The Good: Martin Scorsese is continuing to make headlines at the Berlin Film Festival while promoting “Shutter Island” and this may actually be bigger than his announcement that he and Robert DeNiro are working on another film together. There is a rumor of a possible “Taxi Driver” reboot or sequel coming and that Lars Von Trier (Dogville, Breaking the Waves) is looking to get in on the action as well. Von Trier’s producing partner Zentropa Films said that an announcement would be made shortly. Hmm… A remake sounds counter-productive and near impossible to recreate but a sequel with DeNiro reprising Travis Bickle sounds like movie heroin. I’m hoping for the later but I just need to hand it to Scorsese this week. He’s blowing my mind and “Shutter Island” hasn’t even come out yet.

The Bad: I feel bad for Vin Diesel. That much talked-about “Hannibal” project he’s wanted to direct and star in seems all the more out of reach now cause he’s stuck having to play the same roles over and over again. Next up after a fifth “Fast and the Furious” is a third “Chronicles of Riddick” movie for director David Twohy, who wrote and directed the first two. Doing another “XXX” flick has also been talked about. For those that don’t know, “Hannibal” was to be about a mid-twenties Carthage general who conquered Spain before engineering a surprise attack against Rome by trekking his army of 100,000 strong over the Alps. His vehicle of choice: An elephant. Unfortunately, that elephant will be standing alone for yet a few years longer.

The Ugly: Quentin Tarantino is looking to do a western set during a very ugly time in our history, slavery. “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.” He changed history around in “Inglourious Basterds” so he could kill Hitler, so what he has in store for slave owners, the KKK, and bigots everywhere has gotta be good, right?