Molly Parker (Deadwood) to play the wife of Callum Keith Rennie's (Californication) character in a Canadian cop drama? PINCH ME. I must be dreaming.

While Rennie was in L.A. working this summer, he was offered the lead role in Shattered, a pilot for Canwest Global about a Vancouver ex-cop traumatized by the murder of his family. The trauma has left the character with dissociative identity disorder, wherein the victim manifests multiple personalities. Writer Rick Crew's rendering is a sort of Beautiful Mind meets CSI, as Rennie's character shares an apartment with those personalities -- a tough guy (Colin Cunningham) a small boy (Quinn Lord) and a teen computer whiz (Chad Krowchuk).

Rennie's character assumes those personalities outside the apartment, as he helps a cop (Toronto's Laura Jordan) solve crimes.

In an interview with E!Online, Rennie said that ( SPOILER ) (THR, Canada.com) [imdb]

New featurette for Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief, starring Logan Lerman, Alexandra Daddario, Brandon T. Jackson, Uma Thurman, Pierce Brosnan, Kevin McKidd, Rosario Dawson, Sean Bean, and Steve Coogan. [imdb]

Aunjanue Ellis (vampiress Diane on True Blood) will play Jane and Lisbon's new boss on The Mentalist. (THR)

Marshall Allman (Prison Break) and Grant Bowler (Ugly Betty) join the cast of True Blood in recurring roles. ( SPOILERS ) (THR, Spoiler TV)

Paul Greengrass has walked away from Bourne 4 - with Matt Damon soon to follow? (Hollywood Elsewhere)

Christopher Eccleston (Doctor Who) and Naoko Mori (Torchwood) will play John Lennon and Yoko Ono in Naked Lennon. (Dark Horizons)

(Source)

I was just accosted by half a dozen masked felons all screaming for candy! We do not do trick-or-treating in Australia, kids. Nor do we keep candy in this house. However, fearing one year's bad luck or whatever misfortune is supposed to land on my house if I turned them away, I ended up handing over a Fairtrade chocolate bar for the little monsters to fight over.

Trailer for Sam Taylor-Wood's film about the young John Lennon (Aaron Johnson), Nowhere Boy. Kristen Scott-Thomas, Thomas Sangster, Anne-Marie Duff, and David Morrissey also star. [imdb]

New trailer for The Road, directed by John Hillcoat and based on the Cormac McCarthy novel. [imdb]

Angelina Julie is reportedly in talks for the female lead in Ridley Scott's Gucci, which chronicles the wild and glamorous story of the Gucci family in the 1970s and '80s, when its 153 shops moved $500 million in product annually. Jolie would play Patrizia Reggiano, who was sentenced to 29 years in jail for plotting the murder of her ex-husband, Maurizio Gucci. (Coming Soon)

Director-producers Scott McGehee and Dave Siegel (The Deep End) are developing a film based on Paulo Coelho's bestselling novel The Alchemist. (Coming Soon)

SyFy is cashing in on the vampire craze. The cable network has ordered 13 episodes of an US remake of the British supernatural drama Being Human, about three twentysomething flatmates: a werewolf, a ghost and a vampire. (THR)

A new clip from The Twilight Saga: New Moon.

True Blood spoilers from the writers' panel at the Paley Center. More spoilers were revealed at EW.

Australia's submission for the foreign language Oscar, Samson and Delilah, was runner-up for best film at the London Film Festival! Jacques Audiard's A Prophet took best picture, as well as best director, best actor (Tahar Rahim), and best supporting actor (Niels Arestrup). Best actress went to Abbie Cornish for Bright Star, and best supporting actress to Rosamund Pike for An Education. I haven't seen a single one of these films yet, not even the Australian one. This must be remedied! (Film Experience)

Emma Lung (who I loved on the Aussie drama The Cooks) and Ian Somerhalder (Lost) will lead the cast of the romantic gothic fairy tale Cradlewood. Described by its producer as an "American-style 'Pan's Labyrinth'" in tone and mood, it centers on an Australian woman living in Boston with the seemingly perfect man (Somerhalder), who is heir to an incredible fortune. However, his family history is swirled in a legend that tells of a pact made with a demon which ensures that whenever a boy is born into the family, the father is killed. The heir suspects his girlfriend is pregnant, and after strange events occur, he comes to believe he will die if he continues to fall in love. (THR) [imdb]

Character banners for supernatural action movie Legion, starring Paul Bettany as the gun-totting archangel Michael. [imdb]

TV Guide talks with Alan Ball about season 3 of True Blood. Contains spoilers. ( Two words that had me excited: )

Behind-the-scenes video from the filming of Robert Redford's The Conspirator in Savannah. The period drama about the trial of Mary Surratt, the sole women charged for her role in the conspiracy to kill President Lincoln, stars Robin Wright Penn as Surratt, James McAvoy as her lawyer Frederick Aiken, Evan Rachel Wood as Anne Surratt, Justin Long as Aiken's best friend, and Toby Kebbell as Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth. Other cast members that I've found out about since yesterday include Alexis Bledel (Gilmore Girls) as Aiken's wife, Tom Wilkinson (John Adams) as Aiken's mentor and US Senator Reverdy Johnson, and Kevin Kline as Edwin Stantin, Lincoln’s War Secretary. [imdb]

Jace at Televisionary looks at a new BBC mini-series, Occupation, about three British ex-servicemen who return to Iraq after their tour of duty has ended - one (James Nesbitt) following an Iraqi woman he's in love with, one (Stephen Graham) as an independent contrator, and one (Warren Brown) out of an altruistic desire to help. [imdb]

PopMatters' wrap-up of True Blood season two. I agree with most of what Chris Conaton says, especially the part about Tara (who I love on principle, but who was really hard done by this season) and Eggs.

( S2 spoilers! )

You know the really interesting thing about the HBO website's tableau (a triptych of town, Maryann, and Sookie) for "Beyond Here Lies Nothing"?

Bill isn't even in it. But, oh look, who's coming toward Sookie unseen from behind?

(IN YOUR FACE.)

True Blood on Jerry Springer. (Bonus: Out-takes from "I Will Rise Up.")

( Hilarious )

If you've known me on this LJ for some time, especially since the tortured last days of Alias, or the big twists in the character of Leoben in Battlestar Galactica, you might have worked out that I have a rather laissez-faire relationship with canon characterisation. My MO has generally been not to sentimentalise, but to just go along with each new revelation that canon brings - whether it's Sark's growing feelings towards Lauren, Leoben's rape-like tendencies, or every change that Alan Ball has brought to Eric Northman - adapting my own view of the character each time. As Stephen Mitchell said in The Second Book of the Tao (not that he would know anything about the agony and the ecstasy of fandom):

"Living in serenity means being open to whatever life brings. When the Master looks forward, there are infinite possibilities; when he looks back, there is only one. What happened is always the best thing that could have happened, because it's the thing that did happen."

You are always free to imagine alternative possibilities, that's the essence of storytelling, but denying something that happened just because it doesn't fit with your image of that character in your head is not going to change the fact that it did.

Where am I going with this? Alan Ball has finally said publicly that he might be incorporating a major Bill/Sookie plot-point from the books into season three. It's the same coy teasing (have to keep that "element of surprise") that we've gotten from the start, but Team Bill is up in arms, ( *spoilers* )

Just spent the last 5 hours in the library reading about the trafficking of women for the sex industry and underage Thai prostitutes within the context of globalisation and the feminisation of migrant labour (the things you learn in economics)... It was harrowing.

On the train home, I had this urge to write True Blood fic ( *character spoilers* )

James McAvoy and Robin Wright Penn will star in Robert Redford's historical drama, The Conspirator, which is based on true events that occured following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Wright Penn will play Mary Surratt, the only woman among a group charged with conspiring to kill the president. McAvoy will play her laywer, Frederick Aiken, an idealistic young war hero who reluctantly defends Surratt and in the process comes to believe she is innocent. [imdb]

Trailer for The Twilight Saga: New Dawn. Bella/Edward = blegh. Dakota Fanning and Michael Sheen = EEeee! [imdb]

Christopher Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) replaced Nicolas Cage as the villain in Michel Gondry's The Green Hornet. Seth Rogen, Cameron Diaz and Jay Chou also star. (Deadline Hollywood) [imdb]

Monika Bartyzel at Cinematical reviews Alejandro Amenabar's historical drama, Agora, starring Rachel Weisz as the Greek mathematician-philosophy Hypatia of Alexandria:

'There is no film that has hit me to the core like Agora has, even well after the dimmed lights shone again. If you see this movie with your heart, exploring the dangers of zealotry and fear, and the ridiculousness of female intellectualism being a danger, you can't help but be changed and inspired.'

Russell Edgington, a crucial player in season three of True Blood, has been cast. Denis O'Hare (Milk, Duplicity) will join the regular cast next season as Edgington, the Vampire King of Mississippi. (EW)

Michael Ausiello interviews True Blood creator Alan Ball (contains spoilers for next season):

Why wasn’t there more Eric in the finale?
BALL: There is a reason for not seeing Eric in the last part of the episode, but if I explain it, I’ll be [giving away] too much.

Jace at Televisionary also talks with Ball . ( Again, spoilery )