Gilliam was invited to the emirate to collect the regional film festival's lifetime achievement award, following which he has since brought his working-class exuberance ("Tonight, we're going to party with the Indian migrant laborers in their dormitories," he told The Hollywood Reporter) and his awards-season contrition ("My comment was taken out of context. It's been used to say that I didn't think that Heath [Ledger] deserved to have a posthumous award, which is utter and complete nonsense") to bear on Dubai's burgeoning moviegoing community. The endgame: Don Quixote, his aborted 2000 project that Gilliam plans to return to next year:

The widely traveled Monty Python veteran who years ago shot Life of Brian in Tunisia, is visiting Dubai for the first time and also plans a visit its giant new studios to "check out their attitude toward funding."

His long-interrupted Don Quixote, in rewrite come January, could be made in Dubai, he said, because "at least there are mountains here."

Dubai, Spain, oil wells, windmills — whatever works, we suppose. And we like his odds, with his contemporary Oliver Stone making the Dubai money rounds as well, surreptitiously leaving crescents, crosses, stars and other hobo-style markings on palace gates in accordance with each resident's film-funding largesse.

• Terry Gilliam keen for studio tour [THR]

To wit: Please! Make! The Heath Ledger posthumous Oscar talk! Stop!

"That's what Warner Brothers are saying, but they'll do anything to publicize their film," says Gilliam who was directing Ledger in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus in January only days before the Australian actor died at the age of 28 of an accidental prescription drug overdose.

"That's just what they do and you can't get upset because it's bull——. They're like a great white shark which devours whatever it can."

To be fair, it was Parnassus that coincidentally (or otherwise) launched its official Web site in the days after Ledger's death, when the film was in limbo with its fate yet to be determined. And Ledger is still set to appear in Gilliam's fantasy, their first collaboration following the poorly received The Brothers Grimm in 2005. Parnassus benefits as much from the Ledger hype as The Dark Knight, the majority of which — let's face it — owes to the actor OD-ing at 28 than Warners pimping out a legitimately grand film.

Still, there is a certain ghastliness to it all. We recall interfacing with Ledger around the time of Brokeback Mountain, his naturally squirmy, nail-biting press-day tics exacerbated by his unchecked loathing of The Oscar Question. But at least he could deflect it, which he did in a manner closer to self-defense than self-effacement. It came up again and again — he hated the race, the hype, the politicking, the earnestness, and mostly the shadow over his co-stars, Ang Lee and others. And that was at year's end, when the mention (and arguably even the award) made relative sense against what preceded it.

But it's July, people. We know another nomination must be be coming, but if these vultures can't let the guy rest in peace, at least let him work in peace. There's only so much hype to go around — he's still got to do press for Gilliam's movie, for Christ's sake.

• Article Name [The Telegraph]

A source close to Troyer, 39, says the actor was experiencing "flu-like symptoms."... Adds the source, "He's been working really hard on the film. They just wanted to hydrate him."

A rep for Troyer denied that he was treated for a drug-related problem. "Verne is fine and doing well and is back to work," the rep tells Us.

We wouldn't normally care to speculate about Troyer's potential for relapse here (he underwent treatment for alcoholism in 2006), but with Gilliam and Us Magazine both being who and what they are, we're not exactly choking on our grain of salt. Anyway, didn't new insurance regulations after Ledger's passing require all Gilliam principals to be under strict 24-hour supervision throughout production? And how much water does Verne Troyer really need in a day, anyway?

• 'Mini Me' Verne Troyer Hospitalized [Us]

Earlier plans to replace Ledger with a new actor (say, Johnny Depp) haven't materialized. And despite Christopher Plummer's assertions to the contrary, it doesn't seem like CGI will save the day. While the quagmire will surely unravel itself (hopefully soon), we're instead choosing to focus our attentions on the teaser image itself (shown below): the pic reveals stage left of the traveling Imaginarium itself, made out of what looks like shredded cardboard, decked out with carnie lights, and topped off with quite the eerie all-seeing Eye of Providence.

• QUICK STOP EXCLUSIVE: THE FIRST TEASER IMAGE FROM 'THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS' [Quick Stop Entertainment]

"Terry's throwing himself into the job of trying to salvage the picture. [He's] trying to work out at this moment how to continue on. Fortunately, because the film deals with magic, there is a way, perhaps, of turning Heath into other people and then, using stills and I think they call it CGI."

Listen, we're not about to string Captain Von Trapp up for not knowing about recent cinematic innovations like color photography, dissolves or green screens. However, it does seem a bit off-putting that he blabbed to People about Ledger's pill-popping final days on set.

"We all caught colds because we were shooting outside on horrible, damp nights. But Heath's went on and I don't think he dealt with it immediately with the antibiotics ... I think what he did have was the walking pneumonia. [Heath] was saying all the time, 'dammit, I can't sleep'...and he was taking all these pills [to help him]."

• Show Will Go On for Heath's Last Movie, Says Costar [People.com]

Comedy Central's Insider blog sent a reporter down to street level to document director Terry Gilliam's "crashing" (i.e., pre-publicized attempt at organizing a "flash mob") of The Daily Show's audience line yesterday afternoon, where Gilliam tried to generate some buzz for Tideland, his latest movie:

So, Terry Gilliam showed up in front of the Daily Show with a giant sign that said "Will direct films for food." He had a plastic cup that people in the Daily Show ticket line filled to the brim with dollar bills. At one point he looked down at the cup stuffed with cash and said, "This is the most money I've made in a long time".

Even if Gilliam's appearance didn't stir up as much publicity as he'd hoped, he still performed a valuable service to young filmmakers by demonstrating the regrettable costs of getting mixed up with the Weinsteins, which can reduce even the proudest fillmmaker to wandering the street with a cardboard sign to drum up financing for his next project.

• Terry Gilliam Visits The Daily Show [CC Insider]