The beautiful Marisa Tomei will be starring opposite George Clooney and Ryan Gosling in "Ides of March," which will premiere at the next Venice Mostra.

In June 2009, O’Brien graduated from Late Night on NBC, replacing Jay Leno on the Tonight Show and knocking him back to an ill-conceived 10 PM slot; seven months later, due to poor ratings all around and complaints from NBC affiliates, Leno’s show was moved back to 11:35 PM, and O’Brien was asked to take a 12:05 AM slot. He refused, pointing out that an after-midnight slot isn’t “the Tonight show,” and walked away with $45 million. Not too shabby—most of us would have jumped at such an opportunity, and we wouldn’t get squat if we turned it down. But as the movie makes clear, Conan O’Brien is a wreck without an audience. When the filmmakers ask him if he’s ever happy out of the spotlight, he glares at them, and he doesn’t seem to be joking around. For the first time, Conan’s freakish height, his chuckle-under-the-breath Irish humor—laced with contempt even when goofily self-mocking—is more intimidating than funny.

Ever notice dead walls, those hidden side of buildings, the façade with sometimes one single tiny window dead in the center? It’s vexing, that window—it raises questions, like why did that one person get a window and not everyone else in the building? Those walls, silent enigmas only architects and city planners could decode, are called “medianeras” in Spanish. New York’s medianeras, visible from far, are often covered with the half-erased brand names of yore or huge banners advertising running shoes or rappers.

First-time Argentine filmmaker Gustavo Taretto has made a movie chronicling solitude and the city on the theme of those hidden surfaces—it’s called, “Medianeras”; the idea of the film being that, behind that solitary window lives a human being in search of a meaningful connection.

For your consideration: Josh Hutcherson as a Screen Comment Person To Watch. Eighteen year-old Josh Hutcherson will soon be appearing in “The Hunger Games,” which has got to be one of the most talked-about movie in decades. He has the lead roles in this book adaptation which, it is now known, will spawn sequels, prequels, and plenty of work for the young thespian to sink his sharp teeth in.

Venice is gearing up for its 68th Mostra, scheduled to run from August 31 to September 10 and opening with George Clooney’s “The Ides of March,” in competition. The film, based on the play “Farragut North” by Beau Willimon, is the timely story of a U.S. governor, the democrat Mike Morris, running for president.

Screen Comment critic Lita Robinson reviews this brand-new documentary by first-time director Cindy Meehl.

"...Buck’s hard-luck backstory provides the thrust of this documentary: his father beat him and his brother relentlessly after his mother died; the two were eventually placed in a foster home.

A trick rider from the age of three, Buck was around horses his whole life, and attributes his psychic connection to horses with his own experiences of what it’s like to be dead-frightened of another person..."

For the first time since he was in his 2006 picture “Scoop,” Woody Allen has given himself a part in his next film, which has the working title of “The Bop Decameron” and is due to start filming in Rome in July. The Decameron is the name of Boccacio’s erotic 14th-century stories, often made into film, most famously by Pier Paolo Pasolini in 1971 and also by Fellini/de Sica et al for the 1962 "Boccacio 70." Alec Baldwin, Penelope Cruz, Judy Davis, Jesse Eisenberg, Ellen Page and Roberto Benigni star. Thus, year in, year out, the director pays his tithe to the gods of cinema, this time around surely especially buoyed by the resounding and well-deserved success of his multi-actored, multi-period “Midnight in Paris.”