Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Crystal Skull : warehouse, fedora, stunts, Roswell, CGI.

Stars Harrison Ford, Shia LaBeouf, Cate Blanchett, Ray Winstone, Karen Allen, John Hurt and Jim Broadbent. Opens May 22.

David Carr, the NYT's Carpetbagger,
tries to tell the world that Juno is being kicked around by the more serious movies. One of his commenters, Mayblossom, (who could be Emily Gould, you never know) lacerates the Little Movie That Could and the screenwriter:

Cody is no more an "ex-stripper" than Juno is a tiny indie with no friends or money but a big heart that wins over millions of ticketbuyers.

Those standing shoulder to shoulder against the juggernaut of quirky 'n' twee are:

Scott Van Arsdale:

I don't want to see Juno within a thousand feet of the Kodak Theater

David Edelstein:

Cody and Reitman flatter the audience for its sensitivity while cramming in pop-culture references (and nonstop alt-pop) to make it feel hip

Mark Asch:

Diablo Cody was nominated for her backstory

So are these legitimate criticisms or old farts being mean to the new girl? FBLA thinks both. Fox Searchlight's media campaign could have been less eager to trot out Diablo Cody's naughty-but-nice bio. Cody, for her part, could have ignored the publicist's playbook, and chatted more about her writing and less about the pole. The wonderfully kind and graceful Billy Mernit says the same thing, but kindly and uh, gracefully.

Of course, with the publicist sitting right there in the interview, it's hard to ignore them.

Earlier:

Diablo Cody: Backlash Official

Film Threat's list of the Top 50 Missing Films is a bit of a stretch, according to professional archivists. Members of the Archive of the Moving Image Assoc. list-serv took exception to the one ringer in the list:

Him (1974, USA). This X-rated film about a gay man's homoerotic obsession with the New Testament was detailed in the 1980 book "The Golden Turkey Awards" by the Medved Brothers--whether they saw the film or just read about it was uncertain. No copy is known it to exist, and only an advertisement from the film's original New York run has turned up.

The film never existed, and the Medved brothers have all but admitted as such.

Otherwise, the omissions of Neptune's Daughter and Lon Chaney vehicle London After Midnight are noted.

Susan King, in the LA Times, reviews the new DVD of James Mangold's remake of 3:10 to Yuma and is pretty happy about the film and the extras:

Included on the DVD are deleted scenes; a lengthy, well-produced behind-the-scenes documentary; a discussion with historians about "Outlaws, Gangs and Posses"; and engrossing, passionate commentary from Mangold.

The bonus features were produced by David Naylor and his crew at The DVD Group, with some help from Elmore Leonard's right hand man, Greg Sutter.

Brad Pitt's production company, Plan B, has been given a Unabomber script, prompting New York Magazine to crank up the rumor mill.

Pitt's company hasn't said whether he'd take on the role of Ted Kaczynski, and we're really hoping he turns it down. Despite what he thought, not even Brad could rock that crazy-in-a-cabin look.

Is Rose McGowan the new Barbarella? According to Spencer Morgan, Universal doesn't see her the same way her beau, director Robert Rodriguez, does.

Universal Studios has backed out of backing the movie, whose budget a source pegged at nearly $100 million. Rodriguez told the NY Observer:

He said Universal would still be happy to fund the picture for $60 million, but that he was shopping it around to other studios in the hopes of getting more money. Mr. Rodriguez is known for his ability to make movies cheaply, but believes it will be difficult with Barbarella since much of the film takes place in outer space, and "we don't want the movie to look like the original," he said.

Don't forget the original 1968 Barbarella found the pre-feminist Jane Fonda directed by then-husband Roger Vadim.

Yiddish Theater: A Love Story is a new documentary from director Dan Katzir and producer Ravit Markus about Zypora Spaisman, a Holocaust survivor, who runs the oldest Yiddish Theater in the US.

The film opens on November 30th at Laemmle's Grande in downtown LA.

Local journo-cum-filmmaker (and occasional fishie) Dan Cox took home the prize for Best Documentary this weekend at the Zurich Film Festival for his pic Running With Arnold

The pic criticizes the policies and ... well, everything, of California Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger, which isn't a hard sell in Switzerland. At one screening, some viewers stood up and yelled, "Arnold ist scheisse! Arnold ist scheisse!"

Still, Al Ruddy, chairman of the Zurich Film Festival jury and producer of The Godfather is also Arnold's best friend and is, weirdly enough, godfather to his children.

Ruddy contemplated recusing himself from the judging, but fellow jury member Matthew Modine convinced him to stay on and together they argued for the film to win.

Cox tells FBLA: "It was up against what I was jokingly terming all week the 'I don't know nothin' about birthin' no babies, Miss Scarlett,' movies, which were both great docs about childbirth and mental defect that were truly better than mine and much more emotional (though I'll never admit that in print)."

Cox tells us that, Oliver Stone, who was given a career achievement award, asked him how he got so much dirt on Arnold, to which he replied, "Clean living."

So with the Godfather, Birdy and Platoon backing him up, Running with Arnold sped past the competition.

Cox -- who was joined in Zurich by Lys Sparrow, a co-producer on the film -- tells us: "I've been to hundreds of film festivals all over the world, but never as a filmmaker and certainly not as a winner of anything. I was flying all night long the evening the film won. I think I only drank about three gallons of red wine that night. And my headache on the plane the next day made sure I remembered."

Welcome home and congratulations!

Fox Searchlight Pictures is hosting an open casting call for "the role of a lifetime" (their words), the chance to play Notorious B.I.G. Alas, the live audition is in New York, but West Coast gangstas don't despair:

You can upload your homemade audition video (like Mr. Allsbrook here) on the studio's Web site. We've been searching every day, hoping to find a Chuck Philips entry.

Kevin Crust reviews Trade, which looks pretty forgettable. Tactfuly, he mentions that the film is based on Peter Landesman's NYT magazine cover story, but leaves out all the Blogitopia argle-bargle about the accuracy of the story, the threatened legal actions, and all the rest of it.

Frankly, that aftermath should have been woven into the movie. While movies about journalists range from the sublime (His Girl Friday) to the gripping (All The President's Men) to the godawful (I Love Trouble) the great blog movie has yet to be made.

FBLA thinks that the part of Slate's Jack Shafer could be played by Carson Daly.