Into the Wild led contenders for the Screen Actors Guild Awards with four nominations, including honors for lead actor Emile Hirsch and supporting players Hal Holbrook and Catherine Keener. The nominations were announced this morning.

Directed by Sean Penn, Into the Wild also was nominated for performance by its overall cast, along with the Western 3:10 to Yuma, the crime sagas American Gangster and No Country for Old Men, and the musical Hairspray.

Guild awards will be presented Jan. 27 in a ceremony televised on TNT and TBS.

The Associated Press reports that unlike the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes, which face turmoil caused by striking Hollywood writers, the guild awards look as though they can come off as planned. With actors showing strong solidarity on strike issues, SAG has reached an agreement with the Writers Guild of America for one of its members to write the ceremony.

Full list of nominees after the jump.  read more »

St. Clair Bourne, a Harlem-born, an Emmy award-winning documentary filmmaker who recorded American black culture, died on Saturday in Manhattan, according to the New York Times. He was 64 and lived in Brooklyn. Over the past 35 years, Mr.  read more »

Entertainment Weekly's Hollywood Insider tells us that New Line and MGM have finally green-lighted Peter Jackson's The Hobbit project. Mr. Jackson will executive produce the Lord of the Rings prequel for a 2010 release, but the studios are still searching for a director.  read more »

Today is Simpsonfest in Manhattan. Fox has painted the town yellow to promote the DVD release of the big screen version of their television show. Anyone in Midtown will find it difficult to miss the yellow-jacketed street teams, the "Simpsons on Ice" show at Bryant Park, the giant inflatable Homers and the Empire State Building lit up yellow (the first time the landmark has changed its appearance for movie promotion), according to Variety.  read more »

Ewan McGregor has just signed on to be the romantic lead opposite Jim Carrey in I Love You Phillip Morris, a dark comedy/love story about two cellmates in prison.

Variety reports:  read more »

The Tribeca Film Institute and Gucci are partnering to launch the Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund, which will offer grants totaling $80,000 to a minimum of three filmmakers in 2008. Recipients will be selected by the Tribeca Film Institute along with Gucci and a selection committee of documentary filmmakers.

Robert De Niro will host a dinner celebrating the fund on Dec. 18.

Full release after the jump.  read more »

Jay-Z previwed tracks from his upcoming American Gangster album at a VH1 Storytellers lot in Brooklyn, according to the AP.

On a studio lot for VH1's ''Storytellers'' series, Jay-Z, along with a full band, performed several tracks from the album inspired by the upcoming Denzel Washington-Russell Crowe flick.

''American Gangster,'' in theaters Nov. 2, chronicles the rise and fall of notorious Harlem drug lord Frank Lucas. Jay-Z said watching the film made him reflect on his own drug-slinging days and the dangers of that lifestyle.

''I was watching the movie and I was pulling emotions from the film,'' the 37-year-old rapper told the crowd, which included girlfriend Beyonce, on Wednesday night.

We told you yesterday that Ryan Gosling left the Peter Jackson-directed film adaptation of The Lovely Bones this weekend, but now The Los Angeles Times is reporting that a little chub might have been the reason behind those so-called "creative differences."

Peter Jackson was said to be quite surprised that Gosling had showed up to start work on "The Lovely Bones" looking like he'd donned a fat suit. According to sources, the 26-year-old Gosling had apparently told the director he was going to gain weight to age himself up to play the part of a grieving father, but Jackson was still expecting some movie star allure -- not paunch and a beard. By Friday, Gosling had left the high-profile production over those pesky "creative differences," and, by Sunday, he'd been replaced by 36-year-old Mark Wahlberg, who actually could be old enough to father a teenager.

Variety reports:

Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio will reteam early next year on "Shutter Island," a Laeta Kalogridis-scripted adaptation of the Dennis Lehane novel.
...
Drama is set in 1954, with DiCaprio in final talks to play U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels, who is investigating the disappearance of a murderess who escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane and is presumed to be hiding on the remote Shutter Island.

The IFP announced the 17th Annual Gotham Awards nominees today, spotlighting the breakthrough indie films of the year.

Great World of Sound, a comedy about a bumbling Southern duo who traverse the country to discover unsigned "talent" for a record label, garnered the most nominations for Best Feature, Breakthrough Director and Breakthrough Actor. In Craig Zobel's documentary-style debut, real performers auditioned without knowing it was actually a film shoot. With hidden cameras, the interaction was recorded between the lead actors and the unsuspecting musicians.

Into the Wild, Sean Penn's film adaptation of the Jon Krakauer book, was also nominated for Best Feature and a Breakthrough Actor nod for star Emile Hirsch.

Mr. Hirsch told Hillary Frey in the Observer:

“There were times when it was really, really, really hard,” he continued. “But there were times when Chris [McCandless] was on the road and it was really, really, really hard. I just knew that that was part of the commitment. I didn’t go into it thinking it was gonna be a ball. It’s amazing how you can go into it thinking it’s not really gonna be a ball, but you really don’t realize what that means until you’re doing it.”

“I think it’s important to be willing to suffer, if that’s what it takes,” said Mr. Penn of his expectations for his star.

The awards will be presented at Steiner Studios in New York on Tuesday, Nov. 27.

View the full list of nominees after the jump.

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