yazgur's mountain

Demetri Martin To Go Gay For Ang

Our anticipation is great for Oscar-winning, Gays-friendly director Ang Lee's next movie, Taking Woodstock; based on the memoir by Elliot Tiber, it's the unlikely tale of a closeted guy working at his parents Catskills motel inadvertently responsible for mounting the music festival that defined a generation. (OMGZ! I CAN HAZ GAI HIPPYZ?!!!) How to make an already awesome and weird project even more awesome and weird? Variety now reports that comedian Demetri Martin is who Lee wants for the lead. With shooting set to begin in late August, and a greenlight from DreamWorks for his script Will, look for 2009 to be the year that the comic makes the seemingly inevitable leap from cultish stand-up and Daily Show correspondent to full-fledged movie star. It's also going to be the year that actor-comedians go gay on film, but hopefully Martin's portrayal will be a little more nuanced, and less spray-tanned and Versaced, than Jim Carrey's.

• Demetri Martin heads to 'Woodstock' [Variety.com]

cannes canned

Steven Soderbergh and Benicio Del Toro Cancel Cannes Reservations as Che Biopics Miss Deadline

In other Cannes program news from Todd McCarthy's Variety survey this morning, Steven Soderbergh and Benicio Del Toro's Che Guevara biopic two-fer The Argentine and Guerilla will apparently join Sex and the City among the year's notable omissions. It's a bit of a surprise considering Soderbergh's lightning-fast methodology and Focus Features' high expectations for early awards momentum (the Universal subsidiary is holding the Coens' Burn After Reading until September as well); also, as we hear from McCarthy after the jump, at least one of the films is ready to go:
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trade round-up

The Return Of Late-Night?

· They aren't done administering the defibrillator to the dead-eyed corpse of late-night TV just yet: Some are buzzing that "several hosts" plan on returning to the air by January 7, making life a little less egg-pelty for Ellen DeGeneres and Carson Daly. [Variety]
· After next week, however, every scripted TV series shooting in LA will have officially gone dark, explaining the eerie, silent calm throughout the city, and the longer, sadder lines at the Coffee Bean. [Variety]
· A new ceremony from The Academy of TV Arts & Sciences "will highlight and demonstrate the good things that TV does." The first lifetime achievement award goes to Fox Alternative Programming guru Mike Darnell, for his "tireless efforts in furthering the cause of people being hooked up to a lie detector and forced to answer whether or not they are still attracted to their spouse on national TV." [Variety]

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