Harry Potter has got to end sometime, and by "sometime" I mean in less than three years when the second cinematic half of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows sees release. And some people would like to still have a career when that happens, thank you very much. To that end, Rupert Grint -- a.k.a. Ron Weasley -- has taken a role in an indie film called Cherry Bomb, which sounds about as far from Harry Potter as you can get without developing an erotic fixation on horses.

The film, written by acclaimed playwright Daragh Caville, focuses on three teens who set out for a wild weekend of drugs, sex and crime only to see it escalate into something far more serious than they imagined. It co-stars relative unknowns Robert Sheehan and Kimberley Nixon, and is set for release next year.

While Daniel Radcliffe has tried more extreme methods of branching out (mainly by taking that infamous role in Equus, which is coming to Broadway per the above link) and Emma Watson hasn't done very much at all (she voices a character in this year's The Tale of Despereaux, but that seems to be it), Grint has spent what spare time he has toiling away in indieville. Cherry Bomb was preceded by the reasonably well-received and much less racy Driving Lessons, about a troubled boy's friendship with a retired actress.

Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant cast just became a whole lot crazier. Variety is reporting that Val Kilmer and Xzibit are joining Nicolas Cage and Eva Mendes in the much-maligned remake / re-imagining / re-something of Abel Ferrara's cult classic.

Kilmer will be playing Cage's police partner, presumably the straight arrow to complement Cage's cop-on-the-edge. This comes right on the heels of Kilmer being cast in Silver Cord, so I think it's safe to say someone's trying to make a comeback. (Am I the only one who laments the passing of years, and what it has done to one of my biggest crushes? Has it really been so long since The Saint?)

Xzibit, fresh off The X-Files: I Want to Believe, will be playing their nemesis, Big Fade.
Remember, folks, it's a re-imagining, which is why you don't remember any of these characters from the original.

If there aren't shockingly hilarious tales of egos and fistfights from the Lieutenant set, I'll be among the bitterly disappointed. While I suspect Kilmer has chilled with the passing of years, I'm thinking that combining him with Herzog is bound to be tempestuous. Is it too much to ask that Herzog just goes even further, and hires Sean Young and Gary Busey? Perhaps even Mike Myers? Throw the script out the window, and just film the production. I think it would be far more fun than any re-imagining.

Apparently, Hollywood (and all watching) cheered too soon -- a representative for Rose McGowan has hit back at the reports that she has split with Robert Rodriguez, or scrapped their movies. McGowan's rep told People Magazine that "the production of all three films is moving forward with Rose to star." And one of those mysterious sources "close" to the actress insisted their relationship was fine.

Now, naturally we here at Cinematical could really care less about the status of their engagement -- we just wanted to know what was going to happen to those movies. And that all depends which dubious glossy you believe -- the New York Post, who broke the story, or the damage controlling People. We all know those official statements and mysterious sources can mean nothing in six months.

But even if this was all tabloid fiction, it really should serve as a wake-up call for Rodriguez and McGowan. What must it be like to turn on your television, laptop, or radio and hear people rejoicing over your break-up in the hopes that, now, Red Sonja would not be remade? They've even gone so far as to "officially" recast Barbarella with Jessica Alba on many news sites. That has to hurt. So, maybe it's time for you crazy kids to scale it back a bit. Pick one of your three love projects to make (we can give you that much), and then devote your time and talents to a movie that doesn't involve your other half. I can't really speak for McGowan, but might I humbly suggest A Dame to Kill For to Rodriguez?

Even the weirder artists of the twentieth century have been attracted to the allure of Hollywood filmmaking, and Salvador Dali was no exception. In the fall of 1941, the surrealist painter hosted a masquerade party at Pebble Beach during one of his regular visits to the town. Called "Surrealism Night in An Enchanted Forest," the fundraising event, intended to assist European refugee artists, brought out a number of stars, including Bob Hope and Ginger Rogers. It was here, the story goes, that Dali became attached to a major studio production called Moontide. The great German emigre Fritz Lang was hired to direct the movie, and asked Dali to create a three-minute nightmare sequence for the film. Unfortunately, after the incident at Pearl Harbor later that year, Twentieth Century Fox deemed the project too bleak. Lang was replaced, and Dali's nightmare sequence went with him.

Although inspired by the movies, Dali didn't always have the easiest time making them. He would get another chance to inject his hallucinatory vision into American cinema with the hypnosis scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound, but it's his unrealized projects that truly indicate the scope of the painter's ambition. So many ideas, such little time. Dali: Painting and Film, a breathtakingly unique exhibit currently on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, surveys Dali's completed cinematic works in addition to tidbits from the ones that never came to fruition. Marvelously structured to show how his paintings were intentionally cinematic, the exhibit contains all the obvious highlights from Dali's movie career alongside lesser-known productions. The importance in film history of his collaborations with Luis Bunuel remain uncontested; two large screens in separate rooms showing Un Chien Andalou (where the opening eye splicing retains its original gross-out impact) and L'Age D'Or attest to that. Fewer visitors, however, might know about Dali's collaboration with the Marx Brothers on a deliriously strange movie that sounded too good to be true.

We usually don't report the goings-on of Hollywood relationships (be them long term or of the booty call variety), however this one is pretty epic. According to -- ugh -- the New York Post, sweethearts Rose McGowan and Robert Rodriguez are no longer together and no longer getting married (they were engaged prior to this). Why is this important news? Why should people care? Well, partly because Rodriguez was in the process of lining up a few interesting movie remakes (Barbarella, Red Sonja) with McGowan in the lead. One imagines McGowan had snagged the roles because, well, she was boinking Robert Rodriguez. But when there's no more action between the sheets, does that mean there's no more McGowan in the starring role?

The Post claims their break-up was partly due to the fact that Rodriguez was having a hard time finding financing for Barbarella with McGowan in the lead because she's not a big enough box-office draw. I know some of you beg to differ because she's got the hot "I'll sleep with your man if you leave him alone for five seconds and he can put me in one of his movies" seductress thing going on, but could you seriously see a flick starring Rose McGowan bringing in at least $70 million (reported budget for Barbarella) to the box office? Personally, I can't. With Jessica Alba or Charlize Theron or Angelina Jolie? Sure. Not Rose McGowan. (Last time I checked, her ass didn't exactly ignite a box office firestorm for Grindhouse.)

Should be interesting to see what develops from here. What would you like to see happen?

Hey, remember the weeks and months approaching the recent writers' strike, when all of Hollywood panicked and began rushing projects into production and feverishly coming up with contingency plans? Have you wondered why the looming Screen Actors Guild strike and the ongoing SAG/AFTRA catfight have not really provoked a similar hysteria? The New York Times' answer: because producers are calling SAG's bluff.

Or, in the Times' more tactful language: "the film industry's needs have overwhelmed any conviction that actors will actually walk out." That's its explanation for why big, expensive productions like Terminator Salvation, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Angels & Demons are steadfastly forging ahead despite the risk that a strike will send most of their casts off the set, leaving them with half a movie.

Could just be hubris, or willful stupidity. I haven't followed the recent guild developments closely enough to be able to speak with any authority on whether there will be a walkout any time soon. But look: the idea behind election markets (for example) is roughly that the best way to forecast the future is to see where large numbers of people are willing to put their money. That this time Hollywood bigwigs -- in particular, many of the people who will have a say in the outcome of any contract negotiations -- don't seem to be blinking in the face of a possible strike suggests to me that we aren't heading toward one, or at least not a protracted one. If we are, then it looks like a lot of people are going to be out a lot of money.

Mark Millar is becoming a real Hollywood insider these days, a Frank Miller in training. He dropped quite an intriguing bombshell to Scotland's Daily Record -- claiming that there's a Superman movie revamp on the way. While some of his claims could be dismissed as wishful thinking by a man who merely wants to fulfill his Kryptonian dreams, he's certainly talking it out with someone. Says Millar, "I've been planning this my entire life. I've got my director and producer set up, and it'll be 2011. This is how far ahead you have to think. The Superman brand is toxic after that last movie lost 200 million, but in 2011 we're hoping to restart it. Sadly I can't say who the director is, but we may make it official by Christmas. But fingers crossed it could work out, that would be my lifetime's dream."

Now, this flies directly in the face of Bryan Singer confirming he was attached to the sequel. But there's been a peculiar lack of progress with it. He's obviously busy with Valkyrie, but when you look at how quickly the Iron Man and Spider-Man franchises are moving, well, someone's not moving faster than a speeding bullet anymore. Could Warner Bros really be open to rebooting the franchise? The parallels between Ang Lee's Hulk and Bryan Singer's Superman Returns are striking, and I can honestly see the studio choosing a similarly clean slate. But they would be ditching a pretty expensive investment in Returns, and creating quite a controversy in the process.
Far more people loved Superman Returns than Hulk, and Singer commands a lot of geek cred.

It seems fairly certain that Hancock will do decent business when it hits theaters this week, if only because Will Smith rarely stars in a dud these days -- especially when it's his face selling the movie before all else. Whether or not the film has staying power after opening weekend, however, remains to be seen, but Sony Pictures clearly has a lot of faith in its potential: Last week, the studio revealed its intentions of releasing the film online sometime after its theatrical run and before its DVD release, but only to users with Sony Bravia TV sets. It's a bold maneuver, one that assumes its core base of consumers actually have an interest in Hancock -- but the movie will make a profit either way, so it's a reasonable choice for this intriguing experiment.

Left in the dust by Apple's iPod, Sony continues to struggle in its search for a piece of the digital revolution. Company head Howard Stringer recently told the New York Times that the strategy for releasing Hancock "vanishes the memory of the failures of the Sony Walkman." Well, maybe. While on-demand technology has changed the way audiences consume their media, they don't like paying more money than necessary. Asking your audiences to buy a special device in order to access what, at this point, amounts to one movie -- well, that's asking a lot. But it's still a step in the right direction.

What do you think?

There has been a lot of heated debate about that second Hobbit film. Many Lord of the Rings fans will take anything Middle-Earth, even if it's two hours cobbled out of appendices. Others see it as a betrayal of the Tolkien canon, and a blatant money grab by all involved. I readily admit I fall into the first category -- but I certainly don't want to see a bad film just to get a visual Middle Earth fix.

No matter what camp you fall into, however, Guillermo del Toro just made a statement that should please everyone. According to Defamer, he promises they are looking at adapting The Hobbit first and foremost -- and that a second film may not even happen. "We believe there is a second movie," del Toro said. "If there isn't, there will not be. If we find it, we will shoot it, but by God, if we do not find it, we will not shoot it. I am anxious to shoot the book, and I'm willing and able to dedicate myself to shooting the [second film]. In the four books that are in the domain of the copyright, there are appendices and ideas and things that can be traced without risk. But I have to be careful not to overstep. We believe there is a way to create this film and make it interesting, but it's too early."

A couple of people have been griping about Wall-E director Andrew Stanton's refusal to admit that his cute little movie about a robot in love actually contains some pretty upfront green politics, but there's a far more polarizing reference in the film than its harmless pro-environment agenda. It's no major plot spoiler to reveal that, about an hour or so into the story, Fred Willard appears in a recorded message as the mysterious president of Earth's corporate government and orders the ship's captain (Jeff Garlin) to "stay the course." Wait, we've heard this one before: It was the go-to statement used by the Bush administration for about three years or so when describing its modus operandi in Iraq (the term was abandoned when staying the course started to sound like a bad idea). In Wall-E, the context is quite different -- it's an order to not do something, rather than take action -- but hard to ignore nonetheless.

Certain critics with (surprise!) conservative slants have taken issue with this. At Dirty Harry's Place, John Nolte expresses his disappointment in the first paragraph of his review: "Have we lost the wonderful studio who brought us The Incredibles and Ratatouille to Bush Derangement Syndrome?" he asks. New York Post critic Kyle Smith picked up the rant and decided to write his own, even though he hadn't seen the film yet: "This kind of crack, lame as it is, also breaks the spell of the movie by hurling you out of the theater and back into reality."