Ang Lee to direct Woodstock comedy

Though sophisticated western audiences are quite familiar with the work of the late Akira Kurosawa and other exemplars of Japanese filming of its Golden Age, the emergence of Chinese (Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou, King Hu), Japanese (Hayao Miyazaki, Masayuki Suo) and Vietnamese (Tran Anh Hung) filmmakers over the past 15-20 years has exerted considerable influence.

But of all of today's Asian-born directors, none has been quite so versatile and consistent as Taiwanese helmer Ang Lee.

Despite a slight stumble his last time out in the handsome but plodding soap opera "Lust, Caution" (which nonetheless swept Asia's Golden Horse Awards and was one of the highest-grossing films in China's history), two-time Oscar winner Lee has an astonishing track record for high quality. It would be impossible to find a more wide-ranging and accomplished resume than one harboring "Brokeback Mountain," "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," "The Wedding Banquet," "Sense and Sensibility," "Eat Drink Man Woman," "Ride With the Devil" and "The Ice Storm."

Now Lee is tackling that most iconographic American event of the late '60s, Woodstock, as a comedy.

Lee's frequent screenplay collaborator (and Focus Features CEO) James Schamus is adapting Elliot Tiber's memoir "Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, A Concert, and A Life," released last year by Square One Publishers.

Tiber, then an interior designer in Greenwich Village, also was involved in the family business, a Catskills motel. As its part-time manager, he had become the local town's issuer of event permits, granting himself one annually for a small music festival. When he heard that the planned Woodstock concert had its own permit denied by a neighboring town, he called to offer his own. Soon, half a million people were on their way to White Lake, N.Y., and Tiber found himself swept up in a generation-defining experience.

Today, Tiber is a professor of comedy writing and performance. He should be ecstatic over who has been tabbed to direct.

Alexander's conquest

The latest foray into historical suspense for novelist Tasha Alexander is "A Fatal Waltz"

(William Morrow, May 20), the third installment in the Tennessee writer's Lady Emily Ashton series. Her baptism into the film industry last fall, as author of the novelization of "Elizabeth: The Golden Age," came out of the blue. A flattering assignment, and deceptively challenging.

Though delighted to have been approached to pen the novelization, she was keen for her readers to know that she recognized the way the film played fast and loose with some of its history, such as the egregious error of having Sir Walter Raleigh (well played by Clive Owen) performing tide-turning feats that were in fact done by Sir Francis Drake during the battle with the Spanish Armada.

"It's Hollywood, and I get that," says Alexander, a recent guest of the South Carolina Book Festival. "I had a hard time reconciling myself to some of the inaccuracies in the script. But they did do a beautiful job with presenting who Elizabeth I really was, as well as their attention to detail of the court and its rituals. I doubt Cate Blanchett would have signed on to play Elizabeth had they not gotten her character right.

"It was a lot of pressure having only nine weeks to finish the book. I worked from the 14th and final version of the script, and the producers had already finished principal photography. It was an entirely different kind of project for me. I thought it would be kind of easy, since I already had the story in front of me. But once I broke movie scenes into book scenes and put them into prose, I realized I had only 60 pages. Oops."

The final version came in at 304 pages, and Alexander had conquered another world.

Bits and Pieces

The 9th annual Golden Trailer Awards, honoring the best in motion picture previews (or "cutters") made during the past year, will be held tonight at 8 at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles. The highly successful event is the brainchild of Monica and Evelyn Brady, daughters of Charleston's Jim Brady. ... Haven't had more than enough of Mike Myers? Then get his considered romantic advice in "The Love Guru" (June 20), a broad (what else?) comedy co-starring Jessica Alba, Justin Timberlake and (gasp!) Sir Ben Kingsley. Myers plays an American left at the gates of an ashram in India as a child and raised by gurus who move back to the U.S. to seek fame and fortune in the world of self-help and spirituality.