– After two consecutive failures (“Starsky & Hutch,” “School For Scoundrels“) Buddy comedy auteur Todd Phillips (“Old School”) hopes to return to form with “Man-Witch” starring Jack Black who will play a schoolteacher that discovers he has witchlike powers. Phillps was originally scheduled to direct, “Borat,” but quit due to creative differences with Sascha Baron Cohen. Meanwhile, “Old School Dos” is apparently set for 2009.[Variety]
– Aging cinema romanticist, button-pushing director Bernardo Bertolucci (“Last Tango In Paris,” “Il Conformista”) will be receive the Venice Film Festival’s honorary Golden Lion Award for lifetime achievement. The festival called the 66-year-old director “one of the greatest directors of contemporary cinema whose work, between poetry and history, has left a deep mark on modern cinema,” and will screen the rarely-seen Bertolucci gem, “Strategia del Rango” (The Spider’s Stratagem). Someone please put this film back on DVD. [Hollywood Reporter]
– The “Man-Witch” story reminds us that later this year, we will see Jack Black alongside Nicole Kidman, John Turturro and Jennifer Jason Leigh in Noah Baumbach‘s “The Squid & The Whale” follow-up, “Margot At The Wedding.” The family drama is set for an October 12 release. [Zapit]
Midnight Wrap: Jack Black, Bertolucci, Todd Phillips, Baumbach
