Oren Moverman

Yes, it features Cate Blanchett as an eerily accurate Bob Dylan. And she's only one of six actors playing him. But when Todd Haynes, the daring and provocative writer-director of "Far From Heaven," "Safe" and "Poison," decided to make "I'm Not There," he took no chances. He had written and directed films without acquiring the music rights beforehand, and he wouldn't make that mistake again. So in summer 2000, Haynes met with filmmaker Jesse Dylan, the musician's oldest son.

Directing Chris Cooper, Patricia Clarkson, Pierce Brosnan and Rachel McAdams in the stylish film noir "Married Life," which opens Friday, Ira Sachs quickly discovered that his actors were "going for emotional broke with the material." "Married Life," which Sachs adapted with Oren Moverman from John Bingham's "Five Roundabouts to Heaven," is a pulp thriller set in 1949 that has helpings of dark humor and romance and a few plot twists.

In an age of known quantities, "Jesus' Son" is almost indefinable. In a sea of one-note symphonies, this touching feature is bleak and comic, heartbreaking and affirmative, romantic and tragic, gimlet-eyed and sympathetic, all at the same time. It's the sweetest, most punishing of lowlife serenades, a crawl through the wreckage created by, protagonist FH informs, "people just like us, only unluckier."

Indie staple Paul Dano ("Ruby Sparks," "There Will Be Blood") has been tapped to play a young Brian Wilson in a new film titled "Love and Mercy. " The actor will collaborate on the production -- which is scheduled to begin in early summer -- with an impressive pedigree of talent. Oren Moverman, who co-wrote and directed "The Messenger" wrote the script, which is said to take an unconventional look at seminal moments in Wilson's life, while musician Atticus Ross is in talks to compose the film's soundtrack and sound design.

"Up in the Air," a serio-comic look at the world of corporate downsizing, was named best film of 2009 Thursday by the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures. Directed by Jason Reitman, "Up in the Air" revolves around a corporate downsizer (George Clooney) who begins to question his isolated life. The film, which opens today (see review on D1), also won awards for best actor (Clooney shared the prize with Morgan Freeman for his role as Nelson Mandela in "Invictus"), supporting actress for Anna Kendrick and best adapted screenplay for Reitman and Sheldon Turner.

Playing a cop at his worst, his hands never dirtier, the stakes never higher, Woody Harrelson has perhaps never been better than he is in the seamy, scandalous jumbled rumble of "Rampart. " Set in Los Angeles in 1999, the film captures a time when public trust in law enforcement was brought down by the exposure of police corruption in the Rampart precinct. Rather than take on the widespread malfeasance, director Oren Moverman, sharing writing credit with crime novelist James Ellroy, constructed a story around one very bad cop running rampant in Rampart.

There are few 20th century music figures as compelling as Brian Wilson. The former Beach Boys producer-singer had a profound effect on a generation of artists and a rich and complicated personal life even by pop-icon standards. Now it looks as though his tale will be dramatized on the big screen. "The Tree of Life" producer Bill Pohlad and veteran television writer and producer John Wells ("ER," "The West Wing") have teamed to develop a drama based on Wilson's personal and professional story.

Woody Harrelson was about to shoot the most pivotal scene in his new film, "The Messenger," and he wasn't sure he'd be able to make himself cry as required. It was May 2008 in New Jersey, and Harrelson, playing hardened Army Capt. Tony Stone, was sitting on a couch next to Ben Foster, who plays Staff Sgt. Will Montgomery, Stone's trainee in delivering the news of a soldier's death to family members. After listening to Montgomery's horrific war tales, Stone sits numbly on the couch, gnawing on a hamburger before breaking into deep sobs.

Ben Foster is standing on a boulder in a field in Armenia. That's not some trendy new Zen practice and he's not shooting a scene (although he's there working on "Here," his next film); he's just trying to manage some decent cell reception. Normally soft-spoken, he gamely shouts into the wind about his turn as an Army casualty notification officer in Oren Moverman's "The Messenger." "If you can remove the filter of war, it's about feelings we all have -- falling in love with someone in a difficult situation; we've all experienced loss; we will make the phone call to loved ones and have to break the news.