House Of Puzzles Perfect Subject For Paranoiac Cryptologist J.J. Abrams To Spin Into Family Film

In a story from the NY Times that's almost too unbelievable to be true, a married couple of Wall Street investors—quite possibly the coolest eccentric rich parents currently living in America—had their Upper East Side residence custom retrofitted by a brilliant designer to hold more secret compartments, puzzles, games, and hidden treasures than Hogwarts Academy, all to delight their four young children. Beyond that, the apartment "even comes with its own book"— which Everything Is Illuminated author Jonathan Safran Foer was approached to compose (but turned down)—and its own soundtrack. Browsing the slide show tour is as mindblowing as it is mindbending, which, we suppose, makes it somehow fitting that Paramount has purchased the article for J.J. Abrams to adapt into a feature film:

Writers Maya Forbes and Wally Wolodarsky have been hired to adapt it into a film, with Marc Evans overseeing for the studio.

J.J. Abrams-Produced 'Hot For Teacher' To Explore Lighter Side Of Statutory Rape

Like so many other tropes of the 1980s, the theme of busty-teacher-as-sex-predator that fueled many a teen comedy (and locked-bathroom meditation session) appears to be enjoying a resurgence as well, as THR is reporting that J.J. Abrams will produce the unambiguously titled spec Hot For Teacher for Paramount:

"Hot" is a "Superbad"-like story of a high school senior who sets out to have sex with his teacher before he graduates.

Amy Poehler: Drugged, Naked, And Observed Through Immaculate Glass

'Cloverfield': The Critics Are Split

We've already run the advance reviews (what—you don't trust Nicholas Chance, Kid Detective Reviewer?), and given you an exclusive! semi-blurry insider's gallery of Wednesday night's premiere. But with today's opening, everyone can finally check out Cloverfield for themselves—or not, if Godzilla vs. Felicity isn't your thing. (It was totally our thing.) The reviews are in:
· "The doomed Gotham created by producer J.J. Abrams — he with the golden Felicity, Alias, and Lost touch — and his team is almost entirely populated by vapid, twenty-something nincompoops. Oops, I mean attractive, indistinguishable young people who handle cell phones, DV cameras, etc., with ease; call one another ''dude''; don't have anything interesting to say; and, perhaps as a result, don't listen to one another, even in an emergency." [EW.com]

Last night was the premiere of Cloverfield on Paramount's lot, an event they were kind enough to invite us to. Without getting too deeply into the what and the how of it, we'll only say that the movie was the rare release to receive a unanimous thumbs up from Defamer HQ: short, slick, and ferociously sweet.

Paramount has just given the First! Official! Sneak Peek! At The New Enterpise! to Moviefone, a monumental event sure to induce a not-completely-unpleasant combination of heart palpitations and premature flesh-phaser-fire in Trekkies everywhere.

Tracking The Early 'Cloverfield' Buzz: Giant Fucking Monsters Are Definitely Coming

At long last, Cloverfield, Slusho Beverage Corp.'s bold foray into the sci-fi disaster genre, had its first screenings last night. Hours later, members of the fanboy journalist elite lucky enough to have had first, unfettered access to the mysterious creature at the center of all the monument-decapitating mayhem, took to the internets. Below, a round-up of the buzz. [Ed. note: We'll try to avoid spoilers, but promise nothing. You've been warned.]
· If we are to believe the Kingdom of the Fanboys' semi-merciful Lord and Ruler Harry Knowles, it was a watershed moment in giant-fucking- monster-stomping- through-Manhattan cinematic history: "The movie is fucking brilliant. It's what we were told it was going to be. An intimate perspective on an impossibly grand scale human disaster beyond most human levels of comprehension." Slashfilm reminds us, however, that this was a guy who thought the Godzilla remake was peaches. [AICN, Slashfilm]

Director Matt Reeves Reveals How 'Cloverfield' Was Born In The Streets Of L.A.

As much of the geeky-gened moviegoing world tries to decode the mysteries of Cloverfield, obsessively connecting the push-pin dots on bulletin boards covered in maps and radioactive monster imagery, our friends at LAist had the novel idea to approach director Matt Reeves directly. It turns out he was extremely forthcoming, offering oodles of fanboynip, including background on the project's history, its buzzy, pre-Transformers trailer, and even the origins of its ambiguous title that sounds like a margarine brand:

LAist: Tell us the real story behind the title Cloverfield?

William Shatner Still Can't Get His Mind Around the Idea Of A Shat-Less 'Star Trek'

Apparently still suffering from a paralyzing cognitive dissonance each time he tries to envision a Star Trek project that won't feature his name somewhere on the call sheet, William "They Can Have My Tricorder Back When They Pry It From My Cold, Dead Hands" Shatner reached out to a sympathetic Extra camera crew as he signed copies of his new novel at Book Soup last night, baffled that director J.J. Abrams persists in denying him even the tiniest of pity-cameos:

"How could you not put one of the founding figures into a movie that was being resurrected? That doesn't make good business sense to me!" Shatner said at a signing for his book, "Star Trek Academy: Collision Course" in Hollywood.

Leaked 'Cloverfield' Trailer Provides Glimpse Of Top-Secret, Completely Terrifying Blur-Monster

A new trailer for Cloverfield (now officially its inscrutable title!), the JJ Abrams-produced monster movie whose secrets are being guarded as ruthlessly guarded as those of the upcoming Indiana Jones sequel that has already destroyed two lives, has "mysteriously" been "leaked" onto the internets in advance of its debut before screenings of Beowulf this weekend.

JJ Abrams Leaves William Shatner At The Enterprise Docking Bay

The Trekkie unthinkable has come to pass: William Shatner—the die from which all subsequent Kirk-alikes were cast, the man who gave scores of marginally talented impressionists a bottomless! Source! Of! Material!—has not been asked to join the voyages of the next big-screen Enterprise outing. (Helmed, of course, by noted Lost architect and Cruise-wrangler, JJ Abrams.) He doesn't seem to be taking the news too well:

"I couldn't believe it. I'm not in the movie at all. Leonard [Nimoy], God bless his heart, is in, but not me," Shatner, 76, told The Associated Press on Thursday. "I thought, what a decision to make, since it obviously is a decision not to make use of the popularity I have to ensure the movie has good box office. It didn't seem to be a wise business decision." [...]

Is It Too Early To Get That 'Cloverfield' Backlash Going?

Even if J.J. Abrams' "mysterious" Cloverfield project [Ed.note—Oooh, spooky!] turns out to be the greatest Top Secret Movie Featuring the Beheading of a Curiously Tiny Statue of Liberty ever made, we'll still feel justified in feeling instantaneously suffocated by hype the moment the much-buzzed-about "1-18-08" clip, premiered in front of Transformers and leaked with alacrity to the internets, faded to black.

Mysterious J.J. Abrams Trailer Confounds Audiences Looking For Hard, Michael Bay-Style Answers

Trade Round-Up: JJ Abrams To Rebuild Bad Robot In Solid Gold

Matt Damon Could Get Chance To Bed Green-Skinned, Nymphomaniac Beauties In 'Star Trek' Prequel