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: Brittany Murphy

Having teamed up with her Sin City co-star Elijah Wood as the voice of the penguin love interest in this week’s Happy Feet, Murphy looks to be going back to eschewing the traditional roles for up and coming starlets for her next movie, The Ramen Girl. In what could sound like a shameless rip-off of Lost in Translation, she’ll be heading off to Tokyo as an American woman who splits up with her boyfriend in the Japanese capital and, desperately looking for direction, decides to train as a Ramen noodle cook under Japanese household name Toshiyuki Nishida’s strict master chef. Expect culture clashes galore.

After her trip to the Land of the Rising Sun, Murphy will be off to even more exotic territory in surreal comedy/fantas/drama The Other Side, pitched as a cross between Beetlejuice, Amelie and Alice in Wonderland. Based around a scientist’s exploration of strange goings on on a remote island, Murphy joins a cast that includes the impressive likes of Jim Broadbent, Tim Roth, Anjelica Huston, Giovanni Ribisi and Jason Lee – if they do it right, it could prove in interesting Tim Burton-style slice of weirdness.

Finally, Murphy will be going back to the role that first brought her to many people’s attention, that of Clive Owen’s girl Shellie in Sin City 2. Owen will return as well, alongside another impressive cast that includes actors old and new like Rosario Dawson, Michael Madsen, Jessica Alba, Michael Clarke Duncan, Devon Aoki, Mickey Rourke and – rumour has it – possibly also Angelina Jolie. Either way, if you liked the last slice of ultraviolent, super-stylised noirish action, it’s pretty certain that the wait until its release (possibly Spring 2007, possibly not) will be a long one.