Some people may consider the New York Film Festival a simple "Best Of" sort of event, but the fact that it compiles selections from earlier film fests and merely showcases them in a competition-free program is what I love about it. For those of us New Yorkers who can't always make it to the highlands of Utah and Colorado or the exotic seaside locales of Italy and Southern France, it's nice to know that major festival highlights will likely make their way to Lincoln Center in late September, early October.

This year, the lineup for the 46th NYFF is being noted for its inclusion of films that previously screened at Cannes back in May. Even Steven Soderbergh's four-hour Che (aka The Argentine and Guerilla), which played to mixed reactions in France, even while picking up a best actor prize for star Benicio Del Toro, has been given a spot. Also featured are Cannes leftovers Waltz With Bashir, Wendy and Lucy, Grand Prix-winner Gomorrah and Clint Eastwood's Changeling, which stars Angelina Jolie and has the honor of being NYFF's centerpiece film. Opening the festival is the Palm d'Or winner The Class, while the closing film is Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler, which premieres a few weeks prior at the Venice Film Festival.

Other exciting big name films include Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky, Wong Kar-Wai's Ashes of Time: Redux, Lucretia Martel's The Headless Woman and Olivier Assayas' Summer Hours. Surprisingly, Charlie Kaufman's Synechdoche, New York, which screened at Cannes, is New York appropriate and is scheduled to open in October, is missing from the lineup.

The complete list of NYFF selections, courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter, can be found after the jump:

Remember how we told you about six weeks ago that it looked like Tom Cruise's next project would be an espionage thriller called Edwin A. Salt? In fact, the news was that Cruise was going to do Edwin instead of the political thriller The 28th Amendment. Well, now it looks like he's not doing either one. He's changed his mind on Edwin, and now the star of the film is going to be ... Angelina Jolie.

I'm not sure I would have considered Tom Cruise and Angelina Jolie interchangeable, but that's Hollywood for you. According to Variety, Cruise was the latest in a long line of actors who have expressed interest in the project over the years, and after he backed out, Jolie threw her hat in the ring. The deal is pretty much set, and it was thrown together very quickly. I guess when Angelina Jolie says she wants to headline your spy thriller, you bring some people in over the weekend to hammer out the details.

The screenwriter, Kurt Wimmer, will make adjustments in the script to accommodate the protagonist's new gender, and obviously the title will have to change slightly. (Edwin A. Salt = Edwina Salt?) But considering Jolie has already played an action hero successfully in Mr. & Mrs. Smith and this summer's Wanted (pictured), I suspect all that'll really be necessary is a find-and-replace search of the character's name. It's not like Wimmer will need to incoporate a scene where the spy gets her nails done or goes shoe shopping.

So now the question is: After next year's Valkyrie, what will Cruise's next project be? I think Edwin would have been a great fit for him. Of course, f I were the one making Cruise's career decisions, a lot of other things would be different, too, so never mind what I think.

Last night Cinematical's James Rocchi was a guest on G4's Attack of the Show, where he and Chris Hardwick spoke about all those crazy Batman rumors spreading like wildfire across the internet. Ya know, how Angelina Jolie supposedly wants to play Catwoman, Philip Seymour Hoffman as the Penguin and/or Johnny Depp as Riddler.

As James points out, these are all "just rumors" right now and there's no way of telling which characters Christopher Nolan and his screenwriter brother Jonathan Nolan have in mind without actually speaking to them. It should be noted that Cinematical has also confirmed that Chris Nolan currently does not have a deal to direct a third film, and if he does hop onboard, they'll have to negotiate something first. But enough of my babbling, check out James above, and much thanks to Attack of the Show for inviting us on.

It has begun.

Not even two full weeks after The Dark Knight arrived in theaters, we officially have our first Batman 3 rumor! (Speaking of, we have to decide what to call Nolan's next Batman movie. Dark Knight 2? Batman 3? NolanMan 3? Lets get on that ...) But anyway, the rumor actually comes from another Catwoman: Julie Newmar. Speaking to the New York Daily News, Newmar says, "Angelina would own the part. My industry friends tell me [she] has made inquiries about the role." She went on to add, "I can understand how it would pique her interest. Catwoman is Batman's one true love. She's tremendously popular with women because she's both a heroine and a villainess. When you look at the staggering box office of this current film, which actress wouldn't want to jump in?"

So is Jolie really looking to play Catwoman in a third (and possible final) Batman film from Christopher Nolan? No doubt Bale and Jolie would look good together on screen, and the woman definitely knows how to hold her own when it comes to action. What do you think? Do you Bat-fans want Brad Pitt's gal in Gotham City?

Man, has this day brought us news of film-based video games aplenty -- one of which you can play for free right now and the rest of which some of you simply can't wait for.

But you'll have to. Wait, that is. They haven't made the darn things yet. Sheesh, hold your horses already.

Trade publication Variety tells us of these titles over the course of two separate articles. One piece points out Universal's plan to crank out several games based on their properties, but only names their highest-profile property at the moment: Wanted. If any of you have seen the film (and a $123 million gross would suggest as much), then you know just how well it should lend itself to the format, what with the bullet curving and knife fighting and Angelina Jolie ogling.

After the record-breaking success of Night Watch and Day Watch (and an early film for B-movie maven Roger Corman, Arena), Khazakstan-born, Russia-based director Timur Bekmambetov makes his English-language big-studio debut with Wanted, a bruising, brawny action film starring James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie. Bekmambetov spoke with Cinematical in Los Angeles about making the jump to big-money moviemaking, the hidden world of secrets behind Wanted's look, the action-film apprenticeship of James McAvoy, working with Angelina Jolie and how " .... we (film makers) are all vampires. ..."

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As ever, you can download the entire podcast right here -- and those of you with RSS Podcast readers can find all of Cinematical's podcast content at this link.

In Wanted, rapper-actor Common plays The Gunsmith -- a cool, deadly expert marksman who mostly lets his bullets do the talking. But meeting with Cinematical in Los Angeles, the veteran of films like Smokin' Aces and Street Kings is warm and obviously enthusiastic about his experiences, talking about everything from his preparation process for playing what he calls "a Samurai warrior" in Wanted to the challenges facing African-American actors -- plus what's good to drink in Prague and how holding a real gun to James McAvoy's head can get you in the moment for your scenes.

Cinematical's podcast content is now available through iTunes; you can subscribe at this link. Also, you can listen directly here at Cinematical by clicking below:



As ever, you can download the entire podcast right here -- and those of you with RSS Podcast readers can find all of Cinematical's podcast content at this link.

Steve Carell scored big this week recreating the role of Agent Maxwell Smart in Get Smart, providing the best opening weekend ever for a film with Carell in the lead. The Incredible Hulk fell into second place for its second week but Hulk and Kung Fu Panda both outdid last week's other new release The Love Guru. Here are the totals:

1. Get Smart: $38.6 million
2. The Incredible Hulk: $22.1 million
3. Kung Fu Panda: $21.9 million
4. The Love Guru: $13.9 million
5. The Happening: $10.5 million

Two wide releases this week, a heartwarming comedy for the whole family and a stylized action adventure shoot-em-up for the older crowd.

WALL-E
What's It All About: Disney/Pixar is back with the tale of a lovable sentient trash compactor. WALL-E has been alone on the abandoned Planet Earth for hundreds of years, but he discovers a new purpose when he meets a robot named EVE. Apparently WALL-E has stumbled upon the key to the planet's future, a solution which the human race eagerly awaits.
Why It Might Do Well: The trailers look promising and WALL-E is written and directed by Andrew Stanton, who served in the same capacity on Finding Nemo, Pixar's most financially successful film to date. Plus, our star has the cute going on.
Why It Might Not Do Well: Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov described a condition called The Frankenstein Complex, which is a fear of robots -- but look at the little guy. Did I mention he's cute? This is easily next week's number one flick.
Number of Theaters: 3,900
Prediction: $70 million

This past Sunday, The New York Times featured a popular City-section story about the first-ever prom held for students of Brooklyn's International High School. In case you don't like to read, you can simply watch the video accompaniment here. And if you don't like to read and you don't like documentary-style videos, and have a lot of patience, you can wait for the feature film, which will apparently be hitting theaters some time in the future. According to New York magazine's Vulture blog, a number of producers are interested in optioning the article, while Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have personally brought it to the attention of Paramount Pictures, where Pitt's Plan B Entertainment has a first-look deal. Supposedly an unnamed non-Paramount studio exec beat us all to the punch by joking that "maybe Maddox and the twins can star in it." Of course, he forgot about Pax and Zahara (and the twins aren't really international).

Actually, the first joke I thought about was the running gag on TV's The Critic about the kid from Easter Island who attends the United Nations School. Then, the second joke I thought of was about Brangelina's adopted children. Then I kept thinking of other things, such as how thanks to Prom Night people might assume this other prom-themed movie is also a horror flick. But that's not so much a joke as it is me trying to think on a studio exec's level (hey, we were synchronous with the Maddox bit) in order to contemplate what they'd call the thing. International Prom? A Prom for All Nations (ala the video's title)? Or will Hollywood appropriately go for one of those song-based titles? Been around the World, perhaps?

The flashy advertisements, the curving of bullets and Angelina Jolie make it pretty difficult to remember that Wanted was originally based on a series of graphic novels by Mark Millar. From early reports (including a review from Cinematical), the adaptation is a loose one, so you might be surprised to hear that Millar actually felt it was an improvement on his work.

He posted his enthusiastic response on his official message board. (If you choose to click, be warned, the place abounds with spoilers.) "Even the biggest change -- the loom stuff in the middle Timur wrote -- works really well. I think the fate thing really made the character more empathetic as the 'killing for fun' stuff would have made him a little hateful. They kept all the best bits and junked my over-indulgences. So I feel very happy as it was a kind of perfected version that made it to the screen. Could not be happier."

Millar also added that he's been approached by Universal about concocting a sequel. "They've asked me how I can develop some of the other stuff from the book into the sequel. We'll see what box office is like at the weekend, but everyone knows this is going to make a LOT of dough. Wall·E permitting." (He actually has a few choice words for the hapless robot, who really shouldn't be held accountable for his release date.)