In the Los Angeles Times, Mark Olsen talks with Richard Kelly about "Southland Tales" and the film's infamous debut in Cannes last year: "'Even with all that happened, I don't regret it', Kelly said recently of the experience. 'Now that all the dust has settled, the movie is actually better off because of it. Honestly, it is. The hope is we can still somehow recover and the movie can find an audience.'"

"Owen Wilson's emergency hospitalization and recovery are throwing a major monkeywrench into production of two movies and causing marketing headaches for two more," reports Variety, "The Sunday incident, which several news services claimed was a suicide attempt, is also the latest -- after Lindsay Lohan's summer troubles -- to pose the question of insurability for top-tier stars."

Robert Redford and Paul Newman may soon be reunited on screen, more than 20 years after The Sting and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. And it won't be for a sequel. The something in question is a film adaptation of A Walk in the Woods. The Guardian reports.

"That's not a shot. It's a statement," says Fernando Meirelles. He's describing a particular image in his new movie, "The Constant Gardener," that speaks volumes about the disparity between Africa's haves and have-nots. Hugh Hart reports in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Hong Kong comic actor and director Stephen Chow said Tuesday he'll start filming the sequel to his action film "Kung Fu Hustle" either late this year or early 2006. Chow called the movie's US$17.1 million (€14.0 million) box office take in America as of Aug. 18 "not bad," but said, "I hope I can do better in the future." A.P. reports.

Kevin Kline is in the zone. The Academy Award-winning actor is so focused on his role as hard-boiled gumshoe Guy Noir that he doesn't notice he's cut his finger as he shoots a scene for the "A Prairie Home Companion" movie in the lobby of the Fitzgerald Theater. Decked out in a pinstriped suit and with his hair slicked back, Kline does take after take, adding funny asides under director Robert Altman's quiet gaze. A.P. reports.

Don Cheadle has finally visited "Hotel Rwanda." The 40-year-old actor toured the Hotel des Milles Collines in Rwanda's capital Kigali last month, speaking with several of the more than 1,000 people who were sheltered there during the country's 1994 genocide by manager Paul Rusesabagina, the character portrayed by Cheadle in the film, A.P. reports.

Terry Gilliam filmed his newest movie, "Tideland," in Saskatchewan last fall, racing to complete the location shots before winter set in. The Mitch Cullin novel on which the film is based is mostly set in West Texas, but Mr. Gilliam had substituted the Canadian prairie instead. The evening after he wrapped, it started to snow, and the cast, crew and director all saw this as an omen. If this had been a Gilliam production beset by the kind of bad fortune that has sometimes clung to his movies, the snow would have blown in much sooner, five or six feet of it Charles McGrath reports in the New York Times (free subscription required to view full article).

What made Michael Pitt turn down blockbuster roles in Hollywood to play a mumbling, Kurt Cobain-inspired addict in a film ("Last Days") where nothing happens? The actor talks to Dan Halpern in The Guardian.

After dazzling audiences with her waifish beauty and graceful performances in a string of Chinese martial arts hits, Ziyi Zhang is coming of age as an actress on the brink of international stardom. Zhang, 26, gives her most mature performance yet with a portrayal of a prostitute struggling with her feelings in Wong Kar Wai's "2046," which had its U.S. opening last weekend, and stars in the Hollywood version of the best-selling book "Memoirs of a Geisha" due in December. Larry Fine reports for Reuters.

Filmmaker John Singleton, who burst to prominence with his 1991 social drama "Boyz N the Hood," says he has to balance his "message" movies with "popcorn" flicks to support his more serious work. In a recent interview, Singleton called this balancing act the "yin and yang" of his life in Hollywood as he promoted his latest directorial effort, "Four Brothers," an inner-city action movie that mixes a little message with a lot of mayhem in a revenge tale with a violent take on family values. Larry Fine reports for Reuters.

Gwyneth Paltrow yelled "Cut!" as if her life depended on it. Sipping hot green tea on one of the hottest days of the year, standing in a meandering Brooklyn apartment that had been transformed into a movie set, Ms. Paltrow was directing her first film, "Dealbreakers," a short about the dubious charms of dating, with no small measure of authority. Felicia R. Lee reports in the New York Times (free subscription required to access).

In the early days of the cold war the inquisition led by the House Un-American Activities Committee led to the imprisonment of screenwriters and directors and shaped the careers of many Hollywood stars accused of being communists. Michael Freedland reveals what happened to them next in The Guardian.

Evan Rachel Wood thinks her fellow teenagers should be free to explore their sexuality so they can be "responsible about it" — unlike the character she plays in "Pretty Persuasion," due out Friday. In the film, directed by Marcos Siega, Wood portrays a scheming schoolgirl named Kimberly who uses her sexuality to achieve her goals. The Associated Press reports.

He is the offbeat US film-maker whose ultra-cool existential movies shaped the 1980s - but then Jim Jarmusch lost his way. Now his new film, about a jaded Don Juan, has put him back on top. Lynn Hirschberg speaks with "Broken Flowers" director Jim Jarmusch.

After a tortuous trek, Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" is coming to the big screen courtesy of Francis Ford Coppola and the Brazilian director of "The Motorcycle Diaries." Coppola's American Zoetrope production company has owned the film rights to the novel since 1979. According to Coppola, the novel has had many suitors over the years. Reuters reports.

Mark Zupan, the most recognizable star of "Murderball," says he's embracing the fame brought by the documentary. "Well, when you get recognized walking down the street, it gets really kind of strange," Zupan, with shaved head, goatee and tattoos, recently told AP Television News. "I'm still the same person." A.P. reports.

Scarcely a year after Marlon Brando's death at 80, the detritus of his fiercely guarded private life continues to bubble to the surface. In June there was an auction of his personal effects, a grab bag of bizarre and often silly objects that included both his Foosball table and a plastic bagel with a plastic cockroach inside. Now there is another odd blast from his past - "Fan-Tan," a film treatment-turned-novel about pirates in the South Seas that he wrote in the 1970's with a filmmaker, Donald Cammell. Dinitia Smith reports in the New York Times (free subscription required to view).

Filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, known as a cinematic risk-taker, is now taking chances in an unexpected way -- by flirting with the mainstream in his latest movie, "Broken Flowers." The comedy starring Bill Murray drops the stark settings associated with the art house darling's earlier work and instead offers a tour of the suburbs and a reflection on life and love. Larry Fine reports for Reuters.

Bathed in spotlight on a darkened stage, Michael Moore sounded downright conciliatory toward his detractors while welcoming a capacity crowd to a film festival in his adopted hometown. "This is the America we want to believe in, where we can all have our various beliefs but come together for the greater good of the community," the left-wing documentary filmmaker said to a thunderous ovation. John Flesher reports in A.P.

Kayo Hatta, an independent filmmaker whose 1995 film "Picture Bride" won an audience award for best dramatic film at the Sundance Film Festival, has died. She was 47. A.P. reports.

by Eugene Hernandez/indieWIRE

Sadly we report on the passing of Timothy Gruver, founder of the Tallgrass Film Festival in Wichita, Kansas and also founder of WAMPA (Wichita Association for the Motion Pictures Arts). He was born January 6, 1972.

According to The Wichita Eagle, Tim suffered a seizure near his home and died on Tuesday. The article also include information on Saturday's service for Tim.

While I certainly didn't know him well enough, Tim was a familiar face on the festival circuit in recent years, always wearing a bright smile (punctuated by a laugh) and advocating passionately on behalf of his festival. indieWIRE reported on the launch of his festival more than 2 years ago and we are saddened to hear of his passing. Tim, your absence will be noticed.

Peter Jasso, director of the Kansas Film Commission, wrote in an email forwarded to indieWIRE late tonight, "He was someone who dared to dream big and served as an example of what is possible in this state. The independent film community in this state is better off because of Tim and his memory will not be forgotten. Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family."

Supporters are committed to continuing the festival this year in his honor. We cannot think of a more appropriate tribute. We salute Tim and send our deepest condolences to his loved ones and colleagues.

The Wichita Eagle has also created a link to a guest book for memories and condolences.

Tim's bio follows, as published on the Tallgrass website:

Whether Roman Polanski was wise in bringing his action against Vanity Fair for what the magazine came to admit was a dubiously founded story about his conduct on the way to his first wife's funeral is a moot point. Going to America, Polanski's view of the world as cruel, absurd and randomly violent found expression in the first of the two pictures he made there, "Rosemary's Baby," where a wife is handed over to Satanists by her treacherous husband, and "Chinatown," possibly his masterpiece. Philip French gives is take on Polanski's career in The Guardian.

Mohammed Bouyeri, who has joint Dutch-Moroccan nationality, had made a courtroom confession and had vowed to do the same again if given the chance.
The murder in Amsterdam stunned the Netherlands. The court ruled that it was a terrorist act. BBC reports.

Scant pickings indeed for fans of the divine Miss M., who has entered the third decade of her career more popular than ever before. Few Hong Kong stars have been able to escape the gilded cage of their industry to attain true global stature -- except, of course, in roles that are narrowly defined by genre. But part of what makes Cheung so fascinating is that she defies definition. Jeff Yang reports on Maggie Cheung in the San Francisco Chronicle.

By tradition, a Bollywood heroine is a one-dimensional creation who may wear eye-popping bustiers or writhe passionately during a song in the rain. But she is unfailingly virtuous. Whether girlfriend, wife or mother, she is the repository of Indian moral values. As if heeding his exhortation, Bollywood heroines have rarely stepped out of line, even for a kiss. Anupama Chopra reports in the New York Times (free subscription required to view).

Filmmaker Magazine announces their "25 New Faces of Independent Film 2005" in their Summer 2005 issue. Read the article here.

A man suspected of being part of a group linked to the murder of Dutch film-maker Theo van Gogh is to be extradited to the Netherlands. Racid Belkacem, 32 was arrested in London in June after a request from Dutch authorities. BBC reports.

Film director David Lynch wants to raise $7 billion to bring about world peace through a massive transcendental meditation program. Lynch, 59, known for the quirky, avant-garde works like "Mulholland Drive" and the "Twin Peaks" TV series, is launching a foundation dedicated to bringing the benefits of the stress-reducing technique to school students across America, and ultimately the world. Reuters reports.

Gene Hackman, part of the school of gritty actors from the 60's and 70's like Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, and Robert De Niro, has had such a dynamic range of roles, from playing a paranoid surveillance expert in Francis Ford Coppola's "The Conversation" to a charismatic Lex Luthor in "Superman," has lent "such an innate sense of gravity, intelligence, and authenticity to every role he played that it's hard to think of a film in which he's been miscast or given a weak performance." Nathan Rabin reviews several of Hackman's films that were recently released on DVD.

“I knew him a little bit,” Gus Van Sant says of former Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain, who put a shotgun to his chin and ended his life in 1994, at the age of 27. “I never had what you could call a conversation with him. But I met him at his manager’s house, and one time he called me to ask whether a friend could work on Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. Then came the final curtain, which was so dramatic — he died, and it kind of put the candle out, at least in my concept of what grunge was.” Scott Foundas speaks with Gus Van Sant about "Last Days" in the LA Weekly.

If Michael Pitt's T-shirt could talk, it would probably say things not fit for a family newspaper. If Pitt is in character, he isn't saying. But it might explain his fashion choice. In Gus Van Sant's "Last Days," Pitt, 24, plays a rock star -- not very loosely based on Kurt Cobain -- who is checking out of grungeville for good. Ron Dicker reports in the San Francisco Chronicle.

With tabloid journalism and reality television bleeding into each other, and with magazine programs indistinguishable from entertainment, films no longer bother making their case against journalists. "Crónicas" and "Paparazzi," the good film and the bad, simply assume that slime is a reporter's middle name. Caryn James reports in the New York Times (free subscription required to view).

Cinematographer Christopher Doyle's brilliant images have won him a reputation above that of many directors. But the former sailor and oil driller is an unrepentant hellraiser whose own life is just as colourful as the cult movies he shoots. Gaby Wood reports in The Guardian.

Roman Polanski, testifying on the first day of his libel suit against the publishers of Vanity Fair magazine, said Monday that he was the victim of an "abominable lie." reports.

Once known as a Hollywood bad boy, Johnny Depp has grown into more of a suburban dad. These days, Depp can be found at his home in the south of France with singer-actress Vanessa Paradis and their two children, 6-year-old Lily Rose and 3-year-old Jack. A.P. speaks with Depp.

Asia Argento, daughter of horror director Dario, was undressed and traumatised on screen for her father's films. Now she's turning her back on Hollywood to make her own shocking cinema. Steve Rose reports in The Guardian.

The man charged with the murder of the controversial Dutch film-maker Theo van Gogh has refused to offer a defence at the start of his trial in Amsterdam.
Mohammed Bouyeri, 27, said he did not recognise the authority of the court and spoke only to confirm his name and utter a prayer in Arabic. BBC reports.

Actress Maggie Gyllenhaal says she has learned the hard way not to talk about politics on the red carpet. he 27-year-old actress, who stars in a film about the 2001 terror attacks on the World Trade Center, said in an interview last April that the United States was "responsible in some way" for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "I was so surprised by the way it was misunderstood, and the disdain that came back at me was a real shock," Gyllenhaal told the Daily News for an interview published Sunday. The Associated Press reports.

Cyrus Kar, the aspiring documentary filmmaker from Los Angeles, has been released from an American military prison in Iraq after being held for seven weeks. Bruised, exhausted, and hungry, he is being advised by his lawyers to not discuss the details of his treatment until he is back in the United States. Tim Golden reports for the New York Times.

In a piece for Time Out Chicago, Anthony Kaufman questions local critic Roger Ebert's taste in film

Mayor Daley has declared Tuesday 12 to be Roger Ebert Day; how will you celebrate? By attending the opening ceremonies of the Chicago Outdoor Film Festival in Grant Park, which will honor the Sun-Times movie critic? By genuflecting at the new sidewalk plaque that bears his name outside of the Chicago Theatre? Or perhaps by pondering whether the world's most influential film critic wouldn't serve the public better by being a bit more, well, critical?

There's no doubt that Ebert still loves movies, which is admirable given that he's reviewed more than 5,200 of them over the past 38 years. But maybe he loves them too much.

Whereas most filmmakers strive to claw their way up from no-budget obscurity toward mainstream acceptance, Campbell Scott has endeavored to move in the opposite direction. Scott Foundas profiles the actor/producer/director in the LA Weekly.

Anime Expo is now in its 14th year as North America's largest annual conclave of Japanese animation enthusiasts, and according to 2005 Expo chair Darold Higa, its popularity has risen steadily over its decade and a half of existence. Jeff Yang reports in the San Francisco Chronicle.

After working for almost 20 years in TV, comedy, film and theater, Colombian-born actor John Leguizamo is playing a Spanish-speaking character for the first time. In "Cronicas," Leguizamo stars as a Miami-based TV tabloid reporter who faces ethical dilemmas when investigating a serial killer in a small Ecuadorean town. Luis Alonso Lugo reports for A.P.

Cyrus Kar, an Iranian born, naturalized American citizen who has been living in the US since age 2, attended college in California, and served in the United States Navy and Naval Reserve, has been detained in Iraq by the American military since mid-May. Kar was in Iraq to shoot his first documentary film about an ancient Persian King. He has not been charged of any crime and has been unable to contact his family. Tim Golden reports for the New York Times.

Alexander Payne, the Oscar-winning writer of the wine-tasting comedy Sideways, will team up with Wedding Crashers director David Dobkin on I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, which as you might guess centres on the subject of gay marriage. The Guardian reports.

For three years, journalist Georges-Marc Benamou was given unprecedented access to François Mitterrand. His subsequent bestselling book scandalised France with tales of the former president's arrogance and gluttony. Here, he talks about turning his astonishing story into a film. Sue Summers reports in The Guardian.

James Toback, director of the 1978 cult classic, "Fingers," interviews French director Jacques Audiard who recently remade the film as “The Beat That My Heart Skipped” for the LA Weekly. In the process, Toback sheds all pretense of humility and modesty asking few questions, preferring to name drop instead. ("...when Premiere magazine asked Brett Ratner, who made Rush Hour and Rush Hour 2, to pick his three favorite movies of all time on DVD, he picked Jaws, The Godfather and Fingers.") Hmm...Ratner, really? It is not surprising then, that midway through the interview Audiard, perhaps tired of being a non-particpant, turns the tables on Toback and takes on the role of interviewer.