Since losing their brand, life hasn't been right for the Brothers Weinstein. Could a name change though really bring back that magical English Patient era?

• Their company may be ailing, but Weinsteins are ready to make a play to get their name back. The Wrap reports that Harvey and Bob are preparing a pitch to Robert Iger to buy back their old Miramax brand now that Disney has all but shuttered the division. When they left Disney, The Wrap reports, Michael Eisner refused out of spite to let them take the name — which is a hybrid of the Weinsteins' parent's names - with them. But with Disney now under less vengeance driven management the Weinsteins hope is that the time be be ripe for an historic reunion . [The Wrap]

• George Clooney is reportedly "circling the lead" role in the long awaited new film by Sideways and Election director Alexander Payne, a family drama/comedy entitled The Descendents. [Variety]

• Suggesting that Oscar's new producers may be taking a step away from from the Hugh Jackman mold, Nikki Finke reports that the hosting job has been offered to and turned down by both Ben Stiller and Robert Downey Jr. Which means there is only one Tropic Thunder star left to host...Jack Black, your day of destiny has arrived. [Deadline]

• Hollywood is saved! In earnings season, Viacom reported "better-than-expected third-quarter profit gains thanks to improved theatrical film and TV advertising trends, as well as cost controls." Marvel however, ruined the party by reporting lower profits in Q3, as they had no theatrical releases last quarter. Thanks for nothing Marvel. [Hollywood Reporter]

• Sony Classics has picked up the US rights to Mother and Child a drama about three women and their children, which received gushing reviews when it debuted at the Toronto Film Festival in September. [Variety]

• Diversity is at last coming to late night TV. Fifteen years after Arsenio Hall went off the air, the next few weeks will see the debuts of talk shows built around George Lopez (TBS), Wanda Sykes (Fox) and Mo'Nique (BET). [The Wrap]

• The Atrios are in! The casting society of America handed out their annual awards at a banquet last night, giving top honors to Star Trek, Mad Men, Up and Milk. Kath and Kim's John Michael Higgins hosted the fete. [Hollywood Reporter]

• Most brilliantly understated headline of the morning: "Paranormal Activity sequel a possibility. Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman reveals Tuesday." Yes, well there is always that chance that Viacom has decided they've made enough money this decade. [Hollywood Reporter]

• The unsinkable Jim Belushi juggernaut rolls on. The According to Jim vet has signed up with Diane English and Barry Levinson to create a courtroom TV drama based on famed defense attorney Mickey Sherman. [Variety]

Forbes put out their list of the 10 richest comedians based on their concert ticket sales, movie deals, and DVD sales.

1. Jerry Seinfeld $85 million between June 2008 and June 2009. He also filmed this commercial. Laugh it up, America!

2. Chris Rock whose worldwide 'No Apologies Tour' contributed to his $42 million bounty. Chris is a funny man and we should continue to give him our money.

3. Ventriloquist Jeff Dunham banked an estimated $30 million over the course of the year. Wait, who?!

4. Dane Cook is the friend that nobody likes. The friend with $20 million dollars.

5. George Lopez. $20 million. Holler back Canoga Park!

6. Howie Mandel. Aw, I have a soft spot for Bobby's World.

7. Larry the Cable Guy made $13million dollars last year. This clip about sums it up.

8. You might be a redneck if you only make $11 million dollars, Jeff Foxworthy.

Ok! Did you guess who? Did you say Dane Cook? I hope you did cause he's the ambassador of TERRIBLE.

That low rumble you felt in your loins this morning wasn't the D train beneath you, headed north to Fordham. No, it was a subconscious reaction to the news that Zac Efron, a young and brave ambassador from the Elf kingdoms of the West, has been cast in yet another movie. It's called The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud, based on the novel of the same name. This comes on the heels (harrrrr) of the news that he's ducked out of the remake of Footloose that Disney-porn auteur Kenny Ortega plans to direct. It's unclear when Efron, whose Elf name is ZaideeEfwinkle, will return to his kingdom of mushroom stools and Kikaree birds, but it seems likely that he'll first have to play the lead in that buzzed-about Shirley Temple biopic. [Variety]

Tom Hanks is developing a movie based on the old action hero space toy Major Matt Mason, who was a noble explorer of the final frontier who lived in a space station. The project is expected to proceed apace until some brave intern timidly taps Hanks on the shoulder and, when he's got his attention, kindly and quietly reminds him that he's not 35 anymore. [Variety] Dennis Quaid and Julianne Moore fucking hate each other. Oh wait, ha ha, no. Just their characters. Quaid is slated to play Bill Clinton and Moore his beautiful wife Hillary in an upcoming HBO film called The Special Relationship, about Clinton's dealings with British PM Antoinette Blair. A weary, so very bored Michael Sheen will once again play Blair, his third go around in the role. [Variety]

National Amusements cinemas is up for sale (by Citigroup), but is not attracting any bids. Potential buyers have been chased away because they want to buy select theaters from the 1,000 screen chain, not the whole kitten caboodle, but Citi won't let 'em. Had they done like I wanted and kept the Circle Cinemas in Cleveland Circle open, none of this would be an issue, I suspect. [THR]

Jon Hamm is playing the lawyer who inspired Perry Mason in the Allen Ginsburg biopic Howl. [Variety] Sparkly vampyr twink Robert Pattinson is going to be a star-crossed lover in the Summit feature (they own him) Memoirs. [Variety] And Slumdog Millionaire pretty face Freida Pinto will star in Julian Schanbel's next artsy fartsy movie, alongside Hiam Abbas, who acquitted herself beautifully in The Visitor. [Variety]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer scourge Michelle Trachtenberg has been cast in that pilot about nurses that isn't Nurse Jackie, called Mercy. She'll play a clueless dork. Fitting. But srsly, folks. This woman has the best agent in the biz. Her continued and frequent employment is baffling. [THR] Meanwhile George Lopez, the man responsible for both Beverly Hills Chihuahua and for currently ruining Nick at Nite, has nabbed the most coveted job in showbiz. He'll be the host of a TBS late-night talk show. Sounds bleak, sure, but Lopez actually has kind of a rabid following. (Rabid was a joke about chihuahuas... sigh). [THR]

But that's OK! One critic apparently had an early look at the film, either busting Disney's review embargo or pimping it outright for a price — let it suffice to say he liked it. Still, even after a review with 12 chapters and seemingly no spoiler left unpeeled, we don't really get why:

Beverly Hills Chihuahua most certainly does not suck. ... What’s truly surprising is that the trailers contain virtually nothing that’s actually in the movie – which is simultaneously a monstrous undertaking in untruth-in-advertising and a remarkable case of branding savvy. The previews issued by Disney were indelible, if for all the wrong reasons, and got tongues and tails wagging. A series of scenes featuring the live-action doggies and their CG mouths opposite the likes of Piper Perabo and Jamie Lee Curtis would’ve led to little but shrugs and yawns.

The film does begin rather poorly, with a montage of Beverly Hills scenes set to Gwen Stefani’s Rich Girl. Jamie Lee Curtis is Vivian, a chic fashionista who runs a business but spends her every spare moment tending to Chloe, her female Chihuahua and “greatest treasure”. The little mutt is preened in salons, has a dozen couture changes a day, and Chloe and her little pooch pals say things like “talk to the paw” while they chill-ax on banana lounges by the pool at Vivian’s mansion. The gardener Sam’s working-class Mexican immigrant Chihuahua Papi (he of the trailers, even though this is Chloe’s story – another dubious marketing ploy) pines hopelessly for Chloe, proving his devotion by offering to “lick inside your ears” and “chew the hard to reach places”. [...]

[H]ilarity spills over into a half-satirical, half-straight speech about Chihuahua rights and freedoms, made not by Papi, but by Monty, a wise old dog who’s a mongrel of Yoda and Malcolm X. Elsewhere, slapstick moments – dogs in baths, prancing through a museum, enjoying a bouncy castle at a Beverly Hills lawn party – connect for their simplicity.

We also learn that "80 percent" of Beverly Hills Chihuahua is in fact set in Mexico, where the Mexico City police hunt for the missing Chloe with a conviction and urgency perhaps suggesting their ongoing anti-corruption efforts might be advancing faster than we thought. Then again, the depiction of "working-class immigrant" dog Papi likely just torpedoed that progress — and that's not even counting the mounting threat of L.A.'s costumed-chihuahua brigade amassing for an obvious culture war to come. Do the right thing, Disney — stand down, and let us arbitrate. Chihuahua relations are clearly too volatile to be left to one force alone.

• 'Beverly hills Chihuahua' Photo Shoot [Le Studio via BWE]

• 'Beverly Hills Chihuahua': The Verdict [Schlock Around the Clock]

It's too good to be true and really too hideous to fathom, so find your place in that spectrum with a glimpse at the video after the jump. And you! Disney moles! Where's our rough-cut screener? You know where to find us.

• Beverly Hills Chihuahua [Youtube via Guanabee]

WHEREAS, said trailer features George Lopez in his archetypally go-to role as Hollywood's default Mexican voice talent, and

WHEREAS, per cosmic law, secondary Mexican voice talent Cheech Marin is also represented, and

WHEREAS, said trailer introduces Papi, the character referred to in the film's title and the descendant of small singing dogs who "fought alongside Aztec warriors," and

WHEREAS, said trailer features Papi leading a garish CGI chihuahua-ganza of cruise-ship music and Busby Berkley-esque showstoppers, and

WHEREAS, said trailer employs the hip-hop refrain, "We're tiny, we're mighty, we're number one / Yo, we're the real hot dogs, so hold the bun," and

WHEREAS, the frame captured at left is an actual image from said trailer, and

WHEREAS, we cannot stop staring at this image in stunned, staggered anticipation, and

WHEREAS, the only thing missing from the otherwise flawless said trailer is a sequence featuring a chihuahua shaman removing a still-beating chihuahua heart; and

WHEREAS, said trailer ends with the unassailably profound tagline, "50% Warrior. 50% Lover. 100% Chihuahua," and

WHEREAS, we are surprised to discover that the film said trailer supports in not of the "straight-to-DVD" variety but rather a full-length feature to be released in theaters Sept. 26 of this year, and

WHEREAS, there is no fucking way we are waiting nearly five months to see this year's tacky, tasteless, post-culture equivalent of Snakes on a Plane,

NOW, THEREFORE, LET IT BE RESOLVED BY DEFAMER,

1. That Disney moves up the release of Beverly Hills Chihuahua to this Friday, May 9 — preferably as a replacement to Speed Racer, which we viewed yesterday and which barely seems finished;

2. That Beverly Hills Chihuahua rename its female lead "Apocalynkerbell" in deference to its studio's previous anthropological foray into extinct Mesoamerican cultures;

3. That said trailer precedes every screening of every film in every theater from now until the date Disney can arrange for the wide release of the full-length feature.

RESOLUTION PASSED this 6th day of May, 2008.

SIGNED,

DEFAMER

• Beverly Hills Chihuahua [Disney]

"I get kicked out for a...caveman and shows that I out-performed because I'm not owned by [ABC Television Studios]...So a...Chicano can't be on TV but a...caveman can?" Lopez said.

"And a Chicano with an audience already? You know when you get in this that shows do not last forever, but this was an important show and to go unceremoniously like this hurts. One hundred seventy people lost their jobs." [...]

"TV just became really, really white again," he said.

While Lopez's angry reaction to losing his job is understandable, his knee-jerk dismissal of Cavemen demonstrates that he's probably unaware of the series' noble mandate to deconstruct the absurdity of racial stereotyping through sophisticated allegory. Once he realizes that the hilarious Cro-Magnons aren't his enemy, he'll direct his anger in a more appropriate direction, such as the show about the carpool or the one where Christina Applegate tries to regain her identity after getting bonked on the head.

• TV just got a lot 'whiter,' says a canceled George Lopez [LAT Show Tracker]
• Previously: 'Cavemen' Gets A Pickup [Defamer]

Let's get one thing straight: Just because George Lopez and Freddie Prinze Jr. are Latino men with their own sitcoms on ABC, and their shows just happen to be scheduled consecutively on Wednesday nights, doesn't mean there's a new "Latin hour" on prime-time television. [...]

"Shows should just be able to be shows without hyphenating their lead characters," Lopez said. "[With] us, they feel like they need to somehow label it to say, 'All right, this is what you're going to be watching, so are you sure you want to watch?' But they don't do it to people who are Jewish or African American. Because we have the muscle but we need the voice to say you can't do that to us. Just watch because you think the shows are funny. Don't watch because we're a couple of Latino guys." [...]

McPherson has joked that instead of the "Latin hour," the pairing of the two sitcoms should be called "The Bruce Helford Hour" since the producer runs both shows.

And in three weeks, after Freddie's Nielsen mercy-killing, they can just call the Wednesday night period "The George Lopez Show and According To Jim Rerun Hour." It's kind of catchy, in a slyly knowing way.

• They're linked in spirit and schedule [LAT]
• Previously: Why “According To Jim” Is Lily White [Defamer]
• Freddie Prinze, Jr: Sitcom Wunderkind [Defamer]