Reeling

Several news items have popped up over the last couple of days that are genuine head-scratchers, even by zany Hollywood standards. In no particular order:

- Kevin Zegers and Hilary Duff are in negotiations to star in a remake of the landmark classic Bonnie and Clyde directed by someone named Tonya S. Holly, whose sole previous film, When I Find the Ocean, tells of the adventures of a little girl and her pet rabbit and is described by a poster on imdb.com as "the absolute worst movie I have ever seen - hands down... run for your life!"

- Joel and Ethan Coen's The Hudsucker Proxy is being turned into a musical. I can imagine this scene on the stage. This is probably the single best sequence the Coens have ever directed and one of my favorite stand-alone montages of all time (the shot at the 2:34 mark makes me laugh out loud every time I watch it). It is also, completely by accident, an amusing illustration of what Malcolm Gladwell wrote about in The Tipping Point. But the rest of Hudsucker onstage? I don't see it.

- The words "Happily ever after" will never ring true again after the news that Glen Hansard and Marketa Inglova, the real-life couple from the enchanting musical Once, have split and are now "just really good friends."

- Mondo Kim's, once the world's greatest and most diverse video and DVD store, and a place I used to visit at least twice a week when I lived in New York, now looks like this.

- Benicio Del Toro got up and walked out of an interview with The Washington Times after the interviewer apparently pressed him a little too hard on Ernesto "Che" Guevara's less photogenic side. "I'm getting uncomfortable," Del Toro said as he split. Maybe a more comfortable chair might have helped.

- A week before Watchmen hits movie theaters, Warner Bros. is releasing a DVD in which people read the graphic novel to you, while the camera pans from panel to panel. The whole thing takes five hours to sit through and is a crass and obvious merchandising reach. I'm so getting this on Blu-ray.

- Samuel L. Jackson may not reprise his role as Nick Fury in Iron Man 2 because Marvel Comics is not willing to meet his salary demands. "I would love to do it," Jackson said. "I'm not sure they would love for me to do it." What, the first Iron Man didn't make enough money for you Marvel dudes?

- Elizabeth Taylor once caught the notorious drunkard Richard Harris in her upstairs bedroom chugging her Chanel No.5 during a party after she had cut off the alcohol supply and sent everyone home.

- The Pink Panther 2 is a real movie coming out Feb. 6 and not a figment of my nightmares, as I had originally presumed.