The Screengrab

One function of film festivals is to provide a home for movies made by well-placed industry insiders who are under the mistaken impression that we're waiting to see what they'll do when they "stretch." Festivals give them a chance to show off their little art projects to a receptive or at least indulgent audience, including fellow insiders and aspirants to insiderdom who will at least make a big show of getting the in-jokes. ("That gross, disgusting security guard character--do you think it was supposed to be Harvey!?") Finding Amanda was written and directed by Peter Tolan, who wrote Analyze This, co-wrote America's Sweethearts, worked on various TV series (Murphy Brown), and is the creator and co-producer of Rescue Me, a crime against humanity that is sometimes miscategorized as a TV show. His new movie stars Matthew Broderick, whose opportunities for leading movie roles are contracting as his neck expands, as a once-promising TV writer who smashed his career up on the shoals of a triumvirate of addictions (drugs, booze, and gambling) and has now managed to crawl back to a job writing a third-rate sitcom. (The at-work scenes come complete with a self-deprecating cameo appearance by Ed Begley, Jr.)

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It’s never good when you ask yourself if something is funny or not. Hilarity, under ideal circumstances, is self-evident. Make no mistake, I laughed watching this trailer for Hamlet 2. But I stopped laughing when I realized the lead was not Meet Joe Black’s Jake Webber. It’s not my fault Steve Coogan looks like everyone’s favorite budget-Tim Roth!

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British comic Russell Brand is the secret star of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, playing the oversexed yet hard-to-hate rock star who takes up with the ex-girlfriend who the hero can't get over. Brand recalls that his character "was originally meant to be an author, very bookish. They very kindly, and fortunately for me, rewrote the part on our first meeting, when I was dressed thusly, in this sort of sexy-licorice, S&M, Willie Wonka, rocket-scarecrow attire. That worked out incredibly well for me." Brand, who was encouraged to improvise in the role, admits to having modeled his performance in part on the battling brothers of Oasis, Noel and Liam Gallagher. He also modeled it in part on himself. As Jay Clendenin of the Los Angeles Times summarizes his career highlights, Brand is "a proud three-time winner of PETA's Sexiest Vegetarian of the Year, the Sun's two-time Shagger of the Year and GQ's Most Stylish Man in 2006 and Least Stylish Man in 2007. He's also a recovering heroin and crack abuser whose bestselling memoir, My Booky Wook, opens in a clinic for sex addicts -- or, as he wrote, 'the terminally saucy.'"

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Here’s one from the “Are You Sure That’s a Good Idea?” department. Entertainment Weekly has our first look at Tropic Thunder, an action-comedy co-written and directed by Ben Stiller, who also stars as an actor prepping for a role in a war movie. According to the report, “when the film's director (Steve Coogan) and writer (Nick Nolte) get fed up with their prima donna cast, they drop them into the jungle to fend for themselves. The actors think they're doing some sort of full-immersion filmmaking, but the danger they're in is very real.”

So far, so…well, not so tantalizing. But the rest of the casting news is worthy of a raised eyebrow, at least.

Hit the jump for a startling look at that face in the background to your right.

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When Sean Harris perfectly captured the hope and despair of Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis, twitching on the stage like a broken electrical cable, in Michael Winterbottom's brilliant 24 Hour Party People, there seemed good reason to assume that it would remain the last filmic word on Curtis and his band for quite a while. Instead, Curtis will be returning to haunt movie screens this fall in two separate projects, both of them labors of love with contributions from Curtis's surviving associates. (Curtis hanged himself in 1980, at the age of twenty-three.) Photographer Anton Corbijn makes his feature-directing debut with Control, a biopic starring Sam Riley, which opens this week; it's based on a book by Curtis's widow, Deborah. (She's played in the movie by Samantha Morton.) Meanwhile, Joy Division, a documentary directed by Grant Gee and written by Jon Savage, features a mix of performance footage, TV appearances and interviews with surviving band members. It's also got interview footage of Tony Wilson, who was played by Steve Coogan in 24 Hour Party People and who himself died last August. Curtis's death threatened to make him the official Rock and Roll Suicide figure of post-punk, a cheesy honor if ever there was one, so it's good to hear Deborah Curtis and other representatives of both films insist that their real concern is depicting the accomplishments of his life, not celebrating his means of leaving it. Even the huckster antihero of 24 Hour Party People, who was not above marketing his dead star as a martyr, finally told the camera that he wished people who never knew Curtis or saw him perform could be made to understand how much fun he was. — Phil Nugent