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Under discussion:

Dreamchild  (1985)

Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas  (1977)

Being John Malkovich  (1999)

Empire reports that a Jim Henson biopic is on the way, and few people could be more excited than yours truly. However, like Empire, I would hate to see a generic biography directed by somebody like Penny Marshall. Yet I’m not so sure if I like their idea of getting Michel Gondry any better. Maybe Spike Jonze, but not Gondry. No matter what, though, this movie has got to have a creative edge. It doesn’t have to be too crazy. It doesn’t even have to confuse the real world with the Muppet world in a Dreamchild sort of way. Of course, it should feature Muppets playing real-life people from Henson’s life. Maybe take Robert D. Slane’s already completed screenplay for the biopic and cast all the parts with Kermit and the rest. But have a real actor portray Henson.

That would be the most logical and appropriate way of making a Henson biopic, but here are some other ideas, just in case Empire Film Group wants to throw out Slane’s script and start fresh: follow just one night in the life of Henson, specifically the night he went through hundreds of takes of a seemingly simple shot for Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas (see the blooper reel above to see what I’m talking about); follow Henson’s after-life, specifically giving us two-hours of him spinning in his grave due to the poor handling of the Muppets since his death; follow my conspiracy theory that Henson was killed by a CGI assassin; or just have Jonze loosely remake his own puppeteer-based Being John Malkovich with a Henson portrayer in the Cusack role and Kermit in the Malkovich role. OK, I’ll stop before I get any sillier/stupider. Anyway, you see what I’m getting at. Henson really deserves something more than your typical everyday biopic. And it has to be anything but serious.

Vanity Fair recreated a number of famous shots from Alfred Hitchcock films for their March 2008 Hollywood Issue, and they’ve got a story about the shoot on their website. It’s pretty much content-free??????unless we’re really supposed to be blown away by Renee Zellweger’s professionalism and commitment to the endeavor because she waited until she was getting her hair done to watch the Vertigo scene she had been assigned to ape??????but Jeff Wells still finds something to grumble about.

“Of all the actors Vanity Fair could have picked to stand in for Cary Grant in a restaging of the classic crop-duster scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, they chose (who else?) Seth Rogan.” Yawn. Of course, George Clooney would be the obvious choice for the role, but even George Clooney seems to be tired of playing Cary Grant. The whole idea of having people like Gwyneth Paltrow and Keira Knightley star in these slavishly recreated spreads is so milquetoast and boring, that the casting of Hollywood’s new, chubby-nerdy-hot guy as Cary Grant??????especially Cary Grant as Roger Thornhill, an ordinary guy who becomes sort of unexpectedly invincible??????ends up looking strange enough to be inspired.

I did not expect to wake up this morning to a feed reader and email inbox full of stories about the full lineup for the 2008 SXSW Film Festival??????the press release was not supposed to arrive until sometime this afternoon. But The Hollywood Reporter apparently broke the embargo on the information yesterday evening, so now it’s here. And it’s a LOT to process before coffee.

In a nutshell: we’re looking at new films from Michael Almereyda, Ashley Sabin and David Redmon, Joe Swanberg, Mary Bronstein, Lynn Shelton, and Frank V. Ross; Sundance hits American Teen, Gonzo, The Order of Myths, Baghead, and Goliath; and a number of buzzy films culled from recent international fests, including Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Stones doc Shine a Light, Harmony Korine’s Mister Lonely, Christophe Honore’s Love Songs, and Heavy Metal in Baghdad. All of that should be enough to make anyone happy, but of course, there’s also much, much more.

The full lineup is after the jump. We’ll have sickeningly exhaustive coverage of SXSW starting soon. The Festival itself begins March 7.

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