Recently in Hollywood Category

Society today owes a great debt to ... Hollywood paparazzi. No, really. Think of all the tax dollars the County of Los Angeles saved by not having to pay an investigator to dog Britney Spears' every move to see whether she was complying with multiple orders from the court commissioner overseeing her child custody case. And TMZ has provided such a meaningful charitable service by transmitting all those images of the Bad Mom of the Year straight to the judge's chambers, that its Web site may now qualify to end in ".org" instead of ".com."
Same goes for the DMV, which under normal circumstances has a heck of a time proving that a scoflaw has been driving without a license. Little Jayden and Sean Preston, who now apparently have and really use their carseats, also should thank those guys and gals who practically plaster themselves to Mom's wheels.
So, Angelenos and SoCal tourists, next time you can't even maneuver on a Beverly Hills sidewalk because of the clicking and flashing throng hovering over Brit, don't complain. In fact, say thank you.

(Photo of LiLo and Samantha Ronson from Celebrity Babylon)

So we're buried in super-exciting, super-critical work here, and I've been told to keep it -- i.e. blogging -- on the DL, because a certain percussion instrument is being crushed, slowly, in a dark place ... but I digress.

Still, I cannot remain silent: I only heard about it this morning, and by it I mean the identity of LINDSAY LOHAN'S ALLEGED LESBIAN LOVER. It's club DJ Samantha Ronson, as reported on A Socialite Life via tabs of various stripes (I heard the Star and the New York Daily News, but don't quote me, 'cause I'll cut you). The info comes from people who either hacked into or had privileged access to, LiLo's MySpace page (what, she needs a MySpace page? Kids!) Star is holding the tidbit off of their Web site (that's how you make money, people, by selling magazines to people in the supermarket checkout lines -- hear that newspaper industry?). The other Daily News does have something, evidenced at the link above.

Here's the dirt from Celebrity Bablyon, for those too lazy to click:

Here is an example of one late night MySpace message from Lohan to Ronson, “Your [sic] all I have to live for, babe. I want to marry you and have children with you.” Sources say that the 21 year old actress has also been in many fights over the web with the 29 year old Samantha, Lindsay types, “Babe don’t leave me I [insert "f" word] LOVE YOU!” The relationship between the two lovebirds has been a bumpy one at best. Lohan has described the two as having an “on-again, off-again” romance. A MySpace friend has claimed that the two are obsessed with each other writing ‘I love you’ and ‘I have to have you.’ Apparently there is not so much censorship involved online with the two girlfriends, on one occasion Samantha writes to Lindsay saying “You still have me. I’m here for you. With you” Lindsay simply replies with, “I love you. You love me. Why don’t we [insert "f"word] and make a family...”

I first heard about all this at the tail end of the "Adam Corolla Show", which doesn't make me feel as bad that I'm listening to it as I would if it were "Howard Stern," but it's not something to be proud of, even if Corolla and co-hosts Danny Bonaduce and Teresa Strasser had documentary maker Ken Burns as a guest yesterday. It's the low-brow and the middlle-brow on KLSX 97.1 Free FM ... but I digress. We've got dirt on LiLo's alleged lesbian lover ... and isn't that all that counts?

Katharine McPhee, the runner up on the last season of "American Idol," is the celeb profiled on this weekend's episode of "My Celebrity Home." The show will give a tour of the house she recently bought and then use her Asian-fusion bedroom as the inspiration for a redo in a San Dimas house. Still got McFever? Check it out, 9 p.m. Saturday on the Style Network.

What exactly were the ramifications of the high number of foreigners among this year's Academy Awards nominees? That it signifies international unity as members of the entertainment community clasp hands, sing and sway around a naked golden guy? That the U.S. trade deficit may creep ever higher, thanks to entertainment product from outside our borders selling really well here? That the awards show might get higher ratings in Barcelona or Budapest?
All I know is it makes for either a stimulating challenge or a whopping bore for reporters in the press room where winners come back to chat and show off their new hardware.
Here is -- I kid you not -- the official academy transcript of all but one question-and-answer exchange with "Pan's Labyrinth" cinematographer Guillermo Navarro:

Q. Spanish?
A. Spanish.

Q. Spanish?
A. Spanish.

Q. Spanish?
A. Spanish.

Q. Spanish?
A. Spanish.

Q. Spanish?
A. Spanish.

Q. Spanish?
A. Spanish.

Q. Spanish?
A. Spanish.

Q. Spanish?
A. Spanish.

Hello, information? Berlitz, por favor.

From the Hollywood court files comes word that screenwriter Paula Neiman is suing the producers of "The Bible Experience," a wildly popular audio version of the New Testament with characters voiced by Denzel Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Angela Bassett and other stars. In the suit filed by the late Johnnie L. Cochran's firm, Neiman contends she has not been paid the 5% of the gross she is due.
My question is, if it comes time to take an oath in the legal proceedings, do those testifying swear on a stack of CDs?

Just got a preview copy of the new book from the heiress apparent to Anna Nicole's rank among those who are famous for no particular reason. Carmen Electra has her name above the title on "How To Be Sexy," coming out in May.
Many a male reader would be inclined to flip right to the seventh chapter, "The Art of Seduction," either as an instruction to his own significant other or as a heads-up to better get it when he's being hooked and reeled in.
But I was more interested in Chapter 2, "Confidence."
Keep in mind that this is a draft of the book and subject to revision, but here's the essence of Carmen:

It's one thing for TMZ.com to send videographers into the world to pester celebrities outside of nightclubs in hopes that they'll be drunk enough to issue forth some kind of tirade against, oh, say, Lindsay Lohan and her naturally red hair. It's quite another for an ostensibly reputable TV newscast -- oh, who am I kidding, putting "reputable" and "TV newscast" together in the same sentence -- to dump sad news on celebrities busy preening merrily on the red carpet of a premiere.

And yet, that's precisely what KCAL's Dave Clark did last night at the Pantages: Button-hole celebrities for their reactions to the death of Bruno Kirby. It's a fairly amusing and eminently lazy piece, incongruously combining Kirby's death -- which, let's face it, probably in the scheme of things doesn't deserve this much air time -- with a puff piece about the premiere of a musical, juxtaposing big red-carpet smiles with expressions of sorrow.

It excels as an exercise in measuring spontaneous emoting from people who didn't really know the guy (why bother hunting down his onscreen co-stars when there's a random pile of celebrities amassing in one place?), however, with Jennifer Tilly's gape-mouthed response (they worked together, sort of, as voices of CGI mice) -- "Omigod, are you kidding?" -- the most dramatic. Robert Davi (ID'd in the piece as "Robert Dabi" -- fading fame's a bitch, innit?) ruefully shakes his head for the cameras more than he ever would have in real life because he understands that's what's expected of him. Lorenzo Lamas is a veritable fount of information: "I had no idea he was ill," Lamas says, confessing that he never worked with Kirby but "I liked his work." You can almost see the gears whirring in Lamas's brain trying to place the name, the face -- and he succeeds, noting accurately that Kirby did both comedic and dramatic roles.

Clark's next assignment: Asking red-carpet trollers what they thought about the capture of JonBenet Ramsey's killer, or just offering them current-events quizes in general.

TMZ.com reports that the Burning Shore resort in Namibia, world-renowned as the prenatal hangout of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and brood, is to be auctioned on Aug. 30. The couple was reported to have paid $2 million just to clear the place out for themselves for 80 days, so the auction price is likely to lock out your average Namibian investor.
But with African desert on one side and ocean on the other, it's secluded enough for even the most camera-shy of Hollywood notables. Some possible future uses:
-- Suri Cruise's summer camp ("Kumbaya, L. Ron, kumbaya...")
-- bar mitzvahs generously hosted by Mel Gibson
-- Lohan family reunions
-- retreat for publicists who work with clients like these.

Greg Hernandez of the Daily News examines the cost of public celebrity stupidity in today’s paper, niftily finding a way to sweep Suri-ously nutty Tom Cruise under the umbrella currently shadowing Mea-Culpa Mel and Looped Lindsay, but politely ignoring Britney Spears’ ongoing travails. (But she’s not a movie star, you argue? Have you seen “Crossroads?�? Oh, you have? Well, OK.)

Not to diminish or trivialize the rancid vitriol spewed by Mad Mel early the other morning, but does it strike anyone as odd that when someone whose career consists a lot of shooting guns filled with blanks at other actors vomits forth a fusillade of hateful, alcohol-drenched invective, there are cries that he is no longer morally capable of shooting guns filled with blanks at other actors, yet when a presumably stone-cold sober political pundit slags the widows of men killed on Sept. 11 and cavalierly announces without providing any proof that a former U.S. President is gay, TV news divisions seem to have no problem with continuing to encourage her bile?

Yet another sign that Earth is completely out of balance: It is now possibly to truthfully say the phrase "award-winning movie 'Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo.'" The Rob Schneider crass comedy sequel that most critics agree never should have seen the light of day picked up the honor last night for best movie billboard at the 7th annual Sunset Strip/Times Square Billboard Awards. The good news is that the awards also gave its Billboard of the Year honor to "Weeds," a Showtime series actually worthy of your entertainment time and dollar.

Went to last night's opening performance of the 136th edition of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey at Staples Center, in particular to observe more closely for myself the elephants' role in the show and how they are handled. With a 2000 lawsuit against the circus wending its way toward a trial, probably next year, the endangered Asian elephants may not be a part of the show much longer if Ringling loses.
The usual number of protesters were outside the arena, and Ringling made its customary promotional push about the Center for Elephant Conservation, its captive breeding program in Florida. But what really caught my attention were the animated "talking" elephants on the jumbo screen who proclaimed that the tricks the pachyderms do in the show are "natural behaviors."
If anybody out there has seen video of an Asian elephant in the wild balancing on its trunk and forelegs, or maybe perching one foreleg on a rock or treestump and then walking around it in a circle, I'd love to know about it.

I can't be bothered to actually tally such things, but it would seem that the most overused word in tabloid headlines these days is "bump," as in the abdominal bulge which may be a famous fetus or may just be evidence of a bean burrito consumed at lunch.
Paparazzi and the people who pay them are obsessed these days with images that suggest someone has a bun in the oven, particularly if it's Nicole Kidman or Jennifer Aniston. A snug dress or top may reveal a curve that puts photogs on 24/7 pregnancy patrol, while anything flowy has the caption writers practically panting about what the celeb is trying to hide.
Until paparazzi and tab editors decide to back off or to focus on other signs of pregnancy -- swollen ankles and Jimmy Choos, perhaps? -- we're forced to look at a bunch of "bumps," real or imagined.
Think I'll invest in companies that make Gas-X and body shapers with industrial-strength tummy control.

Apparently, everything can be reduced to the most idiotic, debased terms imaginable.

This website manages to create short films dumping on everything from Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" to future camp classic "Snakes on a Plane." And you don't have to be stupid to enjoy it.

I recently attended a motion picture academy tribute to Olivia de Havilland as the grand dame of movies nears her 90th birthday. I wrote about her well-deserved reputation as an elegant, gracious lady and I am delighted to discover that she seems to attract fans of a similar nature. De Havilland followers writing to me or calling me since the story ran have been the most courteous people I ever have heard from. One man told me...

On a flight this evening, I noticed someone across the aisle reading US magazine's "Stars! They're Just Like US!" (If anyone would know this isn't true, you'd think it'd be US magazine editors, but I guess that's just another reason journalists are held in such low esteem by the rest of the universe.)

I hadn't looked in that magazine for a quite a while (understandably), so was surprised that the magazine was still devoting so many pages to such a lame conceit. For the uninitiated, under this headline, the magazine runs a bunch of (essentially unflattering) paparazzi photos of celebrities trying to go through the motions of mundane daily life out of the purview of intrusive shutterbugs; they're depicted in such riveting action shots as feeding a parking meter, ingesting comestibles of the sort that wouldn't ordinarily result in the sort of toned physiques displayed in movies and TV shows and leaving rotting fish heads in the automobiles of investigative journalists. Or thereabouts, anyway.

So here are a few headlines you might hope to see in future incarnations of US's "Stars! They're Just Like US!":

"They don't use clippers to trim their toenails!"

"They lie in court under oath!"

"They're appalling parents!"

"They proffer opinions on issues they know nothing about!"

"They're profoundly depressed!"

"They buy junk they don't need!"

"They don't live every day as if it were their last!"

"They make greivous mistakes in relationships!"

"They don't watch even a fifth of the crap that they TiVo!"

"They cheat on their taxes!"

"They cry themselves to sleep!"

"They're embittered, humorless husks beaten down by the vicissitudes of contemporary existence!"

"They loudly berate their personal assistants in public, resulting in embarrassing moments for all those nearby!"

"They don't read US!"

"They edit pointless, ultimately unrevealing magazine photo features that no one in their right mind would bother to read!"

There must be more. Any ideas?

Is "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" a movie or a video game? Hard to discern from the ads...

I wonder if the actors in it even had a clue.

Last week, for a profile of actress Kyra Sedgwick, I interviewed Kevin Bacon, who directed his wife in "Loverboy," a film opening Friday starring Sedgwick in an obsessive mother-son relationship (the second season of her TNT cop series "The Closer" premieres tonight at 9, making the actress this week's hardest-working woman in Hollywood):

Q: How does working with your wife as a director or co-star differ from working with another actress?

Bacon: Well, I’m sleeping with her. Nowadays, I’m not sleeping with all the actresses I work with.

Good answer, and after his joke, Bacon answered my query far more thoroughly and thoughtfully. But a blog is a blog, not Le Petit Monde des Films Français, so we'll leave it at that.

"The Sundance Kids: How The Mavericks Took Back Hollywood," by some lunatic who has utterly disconnected with reality named James Mottram (if someone had shown me how to do that comic-blog typeface where you print your real, profane thoughts and then whimsically strike through them, though allowing you the blog-reader to still enjoy them ironically, as if in an attitude of no-harm-no-foul, I definitely would be the target of a lawsuit from Mottram's suits).

"How the Mavericks Took Back Hollywood." Hmm. What might be wrong with that premise? Clearly, Motrin -- er, Mottram -- has done scads of research and watched tons of '70s Hollywood films and noticed that they're pretty much exactly like movies of Hollywood's "tentpole" "franchises" of the Zeroes. Have you seen a big-budget studio film like "Nashville" or "Dog Day Afternoon" or "Network" or "Taxi Driver" or -- you get the point.

Variety's review of the book notes that, in fact, that subtitle is, indeed, utter horse (imagine that font that strikes through dirty words here.) "His interviewees' wearied -- and obvious -- observations that Hollywood's zealous deification of the almighty dollar and tendency to favor synergistic activity over artistic cachet contradicts that premise. Indeed, by the closing chapter Mottram questions whether the mavericks really did take back Hollywood, or whether it was 'more a case of being allowed entrance again after years in the wilderness.'"

Kudos, Jimmy, for selling a publisher on a book that even confesses it has no defendable point of view. (Really, does anyone know how to do that strike-out font? Because every other sentence here could've used it.)

Until last night, Brandon Davis' greatest claim to fame seems to have been his wealthy entitlements as grandson of the late Marvin Davis. Now he's getting some attention for his caught-on-video rant against Lindsay Lohan while clubbing in L.A. with Paris Hilton. (Defamer.com and TMZ.com link to this obscene tirade, but because of his repeated foul language, if you want to see it you'll need to type in an address yourself.) While Brandon blathered on about Lohan's anatomy, apparently stunning the hard-to-shock paparazzi, Paris giggled and held up her cell phone so whoever was on the other end could hear it all. If Lohan were to sue for defamation, given all the video crews recording this foul mouth in action, there would be seriously deep pockets for any settlement or judgment.

I was out of town when Stephen Colbert gave his infamous performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner, but the blogosphere persists in debating whether or not his comic evisceration of the Bush Administration – with President Bush sitting a few feet away – was appropriate.

Initial reports discussed the discomfort in the room as Colbert uncorked such bon mots as, “I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.�? Or, referring to Mr. Bush’s low poll numbers, “We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in ‘reality.’ And reality has a well-known liberal bias.�?

On the other hand, Colbert – who portrays a blustery, right-wing buffoon on his Comedy Central series “The Colbert Report�? – has become the new darling of the left, which is delighted that he presented such uncomfortable viewpoints to an Administration that seems to wear blinders to alternative opinions. There’s even a new website, ThankYouStephenColbert.org, where admirers can leave messages to the comedian.

If you’ve actually seen the performance, you’re forgiven for wondering what all the tumult is about. Sure, there was some razor-sharp one-liners, but overall, Colbert wasn’t quite as consistently bracingly witty as he is on his show. And the film placing Colbert in the position of White House Press Secretary was way too long. But if the assembled journalists actually did feel uneasy with what Colbert was saying, as was reported, that only proves that they’re far too comfortably ensconced in the Establishment to do their jobs capably. And if Colbert’s jokes really are considered controversial and/or brave, that speaks more to the chilling pall that has been cast over discourse in this country.

Besides, isn’t deflating pomposity what the Correspondents Dinner is all about? Some questioned the propriety of George Bush’s slide show a couple of years ago making fun of the lack of WMD in Iraq. (Bush’s routine this year, with a lookalike standing alongside him and ostensibly saying what was really on his mind, was amusingly self-deprecating.)

Such is the nature of comedy. As it was pointed out recently on “South Park:�? Either everything is a fair target for humor, or nothing is.

It does seem, however, that the artistic community is shedding its timidity and more aggressively questioning our government’s policies. Last year, of course, was George Clooney’s “Good Night, and Good Luck.�?, a thinly veiled evisceration of the mainstream media’s unwillingness to challenge the current Administration in this “Either you’re with us or you’re with the terrorists�? era.

And now, in the past two weeks, two very different protest albums have come out from veteran rockers: Neil Young’s “Living with War�? and Bruce Springsteen’s “We Shall Overcome.�? (Green Day’s “American Idiot�? was the first major release to take on our country’s current anomie, and the Dixie Chicks’ upcoming recording, “Taking the Long Way,�? promises to address their past controversy and perhaps advances the debate, but for the most part, few rock acts seem to possess the requisite p-ss and vinegar to make a political statement. Perhaps, in the era of artists branding themselves with clothing lines and perfumes, the protest album is seen as a quaint relic from the past.)

Young’s quickly produced CD is, of course, a pointed, no-holds-barred assault on just about every aspect of the Bush Administration. (Think of it as a very noisy op-ed page.) Before it was even released, it was considered controversial for its number “Let’s Impeach the President,�? a laundry-list of a song piling up issues on which Young takes issue with Bush. “What if al-Qaeda blew up the levees?�? Young sarcastically snarls. “Would New Orleans have been safer that way?�?

Musically, it’s trademark Young – crunching, guitar-heavy rock. The songs could be more tuneful, and the lyrics understandably have a rushed quality to them, but Young’s passion and sense of urgency and seriousness of purpose as he cathartically vents his spleen seem increasingly scarce commodities in pop music.

By contrast, “We Shall Overcome,�? Springsteen’s tribute to Pete Seeger is a more nuanced, more melodic recording, making use of accordions, fiddles, upright bass and a horn section (including a tuba) to create a perfect piece of Americana. Rather than directly address today’s issues, Springsteen somehow comforts us by reminding us that protesting injustice has always been a proud American tradition. Take heart, Springsteen suggests to us between the lines; these hardships, too, will pass.

So Paramount must be pretty pleased with J.J. Abrams’ new “Mission: Impossible�? movie, as the studio’s now handing him the keys to the “Star Trek�? franchise. It makes sense for Abrams to take the helm: While “Trek’s�? rabid cult following caught its creators by surprise, in his shows “Alias�? and “Lost�? Abrams accepted nerdling fans as a foregone conclusion and filled each episode with all sorts of arcane details for them to obsessively fret over.

But you know what this means, don’t you? With Abrams’ and his brain trust’s minds elsewhere, “Lost�? will really go off the rails next season.

I was invited to but didn't attend the taping of a Turner Classic Movies program Tuesday evening featuring Dick Cavett interviewing Mel Brooks, and now I'm a little sorry I didn't. A friend who was there said it was pretty jaw-dropping stuff. The closest Cavett apparently came to asking Brooks a question about his storied career was when he asked him how he -- Cavett -- would have fit in in the "Your Show of Shows" writing room.

Instead, Cavett reminisced about strolling through Central Park with Woody Allen, at which point my friend realized the whole enterprise was a misbegotten idea -- Cavett clearly preferred Allen's more erudite sensibility over Brooks' slapstick, scattershot approach to comedy. The producers kept trying to get Cavett on-message, to no avail; at one point an hour or so into the proceedings, Brooks -- who, I'm told, was hilarious anyway -- pointed out that he had been sent a memo listing about 80 questions that would be discussed in the evening and that Cavett hadn't asked one of them.

After three and a half hours of this, my friend and his pal got up to leave, as did a lot of the rest of the audience, despite the producers' pleas that they stick around. Can't wait to see how much if any of this apparent mess ever actually makes it to TCM.

OK, so Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have announced the birth of their daughter, and they've named her Suri.

Where did this name come from? Google the word “Suri,�? hit the “I’m Feeling Lucky�? button, and this is what you get. We can only hope that this really isn’t the answer.

Well, sort of. Mary Lynn Rajskub (pronounce it "rice-cob" and you're in the ballpark), who plays tetchy techie Chloe, a fan favorite on "24," performed standup tonight at the Upright Citizens Brigade in Hollywood, a place so packed on this evening that fans were relegated to sitting cross-legged on the stage, mere feet from the comics. Rajskub was a comedienne long before she emerged as a hot young brooding actor -- witness her work on "The Larry Sanders Show" and the equally brilliant sketch-comedy series "Mr. Show." (She's always done petulant quite adroitly.)

Though it seemed clear that many in the audience were there mainly to see her -- of all the comics announced at the beginning of the evening, she received the loudest response -- truth be told, it was kind of a rambling, unfocused set, but then, that clearly was her intention. She came on stage with her cell phone, a rumpled yellow notepad and a pen, and delivered an exasperated account of her day "preparing" for her performance, chockablock with such beleaguering activities as relaxing at a spa and buying a coffee from a good-looking guy, along with a few vague observations on the vexing nature of her burgeoning fame (apparently, Billy Crystal has become a stalker, mainly to get her to fix his computer). She told of getting fed up with the ultra-trendy just-below-Beechwood neighborhood in which the theater is located, and wandering off to try to write material for her performance (that much might actually be true -- I did in fact see her traipse off down the street past the crowd waiting for UCB to open, a look of grim determination on her face).

She hurried way too fast through an anecdote of a dinner she attended hosted by Rush Limbaugh and featuring Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas -- whom she kept referring to as the Chief Justice (that's a notion worthy of a subplot in "24"). There simply has to be comic gold to be mined from that experience, but she just kind of glossed over it. Essentially, she played the role of someone whose newfound celebrity has also put her on an express train to a nervous breakdown. The result? More performance art than comedy, it seemed.

Fortunately, other comics performing, including Paul F. Tompkins (another "Mr. Show" alumnus), Pete Carboni and Jimmy Dore, provided plenty of laughs. Dore, whose performance offered dryly hilarious riffs on cable-news segments and the puerile humor of Comedy Central personality Carlos Mencia, suggesting he should be writing for “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,�? will this Thursday headline his own show at Upright Citizens Brigade entitled “Pop & Politics.�? Based on what he displayed here, that show is definitely worth catching.

An acoustic-duet act called The Endless opened the evening, performing a clutch of songs about creepy, obsessive love that made you extremely grateful you hadn't dated either of the band members.

Entertainment issues dominated today’s Daily News opinion pages. First up, Ed Rampell’s timely look at politics in film and television, noting the confluence of political events that has made the Washington lobbying satire “Thank You for Smoking,�? the metaphorical terrorism thriller “V for Vendetta�? and HBO’s “Walkout,�? about the 1968 Chicano student protests, particularly relevant. (I noted “Walkout’s�? timeliness in an earlier blog entry.)

This isn’t necessarily anything new – the Daily News’ U section did a similar story on films exploring social issues last fall, when “Good Night, and Good Luck.�?, “Syriana�? and “Brokeback Mountain�? were in theaters. But it’s good to give credit when credit is due, and all these films help belie the increasing suspicion that Hollywood is only interested in spooning shlocky comfort food down its audiences’ throats.

Next, Daily News editorial page editor Chris Weinkopf takes a cat o’ nine tails to “Basic Instinct 2,�? arguing that its abject crash-and-burn at the box office points to a trend in audiences rejecting salacious material.

Weinkopf makes some salient points about the nature of these movies and how their shock value can wear off, but I think he might be a little too optimistic in what one movie’s failure means to American culture. As Sigmund Freud might say, sometimes a rotten movie is just a rotten movie.

He notes that most of the top-grossing films of last year – “Star Wars,�? “Harry Potter,�? “The Chronicles of Narnia�? – were family fare. They were also the most hyped and advertised movies of the year, as well. Some of the most profitable movies of the past few years, on the other hand, have been in fact sadistic horror films taking the depiction of gruesome cruelty to heights previously unseen in American films: The “Saw�? flicks, for example, and “Hostel,�? to name but a few. So it may be premature to state that American audiences long solely for wholesome, values-stuffed fare.

Finally, columnist Mariel Garza takes local TV-news outlets to task for presenting “canned�? reports produced by outside special-interest groups as their own work. This is actually a growing problem throughout the country – it’s a cheap way of filling air time for small-town TV news outlets on a budget (and, more egregiously, L.A.’s big-city stations), but it’s an indisputable disservice to those stations’ viewers, who are generally not informed of the sourcing of said “reports.�?

Garza apologizes for her pro-print bias, but to my mind, her mea culpa isn’t necessary; she could’ve gone even further in the condemnation of this practice.

You know when you hear about some upcoming film project and all you can do is shake your head and, with a rueful smile, wonder: What are they thinking? Something that everyone realizes is a stupendous blunder -- everyone, that is, except the studio head greenlighting the thing?

The latest is a big-budget remake of the '80s TV melodrama "Dallas" (OK, officially it ran from 1978 to 1991, but it defined the Me Decade), starring (tentatively) John Travolta as villainous oilman/infamous bullet receptacle J.R. Ewing and Jennifer Lopez as his boozing wife Sue Ellen. Luke Wilson and Shirley MacLaine are also said to be cast. The director will be Robert Luketic, whose films "Monster-in-Law" and "Win a Date With Tad Hamilton" have been decided non-starters and whose only success, "Legally Blonde," cruised solely on Reese Witherspoon's delightfully ditzy performance.

"I heard Larry [Hagman] approved of me.," Travolta confided to "ET" clone "Extra!" today. "It was sweet, giving his seal of approval.�? Well, what else is he going to say: "Don't tell me things like that, I already have a bum heart?" Such a response certainly wouldn't score him that cameo appearance he's so clearly angling for.

"Dallas" so clearly was a product of its era (remember those shoulder pads Linda Gray and Victoria Principal used to wear, which they had to have swiped from some Cowboys linebackers during a furtive visit to their locker room?) that it's hard to imagine it brought up to date. And it's one of those shows that, if you look back on it, was pretty stupid and makes you feel dumb for having been taken in.

Online stories about this film include such phrases "Before you declare the project doomed . . ." and "In the 'say it isn't so' news category . . ."

So of course they'll have to do "Who Shot J.R." or even the people who might want to see this will feel ripped off, but the buildup and resolution for that storyline took the better part of a season or so, and a movie like this can't exceed two hours. What other dastardly deeds will they fit in there beyond that?

Maybe all this will turn out to be a bad dream.

Just to thoughtfully ensure that you, the faithful blog reader, emerges a nominally well-rounded individual, we’ll slip in an occasional book review here, as well. (Honest: Books are entertainment, too.)

First up: Colson Whitehead’s “Apex Hides the Hurt�? (Doubleday, $22.95). Though he’s only just got four books under his belt, Whitehead is fast becoming a favorite of mine, with a keen satirical sensibility. His first book, “The Intuitionist,�? remains my favorite: It’s about a mid-20th-century elevator inspector in New York, which is what-the? enough before Whitehead adds the elements of mechanical metaphysics and racism. “John Henry Days�? was a more conventional effort, blending contemporary media criticism with another look at race. “The Colossus of New York�? was a series of post-9/11 essays on the city that apparently suffers from insomnia.

“Apex Hides the Hurt,�? by contrast, is a sort of minor work with big ideas burbling inside it. Whitehead told me about an idea he had for this book five years ago, but it seems as though he didn’t think it worked on its own and so he tucked it into this novel, about a “nomenclature consultant�? who is recruited to rename a small town at the behest of a techno-billionaire who lives there. The protagonist is a legend in his field for launching a Band-Aid competitor who created a series of bandage strips replicating the colors of races beyond Caucasians.

Two issues that seem peripheral, but are actually at the heart of the proceedings, highlight Whitehead’s book. There’s the notion that minorities cling tenaciously (more tenaciously, in fact, than the sticky strips themselves), even profoundly, to the concept of their identity, because sometimes, that’s all they have. And there’s the whole love/hate thing with the idea of words themselves – few authors have so eloquently and so baldly explored, and luxuriated in, and criticized, how the simple art of phrasing things can elevate, inspire, manipulate and create maudlin responses in those who receive those words.

All that said, the narrative throughline’s pretty weak. The protagonist has not one but two seemingly unmotivated very-public existential meltdowns in a mere 210 pages. Look, if you’re a professional, well, anything, you know the first rule of business is that, to paraphrase those Las Vegas commercials, whatever happens in your head stays in your head.

So, enjoy “Apex Hides the Hurt�? for its clever writing and sly takes on significant issues, but ignore the fact that it has any plot whatsoever.