The Screening Room

Calling all local thespians: There's a casting call for a local production, Killing Holly, this Sunday afternoon. Keep reading for the specs, courtesy of the Dallas Film Commission.

I'm not a Grey's Anatomy fan, but I've gotten to like Katherine Heigl anyway. She has smarts, an Everygirl attractiveness and a goofy sense of humor that just might make her the Meg Ryan of the decade. I also like the fact that she hasn't found it necessary thus far to get nekkid on the screen, yet she doesn't exude a cloying good-girl aura, either.

That said, I wonder why she chose to do this movie? 27 Dresses (out on DVD today) doesn't give Ms. Heigl much to do from a comedy standpoint, except to (a) parade in a series of horrible bridemaid's frocks and (b) lead a booze-fueled, sing-along version of Bennie and the Jets in a bar.

A live broadcast from quirky public radio show This American Life will be onscreen on Thursday (May 1) at more than 300 movie theaters, including 11 locations in the D-FW area. My favorite thing from the press release? It'll feature two Wisconsin convicts who "gain local fame for almost escaping from prison using dental floss."

Click here to find a theater near you. For tickets to get your Ira Glass fix, go here.

Steven Soderbergh is set to make his second feature for Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner's 2929 Entertainment. The first, Bubble, painted a sufficiently creepy love triangle amongst workers at a doll factory. The new joint is called The Girlfriend Experience. Like Bubble, it will be released simultaneously in theaters, on DVD, and on HDNet. Read the Variety story here.

It's National Cubicle Day, a tounge-in-cheek celebration of your office space. In honor of the occasion, EW.com has put together quotes from Office Space. After all, everyone eventually wonders why it says paper jam when there is no paper jam.

What does winning the Audience Choice Award at Texas Frightmare Weekend get you these days? A nice little run at the five local Studio Movie Grills. Dallas filmmaker Anthony Brownrigg picked up a small distributor, Kurv Entertainment, for his dark comedy Red Victoria, and now he's looking to gauge further audience interest. The screenings run May 4-8, at the various SMGs, and, glory be, they're free. Get all the info at the official Website here.

VENICE, Italy (AP) -- "Burn After Reading," a dark spy-comedy by Oscar-winning directors Joel and Ethan Coen, will open this year's Venice Film Festival.

The movie, which stars George Clooney, John Malkovich, Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand and Tilda Swinton, will have its world premiere Aug. 27, festival organizers announced Monday.

"Burn After Reading" is the story of an ousted CIA official whose memoir falls into the hands of two gym employees.

The festival will run through Sept. 6, when the prestigious Golden Lion will be awarded. The official lineup will be announced in late July.

I approve.

Hellboy is one of the great unappreciated action/comic book movies of all time, and I think del Toro has the chops to pull this project off (although I'm still a little nervous about the so-called "Hobbit 2").

Two thumbs way down, though, for the rumored release dates of 2011 and 2012.

On the other hand, my 4-year-old son may be old enough at that point to watch the movies in the theater, which would be a great way for me to ensure that my nerd-dom will live on in future generations.

Also, I may have missed this elsewhere, but there's no word in the linked article about which actors from the Rings movie trilogy will reprise their roles in The Hobbit.

No Ian McKellen would be a very bad thing.

• Baby Mama (B)
• Deception (C)
• Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (C)
• The Life Before Her Eyes (C+)
• Priceless (B)
• Deal

Due to the shortage of classrooms, Richland College is unable to offer continuing education classes this summer, including Dallas screenwriter Harry Preston's Writing for Film and TV. However, Mr. Preston is planning to teach the class at his Garland home on Friday nights at 7:30. For details and directions, call 972-276-5427.

Dynamic duo
A pair of martial-arts masters helped push overall box-office grosses to the first up weekend in four weeks when compared with the same time period last year. The Forbidden Kingdom, the first pairing of Jet Li and Jackie Chan, pulled in $20.8 million to take the top spot, while the R-rated Forgetting Sarah Marshall also opened impressively at No. 2 with $17 million.

One of the biggest cheats of 2007, Alien vs. Predator: Requiem, arrives on DVD today. Run, don't walk, away from this one, which is likely to gobble up prime display space at the video store. You may recall its big Christmas Day opening and its lavish ad campaign heralding the final showdown between two icons of sci-fi/horror flicks. If you didn't catch it then, you might think you missed something. You didn't.

On Wednesday, the Dallas Food and Wine Festival will present Gourmet Cinema at the Dallas Angelika Film Center, 5321 E. Mockingbird Lane. The event includes a special dinner menu prepared by chef Richard Chamberlain at 6:30 p.m. ($65 per person) and an 8 p.m. screening of the wine-centric film Sideways ($9 for just the movie). For additional information and to purchase tickets, go to www.dallaswinefest.com or call 214-741-6888.

For those of you who went to see "Shelter" at the Regent Highland Park Village over the weekend, and sat through hangups and skips and, for one audience, only half a movie, the theater now has a new copy of the movie.

So dig out that free pass, if you received one, and hit the beach.

Cinematographer William Fraker is best known for his work on Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby, and he'll be at the Angelika 7 p.m. Thursday to discuss the film after the USA Film Festival's screening. But he also has vivid memories of shooting Bullitt, the Steve McQueen film with one of the greatest chase scenes ever.

On your marks. Get set. Shoot. It's time for another 24-Hour Video Race, sponsored by the Video Association of Dallas. Peep the official press release below for all the details on how to spend a sleepless night making movies.

Opening today:

• Forgetting Sarah Marshall (B)
• 88 Minutes (D-)
• The Forbidden Kingdom (B-)
• My Blueberry Nights (C-)
• Young at Heart (B+)
• Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? (B-)
• Shelter (C+)
• Zombie Strippers (D)
• Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (F)
• Pathology

In My Blueberry Nights Dallas' Norah Jones plays Elizabeth, a heartbroken traveler with a taste for blueberry pie. Audiences might have a hard time figuring out what makes the character tick. At first, so did the star.

The Beast in Space is a cheesy Italian oddity from 1980 rescued by Severin Films and landing at video stores April 29.

It's built around the stunt casting of Sirpa Lane, a Finnish ingénue who gained notoriety five years before in Walerian Borowczyk's La bête (The Beast), in which she carried on ferociously with a half-man, half-animal. Roger Vadim, who knew his ingénues, called her "the next Bridget Bardot." Guess not. She headlined this strained semi-sequel, again the object of affection of a libidinous monster. This time the half-thing is the physical manifestation of Zocor, a supercomputer that rules the planet Lorigon, not the cholesterol-lowering drug.

The Beast in Space was the last of a number of Star Wars knock-offs by director Alfonso Brescia (anglicized as Al Bradley). They feature no-budget effects, heroines swathed in skintight jumpsuits and heroes with pressed hair and assertive sideburns. Beast adds several sex scenes filmed in a Howard Johnson orange haze.

The DVD extra is an interview with Venantino Venantini, who plays a roguish black marketer. He contributes little except the tidbit that he once starred on All My Children.

Here's some good movie stuff from the folks in Metro and Religion about Ben Stein and his film Expelled. Thanks guys.

Just got off the phone with the great William Fraker, cinematographer of classics such as Bullitt and Rosemary's Baby. He'll be in Dallas next Thursday when the USA Film Festival presents a 40th-anniversary screening of Rosemary. We'll have a feature on Fraker this Sunday at Guidelive.com.

One theme that emerged a few times during our conversation: the art of concealing rather than revealing. Rosemary's Baby is a classic example in that you never actually see the baby - yet it's still my favorite horror film. "He has his father's eyes." Gives me chills just thinking about it. If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and take advantage of this rare big-screen opportunity.

Blood bath
Prom Night, the horror fest loosely based on the 1980 film by the same name, cashed in on the impending high-school formal season with $20.8 million and a victory at the box office. The scarier scene came from the overall box-office picture, however, as the industry suffered a fourth consecutive down weekend when compared with the same period last year.

Vampire fans, take heed: Filming is underway for the big screen adaptation of Stephanie Meyer's popular teen novel, Twilight. As of now, it's slated to open Dec. 12.

Vampires aren't supposed to see the light of day. But the sun keeps shining on the set of Twilight, an adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's popular teen vampire-mortal love story.

It may be classified as teen, as any horror reader knows, good vampire fiction is hard to come by. I'll admit I haven't read it yet, but it's about #6 on my Big Stack of Books to Read.

Here's one for the roundball junkies: Adam "MCA" Yauch has made a basketball documentary called Gunnin' For That #1 Spot. The films zooms in on 24 of the top high school players (now in college) as they hoop it up at Harlem's legendary Rucker Park in 2006. Featured ballers include UCLA's Kevin Love, Arizona's Jerryd Bayless and K-State's Michael Beasley. I'm optimistic; Spot will be released by the new Oscilloscope Pictures, a company started by my boy David Fenkel. Fenkel used to be at Think Films, and he knows from hoops. Spot will hit theaters this summer. Lace 'em up. And peep the press release below.

• Street Kings (B-)
• Smart People (B-)
• Prom Night
• Persepolis (A-)
• The Year My Parents Went on Vacation (B)
• Chaos Theory (C+)
• Flawless (C+)
• Chapter 27 (D)
• The Grand (D)

Trailers | Find all movies

If you missed the great animated film Persepolis and subtitles challenge your faculties, you're in luck. A dubbed version is rolling into theaters this weekend. I'm not sure if this sublime look at growing up in the Iran and Europe of the '70s and '80s would have made my Top Ten in a dubbed version - dubbed foreign films make my skin crawl - but hey, different strokes.

I wish I still had the minor health concerns of my teen years, but this sounds pretty cool: 140 teams of Tarrant County teens have put together videos targeting important health issues. Read below for the press release. And stay off the Big Macs.