Quentin will be heading the judges at the 67th Venice International Film Festival beginning on September 1st.

US director Tarantino's international jury also includes fellow directors Arnaud Desplechin of France, Guillermo Arriaga of Mexico and Italian Gabriele Salvatores. They will pick the winners for the top prize Golden Lion for Best Film, Volpi Cups for Best Actor and Actress and the Special Jury Prize, among other awards.

So since we are in the down cycle for Tarantino and nobody quite knows what he's going to do next, its time for the rumors to start flying. For this week, its that he's attached as a writer and director for The Shadow, a superhero film.

Go here and check out all the competitive cinematic goodness....

Rotten Tomatoes compares Reservoir Dogs with City On Fire.

City on Fire DVD
Reservoir Dogs DVD

Michael Madsen is still promoting the idea of a Vega Brothers movie. In the video below he says that he and Tarantino talked about it recently in Tijuana and here's the concept as it currently stands.

"I'd be Vic Vega's twin brother, he'd be Vincent's twin brother and we're both on a flight from Los Angeles, having just been released from prison, and neither one of us know that we're the twin brother of the other one and we're both on our way back to LA to avenge the death of our brothers."

The deal fell thru, but Tarantino was in the running to play Brainy Smurf in the planned live action & animated film version.

So far, the ensemble includes Jonathan Winters as Papa Smurf, Katy Perry as Smurfette, George Lopez as Grouchy Smurf and Kevin James as Hefty Smurf and Alan Cumming (who has prior experience in the wild blue yonder of cinema) as Gutsy Smurf.

This interview with interview with Roger Christian has several nuggets about Tarantino that I hadn't heard before - including Quentin's connection with the uber-horrible Battlefield Earth.

So there are a few of these stories going around that Lady Gaga is going to play an assassin in Tarantino's next movie.

This raises a couple of questions:
1. Does this mean QT's next movie is Kill Bill 3? I can't see that his 'Southern' idea would have assassins in it.
2. How drunk was QT when he told Lady Gaga she could be in his next movie?

QT is being sued for $1m for allegedly stealing the idea for Lucy Lui's character from Dannez Hunter.

Couple of obvious questions:
1. Why wait so long to file the suit?
2. Why only seek $1m.

A Tarantino crossword puzzle [thanks Bobby]

A glimmer of what Tarantino thinks might be next for him: a spaghetti western set during the time of slavery and the underground railroad. He's calling it 'a southern'.

I'd like to do a Western. But rather than set it in Texas, have it in slavery times. With that subject that everybody is afraid to deal with. Let's shine that light on ourselves. You could do a ponderous history lesson of slaves escaping on the Underground Railroad. Or, you could make a movie that would be exciting. Do it as an adventure. A spaghetti Western that takes place during that time. And I would call it 'A Southern.'"

Just one more Tarantino thought leaking out there - he'd do Kill Bill in 3D if he could do it over again. Does that mean that the often mentioned Kill Bill 3 will be Kill Bill 3-D?

The screenplay for Inglourious Basterds is still available from Amazon.

If you haven't already picked it up, Amazon has the single-disc DVD edition of Inglourious Basterds for $12.99.

Tarantino won the Critics' Circle Dilys Powell Award for Excellence, which I guess is kind of a consolation prize since they gave Director of the Year to Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker.

With QT kicking around ideas for another installment of Kill Bill in the media again, Daryl Hannah wants to bring the Elle Driver character back.

I'm not sure whether she's serious, or just begging for a role - any role - in a movie people will pay attention to.

And her plea has worked well enough to get her listed on the Kill Bill Vol.3 IMDB page.

Tarantino saves an LA theater from closing down. [thanks Eva]

Some more very cool custom Inglourious Basterds poster art, this time at Juxtapox Magazine. [thanks to Pete for the link]

And its all for charity benefitting the victims of the earthquake in Haiti:

Upper Playground teamed up with Quentin Tarantino and SA Studios to release the "Lost Art of Inglourious Basterds" to benefit the victims of the Haiti Earthquake. On February 18th, 2010 from 6 - 9pm, the world will get to preview and purchase the "Lost Art of Inglourious Basterds" at The Upper Playground Art Gallery in Downtown Los Angeles.

Its a shame that this is an in-person event only. They could have sold a bunch of these unsigned over the net for $5 or $10 each.

Also, be sure to check out Pete's painting of Quentin that manages to work in references to several QT films.

Oscar Nominations Announced: Inglourious Basterds nominated for Best Picture!

Here's the competition:
Inglourious Basterds
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Precious
Up In The Air
Up
An Education
A Serious Man
District 9
The Blind Side

Ibraheem Youssef has created some very cool looking minimalist posters for Tarantino's films.

Very cool stuff, and unlike most of the alternative poster designs I've ever seen, you can actually purchase these from Ibraheem's website.