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Fur (Nov. 10) So the good news is that this ''imaginary portrait'' of Diane Arbus doesn't cough up the typical "brilliant hero fights childhood demons and then triumphs/self-destructs" biopic hairball. Maybe because it's not really a biopic at all, but more a matter of director Steven Shainberg ( Secretary ) introducing fictitious elements into Arbus' journey from '50s housewife to groundbreaking photographer. The mysterious tone (bunnies! masks! a muy hairy Robert Downey Jr.!) is certainly the kind of thing at which Nicole Kidman excels (I still get flashback-chills from The Others ); so long as Shainberg doesn't let things devolve into total art-house daffiness, this could be a sleeper on fall's Important Movie calendar. Your thoughts, folks?
addCredit("Fur: Abbot Genser")

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip has started a viral marketing blog called Defaker (hmm... wonder who they're parodying ?), and it is such a lame excuse for "blogging" that there's already a rumor going around that supposedly blog-averse creator Aaron Sorkin is writing it himself, and doing it badly on purpose.
First off, the (lone) post is too long. And trust me when I say, I know from long blog posts. Secondly, there is only the one post, which, as Mark Lisanti very graphically points out, would never fly in the Denton-verse or anywhere else, for that matter. (Unless you're low culture , and then you can leave the same post up for three months and I'll still check back on your site every day). Thirdly, the post is little more than a glorified recap of the episode, and not a very funny one at that. But it's in the comments where things really get nuts. You must promise me you'll go there now and read all of them -- it's this surreal combination of fake commenters saying things like "I saw Harriet and Cal drinking together at The Bar after the show. Maybe Cal's trying to be the shoulder to lean on after her nasty break-up with Matt, but I bet something's going on between them..." and real live people lashing out in amazement about how horrid the entire thing is. (Props to "greg" for this golden line: "Not since the Flinstones rappin' about Fruity Pebbles has a major corporation completely misunderstood the phenomenon they're trying to cash in on.")
Anyway, I'm sure there's a lot more to come. Not sure if it's gonna be worth a daily check-in, but on the off chance Sorkin's really writing it, I'll drop by from time to time -- if for no other reason than to see if I can spot the exact moment when writing a transparently autobiographical show that's getting mixed reviews drives the poor man back to the 'shrooms.
I now open the comment space to you, PopWatchers, and encourage you to do your very best "NBC Fake Blog Comment Bot" impersonations. Don't forget to mention how awesomely shiny my hair is.

'V for Vendetta' should not glorify terrorism in any form Editor -- While I thought the movie "V for Vendetta" was brilliant in its own way, I cringed at the line "sometimes blowing up a building can change the world." I doubt if I was alone in...

Well, here I am, friends: in Canada -- America's backlot, as it's affectionately known. It's a great place to eat fries drenched in beef gravy, a great place to shoot trees, rain, and wet pavement, and a great place for film festivals -- this one in particular, the Toronto International Film Festival, where I'll be spending the next 10 days, watching flicks, filing dispatches, and, Eros willing, seducing flame-haired comic stylist Catherine O'Hara with nothing but Southern charm and series of lewd gestures.
Urgent news first: I have just learned that all Mars bars in Canada are now peanut-free. Canadian television has taught me this.
(See what else Scott is learning after the jump...) But even Canadian television can?t guide me through the celluloid
morass that is the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival. It?s a
table set for giants -- giants with fly-like compound eyes capable of
watching 16 films at once. I do not have these attributes. I am
but a small, near-sighted man with a dream: to see some, if not all, of
the following films, plus some other surprising ?finds? and maybe, just
maybe, a couple of real stinkers to carve up -- all for you, reader, all
for you. Yes, A.O. Scott and I are up here, fending off wild,
bloodthirsty Canadian moose, just so you can get a peek at your
precious ?06 Oscar crop. I know, this is the job, I knew it when I
signed on, but... sheesh, this is practically Deadliest Catch , people. I
actually envy those crab guys. They get to wear those cool orange
jumpers. They don?t have to mull the implications of the phrase "latest
from Tarsem."
What am I looking forward to? I'll fight through the martyrdom and
single out Sascha Baron Cohen?s heapingly pre-lauded Borat , for
starters: Think I?m gonna have to hit that midnight screening tomorrow
night. Gonna need a good laugh by the time Thursday?s through: I?m
struggling between public screenings of Deliver Us from Evil (the only
documentary about the Catholic Church?s sex abuse scandal made with the
cooperation of an accused pedophile) and The Journals of Knud
Rasmussen , Zacharias Kunuk?s long-awaited follow-up to Atanarjuat, The
Fast Runner . Sex abuse or Inuit-Scandinavian culture clash? Cannes
champ The Wind That Shakes the Barley is my runner-up. Whee! I can
already feel my mood disorder shrieking. Or perhaps that?s just the
?poutine.? Damn this exotic Canadian cuisine!
The weekend?s already filling up. We have on our hands not one but two
British fantasias on the killing of a world leader: The already
tiresomely controversial though intriguingly abbreviated D.O.A.P.
(Death of a President) and The Prisoner, or How I Planned to Kill Tony
Blair . (Ex-Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi is screaming at his agent right
now, ?Why doesn?t anyone make a movie about killing me??) Rescue Dawn ,
the new Werner Herzog odyssey, is rubbing up against a screening of
Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett?s Babel , the Irritu Cannes sensation.
And somewhere in there, I?ve got to see Will Ferrell go all
Pirandellian in Stranger Than Fiction , the first ?Kaufmanesque? movie
to be made without the involvement of Charlie Kaufman.
As for the buzz? Well, everyone seems inordinately (or perhaps just
ordinately) stoked for For Your Consideration , the Christopher Guest
gang?s take on the Oscar race. (Anchoring this one is the
aforementioned Catherine O?Hara, one of the top comic performers of all
time, as a washed-up actress.) The Korean horror flick The Host is
coming in hot, emanating good buzz of uncertain provenance. I?m pretty
thrilled for Away from Her , the directorial debut of actress Sarah Polley (pictured), based on
the wonderful Alice Munro short story ?The Bear Went Over the
Mountain.? (Did I mention it stars Julie Christie as an Alzheimer?s
afflictee?) And somewhere in there I?ve got to cram in John Cameron
Mitchell?s experiment in art porn, Shortbus . (Note to self: Awesome
wording!) Not to mention All the King's Men , which I promise I?ll see
before noon on Monday. Hey, cut me some slack! I?ve got a Russell
Crowe/Ridley Scott flick ( A Good Year ), Todd ? In the Bedroom ? Field?s
exquisitely trailered Little Children and a contempo Macbeth by the
maker of Romper Stomper to fit in there! Do you want my mind to
explode, reader? Is that what you want? (I?ll give it to you, don?t
tempt me! Come, sit in the ?splash zone.??)
Tell you one thing, I?m-a need some comedy to cleanse this drama-dried
palate. Here?s hoping Michael Ian Black?s The Pleasure of Your Company
and Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show . And there?s something here
called Kurt Cobain: About a Son . Sounds like what the kids call a
?laugh fest.?
My pick for an outside smash? Jindabyne , from the guy who made 2002?s
Lantana , the movie that very quietly put Anthony LaPaglia back on the
map. It?s based on the Raymond Carver short story ?So Much Water, So
Close to Home,? which got a sliver of Robert Altman?s cinematic
attention in Short Cuts . No Huey Lewis this time, but what can you do?
The addition of Huey Lewis to this festival would probably snap my
fragile will. I?m still wrapping my mind around the words ?Bobcat
Goldthwait-directed dramedy?: That would be Sleeping Dogs Lie .
Chew on that. I gotta go fight a moose.

The new movie "Gridiron Gang" is about a group of teens who land in a detention camp where one man, played by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, takes a chance on them.

Sunday Morning correspondent Jerry Bowen talks with Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan about this season's new movies.

The Tosco Music Party, which started as a jam session in musician/guitar instructor John Tosco's living room 22 years ago, has outgrown almost every venue it's been in.

"These people don't want me. We've got to show them what I can do. We've got to cook something up for them." So says Ben Affleck as ill-fated actor George Reeves, whose alleged suicide provides the basis for speculation in "Hollywoodland." But he could as well be pleading for himself.

Film News: U.S. Embassy unlikely to grant visa for Alsamari -- London-based Iraqi actor Lewis Alsamari plays the lead hijacker in Paul Greengrass' 9/11 chiller "United 93" but don't expect to see him on the red carpet at the film's Tribeca Film Festival world premiere on Tuesday.

Latest: Actor Charlie Sheen is firing back at his estranged wife after she won a restraining order against him last week by insisting he was the perfect father and went out of his way to fix the couple's broken family.

So now, the BBC series Manchild will come to Showtime , establishing another Brit beachhead in Yank tellydom. Manchild is best known to American nerds as that thing Anthony Stewart Head did after Buffy ; it's also been described as the male Sex and the City (give or take a mid-life crisis). Head's sleepily libidinous divorcee was the best thing about it, in my opinion.
We've gotten used to American television morphing inexorably into BBC 5: Migrants include The Office , American Idol , countless reality/game shows, and soon, Life on Mars and, oddly, Little Britain . We've accepted that American writers and producers have, it would seem, no new, original ideas. Only one question remains: What shall we plunder next? Surely, we're running out of British shows to ape. (Dare we hope for a remake of The Thick of It set in the U.S. House of Representatives?) Herewith, my suggestions:
1. Eastenders Nothing says "America!" like London's East End. Though traditionally, U.S. viewers like a little more weaponry with their lower-middle-class malaise.
2. Match of the Day: Live! The challenge will be keeping today's Brazil v. Wales game fresh by the time it's been recast and reshot in the Meadowlands.
3. National Lottery Results Though it will be difficult finding an American actor to match the smolder of In It to Win It host Dale Winton.
4. BBC Parliament Dick Wolf is all over this one. Get ready for Law and Order: Parliament . Two houses. One prime minister. Dozens of potential sex scandals.
So... anything else, Anglophile PopWatchers? Does the Beeb have anything left in it, or have we picked its bones clean? And what, in your opinion, is too British to Americanize?

Dillon in bandages: Before heading over to the San Francisco International Film Festival to take questions about his offbeat new movie, "Factotum," Matt Dillon stopped by Caf Niebaum-Coppola for a quick bite and to pay homage to his personal godfather. The...