Yes, It's True...

Todd Solondz has cast Paris Hilton in his latest film. And the media's flipping out (really, you should see my inbox), but I don't know how much of a big deal it is. I'm sure Solondz knows what he's doing and isn't planning to put any greater acting weight on her shoulders than she can handle. In fact, if you think the casting in some of his other films, like Storytelling; it really doesn't seem that out of touch with his sensibilities. But we'll see. At least he's getting a lot of press attention now.

Life During Wartime Back On!

According to an article in Wednesday's Variety, Todd Solondz has (finally!) found a financial home for his upcoming film, Life During Wartime! A new production company called Werc Werk Works has taken on Solondz's film as one of their first projects. Neither the article, or the company's website (wercwerkworks.com) offer any hints as to what other films they might be working on.

According to the Variety piece, Mike S. Ryan and Derrick Tseng will still be producing the film - which will begin shooting this October in Puerto Rico - but Ted Hope's name was noticeably absent. The film is described here as a, "part-sequel, part-companion piece to his controversial dark comedy Happiness... which revolves around a group of struggling individuals. struggling [sic.] to find a place for themselves in an unpredictable and volatile world. The narrative is told through a series of intersecting love stories.; the [sic.] past haunts the present and imperils the future: ghosts circle and loom, trouble and console."

Woot!

Life During Wartime: Coming Eventually... Maybe.

In an interview with MTVnews.com, Paul Reubens, who was cast to play a role in Life During Wartime, said the film's been pushed back three times now because there've been problems financing on the film. "If it gets made, I’m doing it - but I’m not sure. It’s gotten pushed three times,” he said. “To me it’s such a sad state of events that he can’t get that movie made. He’s such a talented guy.”

He describes the film as: "it’s characters from Welcome To the Dollhouse and Happiness whose paths converge. It’s all different people playing the same roles... I’m playing a role someone else played in one of those movies.” Sounds good to me. Let's hope he can pull this off.

Van der Beek's Lost Storytelling Role

An article was just posted on IFC.com about some interesting parts being cut out of films... and one of the actors they talked to was James Van der Beek, about his role cut from Storytelling. It says how, in the original NC-17 cut which ran for two and a half hours (!! this really needs to get out to the public somehow), he played a sexually confused jock who wound up having, "an explicit Brown Bunny-esque scene with another man." Unfortunately, the article doesn't tell us much more about what was cut than that - casually mentioning that Heather Matarazzo and Emmanuelle Chriqui were also cut out of the film - but there IS a quote from Van der Beek and all, so check it out here. Maybe this will help drum up enough interest to get the full version released.

Thanks to Stephen for pointing this one out to me.