Christina Aguilera and YOUR NEW NIGHTMARE perform at the AMAs (YouTube)

- Of course, the real super-insanity of the AMAs came courtesy of Christina Aguilera's Lady Gaga/Harmony Korine-inspired nightmare medley.
http://youtu.be/vh7s6RssfS0

- Lindsay Lohan is furious that her dad fathered a secret half-sister that she never knew about. Of course, she wants nothing to do with her new sibling, because she already has to deal with that usurper Ali trying to make a claim to the Iron Throne.

- How much does Robert Pattinson hate Twilight? So much. (But probably not as much as he hates the fact that Kristen Stewart signed up for a sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman.)

Jennifer Garner in 'Butter'

The Master

Paul Thomas Anderson

Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams

September 14

This long-deferred movie actually couldn’t have been better timed. An apparent allegory for the creation of Scientology, The Master comes along just as public interest in the (alleged!) money-grubbing cult is at an all-time high, post-Tom/Katie divorce. In this telling, Philip Seymour Hoffman is the L. Ron Hubbard-like figure who snares untold numbers of believers into his thrall. Plot details, per Paul Thomas Anderson’s standard, are hazy, but the trailer reveals simply that Mr. Anderson has kept up his keen attention to aesthetic compostion--and that Amy Adams, playing a devoted cult wife, may be this film’s MVP. Can we arrange for Katie Holmes to present her the Oscar?

Killing Them Softly

Andrew Dominik

Brad Pitt, James Gandolfini, Sam Rockwell

September 21

Andrew Dominik’s follow-up to the much-loved, little-seen Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford jumps forward in time--it’s a modern-day store of mobland America, based on a pulp crime novel. The movie was a hit at Cannes, and may be yet another feather in the cap of good-looking weirdo character actor Brad Pitt, who plays a hitman’s assistant, or “point man.” The whole thing promises to be a real boys’ club, with costars like Richard Jenkins, James Gandolfini, and Ray Liotta, who knows a thing or two (actually, just one thing) about mob movies.

Butter

Jim Field Smith

Yara Shahidi, Jennifer Garner, Ty Burrell

October 5

Little is really known about this long-delayed satirical film. How long-delayed was it, you ask? The early buzz was that Jennifer Garner’s character, a housewife and competitive butter-sculptor, was based on Presidential front-runner Michele Bachmann. Director Jim Field Smith hails from the U.K. but takes on heartland rituals in this look at the dairy-art circuit, whose protagonist is an adopted orphan daring to take on the longtime champions (Ms. Garner and Mr. Burrell). Somehow, Hugh Jackman, Olivia Wilde, and Alicia Silverstone fit into this puzzle--no word on what Ms. Silverstone, noted vegan, did around the enormous blocks of milk product.

Argo

Ben Affleck

Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin

October 12

Ben Affleck, flamed-out Hollywood star, has had a successful second career as the director of Boston heist pictures, but his third directorial effort, Argo, finally takes him outside of the old neigborhood. Mr. Affleck stars as a CIA officer who comes up with a cunning plan to rescue escapees during the Iran hostage crisis--he fakes the production of a sci-fi movie (Iran makes a lovely moonscape, after all) and attempts to airlift out the Americans, pretending they’re crew members. Sounds fairly tidy, but we’re sure complications will ensue--and we haven’t even read the Wired article on which the whole thing’s based!

Cloud Atlas

Tom Twkyer, Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski

Tom Hanks, Hugo Weaving, Halle Berry

October 26

Everyone believed that the mammoth David Mitchell novel, encompassing millennia of human experience, was unfilmable. And maybe everyone was right! All we know right now is that the Wachowskis (of the Matrix films) and Tom Twkyer (of Run Lola Run) have turned all of their creative over-enthusiasm towards putting together the most rollicking movie ever to contain both a Martin Amis-style comedy of manners and a post-apocalyptic agrarian community on Hawaii. Somehow, major stars like Tom Hanks and Halle Berry fit into the equation. As you read this description, you’re already significantly behind; you’d better start reading Cloud Atlas this minute if you hope to have it finished and marginally comprehended by October!

Keira Knightley in 'Anna Karenina'

Skyfall

Sam Mendes

Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes

November 9

The next, and long-delayed, installment in the James Bond story comes with a schmancy pedigree--director Sam Mendes has experienced diminishing returns since the 1990s, but he still, you know, has an Oscar. So too does Javier Bardem, who promises to be the most menacing villain since Dr. No. Un-bedecked by golden trophies are new Bond girls Naomie Harris and Bérénice Marlohe, but that’s hardly the point, is it? About the plot, little is known, but for the promise of spy-queen M’s past coming back to haunt her. All the better: it’s about time Judi Dench got to stretch her acting muscles in the Bond movies.

Anna Karenina

Joe Wright

Keira Knightley, Jude Law, Aaron Taylor-Johnson

November 9

Joe Wright just can’t resist the charms of Keira Knightley--and he’s hardly alone! Mr. Wright made it cool to think Ms. Knightley was a good actress by directing her in well-received roles in Pride & Prejudice and Atonement--without his attentions, she’s languished a bit. But Ms. Knightley is back doing what she does best (aristocratic hauteur, wearing elaborate garments, telling off gentlemen), and this time, she’s got a complement of men to choose from. Though all of us English majors know how it ends, let’s form factions rooting for Jude Law’s Karenin or Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Vronsky--or, at least, let’s decide after the fact who had the most convincing Russian accent.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn--Part 2

Bill Condon

Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner

November 16

The series that launched a million magazine covers has finally ended (though the saga of its stars’ offscreen love will surely inflate the bottom line at many a media company for years to come). It’s the final installment of the Twilight series--or “Saga,” as the producers would Germanically have it--and if you waited a week to see any of the fine independent films released last week, get in line early for popcorn. Every tween and teen and regressing thirtysomething within a five-mile radius cannot wait to see just how the Bella-Edward vampire-mortal union ends--even though the book came out years ago! No matter. Fandom, like vampirism, is eternal.

Life of Pi

Ang Lee

Irrfan Khan, Gérard Depardieu

November 21, 2012

Another unfilmable novel adapted to the screen? It must be fall! Ang Lee attempts something of a comeback with his adaptation of Yann Martel’s Booker Prize-winning novel, wherein a boy and a tiger are trapped on a raft floating in uncharted waters. Mr. Lee has a lot to prove, having released a couple of films consecutively that couldn’t quite match Brokeback Mountain in terms of popular acclaim. Perhaps the transfer to a wholly new environment, with the challenge both of a dense, allusive text and of a, you know, tiger, will move him to new heights! If not, it’ll at least be the season’s most compelling misfire.

Les Misérables

Tom Hooper

Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway

December 14

Anne Hathaway has subjected you to her songs through lo these many Oscar ceremonies--and now she finally has the opportunity to belt it out on film! The world’s most energetic entertainer shifts down a gear to play doomed prostitute Fantine in the adaptation of the world-rattling Broadway show; her costars include Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe playing, respectively, the unfairly convicted Valjean and the doggedly devoted Javert. Other cast members in director Tom Hooper’s first post-Oscar flick include Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter as the garrulous-to-a-fault Thénardiers, but it’s Ms. Hathaway who’s likely dreaming a dream... of Oscar!

But then, dropped at the bottom of the list without any fanfare, is a new category: "Best Vampire." Such is the obsession with bloodsuckers that a magazine contest cannot proceed without an entire category devoted to the creatures. There's a pretty thorough explanation for this addition over at Folio. Apparently this new category is "a nod to the numerous covers featuring characters from the increasingly popular vampire-themed movies and TV programs." Good to know!

And in case you were wondering, the list of issues vying for the "Best Vampire" award is not entirely dominated by Twilight. The "Halloween" issue of Martha Stewart Living is also in the running.

At first, he was nervous and ashamed. "I would be kicked out of the bench press section of the gym. My polo compadres would send me packing to the pony rides and my surfing buddies would exile me to the kiddie pool," he says. But he read. And he read some more. He had epiphanies! "I now understand why some women are emotionally altered from merely reading a book. I have also gained a deeper realization that understanding the circumstances and points of views of those with whom we are negotiating, working, living, loving or fighting is the key determinant factor in an enduring relationship."

He had more epiphanies! "We are the captains of our industry and we possess all the global knowledge. That which we don’t understand we push a button and it appears before us. We are lacking creativity," he says. "It is time for all of us to become more creative, spend more time outside of the strict arithmetic cadence of our business, and understand foreign points of view. Most importantly we must really find the 'moment.' Anticipation is everything."

Mr. Barrack, whose happens to be a co-owner of Michael Jackson's old Neverland, finishes the note with a flourish. "Break through the comfort barriers, you can handle it whatever it is. The earth is turning on its axis. Planets and moons and suns are in orbit. Gravity is pulling and tugging, and molecules and quarks are warring inside of us. We need movement to live."

The Washington Post writes that "good, smart, literary women" have succumbed with shame-faced lust to the wiles of Stephenie Meyer:

"Twilight" came for the tweens, then for the moms of tweens, then for the co-workers who started wearing those ridiculous Team Jacob shirts, and the resisters said nothing, because they thought "Twilight" could not come for them. They were too literary. They didn't do vampires. They were feminists. . . .

"Prior to 'Twilight,' my favorite books were by Anthony Burgess" and Ayn Rand, says Jenny West, 32, who had never heard of the series until she saw ads for the movie last year. "I bought 'Twilight' [the book] with the full intention of ripping it apart." Then she read it. In one night. Bought "New Moon" the next day. "I was kind of horrified with myself, and I had to keep going." When she finished the last book, she reopened the first one and started again.

Bracketing the question of Ayn Rand's literary merit, the story casts West as the avatar of a larger phenomenon--dignified non-14-year-olds reading young-adult novels, a demographic last remarked upon in the context of Pottermania.

The Times solicits reader testimonials--"Readers confess: I Was an Adult Twihard"--and readers deliver:

"I am 'that woman.' It was a dreary Saturday, and having exhausted anything interested on our movie channels, I went to InDemand, and thought, well, maybe I should see this movie, Twilight, and see what all the fuss is about. I can make fun of it, and laugh. I am 33 years old. I like comedy and indie films."

But this idea of Twilight-shame is disingenuous, I think. People--especially self-consciously clever literary people--love an excuse to see themselves as many-layered and unpredictable. An apparently incongruous love of Twilight is perfect for this.

Last winter a friend and I debated the relative merits of Twilight and 2666 as Christmas break reading. The Bolano, we decided, was too heavy--physically, too heavy. But Twilight! It would be "pop-culture edification," my friend declared.

We were pleased with ourselves for having this conversation, and anticipated being still more pleased upon actually reading the book.

But no: mine is the true shame. I am a "good, smart, literary" girl who tried to like Twilight--tried!--and failed.

Since last year's release, the film and its stars became big ole superstars. The original director, Catherine Hardwicke, was unceremoniously dismissed and Chris Weitz (About a Boy and, uh-oh The Golden Compass) was brought aboard. Poor Mr. Pattinson can't walk the street without people trying to bite him. Every young gal on the L train seems to be dressing like Kristen Stewart--an interesting style icon for these gloomy times. But (and don't come murder me, crazy Twilight fans!) this new film has a hard time living up to the magic of the first. Let's discuss!

I do not place the blame on the cast, writer, or director, but rather the source material. The second book veers into some murky, Dan Brown territory, with stuff about vampire royalty, the Volturi. It's all pretty fun and interesting, actually, and there are mystical werewolves too. Which is really just a lot. (Read: too much.) The film is over two hours long and very complicated but, once you take the story and premise out of the reality of high school and its confines, you end up losing the grounding and what made Twilight so relatable in the first place.

The film's main plot is that Edward breaks up with Bella, sending her down into a fairly realistic rabbit hole of depression, where she basically mopes around, gazes sadly out the window and concentrates on growing her hair longer. This immediately sets up a hurdle, because it separates us from Edward Cullen/Robert Pattinson, which isn't good for anyone. But the solution to that dilemma is that every time Bella puts herself into danger, she sees a ghosty Scooby Doo-like apparition of Edward's face. This just did not work. At all. It felt odd and a little silly to see the big Cullen head mist up and say such scintillating lines of dialogue as, "Bella, don't!" and "Turn around!". (Not to get ahead of myself, and certainly not to get all He's-Just-Not-That-Into-You about it, but having the guy who dumps you explain it was because he really really loves you is not helpful for the female psyche.)

The way Bella starts to heal is by spending time with the younger, very cute guy--Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner)--who has a crazy crush on her (this is realistic). And holy cow, this kid got ripped! (The audience actually started laughing when he took off his shirt for the first time because of the ridiculousness of his torso.) And yes, he does turn into a giant wolf at some point, and that is weird--but even more weird is that it's very well done and he and his wolf-pack like to chase vampires. The middle section of the movie is preoccupied by this, and Mr. Weitz has done an excellent job beefing up the action sequences, which is probably why they tapped him in the first place. But then, Bella has to go to Italy to save Edward from killing himself because he thinks she killed herself and if you are remembering now the whole Romeo & Juliet thing at all, well then congratulations on graduating from middle school.

Anyway, here's where we get to what I consider the most fascinating thing of all. Michael Sheen plays the main Volturi, Aro. Michael Sheen! The man (and his manager) is either a genius or in severe credit card debt, because here is an actor who was not only the star of Frost/Nixon and The Queen but showed up in Underworld: Rise of the Lycans and then this sucker, too. Good for him! He also seemed to be having an excellent time with his red eyes and special powers, as did little Dakota Fanning, who didn't have nearly as big a part as I thought she would--and I can't figure out why poor Jamie Campbell Bower (Sweeney Todd) only gets to stare rather angrily and deliver one line (ditto for Nikki Reed and the Cullen family--more Cullen family next time around please!). We imagine that poor Robert Pattinson got a lot of direction to "look more tortured"--not that it matters, because it is Robert Pattinson and things are always just a little bit better when he is onscreen.

Phew! So the bad news is that this movie isn't as good as the first, but the good news is that it doesn't matter one little bit. I'm hoping that Michael Sheen is paving the way for more high caliber actors to get on board (a la Harry Potter movies). I want to see more of Peter Facinelli and the Cullens. What is the deal with Jasper? Will Bella's dad ever get a girlfriend? Will there be some epic werewolf v. vampire storyline in the next one? All these and probably more important questions still need to be answered, and I am not ashamed to admit that I will be the first in line for Twilight part three.

Andy Samberg: The “Best Intro-er of People Intro-ing Things Ever!”

This just in: Andy Samberg is really funny! As host, the Saturday Night Live star pulled out every tool from his bag of comedy tricks—a Rolodex of famous friends, pre-produced bits, musical parodies, a predilection for the word “dick”—and matched that with a perfect blend of “happy to be there” charm and “this is the stupidest thing ever” snark. (At one point he told the crowd, with the utmost amount of faux-sincerity: “This is our Woodstock, guys!”) Well done! Now if the Oscars could only figure out a way to have him and Justin Timberlake share hosting duties in 2010, we could be on to something.

Irrelevance-Off: Eminem Versus Bruno!

Party like it’s 2005? Whether or not the semi-teabagging stunt that Sasha Baron Cohen (as his alter-ego, Bruno) pulled on Eminem was real or not—for the record, despite the protestations of Ryan Seacrest, cast our vote for “not real,” if only because the camera angles were too perfect—we couldn’t get past the notion that the buzz surrounding these two lightning rod performers has seriously worn off. A tip: When the subversive becomes the expected, it ceases to be subversive. As for the incident, we sure hope one of the parties involved clears up what happened on his MySpace page.

A Tale of Two ‘Tween Heartthrobs: Robert Pattinson & Zac Efron!

Obviously, for girls of all ages, a large part of Robert Pattinson’s appeal is his brooding nature. But while receiving his many awards—Best Kiss, Best Breakthrough Male and perhaps even Best Hairline, though we can’t be sure—the Twilight star came off like a supreme jackass: aloof, humorless and utterly devoid of charm; he’s one-note. Contrast that with Zac Efron, who gave a very genuine and heartfelt speech while accepting his award for Best Male Performance, and, later, killed as part of a hilarious tribute to Ben Stiller that also featured Kiefer Sutherland and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Mr. Efron is hella talented and he can dance. We’d like to see Robert Pattinson do that!

On March 25, Variety's Michael Schneider reported that Ian Somerhalder, who played the overly-tweased stipple-bearded Boone on Lost, had been tapped to co-star in an ABC pilot called The Vampire Diaries. According to Variety, the show "centers on a woman who falls for two vampire brothers—one good and one evil."

Add this to the list that includes the just purchased script by Marc Haimes for Elevator Men, which The Hollywood Reporter's Jay A. Fernandez described as "a less romanticized look at the human-vampire interactions"; last week's U.K. release of the delicately named Lesbian Vampire Killers; and the soon-to-be released adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' The Informers.

But wait, there's more. A lot more. How about Tim Burton and Johnny Depp's planned adaptation of Dark Shadows, which ran on TV from 1966 to 1971; the second season of HBO's True Blood (itself based on a series of novels by Charlaine Harris); and of course, New Moon, the highly anticipated (by your 15-year-old cousin) sequel to Twilight, which grossed  $191,397,304 at the box office last year.

Since those films are drawn from kids' books (if you're really prepared to argue that these books aren't just for kids, you might want to take a cold, hard look at yourself in the mirror at Forever 21 or Abercrombie & Fitch and admit you're taking this Rejuvenile, Up With Grups extended adolescence thing a little too far—being a grownup is scary, but not so much that it's acceptable to read and act and dress and text and twitter like a teenager), we can expect several more movies in this cycle with Eclipse, Breaking Dawn, Midmorning, Noon, Just After Noon, Tea Time, A Little Before Supper, 10:23 p.m. and Geez, It's Almost Midnight on the horizon.

As we speak, some enterprising hack is probably pitching a vampire sitcom called My Wife Suck, about an uptight regular guy who marries a hot—but bloodthirsty—lady vampire. ("It's Dharma & Greg meets The Munsters!")

Enough. Time to drive a stake in the heart of this trend. From now on, there can be no more vampires in pop culture. If we're honest, there hasn't been anything truly scary about vampires since 1987 when Bill Paxton ate the scenery (and several of his costars) in Near Dark, and the outré psychosexual subtext of drinking blood (you know, "blood lust" and all) has been overextended since before Anne Rice interviewed her first vampire in 1977.

It's time to develop a replacement for this surfeit of bloodsuckers who have lately come to seem so sallow, so drained of their precious life force. (Have you seen Twilight's Robert Pattinson on the cover of GQ this month? He looks as burned out as Jeff Spicoli hitting his own head with a shoe in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.)

Vampires are selling so high right now that we're at serious risk of the bubble bursting: Who can forget the great Faeries boom and bust of the late '90s? It's bloody well time for a new quasi-supernatural being to come to the forefront of the culture.

And no, that being is not a zombie, no matter how many books Mel Brooks' son puts out, how cleverly someone appropriates a Jane Austen classic, or how many big budget Will Smith movies the culture industry foists on us. (Not to mention all those "zombie banks" in the news.)

Honestly, does anyone really like zombies? Is there anyone out there who doesn't want to punch a zombie in its rotten mouth? Zombies are so stupid, so devoid of any identifiable traits, so boring in their monomaniacal pursuit of braaaaaiiiins! (fine, you want brains—shut up, already), that the thought of reading about those idiots or watching them drag their gimpy legs across a movie screen (much less tuning in to a sitcom featuring an uptight regular guy who marries a hot—but necrotic—lady zombie) makes me want to put a bullet in my own head.

Here are some suggestions to replace vampires (and those goddamn zombies) in the pop consciousness of young people and older people who should really stop considering themselves part of the pop consciousness of young people. (Seriously: Pull up your pants.)

Freaks

Sure, HBO failed to make Carnivàle into a hit on the level of The Sopranos (or even K Street), and Comedy Central's Freak Show failed to have as many seasons as Drawn Together, but there's a lot to be mined in the old midway. What better way to dramatize the awkwardness of adolescence (our bodies going all screwy, hair sprouting all over, those damn lobster-claws and tails) than through the distorted funhouse mirror of the carnival freak?

Start with Katherine Dunn's 1989 novel Geek Love, which Warner Brothers has the rights to and which has drawn interest from Terry Gilliam, Tim Burton and others. Since Hollywood is remake crazy, how about a new version of Tod Browning's Freaks? That thing is still creepy 77 years after its release. ("One of us, one of us!")

Of course, you'd have to remove the whiff of Victoriana and the tacit judgment or condemnation of the deformed or differently abled ("freak" is a pretty harsh term), but maybe freaks can be recast as X-Men and writers and filmmakers can play up the triumphant exceptionalism implied in the title of Daniel P. Mannix's book We Who Are Not As Others. Freaks shouldn't be seen as objects of our derision: They should be objects of our awe. As Olympia Binewski, the narrator of Ms. Dunn's book, declares, "A true freak cannot be made. A true freak must be born." (You hear that, stupid zombie-bite victims who turn into even stupider zombies?)

Vikings

Here's a chance for culture creators to really get in on the ground floor of the next-next. What better way to make sense of the just-ended era of rapacity and literal plunder than by dramatizing these bands of berserker brothers? Think of it as a chance for American Psychoesque satires (Scandinavian Psycho?) and big budget Braveheart type epics. If only Orson Welles were alive to do the voice-over. (Really, who remembers Erik, The Viking? Tim Robbins probably hopes you don't.)

This month's L'it Boy Wells Tower kicks it off with a story about Vikings in his new collection, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned. According to Slate's Juliet Lapidos, the story centers around "marauding Vikings who attack a neighboring island without provocation. Although Harald, the narrator, feels he has outgrown the whole rape-and-pillage game."

Mr. Towers' publisher has even commissioned an animated short by Chris Roth based on the story to entice readers. (Mr. Tower also has a story that involves a carnival.)

Then there are the rumblings about Kenneth Branagh's adaption of the comic book Thor, which may star True Blood's towheaded vampire prince Alexander Skarsgård. (What, Thor wasn't a Viking, you say? Are you proud of yourself for knowing that?) One downside of Viking-related projects is a lack of diversity in casting, but, hey, what about a hilarious Moor-Viking buddy film?

Bigfoots (Bigfeet?)

Sasquatches have been percolating up through the culture since Tenacious D sang an ode to the big fella in 1999, McSweeney's published a journal by the name of Yeti Researcher in 2005, and a year later The New Yorker ran Tony Earley's short story "The Cryptozoologist".

As 30 Rock's recent Harry and the Henderson's riff showed, everyone has an inner bigfoot. And what are bigfeet if not cousins of the wild things from Where the Wild Things Are? (C'mon, work with me here!) With the right positioning, these guys could be big ... ger.

Consider this just a partial list. The world is full of amazing, improbable creatures (Krampuses! Golems! Log Cabin Republicans!) just waiting for their turn to replace vampires at bookstores, multiplexes, and on TV.

It's daybreak for you and your sons. Time to get your pale, bony asses back to Transylvania—and take your moronic zombie buddies with you. Be careful not trip over any stakes, suckers.

Naturally things move fast when you’re dealing with teenage girls—the sequel, New Moon, is already being shot and is somehow on track for a November 20th release—so the news that the third film in the series, Eclipse, is being prepped, too, isn’t all that surprising. Rumors last month placed actress Drew Barrymore behind the camera for Eclipse, a story that was met with both head scratching and huzzahs—after all, Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke was replaced on New Moon by Chris Weitz, causing some to accuse Summit Entertainment of being sexist. Now, though, it appears Ms. Barrymore is no longer the first choice. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Juan Antonio Bayona is in the front runner position for the job. Eclipse, which apparently deals with a murder mystery and an all-out war between vampires and werewolves (note: the Twilight books seem a long way from Judy Blume, don’t they?), would be The Orphanage director’s second American film, as he’s also working on something called Hater for Universal.

A protégé of Guillermo Del Toro, Mr. Bayona might be better suited for this kind of creature-feature production than Ms. Barrymore. That’s a fair assumption—Ms. Barrymore has one yet-to-be-released feature to her name and could be a lackluster director. But how are female directors going to get any chances if they aren’t allowed to partake in the action? Fact is, you can still count on one hand the number of women that studios are willing to hire to helm pictures—Ms. Hardwicke, Katherine Bigelow, Sofia Coppola and Jane Campion seem to be the limit to their search. Summit had the chance to possibly stick Ms. Barrymore onto that list, too, but instead they appear to be going with the status quo. Maybe after the actress releases her directorial debut, Whip It, they’ll realize the error of their ways. Or maybe they’ll be thanking their lucky stars. Either way, we're disappointed.