Bad News, Bad Love

I suppose we should have known better, but Catherine Breillat's planned remake of her own Parfait amour! in English with Naomi Campbell has been scrapped. According to several news sources, Bad Love's cancellation has everything to do with Breillat's choice to cast infamous con artist Christophe Rocancourt in the male lead. As they say, once a thief... Rocancourt reportedly scammed Breillat out of around 650.000€, and the project is now dead. Though this source reports that Breillat will release a (likely scathing and exquisitely written) book entitled Rocancourt et moi about her wretched experience with him (Wikipedia claims the book will be called Abus de faiblesse).

Thankfully, Breillat has lined up her next project, funded by French television, with a modern adaptation of Sleeping Beauty, continuing to stray from using her own writings as source material, after The Last Mistress [Une vieille maîtresse] from Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly and Bluebeard [Barbe Bleue] from Charles Perrault, the man also responsible for Sleeping Beauty. The Sleeping Beauty project appears to be part of a series of films updating classic contes de fées. According to Toutlecine.com, filmmakers Jacques Doillon (Ponette, Le premier venu) and Marina de Van (Dans ma peau, Ne te retourne pas) are rumored to also be contributing to the series. Sounds compelling, but can I hope then that Breillat casts Campbell as belle au bois dormant? We'll see...

All of the links, except for Breillat's Wikipedia page, are in French, but you can read Rocancourt's Wikipedia page for details in English.

DVD/Blu-ray Update, 6 October

Some classy, some sleazy; here's the DVD and Blu-ray announcements for 6 October. Why has Brittany Murphy been reduced to direct-to-DVD thrillers these days? No good. Good though: Jia Zhang-ke's 24 City bows on DVD in January from Cinema Guild. Oh, and sorry for the lousy pick of Blu-ray titles, but those were the only newly announced ones I could find.

- Paraiso Travel, 2008, d. Simon Brand, Phase 4 Films, 13 October, w. John Leguizamo
- Watch Out, 2008, d. Steve Balderson, Breaking Glass Pictures, 17 November
- Slaughtered Vomit Dolls, 2006, d. Lucifer Valentine, Unearthed Films/Breaking Glass Pictures, 24 November
- The Jazz Singer, 1980, d. Richard Fleischer, Anchor Bay, 30th Anniversary, 1 December
- Paper Heart, 2009, d. Nicholas Jasenovec, Anchor Bay, also on Blu-ray, 1 December
- Chai-Lai Angels, 2006, d. Poj Arnon, Magnet/Magnolia, 15 December
- District 9, 2009, d. Neill Blomkamp, Sony Pictures, also on Blu-ray, 15 December
- Herb & Dorothy, 2008, d. Megumi Sasaki, New Video, 15 December
- Lucky Bastard, 2009, d. Everett Lewis, Breaking Glass Pictures, 15 December
- Extract, 2009, d. Mike Judge, Miramax, also on Blu-ray, 22 December
- Ghost Machine, 2009, d. Chris Hartwill, Anchor Bay, 22 December
- To Take a Wife [Prendre femme], 2004, d. Ronit Elkabetz, Shlomi Elkabetz, Sisu, 22 December
- 24 City, 2008, d. Jia Zhang-ke, Cinema Guild, 12 January
- Across the Hall, 2009, d. Alex Merkin, Image Entertainment, also on Blu-ray, 19 January, w. Brittany Murphy
- $5 a Day, 2008, d. Nigel Cole, Image Entertainment, also on Blu-ray, 26 January, w. Christopher Walken, Sharon Stone, Alessandro Nivola, Amanda Peet, Peter Coyote, Dean Cain
- Doctor Death, 1973, d. Eddie Saeta, Scorpion Releasing, 26 January
- You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, 1985, d. Sam Jaimes, Warner, 26 January

Blu-ray

- Alphabet Killer, 2008, d. Rob Schmidt, Anchor Bay, 8 December
- Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, 2006, d. Scott Glosserman, Anchor Bay, 8 December
- Lower Learning, 2008, d. Mark Lafferty, Anchor Bay, 8 December
- Walled In, 2008, d. Gilles Paquet-Brenner, Anchor Bay, 8 December
- While She Was Out, 2008, d. Susan Montford, Anchor Bay, 8 December
- 10 Things I Hate About You, 1999, d. Gil Junger, Touchstone, 31 January

Date Changes/Delays/Rumors

- Public Enemies, 2009, d. Michael Mann, Universal, now 8 December
- Big Love, Season 3, 2009, HBO, now 5 January
- House of the Devil, 2009, d. Ti West, MPI [postponed indefinitely]
- Grindhouse on Blu-ray on 15 December (I should quit with this shit)??
- 8½ on Blu-ray early 2010??

Quick DVD Update: Tilda, Sherilyn and More

Magnolia announced both Erick Zonca's Julia, with the wonderful Tilda Swinton, and Jennifer Chambers Lynch's Surveillance, with Bill Pullman and Julia Ormond, for 18 August. Surveillance, Lynch's follow-up to her disasterous debut Boxing Helena, will also be available on Blu-ray. And speaking of Sherilyn Fenn, City Lights is bringing the world a film called Zombie High, from 1987 and also starring Virginia Madsen, on 23 June. This would be director Ron Link's first and last film.

Strand announced two titles for July. The Ring Finger [L'annulaire], starring Olga Kurylenko, Marc Barbé, Stipe Erceg and Edith Scob, hits shelves on the 21st, while Le jupon rouge, with Alida Valli, comes out on the 7th. Sony announced the long overdue Spanish horror film [REC], which was remade into Quarantine, on 14 July. Nikita Mikhalkov's 12 will be out the same day, also from Sony.

Image will release Giuseppe Tornatore's so-bad-it-might-be-good The Unknown Woman [La sconosciuta] on 21 July. Cinema Libre is releasing Nicolas Klotz's The Bengali Night [La nuit Bengali], with Hugh Grant, Shabana Azmi and John Hurt, on 23 June. Facets will have another Masahiro Kobayashi film, Bootleg Film, out on 28 July.

And finally, Eric at Filmbo's Chick Magnet has tipped off on a few films on their way to DVD. The State: Complete Series. Two for Buñuel from Microcinema: Las hurdes [Land Without Bread] and Death in the Garden [La mort en ce jardin] with Simone Signoret. Mitchell Leisen's Remember the Night, written by Preston Sturges and starring Barbara Stanwyck? Whit Stillman's The Last Days of Disco for certain getting a Criterion release? The State is out 14 July, the 2 Buñuels are certain but without a date, The Last Days of Disco is a distinct possibility and the Leisen may just be an Amazon placeholder. We'll see.

Fingers Crossed

Eric at Filmbo's Chick Magnet has been hearing some rumors (none of which have been confirmed, mind you) that Criterion and Focus/Universal may be partnering up for a handful of releases, of which Guillermo del Toro's Cronos would be the first. This possible partnership may also include Lars von Trier's The Idiots, Mike Leigh's Life Is Sweet, the Dardennes' Rosetta and Pedro Almodóvar's Kika. Some other Universal properties, most from USA/Polygram/October, that have yet to see a R1 DVD release include: Abel Ferrara's The Addiction, Michael Winterbottom's I Want You, Steven Soderbergh's King of the Hill, Ken Loach's Land and Freedom, Claude Berri's Lucie Aubrac, Allison Anders' Sugar Town, Tony Bui's Three Seasons and Jafar Panahi's The White Balloon. Can a boy dream that Frank Perry's adaptation of Joan Didion's Play It As It Lays is also part of the deal? I repeat, none of this has been confirmed.

Don't get them panties in a bunch!

I'm almost sure this is erroneous news, but DVDRama.com is claiming that Ingmar Bergman's elusive, never-released-to-DVD English-language film The Touch [Beröringen], starring Elliott Gould, Bibi Andersson and Max von Sydow, is coming to DVD in March in France. I'm nearly positive that this is a mistake as Amazon.fr lists a completely different film with the title Le lien for a 24 March release date. However, this just begs the question as to why the powers that be are keeping us from seeing Elliott Gould act in a Bergman film. So, like I said, don't get those panties or false hopes up.