The thing with Swank is, she's very good at the kind of role she does (downtrodden but strong-willed) but I don't think she has much of a range.

I'd tend to agree. In anything else, she's more wooden than a lumberyard.

She was great in Beverly Hills 90210. Where she, in fact, played a downtrodden-but-strong-willed single mom who managed to make a living on the Peach Pit's waitress salary.

She's playing a period siren with Scarlett Johansson?

Oooh. If there's a catfight between those two, I'd totally watch. Johansson would try to scratch Swank's eyes out, then Swank could just scoff in derison and punch her face in.

I initially read the title as "Blue Dahlia" and thought they were remaking the Veronica Lake/Alan Ladd pic. Whew.

how big do you need to be for a siren? Given padding technology too?

I guess I'm not talking specifically about breasts, which, yes, can be faked up. But the 40s pinups tended to be hale (petite, usually, but hale) and quite a bit rounder than the current bony standard. The real trouble is that the roundness wasn't strict musculature, either, which, I'm sure there are female Russell Crowes on this earth, willing to change their bodies away from the beauty standard for art -- but I have my doubts.

The weird part? I've read that novel. (It's not that great, but given it's an Ellroy novel, it will be adapted within an inch of its life if it has any chance of being 2 hours long.)

I'm sure there are female Russell Crowes on this earth, willing to change their bodies away from the beauty standard for art

Well, she's already done that for M$B, hasn't she? But yeah -- the Crow/Clooney/Diesel effort seems to be mainly matched in women by them not wearing as much foundation.

Is the book (and I would presume, the movie) based pretty closely on the actual case? I remember reading about the murder back in high school, when I was on my true-crime book obsession, and thought it was really interesting.

Also, Brian De Palma hasn't had a hit since... what, The Untouchables? Josh Hartnett is not someone I'd refer to as a leading-man material either.

On a different note, while watching Deadwood last night, I caught a preview for a series HBO is set to air in summer called "Rome", [link] which is supposed to chronicle the last days of Julius Caesar's reign (with the usual HBO-riffic bounty of sex and violence.) There appeared to be some interesting actors on the cast, e.g. Ciaran Hinds, James Purefoy, and Lindsay Duncan.

Ellroy's novel is more of a riff around reality than a true-crime with the serial numbers filed off. As with most of his books, it's about two LA detectives (and amateur boxers), unalike in temperament, who team together because between them they make a single emotionally-functional human being, if you grade on a curve. The dead woman is very similar to the Short case, although I think the fictional outcome is more, um, fictional than what really happened.

mainly matched in women by them not wearing as much foundation

I do remember, for Dead Man Walking, everyone oohed and aahhed at Susan Sarandon not wearing any makeup when playing a nun. Hello! She is a nun! While I am sure some nuns wear eyeliner, I bet most of them do, in fact, eschew pancake makeup.

(For that matter, the archbishop of Boston eschews pants. But he is particularly strict about his flavor of priest-ish-ness. Priestliness? His flavor of being a priest.)

Ellroy's novel is more of a riff around reality than a true-crime with the serial numbers filed off.

Wasn't Ellroy's mother the victim of some unsolved murder as well? I swear I remember reading that Ellroy had some personal reasons for his interest with the Black Dahlia case.

His mom was killed. Ellroy wrote a book about it--the cover was an actual new photo of Ellroy taken shortly after he learned his mom was murdered.

[link]

Yep, for a while he thought the Black Dahlia killer had done his mother. (Dude, just reading that stuff and I sound like that.Scary.) I'm not sure if he still believes that. Loving Nutty. Actually HS should be able imo to play that...she wasn't as hot a ticket as she thought she was, poor baby.