So Page Six has published an email from a character identified only as “The Final Nail,” claiming that a Weinstein-era Miramax tell-all book is in the works, based on records and audio recordings kept by Stuart Meltzer, an assistant to Bob Weinstein who died in the World Trade Center on September 11. Mr. Nail says his book “will detail the day-to-day . . . manipulation of the Disney company by the Weinstein Bros.”

Maybe last week, this would have seemed like a big deal. But just a couple of days ago, the Village Voice published a long story by editor-in-chief Tony Ortega, based on his “accidental” scavenging of Weinstein’s trash. Page Six couldn’t get a comment from a Weinstein on their anonymously sourced story, but Ortega was able to put together a decent profile of the current state of TWC, and even got Harvey on the record to joke about it: “You want more of my garbage? How about a couple of shirts out of my laundry?”

There’s obviously something tacky about this masked writer peddling a book based on the archives of a 9/11 victim, as if Meltzer was martyred to ensure that the truth of Miramax would someday be known. Why all the secrecy, when it’s apparently copacetic journalism to call Harvey up and tell him you’re going to publish memos that you found in his trash?

In the latest “What’s wrong with The Weinstein Company?” piece from the New York Times (Michael Cieply penned the previous installment of the saga, six months back), David Carr begins with the thesis, “For the second year in a row, Harvey and Bob have had some significant misses at the box office and probably won’t be major players at the Oscars.” He then offers a pack of typically hyperbolic denials from Harvey Weinstein. Among them is Harvey contention that his studio does, in fact, have a hand to play at the Oscars–behind Denzel Washington’s latest directorial effort, The Great Debaters, and the John Cusack war widower drama Grace is Gone.

But nowhere in the story does Weinstein mention I’m Not There, the film featuring the performance which prompted Weinstein to bellow just two months ago, “If Cate Blanchett doesn’t get nominated, I’ll shoot myself.”

Sure, it’s possible that Weinstein *did* flog Todd Haynes divisive Dylan film in his interview with the Times‘ David Carr, and the quote just didn’t make it into the final draft. It’s also possible that Carr, satisfied with the mogul’s name-checking of two barely-buzzing star vehicles, neglected to push the issue. But it could also be a sign that, despite his earlier bravado, Harvey’s been burned too much, too often of late to really stand behind a semi-difficult sell.

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• Dennis Harvery reviews a documentary narrated by Sean Penn called War Made Easy, based on pundit Norman Solomon’s book of the same name, about how media institutions collude with governments to shape public opinion on war. “Escalation in ground-level harm has, per Solomon, been deliberately obscured from public knowledge. Instead, attention is refocused on dubious feel-good reconstruction stories and fodder from embedded journalists selected by military intelligence to fly and bond with troops on select missions. Fox News is predictably bashed here, but supposedly neutral CNN gets it even harder.” The film opens next week in San Francisco only.
• Ice Cube and his producing partner Matt Alvarez are allegedly trying to produce a big screen adaptation of the graphic novel 10 at Dimension. Oddly, Variety says The Weinstein Company “declined comment.”
• Sarah Polley’s directorial debut, Away From Her, received five nominations from the Director’s Guild of Canada yesterday — more than any other film.

• Movie theater chains in India refused to screen The Simpsons Movie over the weekend — and, surprisingly, it had nothing to do with outrage over Apu. Warner Brothers India, which is distributing the Fox film in that country, apparently demanded that Indian multiplexes book Simpsons on multiple screens, which would have squeezed out homegrown content.  In response, seven leading theater chains declined to run the Fox film at all, and even upped the ante by pulling WB’s latest Harry Potter pic from screens. Facing a projected loss of nearly $100,000 for the weekend, WB workd out a compromise, and Simpsons should open on some Indian screens today.
• After staying on in order to see through a number of “very personal projects” including Rush Hour 3 (yes, seriously), long-time New Line marketing exec Russell Schwartz has confirmed that he’s leaving the company.
• The Weinstein Company has raised $285 million to launch Asian Film Fund, through which they expect to produce roughly 30 “Asian-themed” theatrical and direct-to-DVD features. Projects already in the pipeline that are expected to receive some of those funds include a live-action version of Mulan, and “a modern-day remake” of Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai.
• Dade Hayes explains why it’s a big deal for Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There to open in New York at both Film Forum AND Lincoln Plaza. Among other reasons: “The Gotham arrangement reps a rare violation of the “clearance” that typically prevents any pic playing at the Film Forum from also unspooling at another Manhattan site. The opportunity for the dual play, plus access to the Film Forum’s membership-driven mailing list of 25,000 avid film buffs, made the release a viable proposition for TWC.”

On her blog, Variety’s Anne Thompson is linking to a subscription-only New York Times item which states that Lionsgate (who are distributing the pic in partnership with The Weinstein Company) have pushed up the opening of Michael Moore’s Sicko in response to the film’s widespread piracy. The health care doc will now open on one screen only in Manhattan this Friday, only to expand on its original opening date a week later.

I guess this is what passes as aggressive action against piracy these days, but I’m not sure what good it will do. It’ll force the Times to run their review a week early, possibly pushing Evan Almighty off the the Arts front page (which, if Nikki Finke is to be believed, could do further damage to the already poorly-tracking most expensive comedy ever made). I don’t know what the stats are regarding the rate at which online piracy decreases once a film is in theaters, but I do know that releasing the movie a week earlier in Manhattan just ensures that camcorder bootlegs will be available a week earlier on Canal Street. And by admitting that piracy is enough of a problem that they need to change their release date (I believe this is the first time a studio has shifted an opening date in response to a leak, but do let me know if I’m wrong), aren’t Lionsgate effectively letting the terrorists win?