News: Simon Pegg

Former Shaun of the Dead and Spaced star Pegg is, with this week’s Hot Fuzz, making yet another strong case that he’s the first British comic with a real chance to make it big in America since Peter Sellers – but will he be able to maintain the momentum?

He’s certainly got a fair few more in the works – from a planned new sitcom about a pub quiz team (with his Spaced, Shaun and Hot Fuzz co-star and real-world best buddy Nick Frost), La Triviata, due some time this year through to the animated stoner comedy Free Jimmy, for which Pegg wrote the English screenplay (it was originally Norwegian) about a junkie elephant on the run and provides voice duties alongside the likes of Woody Harrelson, Kyle MacLachlan, Samantha Morton, David Tennant, Emilia Fox and Phil Daniels.

But there are also some bigger projects on the way, like the romantic comedy The Good Night, with Martin Freeman, Penelope Cruz, Danny DeVito, Gwyneth Paltrow and Michael Gambon, or former Friends star David Schwimmer’s directorial debut Run, Frat Boy, Run, with Pegg starring alongside Thandie Newton and The Simpsons‘ Hank Azaria.

By far the most promising, however, is Pegg’s starring role in a big screen adaptation of Toby Young’s bestselling memoir of life at a high-end New York magazine, How to Lose Freinds and Alienate People – to be directed by Robert B Weide, best known for his work on the cult comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm. That could well be enough to get Pegg into the Hollywood comedy A-list…

Review: Running With Scissors

UK release date: 2nd February

This mordantly amusing tale of family dysfunction from the creator of TV’s Nip/Tuck is so outrageous that it’s hard to believe it’s based on a real-life memoir. Charting the 1970s upbringing of US writer Augusten Burroughs (who appears as himself in the closing titles), the highly stylised movie is a patchwork of his formative childhood experiences, held together by juicily idiosyncratic performances.

Joseph Cross is sweetly engaging as the adolescent Augusten, who struggles with identity issues after his wannabe-poet mother (Annette Bening) sends him to live with her madcap psychiatrist (Brian Cox) while she finds her creative voice. The shrink’s own clan — including dog snack-munching wife Jill Clayburgh and alleged telepath Gwyneth Paltrow — are hilariously unconventional, camouflaging the film’s lack of emotional depth with their eccentricities.

It’s only in the downbeat final third that the narrative’s overall lack of structure becomes apparent, though fortunately the dialogue retains its enjoyable sharpness amid the gloom.

Radio Times rating:

***

UK cinema certificate 15
Running time 121mins

Review by Sloan Freer

News: Ryan Murphy

Nip/Tuck writer/director Murphy has made a good break into movies with this week’s Running With Scissors, but it’s his next outing as writer/director for the big screen which looks all set to catapult him into the Hollywood big time.

Dirty Tricks, due out in 2008, is looking increasingly like a must-see. Set in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal which saw US President Richard Nixon forced to leave office in disgrace, it will star some of the best screen actors currently working, including Running With Scissors stars Annette Benning (as Washington journalist Helen Thomas), Jill Clayburgh (as former First Lady Pat Nixon) and Gwyneth Paltrow (as the wife of Watergate cover-up mastermind John Dean), through Meryl Streep (as the notoriously outspoken wife of US Attourney General and Watergate conspirator John Mitchell), Jim Broadbent as Nixon himself, with Sharon Stone and Brad Pitt making up the cast, though their roles are as yet unknown.

News: Sharon Stone

Stone’s attempt at a comeback in Basic Instinct 2 has just earned her her 7th Razzie nomination, this time for Worst Actress, so her good turn in this week’s Bobby should prove some cheer. Of her three upcoming movies, however, only one looks set to give her any more good notices, the first two – indy flicks If I Had Known I Was A Genius and When A Man Falls In The Forest – looking unlikely to attract much notice, even if they can secure a release on this side of the pond.

Much more promising is the post-Watergate political drama Dirty Tricks, in which she’ll star alongside Jim Broadbent (as disgraced President Richard Nixon), Annette Benning, Gwyneth Paltrow, Brad Pitt and Meryl Streep. With a cast like that, it should prove something special – but will it be enough to get her career going on the right track again?

News: Gwyneth Paltrow

Following her turn in this week’s Infamous, Paltrow looks set to be on our screens rather more in coming months, following a break of a couple of years to start raising her family in which she’s mostly just appeared in the tabloids.

Next up – out in the UK on 2nd February – is the quirky comedy drama Running With Scissors, about a teenager from a troubled household who ends up living with his psychiatrist’s bizarre family for a year. Alongside Paltrow are some big and up-and-coming names, from her Shakespeare in Love co-star Joseph Feinnes through Alec Baldwin, Annette Benning, Evan Rachel Wood and Patrick Wilson. Could be good.

She’ll keep up the family theme with The Good Night, directed by her brother, Jake. Starring Martin Freeman asa former popstar turned advertising jingle writer who’s having a mid life crisis, the impressive cast includes the likes of Penelope Cruz, Danny De Vito and Simon Pegg. Another British-based movie – unsurprising as Paltrow now lives pretty much exclusively in London – is Love and other Distaters, a romantic comedy revolving around an American intern at the British version of fashion mag Vogue, and co-starring the likes of Orlando Bloom and Stephanie Beacham.

Then come her two biggest projects, bothe decidedly more American. She has just signed on to star alongside Robert Downey Jr in the big screen adaptation of comic book superhero Iron Man, due out next year and sure to be huge. But more interesting is Dirty Tricks – a drama set during the fallout from the Watergate affair, with Jim Broadbent brilliantly cast as disgraced President Richard Nixon, and co-starring the likes of Brad Pitt, Annette Benning, Sharon Stone and Meryl Streep. That could prove very promising indeed.

News: Meryl Streep

The evil boss of this week’s The Devil Wears Prada is getting increasingly prolific, with another six films in the pipeline.

First up will be Dark Matter, for first-time director Chen Shi-Zheng, based on the true story of a Chinese academic awarded special US visa status to study the origins of the universe, until campus politics get in the way. Then will come Evening, another heavyweight flick, as a dying woman reflects on her youth and young love as her two daughters wrestle with her impending death – a far cry from the light comedy of Streep’s most recent outing…

Most promising, however, are two heavily political projects. First, First Man, in which Streep will play a female President of the United States whose husband – to be played by Robert De Niro – sets aside his successful business to help run her campaign. The next is the period-piece Dirty Tricks, based around the aftermath of the Watergate scandal and fall of Richard Nixon’s presidency, where Steep will play the blabbermouth wife of the US Attorney General alongside Annette Benning and Gwyneth Paltrow. A touch of The West Wing? It’s too early to say…