Of particular note amongst this week’s new DVD and Blu-ray releases is Buried, Rodrigo Cortés’s tense, harrowing tale of a contractor, buried alive, trapped for the duration of the film in a 2’ x 7’ wood coffin. This is a risky formula for movie-making — not only must the filmmakers keep our interest in that confined space, but star Ryan Reynolds undertakes the considerable challenge of holding the audience’s attention, basically by himself, for 90+ minutes.

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For the past six years, Franklin Leonard, a mid-level studio executive, has put together the annual Black List — a compilation of the year’s best unproduced screenplays according to him and 300 or so of his industry pals. But these aren’t just projects that will never see the light of day. A few of the films are in production now, and six of the top 10 screenplays — which we’ve posted after the jump — have already been scooped up by studios. Let us know in the comments what you think sounds the most promising; our money’s on Jackie, a film about Jacqueline Kennedy’s life in the days following her husband’s death, which is set to be directed by Darren Aronofsky.

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This week at BuzzFeed, we taught the world the joys of making your own Four Loko. We gawked, mouth agape, at Emma Watson’s Today Show attire, and were thoroughly charmed by the cast of Harry Potter doing their best American accents. Along with the rest of the internet, we derided Willow Palin’s homophobic Facebook rant. We salivated over the Angry Birds cake. We watched as Facebook announced email and then went ahead and invented a new, do-nothing social network. Most of us enjoyed seeing Kim Kardashian finally open up about hoverboards. Animals wore boots. Putin posed with other animals. Ke$ha was less attractive in high school, as was Ryan Reynolds. Also, some royal douchebags in England got engaged or something, we really couldn’t follow.

1. Yesterday afternoon Little, Brown & Co. revealed the jacket art for David Foster Wallace’s unfinished novel about an IRS tax-return-processing center, The Pale King, and set a fitting release date: April 15, 2011. [via NYT]
2. A New Pornographers gig at Michigan’s Calvin College had to be canceled because “the irony of the band’s name was impossible to explain to many.” [via Spinner]
3. Kanye’s video for “Runaway” will be a 40-minute-long noir film. As he explains it, “It’s the story of a phoenix fallen to Earth, and I make her my girlfriend, and people discriminate against her and eventually she has to burn herself alive and go back to her world.” [via ONTD]
4. Is Roybn going to make a guest appearance on Gossip Girl? It sounds too good to be true, but TwitPics don’t lie. [via Vulture]
5. Ryan Reynolds is producing a new comedy for NBC called Mayors of Casterbridge that has absolutely nothing to do with the work of Thomas Hardy and is described as “Old School meets Gran Torino.” [via Deadline]

Bonus quote: “To me, there’s no real difference between a fortune teller or a fortune cookie and any of the organized religions. They’re all equally valid or invalid, really. And equally helpful.” – Woody Allen in the New York Times

Editor’s note: Each Friday, our internet-savvy friends over at BuzzFeed curate a post for us that’s filled with links to some of their favorite items on the web that week. Enjoy!

This week at BuzzFeed, we hung out with the commenters of YouTube, some of whom were cooler than others. The Scariest Dude of the Week Award went to Mickey Rourke, while the Most Likely to Be Naked Award went to Zac Efron. (Let’s hope he doesn’t need a shirt to play catch with his dead brother.) The War of the Baby Tapirs and Baby Wombats briefly tore our office apart. We felt for Geoffrey, who just wanted to see some otters, and for these babies, who probably didn’t want to be at Comic-Con. Thank goodness that Pacey Witter and Ryan Reynolds did. We welcomed back Sad Keanu (now with helmet!) and stood in solidarity with Bill Murray. (Yes, it’s a joke. Still funny.) Finally, we really enjoyed the fat jokes in this week’s Between Two Ferns. Ice cream soup for all!

Ryan Reynolds has played a wisecracking college legend (Van Wilder), a wisecracking vampire hunter (Blade: Trinity), and a wisecracking mutant swordsman (X-Men Origins: Wolverine). It’s a testament to his smarmy charm that he has managed to carve out such a reliable, likable niche. If you’ve grown tired of the shtick, then Buried (which was just snatched up at Sundance by Lionsgate for about $3.2 million) is not the movie for you.

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1. Beating out both Jennifer Garner and Keri Russell, Gossip Girl Blake Lively has been cast as the female lead opposite Ryan Reynolds in The Green Lantern. [via THR]
2. Billy Name, resident photographer of Andy Warhol‘s Factory for seven years, is missing his archive of negatives. [via NYT]
3. How the Jay Leno disaster could ultimately cost NBC more than $200 million. (Also of note: As a result, they’ve just unveiled six new drama pilots.) [via LAT]
4. Sarah Jessica Parker‘s new Bravo reality show Work of Art: The Next Great Artist will feature New York gallery owner Bill Powers, New York magazine art critic Jerry Saltz, and curator Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, as judges; China Chow and Simon de Pury will host. [via Variety]
5. Foster Kamer explores the short distance between the branding of mega pop stars and the branding of indie rock bands like Vampire Weekend. [via Gawker]

Bonus link: The New Age Cavemen and the City

To absolutely no one’s surprise, Bruno opened in the number one slot this weekend, but signs may not be so good for its future. Transformers:RotF fell to third place under the consistent Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. The only other new offering of the week, I Love You, Beth Cooper, came in a weak seventh place. Sadly, we didn’t even know it had come out yet. Read More »

The movie critics are calling it the “worst film of the decade, yet simultaneously, the greatest allegory for the automobile industry.” Transformers 2, has tied Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs for the #1 spot making $42.5M over the holiday weekend. (This secures The Hangover as the only movie this year to hold the numero uno spot for two consecutive weekends.) Transformer 2‘s inability to come out on top comes as no surprise, since both sequels easily divide the ”me like big 3-D creatures break stuff” audience. Read More »

Aside from stalking the halls at Flavorwire, Erik Davis contributes to Fandango.com and is also the editor-in-chief of AOL Moviefone’s Cinematical.com, one of the longest-running and most popular movie blogs online. He’ll be bringing us his industry reports from Sundance throughout the festival, and can be reached with tips or questions at erik [dot] davis [at] gmail [dot] com.

The quiet on Main Street, the beautiful weather and the very good films have thus far proven the 2009 Sundance Film Festival a success. Never have I been to a film festival (let alone Sundance) where I’ve actually liked — and in most cases, really liked — the first several films I’ve watched.

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