· Screnwriter Aaron Sorkin is giving our own Louis Virtel a run for his money on the recapping beat for Sarah Palin's Alaska, laying utter waste to the governor-turned-rifle-packing reality-TV darling: "I'm able to make a distinction between you and me without feeling the least bit hypocritical. I don't watch snuff films and you make them. You weren't killing that animal for food or shelter or even fashion, you were killing it for fun. You enjoy killing animals. [...] That was the first moose ever murdered for political gain." A must-read for all political persuasions, really. [Huffington Post]
· Listen, Internet, I thought we went through this yesterday: Words mean things, and it's worth exercising some discretion when writing them. For instance, no matter what you hear from whom, however emphatically it's phrased, Lee Daniels is not going to ever remake Federico Fellini's classic Nights of Cabiria. Re-read that sentence. See the proper names and titles and how they don't work together at all? That's because their confluence is bullshit. Lee Daniels. Nights of Cabiria. Not true. Cool? [The Playlist]
· Here's some more ha-ha: Shia LaBeouf and Tom Hardy are now linked to John HIllcoat's long-dead Prohibition indie The Wettest County in the World, in which the duo would play '20s-era bootleggers. Shooting would reportedly begin in the spring -- right around the time The Dark Knight Rises is set to pop. But Hardy's playing the Riddler, no? So confused. [LAT]
· In case last weekend's handling of the Biggest Two-and-a-Half Minute Commercial of the Year didn't give the game away, Fox Searchlight wants to turn Terrence Malick's Tree of Life into an "event" picture. The plan, according to its co-president: "®eleasing a still or a clip, keep the ball in play with different glimpses along the way." Here's an idea: Let us spend the next five months hungrily wondering what the new Terrence Malick movie looks, sounds and feels like instead of turning it into goddamn Harry Potter. I mean, the reason The New World was a bust wasn't because it sucked (though it kind of did), but because Malick's work can't withstand this kind of hype. It's built to envelop you, not prod your expectations and steamroll you into submission. Anyway, this is happening. [LAT]
· @michaelsheen and I are both a little late to them, but if you haven't yet seen these extraordinary color photographs from some of America's most indigent rural regions circa 1939-43, thank him for the tip and prepare to kiss about an hour of your day goodbye. [Denver Post]
· The notoriously shadow equity firm (and military-industrial complex puppetmaster) the Carlyle Group is considering going public to help finance a few of its more ambitious endeavors. I doubt it'll happen, just because of the transparency necessarily to follow, but if it does, that's the kind of investment that might put your kids through college. Until they're blown up with Carlyle-funded bombs that wound up in the wrong hands. But then maybe you can get a refund in court, and you're ahead twice as much! Think it over. [Wired]
· What's shakin' with North Korea? Oh, not much, just the Joint Chefs of Staff wondering why we can't influence China to intervene in Pyongyang. After all, our economic growth only trails theirs by 30 percent or so, and their kids just nabbed the highest standardized test scores in the world, compared to our 23rd place finish. Seriously, why won't they listen to us? [NYT]