That improbable release date quoted in the Entertainment Weekly story about W? Variety has confirmed it. Apparently, Lionsgate is all set to release Oliver Stone’s George W. Bush movie on October 17…even though it’s not even going to begin shooting until May 12. I’m sure it’s technically possible to finish casting, shoot, edit and promote an ensemble cast biopic about the president of the United States in five months (actually, I’m not sure, but I’ll give Stone the benefit of the doubt). I’m just not sure such a total rush job is really the best breeding ground for a great work of political criticism. Hope I’m wrong!

• Are real celebrities now taking self-parody cues from an unusually trite episode of Entourage? The same morning that Paramount announces a major acquisition for producer Brad Pitt and the production company Pitt started with former wife Jennifer Aniston, Aniston announces that she’s starting her own production company! Through which she’s going to make movies  “about distinct characters that embody something relatable and relevant about human nature’s double-sided coin of vulnerability and mettle.” Anything you can do, I can do better! Even if you maybe married the homewrecker you knocked up whilst trying to rebuild New Orleans with your multi-culti band of orphans!
• Richard Brenner, described as Toby Emmerich’s “right-hand man,” will stay on at the new New Line as president of production.
• Variety has a raft of release dates for fall Oscar hopefuls, including Sam Mendes’ Revolutionary Road, David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Ron Howard’s adaptation of Frost/Nixon.

Via The Reeler comes news that Wong Kar Wai’s My Blueberry Nights, the Hong Kong auteur’s English language debut, which opened the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, has been bumped from its Valentine’s Day release date to early April. Release date delays of multiple months are rarely considered a positive sign––especially when we’re talking about a film that was mostly excoriated by the international press at the one and only film festival at which it screened––but in this case, I don’t know.

The Weinsteins haven’t started to promote Blueberry in earnest, so it’s not like they’re throwing away money already spent. There’s plenty of datey competition the first two weeks of February (although, it should be noted, nothing remotely arty or adult), with TWC’s own Diary of the Dead slotted in as Valentine’s counter-programming on the 15th. If nothing else, moving Blueberry to April gives the struggling Weinsteins time to support it without dividing their resources, which is what I blame for their inability to effectively platform either Control or I’m Not There.

But in that case, why not put it at the end of the month and try to relaunch it at Tribeca––a festival that, at least historically, LOVES throwing big, stupid premieres to launch star-studded product? Maybe this is actually a sign that Tribeca meant it when they said they were going to downsize and generally try to be less ridiculous. If so, good news all around!

It’s the news Richard Kelly geeks have been waiting 15 months for: Southland Tales, the long-awaited film from the Donnie Darko auteur, has been given a release date. According to indieWIRE, Sony, Destination Films and Samuel Goldwyn are partnering to put the film in U.S. theaters on November 9th. November and December are usually reserved for “prestige” releases. Could this mean that a year and quarter worth of editing has somehow managed to transform Southland from Cannes pariah to possible awards contender? We can’t wait to find out.

More on Southland Tales:

Southland Tales still in limbo

Southland Tales: What’s The Deal?

Rare is the year that a studio moves up a release date, in order to ensure that their film is “the first Western in the marketplace.” But such is the case this fall, as Lionsgate has decided to open James Mangold’s 3:10 to Yuma a month ahead of schedule, in order to get a jump on the competition (ie: The Coen Brothers’ No Country For Old Men, and The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, starring Brad Pitt). But while Lionsgate might have dodged their genre competition, September’s an increibly crowded month for “prestige” releases; still, 3:10’s biggest competition on that particular weekend will be hardly-fearsome The Nanny Diaries.

Spike Lee held another press conference in Italy yesterday, in which he wowed the local journalists with his usual “don’t call me mainstream, I’m just here to scout locations for my $45 million film” bon mots. Amongst other revelations, Lee intimated that recent success has hardly made his life in Hollywood any easier. “My last feature film, Inside Man, was my most successful so far, and I was naive enough to think that that meant I could go from there and make any film I wanted to make. But I was very, very wrong about that.”

Apparently attempting to replicate the, um, success of Bewitched, Nicole Kidman will produce and star in a wacky romantic comedy called Monte Carlo.