The impossibility of replacing Helen Mirren, and much, much more

This idea has already died once for the best of all possible reasons: They couldn't find anybody to follow in the footsteps of Dame Helen Mirren in playing the role of Jane Tennison. Of course they couldn't, because it would be impossible.

But that apparently won't stop people from trying. Although the simply awful idea was shelved as a midseason possibility once already, NBC is now trying to revive a "Prime Suspect" reboot once again, this time with its eyes on Maria Bello to play the lead. Take a second or two to think about just how much this would be trading down, though she is obviously a very pretty lady.

If you've seen Mirren in anything, and I'm going to have to assume everyone has, you know she would be hard to follow in any role, but this one in particular really can't be played by anyone else. Along with "The Wire" and "Homicide," "Prime Suspect" is the only other cop TV show that I've bothered to watch in the last 20 years, almost entirely because of the desperate humanity she brought to the role (I meant to watch "Chicago Code," since it comes from the "Terriers" guys, but I simply forgot, as many other people apparently did too.)

So, here's hoping this idea is already D.O.A. Here's what Bello, who recently starred on some incarnation of "Law & Order," apparently, had to tell Entertainment Weekly about the matter:

“There may be interest in me doing it, but I haven’t read anything yet or talked to anyone in-depth about it,” Bello told EW exclusively while attending the 10th Annual Movies For Grownups Awards on Monday. “I’m possibly interested. Definitely nervous to even think about taking over for Helen Mirren. C’mon! How could anyone compete with her? Didn’t she do about 10 of them and win an Emmy every time? I’m open to things right now. I’m just trying to go with the flow of my life and I’ve been going back-and-forth to Haiti trying to help out. That has felt good, but I am also wanting to do something spectacular with my life work-wise and that may end up being it.”

Even with Peter Berg of "Friday Night Lights" apparently roped in to running this, I really can't see how it would be anything but a spectacular failure, so just move on, please!

In much better TV news, Zooey Deschanel, who is one of those women I'll definitely watch in just about anything, is about to sign for a Fox sitcom for the fall, with the rather colorful title of "Chicks and Dicks."

Of all the possibilities that might be swimming through your dirty minds, the "dicks" here are apparently her three roommates. The comedy would have her playing an elementary school teacher who, fresh from a break-up, moves in with a trio of "immature young men." Sounds an awful lot like "The Big Bang Theory" to me, but like I said, for her, I suppose I'll watch at least a few episodes of just about anything.

OK, a lot of stuff to get to today, so forgive the schizophrenia, but I don't have a ton of time to do this in the morning. Paul Dano, who I saw most recently in the engaging little oddity "The Extra Man," is reteaming with "Little Miss Sunshine" directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris for something even odder that springs from the mind of his girlfriend, Zoe Kazan.

Kazan, who just happens to be the granddaughter of Elia Kazan, wrote the script for "He Loves Me," in which Dano will play a writer who wills Kazan's character into existence by writing her to love him. Sounds like nothing but fun to me.

And fans of "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" (I first wrote the first word of that as "assassassination," perhaps distracted by the rather saucy presence of Carla Gugino at the end of this post .. stay tuned) director Andrew Dominik is slowly assembling a first-rate cast for what should be a grand heist flick with "Cogan's Trade."

One Brad Pitt plays Cogan, a hit mans' point person who becomes involved in the investigation of a heist that hits the mob at a high-stakes poker game. Now comes word that the always great Richard Jenkins is joining the game as a lawyer who's collecting information on the game. Definitely keep your eyes on this one ...

And speaking, sort of, of Jenkins, Thomas McCarthy, who directed him in his Oscar-nominated role in "The Visitor," has just signed on with Disney to write the script for what should a really fun baseball movie. "Million Dollar Arm" will be based on "the inspirational story of how sports agent J.B. Bernstein discovered professional pitchers Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel through his Indian reality show.”

If that sounds a lot like "Slumdog Millionaire," so what. Here, courtesy of Collider, is a brief synopsis of the tale:

Bernstein reportedly got the idea for the reality show when he was watching cricket and realized that the throwing motion wasn’t that different from baseball. The show launched in India in 2008 with over 40,000 applicants including Singh and Patel, who were the two finalists. They were brought to the U.S. and improved their English by listening to rap and watching action movies. Singh and Patel became the first Indian athletes to sign professional baseball contracts when they picked up by the Pittsburgh Pirates. Even better, Singh and Patel probably didn’t know they were being picked up by one of the worst baseball teams of all-time.

Wow. No word yet if McCarthy would also direct this, but given the chance, I can't imagine he'd turn it down. In the meantime, McCarthy has one of the movies I'm most looking forward to for 2011, "Win Win" starring Paul Giamatti and Amy Ryan, coming out hopefully wide enough to reach my little corner of the world March 18.

OK, to keep it on movies, here are two rather obvious examples of Oscar bait, one for this year and one for next. First up comes next, and the first photo of Meryl Streep as "The Iron Lady," Margaret Thatcher. The appearance is admittedly uncanny, and I have no doubt that Streep will be great in this biopic, being directed by "Mamma Mia" director Phyllida Lloyd (say anything snarky about that you may want to .. not having seen that movie, I really can't.) The movie has a great supporting cast with James Broadbent as hubby Dennis and Richard E. Grant as Michael Heseltine. Here's the photo, and keep an eye out for the movie sometime later this year.


And getting back to this year's Oscars, former "Homicide" star Melissa Leo is up for a Best Supporting Actress award for her work in "The Fighter," and certainly should be. If I had a vote, however, I'd vote for young Hailee Steinfeld in "True Grit," who should really be in the Best Actress category, but that's not really her fault. Anyways, apparently wanting to win (and why not?), Leo has taken it upon herself to mount her own ad campaign, which is very effective in its simplicity. Enjoy, and "consider" ...


Though this has certainly gone on long enough already today, I'll leave you with two videos that caught my eye. The first is the first trailer I know of for "Elektra Luxx," which beyond the obvious allure of starring Carla Gugino playing a porn star who dresses up occasionally as a nun, has the promise to be a pretty oddly solid little comedy. From director Sebastian Gutierrez, it's a sequel of sorts to his 2009 movie "Women in Trouble," which I enjoyed quite a bit. As you'll see from the trailer, it also stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Adrianne Palicki of "Friday Night Lights" and many other beautiful women, so enjoy, and keep an eye out for this in at least some corners of the world in March.



And finally, saving quite possibly the best for last, here's the first trailer I know of for the Sundance comedy "Submarine," a British coming-of-age tale from first-time director Richard Ayaode. The plot (15-year-old desperate to lose his virginity and keep his parents together) sounds terribly familiar, but as you'll see from the trailer, it has more than a little "Rushmore" spirit to it, and it also stars Noah Taylor and Sally Hawkins as the parents, so bully. Not sure when this will come out in America, but enjoy the trailer anyway, and have a perfectly passable Wednesday. Peace out.

My top 10 movies of 2010

Before I depart for my annual year-ending week in NYC with my family, I figured it's as good a time as any to come up with my top 10 movies of 2010, both because I figure by now I've seen just about everything that might make this list except for maybe "The King's Speech" and "Rabbit Hole," and simply so this won't be completely empty while I'm gone.

And lest anyone wants to squawk about the fact that neither "Inception" nor "The Social Network" made the cut, rest assured they're among the 10 runners-up, along with "Shutter Island", "A Prophet", "Splice", "Despicable Me", "Easy A", "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1", "The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader" and "The Fighter".

So, without further delay, let's get to it, in order only of release date until the very end, where you will find my favorite movie of 2010. And as usual, please feel free to add your favorites and let me hear about any that I've unfairly snubbed.

"The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"/"The Girl Who Played With Fire": These should definitely be viewed together, and ideally all at once with the third chapter, "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest," but I haven't had the opportunity to see it yet. Given how sprawling and packed with details the novels by Stieg Larsson are, these are both nearly perfect models of how to adapt books for the big screen, and though David Fincher is doing an American remake of the first movie for next year, please do go see these first, because just trust me: Once you see her, I'm sure you'll agree that Noomi Rapace simply is Lisbeth Salander.

"Kick-Ass": Though many movies try to re-create the feel of comic books on the big screen, very few come as close to accomplishing it as this thoroughly fun flick from Matthew Vaughn (for the opposite kind of failure, view the almost completely lifeless "Iron Man 2".) Sure, there are moral questions about having a 13-year-old assassin spray bullets all around, but young Chloe Moretz is electric as Hit-Girl, and she and Vaughn create at least two of the year's best action sequences here.

"Toy Story 3": Being sometimes a fairly cynical fellow, I doubted that all the hype about this Pixar flick could be true, but it really does pack the emotional and entertaining punch to launch the "Toy Story" series into any discussion about the best movie trilogies. And "Toy Story" fans take note: The franchise will live on, sort of, as Barbie and Ken will star in the short movie that will precede "Cars 2" next summer (and will probably be better than the main attraction).

"The Other Guys": A Will Ferrell movie? Really? Yes, because Ferrell and Adam McKay bring all kinds of funny and just enough smarts to this comedy that skewers the buddy cop genre almost as well as Edgar Wright's "Hot Fuzz." And besides, this movie has both the best opening and closing credit sequences of the year, which may not sound like much, but they really are small wonders to behold.

"Animal Kingdom": This Australian gangster flick lacks all of the glamour of "The Godfather" or "Goodfellas," but packs even more of the grit. The story of the less-than-two-bit Cody clan, a crime family that never rose too high and is already on its way down as the movie opens, is hardly a sunny tale, but it's extremely compelling, thanks in large part to the chilling performance of Jacki Weaver as the menacing matriarch.

"The American": This is probably the flick on this list that most divided audiences, but I know that along with me, at least Roger Ebert and Reel Fanatic reader Jeremy Jirik also love it, so at least I'm not alone. "Control" director Anton Corbijn displays all of that titular quality here as he strips this tale of George Clooney as a hit man on what could be his last mission in Italy down to the barest bones of a thriller, making it instead a slow-moving but riveting character study and just a good story well told.

"127 Hours": Though the tale of what lengths trapped climber Aron Ralston had to go to remove himself from underneath a boulder in a valley was as hard to watch as I could have expected, it's also completely imbued with optimism thanks to director Danny Boyle and energy thanks to James Franco, even at its darkest moments. And even though Boyle used two different cinematographers, Enrique Chediak and Anthony Dod Mantle, you'd never know it as they merge their talents to drop us into every treacherous step of Ralston's journey, and should definitely share an Oscar for their efforts.

"True Grit": Even the ridiculous coda at the end, which is loyal to the source but just drains the energy right off the screen, can't ruin the fact that this remake is one of the Coen brothers' very best flicks. Restraining from most of their usual oddity, they instead just let the actors have a ball here, as The Dude, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper and, most of all, young Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross all do, elevating both the humor and heart of Charles Portis' great novel. I've seen it twice already, and just may again before it leaves theaters.

"Black Swan": There's not an ounce of subtlety in this Darren Aronofsky flick, but since at its most basic level he's essentially made a great B horror movie (albeit it one of the psychological variety set in the world of ballet), he didn't really need any to make it soar. I'd have to imagine Natalie Portman is the odds-on favorite for the Best Actress Oscar, but Vincent Cassel should hear his name called in the Best Supporting Actor category too as the ballet guru who leads Portman's Nina Sayers to the darkest reaches of her own mind.

"Winter's Bone": Definitely saving the very best for last, I first saw this movie this summer while on vacation with mi hermano in Philadelphia, and it's been burned on my brain ever since. I watched it again recently to make sure, and yes, Debra Granik's tale of a young woman (the fantastic Jennifer Lawrence, who would get my Oscar vote if I had one) forced to go on a hunt through the American underbelly that is the Ozarks to search for her deadbeat father - who has put the house she's raising her two younger siblings in as a guarantor for a court appearance he's almost guaranteed not to make - is every bit as good as I first thought. Bleak? Of course, but as Lawrence's Rhee Dolly searches for the truth in this mess, this flick combines all the best elements of film noir with a coming-of-age tale of sorts to cook up my best movie of 2010 by a pretty wide margin.

And there you have it. Please, as usual, feel free to share any of your favorites or any that I've just unfairly snubbed, and have a simply splendid new year. Peace out.

So, Kevin Smith has made a horror movie. Can that possibly be a good thing?

Actually, before I jump into that, though I don't have the time this morning for anything even approaching a full review, I just wanted to say that if you do one thing this weekend (beyond, of course, celebrating Christmas), go see "True Grit."

Sure, it's a remake, but it's also one of the best movies the Coen brothers have ever made, largely because they restrain themselves and let The Dude and young Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross have a ball. It has more of the humor from the book than the original movie did and a hauntingly perfect score by Carter Burwell. And even though the last five minutes or so is a thoroughly unnecessary coda of sorts, before that, from the point that Josh Brolin and even better, Barry Pepper as Lucky Ned Pepper turn up, it's the best 20 minutes or so I've seen in a movie this year.

So, just go see it already. After that today, I've just got a series of clips that caught my eye, and a "Community" treat at the end since my DVR has missed the show during its Christmas break.

Every time mi hermano hears the name Kevin Smith, he simply calls him a tool, and given the director's most recent public antics, I most often have to agree with him. That said, however, it really looks like he just may have cooked up something fascinating with his upcoming horror movie (yes, really) "Red State."

I try to be a pretty tolerant dude, especially when it comes to religious views, but when you picket soldiers' funerals (and I really still can't understand why in the world they do that) and those of just about anyone else you decide is somehow unworthy, than you go straight to hell in my book. Or end up the model for a horror film by Kevin Smith, which seems to be the all-too-well-deserved fate of the Rev. Fred Phelps.

As you'll see from this teaser trailer for the flick, which is debuting at next year's Sundance Film Festival, Michael Parks plays the preacher here, and Stephen Root, Melissa Leo and John Goodman factor into this too. Enjoy the clip, and then stick around for some more.



I have a sinking feeling that, like most likely "Red State," Miguel Arteta's "Cedar Rapids" won't open wide enough to reach my little corner of the world whenever it drops next year. And that will be a real shame, because as you'll see from this first trailer I know of, it looks like just the broadest kind of comedy, and quite possibly the very funny variety too. Veryfunnyguy Ed Helms of "The Office" stars as an insurance salesman sent to a conference in the titular city, where he encounters John C. Reilly, Anne Heche and assorted other oddballs. Enjoy the clip.



The more I see of "Source Code," Duncan Jones' followup to the rather sensational "Moon" (rent that already!), the more it just looks like the most generic kind of early-year thriller, but here's hoping I'm wrong. Jake Gyllenhaal stars and finds himself transposed into the body of a soldier so that he can stop the impending bombing of a train. These ticking-clock kind of thrillers really are just about my single least favorite little subgenre of movies, but I'll probably give this a chance just for Mr. Jones' sake when it hits April 1. Enjoy the UK trailer.



Before that comes out, I think the movie I'm most looking forward to seeing early next year would be Peter Weir's "The Way Back," which supposedly opens "wide" Jan. 21. Colin Farrell and Ed Harris are the only name stars among a slew of Russian actors in this tale of a group of men who escaped from a Russian gulag in the 1940s. Not the cheeriest of subjects, perhaps, but Weir is a master at grand storytelling, so this should be pretty great. Enjoy this clip of Farrell from the flick, and like I said, stick around for a "Community" treat at the finish.


To watch more, visit www.t5m.com

Of all the shows on hiatus right now, I think I miss "Community" the most, so I guess that makes it my favorite network show right now. And a lot of the spirit of why the show is so great is captured in this Avengers sendup of the cast. I'm not sure who did it, but kudos, because they're all really funny, especially Shirley as the Scarlet Witch and Pierce as the not-terribly-incredible Hulk. Enjoy the picture, have a great Christmas weekend, and go see "True Grit." Peace out.

Men of the year: My favorite male movie performances of 2010

I waited to compile this list until seeing "Black Swan" and "The Fighter" as a truly odd double feature last Saturday, and that day yielded one entry here I expected and one that caught me by surprise.

It's still dangerous to do it before The Dude surely abides this week in "True Grit" and without having seen the performance of Oscar favorite (if I'm reading the cards right) Colin Firth in "The King's Speech," but I'm fairly confident that with those two exceptions I've seen most of the best movies of 2010, so here goes: My favorite male performances of 2010, in order only of release date until the very end, for which I've saved my vote for the best.

Leonardo DiCaprio, "Shutter Island": Sure, Leo played pretty much the same constantly stressed out character in both this and "Inception" this year, but he was better here as FBI agent Teddy Daniels in this flick based on the Dennis Lehane novel, which is so good that it will likely end up on my overall best movies of 2010 list, too.

Ricardo Darin, "The Secret in Their Eyes": In this Argentinian film noir, Darin's character undergoes a rather epic journey, returning to both the scene of a brutal crime from his career as a legal inspector and reuniting with an unrequited but still smoldering love, and his performance carries us every step along the way.

John Hawkes, "Winter's Bone": The key to this Debra Granik movie, another film noir of sorts and, like "The Secret in Their Eyes," also shown this year by the Macon Film Guild, is the mysterious motivations of all the characters Jennifer Lawrence's Rhee Dolly encounters while searching for her missing father - and the most important of those is Hawkes' Teardrop (yes, really), who plays his cards close until the end and makes this my vote for the best movie of 2010.

Steve Carell, "Despicable Me": Can a voice-only performance really be one of the best of the year? When it's as good as Carell's as the criminal mastermind with a heart Gru, absolutely, and besides, even though "Toy Story 3" will rightly get most of the animated kudos this year, this was just a thoroughly charming flick.

Kevin Kline, "The Extra Man": I was expecting the worst from Kline in this, and so was that much more pleasantly surprised by how restrained he was as the "gentleman" Henry Harrison, whose sole job is squiring wealthy widows around NYC. Both Kline's performance and the movie overall, out now on DVD, are winning portraits of the kind of eccentric New York that's now all too rare.

Kieran Culkin, "Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World": Comedy rarely gets is just due in awards season, and for my money, no one was funnier this year than Culkin as Scott Pilgrim's gay roommate who constantly pops up to provide a snarky commentary of sorts in the best movie that virtually no one saw in 2010.

Kodi Smit-McPhee, "Let Me In": Matt Reeves' "Let Me in" would have been a completely soulless remake of the clearly superior vampire movie "Let the Right One In" if it weren't for the performances of the two kids at the story's core. McPhee and Chloe Moretz draw us deep into the doomed world of young Owen and Abby and, against steep odds, improve on the performances of the kids in the original movie.

Vincent Cassel, "Black Swan": The two things that surprised me about Darren Aronofsky's movie is just how much of a B-movie schlockfest it really is (albeit about the ballet, of course), and just how good Vincent Cassel is as the ballet director who expertly manipulates his young dancers, never with overt menace but an equally dangerous charm.

Christian Bale, "The Fighter": Bale's extreme measures - and weight fluctuation - to get into his roles would be easy to mock if there clearly weren't more than madness to his method. Here, he's on the very gaunt side as Dicky Eklund, the crack-addicted brother of Mark Wahlberg's titular "Fighter" and the main thing that helps David O. Russell's movie rise above the pack of standard sports underdog flicks.

James Franco, "127 Hours": As I said, the best for last, and this year it's by a pretty wide margin. As Sam Rockwell did last year in the seriously smart sci-fi flick "Moon," Franco dominated almost every frame of Danny Boyle's movie, and never once lets the viewer get bored of watching him. From the exuberance of the beginning of Aron Ralston's perfect day to the extreme desperation of being trapped under a rock for the titular "127 Hours," Franco takes us along every inch of this often very hard to watch journey, making the payoff all the more rewarding at the finish. Just an all-around excellent performance.

And there you have it. Please feel free to let me know of any I may have snubbed (in the honorable mention, I've already got Christopher Plummer in "The Last Station", Michael Nyqvist in "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"/"The Girl Who Played With Fire" and George Clooney in "The American"), and have a perfectly endurable Monday. Peace out.

For Wednesday, a cache of fun clips

First off, and to segue right into the videos, a hearty huzzah to the Golden Globes for recognizing that "The Walking Dead" was easily one of the best TV dramas of 2010.

The word unique is thrown around way too loosely, and I'm probably as guilty of that as anyone, but it certainly fits here. If you watched the series, you know there's nothing like it on TV: Genuine horror as the inevitable zombie apocalypse (yes, we're certainly headed there) strikes (and in Atlanta no less, kudos), but also plenty of humanity since this comes from the mind of Frank Darabont.

Things don't bear terribly well for season two with the word that all the writers were let go and replaced by freelancers (except for Darabont, of course), but I suppose that's the way of the world. In case you missed the show and doubt just how gruesome it could get, enjoy the video below, but be warned: The title tells you exactly what you get, "every zombie killing in 'The Walking Dead'."



You know, with "Black Swan" finally opening in Macon and "The Fighter" here too - and then hopefully the Coen brothers' "True Grit" (which mi hermano and his Minneapolis-St. Paul homies have apparently already seen - jealous) opening here Wednesday, when I have the day off, this is indeed the best movie week of the entire year for me. There's also apparently a "Yogi Bear" movie opening this weekend too, but as close as you'll see me coming to that is this fantastic clip of what you'd have to call "The Assassination of Yogi Bear By the Coward Boo Boo." Again, the title really says it all, and this is plain brilliant. Enjoy.



OK, enough with the bloodshed, cartoon or otherwise. Nothing but good holiday cheer from here on out, I promise. Though I'm rarely up late enough to see his show live, I often DVR it, and I'm definitely a member of Team CoCo. And it's videos like the backstage clip below that show exactly why Conan O'Brien is so good. If you've never heard what Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward are doing as She & Him, definitely check it out. The closest thing I'd compare it to is Dusty Springfield, but they really just make dreamy sweet pop songs. Enjoy this clip of them getting in the holiday spirit with Conan.



And finally, after watching the clip below, I think Funny or Die needs to add a third option, because this clip featuring Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly as, respectively, David Bowie and Bing Crosby, is - at least until the very funny ending - simply sweet. And with that, I'm off, because I had to get up at 6 a.m. and make a shrimp and grits casserole (office holiday feast day, huzzah!), so I'm already running behind. Enjoy this clip, and have a perfectly passable - if not downright festive - Wednesday. Peace out.

Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy with Will Ferrell & John C. Reilly from Will Ferrell

A behind-the-scenes look at "True Grit," plus four new clips

Actually, the very best thing I could find this morning was this rather awesome photo of Seth Rogen, Elijah Wood and Danny McBride as the Beastie Boys. Although it's pretty much a trip by itself, what's even better is that it's from a short that Beastie Adam Yauch has cooked up for next year's Sundance Film Festival titled "Fight For Your Right Revisited."

Best as I can tell, the short film will be about the making of the Beasties' video for "Party for Your Right to Fight," and will somehow also star Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly and Jack Black too. There will surely be better movies at Sundance next year, but I'm betting there will be a very few that are more fun.

And after that today, the second best thing is a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the Coen brothers' "True Grit," plus four great clips from the film, set to open, I believe, on Christmas day. It's not terribly surprising, but I was still struck by how real it all is in this world of CGI-3D crap, and it's certainly the movie I'm most looking forward to seeing for the rest of this year, most likely when I hit NYC for the end of the year with my family. Enjoy the clips, and stick around for the the end for some truly inspired hilarity.