And guess who is crazy: action film director John McTiernan. He's just directed The Political Prosecutions of Karl Rove, an inaction film of sorts about how his indictment in the Pellicano case was politically motivated.

See, McTiernan had Pellicano wiretap a producer he was fighting over money with and then the FBI called him about it, and McTiernan was all "nope I didn't do that," and, well, that is not legal, to make false statements to the FBI. McTiernan pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four months in proson. But then McTiernan got mad that he was the only rich Hollywood prick facing actual jail time over this mess, so he fired his lawyers and withdrew his plea and made this documentary, apparently. He's due to be reindicted.

Anyway. McTiernan has never really thought he should get any jail time for his crime, and he's made it clear from day one that because he is a rich and successful director who is also, at heart, a Good Person, he should not be punished for lying about having everyone wiretapped. How dare they prosecute a man who's always portrayed the FBI in a positive light?

She also scolded Mr. McTiernan for saying in an e-mail message to his previous lawyer that he was "offended" at the idea he could be prosecuted because he had "refused to make movies in which F.B.I. agents are the bad guys," and for complaining that his legal woes could get in the way of his making a "patriotic movie."

McTiernan apparently doesn't remember how when the FBI shows up in Die Hard they are all working from the old terrorist playbook, and Gruber is playing them for saps, and only McClane and lowly LAPD desk jockey Reginald ValJohnson are interested in actually stopping those sons of bitches. Remember? Agents Johnson and Johnson, no relation? God, that movie rules. Anyway. The FBI are not "bad guys" in that movie but they are getting in the way of McClane doing his job, dammit, which is why, 20 years later, director John McTiernan had to lie to them.

Sadly this new movie does not look as awesome as Die Hard, or Die Hard With a Vengeance, which is just as awesome. This new movie looks as bad as Rollerball, frankly.

According to The Political Prosecutions of Karl Rove, the entire Pellicano case was all about digging up dirt for an anti-Hillary Clinton campaign video, because that makes sense. Why else but to derail Hillary would anyone go after noted Great American Ron Burkle?

The film notes that the prosecution allowed federal officials to compel two of Mrs. Clinton's biggest contributors - the entrepreneurs Ron Burkle and Stephen Bing - to testify before a grand jury. Mrs. Clinton, the film says, was widely reported to have had help from Mr. Pellicano when her husband was accused in 1992 of having had an affair with Gennifer Flowers.

Now it is actually certainly true that politically motivated investigations and prosecutions of prominent Democrats were one of the many dirty deeds of the Bush administration, but they were more likely to go after people like Alabama Governor Don Siegelman than to target a scummy Hollywood private eye and the assholes who hired him.

We think McTiernan should cut a deal with the prosecutors: they will not re-indict him if he stops making weird conspiracy documentaries and signs on instead to Die Hard 5.

· Anita Busch is the reporter whose snooping into the dealings of axe-shredding blackbelt and energy beverage purveyor Steven Segal she claims led to colorful threats on her life, and set Pellicano's house of cards a-tumbling. (Soon to be dramatized in Starz!'s gripping true-crime drama, The Car, The Fish, and The Rose.) In assessing the NY Times's recent Busch profile, Deadline Hollywood Daily insists there's no there there, rattling off a series of "inexplicably"s and missed opportunities that flew clear over our heads. Michael Ovitz's name is evoked, however, and that's never a good thing. (Seagal, meanwhile, vigorously maintains his innocence, and would like his career back now KTHXBAI.) [Deadline Hollywood Daily]
· The recorder becomes the recorded, as once again Pellicano's own audio tapes are used to bury him. Last time, it was when he pledged to his "honey" Chris Rock that he'd "blacken this [rapist-accusing] girl up for you left and right." This time, Pellicano was blasted throughout the courtroom telling attorney Peter Knect that his client, Bilal Baroody, owed Pellicano's client, Universal head Ron Meyer, $300,000, sweetly adding the sentiment, "His life is about to change exponentially unless he pays this money back." (What—no flowers or fish?) [HuffPo]
· Then, Rollerball producer Charles Roven took the stand. Another tape was played: "The jury heard Mr. Pellicano tell director John McTiernan...that he was in the middle of wiretapping Mr. Roven...Mr. Pellicano made a pitch to McTiernan, asking him to come help out and listen to the calls so he could figure out what was important in Mr. Roven's conversations. Mr. McTiernan replied that he was a bit too busy, but suggested sending his then girlfriend..." There's ltos more where that came from over at HuffPo. [HuffPo]

But with new counsel, McTiernan sought to withdraw his guilty plea on the grounds that he was jet-lagged and under the influence of alcohol and medications when he was questioned by the agent. McTiernan's attorneys also insisted that their client did not understand the consequences of denying his involvement with Pellicano and that his lie, while serious, did not rise to the level of a crime, and should not have been charged as a felony.

Federal prosecutors, however, argued — and Fischer agreed — that McTiernan was fully aware of the consequences of his actions when he spoke to the FBI a year ago. There was no evidence that he had received inadequate legal advice before hiring new attorneys to strike down his plea, Fischer ruled.

The judge also said that McTiernan's actions since his guilty plea were not those of a person sorry for his crime and eager to assist the government, as his plea agreement required. To the contrary, she said, McTiernan has taken on the demeanor of someone "still incensed" that he was ever charged in the case.

"He has shown no remorse, just excuses," the judge said.

Fischer also rejected claims by McTiernan's attorneys that he has suffered from depression in his life and that his crime did not justify a prison sentence.

"He will certainly not be the only depressed man in custody," she said.

Perhaps things are not quite as dark as they might initially seem for McTiernan, as his "stunned" legal team has already announced its intentions to appeal; while a higher court will probably agree that he "will certainly not be the only depressed man in custody," maybe it will cut him some slack by conceding that any career in Hollywood that lasts long enough to tally $600 million in domestic grosses deprives a person of the ability to properly express remorse, as counterproductive feelings of guilt are delegated to assistants with generous "I'm sorry" muffin-basket expense accounts after a director's first number-one film.

• McTiernan gets 4 months in prison [LAT]

The terms of McTiernan's plea agreement were not released. But it is believed he will be a cooperating witness in the government's investigation. [...]

McTiernan admitted lying to the agent when he denied that Pellicano had ever told him of his ability to wiretap adversaries.

McTiernan said he also lied when he denied hiring Pellicano in a case unrelated to his own divorce, in which he employed the private eye to gather information on his ex-wife. "In fact, I had used Anthony to wiretap Charles Roven," McTiernan told the judge. "I had spoken with him about it. I never received a report or specific information. I paid him off and fired him. But I did not tell that to the agent on the phone."

Why McTiernan engaged Pellicano to wiretap Roven is unclear, although the two worked together in 2000 on the box office flop "Rollerball."

We may never know why the successful director hired Pellicano to eavesdrop on the producer, but our best guess is that McTiernan was shaken by watching a tag team of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Frankie Muniz stomp his sure-thing Chris Klein vehicle, and in his ensuing hunt for meaning in a suddenly chaotic world (after all, hadn't he killed Schwarzenegger's career with Last Action Hero? What else can one man do?), stumbled across some legal and ethical lines. Any of us might have done the same thing faced with such reality-rocking circumstances. We don't need to point out what Klein did to ex-finacee Katie Holmes' life, do we?

• Filmmaker Says He Lied in FBI Probe [LAT]