Maybe one of the reasons Quentin Tarantino insists on spelling Inglourious Basterds the way he does (the director’s not saying) is that there’s already a Spell-Checked Inglorious Bastards out there in the universe.

Released in 1978, Enzo Castellari’s World War II action pic remains a cult fave, revered in certain cinema circles – Tarantino’s circle being one of the more notable. (Tag line on the original poster: "Whatever the Dirty Dozen did, they do it dirtier!") To capitalize on the new Weinstein Brothers' release, the first Inglorious has just been sent out on DVD and Blu-Ray via Severin Films. Bo Svenson and Fred Williamson star as members of a gang of criminals who escape an Allied prison convoy with a plan to hop over the Swiss border, but end up ‘volunteering’ for a suicide mission deep inside Nazi-occupied France instead.

When Steven Spielberg heads to the National Constitution Center on October 8 to accept his Liberty Medal, he’ll be bringing vivid memories of a childhood spent in the Philadelphia area. From my interview with the filmmaker way back when Schindler’s List was released in December, 1993, Spielberg had this to say about his days as a whippersnapper living in Haddon Township, NJ -- and hanging around the grand hall of Philadelphia’s landmark John Wanamaker department store, in the shadow of the bronze eagle statue:

"My family lived in Haddonfield and we used to go to Philadelphia on weekends to visit relatives. . . . My parents used to put me under the eagle and leave me there for an hour and a half, alone.

"My job was not to wander - no nannies, no baby sitters - and they went shopping, because I was impossible to shop with. So they would go all around Wanamaker’s and I would sit there terrified because there was this eagle over me, there were a million people and there were nuns playing the organ. 

"I used to dread more than anything else being stuck under that eagle."

The Greater Philadelphia Film Office should send copies of John Hindman’s The Answer Man to every producer and director even remotely thinking of coming here to shoot. For a city still suffering from a collective case of low self-esteem, this so-so rom-com – with Jeff Daniels as a burnt-out bestselling author of spiritual advice books and Gilmore Girls’  Lauren Graham as the chiropractor who brings him back into alignment in more ways than one – is one big City of Brotherly Love morale booster.

 More so than even the most-dashing moments in the M. Night Shyamalan oeuvre, The Answer Man shows off the striking urban beauty and cool of Philadelphia. From the stately brownstone manors of Delancey Street to the cafes and shops of Old City, from a shot of Daniels crawling on all fours past the WPA-era tableau of the post office at 9^th and Market Streets to scenes of Rittenhouse Square and scullers on the Schuylkill, the film celebrates the city’s cinemagenic strengths. Locations include the Warsaw Café, the Newport apartment building, McCall Elementary in Society Hill (redubbed the Robert Frost School) and the Book Trader on 2^nd Street -- the used bookstore gets a huge, huge plug.

Director of photography Oliver Bokelberg, who shot The Visitor and the Meryl Streep-starrer Dark Matter, clearly saw something he liked in Philadelphia. Lou Taylor Pucci, Kat Dennings, Nora Dunn and Olivia Thirlby also appear in Answer Man (called The Dream of the Romans when it was in production here in 2008), but the real star of the picture, without a doubt, is Philadelphia.

Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar and Italian bean purveyor Illy Coffee have joined forces in celebration of Almodovar’s many-times star and long-time muse, actress Penelope Cruz.

Images of the Live Flesh/All About My Mother/ Volver actress adorn a new cup and saucer, part of the “Illy Art Collection” series that has famous artists (Koons! Schnabel!) designing chinaware to drink your espresso out of.

Almodovar shows Cruz in a set of Warhol-like photo images, promoting the Spanish siren’s moody beauty and, coincidentally, Almodovar’s upcoming fall release,  Abrazos Rotos (Broken Embraces).  Yes, Cruz stars.

The limited edition cup and saucer combo is signed by Almodovar, and is yours for $60. Click here to have Cruz show up in your kitchen, too.

By the end of its seventh weekend of release -- that’ll be Monday, July 20 – Todd Phillips’ The Hangover will have passed Beverly Hills Cop’s $234.8 million box office take to become the top-earning R-rated comedy of all time.

Who’d have thunk?

Not Phillips, who steered Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis and Ed Helms through the blotto bachelor-party-gone-amok comedy.

“We had a feeling, once we started screening to test audiences, that it was going to do all right, but who knew?” says the director, on the phone just before Hangover topped $200 million.

Nonetheless, the director -- a specialist in male-bonding comedies (see Old School, see Road Trip, see Starsky & Hutch) – had a feeling he was onto something. There they were in Las Vegas last year, he and his cast (and the tiger and the baby and the chicken), and already Phillips and company were volleying possible scenarios for a sequel.

“We’d been talking about doing Hangover 2 while we were shooting Hangover,” he confirms. “And that’s not because we knew the movie was going to be a big, breakout success. It was more because, well, when you’re on the set of a movie it’s fun to talk about that kind of stuff. You know: `Man, if we did another one we could do this, that, the other thing.’

“So we do have ideas, and it’s something that we’re going to work on and hopefully shoot not this fall -- but probably shoot next fall.”

Not coming in the near future, however, is Old School 2 (or Old School Dos, as IMDB has it listed). The original Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, Luke Wilson comedy was a big hit back in 2003, but the logistics of regrouping has proved daunting.

“We’re not actually doing Old School 2,” Phillips says. “That’s been a hard project to put together…. These guys are so big, it’s tough to get all the planets to align on that one.”