Gus Van Sant to Direct Matt Damon for Dave Eggers

And PIFF moves to Lake Oswego. PLUS: Baldwin Watch!

The morning of Portlandia's Season 2 premiere (and the attendant Slate article about how Seattle feels, written by somebody who does not live in Seattle) has dawned with a remarkable raft of movie and TV news.

  1. Gus Van Sant has replaced Matt Damon as director of a movie starring Matt Damon, says The Hollywood Reporter. Details are scarce on the movie's plot, about a traveling salesman stranded in a small town, but it was written by Dave Eggers with The Office's John Krasinski. (The actor best known as "Jim" once helmed a movie based on a David Foster Wallace book, so this project has a strongly McSweenish aura.) Byron Beck says the picture might shoot in Portland, but we don't know where he got them apples. Bad news for Twilight moms: This project could conflict with Van Sant's plans to make a Taylor Lautner movie.
  1. With the Broadway Metroplex shuttered since September, the Portland International Film Festival finds itself in need of at least four more screens to make up for its erstwhile central location. It has added some rather unlikely ones: Lloyd Mall (yes, the one inside the mall), World Trade Center (apparently there's a movie screen inside the business center and Molotov-cocktail target), Pioneer Place, and Lake Twin Theater in Lake Oswego. "We're in every quadrant of the city now!" writes NW Film Center spokeswoman Jessica Lyness. This is not actually true unless you mentally replace North Portland with Lake Oswego, but PIFF kind of does, so OK.
  1. BALDWIN WATCH! The Great Daniel Baldwin Experiment—Mr. Baldwin's move to Portland and promise to bring a reality-TV studio with him—has entered its third year. It must be judged a considerable success, if by "success" you mean "not accomplishing any of the stated goals but scoring some great Blazers tickets." However, Baldwin can finally add a hit TV show to his resume: He got a guest role on NBC's Grimm. What role? "[S]ay hello to Julian Vance[,] Grimm's new arson investigator!!!!" Baldwin tweeted last night. He visited wardrobe today, and the Grimm producers are thrilled. "Daniel Baldwin is our guest star this week," Tweeted producer Edward Irastorza. "Not sure which one he is the crazy one or the super religious crazy one. Guess I'll find out." Oh, Edward. Daniel's the one who rapped about Edgar Allen Poe on a stripper bus.

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