The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey gets a first trailer

The first trailer for Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey has arrived online.It's undoubtedly one of the most anticipated films of 2012 (surely only superhero giants The Dark Knight Rises and The Avengers can compete?), and this first glimpse has got us feeling all nostalgic for Middle-earth.Martin Freeman looks to be a perfect fit for Bilbo Baggins, and it's lovely to see Ian McKellen's Gandalf back in his scraggly robe.Unsurprisingly, given the stage of its production, it's not the most action-packed trailer out there, but there are plenty of decent character moments (including a spirited Dwarf singsong).Our favourite moments from the trailer? Well, Martin Freeman is excellent as the bustling, puffed-up Bilbo, and returning to Bag End feels very much like revisiting an old but well-loved friend. Then of course there's a look at other LOTR favourites such as the fragmented Nasril sword and the shimmering city of Elrond. And finally, there's a certain cave-dweller waiting to say hello...Watch the trailer right here: There's also a new poster in case you're interested:The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opens on 14 December 2012.For more on The Hobbit, get the new issue of Total Film magazine, which hits newsstands on 22 December 2011.Click here to subscribe to Total Film magazine.Click here to get Total Film magazine on iPad and iPhone from Apple Newsstand.

REVIEW: Fincher, Without Showing Too Much, Makes a Beguiling Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

American versions of foreign films are almost always put in the position of having to swagger onto the scene, justifying their existence almost before they even exist. But when news hit that David Fincher was making a Hollywood version of Stieg Larsson’s explosively popular novel Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I didn’t hear anyone breathe a sigh of regret; the mood seemed to be one of cautious anticipation. That may be because even though all three of the Swedish films based on Larsson’s Girl trilogy made it comfortably to these shores, only the first of them — directed by Niels Arden Oplev — managed to ignite much enthusiasm among critics and audiences. That first Girl movie was efficient even within its pokiness, although its excessive grisliness and fanatical obsession with forensic photos didn’t make it particularly exciting, just unpleasant. Oplev had left Fincher plenty of room for improvement, or at least room for something different. Now, with his own Dragon Tattoo, Fincher brings us a picture that’s meticulously made and yet doesn’t come off as if it’s trying too hard. The Fincher version doesn’t actively negate the presence of the earlier one — it doesn’t have to — but its confidence and bravado are like a strong blast of sunlight with the ability to fade the memory of whatever came before. That’s partly because Fincher — along with screenwriter Steven Zaillian — knows his way around a complicated thriller and partly because of his lead actors, Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara. Craig plays magazine journalist Mikael Blomkvist; when the movie opens, he’s just been released from jail for sticking his nose into powerful people’s business, an impulse that shapes his life’s mission. Not long thereafter, Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), the patriarch of a sprawling, chilly, mysterious family, enlists the journalist’s help in finding out what happened to his niece, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances in 1966, at age 16. Blomkvist begins by questioning various Vanger family members — from prim, cross-wearing Celia (Geraldine James) to convivial, wine-pouring Martin (Stellan Skarsgrd) — until his peregrinations bring him into contact with the bleached-eyebrowed, multi-pierced Lisbeth Salandar (Rooney Mara), a hacker extraordinaire who’s already hip to nearly everything about him, including the extracurricular activities he engages in with his editor at the magazine, Erika (Robin Wright). When quizzed by a third party about Blomkvist’s sexual exploits, Lisbeth delivers her capsule review in a monotone: “Sometimes he performs cunnilingus — not often enough, in my opinion.” She pronounces that initial “o” (for “orgasm,” maybe?) as if it were a word unto itself. If you’ve read Larsson’s book, or even if you’ve just seen Oplev’s film, you know how it all ends. But Fincher makes whatever plot details we have stored away inconsequential: His picture is all about movement as opposed to action, though it has some of that, too. Why do characters go where they do, say what they do? Fincher nudges us along, stoking our voyeuristic impulses, sometimes making us care about characters and plot developments almost in spite of ourselves. He’s not particularly fixated on gloomy Swedish landscapes (although when he and cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth train their eyes on those bummed-out, puffy-cloud skies, they do look pretty foreboding). Instead, Fincher makes it his business to read faces: Although it’s taken a while, Fincher has become more of a people person as a filmmaker. If Se7en and Fight Club were mostly about jolting us with killer style (to some of us, it was empty style), something else seemed to emerge in him around the time of Zodiac, a deeper interest in human frailty and hubris and all the ways of expressing it. That’s better for actors: Jesse Eisenberg, in particular, blossomed under Fincher’s attention in The Social Network, and while Craig is probably seasoned enough, and good enough, not to need tremendous amounts of hand-holding, he still thrives in the environment Fincher has created in Dragon Tattoo. Craig has one clear advantage over Michael Nyqvist, the actor who played the same character in the Swedish Girl movies: He has erotic charisma to spare, as opposed to Nyqvist’s perfunctory, doughy sexuality. But in addition, Craig has a face that comes with a conscience attached. (He was phenomenal in Jim Sheridan’s ill-fated horror thriller Dream House, a picture that, sadly, went wrong in a million different ways, though it had more morose, atmospheric beauty than perhaps any movie released in 2011, with the exception of Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia.) As Blomkvist, Craig is equal parts driven and tortured. As his investigation takes him deeper into dark, dank corners of sexual torture and murder, Blomkvist seems to realize how little he can do to help. But instead of hampering him, that knowledge spurs him on — it’s a special brand of enterprise born of despair, and Craig plays it with doleful intensity. Mara’s Lisbeth is his natural counterpart, a rational being whose compassion for victims past, present and future manifests itself as diffuse fury, a fuzzy dandelion head with darts where the seeds should be. Noomi Rapace’s Lisbeth was the best feature of the three Swedish Girl pictures, which otherwise decreased in relevance until the trilogy trickled to a close. Mara doesn’t replace the Swedish actress so much as reinvent her flinty directness. She also has a nose for what’s cruelly funny: About to get her revenge on a man who has victimized her, she intones, “Lie still. I’ve never done this before. And there will be blood.” She’s like a ghoul hovering over his new bride on the wedding night. One of the most remarkable things about Fincher’s Dragon Tattoo is how violent it isn’t, at least in terms of what he’s willing to show. He’s not out to shock or titillate, nor does he go out of his way to underscore the feminist revenge fantasy element of Larsson’s material (he doesn’t have to). The Swedish Girl pictures took an unseemly glee in repeatedly pushing forensic photographs right in front of us, front and center. Fincher shows us evidence of these diabolical sex crimes far more discreetly, without undermining their weight. We see pictures clicking by on a computer screen so quickly that we can barely tell what we’re seeing — then again, we just know. The movie’s central rape scene is candid and horrifyingly intimate, without stepping over the line into sick prurience. But Fincher has a sense of humor, too, at least sort of: He orchestrates the finale with an operatic kick that’s sick-funny, reminiscent of Tom Noonan undulating — with that damned stocking pulled halfway over his face — to “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida” in Michael Mann’s scary-as-heck Manhunter. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo isn’t trying to be a great work of movie art; instead it succeeds as a sharp piece of entertainment craftsmanship. The ripples of pleasure and dread it generates are nearly indistinguishable. Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.

Finally Singer Etta James Crictally Ill

First Released: December 16, 2011 2:19 PM EST Credit: Getty Images Caption Etta James works at home of Blues in Chicago, Illinois on April 30, 2009RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Finally and Tell Mama blues singer Etta James, whose health continues to be diminishing recently, has become crictally ill, and her live-in physician is requesting hopes. Dr. Elaine James, who is not associated with the 73-year-old performer, informs the Riverside Press-Enterprise newspaper the performers chronic leukemia was declared incurable two days ago. The physician has looked after Etta James in the performers Riverside, California, area home since March 2010. Elaine James states shes distributing word from the performers conditions so individuals will pray on her. She states fans know Etta James continues to be sick although not how sick. Court public records within the performers probate situation show she also is affected with dementia and kidney failure. Elaine James made her comments outdoors a Riverside conservatorship hearing within the performers $a million estate. The performers boy, Donto James, wantsa conservator as opposed to the performers husband, Artis Mills. Copyright 2011 through the Connected Press. All privileges reserved. These components might not be released, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

REVIEW: Ethan Hunt Goes Emo in Patchy, Flashy Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol

What does it take to revive a passion for one’s work, years on, whether said vocation is saving the world or churning out sequels in a blockbuster franchise? How does one reclaim human contact in today’s isolating, gadget-dependent world? These are questions IMF agent Ethan Hunt and his portrayer Tom Cruise face in Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol, Cruise’s fourth outing in the spy series, directed entertainingly enough by Pixar veteran Brad Bird. If the hoodied Cruise evokes a touch of Eminem-level moodiness in the posters, it’s with good reason: Stopping a maniacal supervillain may be on the docket yet again, but this time around Ethan Hunt has gone emo. Blame it on fatigue in a franchise that never consisted of much more than a series of set pieces and gadget porn held together with flimsy plot threads which all nevertheless managed to entertain, however superficially and evanescently, because of the charisma that Cruise exudes. The first Mission: Impossible film, based loosely on the 1966 television show, coasted to box office success in 1996, an engaging alternative to the flagging James Bond juggernaut; as for 2000’s unfortunate John Woo-helmed sequel — well, some missions are impossible, better left flailing in the distant past of cinematic memory. J.J. Abrams managed to reinvigorate the series with 2006’s Mission: Impossible III, but even then it seemed the creative juices had stopped flowing for both the franchise and its star. To Bird’s credit, his first foray into live-action feature filmmaking in Ghost Protocol opens on a cracking, near-wordless sequence that speaks to years spent perfecting visual storytelling in the Pixar fold: Descending upon a high security Russian facility, an impromptu prison riot erupts as a cover for the extraction of one Ethan Hunt, glimpsed only from behind, who lies coolly on his cot bouncing a makeshift rock-ball against the wall as chaos explodes around him. He mulls the idea of freedom. He hesitates. Then, finally, Hunt grudgingly exits his cell, placing the granite plaything back in the wall he carved it from with probably nothing more than his fingertips, presumably over the span of years of solitude — the same fingertips that used to cling to sheer cliff sides miles above the ground with no safety lines, just for kicks — and leaps into superman mode, shrugging his way through a comically breezy exit like it’s just another Tuesday at the office. He is still Ethan Hunt, of course, but something’s changed. He’s tired of the spy game. A bit jaded. He’s maybe, probably getting too old for this shit, and his failed relationship — did wife Julia leave him, or worse? — haunts him. When IMF tech-turned-field operative Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) and a new lady agent (Paula Patton) excitedly bust Hunt out of his mysterious, maybe self-imposed seclusion for a new mission, he only reluctantly chooses to accept it. Said mission comes on the heels of a prologue operation gone wrong, in which Patton’s Agent Jane Carter loses her teammate/spy boyfriend Trevor (Josh Holloway) and a set of nuclear launch codes to a dastardly European assassin (La Seydoux). (French girls, they’ll do it to you every time.) Hunt and Co., tasked with breaking into the Kremlin on a related mission to track a shadowy terrorist named Cobalt, find themselves compromised and IMF scapegoated when the Kremlin is reduced to rubble in a brain-rattling explosion; disavowed by the American government and flying sans backup, with Jeremy Renner’s buttoned-up analyst-with-a-secret rounding out the team, the spy gang sets out on their real mission: Stop Cobalt, save the world from destruction, etc., yadda yadda yadda. As with every film in the franchise, the plot machinations are neither important nor realistic, let alone meaningful. Worse yet, they’re terribly cheesy. A Euro-centric baddie (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’s Michael Nyqvist, tragically reduced to cartoonish villainy) with designs on nuclear world war who wants to pave the way for a new world order? A well-heeled French assassin chick who murders in exchange for diamonds? So ’90s-era rejected Bond script, guys. Writers Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec even commit the facepalm-inducing sin of having poor Renner stand against a wall, stiff drink in hand, to recite key exposition to his teammates in order to explain secrets and backstory to the audience. (Renner gamely powers through, while Patton struggles to feign even the slightest bit of awkwardness as the film’s only heroine, a lethal spy crippled… by her inability to flirt.) In a way, the totally ’90s elements work within a larger sense of nostalgic self-awareness that flickers in and out of the film’s consciousness, with varying results. A broken Soviet payphone housing Hunt’s next IMF mission pays homage to the Cold War origins and dated gimmickry of the original series, though the nod inadvertently muddles Ghost Protocol’s tone. At least Pegg’s Benji offers a dose of sweet comic relief, leavening Cruise’s sulkiness with a clever charm that serves to show that the filmmakers are well aware of what got played to death in previous installments. (In a word: Masks.) Still, you get the feeling Bird longed for the days of workshopping those excellent Pixar tales at a studio full of experienced storytellers for months, maybe years even, as he dutifully leapfrogged over character development and tonal balance to nail the franchise’s real attractions: those admittedly eye-popping set pieces. Which brings us to the real reason you’ll want to see Ghost Protocol (and in IMAX, if your eyeballs can take it). Sure, the hand to hand combat scenes are choreographed with slick precision. A skin-scraping sandstorm chase will have you reaching for the eyedrops. And a bone crunching battle inside an automated parking garage is far more brutal than it sounds (if over-long and semi-boring). But marvel as Movie Star Tom Cruise grips the windows of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, doing his own insane stunts while clinging to the outside windows thousands of feet above the ground, and you get your money’s worth. (Cruise insisted on pulling off the Burj Khalifa stunt himself, which offers a hypothetical window into his mindset; if he wasn’t quite challenged by the material, maybe the adrenaline rush was worth signing on for? Well, that and the cash.) Unfortunately for Bird, while he delivers stunning and often inventive visuals, not to mention some ultra cool new gadgets worth drooling over, it’s producer J. J. Abrams who leaves the more indelible creative thumbprint. The slick exotic settings, the high-tech trappings, the capable spy wrestling with the crippling notion that loved ones risk becoming collateral damage — Sydney Bristow did all of this years ago, and on TV. Granted, she didn’t do any of it in glorious, dazzling IMAX. But she did it in heels! Abrams and Bad Robot partner Bryan Burk even imported former Alias writers Nemec and Applebaum and tapped Josh Holloway, continuing the bizarre convergence of the worlds of M:I and LOST, but that’s a discussion of worlds colliding for another day (see: Cruise cousin William Mapother in M:I2 for a taste of the mind-reeling madness). Then again, it could be just that kind of creative mix that gives the Mission: Impossible franchise the spark of life it desperately needed — and still needs, if it is to go on. Between Abrams’s genre instincts, Cruise-esque fearlessness, and the idea of Renner (and a slightly more engaging director, not to mention a better script) taking over in future sequels, Ghost Protocol the film illustrates exactly what Ethan Hunt learns at the end of his adventure even if it doesn’t quite achieve it: People — even top notch spies, or world class filmmakers — need people. Beneath the usual spy games and geekery lies a barely tapped vein that, sadly, remains largely untouched: The loneliness of the spy/human experience in an isolating, gadget-filled world. Note the deliberate proliferation of telephones, cell phones, comm units, and satellite feeds throughout, connecting our heroes to one another. Ponder the imagery of Cruise’s Hunt clinging to the side of a skyscraper hand outstretched, searching for a lifeline — and finding it in the strong, capable hands of his teammates. A lone wolf is a sad wolf! But with the right team, you can make any difficult job work. At least long enough to make it to the next payday. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.

Christiane Amanpour Returns to CNN, George Stephanopoulous Heads To Now

Christiane Amanpour and George Stephanopoulos Christiane Amanpour is placed revisit CNN, vacating her anchor chair at ABC's Now. CNN introduced Tuesday that Amanpour, who changed George Stephanopoulous about this Week after he left permanently Morning America, will anchor a brand new program on CNN Worldwide, a network of CNN broadcast outdoors the U . s . States. She'll also still report for ABC, though she won't have a regular or weekly anchor job there. Stephanopoulous will even pull double-duty, coming back for this Week while ongoing to work on Hello America, based on the NY Occasions. CNN's Christiane Amanpour going to ABC's Now "Christiane Amanpour continues to be symbolic of worldwide confirming with CNN for several years,Inch stated CNN Leader Jim Walton."We're able to 't be more happy that throughthis unique arrangement with ABC News her experience and global perspective are coming back to some nightly news broadcast for the worldwide audience." Adds Amanpour: "I'm searching toward getting into the area to report tales on global problems that matter greatly towards the United states citizens. Simultaneously, I'll be broadcasting once more to 100s of huge numbers of people around the globe having a week day show on CNN Worldwide.This role is groundbreaking, bold and incredibly different! I'm thrilled and honored."

New 'Amazing Spider-Man' Teaser Poster Debuts (Photo)

A lot of geek talk this week has been about The Dark Knight Rises footage. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows had its premiere, grabbing some spotlight and getting Robert Downey Jr. talking about The Avengers and Iron Man 3.our editor recommends'The Amazing Spider-Man 2' Gets a 2014 Release DateThe Amazing Spider-Man: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone Get Into Character (Photos)'The Amazing Spider-Man' Teaser Trailer Released (Video) So some of us have forgotten that other superhero movies are coming out. Like The Amazing Spider-Man, starring Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone. Well, Columbia is here to remind us and yesterday quietly slid out a new teaser poster for the movie, which opens July 3, 2012. The poster, which debuted on Superhero Hype, is simple but effective, but more importantly, is consistent with comics iconography of having shadows reveal the true soul or identity or whatever the artists wants of a character. It's an effect used from Batman comics to Spider-Man comics and it's used here to show that the man crawling up the stone wall is ... Spider-Man. And it also makes a point to stand apart from the Sam Raimi-directed movies, whose posters slickly had the Arach-Knight stuck or perched to a glass skyscraper. Check it out ... PHOTO GALLERY: View Gallery 'The Amazing Spider-Man': Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone Appear in New Production Photos Andrew Garfield Emma Stone Amazing Spider-Man

Former James Cameron Employee Sues Claiming 'Avatar' Was His Idea

Stephen Lovekin/Getty ImagesBen Kingsley Ben Kingsley is in talks to join the cast of Ender's Game, Odd Lot's sci-fi film adaptation of the novel by Orson Scott Card.our editor recommendsHailee Steinfeld Joins Cast of Summit's 'Ender's Game'Talent Managers Sue Author Orson Scott Card Over 'Ender's Game' Commissions (Exclusive)'Ender's Game' Lands at Summit Hugo actor Asa Butterfield and Hailee Steinfeld are starring in the pic, set in a future where the Earth is under attack by aninsect-like race and mankind has created a battle school to train fightingforces. In this environment enters Ender Wiggin (Butterfield), a kid who is tormented bybullies and an older brother but proves to be a master at athree-dimensional, zero-gravity laser tag-like game. That sets him on apath as a possible savior of the human race Kingsley will play a legendary war hero presumed to be long dead. Gavin Hood (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) is directing and also wrote the script. Alex Kurtzmanand Roberto Orci are producing along with Gigi Pritzker and Linda McDonough ofOddLot Entertainment. Card and Lynn Hendee are also producing. A February production start date is being penciled in. Summit is the domestic distributor and is co-financing. Digital Domain is also a financial partner in the movie. Kingsley, repped by CAA, Jackoway Tyerman and Independent Talent in the UK, can be seen portraying cinema pioneer George Melies in Martin Scorsese's Hugo opposite Butterfield. Email: Borys.Kit@thr.com Twitter: @Borys_Kit Ben Kingsley Hailee Steinfeld Ender's Game Hugo

Top Models Lisa DAmato Talks Win, Angeleas Disqualification

First Launched: December 8, 2011 7:14 PM EST Credit: Access Hollywood Caption Lisa DAmato, champion of Americas Next Top Model All StarsBURBANK, Calif. -- Lisa DAmato walked away while using Americas Next Top Model All Star crown on Wednesday evening, but she demands she does not know very well what happened with finalist Angelea Preston who was simply disqualified round the finale for reasons that have been not fully referred to. I dont really know very well what happened, Lisa told AccessHollywood.coms Laura Saltman on Thursday. Its all speculation, the model and music artist added, mentioning to some couple of from the gossips about why Angelea was cut within the final. Its a tournament where people get removed. Lisa outshine fellow Top Model vet, the toy-faced Allison Harvard for your title round the CW show, and Lisa mentioned she felt the doe-eyed darling was her finest competition all season extended. Allison which i were going in person [all season extended] if this involves who got first calls on pictures and who won most likely probably the most challenges, Lisa mentioned. Proud to own finally mentioned the most effective Top Model prize, Lisa credits her victory to remaining consistent with herself. Its kind of this sealed validation to become genuine maintaining true on your own and dealing very difficult, she mentioned. She also credited Dr. Came for helping turn her existence around carrying out a recent stint on Celebrity Rehab. I obtained amazing therapy from Dr. Came. In my opinion Dr. Came is Superman, she mentioned. Im probably the most pleased and finest Ive are you currently. Copyright 2011 by NBC Universal, Corporation. All rights reserved. These elements is probably not launched, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Balancing Two Worlds from Bollywood to Hollywood: Anil Kapoor (Q&A)

"Words With Friends" has come to the defense of Alec Baldwin.our editor recommendsBig & Rich's John Rich Kicked Off Southwest Flight for Alleged IntoxicationGreen Day's Billie Joe Armstrong Kicked Off Flight for Sagging Pants On Tuesday, the actor took to Twitter to announce he'd gotten in trouble on an American Airlines flight while sitting at the gate at Los Angeles International Airport. PHOTOS: Busted! 12 Hollywood Stars Who Got in Trouble on Airlines "Flight attendant on American reamed me out 4 playing WORDS W FRIENDS while we sat at the gate, not moving. #nowonderamericaairisbankrupt," he tweeted, before following up with "But, oddly, 30 Rock plays inflight on American. #theresalwaysunited." Former MTV COOMichael J. Wolfwas also on the flight,and tweeted that the actor had actually been kicked off of the plane, indicating he may have been at fault. STORY: American Airlines Files for Bankruptcy After the news broke, the Zynga word game released a photo to TMZ that features the phrase "Let Alec Play." And the score on the game reads: A Baldwin 1, American Air 0. STORY: Southwest Airlines CEO Defends Leisha Hailey Removal; Company Touts GLBT Outreach Baldwin also tweeted out the photo to his nearly 600,000 followers, along with the hash tag #theresalwaysunited. The 30 Rock star is just the latest Hollywood player to be kicked off a commercial flight, following country star John Rich, L Word actress Leisha Hailey, Green Day singer Billie Joe Armstrong and director Kevin Smith. PHOTO GALLERY: View Gallery '30 Rock': Behind the Scenes Related Topics Alec Baldwin

God's Plot

A Shotgun Players presentation of a play in two acts written and directed by Mark Jackson. Song composer, Daveen Diacomo; underscoring composers, Josh Pollock, Travis Kindrid; music director, Beth Wilmurt.Thomas Fowkes - Daniel Bruno Constance Pore - Fontana Butterfield Capt. Edmond Pore - Kevin ClarkePhillip Howard - Will Hand William Darby - Carl Holvick-Thomas Tryal Pore - Juliana LustenaderJohn Fawsett - Dave Maier Edward Martin/Maj. Cross - John Mercer Cornelius Watkins - Anthony Nemirovsky Daniel Prichard - Joe SalazarIn 1665 the purported first English-language play performed in the American colonies, "Ye Bare and Ye Cubb," took veiled aim at mother country Britain's punitive trade laws, getting its participants accused (then acquitted) of treason. Recalling Timberlake Wertenbaker's "Our Country's Good," playwright-helmer Mark Jackson's semi-musical premiere at Shotgun mixes historical fact with fiction and meta-theater to probe repression and freedom of expression on several frontiers, from religious hypocrisy and early revolutionist stirrings to the conventions and liberations of theater itself. While it could use a little tightening, "God's Plot" is one homegrown Shotgun hit that might well take root in other venues. Living under an assumed name after fleeing indentured servitude -- his reward for being an actor in Cromwell's joyless England -- William Darby aka George Derby (Carl Holvick-Thomas) lands in Virginia settlement Pungoteague, surviving as a scrivener and tutor. While residents came here largely in pursuit of freedom, they nevertheless hew to a strict code of acceptable behavior marked by public displays of religious devotion. Itching to break that mould is local judge's daughter Tryal Pore (Juliana Lustenader), a questioning, impudent spirit who likes her teacher very much. He returns that sentiment, though for various reasons insists they keep their attraction secret. That leaves her impatient enough to entertain other suitors, like upstanding carpenter Daniel Prichard (an ingratiating Joe Salazar). Meanwhile, the unfair trade laws imposed by the Crown enrich London sellers while impoverishing goods-providing colonists. Sympathizing with a bankrupted tobacco grower, William writes a satirical play in which a mother bear greedily refuses to share honey with its cub. Performed in the local tavern, this sketch is a hit but it also roils local malcontent Edward Martin (John Mercer), a secret Quaker particularly offended that this secular entertainment was performed on the Sabbath. Ideally situated in the former church that is Shotgun's home, "God's Plot" is a complex yet seemingly effortless hybrid. Nods to Shakespeare, pokes at theatrical process (and vanity) comfortably mingle with critiques of Puritan society and allusions to today's moral conundrums. It's a largely comic evening of serious ideas, one whose Greek chorus of sorts is a series of appealing songs in an Appalachian/Weill vein mode by Daveen Diacomo. They're brightly, and solely, sung by Lustenader as internal monologues defining Tryal as the play's true provocateur, conscience, and voice of progressive modernism. Travis Kindred's upright bass and Josh Pollack's banjo provide her onstage backing as well as underscoring elsewhere. As assured and resourceful an interpreter of his text as Jackson is, pacing could be a tad swifter overall, and a series of epilogues end matters on an entertaining but attenuated note. Minor caveats aside, however, this crisply staged "Plot" is an adventuresome delight.Set, Nina Ball; lighting, Heather Basarab; costumes, Christine Cook. Opened, reviewed Dec. 3, 2011. Running time: 2 HOURS, 30 MIN. Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com

Constantin to adapt 'Schossgebete'

BERLIN -- Constantin Film, Germany's leading production and indie distribution company, has picked up the film adaptation rights to Charlotte Roche's latest novel "Schossgebete."The book, which focuses on sex within marriage, follows her controversial 2008 debut novel, "Wetlands," a portrayal of female sexuality, which sold two million copies. Released this summer, "Schossgebete" has sold 650,000 copies in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It received generally good reviews, but was criticized by Germany's leading feminist, Alice Schwarzer, who said it presented a traditional, patriarchal view of sex.Oliver Berben will produce the film, with Constantin's head of film production Martin Moszkowicz, exec producing. No figures as to what Constantin paid for the rights were made available."Schossgebete" can have a dual meaning in German, referring to the womb and to a last-ditch prayer. Roche, who was born in the U.K. but moved to Germany when she was a child, was a well-known TV presenter before she became a novelist. She started as a VJ on music-video channel Viva in the mid-1990s, then went on to host late-night talkshows for Arte and ZDF. She won the prestigious Grimme Prize for television in 2004. Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com