WHIP IT
The Story: A Texas teen (Ellen Page) gives up a life of beauty pageants to fight it out in the roller derby rink.
The Pitch: Fight Club meets Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants
Who It's For: Grrrl power wolf packs.
Cause for Hope: Precious as it may be, it's hard not to get excited for roller derby; buzz has been good for Drew Barrymore's directorial debut.
Cause for Concern: The project leaves huge room for the Drew nose-scrunching, head-bobbing cutesy factor to rear its pig-tailed head.
Gawker Enthusio-Meter: 7

ZOMBIELAND
The Story: The world is overrun by zombies. Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg fight back.
The Pitch: Shaun of the Dead meets Red Dawn
Who It's For: Nerds
Cause for Hope: Hilarious trailer; movies success will propel Eisenberg to the Hoodie Hearththrob crown.
Cause for Concern: Cruising around with Woody 'n kilin' some zombies is a fantastic joke, but it still is just one joke and 90 minutes is a long time.
Gawker Enthusio-Meter: 8

A SERIOUS MAN
The Story: The Coen Brothers portrait of Jewish life in the '60s suburban Midwest.
The Pitch: Yentl meets Blue Velvet
Who It's For: College administrators
Cause for Hope: The ever aloof Coen brothers portraying the world of their own youth promises the "laughing at the hicks" quotient might fall slightly.
Cause for Concern: They've still got plenty of snideness to spare.
Gawker Enthusio-Meter: 7

THE INVENTION OF LYING
The Story: In a land where people speak only the truth, one man (Ricky Gervais) learns how to bend the world through the magic of false speaking.
The Pitch: Bruce Almighty meets Withnail and I
Who It's For: Gervais TV die hards
Cause for Hope: Despite gimmicky concept and Gervais' spotty non-BBC track record, hope springs eternal for the sometimes genius.
Cause for Concern: Formulaic concept promises depressing anti-lying message.
Gawker Enthusio-Meter: 6

TOY STORY and TOY STORY 2 in 3D
The Story: The rip roarin' Buzz Lightyear and friends have adventures in a little kid's bedroom. No Polanski jokes here.
The Pitch: Westworld meets Pinocchio in 3D
Who It's For: Citizens under seven, their parents and film nerds who don't feel weird about sitting alone in a theater filled with children.
Cause for Hope: It is the Citizen Kane of animation after all.
Cause for Concern: America comes one step closer to falling under the mass hypnosis that 3D creates an entirely new level of cinematic experience, worth paying more than ten dollars for.
Gawker Enthusio-Meter: 8

Harden told us that Page stayed in character during much of the shoot, even when they would try to crack her up by singing Whitney Houston songs. “Ellen’s a serious girl,” she said. “She’s an absolute doll, but she’s a serious doll.”

“She’s really nice,” said Eulala Scheel, Harden’s ten-year-old daughter who plays Ellen’s sister in the film. “But she’s hard to be around, because she really likes to eat healthy, so I wouldn’t know what I could eat in front of her at craft services. She doesn’t laugh a lot. But one day I had my hair up in spikes, and that was funny, so she laughed at that.”

So the girl's deadpan — so what? You'd clam up too if you had Marcia Gay Harden constantly thrusting a sloppy joe from craft services into your hand with the commandment, "Hamburger phone scene. Take it from 'It's not a food baby.' Go!"

• Eve And Ellen Page ‘Whip It’ For Drew Barrymore’s Roller Derby Pic [MTV]

Boomp3.com

Popular pint-sized canuck Ellen Page took a slightly uncomfortable seat on an apple box on the set of Whip It. Page wished that the box had a padded cushion hidden inside, but Page made the most of her situation. It was an altogether different story for her co-star Landon Pigg, though. Pigg said, “Well, I’m just sitting on air. I took a couple of mime classes back in France.” Page was impressed by Pigg’s incredible feat of flexibility and dexterity, but she felt it was an even bigger feat of strength and skill to sit on a box for a prolonged period.

[Photo Credit: INF Daily]

*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

So yes, we highly doubt anyone will be rushing to the theaters next year in some kind of SATC or Devil Wears Prada estrogen frenzy to see Page's uninspiring fashions, but two primary reasons why we think news like that is just grand, come to mind:

1) Early details about Barrymore's first crack at the director's chair reveal character names like Dinah Might, Bloody Holly, and Malice In Wonderland. Which would otherwise be somewhat tacky little gimmicks were it not for (we suspect) Drew's uncanny talent for making any sappy, giggly, poorly written chick flick watchable, and the fact that Juliette Lewis, Marcia Gay Harden and Defamer favorite Kristen Wiig are all co-starring.

2) Nobody likes an estrogen frenzy.

So if Page remains determined to straddle the fine line between bi-curious and going incognito while on the DL using the most unnoticeable boy's clothes to disguise herself, we should really be thanking the bison-fan for preventing yet another endless cluster of pink Manofaux Blahniks crowd our sidewalks every weekend.

[Photo credits: INF]

• ELLEN PAGE WHIPS IT GOOD [Just Jared]