So far the only things that are really releasing trailers are the big budget comedies and action pictures. We threw in the trailer for A Single Man even though it opens this year and it's an indie movie because we wanted everyone to think we watch more than popcorn flicks. We also watch The Hills and lots of porn. But we'll put A Single Man on our Netflix queue, but we're not promising we watch it before sending it back so that we can get The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 for the third time instead.

Here are some new(ish) trailers for upcoming movies and our snap judgments.

Date Night
Starring: Tina Fey, Steve Carell, James Franco, Marky Mark
Reminds Us Of: 48 Hours, for some strange reason.
Plot Summary: A boring suburban couple go out for a big night in the city. They impersonate another couple and all hell breaks loose.
What Looks Good: Tina Fey and Steve Carell together at last and being hilarious.
What Looks Bad: This whole over-wrought, high-concept plot seems way too over-the-top for this duo.
Final Verdict: We'll see it, but we're going to complain that it wasn't as funny as one episode of 30 Rock.

Clash of the Titans
Starring: Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Sam Worthington
Reminds Us Of: Clash of the Titans, take one.
Plot Summary: Greek gods, lots of fighting, special effects.
What Looks Good: Medusa, the giant scorpion things, the monster they ripped off from Pan's Labrynth, Sam Worthington.
What Looks Bad: Since there isn't even an iota of narrative, the story is probably going to suck. But that's not why you buy a ticket to this anyway.
Final Verdict: Our eyeballs are dancing and our brain has checked out. Sounds like a great Saturday night.

A Single Man
Starring: Colin Firth, Julianne Moore
Reminds Us Of: Mad Men, that other retro movie Julianne Moore got an Oscar nomination for, the perfume bottles on our grandmother's vanity.
Plot Summary: Based on this trailer, we have no clue. Something having to do with how sexing Julianne Moore leads Colin Firth to want to do it with young boys.
What Looks Good: Art direction, wardrobe, performances.
What Looks Bad: This trailer reeks of a movie that is 20 minutes too long.
Final Verdict: Yes, please. We go see everything Julianne Moore is in, even though she hasn't made a good movie in a long while. Also, Oscars.

Kick-Ass
Starring: Aaron Johnson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Nicolas Cage
Reminds Us Of: Napolean Dynomite after karate class, Kevin Smith's wet dreams.
Plot Summary: A bunch of kids decide to put on costumes and become super heroes.
What Looks Good: The costumes are cute, and we bet there is going to be some great comedy.
What Looks Bad: Surprisingly this trailer does its job and makes this thing look really appealing. Good job.
Final Verdict: We're going to wait to read reviews before buying a ticket, but we're sold on the concept.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Ben Kingsley, Gemma Arterton
Reminds Us Of: Video games, that we need to go to the gym.
Plot Summary: There's a dagger that stops time and evil people want it, so a prince and his sexy lady have to go through the desert to get rid of it.
What Looks Good: The special effects, Jakey G. and his slutty princess.
What Looks Bad: The accents! The accents!
Final Verdict: This could either be Pirates of the Carribean good or The Mummy bad, both of which are pretty low bars.

So, assuming that this is his art studio, and seeing the sign in the background, will Franco be playing a character named Franco?


It appears that he's a multi-media artist, expressing himself through photography, painting, and evidently—from this still—installations. (This bed setup so Tracey Emin circa '99.)


He's also into graffiti. What does his tag mean? Is it some kind of James Bond 007 thing?

ABC confirmed that Franco will be on the show playing a "mysterious person" who moves into Port Charles, the fictional New York town that is over run by mobsters, evil family dynasties, and plots to freeze the entire world. Guess that's not any more ludicrous than Spider-Man. ABC Soaps In Depth speculates that his story arc will be a few months long and that he'll do one day on the set each week, filming scenes for several episodes at once. His story begins on November 20. Oh man, Franco is totally going to get me sucked back into this show!

Why would Franco, who is a veddy serious actor, want to be on General Hospital? Isn't this the place where people start out hoping that they'll get a career in film, not the other way around? And it's not like he needs a boost of publicity for a sagging career or as a stunt to get more people to go see his upcoming movie Howl. Some guessed that it's research for a film project, and that sounds about the only explanation that seems plausible. But how in the hell is Franco going to turn the character gay?

[Image via Getty]

Franco is currently on the pineapple express to Homotown while studying writing at Columbia and taking some at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Word is that he enrolled in an undergrad queer film class, but missed his first session. Considering his penchant for napping during lectures that's not much of a surprise. If he manages to show up in future week's he'll be treated to learning about things like "'Bottom Values: Anal Economics in History of Black Neighborhoods' and 'When are Dirty Details and Scenes Compelling? Tucked in the Cuts of Interracial Anal Rape.'" Sounds just like a class from an all-boys Catholic high school!

Back in the day, actors wouldn't touch gay roles for fear of being labeled as gay or typecast in only homo parts. Franco's last project was playing a big ol' Mary in Milk and his next gig lets his limp wrists wiggle as gay poet Allen Ginsberg in Howl. And if his turn in gay indie film Blind Spot and as probably bi actor James Dean in the made-for-TV biopic weren't enough, he's even directed some hardcore man-on-man action. His last student film for Tisch was a dirty gay fantasia that featured a boy dreaming in graphic detail about the jocks on the basketball court.

With all this hardcore action, can his next big deal be signing a an exclusive contract with Colt Studios? Or maybe he'll cast future pornstar and gay icon Levi Johnston in his next film. That would be more priceless than a million Spider-Man sequels!

[Image via Getty]

Well, actually we don't know the real reason, other than Franco's claims of having to work on a film or something, but this video from The Harvard Lampoon, "James Franco's Rejected UCLA Commencement Speech," which actually stars James Franco, is pretty funny, so we thought we'd share it with you since we chronicled this whole saga last month. Enjoy, brah.

Yeah, Movieline has seen the Franco-directed picture, an adaptation of Anthony Hecht's rull, rull gay poem The Feast of Stephen. And what did STV find upon viewing it? Franco either nailed the work's frank-yet-lyrical paeans to the male form, or he just really likes filming naked boys swinging:

...the silent, black-and-white Stephen opens with its meek, bespectacled title character (Remy Germinario, in his screen debut) watching a pick-up basketball game in New York City. But the only score Stephen is keeping is the number of shirtless hunks dribbling, sweating and writhing on the court. One mop-topped stud in particular has all the moves, nudging Stephen's daydream into the more erotic realm of naked boys playing hoops - in slow-motion, natch, and suddenly transported to a wooded glen where society's referees won't blow a whistle on their hard fouls.

But it's not all sunshine and longing gazes, though. In the end poor Stephen gets beat up and pooped on. In the face.

For all the visual turgidity, though, STV says the film is "a tight, competent, attractive exercise." Emphasis, we're guessing, on tight and attractive.

Franco, you rogue.

So what world leader or esteemed person of letters did UCLA get to replace Franco, the noted sleep-deprived grad student/part-time thespian? The LA Times reports:

UCLA announced that Brad Delson, lead guitarist for the popular rock-rap band Linkin Park, will step in to replace movie star James Franco as commencement speaker at Friday's graduation ceremony for the College of Letters and Science.

A committee of administrators, faculty and students turned to Delson after Franco withdrew, and officials expressed gratitude that Delson accepted the invitation on such short notice to address an audience expected to number 10,000 in Pauley Pavilion.

Brad Delson? Brad Freaking Delson? Are you kidding? No offense intended to Mr. Delson, noted by the Times as a UCLA alum who has established a scholarship fund at the school, but if we'd spent $100,000 on an education at UCLA, one of the more prominent institutions of higher learning in the country, and our graduation speaker was a guitarist for pop/rock band, we'd be mildly disturbed. Then again, we suppose Brad Delson is better than P.O.D. drummer Wuv Bernardo, who we heard was UCLA's backup in the event Delson couldn't clear his schedule.

How does it feel knowing that Arizona State is laughing at you right now UCLA?

Rock Star to Replace Actor for UCLA Graduation Speech [LA Times]

Move over, street urchins. James Franco is the new king of New York. I mean, he just keeps getting work here. He's most recently been cast in a film by the head of NYU's graduate directing program, Jay Anania. He'll star as an Orpheus or Dante type figure who journeys into the heart of a crime syndicate to rescue his beloved. Anania is quoted as saying of Franco, "I was immediately struck by his inventiveness and talent." He then quietly added "Plus he looks like a butterscotch sundae. I mean, just look at him." And we all nodded. [Variety]

Since Joe Carnahan is directing the new A-Team reboot, one would guess it'll be intense. Further proof of that comes from the potential casting of area badass Liam Neeson, who might play Hannibal. The Mr. T role has yet to be cast. Let's change it up! Regina King! [Variety]

Oh that's cute. Bryce Dallas Howard has cowritten a movie called The Originals that might be directed by her daddy, Richie Cunningham. The movie is about a bunch of quarterlifing twentysomethings who all reunite when a beloved old teacher falls into a coma. Sounds like Opie ought to apply some of the ol' Beautiful Mind soft-focus. [THR]

Donald Sutherland, Rufus Sewell, and Ian McShane (among others) have all signed on to the big, sweeping "maxi-series" Pillars of the Earth, based on the Ken Follett novel about... medieval English architecture. Oh, but it'll be more exciting than that! Don't worry. Sadly, no US distributor has picked up the TV rights yet. [THR]

John Malkovich has to schlep over to Kalovy Vary in the Czech Republic, where some nice townsfolk are honoring him at a little film festival they've cobbled together out of small stones and withered root vegetables. Maybe he'll make friends with a goat. (Just kidding. It's a lovely town.) [Variety]

Heyyyyy nerds. Your beloved/behated (depending on where you fall) Katee Sackhoff (Lieutenant Peet's Coffee & Tea on Battlestar) will be joining the cast of 24 next season. She'll play a smartie pants data analyst who has a secret past with another new character, played by the behated Freddie Prinze Jr. [THR]

Canceled series My Name Is Earl might be getting resurrected, albeit in lower budget format. TBS is considering picking up the Pilot Inspektor Sr. series for 13 episodes. Guys, Jamie Pressly is an Emmy winner. I do not think she does basic cable. Oh wait. That doesn't mean anything anymore. I just mean... I don't think she does TBS. [THR]

Image via Getty

In a statement released by the school this afternoon, Franco blames his heinous betrayal of his alma mater on some crap scheduling conflicts.

"I deeply regret not being able to keep my commitment to giving the commencement speech at UCLA's graduation this year," Franco said in a prepared statement provided to UCLA. "Unfortunately the date conflicts with me needing to be on location to begin pre-production on my next film. I wish everyone in the 2009 class the best of luck in all of their future endeavors."

Whatever! What a load of BS. We heard that some Fordham kids were throwing a kegger at a house on the Jersey shore next Friday night, and there's no freaking way James Franco is going to miss out on that action. James Franco just bailed on UCLA to get high and laid, just like Bill Clinton did last year.

Meanwhile, the slighted UCLA grads are venting their angst on Twitter, naturally.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

See what you're doing James Franco? That's the youth of America speaking right there, and you're destroying them! How will the school ever find someone whose academic and cultural significance is on par with yours on such notice? Who can they possibly find to take their high five-figure speaking fee to step before a podium and spout a bunch of horrible lies cloaked as truth in flowery rhetoric about how they're the future of the nation and how they can change the world and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah? Who will they find to tell them that in five years there's no way they'll ever regret starting out their lives $100,000 in debt for a seemingly worthless piece of paper when they could have been traveling the world having orgies with beautiful strangers and experimenting with mind-altering chemicals? Oh yeah, we almost forgot—- Tom Friedman will cash just about any check!

Whatever, James Franco hates UCLA and he really hates America. This much is certainly true, even though some UCLA students were hoping this would happen.

James Franco not speaking at UCLA commencement ceremony [UCLA Newsroom]

Shawn Levy's Date Night is going to be star-studded! Tina Fey and Steve Carell were already on board to play a married couple out on their... um... date... night. But the cast will now include Mark Wahlberg as a buff dude who hits on Fey and James Franco as a low-level crook. Also in the cast are Common, Taraji P. Henson, Gossip Girl's Leighton Meester, and Kristen Wiig. Sheesh. [Variety] Speaking of star-studded. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Sarah Palin will all be memorialized in TV film form by HBO. The cabler has optioned the book Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime. A screenwriter (Charles Leavitt, who wrote Blood Diamond, cause, you know, Obama, Africa) is already attached but only one bit of casting has been announced. Sarah Palin will be played by Velma from Scooby Doo. [Variety, Ryan had some thoughts on this last night]

Fan of prancy, dancy figure skater nymphs? Good news for you then! Grand fashion fop of the skating world Johnny Weir will have his own reality series on Sundance. Be Good Johnny Weir will follow the fantasticat and his posse as they prep for the 2010 Olympics. Evidently launching a bid to become as geigh as Bravo, the net has also picked up The Day Before, about what fashion models do 36 hours before they do the world's hardest job, walking in clothes. [Variety] As if regular TV was even relevant anymore! Online audiences are growing by the bushel. Lost alone had 1.4 million unique online viewers last month. Total online video viewership was up 39% from last March. Remember the internet! [Variety]

Showtime has renewed its soft core period drama The Tudors for a fourth and final season. The series' final arc will follow King Henry Rhys Meyers and the last of his two wives, me and then me wearing a wig. We're all very excited about it. [Variety] Ugh, song of purple bummer. Vastly overrated musical Spring Awakening (gorgeous score, fairly limp everything else) might be getting the film treatment. From none other than prestigious director McG. He of the Charlie's Angels and the soon-to-be-seen SkyNet's Devils. The musical is about German teenagers fucking like a million years ago. They wear knickers. And sing pretty songs. And act very, very self-important. [THR]

Wait, I just said TV might not be relevant, right? I was wrong. Bravo, still number one in gaydom, has greenlit a new series that's like its dearly departed Project Runway, but this time stars... celebrities. Launch My Line will follow a bunch of grasping "famous" people (like Tia Mowry maybe, probably Vivica A. Fox at this point, that guy from your bus this morning, a small child [dwarf?] wearing a sailor's hat) who are trying to launch their own clothing line (think: Kathy Ireland ceiling fans). They'll get help from a professional design type. Dear lord I sort of can't wait. [THR]

Other bits: Book McMafia has been nabbed for a movie adaptation. [THR] The Daily Show has added a new correspondent. [THR] And Simon Cowell might leave American Idol. [EW]

First comes word that Franco, though on a career "hot streak", has been forced to turn down several movie roles. Mostly because he's being loyal to his buddies David Gordon Green and Danny McBride and will go make a stoner movie in Northern Ireland with them this summer. This scheduling has forced him to drop out of big prestige (get it?) picture Inception, a Christopher Nolan-directed film to star Leonardo DiCaprio. His grad classes are also interfering with an offer to costar with Julia Roberts in Eat, Pray, Love. (Though, that actually might be a good thing.)

He's stretched in so many different directions. He's watching the whole Criterion collection, dashing over to LA to give a big-time speech, and making late night house calls to a Columbia student, at her dorm. Well, so says a tipster, anyway:

Well, at approximately 4:00AM this last Saturday night, I saw James Franco get signed into a Columbia residence hall by a girl (whose name escapes me at the moment but could find out rather easily). So here I am wondering what the hell James is doing getting signed in by some college junior girl in her PJs, who if you care to know is not the prettiest of girls by anyone's standards. Doesn't Franco have a girl of his own to go home to? Does she know Franco goes to chill out with college girls in their PJs on a Saturday night?

Phew! So basically something's gotta give. Either he puts school and academic-related speaking engagements and Criterion bids for intellectual cred on the back burner, or he sidelines his acting career. We'd guess that, in the end, flashy movies and money will win out. It'll just take that one project he really wants to do, and then it's goodbye, Mr. Chips.

The modern career boy just can't have it all, sadly.

Steve Carell will star in another sadsack man comedy. This one is called Dumped and is about a man who is... dumped. [Variety] Kevin Spacey will star in and produce a new indie comedy called Father of Invention, about a crazy inventor's fall from grace and subsequent comeback. A man whose biggest credit is directing a Larry the Cable Guy movie will helm. [Variety]

O.C. and Gossip Girl blunderkind Josh Schwartz will be making his directorial film debut with an adaptation of Jay McInerney's landmark 1984 novel Bright Lights, Big City. There was a Michael J. Fox movie based on the book made about twenty years ago, but... oh well. Schwartz's Lt. Riker, Stephanie Savage, will co-produce. [Variety] Pineapple Express buddies James Franco and Danny McBride will team up again for a new comedy, also to be directed by art-house auteur turned sly comedian, David Gordon Green. It's set in medieval times. Its title? Your Highness. Sigh. [Variety]

AMC, flush with successes Mad Men and Breaking Bad, is now turning itself into a regular old TV network. By developing reality programming! They've got a show called True West in the works. No, it's not about a production of the Sam Shepard play. It's about modern-day cowboys navigating the terrain as their industry fades. Sounds like a riot. [Variety] Fox, meanwhile, has rehired Wanda Sykes to host a Saturday night talk show. It'll sort of be a panel series, like the Bill Maher show. Hmm. [Variety]

SAG and AFTRA signed off on a three year commercials contract early this morning. The agreement includes a $36 million increase in wage rates and a $21 increase in contributions toward both guilds' health plans. [THR]

Kevin Rahm, who you'd recognize from a bunch of stuff, Rob Huebel, who you'd recognize from Human Giant, and Alison Brie, who you'd recognize as Pete's wife on Mad Men, have all landed TV pilots. Sadly, none of them sound good. [THR] Veteran CNN producer Kathy O'Hearn will be teaming up with veteran correspondent Christiane Amanpour for a new half-hour news program for the network. [THR]

And The Simpsons will be immortalized in postage stamp form, the Postal Service (the government thing, not the band) announced today. They'll be unveiled next week, timed well with the series' 20th anniversary. Sheesh. [THR]

Some enterprising young student took a picture of the Milk star and writing scholar dozing during at lecture at Columbia and sent it to TMZ, perhaps for a pretty fee. Franco was also Tweeted about while he slept out in the open in Bobst library at NYU, where he's also studying. So he's sleeping at both schools! Oh James. What would Lindsay think?

So what, is he out partying? Cracking the books too late? Narcolepsy? Chronic fatigue? What? What?? Look, James. If you need someone to come sit by your bed at night, and help you get a good night's rest, I'm sure there are plenty of people willing to do that. Though those same people are probably secretly hoping that you won't get any sleep, if you catch my drift. (Sex. I'm talking about sex.) So, maybe you'd better keep trying on your own.

Either way, goodnight moon.

This morning on The View, Elisabeth Hasselbeck was all bent out of shape about Phelps' bong hit, giving the tired spiel about how he's a role model and he's setting a bad example, blah blah blah. She went on to claim that since he's willing to use illegal drugs to have a good time, maybe he's open to using illegal drugs to advance his career, as though weed is a gateway drug to steroids or something. Whoopi shot her down pretty quickly, and admitted to enjoying pot.

Elisabeth's argument hinged on the fact that Phelps accepts money to endorse products. One of those is Rosetta Stone, the language-learning software, which is just about one of the most sedentary activities a stoner could enjoy, aside from watching The Wizard of Oz on mute while playing The Dark Side of the Moon. (I should know, since I've been using the program to learn Spanish.) His other sponsors, like Omega and Speedo, totally don't give a shit.

And they shouldn't, because it's silly — in my opinion, anyway — to pass judgment on those who take part in something as innocuous as pot smoking, which many believe is lot less harmful for one's body than alcohol. Besides, despite the fact that it's technically illegal, so many people smoke weed recreationally that it's not all that taboo. Here's a list of celebrities who have either been caught smoking marijuana, or admit willingly to doing so.

Woody Harrelson



Woody is an activist for the legalization of marijuana and hemp.

Willie Nelson



So is Willie Nelson.

Frances McDormand



Frances McDormand was on the cover of High Times in May 2003, in which she said, "I'm a recreational pot-smoker. There has never been enough of a distinction between marijuana and other drugs. It's a human rights issue, a censorship issue, and a choice issue."

Seth Rogen & James Franco



The pair stared in Pineapple Express together, and shared this maybe real/maybe fake joint on stage while presenting an award during the MTV Movie Awards last summer.

Cameron Diaz & Drew Barrymore



Also friends who share.

Justin Timberlake



Timberlake, who used to date Diaz, has been very open about how he smokes weed, sometimes even with is mother. He also admitted that he was stoned out of his mind when he was Punk'd by Ashton Kutcher.

Kimora Lee Simmons



Kimora Lee Simmons took one of the stoniest mugshots after she was arrested in 2004 for possession.

Nicole Richie



Nicole admitted to having smoked pot, as well as taking a Vicodin, when she was arrested for a DUI charge in 2007.

Paris Hilton



Nicole's buddy Paris' reefer madness has been well documented.

Michelle Phillips



Former singer from The Mamas & The Papas said as recently as 2001 that, "Marijuana should definitely be legalized. I think we should let everyone smoke it without fear of being thrown in jail. It's the greatest drug in the world!"

Snoop Dogg



Duh.

Redman



We'll be here all day if we start listing rappers.

Lil Wayne



But we'll mention Wayne for good measure.

Mariah Carey



Mariah is such a goody-two-shoes that she'd never publicly admit to marijuana use, but on her most recent album, she made plenty of weed references.

Charlize Theron



Academy Award winners like their weed, too.

AARP



In the summer of 2005, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) hosted a smoke-in to promote the legalization of marijuana. Celebrities that participated: Willie Nelson, Woody Harrelson (obvs), Bette Midler, Santana, Chicago, David Crosby and Graham Nash, Rod Stewart, The New Jefferson Starship, Tony Orlando, Ringo Starr, Tommy Chong, Snoop Dogg, and Robert Downey Jr.

Matthew McConaughey



When McConaughey gets loose, he does so with bongos.

Dionne Warwick



Her work with Burt Bacharach was way too mellow to not be under the influence.

Whitney Houston & Bobby Brown



They've got "Something in Common."

Sarah Silverman



Sarah speaks favorably about weed in her act, and smoked with Doug Benson in his movie Super High Me.

Doug Benson



Comedian Doug Benson has centered much of his career around pot.

Oliver Stone



He has the perfect name for someone who's been busted for pot on numerous occasions.

Dawn Wells



Mary Ann from Gilligan's Island was arrested last year for possession.

Dave Chappelle

The Pointer Sisters



Oliver Hudson tells a story about his first concert-going experience, during which the Pointer Sisters were getting blazed.

Paul Dinello



It's hard to watch this Strangers With Candy clip about smoking pot without thinking that writer/actor Paul Dinello believes what he is saying.

Barbra Streisand



In a 1972 Rolling Stone interview, Babs said, "I'd take out a joint and light it. First, just faking it. Then I started lighting live joints, passing them around to the band, you know. I was great, it relieved all my tensions. And I ended up with the greatest supply of grass ever. Other acts up and down the Strip heard about what I was doing - Little Anthony and the Imperials, people like that - and started sending me the best dope in the world. I never ran out."

Phelps Backed by Sponsors After Marijuana Photo [TCPalm]
Elisabeth Hasselbeck disses Michael Phelps; Whoopi Goldberg: 'I have smoked weed' [EW]

Via AfterElton comes this truly awkward clip, in which no amount of Lance Bass-led media training has guarded Fatone against asking uncomfortable questions about Franco's decision to "play a homosexual, correct?" After a full minute of suffering through Fatone's remedial queries and sexual double entendres, Franco looks ready to administer a patented "Rinna lip" to Fatone using his own fists; we're shocked that the 'N Syncer didn't make it all the way to, "So what was it like to kiss Sean Penn, who was also playing a homosexual?" but by then, he was no doubt receiving "wrap it up" signs from his producer, his horrified stylist, and a cackling Rinna (who would have been licking her lips, had she the energy for such a formidable task).

• "Milk" star James Franco accosted by Joey Fatone, asked inane questions about playing "a homosexual" [AfterElton]

· In case you were going to A Christmas Carol at the Kodak Theater tonight with visions of hologram Gene Wilders dancing in your heads, we felt the need to pass this message along: "Please note that Jane Seymour has cancelled due to illness and due to limited tech time, a special appearance by Gene Wilder in a hologram will not be used & a supporting actor will be playing Marley's Ghost." In an unrelated note, how awesome are those satellite space-pandas? We hope there's enough tech time left over for them!
· If you ever wondered what Pamela Anderson playing Amy Sedaris playing Pamela Anderson might look like, now you know.
· 25-year-old trespassing Dunst-enthusiast Christopher R. Smith has been ordered to stay away from the actress.
· Home Team 1, Satan 0.
· For a second we were literally jumping around Defamer HQ telling anyone who'd listen that a woman had developed the most formidable cockfighting breed the world has ever known; then we realized it was just some crazy lady humiliating a giant, castrated poodle.

The keen, homoerotically-attuned eye of Towleroad noticed unmistakable similarities between Gus Van Sant's shot, and an important work by artist David Hockney:

[I]t struck me that Van Sant must have been inspired by David Hockney's "Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)" and, lo and behold, Franco got the stroke, and Van Sant the angle, just right.

Lo and behold, indeed!

• A Big Gay Hockney - Van Sant Milk Mash-Up [Towleroad]

Harvard alum Portman followed up a few inconsistent efforts from Colin Farrell, James McAvoy and Scarlett Johansson ("I was clinging to the edge of my seat waiting for her to explode," she wrote of I've Loved You So Long actress Kristin Scott Thomas) with a touching, articulate nugget of praise for Milk star Sean Penn:

"They only need to know one of us," Harvey Milk explains to his campaign team in the film Milk. Sean Penn's performance as Harvey does exactly that: You learn one man's story, and his pains and triumphs become your own. It showed me how a great performance can also be a humanitarian act. When we know one character, one story, we recognize him as being of our own flesh and blood. When we understand his feelings, we put ourselves in his position. Not only is Sean's performance honestly and lovingly humane, but it is also virtuosic — every note is so subtly tuned that the work behind it is never visible. He infuses Harvey's courage with cowardice and his sexual prowess with hesitation.

Sean's Harvey is a cocky and charismatic orator, but always weighted by the foreboding dread of knowing his own tragedy. When the antigay Prop. 6 is unexpectedly voted down, surprise, elation and horror at the very existence of the referendum all rage in the blood beneath his skin. Sean Penn so inhabits Harvey Milk that I left the theater feeling the need to march against our frighteningly similar Prop. 8 to honor this man I now know.

Wow, Nat! Well done. Meanwhile, fellow Ivy Leaguer James Franco, who's in the first semester of a writing MFA at Columbia, turned in his blue-book tribute to Heath Ledger:

Heath in The Dark Knight was great. With any superhero movie villain, everybody is still contending with the huge shadow that Jack Nicholson cast with the first Batman. I don't know what Willem (Dafoe) thought with Green Goblin (in Spider-Man), but they have to think about Nicholson. His was such an indelible performance. Heath had to be very conscious of it when he and Christopher Nolan went into their movie. And they did such an incredible job of getting away from the Nicholson character while being faithful to the idea of the Joker.

Heath wasn't the funniest of Jokers, but certainly the more grounded of villains. At least on an emotional level, you could follow why he was doing this stuff; there was real emotional depth.

"The more grounded of villains"? Get. Us. Rewrite.

• Natalie Portman on Sean Penn in 'Milk' [Variety]

• James Franco on Heath Ledger in 'The Dark Knight' [Variety]

KB: So, Stu, you and I have both seen one of the year's most anticipated movies, Milk. I'm curious about our reactions, because we both came to from a different place. I saw it before the election, and you saw it after. Also, I'm a gay man, and you're not (aside from that one time at summer camp).
STV: True, true.
KB: So what did you think of it?
STV: I liked it! Well-made prestige Oscar bait.
KB: On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate its Van Santyness? Or perhaps, on a scale of Finding Forrester to Gerry?
STV: 1 being Finding Forrester, Milk is right around a 3.
KB: It's pretty straightforward, except for the occasional fun pop touch. I liked the film too, although I felt it ends better than it begins. The beginning is verrry biopic-y, every introduction is portentous and expositional.
STV: It's a problem throughout, though.
KB: People say things like, "Let me tell you something, CLEVE JONES..." I am pretty sure I never use people's last names when talking to them. Though maybe I would if I knew they'd be famous one day!
STV: Try it with me some time, let's see what happens.
KB: Do you think we'll see a single review of this film that won't mention Milk's parallel to Obama, or Prop 8?
STV: This one won't be it, I guess. I hope so, though.
KB: The Prop 8 stuff is pretty hard to ignore, considering Milk is trying to overturn the anti-gay Prop 6 in the movie. He even makes some remarks, like that the anti-Prop 6 ad campaign was "closeted," that I heard about the "No on 8" campaign.
STV: So we need 100 critics saying it's relevant?
KB: Well, this is a case where I think its relevance will help. Unlike Obama's election lifting The Dark Knight, lazy Academy voters may look at Milk and say, "I will check this box off for activism!" I can see the cocktail party chatter: "Isn't that Prop 8 terrible?" "It sure is. I voted for Sean Penn, by the way."
STV: That doesn't make it a better film, though, is what I'm saying. Which critics will confuse it with.
KB: Sean Penn is great, but what did we think of everyone else?
STV: Waitaminute. Sean Penn is the movie.
KB: I love that the Variety review basically boiled down to, "Sean Penn deserves credit for appearing likable on screen!"
STV: It's a role where so, so much could go wrong, and he hurdles over all of it. The period trappings, the physicality, the presence, the godawful hair...
KB: It's hard to imagine how Robin Williams or Steve Carell could have done it better. What did you think of Josh Brolin? That role could have been even trickier.
STV: I think he's great, but the part of Dan White is underwritten. The guy has no real inner life.
KB: I think all the supporting roles have a lot less to them than you would think going in. Emile Hirsch didn't have much to do besides a dorky dance in group party scenes.
STV: James Franco's character is bizarre. Now you see him, now you don't.
KB: Also, where were these stunt cocks Franco had promised us while doing talk shows? I felt gypped.
STV: Saving it for the DVD, I guess. Is Diego Luna annoying?
KB: Yes, but intentionally? My friend couldn't stand him. I thought that was kind of the point, he's like that guy your friend dates who you can't stand.
STV: It was like with Brolin's character, where he didn't earn the attention our hero devoted to him.
KB: I appreciate all the internecine politics we saw with Dan White and Milk, though. That was, I think, its most notable expansion over The Times of Harvey Milk.
STV: Gosh, now that you say it, I have all kinds of quibbles with this movie. I've already vented some of them, but the politics...I mean we KNOW they fought. So maybe part of my disappointment with Brolin's character is the surface-level whininess that never ever ends. He plays a great drunk, though. Imagine!
KB: He was high on twinkies, Stu. Clearly.
STV: It's true. Forgive me. Give readers one reason to see Milk unrelated to Sean Penn or the political relevance.
KB: [Director of photography] Harris Savides.
STV: DITTO!
KB: It's a very pretty, warm movie. It makes you want to be there, suffering prejudice and getting assassinated.
STV: He's a brilliant cinematographer. Will straights in the red states buy tickets to this? Gays! Sean Penn! San Francisco!
KB: The ones who want to meet their "one daring thing a year" quota might. With the Oscar help, I could see it hitting $40 million. I don't think it's a Brokeback, though. So have you soured on Milk since we began this discussion? "Sour milk." I didn't even intend that.
STV: Honk. I don't think so, I never thought it was extraordinary. But I guess the thing that really is most striking is that for the first time in 25 years, Sean Penn is a revelation.
KB: True, and he deserves everything he gets for it, STU VANAIRSDALE.
STV: I feel famous already.