aaron Hemphill (Liars)
Greg Kurstin (The Bird and the Bee)
Jack Lawrence (The Raconteurs)
Oscar Michel (Gris Gris)
Imaad Wasif (New Folk Implosion)
Nick Zinner (Yeah Yeah Yeahs)
and an untrained children's choir.

Tim Burton screened the trailer for his new film "Alice in Wonderland" last night at Comic-Con in San Diego. Teasers like this are all you're gonna get till March 2010, so enjoy...

The LA Times ran an Op-Ed yesterday by Rashad Robinson, senior director of programs for GLAAD, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, about Sacha Baron Cohen's new film 'Bruno'. Not surprisingly, the organization isn't exactly thrilled with the film's portrayal of homosexuality:

It's not that we don't get it. The makers of the film "Bruno" ... have said that they intend to satirize and expose homophobia. But even when filmmakers have the best of intentions, there can be a disconnect between the concept and the execution. In "Bruno," the satire often loses sight of the way gay people are treated in real life.

The criticism prompted us to rush to the theater and see this objectionable film for ourselves. And the verdict from your fag-hag FBLA editors is this: GLAAD needs to get over it. The over-the-top portrayals of gay stereotypes in 'Bruno' that GLAAD finds so objectionable are far more effective at exposing the absurdity of America's homophobia than any politically correct homosexual film character we've ever seen.

And did we mention there's a talking penis?

Nikki Finke is not happy with the Internet Movie Database. She writes on Deadline Hollywood Daily:

Bad enough that free IMDB (not pay IMDB Pro) has grown increasingly unreliable as a source of accurate and up-to-date showbiz info. But I'm suddenly flooded with angry emails complaining about IMDB's latest moronic decision: moving writers down to "Additional Details" so that now only directors and the major cast are at the top of the movie's home page there. This is an outrage! (And it's long been an outrage that below-the-line crew are relegated to a different page...)

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USA Today published these stunning images from Tim Burton's upcoming film 'Alice in Wonderland', currently set to hit theaters on March 5, 2010. Wowza.

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Pixar Animation Studios did a kindness for a terminally ill child in Huntington Beach. The OC Register has the story, and it's a tearjerker:

Colby Curtin, a 10-year-old with a rare form of cancer, was staying alive for one thing - a movie.

From the minute Colby saw the previews to the Disney-Pixar movie Up, she was desperate to see it. Colby had been diagnosed with vascular cancer about three years ago, said her mother, Lisa Curtin, and at the beginning of this month it became apparent that she would die soon and was too ill to be moved to a theater to see the film.

After a family friend made frantic calls to Pixar to help grant Colby her dying wish, Pixar came to the rescue.

The company flew an employee with a DVD of Up, which is only in theaters, to the Curtins' Huntington Beach home on June 10 for a private viewing of the movie.
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Colby died about seven hours after seeing the film.

Actor, writer, and producer Nia Vardalos, whose film My Big Fat Greek Wedding received an Academy Award nomination for best original screenplay, recently did a little blogging for The Huffington Post. Vardalos writes mostly about her new movie, but the part we found interesting was her account of a recent meeting with a studio executive:

A little-known fact: some studios recently decided to no longer make female-lead movies.

Lately, I've been in meetings regarding a new script idea I have. A studio executive asked me to change the female lead to a male, because... "women don't go to movies."

Really?

When I pointed out the box office successes of Sex and The City, Mamma Mia, and Obsessed, he called them "flukes." He said "don't quote me on this." So, I'm telling everybody.