Bradley Jane Pitt and Natalie Portman will be starring in a romantic comedy together, based on the book Important Artifacts and Personal Property From the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion and Jewelry. Then a sunset and a sunrise will do a movie with a forty word title and we'll be forced to argue forever about which one starred the more beautiful things and had the most annoying name. [Variety] Kevin Costner is still working. So that's something. [Variety]

Are you ready for a boy version of Splash? Too bad. Brian Grazer is producing a new movie called Merman that is about just such an abomination. Keep a close eye out for Darryl Hannah in one scene. She's that extra, all blurry in the background, weeping. [Variety] Speaking of weeping, poor sad former SAG exec Doug Allen, who was fired two months ago, popped back up on the picket lines yesterday. After he wandered around for awhile, distractedly eating a hot dog and faintly humming a song no one could identify, someone finally asked what he was doing there. "I heard that some of my friends were here," he told them (foreal). Everyone felt bad for him and let him hold a sign but afterwards when everyone went to go get beers together, they told him they were all just going home. [Variety]

Disney/Pixar's fancy new computer movie Up is set to open the Festival de Cannes, that humble little film festival that happens every May, going mostly unnoticed, down in the south of France. [THR] In the realm of actually small, actually important news, the husband of Adrienne Shelly, the New York-based Waitress filmmaker who was murdered two years ago, is producing a finished screenplay she left behind, a decades-spanning family drama called The Morgan Stories. [THR]

VH1 is kicking aside the pile of bottles, cans, and dead groupies to pick up one of their old standbys. The network is reviving its former flagship series Behind the Music, with Lil' Wayne and Lil' Scott Weiland already set to appear. Oh goody. Don't you want to know more about what happens behind the music of, say, ... (The sad/funny thing about this is that I was trying to come up with a joke about some current music star. But then I couldn't think of any because I have no idea what the kids are listening to anymore. So, I'll just leave it hear. A sad, sorry blank.) [THR]

Peyser wants to make sure that you understand that this protest isn't just the incredibly misguided effort of a tiny group of wackos, though. No, the people who are wearing Shelly's picture around their necks and blaming her death on the federal government's failure to deport the illegal immigrant before he had a chance to kill her are part of a movement! Evidence:

More than a dozen people came out last night wearing her picture around their necks. Carrying candles and literature, speaking softly and intensely, they gathered on the street. In the evening's warmth, their numbers swelled. In their 30s and 60s, they came from uptown and even New Jersey.

Slain Actress's Unwitting Role in Alien War [NYP]
Earlier: 'Post:' Misbegotten Blockbuster Responsible for Indie Actress's Death?

[A] construction worker has allegedly confessed to the crime. The worker allegedly punched the 5-foot-2 actress after she complained about the noise he was making in the West Village building where her office is located, killing her. He then allegedly admitted to dragging the body up to her office, and positioning her in the shower to make her death look like a suicide.

Odd, and somehow more depressing. You fuckers at Law & Order had better just leave this alone, okay?

Police: Suspect In Custody In Actress' Death [WCBS]

And now she's dead.

It's not clear yet whether this was a suicide or something else, but, whatever the case, we're pretty bummed. If you've got a couple of hours this weekend, rent (or Netflix, or whatever the hell it is you kids do today) Trust, The Unbelievable Truth or Hold Me. You won't regret it.

INDIE-FILM STAR 'SUICIDE' STUNNER [NYP]