There are amazing feats, and then there are jaw-dropping, once-in-a-lifetime accomplishments that confirm mankind's remarkable physical and imaginative potential. Philippe Petit can lay claim to having pulled off one of the latter, as in the summer of 1974, the French tightrope walker did something no one had ever done before or will ever do again: he navigated, on foot, a single wire stretched between the World Trade Center's two towers.

As a kid, Petit was an incorrigible climber, and upon seeing a newspaper article that included a diagram of the as-yet-uncompleted Twin Towers, he immediately told himself that one day, he would cross the gulf between the enormous skyscrapers. That he had no formal wirewalk training and had never been to the United States didn't matter, nor did the nightmarish logistical hurdles that would obviously stand in his way. A dream was born, or rather something of an audacious obsession, leading him to hone his craft first through intense training sessions, then by traversing wires attached to the peaks of Notre Dame and Australia's Sydney Harbour Bridge, and finally by concocting an elaborate plot to infiltrate the still-under-construction WTC and pull off his unparalleled deed.

One of the greatest things about Guy Maddin is that his accomplishments come out of creativity and a spot-on eye, rather than money and flashy technology. Give the man an old camera, a few actors, and some weird props, and he can make a film that's not only engaging, but also visually stunning. He knows how to make the least become the most, and with the release of My Winnipeg, he's now inspiring others to do the same.

Jam! reports that UK filmmakers are getting a change to get their Maddin on. Both newbie and experienced filmmakers are getting the chance to submit 3-minute odes to their hometown, and Guy says "anything's eligible." Considering the lap-linked Winnipeg, it's not surprising that the doors are wide open...

Anyhow, the online contest is going to give out 1,500 pounds to the winner and a roundtrip flight to ... dum dum dum ... WINNIPEG! Sure, they also get their film screened and included on the UK's DVD release of My Winnipeg. But who cares when you can head to the snowy wonderland? I'm hoping the winner at least gets to choose the season.

If you want more information, head here.

The whole idea of secret children who come out of the woodwork is challenging as it is. Should the secret be revealed, or should it stay hidden? How do you make up for lost years? How do you integrate them into the family? Now, imagine that you're part of the law, and you find out that your secret kid is in jail. That's the basic idea behind a new indie comedy called City Island, and The Hollywood Reporter has posted that Julianna Margulies, Emily Mortimer, and Alan Arkin have joined the cast.

Andy Garcia had previously signed on to play Vince Rizzo, "a Bronx prison official who realizes that an inmate (Steven Strait) is his secret love child. His efforts to become his guardian lead to comic complications." Marguiles is taking on the role of Garcia's wife, and it seems that the man is also looking to become an actor because Arkin will play a teacher in the acting class, and Mortimer will be a fellow student he becomes friends with. Garcia's real-life daughter Dominik Garcia-Lorido will play his daughter, and Ezra Miller has also nabbed an undisclosed part.

I really don't know how all of this acting works into prison officials and long-lost bad boy sons, but we should see soon enough. The film went into production this week in the Bronx.

Movies about ex-convicts and their difficulty assimilating back into society generally begin with the prison release, during which the protagonist typically looks downright miserable. At first thought, I recall the opening of Vincent Gallo's Buffalo '66, which ironically exaggerates the hopelessness of post-incarceration by adding a lack of a public restroom to the list of things the former jailbird is without. But at the beginning of John Crowley's new film, Boy A, the titular young man being turned back into the world is high-browed and smiling from ear to ear. And this change from the expected norm really drew me into the film immediately.

Perhaps the difference is that for most films about ex-cons, the hero doesn't have a very good chance at starting over. For "Boy A," however, there's a literal reinvention taking place. In the first scene, the young man (Andrew Garfield) sits with his caseworker, Terry (Peter Mullan), and discusses the details of his release, which include his receiving a new home, a new job and, most importantly, a new identity -- he chooses the name "Jack." Also, rather symbolically, Terry hands Jack a gift, a pair of sneakers that unintentionally represents the young man's ability to comfortably run away from his former life.

It used to be that the musicians with the beat were the Go Gos. Now the beat is getting manly. The Hollywood Reporter has posted that there's a new indie '80s comedy on the way called We Got the Beat, and Robert Hoffman has just joined the cast. He's been dancing his butt off in a bunch of films and most recently got to groove in the rain with Briana Evigan in Step Up 2.

Written and directed by John Artigo, the film follows "Brad, a high school football player who sets out to prove he's more than just a jock by quitting the team and turning his heavy metal band into a pioneering boy band." But that's not who Hoffman is playing -- he gets to be "Garth, the boy-toy and live-in lover of Brad's mother."

This sounds like one of those films that could be terribly bad, or terribly good. Here's to hoping it's all set to real '80s music and is awesome. The indie begins filming this month.

It was a bummer to learn that Franka Potente was backing out of Pope Joan back in May, but it looks like she's found herself another weighty gig to add to her plate. Variety reports that she has signed on to star in a new German drama called Flucht aus Tibet, otherwise known as Escape from Tibet. The film, which is based on a true story, will be the big-screen debut for writer and director Maria Blumencron.

Heading out of Che Guevara territory, Potente is moving over to Tibet to play Judy Cronenberg. The woman was a press photographer who led "a group of refugee Tibetan children over the Himalayas to safety nine years ago." There's nothing more being said about the story, which seems to be surprisingly free from the Internet (anyone know the details?), but it is a big German project. The film has received FFF Bayern's largest film funding -- $1.1 million.

It should be a little bit of time before we get to see Tibet, but in the meantime, of course, we can watch her play Tania in Steven Soderbergh's The Argentine and Guerilla.

Fans of the world's most famous writer-director based in Philadelphia need not fear. Filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan is not abandoning his creative work as a writer and director in favor of restricting himself to production duties. He has, however, formed a new partnership to produce one thriller per year for three years, according to Variety.

M. Night "typically generates more movie ideas than he can execute." The terms of his deal with Media Rights Capital (MRC) mean that M. Night will "create the stories and ideas for the films and pick the writers and directors; MRC will finance." This won't affect his next directorial project, The Last Airbender, which is still set for release by Paramount in 2010.

My first thought was that M. Night is following in the footsteps of Steven Spielberg. You might remember that Spielberg created the TV series Amazing Stories in part because he had so many story ideas that he couldn't do himself. He ended up writing or developing 29 stories (out of 45 episodes). Interestingly, Eric Kohn asked M. Night in an interview last month if it wouldn't be easier for him to "go the independent route." Even though the filmmaker said he's "never had an issue with studios," this sounds like a big step in the independent direction.

And here's a quote that might warm the heart of anyone, including myself, who has been cool about his recent work: "Working with the next wave of innovative filmmakers will teach me many things that I can bring to my own writing/directing and give my stories the opportunity to be brought to the screen in a stunning way."

Three intriguing titles top my list of indie films to check out this week on DVD. Coincidentally, two of them feature actors who also directed (or directors who also acted).

Taiwanese film Help Me Eros, directed by and starring Lee Kang-Sheng, became slightly notorious at the Toronto film festival because droves of otherwise hardy film critics walked out of a press screening, either out of boredom or disgust. Ryan Stewart stayed, even though the first scene made him consider vomiting and the film as a whole was an unpleasant experience. Any film that provokes that strong a reaction, of course, makes it a perfect choice for adventurous renters who don't mind gambling a few dollars on the possibility that they'll never finish watching the movie. (The plot doesn't really matter in this case, does it?) DVD extras are limited to various trailers.

The English-language Big Dreams, Little Tokyo, directed by and starring Dave Boyle, is a culture clash comedy. Boyle plays a man who wants to become a language instruction guru, while his Japanese American roommate (Jason Watabe) wants to become a Sumo wrestler despite his slight build. KJ Doughton at Film Threat gave it a four-star rating ("a fresh filmic entree"). DVD extras include an audio commentary, behind the scenes interviews and "making of" footage, deleted scenes, web spots, and more.

French flick Heartbeat Detector (AKA La Question Humaine), directed by Nicolas Klotz, arrives with little fanfare that I can recall, though it did enjoy a brief, limited theatrical run earlier this year, and Scott Foundas admired "its epic sense of humanity" in the pages of The Village Voice. Mathieu Amalric (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) plays a company psychiatrist with odd methods of motivating the corporate troops. DVD extras appear to be non-existent.

Earlier today, Peter wrote up a piece on movie mogul Harvey Weinstein explaining how The Weinstein Company created their division Third Rail as a dumping ground for movies they feel have only "ancillary value." Harvey and his younger brother and business partner, Bob, have been under a bit of an attack since ditching Disney/Miramax for their own shingle back in 2005, with a lot of sharks swimming the waters surrounding them, just waiting for enough money to bleed through the Weinstein's fingers.

An article over at the Sunday Telegraph by Tom Teodorczuk goes into some fairly good detail about the troubles facing the beleagured brothers. You can read the full piece yourself to see his analysis; suffice it to say that the Weinsteins have yet to bring that old Miramax magic to their independent shingle, probably for a variety of reasons, not the least of which include the troubles facing the indie film world generally. As Hollywood Elsewhere's Jeff Wells, quoted in the piece, notes, "The Weinsteins have suffered from the same pressures affecting the indie film sector that everyone else faces. There is a glut of product owing to hedge fund firms now investing in films."

We have the Stifler, but I never thought we'd get the Wiffler.

Variety reports that we're about to get a new mockumentary about the epic, skill-testing sport. It's not coming to us from the mocku-God Christopher Guest, but rather Garden Party co-star Ross Patterson. He wrote The Wiffler: The Ted Whitfield Story, which Tommy Reid is currently directing in California. This will be his second feature after 7-10 Split, which starred Patterson and also featured the likes of Tara Reid, Ray Wise, Vinnie Jones, Robyn Lively, Rachel Hunter, and a ton of other left-of-A-List celebs.

Set during the Major League Baseball strike in 1994, the film will focus on "a nation turning its eyes to wiffleball and attempts to break the homerun record." It's strange enough that it could work, although it will definitely depend on the cast, which also features Joey Kern, Alana Ubach, Christine Lakin, Nick Thune, Richard Gant, Richard Riele, and Chris Tarantino.

Hey, we got ping pong and dodgeball, why not wiffleball? But what's next? Kickball?