Mark your calendars

• Although these are always subject to change, two dates have been announced for made-in-Pittsburgh movies. Kevin Smith's "Zack & Miri Make a Porno" is scheduled to arrive in theaters Oct. 31 and "The Road," an adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel starring Viggo Mortensen and still shooting here, Nov. 26.

Those come courtesy of a new schedule from the Weinstein Co. and Dimension Films. It's a good bet that some of the dates on the list of 15 films will change and then change again.

• The party will be in California wine country but the menu will have a distinctively Pittsburgh flavor: Iron City beer, Isaly's chipped ham, Jenny Lee Bakery rolls, Heinz condiments, Betsy Ann Chocolates and gourmet popcorn from Popcorn-N-That. A few Terrible Towels will be in evidence, too.

The occasion will be the premiere of Carl Kurlander's "My Tale of Two Cities" at the Sonoma Valley Film Festival on April 11 and 12. The party, casual as the menu might indicate, will follow the 3 p.m. screening April 11.

It's scheduled from 5 to 8 p.m. at Steiner's Tavern, 465 1st Street West on the Sonoma Plaza. To RSVP, contact Cait Murray at 412-622-1325 or e-mail mytaleoftwocities@gmail.com.

She is also the contact for buying a limited number of reserved $10 tickets for the April 11 and 12 showings, both at 3 p.m. Deadline for that is April 4. Individual movie tickets will also be available on a first come-first served basis at the box office door.

The movie tells twin stories. One is about Kurlander, the screenwriter-TV producer who moves his wife and their young daughter to Pittsburgh, while the other is about the once-great city that cured polio and made steel trying to reinvent itself.

It's filled with lots of familiar faces, from the late Mayor O'Connor and David Newell to Teresa Heinz Kerry and Franco Harris.

As reported Feb. 29, the festival also will honor Pittsburgh native, actor and now director Michael Keaton. For information on the festival, go to www.sonomafilmfest.org.

And if you, like me, will not be jetting to California, plans are under way to show the movie Nov. 28 at the Byham Theater. More on that closer to the event.

Talk about your product placement. And it's the best kind, a freebie.

On page 18 of Laura Lippman's new novel, "Another Thing to Fall," private investigator Tess Monaghan belatedly realizes that she rowed right into the middle of a TV shoot. After ending up in the water, she finally sees what was there all along.

"Farther up the fort's grassy slopes, she could see large white trailers and vans, some of them with blue writing that she could just make out: HADDAD'S RENTALS. ..." That would be the Pittsburgh-based business that rents trailers, trucks and other equipment for productions in Pittsburgh and far beyond.

A book review is scheduled to appear in Sunday's paper. As for me, I enjoyed this fast-paced, knowledgeable story about a television shoot in Baltimore that is plagued by accidents that grow deadlier and more disruptive.

I've read other books by Lippman, a former reporter at the Baltimore Sun, but didn't realize she had a solid connection to the entertainment business. You'll find it in an author's note at the end and it explains how she writes with such knowing detail.

My colleague Barry Paris and I have been podcasting for a couple of months. We sit down in the PG studio every Wednesday afternoon and talk about that week's selection of movies and other related news. Our podcast is called "Rated PG" for Post-Gazette but we keep the language PG clean, too.

If you go to this page www.post-gazette.com/multimedia/ and look to the left, you will find a link to podcasts. This week, in 14 minutes, we talk about "21," "Stop-Loss," "Run, Fat Boy Run," "Married Life," "The Counterfeiters" and a few of the movies in the Jewish-Israeli Film Festival.

You'll find archives at the link, in case you want to play catch up.

Variety reports that Oliver Stone has cast James Cromwell and Ellen Burstyn as former President Bush and his wife, Barbara, for his drama about the current president starring Josh Brolin as "W." That's what the movie is now being called.

Elizabeth Banks, fresh off her turn here shooting "Zack & Miri," will play Laura Bush. The trade publication's website says the movie could come out by election day in November or before the president leaves office in January.

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By Barbara Vancheri

Jimmy Stewart's daughters are coming to Indiana, Pa., in May as part of a centennial celebration of the Oscar-winning actor's birth. Also planning a visit, in June, is Karolyn Grimes, who played his flaxen-haired daughter, Zuzu, in "It's a Wonderful Life," and whose character gave rise to the often-quoted "Zuzu's petals!" line of dialogue.

Indiana's favorite son was born on May 20, 1908, and a series of events will mark the 100th anniversary of that occasion.

Among them will be the May 24 dedication of a new entrance canopy for the museum by comedian Rich Little and his wife, Marie; broadcast veteran Nick Clooney and his wife, Nina; and Stewart's daughters, Dr. Kelly Stewart Harcourt and Judy Stewart Merrill. The canopy is the gift of the Littles.

Later that day, at a dinner at the Indiana Country Club, the Centennial Harvey Award will be given posthumously to Grace Kelly, Stewart's co-star in "Rear Window." Her nephew, John B. Kelly III of Philadelphia, is expected to accept on behalf of her family in Monaco.

A Harvey is a miniature bronze lamppost like the one where Elwood P. Dowd first encountered the 6-foot invisible white rabbit in the 1950 comedy. Past recipients have included actresses Shirley Jones, Janet Leigh and June Allyson.

Centennial Festival Week will kick off May 18 with an 11 a.m. worship service at Calvary Presbyterian Church, 695 School St., Indiana. At 2 p.m. that day, the Historical and Genealogical Society of Indiana will hold an opening reception for "The Stewart Family Collections."

From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on May 24, it will be "Festival Day on the Plaza" at 835 Philadelphia St., with an antique car show, strolling magicians and musicians, special stamp cancellation and dedication of the canopy.

Grimes will appear at 3 p.m. June 22 at the museum's theater. As Zuzu in the 1946 Frank Capra film, she caught a cold carrying home a prize flower from school.

On the most traumatic, dramatic night of his life, Stewart's George Bailey tucks the flower petals into his watch pocket. After George has been shown what life would have been like without him, the petals reappear, reaffirming he has his old, cherished life back.

The Academy Award-winning actor and World War II fighter pilot died July 2, 1997, at age 89. Go to www.jimmy.org for more information on the museum that celebrates his Indiana roots, wartime service, family and Hollywood success.

Post-Gazette movie editor Barbara Vancheri can be reached at bvancheri@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1632.

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Like some version of the "cellular memory" mentioned in "The Eye," I kept thinking I had seen this movie before. Or one just like it, maybe with Aidan Quinn.

Turns out I was partially right.

It came out in January 1994 and was called "Blink" and starred Madeleine Stowe as Emma Brody, a 28-year-old fiddler with an Irish bar band who was blinded at age 8 when her mother purposely pushed her face into a mirror.

She undergoes double corneal transplants and, when the bandages come off, sees ghostly, wavy images that sometimes come into focus and sometimes not. Although she doesn't realize it at first, she sees a stranger who killed a neighbor. Aidan Quinn plays a cop in the movie directed by Michael Apted.

"The Eye," based on a Chinese-language movie, stars Jessica Alba as Sydney Wells, a concert violinist who was blinded at age 5 when she and her older sister were playing with firecrackers.

Like Stowe's character, she has difficulty with the emotional adjustment to sight, but hers is complicated by frightening visions and shadows which presage someone's death. Yes, she sees dead people and their terrifying escorts to the other side.

Sydney decides her corneas came with some trace of the donor's life, courtesy of something called "cellular memory." It causes transplant recipients to suddenly display characteristics of their donors.

Look it up and you'll find it's endorsed by some but met with skepticism and possible explanations (drugs, trauma, stress, sympathy, coincidence) by others. It's a notion worthy of serious exploration, although not as a hook in a remake of a horror movie that ended up playing second fiddle to Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana.

John Sayles, whose movie "Honeydripper" is playing at the Harris Theater, Downtown, will be honored during the 32nd Cleveland International Film Festival next month.

Organizers have announced Sayles will be at the festival March 7 and 8 to introduce his films, take audience questions and accept the 2008 Director's Spotlight Award. The Cleveland festival will screen "Eight Men Out," "The Secret of Roan Inish," "Brother From Another Planet," "Lianna," "Passion Fish" and "Return of the Secaucus Seven."

The event will open with "Then She Found Me," a romantic comedy based on the Elinor Lipman novel and directed by Helen Hunt. She also stars, alongside Matthew Broderick, Bette Midler and Colin Firth.

Tickets for the opening night gala, on March 6, are $125 per person ($100 if you belong to the Cleveland Film Society). It includes the film at 7 p.m. at Tower City Cinemas and a 9 p.m. party with Lipman.

For information on the festival, March 6-16, go to www.clevelandfilm.org. Tickets go on sale to members of the film society Feb. 18 and to the general public Feb. 25.

There is no shortage of festivals closer to home.

The 15th Pittsburgh Jewish Israeli Film Festival will be March 27-April 13. Watch www.ujfpittsburgh.org for news.

And Silk Screen, the Asian American Film Festival, will be May 9-18 in Pittsburgh. Keep an eye on www.silkscreenfestival.org for that event.

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It's been a long time coming, although the biggest stunt of all might be vaulting from the red carpet to the actual ceremony, but at least the stunt coordinators and performers were recognized by the Screen Actors Guild. It was the first year for the overdue honor.

In case you missed them (winners were announced on the carpet by actor Ben Foster and SAG President Alan Rosenberg), the honorees were: "The Bourne Ultimatum," for movies, and "24," for television. The announcement came during the pre-show Webcasts on TNT.TV and TBS.com, when many of us were watching red-carpet interviews on cable TV.

If you have any doubt about how many people it takes to pull off the stunts of a "Bourne," its roster numbered 171 -- or even bigger than "The Sopranos" acting ensemble.

I'm not sure who voted Paulie "Walnuts" Gualtieri or actor Tony Sirico spokesman for the gang, but nothing made me happier than seeing James Gandolfini, Edie Falco and the HBO series win. And Sirico lent a touch of authenticity to the night.

As for the SAG influence on the Oscar voters, you have to assume Daniel Day-Lewis simply strengthened his front-runner status. The early awards shows are, in essence, rehearsals for the later ones.

Day-Lewis seems to be an actor who feels everything deeply, and his tribute to Heath Ledger was fitting and touching and seemed straight from the heart. He had also mentioned Ledger in an interview on "Oprah," when the shock was even fresher and the pain sharper.

Fellow nominee Ryan Gosling and his older sister also talked about Ledger in red-carpet interviews and sported small, handmade black ribbons, another subtle salute to the 28-year-old Ledger.

Although four weeks is a long time in Oscar season, "No Country for Old Men," Day-Lewis, Julie Christie and Javier Bardem are the early favorites. I'm still holding out hope for "Atonement," though. Best supporting actress is still up in the air, although Ruby Dee certainly proved that she would make a splendid Oscar winner.

As much as I loved "Away From Her," I have since caught up with "La Vie en Rose" on DVD, and Marion Cotillard is like a female Day-Lewis in how she immerses herself in the role. If I had an Oscar ballot, she would get my vote.

Not getting my vote for repeat red-carpet duty: Lisa Rinna on TV Guide Channel. She sent me running to E! One wrong move and Rinna would have flashed America; fawning over celebrities is not the same as interviewing them, something Joan Rivers understood.

Sure, Joan sometimes mixed up names or didn't know the less-famous spouse standing next to her or showed you can go overboard with the plastic surgery, but she was unpredictable -- and therefore, watchable.

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The saddest news about the 80th Academy Awards came at almost 5 p.m. today. The "In Memoriam" segment of the show had gained a new name, inexplicably, sadly, prematurely. Heath Ledger.

He had been nominated for Best Actor for 2005's "Brokeback Mountain," played one of the Bob Dylan incarnations in "I'm Not There" and was the focus of the campaign for the next Batman movie as The Joker.

In Toronto in early September, while "Dark Knight" co-star Michael Caine did interviews for "Sleuth," he took time to salute his co-star: "Tell you what will be the revelation of Batman -- Heath Ledger as The Joker. He is fantastic."

So, when the word came through an Associated Press alert that the 28-year-old actor had been found dead at a Manhattan residence, colleagues gasped. Female fans knew Ledger from "Brokeback Mountain" (and other films) and that he had been the onetime companion of actress Michelle Williams and father of their young daughter.

I remember seeing the couple, in happier days, holding hands on the carpet at the Independent Spirit Awards and the Academy Awards.

He was handsome, talented and seemed to have much to live for. Those of us who love movies and found him haunting -- and, let's face it, brave -- in "Brokeback Mountain" or "Monster's Ball" or "The Patriot" will miss him. No matter what gossipy details emerge in the days ahead, that will not change.

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Josh Brolin, coming off a heckuva year, may be about to tackle a heckuva part: President George W. Bush.

Variety reports that Oliver Stone plans to make a movie called "Bush," examining the Texan's life and presidency and likely starring Brolin from "No Country for Old Men," "American Gangster" and "In the Valley of Elah." Josh's famous dad, James Brolin, co-starred with Judy Davis in "The Reagans," a CBS project that ended up on Showtime.

The Oscar-winning director told Daily Variety that "Bush" will be similar to "Nixon," but not as dark in tone.

"I'm a dramatist who is interested in people, and I have empathy for Bush as a human being, much the same as I did for Castro, Nixon, Jim Morrison, Jim Garrison and Alexander the Great," Stone told the trade publication.

He made a documentary about Fidel Castro called "Comandante" and generally has had a good eye for casting his leads: Anthony Hopkins as President Nixon, Val Kilmer as Morrison in "The Doors," Kevin Costner as Garrison in "JFK," and Colin Farrell as Alexander. Stone also hired Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena to play two of the last survivors pulled from the 9/11 rubble in "World Trade Center."

When the PG compiled its list of best movies of 1995, "Nixon" finished fourth, behind "Smoke," "Apollo 13" and "The Usual Suspects."

Post-Gazette movie editor Barbara Vancheri can be reached at bvancheri@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1632.

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