A new R-rated trailer for the Coens’ Burn After Reading showed up online this week, and though it reminds me of a lot of Coen favorites, particularly Raising Arizona and The Big Lebowski, it initially made me think of Tom DiCillo’s Johnny Suede. I don’t know if you could classify Brad Pitt’s hairstyle in Burn After Reading a pompadour, but that first shot of him in the trailer called to mind his tall greaser ‘do in the 1991 cult classic.

So, here’s a few clips from the earlier film (for the Burn After Reading trailer, go here) in which the title character (Pitt) encounters Freak Storm (Nick Cave, who would later appear in and score Pitt-starrer The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford). Note the conversation Freak has in the bar. It in turn reminded me of the Coens, who always seem to have a variation of “I need my money” or “where’s the money” or something like that. It’s too bad DiCillo never rose to the Coens’ status or talent, despite working with Coen Bros. regulars like Steve Buscemi and John Turturro.

• The Coen Brothers’ Burn After Reading, which made some snippy headlines last month after Focus gave the film an undesirable September release date, has been selected to open the Venice Film Festival. For those keeping track: the last film Focus landed in that slot at that festival was Atonement; three years ago, they used the ame method to launch Brokeback Mountain.
• There’s a long piece in this morning’s Hollywood Reporter on Sex and the City––the show, the movie, the brand––as a New York City tourist attraction. Says Michael Patrick King, director of the film: “The amount of girls coming to New York to have a $17 cosmo — everybody benefited in a great way.”
• 2929 Productions have bought in to two projects from producers Kevin Spacey and Dana Brunetti and Ben Mezrich––AKA the creative team behind the hit 21. Brunetti sums up the appeal of working from a Mezrich literary source: “Guys that normally aren’t readers will dive into a Ben Mezrich story and read it quickly, and then pass it around to other guys. It’s chick lit for men.”

• Focus Features has set a 1000 screen-wide, September 12 release date for the George Clooney starring Coen Brothers film Burn After Reading. David Poland wonders is this is a thinly-veiled dump: “[H]ave The Coens asked to be pulled out of the Oscar race next year? Has the studio seen a first cut of the picture and decided that it wasn’t a racer? Or is Focus just going to pull out the stops for Harvey Milk and pushing this high profile distraction out of the way?”
• “It’s astonishing, not only to think about the challenges Paul [Sturtz] and David [Wilson] faced in creating a regional non-fiction festival that would take place in a small mid-western town during the winter, but also to consider how quickly the festival has earned the respect and goodwill of the international documentary film community—as well as the people of Columbia, Missouri.” Joel Heller introduces a podcast interview with the co-directors of the True/False Film Festival.
• Mental Floss quizes your knowledge of Universal’s classic 1930s monster movies.
• Lindsay Lohan has been replaced as the celebrity face of Jill Stuart by Hillary Swank. Yes, it’s exactly that kind of news day.