BBC - Movies -news article - High Noon

		Maguire Has Soul Tobey Maguire has bought the story of Gerald Fraller. No, he's not an activist, a war hero, or a Nobel prize winner. He's a jobless web junkie who set up the site winmysoul.com in the midst of depression. The plan was to sell his soul in order to fund a change of direction in his life and he's inspired others to do the same. Lucky for Fraller, the devil is cash poor and Maguire is minted. Yes, this is a story with a happy ending. Not only will Tobey Maguire play him in a Hollywood movie, Fraller claims to have received eight marriage proposals through the site. (No doubt Reese Witherspoon is watching that situation closely.)

		De Palma Goes To War Brian De Palma is currently writing and will direct Redacted. It's described as a montage of stories about US soldiers fighting in Iraq with a focus on new forms of war reporting. Producers say that blogs, websites and other coverage unique to the conflict will be featured heavily and the film itself will be shot using high-definition video. Think Jarhead meets Big Brother (with a touch fewer racial slurs). None of the roles have been cast yet, but production is set to start in Jordan in the spring.

		Shyamalan Turns Green Recently we reported that M. Night Shyamalan and James Cameron were each embarking on projects named Avatar. Now it seems Shyamalan is pushing that to the back burner in favour of The Green Effect. He's already written the script about a cataclysmic environmental crisis that prompts a struggle by mankind to overcome nature. Unfortunately, none of the major studios will touch it. It seems that Lady In The Water burst the banks - and not in the financial sense. Shyamalan is reported to have walked away from meetings with notes for a rewrite and will be pitching again within a month. Be afraid...

		Bertrand Dies Marcheline Bertrand, actress and mother of Angelina Jolie, has died. She succumbed to cancer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in LA on Saturday afternoon according to a press release issued by Jolie yesterday. She was present at the hospital along with boyfriend Brad Pitt. Bertrand, who had small roles in Lookin' To Get Out (1982) and The Man Who Loved Women (1983) raised Jolie and her brother James Haven after divorcing their father, Oscar-winning actor Jon Voight, when Jolie was a toddler.

		A Place In The Sun Little Miss Sunshine was named Best Picture by the Screen Actor's Guild at the weekend. Helen Mirren took two trophies for The Queen and for playing Queen Elizabeth I in TV miniseries Elizabeth I. Backstage she told reporters it was "a disgrace" that the latter project was not recognized in the UK. Forest Whitaker won Best Actor for The Last King Of Scotland and shockingly is still waiting for Uganda to send a 'thank you' note... Topping the US box office this week is Epic Movie, another Scary Movie-style spoof of popular (i.e. superior) films - it took $19.5m (£9.9m). At home Rocky Balboa has beaten Leo Dicaprio into submission, holding the top spot in its second week of release with $3.6m (£1.8m). Blood Diamond takes No.2 with $2.9 (£1.5m)... The Sundance Film Festival closed last night after dishing out the gongs to films about war, illegal immigration and political corruption. Padre Nuestro, a drama about a Mexican boy who is smuggled to New York, won the Grand Jury Prize. Grace Is Gone, a study of an ordinary man (John Cusack) whose soldier wife is killed in Iraq, bagged the coveted Audience Award. No doubt there was a lot of drowning of sorrows at the aftershow party...