Now that we've all had a chance to see some of the video footage that has been leaking from the set of Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds (footage that has since disappeared), you might have noticed that the man himself was nowhere to be found in most of the clips. But, according to The Quentin Tarantino Archives, one man who has been behind the camera lately is Mr. 'Torture Porn' himself, Eli Roth. Rumor has it Roth is directing a Nazi propaganda film to be included in the story of "...a group of prisoners-turned-soldiers whose mission is to take down a group of Nazis, and the other follows a young Jewish woman who seeks to avenge the death of her parents by this Nazi group."

The horror director first signed on to the project back in August to play Sgt. Donnie Donowitz, "a baseball bat swinging Nazi hunter". But, I guess Roth wasn't content with just being in front of the camera this time around. QT Archives reports that Roth is directing the story of "Daniel Brühl as a Nazi sniper and GIs on a suicide mission." -- presumably while Tarantino was off teaching Til Schweiger how to do a spit take.

You almost have to feel sorry for Tarantino with the amount of scrutiny surrounding his WWII epic -- think about it, when was the last time a headline about an orchestral score got this much attention? So far, Tarantino and company have managed to keep a few details from spilling with the help of the odd water cannon. So, you may be wondering: why all the mania? Well, maybe it's because Tarantino has been talking about making Basterds for so long -- or maybe it's just because for a lot fans, Grindhouse wasn't the comeback they had been hoping for. Either way you cut it, we may not like what the guy has come up with, but at least it will be like nothing else we've seen before.

Inglorious Basterds is expected to arrive in theaters in 2009.

One of Broadway's biggest non-musical hits this year has been August: Osage County, a 3 1/2-hour comic drama about an appallingly dysfunctional family that completely falls apart when its patriarch goes missing. (The photo represents a typical moment.) It inspired rapturous reviews, won five Tonys (including best play), and won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. I saw it when I was in New York in May and can attest to its caustic, dark hilarity and its vividly realistic characters.

It's been known since at least March (thanks, Jeff Wells) that a film version was in the works, but now that Harvey Weinstein has signed on as co-producer, with The Weinstein Company taking worldwide distribution rights, things have heated up. (Not that this was a surprise, considering The Weinstein Co. co-produced the Broadway version, too.) And now the inevitable problems with a stage-to-screen translation become apparent.

First of all, there's the length. The playwright, Tracy Letts (who also wrote Bug, recently made into a weird Ashley Judd movie), is doing the adaptation. Surely Weinstein will pressure him to trim it down. Plays are allowed to run that long; movies usually aren't unless they're big, sweeping epics. Osage County takes place entirely in one house and spans only a couple days of time.

Then there is casting. The Broadway production had no major stars, no big names. The temptation would be to cast someone like Meryl Streep as the acerbic, pill-popping matriarch, Violet. But Deanna Dunagan won a Tony for playing the role, and while she may not be a marquee name, her performance is so brilliantly feisty and malevolent that she should be allowed to replicate it onscreen. She's earned it.

I'm not exactly sure where IMP Awards dug up this alternate poster for Kevin Smith's Zack and Miri Make a Porno, but for my money, it's an equally creative and eye-catching way to sell the stars compared to the current stick-figures-and-'Porno'-free campaign ... a campaign which, it should be said, hasn't stopped the flick from grossing $20 million by this past weekend, which is about on par with most of Smith's recent work and (again) not bad for an advertising angle that didn't push either his name or the faces of leads Elizabeth Banks and Seth Rogen.

Besides, I really don't think the bright colors and cute animals would have led anyone to believe that the (admittedly sweet) Zack and Miri falls in line with, say, Happy-Go-Lucky, but we'll honestly never know if swapping colors for controversy would've had the same effect. (Hey, I still think that the Canadian poster would've done just fine.)

Check out this new (cutesy?) poster after the jump ...

No matter what else happens in Soul Men, it's hard not to be moved by the posthumous performances of Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes, especially when they appear onscreen together, and more so when, in one scene, they leave a room together. At other times, however, Mac is at the top of his comedic game. He has the power to make us forget that anything is wrong in the world, including the fact that it has lost two of its best and brightest.

In Soul Men, Mac plays Floyd Henderson, one third of a legendary 1960s soul music trio. In the 1970s, the group's lead singer Marcus Hooks (played in flashbacks and photos by John Legend) embarked upon a solo career, leaving Floyd and his bandmate Louis Hinds (Samuel L. Jackson) in the lurch. They tried to continue alone, but quickly broke up due to "creative differences," i.e. they fought over a woman. Now Marcus has passed away and Floyd and Louis have been invited to perform in a tribute show at the Apollo. And since Louis doesn't fly, they must drive cross-country, which gives them plenty of time to fight and bicker. (Isaac Hayes appears relatively briefly, as himself, at the tribute.)

Of all the showings, of all the movies, of all the days, of all the theaters, of all the towns in all the world -- she walks into mine. Maybe six years old, dragging a jacket and followed close by her probable brother (I'd say around twelve). They come in and sit beside who appears to be their oldest brother (eighteen perhaps?) and their mother, who continues to text and talk away through the movie they already missed nearly an hour of.

And they're all sitting a row away from me.

I dig Kevin Smith. Always have. OK, fine, I didn't think Mallrats was all that funny and, sure, I'd agree with the perpetually self-deprecating director when he criticizes his own "visual style," but I'm no hater. The fact that Smith is just about my age, has a sense of humor that's oddly in touch with mine, and has a background that's eerily similar to my own means I'm always rooting for the guy to succeed. And I think his latest comedy is about to help him succeed big-time.

Although he's been peddling his own brand of potty-mouthed comedy since 1994, Smith seems more or less reinvigorated by the successes of a producer named Judd Apatow. Starting with The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Apatow has written, produced, and/or directed some of the most popular R-rated comedies of the last two decades. Kevin Smith has been doing sort of the same thing, only on a much smaller scale and with an approach best described as "fan friendly." (As in, Smith makes movies for his established fanbase.) But with Zack and Miri Make a Porno, the New Jersey knucklehead has elevated his game in almost every conceivable fashion. (As in, people who've never even seen a Kevin Smith movie might actually buy a ticket to this one.)

If they got some sort of financial bonus for every year they kept an unreleased movie on the shelves, I could understand it -- but this is getting a little ridiculous. According to a rather interesting L.A. Times piece, the Weinsteins are taking all their movies (save for Zack and Miri, The Reader, and perhaps the inevitably brilliant Extreme Movie) and bumping them back to next year. That includes some oft-delayed titles like Killshot and Fanboys, as well as higher-profile stuff like Crossing Over (with Harrison Ford and Sean Penn) and Shanghai (with John Cusack). Ah yes, and the highly-anticipated adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Cormac McCarthy novel The Road.

Despite the fact that The Weinstein Co. is losing employees by the fistful, Harvey W. insists that the reasons for the delays are legit: Killshot he wants to hold for Mickey Rourke's The Wrestler; Fanboys is waiting for a Comcast promotion in January; Crossing Over deserves to enter a non-crowded marketplace; and Shanghai isn't even finished yet. Regarding The Road ... hmph, it never came up.

The last time we checked in with Tony Jaa, he was alternately tearful and demanding. The acrobatic Thai martial arts star of Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior and The Protector walked off the set of his big-budget directing debut, Ong-Bak 2 (which is not, despite its title, a direct sequel), and disappeared into the jungle earlier this year, reemerging two months later amidst press conferences and legal recriminations.

Among other things, Jaa demanded more money to be added to the budget and the hiring of his friend, veteran action choreographer and director Panna Rittikrai *. The production company wanted Prachya Pinkaew, who directed Jaa in Ong-Bak and The Protector before the two had a falling out, to step in and oversee the completion of the film. At least some of Jaa's demands must have been met, since he returned to work, more money was poured into the production, and Rittikrai came on board.

Was all the trouble worth it? Judge for yourself. The film is on track to meet its release date of December 4 and a trailer is playing in local cinemas, reports Wise Kwai's Thai Film Journal. He found the trailer on YouTube and notes: "It's really best seen on the big screen. I can't describe well enough how great I think it looks." We've posted the trailer after the jump.

That headline seems to be a bit harsh, considering that Dimension Extreme recently gave me very fine DVDs of Teeth, Diary of the Dead, Inside, and Welcome to the Jungle -- but those flicks were just pick-ups. To get a better example of what Dimension plans to produce for next year, we look at titles like Feast 3 and a new version of Children of the Corn. Also on tap: A new trilogy from writer/director Marcus Dunstan called Midnight Man, a zombie flick called Dead By Daylight, another Pulse sequel, and (for some reason) a follow-up to Hell Ride.

According to Variety, the Weinsteins aim to copy the video technique they used a few years back when they made money on the (rather lame) sequels to Hellraiser, From Dusk Till Dawn, The Crow, and The Prophecy. But at least I enjoyed Feast 2, so that kind of makes up for Pulse 2. And yes, apparently there will be more Halloween flicks, but no word on if Rob Zombie will be involved. In total Dimension has 18 new video titles lined up for 2009, but apparently they're keeping quiet on a bunch of them.

On the theatrical front, Dimension is still working on that 3-D Piranha remake ... and don't they still own the rights to Stephen King's Cell? What gives there?