Trailer - Gemma Arterton is 'Tamara Drewe'

His latest is the graphic novel adaptation Tamara Drewe, which itself adapts Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd. Gemma Arterton, current British It-Girl, plays the title role, a young woman who grew up to look like Gemma Arterton (after a nose job) and returns to her hometown in the English countryside. She has an immediate effect on the men around her. This looks like pretty lighthearted stuff, and that's fine; there's room for that, too, especially as we move forward into the more serious time of year. The film already played Cannes and has a date at the Toronto International Film before it opens in theaters. Appropriately, the UK gets it first (September 10th), and then it arrives in the US on October 8th.

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Trailer - The Documentary 'Great Directors'

This month, the documentary Great Directors arrives in a few theaters around the country, and it's exactly what you'd think it would be about: Filmmakers, discussing their craft, their own work, and their influences.

The film features some very influential names and a few that, for American audiences, are probably yet to be discoverd: Bernardo Bertolucci, David Lynch, Stephen Frears, Agnes Varda, Ken Loach, Liliana Cavani, Todd Haynes, Catherine Breillat, Richard Linklater, and John Sayles. We've got the trailer as well as separate discussions with Todd Haynes and David Lynch, who talks candidly about the failure of Dune. And I hear if all goes well, I hear documentrix Angela Ismailos will make a sequel about second-rate hacks like Stephen Sommers, so that's exciting. (Actually, she is working on a sequel, which will feature more Euro directors and Asian filmmakers as well).

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Stephen Frears Reteaming with 'High Fidelity' Writer

High Fidelity should have done better at the box office a million years ago. It did OK considering - $27 million plus about another $20 million internationally, but I think Disney was probably the wrong place to distribute it, and it probably never made a big impression on a lot of people until it hit the home video market.

One of the things the film shows is the versatility of director Stephen Frears (The Queen). It doesn't hurt that they had a fantastic Nick Hornby novel to work from, and now, a decade later, Frears and High Fidelity screenwriter D.V. DeVincentis might reunite to tackle "a dramedy set in the world of geeky gamblers," according to The Hollywood Reporter. The project is an adaptation of the upcoming memoir Lay the Favorite, Take the Dog by Beth Raymer, which is basically 21 with middle-age guys.

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Gemma Arterton Becomes Frears' 'Tamara Drewe'

I haven't seen enough of Gemma Arterton - and most likely, neither have you - to say whether or not she's worth the build-up. Probably the last time a young British starlet emerged like this was Keira Knightley, who, it is safe to say, has turned out to be a much better investment than you would've thought six years ago. In fact, it's hard to imagine Atonement and The Duchess even existing without her.

We'll see what the future holds for Arterton, but at the very least, we know she'll be busy. The other Bond girl from Quantum of Solace, Arterton will appear in Clash of the Titans and Prince of Persia next year, as well as a new Wuthering Heights, so by the time Tamara Drewe rolls around, we'll have a better idea of what she can do. Drewe is a live-action adaptation of the graphic novel by Posy Simmonds being directed by Stephen Frears, which is a bit like giving I.M. Pei a bunch of scrap metal and wondering if he can make it work. Frears is the real deal, and for a guy with two Oscar nominations for Best Director and High Fidelity in the last 20 years, he sure doesn't get that kind of respect in most circles.

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