David Hudson at GreenCine Daily reports that the renowned French film journal, Cahiers Du Cinema, will be soon be available in English via their new online conception, e-Cahiers du Cinema. The "e" stands for "electronic" and "English." As a trial run, they've translated and posted 20 pages out of the February issue (including an extensive article on David Lynch's Inland Empire) in both English and French. The decision to move online and translate into English comes "in response to the two great movements of our times, toward digital distribution and toward the globalization of the media."

Still an important film journal, this decision comes as great news for those of us who have desired at one point or another to understand French so that we might read those revolutionary issues of Cahiers back when Godard, Truffaut, and Rivette (with Bazin presiding as a mentoring figure) were hashing the French New Wave out on paper through discussion of ideas. It's also interesting to think about the movement of a well-known paper journal toward electronic form: such a decision certainly points to the future of electronic media.

For an excellent overview of Cahiers history, with discussion on the current state of the journal, check out Girish Shambu's blog post on the subject.

The fully-translated March issue will hit the web March 9th.

From King of the Globe comes the sad and troubling news that the success of Borat has officially killed its own future: Cohen has announced on an NPR interview that he is now officially too famous to try any more ambush-style interviews, as the risk of being recognized has simply gotten too large. Future films, he says, will most likely be scripted comedy analagous to (but hopefully better than) Da Ali G Movie

This casts some doubts on the $42 Million deal Cohen signed with Universal to produce a Bruno, which was almost certainly predicated on the idea that he would produce another Borat. Personally, I'm disappointed that we won't be seeing more of what Cohen is undeniably best at - but I'm also glad he had the sense to walk out on a high note rather than letting it die the slow painful death of denial.

Maybe he'll find a way to transition his remarkable character acting into a new context. Here's hoping!

For fans of Bela Tarr, Tsai Ming-liang, Jim Jarmusch, and other minimalist filmmakers, as well as those interested in involving, heady discussions of film in general, be sure to check out the current blogathon going on for the month of January at Harry Tuttle's blog, entitled Unspoken Cinema. The cool part of these blogathons is that anyone can contribute an article or make a comment in one of the roundtable discussions, so it's a communal film event. Which mean, it also gets the Armchair Director's seal of approval!

So far, roundtable discussion topics have included: "Contemplative or Not Contemplative," a discussion of reactions to the very idea; "Contemplation and Genres," a consideration of examples and types of contemplative film; and "Aesthetic Economy," a further defining of characterstics and conventions set forth by Contemplative Cinema. Go, check it out, and enrich your filmic education!

What with the recent passing of the legendary Godfather of Soul, it is not too surprising to hear from Variety that a James Brown biopic is in the works. What is interesting is that Spike Lee is the man directing it, because it means that there's hope for something other than a straightforward musical-melodrama ala Ray. Apparently, Brown was an active participant in the project before his death, interviewing with the project's multiple scriptwriters. The rights package includes Brown's life rights as well as his musical rights. Brian Grazer will produce the film, most likely to be in production by late 2007/early 2008.

Writing from the Criterion Collection news blog On Five, Peter Becker announced that Criterion will be putting out a new distributing line of DVDs called Eclipse. On the back of every cover will appear Eclipse's raison d'etre: "Eclipse presents a selection of lost, forgotten, or overshadowed films in simple, affordable editions. Each series is a brief cinematheque retrospective for the adventurous home viewer." Becker notes that Eclipse will feature a new series every month of three to five films focusing on a particular director or theme.

The point is, Criterion puts out a limited amount of DVDs every year and each DVD is a labor of love in terms of restoration, design, and commentary, and there are still so many important films out there that need to be seen and are unavailable on DVD. Eclipse will hope to pick up some of that slack, starting with their first series focusing on early Bergman films. Other ideas include Louis Malle's documentaries, forgotten Mizoguchi, Ozu, and Naruse, and, an exciting move, what Becker calls "discoveries". That is: films that are on film critics' end-of-the-year Top 10 lists but never find distribution in the U.S. These discoveries could be both recent or older films that need to be seen. The drawbacks to this project include a lack of supplemental materials to be shipped with the films, and although Eclipse will find the best possible prints, the films won't be full Criterion restorations. But overall, very good news!

As we reported to you last month, two of the three South Carolina frat brothers featured in Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan brought suit against Fox alleging deception and fraud relating to their appearance in the film.

Sadly for them, People Magazine reports that West Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Joseph S. Biderman denied their request to have the scenes removed from the film and the upcoming DVD in a two-page decision denying further claims. The lawyer representing the two boys, Olivier Taillieu, declined to return calls to the Associated Press regarding the judge's decision.

I guess the lesson is, don't get drunk and get in front of a camera. Even (and perhaps especially) if the guys pouring the drinks are the ones holding the camera. A lesson that Girls Gone Wild should have made painfully obvious to college students everywhere long ago.

E! Online reported yesterday that George Clooney's long-time companion, a 19-year-old Vietnamese pot-bellied pig named Max, has died of natural causes. Max was notorious for providing a brief scare for any guest of Clooney's home. Max would meet the guest at the door, or sometimes lie in the doorway, encouraging the guest to step over his rotund body. As the years passed, Max suffered from arthritis and failing sight, but Max was a trooper. Clooney says, "He was as old a pig as the vets had ever seen." Having been a significant part of Clooney's life since the late '80s and having seen various women come and go, Max was, as Clooney describes him, Clooney's "longest-lasting relationship."

Max, you will be missed.

According to Hollywood Elsewhere, David Fincher's new film, Zodiac, is being pushed back a second time, from January 19th, 2007, to March 2nd, 2007. Although apparently the film will be finished and ready to release in mid-November, the movie gets a spring release.

What does this mean for the quality of the film? Your thoughts are as good as mine: does the new release date mean Paramount thinks the movie is good enough for a quality, spring box office showing? It better be. Here's hoping that Zodiac will be a return to form for Fincher. I don't think that I'm the only one who thought that Panic Room left something to be desired. Fincher has the right material to end his five-year silence: Zodiac is a fictionalized account of the infamous 1970 serial killer case. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., and Mark Ruffalo, Fincher has star-power as well. With the right story and the right people, Zodiac should be a sure thing, right? We'll have to wait until March to see if the release date shuffle means "bust."

According to BBC News two of the three S.C. fraternity brothers are suing 20th Century Fox arguing that the production crew took them out for drinks to "loosen up" before filming them with Cohen's naive Kazakh character for a documentary they were assured would be shown outside the U.S. The students are not named in the suit in order to avoid "additional embarrasment."

The students, who were noticiably drunk and filmed saying things like how it's too bad we don't have slaves anymore and asking what the "bitches" were like in Russia, have filed claims that they "engaged in behaviour that they otherwise would not have engaged in" and that Fox "made plaintiffs the object of ridicule, humiliation, mental anguish and emotional and physical distress, loss of reputation, goodwill and standing in the community."

Fox's spokesman has dismissed the suit, saying it "has no merit." It will be interesting to watch what the legal status of duped interviews like those in Borat are determined to be.

After a long and troubled production, twelve years ago Wong Kar Wai's Ashes of Time was released. Unfortunately, as some of these things happen, Kar Wai was not exactly thrilled with the final product (apparently, compromises were made). So according to twitchfilm.net Kar Wai is re-editing, re-mastering, and restoring the film. The film is being sold at AFM by Fortissimo Films under the tentative title Ashes Of Time – Redux. This means a new DVD, and perhaps, a theatrical release (in the U.S. this time?). When released in 1994, the film was not seen outside of Asia.

Kar Wai's Hong Kong-style martial arts epic featured a who's-who of Chinese film stars and Kar Wai favorites - Leslie Cheung (Days of Being Wild, Happy Together), Tony Leung Chiu-Wai (Chungking Express, In the Mood For Love, 2046), Brigitte Lin (Chungking Express), and Maggie Cheung (In the Mood For Love).

Personally, I'm all for a re-release of a good film. Especially with a film that features beautiful cinematography, the big screen offers the only viewing experience that does justice to the film. Hopefully this new DVD version will give Ashes of Time more exposure, and hopefully, we'll see this film at some point in a nearby art theater.

Brought to us by Variety, Universal Pictures genre label Rogue has pledged $50 million to produce Castlevania, an adaptation of the videogame by the same name. Paul W.S. Anderson is returning for his third video game adaptation, after Mortal Kombat and the supremely forgettable Resident Evil.

"You could almost call this movie 'Dracula Begins,'" Anderson said.

Did he actually say that? Bad enough to suffer through yet another ill-conceived adaptation from a non-story (Hell, if an adaptation from a theme park ride is profitable, what's next? The movie adaptation of a building? A bus ride?) but to combine it with the already nauseating "fill-in-the-blank begins" template is almost unforgivable. How strange that such an absurdist release would so well coincide with the posting of an "Open Letter to Hollywood." from our very own Tom Frank

The inestimable Reuters reports that the buzz surrounding Sascha Baron Cohen's biting cultural satire Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan has triggered aggressive interest in Hollywood in signing his next film, centered around the character Bruno a spokesman for gay Austrian youth.

Cohen is a genious, and I hope that they are able to milk this joke for as long as is possible, although a part of me wonders if it's going to get increasingly difficult to land interviews as his profile gets higher. Bruno is my least favorite of his three characters, but he does make sense as a follow-up film, since his interviews tend to be with less famous and therefore more replaceable. Either way, one thing is for sure - since Bruno's main schtick is homophobia, Bruno is sure to be at least three times as uncomfortable as Borat.

Get excited.

Variety is reporting that Fox Animation has picked up Wes Anderson’s adaptation of Roald Dahl’s book, The Fantastic Mr. Fox. The director will employ the stop-motion animation skills he debuted in his previous film, The Life Aquatic. And like that film, he has teamed up again with The Squid and the Whale director Noah Baumbach for the screenplay.

Fox was my favorite Roald Dahl book growing up, so I’m absolutely ecstatic that one of my favorite recent directors will be tackling it. The more I think about it, the more I think a Dahl-Anderson collaboration is a good idea, one that I’m surprised someone hadn’t thought of earlier: both create quirky, socially-alienated characters, and place an emphasis on constructing environments that are colorful and completely unique.

Still, does Wes Anderson’s particular style translate well into animation? It’s tough to tell from his limited use in Aquatic. In the meantime, I suggest you check out Dahl’s Fox, if you haven’t already.

Welcome to The Armchair Director! Admittedly, we’re still a growing, fledgling film journal, but our staff is extremely excited to go public, share our enthusiasm for movies, and start building a community of fellow film-lovers. I’m particularly giddy—I’m pretty sure I whined my way through a good portion of college, muttering through late-night psychology study sessions that I would engage myself in something film-related once I graduated, and, well, here we are! It’s not exactly becoming the understudy to Martin Scorsese or Wong Kar-Wai as I had dreamed, but hey, baby steps, right? I’m equally excited, regardless.

Anyways, get comfortable, take a look around, and let us know what you think. We invite you to join in and contribute to our conversations of all things film.