· Just in case Pixar's original marketing for Up just wasn't high-concept, arty or sophisticated enough for you, a collection of designers revised a few of the film's components for a retro-style campaign. If they can ever figure out what it means, those Pixar-averse Academy blue-hairs will love it!
· Vincent Kartheiser acknowledged that he cried at his Mad Men co-stars Elisabeth Moss and Christina Hendricks' recent weddings. Ouch. That'll ding Pete Campbell in next week's final Power Rankings.
· So about those Adrian Pasdar-leaving-Heroes rumors: Don't click here if you want to know whether or not they're true.
· Kathy Griffin will host ABC's new show Let's Dance, in which celebrities will team to comically recreate famous dance sequences from movies, TV and music videos. Joan Rivers in Flashdance is literally the first idea that came to mind for me. Sure, I'd watch that.
· Jeremy Piven says he gave up soya milk because he heard it would make him grow breasts. That is all.
One of the most important college goals is to craft the perfect schedule -- a delicate balance between ballbusting Organic Chemistry labs and the 90-minute nap found in any course containing "Postmodern," "Literary" or "Criticism" in its title. From the lowliest junior college to the corridors of the Ivy League, course selection can make or break a semester. With its endowment in a freefall, Harvard has decided to throw a Hail Mary in that direction by offering a new Sociology course with HBO's The Wire as its central text. For all the students wait-listed by the big H or without the proper familial connections to get over the Longfellow Bridge, you can feel content knowing that students in Cambridge are doing exactly what you do every Saturday: Rolling up a gram of mid-grade, watching David Simon's magnum opus and eventually making a Taco Bell run. Only those Crimson losers have to take notes.
But Harvard isn't the first school making use of the idiot box in the classroom. Your proof arrives in today's Movieline Nine.
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In the second major sponsor switch-off of the week, Stephen Colbert agreed to back the U.S. Speedskating team last night after their original sponsor, DSB Bank, folded. A heroic gesture for sure, commemorated by special guest Dan Jansen and executive director of U.S. Speedskating Bob Crowley, who signed papers on air. Despite the fanfare though, it's Colbert's fans -- and not the show -- who will be supporting the team. Now, if only he could volunteer members of the Colbert Nation to pay for a scripted drama on NBC. The bit in question comes about two minutes into the provided link. [Colbert Report]
If you were among those viewers displeased with Spike Jonze's smart, brooding and wholly original interpretation of Where the Wild Things Are, then Shawn Levy has announced just the film for you. Hollywood's resident Captain Trifle will produce a feature-length take of The Berenstain Bears in requisite live-action/CGI. Levy's approach: "I'd like the film to be un-ironic about its family connections but have a wry comedic sensibility that isn't oblivious to the fact that they're bears," he told USA Today. "The comedy comes from this bear family coexisting in a more recognizably real world." Take that, hipsters. [USA Today]
Sorry, Joss Whedon -- the owners of the Terminator franchise have officially repelled your hostile takeover attempt in favor of placing their asset on the open market this winter. But that's the easy part. While its bankrupt guardians at the Halcyon Company purchased the rights two years ago for $30 million, they'll have a little harder time determining what that figure has appreciated to in 2009.
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· Owen Wilson will return to Marley and Me territory while voicing the title character in Marmaduke, a live-action/CGI adaptation of the one-panel comic strip about everybody's favorite mischievous Great Dane. Thankfully, this is one logline that's not under wraps: "[The script] sees Marmaduke navigate a volatile Mutts vs. Pedigrees turf war, woo the purebred of his dreams and overcome a fall from grace." Sounds heavy! Get your "THE DOG DIES" spoiler graffiti ready just in case. [THR]
George Clooney follows Alexander Payne on a quest, some up-and-coming talent catches a few breaks, and more Hollywood Ink after the jump.
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· That's Jay Baruchel voicing the strange-sounding lead character in DreamWorks' How to Train Your Dragon, yet another trailer that could have benefited from a hefty edit. (Fun fact: Dragons are lizards! Apparently. At least according to Jay Baruchel.)
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Alfonso Cuarón once famously fingered Harry Potter star and recovering swine flu victim Rupert Grint as the Hogwarts alumnus most likely to succeed. Now comes a report out of Britain (originating at the not-entirely-trustworthy Mirror, repeated by The Guardian) suggesting he may be ready to take up top-billing -- and his first non-Weasleyian role would require him to be airborne without the use of a Quidditch stick. The craziest part of the story: He'd be replacing Steve Coogan.
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The U.S. Army has issued an apology following news that Chidi Uzomah, who was arrested for stalking Ryan Seacrest at his work and carrying a knife, is a member of the U.S. Army reserves. Said the statement: "We apologize to Ryan Seacrest. Pending the outcome of the local investigation, the Army will decide what further action to take. We take all matters of our personnel seriously." The Army should take note, however, that Uzomah has just become the most requested stalker in America (up from #3). [TMZ]
Once upon a time, we wondered if Annette Bening's raved-about turn in Rodrigo Garcia's TIFF hit Mother and Child might set her up for another Best Actress rematch with Hilary Swank at the Oscars. However, that was before Amelia crash-landed on a deserted, critically reviled island, and before Mother actually received a studio pickup. Today, though, Sony Pictures Classics announced that they'll be distributing Mother, and Movieline can confirm it's headed for a 2010 release. Of course, that's the year Swank is coming out with her true-life legal drama Betty Anne Waters...
Last month, we posted the 11 commandments of Werner Herzog's Rogue Film School, a bold new academic experiment in which unconventional filmmakers submit themselves to the tutelage of the eccentric neue welle auteur. In return, they receive a once-in-a-lifetime education, covering everything from the large intangibles like plot and character, to the practical nitty-gritty, like how to pick a lock with a crack pipe while dodging bullets fired by rifle-wielding grizzly bears. The acceptance (and rejection) letters have begun to arrive; we know because we have one.
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It's hard enough for some Americans to make sense of 30 Rock's specific cultural references (Ann Curry's pent-up rage, Lou Dobbs' immigration agenda, and Ann Coulter, to name just a few) so it's understandable that the charm of Tina Fey's banter-heavy sitcom could be lost in translation. But when network ZDFNeo reported that the ratings from 30 Rock's German debut last night were a big, fat zero, we couldn't help but question why Deutschland would turn its nose up at one of America's best sitcoms -- especially when Liz Lemon throws in the occasional German punch line. And then we remembered why.
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· Before Randy and Evi Quaid went on the run, they sent NSFW, scandalous pictures of themselves to a Seattle newspaper. They're an irregular Bonnie & Clyde, those two!
· Jessica Simpson has Tweeted her thoughts on the Ashlee-firing Melrose Place: "who writes this crap?i have had bad scripts to work with,but this?thank God my sister is amazing and got you some press."
· Joss Whedon wrote a comical bid for the Terminator franchise, and it's just...well, if you still love Joss Whedon, you might want to spare yourself the wheezing effort expended.
· "It took me a long time to live down Clueless," confesses Jeremy Sisto. "Now it's different...And at a certain point, all those kids who loved Clueless grew up and became hot women."
· Is this more embarrassing than the white boy rap Matthew Morrison's frequently made to do on Glee?
Jared Hess's latest film Gentlemen Broncos hasn't exactly thrilled the critics -- most of whom have dismissed the deeply weird and dishearteningly conventional gross-out comedy as the product of a shameless and immature mind -- but it does have its few, outspoken supporters. New York magazine's David Edelstein called it "enchantingly freakish." Leading critical contrarian Armond White gave it four out of five stars, deeming it "a totally instinctive [film] of complex, inchoate feelings." But when it comes to pure film theory chutzpah, nothing quite approaches NewYorker.com's Richard Brody, who defended the film ardently against the NY Times' Manohla Dargis' takedown, and in doing so likened devout Mormon Hess to Italy's high-art homoeroticist, the Pope of Perversion, Pier Paolo Pasolini:
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Congratulations to Mel Gibson and his fiancee Oksana Grigorieva, who welcomed a baby daughter over the weekend. It's Gibson's eighth child, and his first with Grigorieva -- surely, something to sing about! Alas, the new baby just missed the casting cut-off for George Miller's younger, reimagined Mad Max sequel, which will proceed with nary a Gibson in sight. [RadarOnline]
