The timing of some stories is just creepy. I was just selling the virtues of Wuthering Heights to my cousin, and what do I find on The Hollywood Reporter the same day? A new version is underway -- and Natalie Portman is set to tackle the famous character of Catherine Earnshaw.

Despite my medieval specialty, Wuthering Heights is my favorite book. I love it more than anything. It has everything -- ghosts, a Byronic hero (who you aren't supposed to love -- but I do anyway), a twisted love affair, sadistic revenge, even a dose of necrophilia. (Not that I roll with that sort of thing, but it's noteworthy in a Victorian novel.) I have never seen a film version, not even Lawrence Olivier's, because I never wanted my vision spoiled.

So, I confess I am immediately biased. But I cannot see Portman as Cathy. Look, I like her -- and I think she is very talented. Her youth works in her favor. But Cathy is psychotic and deeply unlikeable, something I have never seen in Portman. (Not even in Closer or The Other Boleyn Girl.) Ideal casting would have been Angelina Jolie in her Girl, Interrupted days, or Kate Winslet fresh off Heavenly Creatures. That's Cathy Earnshaw.

Sometimes it never feels like the film world really moves forward.

A Disney spy reports that Disney has plans to release a bunch of sequels in 2011, one of which is their long-long-long awaited sequel to Tron . That is 29 years after the original was released, which surely must be some kind of record. Hasn't it been just too long? Even the plan to release it in 3-D doesn't really freshen it up for me, but I never was a big fan of the film.

But a franchise much nearer and dearer to the hearts of a younger generation may also be revived -- word has it that Disney also plans to release a fourth Pirates of the Caribbean. And there are conflicting reports on where Disney wants to go with it. Some within the studio want to do a smaller film, probably heavy on the Jack Sparrow, and lighter on the special effects budget. Others want to go completely the opposite and make it beyond fantastical, with dinosaurs and steampunkish floating fortresses. (To be honest, it sounds like some Disney execs have been playing Pirates of the Cursed Seas. That isn't as crazy as it sounds, they did a Pirates set with the company.)

I think it is inevitable a fourth film will be made, particularly after the bitter disappointment caused by the third installment. The Pirates frenzy is just starting to abate and with a bit of breathing room, it would undoubtedly be just as popular. And perhaps most importantly for my household, my sister's boyfriend will have a job impersonating Jack Sparrow for a few more years.

We've already brought you Brad Pitt selling Pringles. But how about the good old days when Brad acted his young heart out? Well, you could say acted, but his talents back in the '80s do not reveal the success to come. You can search around and find some embarrassing clips from his stint on Dallas, but I thought I would throw up a little pirate flavor.

Back in 1988, Pitt popped up as a high school student in an episode of 21 Jump Street. Along with Captain Jack Johnny Depp and Peter DeLuise (who is currently a director on the new Canadian show jPod), you'll also notice Cheryl Pollak -- who played smartie Paige Woodward in Pump Up the Volume. So her brother spends a night in jail, with his super-saucy mullet, and letterman-jacket Pitt teases him mercilessly because the bad dude partied without him. I have to say, Pitt's voice sure got deeper over the years. Brad totally could've pulled off a cross-dressing role back then.

I want to say that Michael Mann's Public Enemies cannot possibly get any better -- but this could be one of those movies where so much awesome has come together that the universe must destroy it in order to keep us all in balance.

The Hollywood Reporter has announced that David Wenham and Stephen Graham have joined the cast -- which is led by Johnny Depp as John Dillinger, and Christian Bale as the famed FBI Agent, Melvin Purvis, who hunted him down. These two actors can do no wrong, and it is going to be a lot of fun watching them go head to head.

Wenham, who was last seen as Dilios in 300, will be playing Pete Pierpont, a member of Dillinger's gang who is violently opposed to authority. Graham will be playing the famous gangster, Baby Face Nelson. They round out Dillinger's gang, which already includes Marion Cotillard, Giovanni Ribisi, Stephen Dorff, and John Ortiz. (Is the Reporter a misprint, by the way? Wikipedia lists a Henry Pierpont in Dillinger's gang, not a Pete.)

If you still haven't seen all the Oscar-nominated films, you're not alone. I still haven't seen a number of them, and I have less excuse than most people. After all, I live in a city in which pretty much every nominee has played. Some major contenders I haven't gotten around to -- with little reason for not -- include Atonement, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Into the Wild, all of which are still in theaters and are probably best to see on the big screen.

Apparently, at least according to Variety, a lot of people are seeing the Oscar nominees on the big screen compared to in previous (recent) years, as cumulatively the five Best Picture contenders have seen a significant bump at the box office since the nominations were announced. I would be extremely excited if I didn't believe the truth is that Juno's tremendous success has elevated the Best Picture box office average. The comedy is showing on far more screens, is much more accessible to a wide audience and has so far earned twice as much money domestically as the next highest-grossing Best Picture nominee. Variety also this week had published a story about how Juno is the one movie that may save the Oscar telecast's ratings, since it's the one movie people have actually been able to or bothered to see. One thing I will note, though, is that Best Picture nominee Michael Clayton came out on DVD this past Tuesday and yet there was still a significant number of people seeing it in theaters through the week. Additionally, I would be interested to know how many people took advantage of yesterday's AMC Theatres-hosted Best Picture marathon.

When it's all said and done, this whole Parnassus mess would probably fit nicely into a biopic on the life and times of director Terry Gilliam. When Heath Ledger passed away during production on the latest Gilliam flick, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, we all wondered what would happen to the film. Would Gilliam be forced to dump another project (a la Don Quixote), or would someone step in to save the day. Early rumors suggested (and here's where life always comes full circle) that Johnny Depp (Gilliam's Quixote star) would fill in for Ledger and shoot his remaining scenes. Then there was word Gilliam may create a CGI Ledger to tape up the missing pieces.

Now, however, AICN claims they know exactly how it will go down, and that Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell will all fill in for Ledger in a weird sort of I'm Not There-esque tribute to the actor. Needless to say, I cannot wait to see what this looks like -- imagine watching half a film with Ledger, only to see it switch and be Depp, then Law and then Farrell (or some variation)? What will that look like? Either way, I'm sure Gilliam will probably open to his biggest box office take in years (fingers crossed), and the film could go down as something very very special. No official word on this one yet, but AICN seems to feel this one is locked and ready to roll. What do you think?

You know how it is on Valentine's Day, if you're not involved with (or married to) anyone. You try to avoid those annoying radio and TV commercials about how the men need to show their love by buying the women in their lives all kinds of fancy things. You attempt to make plans with friends, but they're all hoping for something romantic or planning to mope about their lack of romance. Maybe you join the Anti-Valentine's League, maybe you just try to ignore it all until the hype is over.

But there you are on Valentine's Day night with no plans, and naturally you gravitate toward the time-tested entertainment method of sitting in front of the TV with a good movie. Pizza and/or ice cream might also be part of the viewing process. For years, I liked to curl up with a thin-crust pizza from the local pizza joint, a pint of that Ben and Jerry's ice cream with the chunks of brownies in it, some Dr. Pepper (to be tres Agnes Gooch about it) and my favorite Valentine's movie, Some Like It Hot. After all, it is set around the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, so it's a delightfully sideways hat tip to the holiday. Plus, that glorious last line. But maybe you're in a different mindset on February 14. Here's a list of movies to cover whatever kind of mood might strike you that night, as you ponder which movie you want to spend St. Valentine's Day with.

No source knows Disney better than Jim Hill Media, which is why anyone interested in the future of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise should pay attention to this new info. Actually, some of it is not that new -- you may remember a couple months back when Keira Knightley told reporters that she had no intention of returning to the series for a fourth film -- well, Hill reports that the current thinking inside the house of mouse for how to proceed with an inevitable fourth Captain Jack adventure would not involve either the Elizabeth or Will characters, who were so neatly wrapped up in the button at the end of the last film. Their show is wrapped. The fourth film, according to Hill, will "toss the Elizabeth and Will characters over the side in favor of doing a bawdy buddy picture which would star Jack Sparrow and Barbossa. Where both captains of the Black Pearl would initially be competing for the exact same prize."

"Eventually, all the double crossing would have to stop as these two rivals were then forced to join forces in order to defeat some supernatural terror," Hill says, going on to speculate on a possible problem with the Pirates franchise and the National Treasure franchise both wanting to pursue a 'fountain of youth' story in their next installment. "Wouldn't it be funny if -- when Benjamin Gates arrived at the Fountain of Youth -- he then found Captain Jack Sparrow and Barbossa?" Hill asks. "It could be the Disney version of Alien vs. Predator." Not likely. And anyway, who are they going to replace Keira Knightley with in this next film? If I'm going to be watching another three hours of poor CGI and sitcom-level humor, they better have some saucy wenches for me to look at.

[via IGN]

Despite the fact that nobody knows for sure how the film will be finished, the website for Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus went live today. Sure, it only features the title, director and "Coming Soon," but at least it's a good sign that the film will go on ahead. Unless you've been living in a bubble, you likely know that production on Parnassus shut down a few weeks ago due to the sudden death of its star, Heath Ledger. As of yet, the film doesn't seem to have restarted shooting, but there have been rumors and hints about how Gilliam plans to continue a film without its principal actor. First, we heard that Johnny Depp would replace Ledger completely. Then, Parnassus co-star Christopher Plummer mentioned the use of CGI as a solution.

Now there's another option. According to Quick Stop Entertainment, the film is definitely going forward and is definitely going to keep Ledger's footage, as a tribute to the actor. According to Aint it Cool News, additionally, is word that another actor could actually replace Ledger for his unfilmed scenes, because Ledger's character actually transforms into another person once he enters some kind of magic mirror. So, Depp or some other star could be cast as Ledger's "'other side' personae" as AICN calls it. Anyway, now that we have that website to check in with, we might have a better source for updates as they come.

As much as I hated Terry Gilliam's last film, Tideland, I still consider him my favorite living filmmaker (Tideland was the first to completely disappoint me) and was looking forward to his next feature, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus more than possibly any other film in the works. Unfortunately, Parnassus lost its star when Heath Ledger died suddenly last week, and there was lots of talk that Gilliam's latest would be scrapped. Anyone who has followed Gilliam's career knows that would be more than tragic, because Parnassus would be the second major work of Gilliam's to go unfinished after shooting had begun (see the depressing documentary Lost in La Mancha for the story on his shut-down project The Man Who Killed Don Quixote). Well, after rumors that Ledger would be replaced by Johnny Depp, who would come in and reshoot the late actor's scenes, there is a new claim that Gilliam is going to keep Ledger's footage and continue the shoot using special effects magic.

The claim comes from Parnassus co-star Christopher Plummer, who spoke to People magazine and had this to say: "Fortunately, because the film deals with magic, there is a way, perhaps, of turning Heath into other people and then, using stills and I think they call it CGI..." Plummer, who plays the title character in the film, also mentioned that Gilliam wants to finish the film for his friend (Ledger) and dedicate it to him, too. Additionally Plummer spoke on the working conditions of the Parnassus shoot in London and on Ledger's health prior to his leaving the set, further providing for speculation that Ledger's death was of non-narcotic causes. Anyway, about the finishing with CGI Ledger, that is excellent news, and something I've been expecting to happen all along (if it was good enough for The Crow 14 years ago, it's good enough now). I absolutely loved Ledger in The Brothers Grimm (the first of Gilliam's films to somewhat disappoint me), and I can't wait to see him and his computerized clones in The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus.

If you've seen Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose, you've seen one heck of a great performance. But will we see another from the actress, or was playing Edith Piaf the role of a lifetime? While I can't imagine her ever making such a huge transformation or giving such a notable, career-defining performance again, I'm excited to see where her Oscar nomination takes her and I hope that she can at least follow it up with some interesting parts. We've already heard that her next major role will be in Rob Marshall's Nine, an adaptation of the musical inspired by Fellini's 8½. After that, she could be heading to Chicago (not Marshall's Chicago, the real city) for Michael Mann's Public Enemies. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Cotillard is in negotiations to play Billie Frechette, the torch singer girlfriend of John Dillinger, who will be played by Johnny Depp. Channing Tatum, Giovanni Ribisi, Stephen Dorff and Jason Clarke have also joined the cast.

As Monika relayed last week, Billie will be a major character in the plot of Public Enemies, which also stars Christian Bale. The movie will reportedly balance between Dillinger's crime story and his love life while also focusing on FBI agent Melvin Purvis (Bale), who famously pursued and caught Dillinger in the mid-1930s. It is interesting to note that Public Enemies will be another singing role for Cotillard, who did not actually perform any of the Piaf songs in La Vie en Rose. But while the actress is not a born singer nor a long-trained one, she did sing in in the 2001 French film Les Jolies Choses (Pretty Things) and will be singing in Nine. Also, if you think Cotillard is suddenly getting work just because of her La Vie en Rose acclaim, you're mistaken. You may have seen her in either of her two English-language movies (Ridley Scott's A Good Year and Tim Burton's Big Fish), in any of the three Taxi movies, as the female lead in the sweet Amelie wannabe Love Me If You Dare, in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amelie follow-up, A Very Long Engagement or in any of the many other French films in which she has appeared.

Rejoice Midwesterners: Marcus Theatres is finally showing Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street! Last month, I wrote in my column on the story of Marcus' inability to reach an agreement with Paramount on the split of the movie's box office, and the cinema chain's subsequent decision to not show the film. For many people in Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, North Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota, that meant not being able to see the musical unless they drove hundreds of miles out of their way to an area with a non-Marcus-owned movie theater. I'm sure some huge Johnny Depp fans and Burton loyalists made the trek, thinking they'd otherwise have to wait for the DVD to come out. But Marcus and Paramount have now worked out a deal, likely because the movie has been out long enough for Paramount to be satisfied with the box office share it squeezed out of the country's other theater owners. Or maybe the studio realized that with a gross of only $40 million in three weeks, the movie wasn't as in demand as it had thought. Starting today (Jan. 11), 15 of Marcus' 49 locations will be showing the dark Sondheim adaptation.

I haven't yet seen Sweeney Todd. I wish I could say that I've been boycotting the film in support of Marcus Theatres, but in all honesty I've simply been choosing other better-looking movies to see (including The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and There Will Be Blood). Coincidentally (or not, maybe the company is doing it to spite the studios), Marcus has also decided to highlight these better-looking movies, which all qualify as "art films". The chain is calling this new programming of foreign and independent films "Critic's Choice"; the purpose is to call to attention "acclaimed and smaller films that are in limited release or might otherwise go unnoticed." Titles include Diving Bell, Juno and No Country for Old Men. Between those films and Sweeney Todd, Marcus patrons should now be fully prepared when they sit down to watch the Golden Globes press conference this weekend.

As everyone's been saying for months now, there are going to be two basic camps of people seeing (and talking about) Tim Burton's screen adaptation of Sweeney Todd: those who've seen and love the musical on stage (and/or those who generally go into orgasms of ecstasy for Stephen Sondheim in general), and those who've never seen the stage version, but who generally go into orgasms of ecstasy for all things Burton. There are, no doubt, those who loathe Burton, but if you loathe Burton, why would you go out of your way to see one of his films anyhow?

At any rate, I fall into the second camp -- love Burton, never seen Sweeney Todd on stage. I went into the film knowing only the basic storyline, and that it was gory, and that it was directed by Burton and stars Johnny Depp. That was enough for me to want to see the film, and I wanted to see it not knowing more than that, so I've been avoiding as much as possible all the buzzing about the film on other sites. I even set aside the cool hardcover Sweeney Todd production book that arrived in the mail last week to savor after the screening, so I'd go into the film with as fresh an eye as possible.

The film opens with rivers of bright red blood flowing through the cobblestone cracks of a London nearly as dismal as the Paris we met in the opening of Tom Tykwer's Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (one of my favorite films of last year). Much as Sweeney Todd is going to be compared to Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Edward Scissorhands, for me, right from the opening credits, it evoked Perfume more. After zooming us through a cramped, filthy, dismal London, Burton takes us onto a ship arriving in London, where we meet the beautiful and aptly named young sailer Anthony Hope (Jamie Campbell Bower, who's almost -- but not quite -- prettier than Depp), singing "No Place Like London," in which he's joined by his friend Benjamin Barker (Depp), freshly escaped from an Australian prison and returning home to a London he views with a far darker and cynical eye than the fresh-faced sailor. From the first words Barker sings -- and more, from the way Depp acts the part -- we get a sense of just how dark his story is going to be.

I've loved the musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street ever since my college days, when a then-boyfriend introduced me to the original Broadway soundtrack with Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury. I've never had the chance to see a live stage version, only tapes of productions: the 1982 show with George Hearn and Lansbury, and a 2001 concert of the musical numbers with Hearn and Patti LuPone (and Neil Patrick Harris as Toby, although I didn't realize it at the time). When I heard about the play being adapted for film, I was pessimistic, especially when the big-name, small-singing-voice cast was announced. Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett? Hmpf. Although I usually am attracted to movies starring Johnny Depp, I was skeptical that he would make a believable Demon Barber.

Fortunately for me and any other fans of the musical, it turns out that the movie version of Sweeney Todd is quite charming in its dark and twisted way, although not without some flaws and odd choices. The overall look of the film is quite Burton-esque, occasionally to excess (Sweeney's outfit in the "By the Sea" number is unpleasantly jarring), but for the most part this serves the old story of the vengeful barber very well. The tone seems darker than the stage musical, perhaps because we're seeing actors and violent scenes up close.