Above: an ambitious aspiring film editor bought a fixer-upper and Hitchcockified the bathroom. More images here. Via BoingBoing.
Jeff Wells finds a way to justify talking about “what a gutless dithering douchebag pussy John Edwards has turned out to be” on his movie blog by pulling a Chris Matthews, accusing the former presidential candidate of “acting like the softer, squishier, less decisive brother of Gregory Peck’s character in The Big Country.”
UnitedHollywood links to a PDF version of an essay from Joan Didion’s After Henry, about the 1988 writers strike. “Agree or disagree with how this strike has been waged, she puts her finger on realities that sound eerily familiar, 20 years later — and on some key differences as well.”
Just in time for Valentine’s day, the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a Texas statute restricting sales of sex toys. Jette Kernion finds the movie angle at Slackerwood.
I think this is what qualifies as “comedy” from Vanity Fair. Go easy on them–at least they’re trying.
Kristin Thompson weighs in on the “I Drink Your Milkshake” phenomenon. “But great art has always been subject to humorous treatment and tends to come through unscathed. Marcel Duchamp stuck a mustache on a reproduction of the Mona Lisa and put it in a museum, and the act is considered a daring stroke of avant-garde art…The internet has accelerated such of manipulation of artworks and made us more aware of them, but its not new—and it is inevitable.”
Michael Musto reports from last night’s Film Forum screening of Sidney Lumet’s unlikely “lovely chick bonding” flick, The Group. Arrested Development fans, cover your eyes: according to Musto, Jessica “Lucille” Walters says she was ” desperate to play the Candice Bergen lesbo part.”
The strike may be over, but UnitedHollywood isn’t. The WGA’s unofficial bloggy club house is warning that comment management will be slow for a while while the site preps a relaunch.
The WGA and the AMPTP apparently reached a tentative deal sometime between 3 and 4 AM PST this morning. Nikki Finke (who, BTW, really knows how to rock the stock photography) seemed to say in her last post that last night’s talks eliminate the need for tonight’s proposed bi-coastal WGA meetings, but as of this morning United Hollywood says those meetings are still on. Everyone seems to be stopping *just* short of saying the strike is definitively over. Variety has the full points of the proposed deal in PDF form (it will begin to download when you click that link), and United Hollywood [via indieWIRE] has the letter sent by WGA West president Patrick Varone to union members early this morning.
The Underwire spots the strike-assisted irony in that story from last week about the online release of the next installment of the Jackass franchise:
The studios are locked in a death grip with the Writers Guild of America over the future of digital entertainment. When negotiations began, the studios claimed there wasn’t yet enough money being made online for them to keep track of such new-fangled bangs and whistles. So, to prove their point that they’re not making any money online, Viacom is releasing a major feature film through the internet. Doh!
I don’t know if we can really classify a glorified blooper reel that would have gone direct to DVD anyway as “a major feature film,” but the argument’s still pretty solid. And Jackass is a particularly interesting example of the contested territory that the writers are striking over––although, I’m afraid that if I were to think too hard about someone “writing” something like the above, my brain might explode. In any case, can’t wait for the YouTube dramatization of this little twist in the saga to pop up on United Hollywood.
Above: Billy Price, star of Billy the Kid, goes to New York, crosses the street, and suddenly finds himself shirtless in an impromptu dance party. I watched this video for the first time on mute, whilst on a conference call, and thought I was having a psychotic break. Thanks, Kevin.
Woody Allen’s Speechless vid, via United Hollywood. This wouldn’t even be on here if it wasn’t such a slow week.
This has nothing to do with movies, really, except that James St. James wrote a book that became two of them. And it’s totally tasteless. But SO TRUE. And I don’t know what you guys are doing, but my RSS is DEAD this week. Should I just blame Google?
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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Kristin Thompson weighs in on the “I Drink Your Milkshake” phenomenon. “But great art has always been subject to humorous treatment and tends to come through unscathed. Marcel Duchamp stuck a mustache on a reproduction of the Mona Lisa and put it in a museum, and the act is considered a daring stroke of avant-garde art…The internet has accelerated such of manipulation of artworks and made us more aware of them, but its not new—and it is inevitable.”
The WGA and the AMPTP apparently reached a tentative deal sometime between 3 and 4 AM PST this morning. 
