WHAT'S NEW: Shia LaBeouf reunites with his Disturbia director DJ Caruso for the thriller Eagle Eye, featuring our young hero as a man trapped (alongside Michelle Monaghan) in a mysterious mire of surveillance, espionage and murder also featuring Billy Bob Thornton and Rosario Dawson. Hitchcock comes up in more discussions of the film than he doesn't, with the rap being that Eagle Eye represents North by Northwest to Disturbia's too-influential-for-comfort Rear Window, but that's just adults being adults. The kids will toss rose petals and dump around $30.6 million out their wallets, further anchoring LaBeouf as his generation's most bankable star without a driver's license. Congrats, Shia!

Meanwhile, that generation's parents can shuffle into the auditorium next door for the Gere/Lane reteaming Nights in Rodanthe, adapted from a Hallmark card novel by Nicholas Sparks with enough inoffesnsively creaky cliche and Mom Jeans-wetting romance to attract around $13.1 million.

Also opening in limited release: The Palahniuk adaptation Choke; the Charlize Theron-led propaganda ensemble Battle in Seattle; Tim Robbins' and Rachel McAdams' Iraq-themed The Lucky Ones; Wayne Wang's modest immigrant mish-mash A Thousand Years of Good Prayers; the misanthropic Easter bunny comedy Hank and Mike; the race-baiting terrorism saga Shoot on Sight (tagline: "Is it a crime to be a Muslim?"); the Filipina-tranny doc The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela; and the lyrical, Indie Spirit Award-winning drama August Evening.

THE BIG LOSER: It's not like we actively root against films around Defamer HQ (all right, maybe that one time; it had it coming), and we really would like to see Spike Lee pull off Miracle at St. Anna, his epic WWII semi-mystery focusing long-overdue attention on the Army's 92nd Infantry Division — the only all-black unit to see combat in Europe. He may yet do it with Disney's micro-marketing prowess, but let's be honest: The reviews are brutal, it's 160 minutes long, it's rated R, it rotates between English, German and Italian, and at least a quarter of its intended audience is likelier to defer to one of two sturdy holdovers — Burn After Reading or The Famliy That Preys. If this breaks $5.5 million, we'll be shocked. Sorry, Spike; there's always Inside Man 2.

THE UNDERDOG: We alluded to it earlier this week, but Kirk Cameron's Fireproof — with its born-again title, God-fearing creds and bankable-enough star among Christian audiences — should sneak up on the mainstream, possibly pulling in as much as $4.2 million on 800 screens. Those are Dane Cook-beating numbers, and Lord knows a good Dane Cook beating is something to behold.

FOR SHUT-INS: New DVD's this week include Sex and the City, Leatherheads, the underrated Simon Pegg comedy Run, Fat Boy, Run, Dario Argento's gore opus Mother of Tears and, at long last, Two and a Half Men: The Complete Fourth Season.

So are you planning to drive Shia to the theater, or is it more of an old-people-fucking kind of weekend for you? Are we giving Spike a fair shake? And what to do about this glut at the art house? Call your shots!

But it's a sturdy fit for the adventuresome Rockwell, whom we cornered for a few minutes of his busy '08 (also including Frost/Nixon later this fall) and another round of Defamer's ongoing Five Questions:

DEFAMER: Look — Fox Searchlight gave us souvenir anal beads! Aren't they great?
SAM ROCKWELL: Those are great. This is a classy movie.

DEFAMER: No doubt. Victor has enough compulsions to require about a dozen different levels of research — sex addiction, choking, mother issues, etcetera. What did you prioritize here?
SAM ROCKWELL: Obviously we read the book a lot. [Director] Clark Gregg and I rehearsed a lot; he was very well prepared; he's an actor, which is great. He's sensitive to this. I went to seven or eight sex addiction meetings. I met a sex therapist; we talked a lot, and he showed me a documentary. I try to do a little bit of research on everything, some more than others. But sexual addiction is more like a food disorder in that you're really filling a void; it's different than any kind of alcohol or narcotic abuse.

DEFAMER: With that in mind, did you ever play devil's advocate with this — that sex addiction is more in the mind of the beholder?
SAM ROCKWELL: I've been working with an acting coach for a long time; he and I go to therapy, and we talk about that in our work. It's kind of like Alfie or Tom Jones, but we're psychoanalyzing this Casanova in a comedic way. A real Casanova is not a guy that looks like Brad Pitt or George Clooney; they're normal-looking guys in this very depraved world. It's not as glamorous as people think. Sex addiction can go from compulsive masturbation to prostitutes to people who've been sexually molested. It's a serious condition; it's nothing to be laughed about. But I think we respect the condition and are able to joke about it at the same time.

DEFAMER: We've been following you since In the Soup, in which you portrayed Steve Buscemi's mentally disabled neighbor. Sixteen years later, the "full retard" backlash is on from all sides. As someone who skillfully portrayed disability before it was Oscar bait, what's your take?
SAM ROCKWELL: Well, look, they're totallly missing the joke. It's about actors and awards shows. I thought Leonardo DiCaprio did it really well, but at some point you have to let the research go and intuitively daydream and just let your imagination go. It's a matter of taste really. Do you respond to Forrest Gump? I do. I respond to what Dustin Hoffman does in Rain Man. Hoffman tells a story about Midnight Cowboy where he found the limp for Ratzo Rizzo. He put his foot in like this, and he got all these letters from handicapped people afterward saying, "That's the most ridiculous limp I've ever seen — you're making fun of us." So you try to be as responsible as you can be, but it's just an artist's interpretation. [Tropic Thunder] makes fun of the actor's process and the hype that goes around it.

DEFAMER: When you take on Palahniuk, you're inevitably taking on Fight Club. Were you apprehensive about having to follow a classic?
SAM ROCKWELL: Absolutely. But the advantage we had is that this is the anti-Fight Club. This is a low-budget film. We don't have special effects or bells and whistles. This is a different kind of movie. It's an independent movie in every sense of the word. It's like Harold and Maude or The Fisher King and think of it as a different tone; Fight Club is darker. We've got a heavy subject, but we've also got anal beads.

Boomp3.com

Nobody rocks an afterparty like dependable character actor Sam Rockwell rocks an afterparty. Along with his Choke director Clark Gregg, the Galaxy Quest star didn't even wait for the club's DJ to arrive before getting the post-screening dance party started. In between showing off some hot dance moves, Rockwell said, "People don't dance enough these days. It's fun. Oh no, the DJ in my head is just laying down the phattest beats right now." Gregg chimed in with a chant of "Rock Lobster!" as the two sauntered onto an empty dance floor. After a few moments and a few more classic jams from Rockwell's mental DJ, the dance floor remained empty. Rockwell said, "Nobody likes to show up to a party on time. Come back in ten minutes or so and it'll be packed."

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

I guess I've been bumped up the publicity ladder...20th Century Fox is gearing up to publicize "Choke," so they have all these Chinese factory anal beads. It was all of these things coming together.

UPDATE: A photo of the actual Choke anal beads swag after the jump!

While such giveaways are always good for sparking conversation, we'd warn producers that the tactic can also sometimes backfire. We're reminding of a recent Lionsgate promotion in which entertainment journalists across the country were gifted with Hostel 2-branded urethral sounding rods—a fringe S&M practice most of them were entirely unfamiliar with, resulting in the majority of the nonplussed recipients either tossing the stainless steel devices, or using them as makeshift letter openers.

UPDATE: A reader tipped us off to this photo of the actual Choke anal beads on a Flickr account. Anus sold separately. [Flickr]

• WEB EXCLUSIVE: Chuck Palahniuk up to Snuff [dailytexanonline.com via Reverse Cowgirl]

Choke
Antihero: Sex-addicted con-man Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell).
Disease/Problem: Alzheimer's-afflicted mother.
Solution: Fake-choking at ritzy restaurants.
Unconventional Romantic Angle: Mancini cruises sexual addiction recovery workshops for action.

The Wackness
Antihero: Teen drug dealer Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck).
Disease/Problem: Drug-addicted psychiatrist Dr. Squires (Ben Kingsley); a troubled youth in need of counseling.
Solution: Bartering pot for therapy.
Unconventional Romantic Angle: Luke falls for Squire's daughter

Sunshine Cleaning
Antihero: Plucky, practical mom Rose Lorkowski (Amy Adams).
Disease/Problem: Lack of funds for son's tuition.
Solution: Forming a biohazard/crime-scene cleanup business.
Unconventional Romantic Angle: Something involving Rose's sister Norah (Emily Blunt) and a suggestively consumed banana (see photo).

The Great Buck Howard
Antihero: A young law school dropout (Colin Hanks).
Disease/Problem: Once-great illusionist Buck Howard (John Malkovich) has a career on the decline.
Solution: Dropout answers Howard's Magician's Apprenticeship ad in the local paper.
Unconventional Romantic Angle: Hanks find the love of his life on the road.

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
Antihero: Listless son-of-a-mobster Art Bechstein (Jon Foster).
Disease/Problem: "Art begins to believe that perhaps he doesn't even exist at all."
Solution: Art "encounters a beautiful debutante (Sienna Miller)."
Unconventional Romantic Angle: Art "encounters a beautiful debutante (Sienna Miller)."

• Sundance Could Be a Sellers' Bonanza [NY Times]