By: Henry J. Fromage –

The film that probably got the biggest boost from the Toronto International Film Festival was David O. Russell’s newest, Silver Linings Playbook. And par the course for him, he’s gushing about his star and talking about all the projects he wants to do with him.  This time around, though, it’s not Marky-Mark, but Bradley Cooper that’s the apple of his eye.  The first, American Bullshit, is the likelier of the two, as it already has Jeremy Renner signed up to play an FBI agent who enlists the help of a con artist, played by Bradley Cooper, in a government corruption sting.  Amy Adam is also cast as the Bonnie to Cooper’s Clyde.  Less set in stone is American Sniper, which is about the sniper with the highest kill total in U.S. military history, to the point where Iraqi insurgents put a bounty on his head.  Russell apparently loves “the darkness inside” Cooper.

So maybe that The Crow remake gets back off the ground?

At this point, I have to question just how many back taxes Nic Cage owes.  As Seeking Justice yields to Trespass then Stolen and Frozen Ground and now I Am Wrath, his filmography is becoming a Jason Statham-like blur of generic D-level revenge thrillers.  So, it’s a bit of a surprise to see Joe come out of the woodwork.  In this one, it sounds like he’ll actually have to do a bit of dramatic acting, playing an Southern ex-convict who befriends a teenage boy from a broken home and works with him to find a better life for the both of them.  Another name in sore need of a return to his roots, former indie darling and current gross-out comedy director David Gordon Green (All the Real Girls, The Sitter), will be behind the camera.

Yes, the man who directed this has a film in the Criterion Collection

Back in the eighth grade, I chose to do a book report on IBM and the Nazis and spun it into a long paper on the many, many American corporations that continued to do business with Nazi Germany even well after the U.S. entered World War II.  I was a weird kid.  Still, the history is fascinating and little explored, and IBM was probably the worst of the bunch, furnishing the Nazis with early punchcard computers that made organizing a Holocaust significantly easier and more convenient.  Well, now that history is making it to the big screen with the help of Brad Pitt, who’s producing and at least for now starring in an adaptation of the non-fiction book.  Exciting stuff, although apparently a Moneyball-like approach is being taken to the script, which, well, okay.

Not sure a preteen daughter, pathos-wise, is gonna cut it this time around.