Like a Virgin, Madonna Directs For the Very First Time

With Guy Ritchie’s 2008 vintage RocknRolla a relatively encouraging return to form, word on the street is that this year’s Madonna Household movie misstep might have fallen to the singer herself. Indeed, while her directorial debut Filth and Wisdom stirred notice and a sort of rubbernecking curiosity last winter among filmgoers at the Berlin Film Festival, the new trailer touches pretty much all the thematic bases we’d come to predict from A Film By Madonna. Striving ballet dancer turned stripper? Check! Pharmacy worker stealing drugs for ill African children? Check! Internationally renowned musician turned self-aware actor? Check! (But let’s be fair: Eugene Hutz is constitutionally incapable of anything but scene-stealing on stage and screen.) But hey — a trailer is a trailer is a trailer. We have a standing invitation to see all 84 minutes before it opens Oct. 17, which we think we’ll accept; as far as we’re concerned, the woman still has Gay Football Olympics goodwill to spare. [Apple]