Just the other day, I shared the new trailer for the bloody, music extravaganza known as Repo! The Genetic Opera, and I noted that the flick was still without a release date. If Ace Showbiz is to be believed, the opera has found itself a new tentative square on the calendar -- November 7, 2008. That puts it face to face with the next James Bond film, Quantum of Solace.

Spies. Genetic repossessors. Gadgets. Song and dance. Bond girls. Paris Hilton. Okay, going back and forth between the perks of each feature isn't going to win this battle. These are certainly different films, but I wonder if it's wise to put them head to head. But even more to the point -- why the 7th? Heck, seeing that it's only one week after Halloween, it would make more sense to zip it into theaters a week earlier -- it might have to go up against Kevin Smith, but it would have the Halloween creepiness on its side.

Stay tuned to see if this release date sticks.

They say truth is stranger than fiction. To that I say "you obviously haven't seen Naked Lunch," but reality is certainly a fertile ground for film makers and today we've got five trailers for films based, to varying degrees, on real events.

The Perfect Game
I've never enjoyed watching sports so baseball movies usually leave me cold, but this one has a couple of things going for it: a true tale of a bunch of kids rising up from poverty to become world champions, and former drug culture icon Cheech Marin playing a priest. Based on true events, a former coach for the St. Louis Cardinals (Clifton Collins Jr.) takes a group of poor Mexican kids under his wing and teaches them the fine art of baseball, which ultimately leads them to the 1957 Little League World Series. There are the usual sports metaphors: "Love ain't like baseball," says Collins' character. "Yes it is," replies one of his bright eyed proteges. I'm teetering between cute and cringe-inducing on that one, but this kind of rags to riches story is pretty appealing and the period setting is pretty cool. The Perfect Game hits theaters on August 8.

Even when I started following the industry obsessively, I always wondered how it came to be that by October or November of each year, there would always be a fairly clear picture of who the Oscar "frontrunners" were, which films were falling out of the race, and sometimes even which movies are "locks" in certain categories I figured the buzz had to start somewhere -- and that to some extent, the tail had to be wagging the dog.

Maybe it starts with glowing advance Hollywood Reporter reviews. Consider Ray Bennett on Meryl Streep in the ABBA musical Mamma Mia!, due July 18th: "Streep is sensationally good in rendering the whole yarn credible and in making dramatically moving songs such as 'Slipping Through My Fingers,' sung to her departing daughter, and 'The Winner Takes It All' to a lost love. It's no stretch to think of her performance in Oscar terms, ranking with previous musical winners such as Liza Minnelli, Barbra Streisand and Catherine Zeta-Jones."

So: is this that fabled "Oscar buzz" we keep hearing about, or just one dude sounding off about a movie he liked? Is this the first step toward Streep being a "Best Actress lock" come December? I wouldn't have put Mamma Mia! (or, for that matter, The Dark Knight) on my Oscar shortlist a few months ago -- looks too silly! The release date's all wrong! But I guess now that I've read The Hollywood Reporter, I'm supposed to think it's a contender. Right?

Or did you know that all along?

Feel free to tell me I'm wrong here, but I don't ever remember a DVD that carried a director's commentary set entirely to music. Maybe I'm nuts and totally missing a title or five, but I can't imagine this is all that popular. Joss Whedon gave TV Guide an exclusive look at his new musical, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (which is just the most awesomest title in the history of EVER!), and in an interview with the director, he says the DVD (which he hopes will make a little money so that the people who worked on this thing for nada can get something back) will include "A musical commentary that is a completely original musical, that is all commentary songs, and we're writing that now." He adds, "We're just piling it on. We're like, we're going to make more fun of the idea of extras than anything else."

The musical itself will debut on the internet for free in three chapters (Whedon calls it an "Internet miniseries event"), with Part 1 arriving on July 15, Part 2 on July 17 and Part 3 on July 18. You can view them all over at the film's official site, which is currently hosting a teaser. Check out TV Guide for a mildly spoilerish review, then let us know what you think about this bold, adventurous project. Additionally, check out this 8-page online comic about Dr. Horrible's nemesis, Captain Hammer, written by Zach Whedon.

A musical commentary? Really? What other films deserve a musical commentary?

[Thanks AJ]

My friends, I just don't know. Falling in love with a real atrocity is a mystery for me. It's not all about pathetically proving my self-worth by laughing at someone else's failed effort: "better to have never made a feature film at all than to make a monstrosity like this! Haw haw! Oh, I'm so very superior." I know I ought to be saving my limited spare time for masterpieces instead of outlandish dreck. But I still have one particular friend who knows where to find this stuff, and we sit side by side on a couch and laugh ourselves into hypoxia. Companionship is part of the experience. But so is the out of body experience ... it's like my brain is trying to reject the very message the eyeballs are trying to convey to it.

Operating out of a small space on Fairfax, the nightclub Largo quickly became more a legend than a venue. Intimate and loose, part of the appeal of Largo is that you literally never knew (I only use the past tense as the club has moved from its Fairfax location to a larger venue on La Cienega in the past month) what, or who might turn up. Largo's where Jack Black and Kyle Gass did some of their earliest work as Tenacious D; Jackson Browne's dropped in to sing a few songs. John C. Reilly has hosted casual, extemporaneous chat shows there; composer Jon Brion (best known for his work on Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia and Punch-Drunk Love) has held shows where he alternates constructing songs out of intricately arranged loops of instrumental figures he records live and composes and conducts on-stage with spirited cover versions of requests shouted out from the audience.

Co-directed by Largo manager and co-owner Mark Flanagan and Andrew van Baal, Largo recreates the Largo experience; loose, smart, random and unique. Mixing concert musical performances with snippets of comedy, the final film makes you feel like you've been to Largo, even as the more elegant notes in the black-and-white composition and the vignettes of the club's rhythm and tempo between the acts make it abundantly clear you're watching a film that was constructed and not just a tape that was turned on.

Above, you can check out the sweet-ass new trailer for Repo! The Genetic Opera. Using a little comic book flair, the trailer lays out just what has happened to the world to make it a bloody, repossession nightmare before diving into the music and clips. It looks bloody awesome, and not just for Anthony Head. This collection of clips brings to mind a gory Moulin Rouge, especially when featuring the Repo Man, Nathan Wallace's house, and his daughter, Shilo (Alexa Vega).

When the first footage of the opera was shown during the Spike Awards last year, the flick had an April release date. Now, it is screening at the Fantasia Fest, which Scott just blogged about, but no theatrical release date has been set. (IMDb says August 8, but both the trailer and Maple's release schedule say it's just coming soon.) Hopefully they pick a date soon, because my anticipation is getting the better of me.

Back in May, Jack Black was chillin' in Cannes, talking about Angelina's twins, and then letting loose some surprising news: a script was written for School of Rock 2. He didn't say much else, so it seemed like one of those early Arrested Development rumors -- something that could be great, but was so vague that it could easily be nothing more than a rumor or a hope.

But it's not! Defamer reports that on Sunday, School of Rock writer Mike White was part of a screenwriting panel at LAFF with Catherine Hardwicke and Craig Gillespie. He said: "I actually just completed a draft of what's potentially the sequel [to School of Rock], and I'm still, like, crying as I'm writing the script. I try to come at it from a personal place..."

Wait. A sequel -- a real sequel -- has been written, and it made him cry? He wouldn't say what it's about, but that he just turned it in, and doesn't know if it will even get made. Perhaps they were just tears of personal happiness, but he did go on to discuss his writing process and said: "But at least now I have a better sense of what it was we created -- what worked and what didn't. I can kind of reboot it." Reboot? What!?

What say you? Are you ready for a rebooted School of Rock?

I was already all sorts of excited for 500 Days of Summer, mostly because it stars two of the coolest actors in the business: Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. Gordon-Levitt has mad talent and a pretty unbeatable taste in projects (though G.I. Joe is an eyebrow-raiser); Deschanel is just all-around wonderful and charming -- yes, even in The Happening. I'd be psyched to watch them in anything, but I'm especially psyched to watch them in an elaborate fantasy musical, which is what 500 Days of Summer has turned out to be.

This is from an MTV story, which has a detailed plot synopsis, and descriptions of some of the film's highlights. Those apparently include a scene with fifteen (15) Zooey Deschanel body doubles, and several choreographed dance numbers led by Gordon-Levitt. The movie is a fractured, stream-of-consciousness narrative about a guy who looks back on his long relationship with the girl who just dumped him (that would be Deschanel's Summer), his reminiscences taking on the flavor of a pop musical.

This is particularly exciting news, since Zooey Deschanel is, among other things, a dynamite singer -- if you haven't checked out She & Him, her wonderful 60's-pop collaboration with indie singer-songwriter M. Ward, you're missing out. She has a sweet, lovely voice, and the songs are killer; try "This is Not a Test." I should also note that Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel worked together before either of them was a Name, in the solid, underseen psych-ward drama Manic.

The IMDb isn't the most reliable source for this sort of information, but it has the movie as being in post-production -- which makes sense since it started shooting in early May. Might it show up at Toronto this September?

OK, so maybe they aren't turning all their movies into Broadway musicals, but it sure seems like it. According to Variety, The Weinstein Co. is out to produce a number of adaptations for the stage, beginning with Finding Neverland, which is expected to hit the stage in 2010 (or re-hit the stage, since the movie was based on a play by Allan Knee). After that, it's a stage version of Pink Floyd's The Wall (apparently adapted from the album, not Alan Parker's 1982 film). Then, other titles in the pipeline include the Miramax hits Shakespeare in Love, Chocolat, Save the Last Dance and Cinema Paradiso. Wait, a stage musical based on a movie that celebrates moviegoing? That's gotta be one of the dumbest things I've heard.

These certainly aren't the first movies to be exploited adapted for the stage, and they won't even be the first stage productions from the Weinsteins, who also had a hand in Tony-winner "August: Osage County," as well as the hit stage adaptation of The Producers and the soon-to-be-a-film "Frost/Nixon." The Finding Neverland musical is already being written, with book by original playwright Knee and music by "Grey Gardens" composer Scott Frankel and lyricist Michael Korie. The Wall also is in the works under the care of playwright/screenwriter Lee Hall (Billy Elliot).

So far, it appears TWC is only adapting Miramax films, from back when the Weinsteins were in charge there, but maybe one day we'll get to see "Grindhouse: The Musical" or a stage adaptation of Fanboys (maybe it can even hit the stage before theaters, at the rate it's going).