On that far side, James Cameron has long sat as Hollywood's, raging at all within his grasp, building cruise ships and sinking them; the sort of man whom makes one constantly thankful that film directors aren't allowed to use and shoot off real tanks and bazookas and aircraft carriers and near-future laser weapons.

But while Cameron's mania is well developed version of a teenager's desire to see stuff realistically get blown up and see a cartoon characters supernatural boobs, on a more ethereal level of the spectrum, floating above Cameron, is German director Werner Herzog. Whereas Cameron is incapable of articulating his vision of a world built around things getting blown up, Herzog is a poet of obsession and devastation, who can beautifully articulate his world view, as he did in his documentary Grizzly Man describing nature as "a place of chaos, hostility, and murder."

And while Cameron is on the brink of releasing his zillion-dollar Avatar, enhanced with specially invented cameras to motion capture every pulse of a human eyelid, Herzog's world is about to be nakedly on display in his first dramatic film in years, the low-budget, exploitation-invoking Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. And while the world's press will spend the next month fawning over Cameron's auteur's journey into the world of a bunch of new gadgets, a piece in the LA Times captures the sense of a truly visionary megalomaniac at work with nothing but an equally off-kilter actor and some lizards.

The film which stars Nicholas Cage in his finest performance in a decade as an out-of-control, drug addicted cop in post-Katrina New Orleans. Audiences will have the sense, familiar from late 70's - early 80's films, of being in a film about a world out of control when at some point during the two hours it is no longer clear whether it is the just characters who are drugged out of their mind, or is it the filmmakers, or perhaps, the feeling grows on one, it may in fact be the audience ourselves, you'll wonder as you check to see if anyone has slipped something into your popcorn.

The LA Times piece reveals, however, it being a Herzog set, the director himself asked many of the same questions:

Cage's tweaker technique was so realistic, it caused the movie's director, Werner Herzog — who worked with Kinski on five films — to call into question what the Oscar winner was really putting up his nose.

"We had prop cocaine. Nicolas would sniff it, and I would ask him to shift positions," Herzog recently recalled. "From the moment I would ask him to move, he would be acting erratic. All of a sudden, I had the feeling: For God's sake, has he taken cocaine?"

Within the movie there a couple moments which have caused noted mirth and distress in early screenings when the film switches to the point of view of an iguana. While these moments stood out to many as some obvious candidates for the cutting room floor, Herzog reveals they are the very heart of his vision:

Herzog's epiphany took place at a party about midway through shooting. "Werner had had a couple of drinks," Cage said. "He said in this distraught voice, 'The iguanas are the best thing in the movie. And I must have five minutes of iguana time! And if I don't have my full five minutes of iguana time, I will never make another movie again!' "

Cameron may have his 3D, but until he can see the world as a lizard, he'll always be just a boy playing with toys.

• No big deal has yet come out of the acquisitions market at the Toronto International Film Festival, but buyers are said to be circling a fairly large number of films, including the one outings from indie darling directors Atom Egoyan, Todd Solondz and Werner Herzog. The Israeli film Lebanon which took the top prize last week in Venice is said to be the subject of intense jockeying. [Variety, THR]

• Meanwhile the star wattage has burned bright. The weekend belonged to George Clooney who as anticipated, sent the press into a titter supporting his pair of new films. Next up: Drew Barrymore with her directorial debut Whip It and Mariah Carey and Oprah supporting perhaps the most buzzed about film of the fest, Precious. [The Wrap]

• At the Toronto International Film Festival to promote his new film, The Informant, Steven Soderberg has sold the financing for his next film, to be entitled Knockout from Lion's Gate and Relativity Media. [Variety]

• Knockout may, however, prove to be the last Steven Soderbergh film ever. Speaking to The Daily Beast about his plans to retire from directing and take up painting, the director said of The Informant and his desire to go out on top, "If everyone in America will go see it, and make it a hit, then I PROMISE I will retire." [The Daily Beast]

• As expected, the box office weekend belonged to Tyler Perry, America's most reliable deliverer of 20 million dollarish opening weekends . I Can Do Bad All By Myself was Perry's third highest opener taking in an estimated $24 million. The animated 9 took in $10.9 in a smaller release. America, clearly turning its back on quality in entertainment, passed on Sorority Row which earned a mere $5.3. [Box Office Mojo]

• All eyes are tuned on NBC's ratings tonight, after the bow of the new Jay Leno show, with seemingly all of Hollywood praying for disaster. [THR]

The network's attempt to qualify the film for Oscar consideration — by burying it for a week in the farthest reaches of L.A. and Manhattan — denied it the "true release" Academy voters are fond of; a later theatrical run grossed less than $60,000 and hastened its fade from Oscar consideration. Religulous pulled the same stunt prior to premiering at Toronto in September; it fared better with Lionsgate behind it, earning $12.5 million since its release Oct. 1.

But that's about all the gold it'll get. On the bright side, Werner Herzog is a step closer to his first Oscar nomination; the Bavarian maverick was shortlisted for his quirky Antarctic adventure Encounters at the End of the World. Any fan of his jilted 2005 classic Grizzly Man will agree justice delayed remains justice denied, but every bit helps. He'll face old pal and '04 winner Errol Morris, whose Iraq doc Standard Operating Procedure was shortlisted as well and whose vying against Herzog for an Oscar is itself the surreal, cerebral stuff of a feature-length doc in the making. Or at least we hope so; those guys film everything.

• Oscar's feature doc list down to 15 [THR]

He can die in hell. I hate these people – they suck. A, he don't know me, couldn't pick me out of a line-up. B, I'm chasing windmills. Well, I'd rather chase windmills than steal other people's ideas. It's lame. I can't believe Nic Cage is trying to play that part. I mean, if the kid needed the money... It's like Harvey Keitel said, “If the guy needed the money, if he came to us and said, 'My career's on the rocks,' I'd cut him a break.” But to take $2 million – I mean, our film didn't cost half of $2 million. That film was made on blood and guts, man. So I really wish it didn't upset me as much as it does. [...]

Nobody asked us to do it. Nobody approached us and said, “Would you do it?” Give us $8 million, we'll come up with something. They give me twenty grand and say, “Go fuck yourself.” Gimme a break! They aren't paying Harvey anything, they aren't paying him two cents. [Producer] Ed Pressman sucks cock in hell, period. You can print that.

Done and done. And though we're not too sure about Cage "needing the money" (Bangkok Dangerous notwithstanding), expect Herzog to answer to the charges some time later this week, carefully enunciating his surprise at Ferrara's bitterness and echoing that existential baffler that so plagues his younger, Shatner-defying peers: "How did this become my life?" Our guess: It's a furious Klaus Kinski lashing out against his complacency from the great beyond. Just a theory.

• Abel Ferrara, 'Mary' [Source]

· Val Kilmer, Fairuza Balk, Jennifer Coolidge, Vondie Curtis Hall, Shawn Hatosy, Denzel Whitaker and Xzibit join Nicolas Cage in Werner Herzog's remake reimagining updating sequel-with-none-of-the-original-characters to Abel "Who?" Ferrera's Bad Lieutenant. [THR]
· Strike.tv is a new original-content site that launches this summer. Its first three months of profits are earmarked for the Entertainment Assistance Program of the Actor's Fund, which "helps anybody in the entertainment community in need of assistance." [THR]
· Physical album sales are down 11% from last year, and digital sales are up. A flowers, candles, and teddy bear memorial has begun to form outside Amoeba. [Variety]

And as our own version at the time relied on Phoenix's fantastical post-traumatic memory, we thought it necessary to close out this chapter of Hollywood folklore with the director's slightly more crystalline account. (The conference-room reverb makes Herzog's recollection even that much more godlike; you're welcome.) Flash back with us for the hell of it after the jump, and learn whom you have to thank for another Phoenix family crisis averted.

It only looks like more than our standard Five Questions after the jump, but with Herzog jumping on our dropped jaws on more than one occasion, we admit we lost count.

So, yes or no: Is Bad Lieutenant a project you're working on with Nicolas Cage?

Yes, but its not a remake. It's like, for example, you wouldn't call a new James Bond movie a remake of the previous one — although the name of the bad lieutenant is a different one, and the story is completely different. It's very interesting because Nicolas Cage really wants to work with me, and just anticipating working with an actor of his caliber is just wonderful.

Why this project, though? You could have worked on anything.

There's an interesting screenplay; it's a very, very dark story. It's great because it seems to reflect a side of the collective psyche — sometimes there are just good times for film noir. They don't come out of nowhere. There was some sort of a mysterious context with the understanding of people in that particular time. And it's going to be in New Orleans, which is a fascinating place. Part of it was the decision of the producers for tax incentives — which is totally legitimate. However, I thought to myself: "We have seen a lot of New York in movies; we have not seen New Orleans in feature films." Or very few feature films. After Katrina it's a particularly interesting set-up. The neglect and politics after the hurricane struck are something quite amazing. It has to do with public morality.

Speaking of which, the original film's director, Abel Ferrara, has vowed to fight this project, and —

Wonderful, yes! Let him fight! He thinks I'm doing a remake.

Have you talked to him?

No. I have no idea who Abel Ferrara is. But let him fight the windmills, like Don Quixote.

Have you heard his comments at all? He says he hopes "these people die in Hell."

That's beautiful!

Do you relate to that passion?

No, because it's like theater thunder. It's like being backstage in the 19th century, with the machines that make thunder. It has nothing do with with his film. But let him rave and rant; it's good music in the background.

You did a remake before with Nosferatu, but —

It was not so much a remake as an homage to Murnau. But I don't feel like doing an homage to Abel Ferrara because I don't know what he did — I've never seen a film by him. I have no idea who he is. Is he Italian? Is he French? Who is he?

Oh, come on.

Maybe I could invite him to act in a movie! Except I don't know what he looks like.

First, Ferrara tagged a comment about the remake on to his answer to a question about working outside the Hollywood system. "As far as remakes go, Harvey [Weinstein? Not mentioned ... in connection to the project. Keitel, who starred in the original? Hmmmm....] begged me not to say anything mean, or stupid. [pause] But I wish these people die in Hell. I hope they're all in the same streetcar, and it blows up."

Later, a different journalist mentioned the remake in the run-up to answering a different question, and Ferrara interrupted.

"It hasn't been remade yet."

"But it will be," the reporter said.

Ferrara shook his head before putting it in his hands. "Don't count on it."

Come to think of it, we don't know why we originally thought Ferrara ever might have blessed such a random-ass duo reimagining his NC-17 baby for anyone, let alone a mass market. Though it's altogether possible that one glimpse at the new Lieutenant poster unveiled last week at Cannes — with everyone's name on it but Ferrara's and the words "From the star of National Treasure and Ghost Rider" reportedly removed at the last second — may have been the garish, godawful tipping point the aggrieved director was waiting for. Either way, this is fallout we can't wait to witness — anything to relieve these nightmares.

• Bad Lieutenant Remake: Abel Ferrara Says, 'Don't Count On It.' [Spout Blog]

But the Lynch/Alejandro Jodorowsky film? With Asia Argento, Marilyn Manson and reportedly "enough sex and violence to guarantee an NC-17 rating"? Fine, Hollywood Reporter, we're listening:

Herzog and his longtime assistant director Herbert Golder co-wrote [My Son, My Son], loosely based on the true story of a San Diego man who acts out a Sophocles play in his mind and kills his mother with a sword. The low-budget feature will flash back and forth from the murder scene to the disturbed man's story. A guerrilla-style digital video shoot on Coronado Island is tentatively set for March. ...

In a separate development, Lynch's Absurda production company has attached Asia Argento and Udo Kier to star with Nick Nolte in Alejandro Jodorowsky's metaphysical gangster movie King Shot. Marilyn Manson is touted to appear as a prophet in the Sin City-style film.

Having essentially gone DIY since his own unwatchable digital epic Inland Empire, Lynch will executive produce both films and handle their sales at Cannes, hitting the Croisette with his cow and selling Herzog impersonations to foreign buyers for $100 apiece. We hear Herzog, meanwhile, had to be forcibly removed from the Kung Fu Panda press conference after pitching a Grizzly Man remake to Jack Black.

• Directors team for 'My Son' [THR]

So imagine our shock, surprise and revulsion this morning as our bleary eyes first browsed Variety:

Nicolas Cage will star in an updated version of 1992's Bad Lieutenant with Werner Herzog directing, Edward R. Pressman producing and Avi Lerner's Nu Image/Millennium Films financing.

Project, also called Bad Lieutenant, is due to be announced at Cannes. Production will start in late summer.

You cannot — or perhaps should not — make this stuff up. Either way, as God is our witness, we will never... drink... again.

• Nic Cage to star in 'Bad Lieutenant' [Variety]

Evidently feeling the need to clarify (if not defend) himself, Morris responded today to Hollywood Elsewhere:

"As documentaries have become more and more mainstream entertainment, people are aware that there is money involved. The more successful documentaries become, the harder and harder it is to get people to do them for nothing.

"People [are] aware of my success and respond accordingly. I never paid people for the interviews in The Thin Blue Line, but Stephen Hawking was paid a lot of money for the rights to his book and his participation in A Brief History of Time. ... It is difficult to ask people for such an investment of time without taking care of them in some way — and that may involve paying them.

"I paid the 'bad apples' because they asked to be paid, and they would not have been interviewed otherwise. Without these extensive interviews, no one would ever know their stories. I can live with it."

In other words: "Without these extensive interviews, I wouldn't have had a movie." We don't generally look to Errol Morris for these glib oversimplifications, but there you have it. The whole thing gets us wondering who else has commonly been paying their subjects over the years; we can envision Morris's old friend Werner Herzog wandering into the jungle with a camera and a checkbook as he retraced Dieter Dengler's steps in Little Dieter Needs to Fly, or... Wait, what? That version was called Rescue Dawn? Never mind! As you were, Errol. We just know that Ben Stein would damn well never pay off a source — and God knows he can afford it.

• As Long As it's Truthful [Hollywood Elsewhere]

In today's installment: Russell Crowe, Drew Barrymore, Kiefer Sutherland, Teri Hatcher, Matthew Perry, Chris "Mr. Big" Noth, Chrissie Hynde, Jemaine "Flight Of The Conchords" Clement, Mindy Kaling, Samantha Mathis (with Keith Carradine!), Werner Herzog, Dax Shepard (with Bradley Cooper!), Cedric Yarbrough and Professor Cornell West.

APRIL 10
· Another Matthew Perry Trivia sighting at Barney's Beanery in Pasadena on Thursday. His team of 4, "Dos Dedos", only contained one dressed-up young lady this time, and most likely took first right in front of the antagonistically-named "Bing's Bingers". I say "most likely" because I left before they announced my losing score...

APRIL 11
· Standing in line with all the middle aged punkers at the X reunion show at the Henry Fonda Theatre was Chrissie Hynde...She looked great and didn't look like she's had any work done...couldn't believe she had to wait in line with the rest of us!

APRIL 12
· Drew Barrymore was at the Derby Dolls roller derby on Saturday night April 12th. Here is some photographic evidence.

· I was having lunch at Cafe '50's in Sherman Oaks around 1pm. I couldn't help but notice that every 10 minutes or so, a group of girls ages 7-12 (?) wearing colored bandanas (different colored than the last group, not different colored from each other) with an assigned parent or guardian would come in and have their photo taken by the jukebox (I heard one mother saying it was a scavenger hunt). After 2 or so waves of bandana-wearing tots, Teri Hatcher came in leading the Pink Bandana group. She wasn't wearing much makeup and politely asked for the someone to take the group's photo (that's a switch) by the jukebox. Then they were off, presumably to find 12 bottlecaps or some such that was next on the scavenger list.

APRIL 13
· Russell Crowe with his wife and boys strolling around the Century City mall on Sunday afternoon. They looked like every other family suffering from heat exhaustion.

· Mindy Kaling from The Office having a brunch at Joan's on Third. Met up with some (nonfamous) friends, looked cute and casual, drives an adorable Mini Cooper.

APRIL 14
· Samantha Mathis and Keith Carradine (don't think they were together but stranger pairings have happened in this town) at the Arclight on Monday night. I assume they were there for the special screening that little me wasn't invited to because I didn't see them at my screening of The Visitor. Just before the movie, as I was exiting the ladies room I passed Carradine entering the men's room undoing his pants several feet before the doorway. Note to guys: ick.

· Today at approx. 5:00 PM at the Starbucks in Dana Point, Chris Noth and his girlfriend walked into my Starbucks and ordered a drink. Chris ordered a Chai Tea Latte and his girlfriend had a chop chop pasta salad. They were not with the baby. His girlfriend seemed very very nice. She actually asked for a fork from me and I told her where they were but we were out so I went to the back to get some and brought back one to her and handed it to her and she said thank you and was very nice about it. However, Chris was sort of a dick. Not really a dick to me but a total dick to his girlfriend. Anyways, I thought this was a notable celebrity sighting..

APRIL 16
· could have sworn i saw Jack Bauer at Dan's Subs in the Valley. He even had the arm tats, looked great clean shaven ...he was not with the woman from ny. He had his arm wrapped around a different raven haven hair chic. Much more busty and shorter. at one point he called her Janet (or maybe Janice). He was very happy and relaxed.

· Today at the Koo Koo Roo on Wilshire I saw Cedric Yarbrough, Jonesie from Reno 911. He was hanging out by himself eating lunch listening to something on his earphones. I don't want to say anything bad about him being there or being lame or anything like that because I LOVE Reno 911 and my boyfriend doesn't, so there.

· Jemaine Clement of Flight of the Conchords waiting to cross Los Feliz Boulevard at Hillhurst. Had to look twice because, although that block of the street is not so lousy with hipsters, Clement was blending in with his surroundings. Is he staying in one of the big-ass apartment buildings on the north side of Los Feliz?

APRIL 17
· Saw Werner Herzog at Hollywood Video on Westwood Blvd. ask the clerk if they had a used copy of 'Jungle 2 Jungle' on VHS. [Ed. Note - Really?]

APRIL 18
· Odd couple Dax Shepard & Bradley Cooper (Nip/Tuck, Wedding Crashers) at Katsuya in Studio City.

APRIL 19
· Toast on 3rd Street, today. Was putting my name on the host's list, when I saw an older man in a black suit out of the corner of my eye. I told my friend, "Huh, that orthodox dude looks like Cornell West." And It WAS Cornell West! He was having lunch with a more casually attired Tavis Smiley. The PBS whore in me was totally freaking out.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

Phoenix said he was thrown into the passenger seat when his vehicle rolled onto its roof. In the aftermath, the actor said he felt "a bit confused."

"I remember this knocking on the passenger window," said Phoenix. "There was this German voice saying, 'Just relax.' There's the air bag, I can't see and I'm saying, 'I'm fine. I am relaxed.'

"Finally, I rolled down the window and this head pops inside. And he said, 'No, you're not.' And suddenly I said to myself, 'That's Werner Herzog!' There's something so calming and beautiful about Werner Herzog's voice. I felt completely fine and safe. I climbed out."

Herzog, 63, the temperamental auteur responsible for such strange but fascinating films as "Fitzcarraldo" and "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" — who won best documentary for 2005's "Grizzly Man" at the Directors Guild Awards on Jan. 28 — has a home near the accident scene. [...]

"I got out of the car and I said, 'Thank you,' " Phoenix said. "And he was gone."

In a town where we mere mortals walk, shop, and sip expensive espresso beverages in too-close proximity to so many Hollywood immortals every day, it seems a statistical certainty that a "somebody" would pass by Phoenix's accident, so we can't help but feel that the true oddity of the story is not that the actor enjoyed a post-trauma visit from a noted German filmmaker, but that Fate's Casting Office didn't dispatch someone more famous to the site. A more satisfying story would have legendary director Steven Spielberg descending down a rope ladder dangling from a hovering helicopter moments after Phoenix's car rolled onto the hillside, offering a decidedly A-list brand of roadside assistance:

"Joaquin? Joaquin! Are you OK?"
"Who's there? [Coughs] There's dirt everywhere. What's going on? Am I dead?"
"It's me, Joaquin. Steven Spielberg. Sorry about the dirt, the chopper's kicking it up. [Laughs.] Oh, and no, you're not dead. You're going to be fine."
"Mr. Spielberg? That's really you?"
"It is."
"Trippy."
"Not really. I usually circle the canyon before rush hour, just to clear my head. Brakes went out, huh?"
"Um...yeah. The brakes."
"Happens to the best of us, Joaquin."
"Is anyone else hurt?"
"No, I don't think so. Hey, congratulations on your Oscar nomination."
"Wait...what? The nominations aren't until Tuesday morning. My God, how long have I been blacked out? [starting to panic] Mr. Spielberg...? "
"No, no, you're fine. They won't be announced for days. [conspiratorially] Let's just say I have some friends in high places."
"Wow...that's great."
"Aren't you going to ask me about my movie?"
"Ugh...where are my manners? Hard to concentrate with an airbag in my face, I'm sorry."
"It's alright, Joaquin. You'll be happy to know Munich received 5 nominations, including best picture and director."
"That's great... Wasn't the buzz that you weren't going to get those?"
"[whispering] Friends in high places, Joaquin. Shhhh."
"Oh, right."
"Well, I guess I'll go call 911 for you now, They should be right along."
"Mr. Spielberg, wait!"
"You'll be fine, Joaquin. The ambulance will be here in minutes, I promise."
"No, I know...tell me—did Walk the Line get a Best Picture nomination?"
"I'm sorry, Joaquin, but someone had to make the sacrifice for me. I made an important film."
"I see. [beat] Well, thank you for waiting with me."
"My pleasure. And, Joaquin? If you tell anyone about this conversation, I'm going to take you for a ride in my helicopter, then drop your lifeless body onto some tourists at CityWalk. Their vacation will be ruined. We don't want that, do we? They came all the way from Omaha for a taste of Hollywood."
"No, we don't want that."
"Good, I'm glad we understand each other, Joaquin. Take care. Someone less famous than I am will be by soon."
"Goodbye, Mr. Spielberg, and congratulations."
"See you at the ceremony."

• Joaquin Phoenix Pulled from Car Wreck by Director Werner Herzog [LAT]
• Previously: Joaquin Phoenix Rises From Car Wreck [Defamer]