Pedro Almodóvar’s Next Film Will Feature a Gorgeous Actress in a Twisty Plot Informed by Classic-Film Tropes

Almodóvar Announces Next: Pedro Almodóvar’s next film will be Los Abrazos Rotos, which the helmer describes as a “four-way tale of amour fou, shot in the style of fifties American film noir at its most hard-boiled.� Penélope Cruz will star in the contemporary film and “will exchange the era’s aprons, cardigans and the hairdos for an updated look, but one that mixes the transparent turbulence of Gene Tierney and the mistreated, challenging beauty of Linda Darnell in Otto Preminger’s Fallen Angel,� Almodóvar adds. Babelfish translates the title as “The Broken Hugs,� but surely that can’t be right. “Fractured Embraces�? [Variety]

Up Yours, Writers!: Paramount Digital Entertainment and MTV New Media will release Jackass 2.5, an hour-long feature made up of leftover footage from Jackass 2 and some new content online as a streaming video. So, an unscripted movie made up of leftovers from another unscripted movie: Writers have never been less essential! [Variety]

Del Toro a Hater: Guillermo Del Toro will direct an adaptation of David Moody’s Hater, about a sudden, bizarre societal shift in which large numbers of people suddenly become inexplicably violent, probably from watching too much shitty unscripted programming in 2008. [JoBlo]

Yazbeck Unleashes Evil Monkey: Full Monty and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels composer David Yazbeck releases a new collection of songs on Ghostlight Records this February titled Evil Monkey Man. The album is intended to chronicle a dark period in Yazbeck’s life, which makes it unfortunate that many of the titles – including “Monkey Baby Hanging on Chicken Wire,� “Traveler #1 (The Fecund Woods),� and “Industrial Love Song� – are giggle-inducing. [Playbill]

Fox Shuffles 2009: 20th Century Fox overhauls its 2009 release schedule, moving James Cameron’s ambitious 3-D sci-fi film Avatar back from May to December, and slotting in the Ben Stiller vehicle Night at the Museum 2 to take its place. Thanks, Fox. That’ll tide us over. [Variety]