* Although a fixture in the Australian movie scene for decades, Jacki Weaver got her big break here in America for playing manipulative matriarch in 2010's Animal Kingdom, for which she earned an Oscar nomination. Now she's on one heck of a roll, having just appeared in The Five-Year Engagement, and lining up roles in Park Chan-Wook's Stoker, and The Silver Linings Playbook for David O. Russell. Next up for her is Charlie Kaufman's weird, ambitious, musical satire of the film criticism biz, Frank or Francis. Her word is unclear at this point, but who cares who is doing what when the cast features Jack Black, Nic Cage, Steve Carell, Kevin Kline, Elizabeth Banks, Paul Reubens, and Catherine Keener?
* Another Aussie actor, who coincidentally shared the screen with Jacki Weaver in Picnic at Hanging Rock, has taken on what is likely to be a tiny role in Django Unchained. John Jarratt, who also played the killer in 2005's Wolf Creek, has joined Quentin Tarantino's film in an unspecified part. Tarantino has long been a fan of Jarratt's work, although the two had something of a falling out at one point. All that seems to be behind them, though. Django Unchained will open this Christmas Day, with Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, Christoph Waltz, and a friggin' cast of thousands.
* James Gandolfini and Julia Louis-Dreyfus will star in the next film from Nicole Holofcener, writer/director of such films as Please Give, Lovely & Amazing, and Friends with Money. Just like all of her flicks, I'm guessing it'll have to do with the first world problems of upper middle class snobs who have no clue they are snobs. Dreyfuss will play a woman who falls in love with her best friend's husband. Gandolfini and Dreyfus share an interesting connection, as both are/were big parts of the HBO family, especially with her new show, Veep. But also because that show was created by Armando Ianucci, who directed Gandolfini in the hilarious government spoof comedy, In the Loop.
