In select cities, a little indie thriller titled Transsiberian quietly opened over the weekend and did fairly well in the indie market (despite the long shadow cast by The Dark Knight's opening), which frankly surprises me. With some folks calling the movie "Hitchcockian" in its suspense, and featuring a cast that includes the enigmatic Emily Mortimer and a shape-shifting Ben Kingsley, I was interested in seeing it myself. But now I kinda wish I hadn't.

Emily Mortimer and Woody Harrelson play Americans Roy and Jesse, who are taking a train through Russia after completing a missionary assignment teaching English in China. Roy is your typical all-American tourist, boisterous, over-eager and naive, while Jesse has worked hard to get over her bad girl past, in which she struggled with alcohol and drug addiction. They meet another young couple, Carlos (Eduardo Noriega) and Abby (Kate Mara), who turn out to have some shady secrets of their own, and Carlos manages to rope Jesse into a dangerous world of drug trafficking. Enter the two-faced Russian cop Grinko (Ben Kingsley) who has interests in Carlos's activities extending beyond official police work. When Carlos goes missing and Jesse was the last to see him, Grinko focuses all his energies on the American couple, and the movie kinda derails from there. To see what I mean, read more

• Variety reports that Fergie will, in fact, join the star-studded cast of Rob Marshall's movie musical Nine, which so far includes the likes of Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard and Judi Dench, among others.
• The fine for Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" has been overturned, the New York Times reports.
• The AP has the news that Ebert and Roeper are both done with their movie review TV show.
• James Purefoy is in negotiations to play the lead in NBC's The Philanthropist, Reuters reports.
• Remember "The Bro Code" from How I Met Your Mother? Well, it's going to be a real book in stores this Fall, writes the Chicago Tribune.
• Over the weekend, Montreal's Just for Laughs comedy festival honored Judd Apatow with the Comedy Person of the Year trophy, according to Variety.
• Battlestar Galactica's Jamie Bamber will star in the UK version of Law & Order, E! reports.
• The AP declares the best albums of 2008 so far.

Source

It's the last day of sessions here at the TCA press tour, and it's NBC's turn to hawk its wares. Just a few minutes ago, NBC Entertainment Co-Chairman Ben Silverman took the stage to clarify a few things about The Office spinoff (and not-spinoff), the network's plans for late night, and more. Some highlights:

• First and foremost: The show in which Amy Poehler was recently cast is not a spinoff of The Office. "Amy's character will never appear inside The Office world," Silverman said. Though the shows will be stylistically and creatively similar (in that Greg Daniels and Michael Schur will be behind both of them), "the show is not set up to emanate directly from The Office."
• There is still the possibility of such a spinoff, though. When Daniels and Schur were developing concepts, they came up with two, Silverman said: One that would start inside The Office and one that was completely outside of it. When it looked like Amy Poehler could be available, they put all their energy into pursuing her for the non-spinoff show, which made it the top priority. But the true spinoff could still exist, "maybe involving characters that are already inside The Office," Silverman said.
• As for details on either show? Not so much getting into those (including a title, a concept, or any other basics) — though there was a promise that Daniels, Schur, and Poehler would release more details soon. The one nugget of info is that because of Poehler's pregnancy, her show — which had been pegged for the post-Super Bowl time slot — will likely premiere in March instead. No idea what's going after the Super Bowl just yet.
• This season will feature "26 to 28 awesome episodes of Heroes" — which we're finally getting some glimpses of. "This 'Villains' storyline that [Tim Kring] has introduced is just awesome," Silverman said. "It's really compelling — just big, fun, accessible stuff."

Some more — including about the Jay Leno/Jimmy Fallon/Conan O'Brien transition — if you read more

"I'm not some ass clown in a green room. I'm a surfer, dude." Hmm. . . some might beg to differ, Mr. McConaughey.

After months of watching Matthew run around the shores of Malibu shirtless in those black and white swim trunks, we now get to see what all that really hard work was all about. The trailer for Surfer Dude prominently features the very tan manjoyment that is Matthew as well as Woody Harrelson (doing his ordinary clueless shtick), Willie Nelson and a bunch of ladies in bikinis.

According to IMDB, the movie is "a wave-twisting tale of a soul-searching surfer experiencing an existential crisis," which sounds almost. . . deep. But let me know if you spot any actual acting going on here because from what I can tell it looks like Matthew and friends just doin' what they do off the clock. To see for yourself, read more

Whether or not you've been keeping up with the new webisodes for the online Heroes companion series "Going Postal", NBC still wants to ensure that you don't forget about Heroes starting up again this Fall. Now we've got a one-minute trailer for the third season (or "volume" or whatever it's called), "Villains."

The trailer's pretty exciting, as we once again see a whole bunch of our old familiars like Claire, Peter, Mohinder, Hiro, HRG and Parkman, among others. There are even a few flashes of that sexy horribly evil Sylar. The end of the trailer is the best part, and pretty funny considering what's going on behind the scenes.

Basically, I can't wait to see this next season because they've had quite a while to dream up exciting storylines and plot twists. I expect a lot from this season — which starts September 22 — so I'm hoping it won't disappoint. To check out the trailer, read more

It's baaaa-aack! Just when you think you're out, they pull you back in! OK, that's a bit melodramatic but that's a little how I felt when I headed down just south of San Francisco to check out the first set of folks lining up to audition for the eighth season of American Idol. Feels like just yesterday we crowned David Cook the winner and yet, here we are, back at the beginning.

And for some people, this beginning couldn't come quickly enough. Despite the fact that it was very early (6 a.m.!) and the line was very long, the folks I met were as pumped as ever, clearly inspired by last season and ready for their chance at singing stardom.

As I approached the line to talk to some of the auditioners, I thought I might have to pry them to sing for me — not so! Turns out, wielding a microphone and a camera around thousands of people hoping to be famous is like holding a magical singing wand. They saw my mic as I wandered by and just started belting away! It was. . . amazing, and their enthusiasm was contagious.

After the jump, watch my video of hopefuls, including a guy whose journey to the auditions made the front page of his local paper, a self-proclaimed "Trader Joe's Idol," and my favorite: A lovely rendition of Boyz II Men's "End of the Road." To judge for yourself if the next Idol will come from this city by the bay, read more

Many thought that breaking Spider-Man 3's record for the biggest opening weekend ever would be difficult, even for The Dark Knight. But the much-hyped and critically adored sequel to Batman Begins shattered many records over the weekend — including Spidey's.

Earning an estimated $155.4 million, Bruce Wayne and gang smashed box office records for the biggest single-day gross in history and the biggest opening weekend for an IMAX release.

According to Variety, Mamma Mia! also broke records by "narrowly beating Hairspray to become the top opener for a musical," earning $27.5 million over the weekend.

That is a lot of money that people spent at the movies this weekend. What did you see? And how many times?

Photos courtesy of Warner Bros.