Take a feisty Jane Austen heroine, put her in an inner-city high school, give her some hip-hop numbers to sing and dance to, and you've got a new "reimagining" of Emma. The new Screen Gems project just announced was inspired by the video for "Lip Gloss" by Lil Mama, which seems like it would inspire someone to buy lip gloss (it's poppin'!) more than anything, but there you go.

Clint Culpepper of Screen Gems says this is to be an Emma for the new millennium. The original Emma Woodhouse was a twenty-one-year-old young woman with enough money of her own that she could spend more time matchmaking for her friends and acquaintances rather than worrying about her own future. In the end, though, she falls for Mr. Knightley, who's quite a bit older than her, which was fairly common in Regency England. In the "new millennium," how would that play out? Would thirty-something George Knightley show up at a rendezvous, expecting to be set up with a teenaged girl, only to be greeted by a To Catch a Predator camera crew? Would he be an old lech with a fake MySpace account? A group of mean girls with a fake MySpace account?

Probably not. Hopefully not. The original was pretty lighthearted fare, with relatively little angst from the heroine, and the music video which inspired this new version is shiny, catchy fun. Emma was redone with a modern setting before in Clueless, also in a lighthearted way. The script for this latest is being written by Tyger Williams, who also penned the story for Menace II Society, which might not bring to mind happy fluff, but Screen Gems has had past success with other hip-hop movies. Ultimately, it depends on Culpepper's definition of "reimagining." Will the new Emma be spoiled but ultimately charming, or just a modern day spoiled brat?

The popular Twilight novel series by Stephenie Meyer are being made into a movie by the same name. The story concerns Jacob Black, a sixteen-year-old boy from the Quileute tribe who can change into a werewolf, and his family's ancient rivalry with vampires. The actor chosen to play him is Taylor Lautner, who previously starred in The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl. As Jacob, he's trying to deal with school, family, a girl he's crushing on, a bad temper and sudden unexplained appearances of body hair. Just your everyday, normal high school stuff, in other words.

Recently, Lautner debuted his new Jacob hair. (Video here.) It looks like they may have grabbed an extra wig out of America Ferrara's trailer on the set of Ugly Betty and slapped it on this kid. Add a poncho and some braces and he's this close to being a plucky young assistant from Queens trying to make it in the cutthroat world of fashion magazine publishing. But Lautner has some considerable shoes to fill, if werewolves can be said to wear shoes... In the books, Jacob Black is an imposing, muscular figure nearly seven feet tall. The big screen version looks like he may find himself crushed under the weight of his own hair. That he can get around with that thing on his head at all is an accomplishment.

Perhaps he'll seem like more of a menacing canine once the sound track and slick editing and effects are added in. Expectations are likely to run high, considering the fan following the books have. If all else fails, they could wait a year before filming and hope the actor hits a serious growth spurt.

As previously reported, Oliver Stone is casting for his biopic about George W. Bush's formative years and presidency, titled simply W. In case you were waiting on the edge of your seat to find out who would be rounding out the cast, it appears that Ioan Gruffudd is in final talks to play former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

This has to be the best news Blair has gotten since he won his landslide victory for "New Labour" over a decade ago.

Even though Stone has promised a fair look at W's life, it's probably unlikely the portrayal of the president will be a flattering one, and Blair, having been referred to in the press at times as "Bush's poodle" is also unlikely to be cast in a positive light. His approval rating at the end was basically in the toilet, he faced criticism from those in his own political party and without, and then, of course, there was that unfortunate lap dog nickname. But Blair should look at it this way: Gruffudd himself is twenty years his junior, regard as something of a sex symbol, and well-known for playing heroic and/or romantic characters such as Sir Lancelot, Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic if you're nasty), and of course Horatio Hornblower, the role that probably first brought him to most people's appreciative attention. Who wouldn't want to be played by dashing, young Horatio Hornblower?

Just in case negotiations with Gruffudd somehow fall through, though, perhaps Blair could petition Stone to play the part himself. He could return to his showbiz roots (he played guitar in a rock band as a student) and reinvent himself as an actor. Nor would it be the first time he's played himself. The preference (of the audience and probably Blair) would be for the younger actor to take the part, but it's never too late to take up a new career in these uncertain times.

How quickly they turn. Indie movie lovers are acting as if Wong Kar-Wai is as big a Judas to them as Bill Richardson is to James Carville. Wong's latest, My Blueberry Nights, is a first for him: It's in English and it stars American singer turned actress Norah Jones. The reviews have been less than polite -- it has a 44% Tomatometer rating -- but the tone of many of them seem to be "how dare our indie darling, the guy who makes movies that are like watching really pretty looking paint dry, but which symbolize so much to our boring critic lives, how dare he make an American movie with the woman whose music accompanies my screams of pain at the dentist?!" Jones is being treated as if she's the only singer in history whose acting was subpar (cough cough, Elvis! Hack! Madonna. Ah-choo, Britney Spears). Her co-star, Jude Law, isn't fairing much better, which means some critics will be getting an angry visit from Sean Penn.

It seems that when an independent or foreign film maker wants to get out of his comfort zone, the natives get restless. However, by all accounts, Wong is doing what he has always done in his movies, that is, crafting gorgeous imagery and a dreamlike pace that probably mean absolutely nothing yet conjures up Masters theses on blogs. Not every movie can be In The Mood For Love, the ne plus ultra of Wong's style and ground zero for the aforementioned theses. Many reviewers point out Wong's repetition, but they opt instead to make Jones suffer for the sins of her director. Whenever someone casts an actor who cannot act, shouldn't we blame the director too?

Either the indie-lovers feel betrayed, or they're out to find meaning in every crevice of My Blueberry Nights. It's fun reading the attempts to justify and/or find meaning in every shot composed by Wong and lensed by Seven cin-togger Darius Khonji. One person compared a porn movie style close-up shot of a triangle of blueberry pie a la mode to a beating heart. Another finds rapture and meaning in a shot of Jude Law kissing crumbs of blueberry pie off Jones' face. (Couldn't that cheap bastard get his own piece of pie?) Why does every image-heavy movie have to mean something other than "hey that's a really pretty shot and I want it in my movie?" And why do these directors have to make movies that mean something specifically to you?

To paraphrase Freud: Sometimes a piece of pie is just a piece of pie. But if it's cherry pie, it's a coochie.

For the second week in a row, Sony's 21 emerged as the highest box office grosser, tackling a football movie, stomping a botanical gross out and sinking Jodie Foster's first kiddie movie since Bugsy Malone. 21 cashed in 25,000 purple chips, 25,000 black chips, and 4,000 green chips at the box office cashier's window, none of which came from yours truly. I saw it on a free screener and disliked it for turning an exciting, unpredictable novel into a dull, clichéd and predictable movie. My hatred must be due to my not being in the age bracket for such collegiate hero worship bullshit, I mean shenanigans.

Universal counted on my age bracket to show up at Leatherheads, the George Clooney -- Renee Zellweger football starrer. Enough old fogeys showed up to give it a respectable second place finish, but a Universal exec said she was "disappointed" with second place. I believe the D word she wanted was "delusional," as that's what Universal was if it expected the 35 and over crowd to show up in a bigger configuration than the teenagers who sprouted from their loins. They should thank the lucky stars that share the sky with their logo that $13.5 million worth of horny old women and dirty old men drove their Little Rascals down to the theater to ogle Dr. Ross and Bridget Jones. Leatherheads is a rom-com/sports movie set in the 1920's, a time that must seem like10,000 B.C. to the 12-year old boy itching to see someone younger than their parents.

In an interview, Jodie Foster said Nim's Island, the third place finisher this week, was the first movie of hers she could take her kids to. She neglected to mention that she couldn't take her kids to her 11-year old co-star Abigail Breslin's last movie either. Nim's Island dug up $13.3 million worth of buried treasure, making it respectable but no Harry Potter. Nim placed ahead of the other novel adaption opening this week, Scott B. Smith's The Ruins. The tale of flesh eating vines in Apocalyptoland chewed $7.8 million worth of ass off its pretty stars, tasty enough for fifth place. A dollar's a dollar, no matter how earned, says Horton, whose who hearing hoedown hopped down to fourth place with 9.1 million. PG-13 rated trifecta Superhero Movie, Drillbit Taylor and Shutter pulled the teens who saw 21 last week, keeping them on the chart. Next week, all these teenagers should help Universal get revenge on Sony when Forgetting Sarah Marshall opens. The prehistoric action movie 10,000 B.C. remained both in the top ten and well short of ever breaking even. Unless it opens in Bedrock to sell out crowds, 10,000 B.C. will become extinct on the top 10 next week and a flop forever. The tally:
1. 21, $15.1 million
2. Leatherheads, $13.5 million
3. Nim's Island, $13.3 million
4. Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! , $9.1 million
5. The Ruins, $7.8 million
6. Superhero Movie, $5.4 million
7. Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns, $3.51 million
8. Drillbit Taylor, $3.5 million
9. Shutter, $2.9 million
10. 10,000 B.C. , $2.8 million

According to the website M16, Kite Runner director Marc Forster, who is currently helming the latest Bond movie, said no to a repeat engagement as 007's director. I'm still wondering why Forster was there in the first place, unless I've forgotten that Finding Neverland was full of explosions and that Monster's Ball overflowed with death-defying stunts. The only tie Forster has to 007 is that he allowed Bond babe Halle Berry to make a bigger and more embarrassing spectacle of herself than Die Another Day did. I doubt that the Broccoli folks will allow Forster his usual dopey shots that scream out meaning in IMAX-sized letters (see that little white spoon going into the big mound of chocolate ice cream in Monster's Ball for a great example of this slop), but I still have reservations. I'm all for a reshaping of the franchise, and Casino Royale was a superb start, but all this talk about heart and loneliness indicate that Forster and the franchise are doing to Bond what John Singleton did to John Shaft: turning a beloved character into a sexless, brooding bore.

Case in point: The AP has reported that one of the Bond girls, Olga Kurylenko, doesn't even get to kiss Bond. "Why should I be disappointed," she asks. "I'm just doing my job." I'll tell you why, Miss Thing! Bond girls get to do the Libido Lambada with Bond. That's why they're Bond girls! Apparently, the guy must be dynamite in bed, and he also must have super strong condoms because nobody's ever invited him to the Maury show or a production of Rent. Getting the Bond girl is one part of the formula I can't tolerate them destroying. Call me sexist if you must, but there it is. Do you think Sean Connery would have settled for this politically correct baloney?

AP asks "do audiences want an emo Bond?" I don't want to listen to emo music, let alone bear witness to a neutered, brooding-like-a-teenager James Bond. Who's doing the theme song? Those "Hey There, Delilah" whiners? I'll hold off on final judgment until I see the blasted thing, but if this is what he's turning out, I'm glad Forster won't be back.

I need to register a complaint with the person who decided 3-D needed to come back. Actually, I need to punch him in the eye. You see, when I was 14, I lost the ability to perceive 3-D. This happened right after the big 3-D resurgence of the early 80's, which started with a horrible 1981 Western called Comin' At Ya and ended around the time of the horror movies Jaws 3-D, Amityville 3-D and Friday the 13th 3-D. So I know what 3-D looks like and how it feels to wear those paper glasses designed to give you a horrible headache. Technology has made the 3-D spectacles a lot better and the 3-D moments more effective, but if the powers that be spent more time on eyes, I might be able to enjoy the glut of 3-D movies out now. I mean, who wouldn't want Hannah Montana jumping out right in front of you...so you could slap the best of both worlds out of her?

The Hollywood Reporter informs me that the remake of My Bloody Valentine will be in 3-D. This makes me nostalgic, as one of the last 3-D movies I saw was Valentine's predecessor with Jason Voorhees. My Bloody Valentine's original version was a Canadian production from Paramount that was rumored to be so gory that quite a bit of the movie was missing from what I saw as a teenager. Considering what the Hostel series gets away with, I expect disembodied hearts to fly into the audience like that liver on the poker in Andy Warhol's Frankenstein, and I won't be able to get the full effect. This will be a hit and there will be more 3-D horror coming to a theater near you. I just hope it's better than what we got back in the 80's.

If Hollywood wants to make me happy, bring back Sensurround. Michael Bay could use it for sure. When I was a kid, I saw Earthquake and years later realized that Sensurround was like getting a Dolby hummer. I couldn't appreciate that at 6, but I damn sure would now.

Casting for Ollie Stone's George W. Bush biopic has taken a turn for the Beloved. Stone, in his infinite wisdom, cast Thandie Newton in the role of Condoleeza Rice. This is a major step up from being the lust object of Eddie Murphy's Norbit and Simon Pegg's running fat boy. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Stone's screenplay has numerous scenes where the beautiful Ms. Newton can shine as Condi. There's just one problem: Thandie Newton can't act her way out of a paper bag. She's astonishingly beautiful, but constantly being cast in heavy roles she can't handle. It's like casting Elmo as Hamlet. Stone might be able to wring a good performance out of her, provided he can stop imposing his directorial will on every frame of the film, wrestling attention away from the actors as he usually does.

Newton may share the screen with fellow Brit Ioan Gruffudd, whom Stone, in his finite wisdom, cast as Tony Blair. Gruffud looks less like Blair than Newton does Condi, but I'm sure they can La Vie En Rose both of them to the point where the makeup wins the Best Visual Effects Oscar. In fact, this will have to be done to the entire cast, as James Brolin doesn't look anything like a certain C student from Yale. There's just one problem with the Blair casting, and stop me if you've heard this before: Ioan Gruffudd can't act. Granted, not even Olivier in his prime could have made the Fantastic Four dialogue work, so perhaps I'm being too hard on him.

Neither Dick Cheney nor Karl Rove have been cast, but I'm expecting Stone to do something wacky there too. I sat here thinking who would make good casting for Rove and Cheney, but my brain kept conjuring up Satan and Elmer Fudd with spectacles and a quail. So I'm going to leave it up to the readers. Who'd make a good Cheney? I can see Stone casting one of his former stars like Sir Tony Hopkins, though he'd make a better toe-tapping Larry Craig, along with Bill Pullman in old man makeup as John McCain.

If nothing else, I'm dying to hear the TV commercial announcer say the movie's title and its MPAA rating. It's going to sound like the end of Sesame Street. "W is brought to you by the letters P, and G, and the number 13."

More casting has been announced for Rob Marshall's planned big screen adaptation of the Tony-winning musical Nine. According to today's Hollywood Reporter, Judi Dench and Nicole Kidman are reportedly climbing aboard the train. (Dench and Kidman? Three guesses what company is producing the movie and the first two don't count. Hint: The company's namesake rhymes with whinesign. Already cast are Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, Sophia Loren and Marion Cotillard, though no word if Cotillard actually will bother to do her own singing this time. Now, I've admittedly never seen a stage production of Nine, based on Fellini's great film 8 1/2 in case you were unaware, but while Maury Yeston's score is fine, this is not a show that screams commercial appeal. Hell, would a re-release of 8 1/2 itself even be profitable? Nine isn't a crowd pleaser such as Chicago and even one that would seem tailor made to be one can land with a thud when it's transferred as poorly as The Producers was. I love movie musicals, but I fear if Hollywood goes crazy making films of ones that seem doomed to fail, they may disappear yet again.

Imagine getting the awful news that they were planning yet another installment in the now 28-year-old Friday the 13th slasher dreck series. Now dredge deeper and find that your fears are even worse: They aren't planning another sequel: They are going to remake the original crapfest. It's sounding worse all the time. Now, for the final blow: The producer for this terrible, unnecessary idea isn't even someone who might be able to spin shit into shinola but instead is crapmeister extraordinaire and pretend John Frankenheimer love child Michael Bay. Some casting has been announced, including interchangeable beefcake and cheesecake from shows such as The O.C. and Supernatural. The only question I have is who gets the Betsy Palmer role or all the mental midgets behind this idea too young to remember that Jason isn't even the killer in the first one?