Shirley MacLaine joining Downton Abbey?

Don't get me wrong: I love Shirley MacLaine. And she kinda-sorta likes me. But I still think Maggie Smith can make her tap out with a figure-four leglock.

Another accolade for Shirley MacLaine

Congratulations to Shirley MacLaine for being selected to receive the 40th annual Life Achievement Award of the American Film Institute. But just remember, AFI: Houston's Cinema Arts Festival had her first. So there: Nyah, nyah, nyah!

(And while she was here, she had me. So to speak.)

Yes, I know: That's an unforgivably childish response. And, honestly, I mean no disrespect to Ms. MacLaine, who is a grand and gracious lady, an excellent actress, and an all-around icon worthy of every accolade doled out by the entertainment industry. But, what the hell, I learned a long time ago that you better root for the home team as loud as you can, every chance you get. Otherwise...

Well, let me put it this way: Decades ago, while I was covering the New York Film Festival for the Dallas Morning News, I tried to set up an interview with French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, whose most recent movie was in the NYFF lineup. But when I placed a call to the Manhattan press rep for the French New Wave icon, she seemed less than impressed by my outlet. Indeed, after a pause pregnant enough to produce quintuplets, she asked -- and, I swear, this is a verbatim quote -- "Do they show Monsieur Godard's movies in Texas?"

Now here's the ironic part: This particular Godard film (Every Man for Himself) not only got shown in Texas -- it wound up being shown in Dallas at a suburban art-house managed by Bob Berney. (Maybe you've heard of him: He's gone on to bigger and better things.) And I already knew that was a possibility. So I wanted to be polite to the condescending functionary, in the hope of landing an interview. (Which, you probably won't be surprised to learn, I didn't manage to do.)

But I must confess that what I really wanted to say in response was: "Yeah, lady. They show his movies at the goddamn drive-in in Eagle Pass. On double bills with movies by that Frankie Truffaut guy."

Would you believe... Colin Firth as a conniving art curator? Cameron Diaz as a Texas steer roper?

Usually, an actor has to actually win an Academy Award before he can start having his pick of paycheck roles. But Colin Firth has been a Best Actor front-runner for several months now -- really, since The King's Speech started making the rounds of the festival circuit last fall -- so it comes as no surprise that he's already considered sufficiently bankable to be cast as the male lead of Gambit, an upcoming remake of the 1966 seriocomic heist flick that starred Michael Caine and Shirley MacLaine.

The original Gambit, directed by Ronald Neame (The Poseidon Adventure),  was a tricky, kicky caper in which a cocksure thief (Caine) employed an Eurasian beauty (MacLaine) to pull off a complex con involving a gullible millionaire (Herbert Lom) and a priceless antiquity. (The picture pivoted on a clever switcheroo at the midway point that, back in the day before Internet-disseminated spoilers, actually surprised audiences.) The remake, which will be directed by Michael Hoffman (Soapdish, The Last Station), reportedly deals with a London art curator (Firth) who hits upon an elaborate plan to lure a wealthy collector into buying a fake Monet painting. To pull off the scheme, the curator recruits a Texas steer roper (Cameron Diaz, shown above) to impersonate a woman whose grandfather liberated the real Monet masterwork at the end of World War II.

Are audiences ready to accept Diaz as a lasso-twirling rodeo queen? Can the producers hope to surprise contemporary ticketbuyers with the original plot twist (or some reasonable facsimile thereof)? And if the new Gambit turns out to be box-office smash, will it revive interest in a relatively obscure but fascinating documentary about the U.S. role in the post-WWII liberation of Nazi-seized artwork? Who knows?

But for those of you who are customarily averse to remakes of any any sort, consider this: The screenplay for the new Gambit was written by Joel and Ethan Coen, the filmmaking siblings who didn't fare too badly with their recent re-imagining of True Grit.

The night Shirley MacLaine grabbed my ass

Had a lot on my plate these past few days while covering the Cinema Arts Festival Houston for CultureMap. But, mind you, I'm not complaining. Got to write about Isabella Rossellini, Alex Gibney, rodeo champ Clint Cannon and other luminaries in attendance during the five-day event. Best of all, I was privileged Saturday evening to do an on-stage Q&A with the exquisite Shirley MacLaine -- an ageless icon for whom I've long nursed a shameless crush -- after a special screening of Terms of Endearment (the best movie ever made in Houston) at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. (That's where my CultureMap colleague Carolina Astrain snapped the above photo.)

Being the saucy little minx that she is, Ms. MacLaine thought it would be a nifty idea to kick off the evening by acting out a memorable scene from Endearment, the one in which she and Jack Nicholson  share a touching (in every sense of the term) farewell at an airport. So when she embraced me on stage before our conversation, she... she... well, she grabbed my ass. And I felt it would be only good manners on my part to respond in kind. The audience, it should be noted, sounded as though they heartily approved.

Yes, you guessed it: In addition to talking about some of her other classic movies -- including one I was happy to learn we both still enjoy, Ronald Neame's Gambit (1966) --  Ms. MacLaine devoted part of our spirited conversation to a discussion of her fascination with metaphysics. Specifically, she talked -- knowledgeably, passionately -- about dreams. I wonder if she knew that she fulfilled one of mine last night?