This looks awesome . . .

* There’s a constant stream of stories about indie films being acquired by studios — like, say, artist Miranda July’s “The Future” and the gentle Paul Rudd comedy, “My Idiot Brother.” Most of these sound like more or less traditional “Sundance” films (docs, small relationship-centric dramas and comedies). At the other extreme, there’s also been an undercurrent of transgression in Park City this year as three films are said to be pushing the envelope regarding extreme graphic violence and gore/blood.

“I Saw the Devil” doesn’t sound like my idea of a good time though it’s twisted revenge premise has a kind of sick cleverness to. If this movie really is as gory as people say, I don’t quite get the comparisons to “Oldboy,” which was often unpleasant and, I suppose, somewhat shocking and definitely brutal in places, but not really particularly gory — I don’t think I closed my eyes once and I’m, you know, me.

“The Woman,” is a film about a misogynist torturer who eventually gets his that has really divided viewers and caused one gentleman to completely flip out at a screening. Reading Drew McWeeney’s extremely positive review and description of the utterly insane showing, setting aside the issue of the treatment of women onscreen, I sort of fail to see the point of the exercise. Okay, he was traumatized by the movie. Why is that a good thing? Gore and violence aside, in my view, art and that kind trauma may actually be antithetical because it doesn’t allow you any room of your own in which to think. We could maybe use a little more of Bertolt Brecht’s “alienation effect” and a little bit less total immersion cinema these days.

On a somewhat less serious tack, the most popular Sundance premiere with the fanboy set by far is the long ballyhoed “Hobo With a Shotgun,” in which the gore and brutality is mostly, but perhaps not entirely, played for laughs in what I understand is deliberately cheesy grindhouse style. Even so, it sure sounds as if the envelope may be pushed too far for this extreme-gore-phobe, funny or not

Actually, there’s always the matter of festival hype to consider with all of these films. Something about the air in Park City sometimes makes people exaggerate how violent/gorey/scary/upsetting movies are. Remember when “Blair Witch” was the scariest movie of all time?

* Speaking of “Oldboy” director, Chan-wook Park, Mia Wasikowska is in talks to star in his first U.S. film, “Stoker.”

* Yes, the concept that men and women think somewhat differently will be entirely fresh concept for a romantic comedy, I can hardly wait.

* Mel Gibson’s DVD of his new film, “The Beaver” was stolen. Sometimes, the jokes really do all but write themselves.

* A.J. Schnack has some very solid explanations of why “Waiting for Superman” wasn’t nominated and also wasn’t “snubbed” by Oscar.

* Seth Rogen’s going to make a comedy road movie with Barbara Streisand as his mom? It really seems to be happening.

* Another “Hobbit” delay, but a short one caused by a nasty perforated ulcer for Peter Jackson, who surely has had one hell of a year.

* Mike Fleming is claiming a “toldja” on the news that Elijah Wood will be appearing in “The Hobbit” as Frodo Baggins who is, I believe, not yet born during the events of Tolkien’s original children book. The rumor from earlier in the week has now been confirmed and nothing will ever be the same.

* Mr. Fleming also has the latest on speed-crazed Hollywood buying the rights to a book that has yet to be published and the remake rights on a documentary almost no one has seen. At least we know what the documentary’s about, and it does sound like material for a good movie — except, of course, it’s already a movie.

* Robert De Niro will be heading the jury at Cannes this year. This will be his third go-round in the gig.

* There’s been a ton of quibbling on why it’s not a sequel and maybe not even a spin-off, but the fact remains that Judd Apatow is building his next film around the terrific characters from “Knocked Up” played by Paul Rudd and Apatow’s real-life wife, Leslie Mann. I have to admit I find these kind of fine distinctions to be marketing-driven annoyances. Novelists cast supporting characters from past books in leading roles in newer books all the time and no one calls these books anything other than “novels.” Novelists like Sinclair Lewis and Kurt Vonnegut treat their worlds like the Marvel Universe, so why can’t there be an Apatow-verse?

* Ricky Gervais has apparently signed up to play Mole in an upcoming version of “Wind in the Willows.” Ordinarily, I’d be a little bit excited about this news, but this is a project coming from Ray Griggs, who I frankly wonder about for a number of reasons. I’ve written about him before, at least he had the good sense to hire WETA in on the project. Still, if I were a friend of Gervais’s I advise him to stay away. It has a funny smell about it.

* Oscar winning writer-director Paul Haggis is taking his complaints with the Church of Scientology public in an upcoming book-length expose to be written by Lawrence Wright. Haggis is a former member of the church. I’d tell you what I think of Scientology, but that’s a whole other blog post. I will say I think this will be big.

* Danny Strong played the greatest geek ever on “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer” and went on to become a respected screenwriter with his script for the Jay Roach television movie about the 2000 election, “Recount.” Now he’s back in the genre world with a gig rewriting something called “Earth Defense Force,” which Sam Raimi is producing.

* Stan the Man got his star on Hollywood Blvd. Excelsior!

* Ron Howard wants you to know that the “Arrested Development” movie is really still happening. Sure, why not?

* Robert Rodriguez and the other makers of  the modestly budgeted “Machete” got a nasty surprise from the Texas Film Commission, which appears to be reneging on $1.7 million in tax rebates. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, It has something to do with a law against providing the incentives to films portraying Texas and/or Texans negatively. Every film portrays people negatively. This reeks of political selectivity, probably related to the film’s deliberately nonpartisan lampooning of anti-immigrant hysteria and demagogic politicians. “Machete” goes out of its way to avoid naming the evil politician played by Robert De Niro as a member of either party, in fact.

If Texas doesn’t change it’s tune, and fast, I agree for once with the L.A. Times‘ Patrick Goldstein and seriously hope nobody from outside the state shoots a single foot of film in Texas until such time as the state seeks to elect non-mouthbreathers to statewide office. They have, indeed, fucked with the wrong Mexican.

* Alleged flaming communist eco-extremist and actual blowhard James Cameron is working on a possible series of “immersive” 3D films built around Cirque du Soleil with writer/director Andrew Adamson (“Shrek”). Though Nikki Finke in her “toldja” piece merely reprinted a vaguely written, woolly press release. The L.A. Times actually got them to describe the project in a coherent way. The first movie will be a pastiche of all the shows currently playing in Las Vegas with some kind of linking device. More films may follow though what they’ll be, who the heck knows.

* While we’re on the topic of Cameron, the true meaning of “avatard.”

* A bit of news I missed from earlier this week. While all the complaining in the world couldn’t reverse the widely ridiculed R-ratings given to “The King’s Speech” and “Made in Dagenham,” Harvey Weinstein worked his famed pre-Oscar magic on the potentially commercially ruinous NC-17 given to the drama “Blue Valentine,” reportedly for a single charged sex scene featuring a married couple played by Ryan “Hey Girl” Gosling and Michelle Williams. After much industry criticism, the likely Oscar nominee has been talked down to an R.

* Matt Damon is “circling” “Elysium,” the new film from South African “District 9” whiz Neil Blomkamp. “District 9” star Sharlto Copley is already on board, but almost nothing else is known about the movie. Are we even so sure it’s going to be science fiction of some sort?

* You may have heard that the mystery of who killed the widely liked and respected publicist Ronni Chasen, and why, has been mostly solved. Nikki Finke presents a series of mostly very logical questions by a reporter named Allison Hope Weiner that makes it seem unclear whether it really has.

After listening to the details of the press conference, one of my police sources familiar with the investigation questioned the credibility of the investigation and quipped, “If I’m murdered and you find my body in Beverly Hills, please drag my body to LAPD. Even if you have to leave a bloody trail.”

Ouch. Quick, someone call Axel Foley.

* Indiewire has a new editor.

* You’d think he’d be on top of the world right now, but Jessie Eisenberg is going from playing a baby billionaire to collecting “Free Samples.”

* I think pretty highly of James L. Brooks but, Jeebus H. Christofolis, the budget of his upcoming romantic comedy, “How Do You Know,” turns out to be $120 million, says The Hollywood Reporter. Remember, this is a movie where people just talk and kiss and stuff, set in New York, not outer Mongolia during an ice age. They don’t part the Red Sea or fight off hordes of alien invaders or flee the destruction of the planet. Of course, $27 million of that is the salary for Reese Witherspoon and Jack Nicholson, with Owen Wilson, Paul Rudd (getting a mere pittance of $3 million), and Brooks himself all having very nice pay days. All told, the major talent were paid a routinely absurd $50 million .

Subtracting those enormous sums, that still means that Brooks made a $70 million dollar film about people talking in offices and very nice apartments, even if he did reshoot significant portions of the movie. I simply don’t know how you justify that. Also, with that kind of money being spent, you’d think they would at least spring for a question mark cost for the title. (Via Film Drunk.)

* Apparently what the world needs now is a “Clash of the Titans” sequel.

* In an over-the-top stupid moment sure to make “The Daily Show,” CNN used a clip from the most notorious moment of “Dumb and Dumber” — you know the one — to illustrate a story about a man suffering from a truly painful and debilitating illness of the digestive tract. Stupid and stupider.

* Guess what this year’s top movie moneymaker from Fox is? Ready. “Knight and Day,” says Mike Fleming. Yeah, I don’t know anyone who liked it either. I guess we can’t count out Tomcat, or Cameron Diaz, just yet.

* Mike Fleming is claiming a Finke “Toldja!” for the news that Disney and “Tron: Legacy” director Joseph Kosinski are going ahead with a film version of the comic book, “Oblivion.” I’m not familiar with the book so, should I be more excited about this than I am? Of course, having recently rewatched the original “Tron” I’m even less excited about his other movie. I’m sorry, but it’s got to be one of the thinnest excuses for a piece of entertainment I’ve ever seen. A few interesting visuals aside, it’s easily one of the weakest efforts Disney has ever been associated with as far as I can see. It’s lingering appeal is a complete mystery to me.

* As rumors of the day go, I find this one even less believable than most. That idea is that Quentin Tarantino may be “attached” to what had previously been Sam Raimi’s new version of William Gibson’s influential pulp character, the Shadow — who became best known via a popular thirties radio show starring a very young Orson Welles.  I’m a fan of the character and of Tarantino, so I certainly wouldn’t mind this being true. It just feels significantly off from Mr. Tarantino’s many obsessions, though considering his delving into thirties and forties cinema for “Inglourious Basterds,” you never know.

Also, I don’t dig the sort of glib, information-free dissing the character has been taking at various blogs by people who are likely not familiar with the pulp, radio, or comics version of the character but who may know the unsuccessful 1994 film starring written by David Koepp and directed by Russel Mulcahy. (People seem to want to blame Alec Baldwin for this, as if he wrote and directed it. Do people even understand how movies are made and that actors just don’t make up the words and story on the spot?) You can see my response in comments at the Playlist.

* The genius of “Blade Runner” notwithstanding, I’m personally not at all sure Ridley Scott is the right director for it. However, news that David Webb Peoples, the great screenwriter of that classic and the even greater “Unforgiven,” is taking on Joe Haldeman’s Vietnam-era science-fiction classic, “The Forever War” has to be a very good thing.

* According to Cinematical, actor Jay Baruchel (who presumably would have been playing one young sidekick or another) told them that the shelved movie about DC’s Justice League of America to be directed by the terrific Australian director George Miller — a guy whose career is flanked by the poles of “Babe” and “Mad Max” — would have been “dark, brutal and gory.” Wasn’t that movie called “Watchmen“?

* I love Anne Thompson, but I’m nevertheless not sure that taking M. Night Shymalan’s name off it makes the trailer for “Devil” look any better than it is. On the other hand, “The Night Chronicles” is a really unfortunate name. She’s right about the unchecked ego thing, I fear.

* I enjoy the work of Samuel L. Jackson as much as anyone, but to me, even a teaser trailer needs more than a person’s voice to work, even if Joss Whedon is really making an “Avengers” movies. (The “awesome” factor is just starting to sink in with me there.)

* Speaking of Mr. Whedon, he and J.J. Abrams recently go sucked into the ongoing 3-D “resistance” by the New York Times. He responded humorously today, though if someone can explain to me what he actually meant, I’d be grateful. On the other hand, considering that the maybe no-longer-being-converted-to-3D “The Cabin in the Woods”, co-written and produced by Whedon, remains in MGM limbo, co-writer-director Drew Goddard’s question 11 is kind of salient.

* After wasting spending at least $24 or so watching the second and entirely regrettable “Star Wars” trilogy, it’s nice to know that maybe a buck or two of that will be going to various good causes. Apparently, George Lucas, along with other industry wealthy guys Ted Turner and Barry Diller, has taken the Bill Gates/Warren Buffett “giving oath” in which billionaires pledge to give most of their wealth to charity. I could give a political rant about the vast greed and selfishness among the moneyed classes of our time, but the short version is it’s a great idea that I hope becomes an out-and-out fad. As long as I don’t have to watch any more of his boring post-eighties movies, I forgive him everything, much as I forgave Ted Turner for colorizing black and white movies after founding TCM — and not showing colorized movies on it. Now I doubly forgive Mr. Turner.

* Viggo Mortenson and Amy Adams are joining the cast of director Walter Salles’ version of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” to be co-produced by Francis Coppola. It’s been a while since I’ve read the book — which is half brilliant and half kind of silly, as I recall — but Mortenson’s character is supposedly based on the late William S. Burroughs.  That should be interesting.

* And here’s a publication I don’t link to so often. Gabrielle Birkner of The Jewish Daily Forward has a unique confession regarding everyone’s favorite film acting  Jewish American Prince: “Paul Rudd Was My Bat Mitvah DJ” Check this out. Remember, a big part of being a truly good actor is loosing your fear of embarrassment.

Paul Rudd: Bat Mitzvah DJ from Jewish Forward on Vimeo.