Photo: Des Willie / Redferns / Retna

If you, despite everything, were still holding out hope that Notorious B.I.G. might get the smart, probing biopic that his legacy deserves — through the delays, the director changes, the producers' appalling decision to cast the rapper via an Internet talent search, etc. — we have some bad news: We've read the script, and we're not optimistic.

Similar recent music bios have been wise to limit their scope to specific parts of their subjects' histories. The 113-page screenplay for Notorious (by journalist Cheo Hodari Coker) makes the unfortunate decision to pack an entire (albeit short) life into a two-hour movie. 8 Mile's focus on Eminem's early, pre-fame career gave the film a natural story arc and taught us things we didn't already know. Notorious — on paper, at least — plays like a loose-knit highlight reel; it's basically the screenplay adaptation of Biggie's Wikipedia entry.

Photo: Getty Images

Remember when Basic Instinct came out, and it was a pretty good movie but all anyone talked about was Sharon Stone's interrogation scene? Well, the same thing's about to happen to Broadway's upcoming revival of Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. On March 7, every reviewer in town is going to lead with the tour de force of tumescence that is James Earl Jones. Yeah, that's right. Say it again in a deep, harrowing voice so it resonates and scares all the children away. JAMES EARL JONES. The most startling revelation at a recent preview of Debbie Allen's all-black production of Cat is that James Earl loves it when you call him Big Poppa, or rather, Big Daddy, because Jones's sexually charged inhabiting of the surly southern patriarch allows for no mistake: The former Lord Vader still has a lot of light left in his saber.

Photo: WireImage

Obviously it was with major trepidation that we approached "Supernatural Superserious," the super-stupidly titled new R.E.M. song from the band's forthcoming album, Accelerate. Does anyone even remember the last time they released a truly excellent single? (1996, "Electrolite" — thanks Wikipedia!) Mostly, they've just been farting around in the studio with synthesizers, drum machines, and Q-Tip. Till now, apparently — "Superserious" sounds like something that wouldn't have been completely out of place on New Adventures in Hi-Fi or even Out of Time if Kate Pierson were singing backup on it (which, tragically, she is not). We sort of can't believe it, but we're actually looking forward to a new R.E.M. album — we almost feel young again!

In fact, we like this song so much that we're just posting the streaming version (via Pitchfork) and leaving the piracy to you.

The Wackness: Can it outdo Rodger Dodger?Photo courtesy of Occupant Films

That is, except for the festival’s last-minute bolt-from-the-blue Hamlet 2, which just went to Focus for $10 million. Not even included in the festival program and reportedly still in need of final edits, the comedy, directed by NYU alum Andrew Fleming, stars Steve Coogan as a midwestern teacher who attempts to save his drama program by producing a bizarre, musical Shakespearean sequel, featuring tunes like “Rock Me, Sexy Jesus.” In Hamlet’s shadow, Overture picked up Mark Pellington’s Luke Wilson drama Henry Poole Is Here, and Fox Searchlight nabbed Clark Gregg’s Chuck Palahniuk adaptation Choke — though neither netted a surprisingly rich deal.

Vanessa Beecroft in The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins.Courtesy of Pietra Brettkelly

Vanessa Beecroft had better prepare for some serious damage control, since director Pietra Brettkelly's documentary on Beecroft, The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins, opens at Sundance tonight. The doc cluster-bombs her faddish fascination with Sudanese orphans and paints Beecroft as a hypocritically self-aware, colossally colonial pomo narcissist. The film is brutally effective because it lets Beecroft hang herself with damaging quotes and appalling behavior.

The documentary explores Beecroft’s experiment in Sudan, in which she attempts to adopt two Sudanese orphans and use them as subjects in her work. Wise to theory, Beecroft says her adoption will be “not just fetishization of the blacks. It will be a beginning of a relationship with that country.” The film documents the significant gap between Beecroft's theory and her actions.

Upon her arrival in the Sudan, Beecroft hurries to set up a photo shoot, hiding the cameras from the orphanage's sisters, calling the babies “these poor creatures.” Which baby should she photograph? “Either one or the other,” she says, “it doesn’t matter.”

The first official still from Where the Wild Things Are, leaked this summer.Photo: MTV Movies Blog

…and it is really, really good.

In transforming the 338-word story of Where the Wild Things Are into a 111-page screenplay, Eggers and Jonze have fleshed out the story not, unexpectedly, with wild plot developments, and not, thankfully, with densely packed pop-fiction references. Instead Where the Wild Things Are is filled with richly imagined psychological detail, and the screenplay for this live-action film simply becomes a longer and more moving version of what Maurice Sendak's book has always been at heart: a book about a lonely boy leaving the emotional terrain of boyhood behind.

Clockwise from top left: Dear Harvard, Ex-Pats, The Happy Hour, The GauntletCourtesy of NYTVF

This weekend marks the close of the New York Television Festival's third year, and between major network premieres and a nice new space at New World Stages, this latest edition has gained some prestige. But what about the quality (and marketability) of the 28 independently made pilots screening at the Fest? Wondering if that $85 festival day pass is worth it? A few of the contenders, and their chances of leaping from a small fest to the small screen, below.

Dear Harvard
The pitch: A young scholarship student, whose father is currently imprisoned for shady hedge-fund dealing, blogs while attending an exclusive UES high school. Her goal? The Ivy League.
The reality: USC film school graduate (and former Morgan Stanley investment banker) Anne Jarmain's well-written teenage soap opera already has a number of gripping plot points. The closing question — "Friendship is more important than love, right?" — nails the sweetly troubled earnestness of youth. Nice!
The future: Ripe teenage girls in Catholic-schoolgirl uniforms pining over boys from the public school … what's not to like? We could totally see this on next year's CW schedule.

The Gauntlet
The pitch: Reality TV in which a co-worker with attitude challenges a workmate to see who's better at the job.
The reality: The premise, from promotional video director Scott Patterson, sounds dumb, but in actuality, the pilot — which pitted two ice sculptors and then two Zamboni drivers against each other — delivered richly rewarding TV, both educational and strange.
The future: If someone from Bravo or PBS attends the screening, maybe it's got a shot. We'd love to see an episode spotlighting balloon-animal makers and shit-talking manicurists.

Courtesy of Sony

Vulture just got back from a listening session for 8 Diagrams, the first new Wu-Tang Clan studio album since 2001's Iron Flag, which is optimistically scheduled for a November 13 release. It was 22 minutes of raw, unmixed goodness, spread over ten tracks, which were handpicked from the forthcoming LP by WTC leader RZA. No one particular song geeked us out as much as the head-chopping posse cut "9 Milli Bros," from Ghostface's 2006 album Fishscale, the last time we heard all these dudes together, but, then again, the dark, sad, and borderline-paranoiac selections that we did hear all bode well for a concrete-hard, pissed-off Wu-Tang release.

In the Valley of Elah, the first movie since Crash that Paul Haggis has both written and directed, will star Tommy Lee Jones, Susan Sarandon, and Charlize Theron. We’ve not only discovered the stills that Warner Independent recently released to the Web but managed to procure portions of the script, too. (That’s the kind of juice we've got — remember who revealed the ending to the top-secret J.J. Abrams movie Cloverfield?) Crash polarized movie fans with its daring or possibly just wooden portrayal of angry L.A. residents of different races. Judging from the snatches of dialogue (paired with appropriate bit of imagery) that you’ll find after the jump, we suspect In Valley of Elah will polarize movie fans with its daring or possibly just wooden portrayal of depressed small-town residents of one race. — Nick Catucci