Product placement in movies is now so overdone that we may not even notice it unless a particular film or TV show really hits us over the head with a blatant in-your-face product shot. Otherwise, seeing commercial goods everywhere merely seems like everyday life in capitalist America. Just look at any of the websites that tally up products spotlighted in mainstream movies and you’ll probably be surprised (though not shocked) at how many brands appear in each new release. Did you notice that Blades of Glory contains 38 separate products? Probably not. Many of those products couldn’t have gotten their money’s worth, because the movie doesn’t allow the audience to walk away recalling any one particular item.

At a time when TV’s Top Chef and 30 Rock show us how lame blatantly whorish and ironic product placement can get, and while moviegoers are being subjected to more subliminal, suggestive and unintentional advertisements (Speed Racer, Wall-E and Beverly Hills Chihuahua respectively have us thinking about McDonalds, Apple products and Taco Bell, though some of these associations are not necessarily the movie’s fault), it’s good to remember that not all product placement is superfluous or despicable. Some of it is actually funny, smart and beneficial to mankind.

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• After the disappointment of Righteous Kill, which was blatantly sold as a Scorsese wannabe, it’s great to hear that Robert De Niro will play another mobster for his old friend Marty. This one will be adapted from the book I Heard You Paint Houses, about a real contract killer named Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran. It would be especially cool if Scorsese could find a part for Pacino, as well as a small role for Tina Fey to get kicked to death in.
• Also reunited: Yogi and Boo-Boo. The cartoon bears will now be computer-generated for a live-action/CG hybrid described as along the lines of Alvin and the Chipmunks. “Hey Boo-Boo, is that a poop in that pic-a-nic basket?”
• Also reunited, as expected: Jack Black and Angelina Jolie will reprise their vocal roles for a 3-D Kung Fu Panda sequel titled Pandamonium.
• Despite the fact that most people seem to want him to disappear from movies forever, Hayden Christensen has just received a three-picture deal with Screen Gems. Well, maybe he’ll do better with projects he picks out himself?
• Bollywood productions have shut down just as India’s blockbuster season begins, due to a strike from 22 separate unions, including extras and camera operators. The strike is expected to cause a lot of hardship and subsequent melodramatic situations followed by an epic song-and-dance number that also serves as new contract negotiations.

• The Hollywood Reporter imagines what the lineup might look like for May’s Cannes film festival. Among the titles named: Woody Allen’s Scarlett Johansson Kisses a Girl in Spain Vicky Cristina Barcelona; both of Steven Soderberg’s Che Guevara movies; and Wong Kar Wai’s “reworking” of his own 1994 film,  Ashes of Time Redux.
• In a rags to riches screenwriter story to rival Diablo Cody’s (although presumably with less nudity), Brad Ingelsby, a 27 year-old who apparently lives with his parents in Pennsylvania, has sold a script for a high six figures that will be produced by Leonardo DiCaprio’s production company. DiCaprio is expected to star, and Ridley Scott is expected to direct The Low Dweller.
• Tina Fey, John Hodgeman and Jeffrey Tambor have joined the cast of Ricky Gervais’ This Side of the Truth. Gervais is writing, co-directing and starring in the film for Warner Brothers.

• I got a press release about this yesterday, but in the pre-SXSW rush, I didn’t have time to post it. Baby Mama, a comedy starring Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, will open the Tribeca Film Festival. Is this a bad sign for Tina Fey’s highly-anticipated (by Karina, at least) movie star debut, considering that the last comedy to open the festival was Raising Helen in 2004? Maybe let’s just hope that Baby Mama is the United 93 of “career gal bickering with her white trash maternity surrogate” movies, and leave it at that.
• Dana Harris has a guide to where to eat whilst in Austin for SXSW. She’s totally right about the place at the Driskill, and totally wrong about Iron Works.
• Jason Reitman is gonna direct Jim Carrey in Pierre Pierre, described as “a politically incorrect story” about “a self-indulgent French nihilist.”
• Patrick Swayze’s rep has confirmed tabloid stories that the actor is suffering from pancreatic cancer, but says reports of his imminent demise are “absolutely untrue.”