In today's LA Times, Patrick Goldstein reports on the redemptive journey to freedom of director John Lee Hancock; imprisoned for the crime of directing The Alamo, Hancock was apparently granted some kind of work release furlough and allowed to make The Blind Side; that film's surprising box office success this weekend has apparently restored him to full movie director citizenship.

Was a time when the rules for director jail were simple: when there was a big bomb, someone had to pay and the person attached to the film who had been the biggest pain in the neck to studio bosses was it. After two simultaneous disasters, Orson Welles, for example, found his big-time career as a director effectively brought to an end and had to struggle for the rest of his days, working when he was allowed, under probation and heavy official supervision.

But today, as with so much in our society, the rules are much murkier. For the citizens of Hollywood, director jail still exists as a looming deterrent against bomb-making, but what gets you there can be very unclear; some directors these days are allowed to make bombs forever, while others seem to be imprisoned after making a hit. Is anyone safe? Has the world gone mad and is it just by Fortuna's whims that any one of us has not found ourselves dragged off and locked away in the dankest, bug-infested cell in movie dungeon?

Well, the rules are more complex, more flexible, with many loopholes but they still do exist. Here's our guide to what it takes to get in to and stay out of Director Jail:

The Law: The general principle remains the same since time immemorial; every director has a bank of capital built up by their hits. Each successful film earns a credit. Every movie-losing film costs you one credit. A bigger hit may earn more credits however, as a bigger flop costs more. When your account gets to zero credits, you are sent to director jail.

The case of the aforementioned Mr. Hancock remains one of the most straightforward, classical cases of movie justice. He began his film career with The Rookie, a modest success made on a modest budget, which earned him two credits. But he then went on to make The Alamo, a huge flop on a huge budget, which cost both his credits, earning him his jail sentence. Likewise Michael Bay had ample credits in his account to weather the debacle of The Island.

The Grosses Speak Law: Whether the film is good or not, whether the director could have been replaced by a monkey, matters not at all if the film is successful. Bret Ratner the titular visionary behind the abomination of the Rush Hour trilogy, which combined grossed the better part of a billion dollars worldwide, has earned himself enough credits to stay out of director jail forever and ever.

The Beholder Codicil: However, the twist of the modern world is that perception matters far more than the actual facts. Even if Bret Ratner's career were nothing but a string of bombs, in a business where, as William Goldman said "nobody knows anything" you can in fact fool all the people all the time. Unshakable belief in yourself and the ability to play the part of great auteur on a grand scale can, if needed, be everything and can keep one out of director jail for a very long time.

The Laughingstock Law: A couple decades back, Renny Harlin was the Bret Ratner of his day. A high-profile, on-the-town action auteur, with a starlet wife and who, with Die Hard 2 and Cliffhanger under his belt, could do no wrong. Until he did something very wrong; he made a movie that was not just a flop, it was so bad it made everyone involved with it look like abject maroons. The director jail authorities saided out to Cutthroat Island and carried Renny Harlin off for an extended vacation.

The Franchise Killer Act: No substance sustains life in Hollywood more than a successful film franchise — a series which can keep the spigots of cash flowing forever. And for the director who would kill a golden goose, no punishment is too great. Having made Speed and Twister in the 90's, Jan De Bont could have coasted for decades. But then he followed up Speed with the franchise killing Speed 2 - a sin which he just might have been gotten away with as it was his franchise to kill after all - but then he went on to bring down the might Lara Croft with The Cradle of Life, the third installment of her series. De Bont has not been heard from since.

The Coolness Exemption: In many instances, coolness creds can override profits and can keep a director out of director jail. There is a long line of entertainment poohbahs for whom being cool is almost as important as being successful, dying to work with anyone who can confer secondary cool. Donnie Darko, for instance, may have barely grossed a million on a $6 million budget, but its status as cult icon and ultimate cool film has created a long list of poohbahs wanting to work with director Richard Kelly. Even after the massive flop of his star-studded follow-up Southland Tales, Kelly continued to walk the streets. However, having now made an uncool flop with The Box, he may soon find there is a cell being readied with his name on it.

The Big Cool Friend Exemption: Director jail can also be avoided, or postponed, if a director can produce big movie star friends. Kevin Smith, for instance, whose bombs should have sent him to the movie guillotine long ago, remains at liberty thanks to his ability to get a long line of big name actors from Ben Affleck to Seth Rogen to vouch for him by appearing in his movies.

The Oscar Exemption: So long as smell of trophies cling to an auteur, they can buy their freedom indefinitely. Paul Thomas Anderson's films may always been more favored by critics than popcorn eaters, but so long as his genius-of-the-cinema creds remain off the map, so will never see the inside of a cell in director jail.

Now defunct: there used to be a disgrace to the entertainment industry law which carried with it a 20-year sentence, but since the term "disgrace to the entertainment industry has become an oxymoron, the law has been unenforced for years.

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.

New York Times writer David Segal goes for the jugular with some of the contextualizing work done here. There're the great anecdotes from filmmakers the Weinsteins have worked with, like Quentin Tarantino's story about the time Harvey wanted to buy a restaurant just so he could blow smoke in the fire marshall's face:

The story killed, and when the laughing died down, Bob smiled, waited a beat and added another punch line. "A million dollars," he sighed, "for a cigarette."

Ah, the flush years. They must seem kind of distant now.

Or Weinstein loyalists like Kevin Smith sounding "wistful" about a failure to promote a film:

"They had impeccable taste when they were hungry," Mr. Smith says. "The problem is that they're not really hungry anymore. They're starving and desperate."

Or guys like the producer of Fanboys going on the record about how terribly trite he thinks the Weinstein's tastes have become:

To Dana Brunetti, who produced "Fanboys," the whole episode was a blown opportunity. "I don't think the Weinsteins understood that they had this stalwart audience of ‘Star Wars' fans in their back pocket," he says. "They just wanted the movie to be whatever had been hot the previous weekend. It was ‘Superbad' one weekend, something else the next."

All things that would've never have been mentioned in public - or private, maybe - by the talent in the Weinsteins employed in their heyday. The Weinsteins' strange fraternal relationship with each other is documented; so are moments of affability, to push home the point that Harvey and Bob aren't the bulldogs they used to be. But key to understanding the Weinsteins, and the way they keep getting by despite hemorrhaging money on failure after failure, is a scene in which Harvey's rattling off the company's slate of current and upcoming releases.

...the brothers were downright generous with me when it came to screening their coming movies. In fact, they shared as much of their slate as was ready - six movies in all, as well as ads, DVDs and rough cuts of unfinished products. The goal, they said, was to demonstrate the strength of these films. For Harvey, it also seemed as if the screenings were supposed to bolster his case if - or, perhaps in his mind, when - he had to complain about this article. We showed him everything and he still said we're doomed, was the subtext. If there is such a thing as prevenge, this is it. "You see this?" Harvey asks, pounding a finger against a sheet of paper. It's a Nielsen NRG tracking poll, a gauge of public interest in coming movies. He points to figures besides "Inglourious Basterds." Here's the G-rated version of what he says next: "This is called ‘smash hit'!"

Or the "next big thing" strategy, which is what they've been riding on for a while, now: sell investors on the idea that whatever comes next will, in fact, be the great success, just based on concept alone: a new Kevin Smith movie, starring the fat Jewish guy from all the Judd Apatow movies: huge! A new Holocaust movie, starring the Academy-loved Kate Winslet: blockbuster! And so on. They even take to admitting that they're nothing more than film producers, which is something they failed to realize when they tried to diversify into a multimedia company.

"What happened was, I got more fascinated by these other businesses and I figured, ‘Making movies, I can do that in my sleep,' " he says in an interview in his office in downtown Manhattan. "I kind of delegated the process of production and acquisitions. Yes, I had a say in it, but was I 100 percent concentrating? Absolutely not. I thought I could build the company and delegate authority, and that's where it went wrong."

But while they now praise the virtues of being scrappy, independent film producers again, it has to bruise the egos of the Weinstein Brothers. So much so, that they'd let a New York Times reporter in their buisness to get the story of their next success strategy out, and in the process, risk having to read damaging anecdotes about themselves like this one, delivered by Kevin Smith:

At the premiere [of Zach And Miri Make A Porno], he introduced Mr. Smith to the actress Sarah Chalke, which was awkward because the woman was actually Traci Lords, a co-star of the movie. "The old Harvey would never would have made those kinds of mistakes," he says. "He just wasn't as present, he wasn't minding the farm, so to speak."

The diverse business approach for a film company becoming a media company was a new trick, weakly executed by an old dog, getting older. The question then becomes something along the lines of: will they keep up? As major studios have learned the hard (and Twittered) way, making and marketing films has become an entirely different game. Can the Brothers Weinstein get with it? Or have the innovations and advances in the realm of their fundamental business - just making movies, and nothing else - already passed them by?

Teenage Wizard Movie has jumped to the $100 million mark in the worldwide box office sales. Which poses a fascinating question: Why did the producers of 500 Days of Summer choose this weekend to open? Surely Potter's box office bonanza comes as no surprise. Did they really think the mopey teens who like 'meaning music' were going to snub Potter for uh, the kid from 3rd Rock? SILLY FOOLS! [ Variety ]

Yes! A new movie named Bad Girls is being described as a cross between Lord of the Flies and Heathers. It's an adaptation of a novel. Bad Girls centers on a wild teenager shipped off to a reform school on a remote Caribbean island. On the island, she and The Others go up against violent drug dealers and killers as they battle their own worst impulses. First step: Kill the Pig! [THR]

Two men have died after a stage being built for Madonna's concert collapsed in Marseilles, France. Worst. Obits. Ever. []

Ed Helms! He does things we enjoy. Hopefully, we'll enjoy his newest movie project Cedar Rapids. Helms will play a sad-sack insurance agent who goes to an industry convention to try to save the jobs of his colleagues. Always the hero, that Helms. [ Variety ]

Kevin Smith has confirmed that Clerks and Chasing Amy will be released on Blu-Ray in November 2009 with a few new surprises. Aw! You guys remember Joey Lawrence Adams? Neither do I. [/Film]

A new painfully good looking young person has been cast in Twilight Eclipse. So, you know, Google images is probably a little strained right now! [ THR ]

Todd Phillips, writer/director of The Hangover, is has been hired by Warner Bros to write a new feature called Staycation. What's it about? We don't know but there's rightful suspicion that it will be a "male-driven-laffer." [ Vairety ]

Fox has tapped portly and lovable John Goodman to star in a new Ben Stiller-produced pilot. [Variety ]

More like solidarity for-never! The Directors union and the Writers union are beefing. Look at this Eff-Off email the head of the DGA sent to the head of SAG. "Of course, these are not normal circumstances "... you've repeatedly, and in my opinion unfraternally, attacked the negotiations and contracts of the DGA and other unions in the press and other public forums. So, in the circumstances, I'm very surprised that you would consider yourself to be in a position to convene an event that requires trust and fraternity to have any chance of success." Good luck on those negotiations, comrades! [ Variety ]

After much rumoring, Tom Cruise has confirmed that he'll star opposite Cam'ron D in the action-comedy Wichita. Hopefully it'll be as successful an endeavor as the pair's previous action-comedy, Vanilla Sky. [Variety]

As Bravo continues to take over America, one city at a time, they've turned their glowing, bloodthirsty eyes on southern Florida. This summer they'll air six episodes of a show called Miami Social, about the fast-paced semi-youngs of Little Cuba. As it's a social, we expect at least one episode devoted to a box luncheon. And lots of ice cream. [Variety]

Two sassy, sarcastic fellows are joining Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan in a buddy action-comedy movie about stolen baseball cards that's basically one long dick joke. Adam Brody and Sean William Scott have just signed onto the cast of Kevin Smith's A Couple of Dicks. Brody will play an exasperated (sarcastically!) detective, while Scott will play... um, the "Shit Bandit," who poops wherever he burgles. Terrific. Ya still got it, Smithy! [THR]

Proving that he has not, in fact, been lost in the Andes or lying under a pile of old newspapers, calling out for help in vain, Freddie Prinze Jr. has joined the cast of 24. Next season he'll play a returning Marine who wants to follow in old Jackie B's footsteps. So good for him. And good for Sarah Michelle, who can now take a break from bringing home all that bacon. It gets heavy after a while, huh? [THR]

Oh, fun. John Lithgow, star of stage and screen, will go at it with Michael C. Hall (not in the sexy way) on Dexter next season. He'll play a suburban dude with a secret. He's cheating on his wife! Oh, wait, no that would be sorta forgivable. He's a terrible serial killer, actually. [Variety]

Lions Gate doesn't want to run TV Guide all by itself anymore, so they sold 49% of the property to One Equity Partners, for $123 million. And TV Guide is worth every penny, lemme tell ya. [THR]

Eesh, poor Reiko Aylesworth. Floating around for years, never getting the big bite, then her pilot The Forgotten gets picked up and... she's dropped during retooling. Also out is the show's lead, Rupert Penry-Jones. Everyone else seems OK. Phew... [THR]

Last we heard from Smith, he had just dug out of a pot binge a month or so after Zack and Miri Make a Porno had crashed upon lift-off. The denial, anger and bargaining phases had all seemed to mostly wear off by then, smoothly transitioning into the depression that comes from knowing your mass-market adult comedy — starring one of America's hottest young actors — bombed in every conceivable (and foreseeable) sense.

But! Acceptance is right around the corner with the DVD release. Except when it's not, as in Smith's new interview with the Toronto Sun, during which he relapsed all the way back to last fall's Harvey-bashing tendencies:

Why didn't audiences embrace it?

"I think they would have if they had ever known the movie was out," Smith [said]. "The big problem with Zack and Miri was that their awareness was always really screwed up."

Smith says The Weinstein Company misfired in its marketing campaign in the U.S., especially when it got bogged down in ratings and title controversies. In contrast, the Weinsteins routinely triumph with costume dramas and serious material such as the Oscar-nominated The Reader, Smith says.

"Unfortunately, this was a studio comedy and needed to be sold like that."

We're not so sure, Kevin. Harvey isn't the one crawling out of a "weed cocoon" during awards season. Maybe you should have trusted him when he tried to change Porno to Holocaust Epic. Really, does know his stuff.

• Porno screw-up [Toronto Sun via MyHogtown]

In an epic podcast recently undertaken with his longtime producer Scott Mosier, the filmmaker describes the initial instant he realized the scope of Zack and Miri's opening-day underperformance — that morning after Halloween, in a slo-mo fog that he acknowledges sent him retreating into the succor of his "weed cocoon," wondering why his comely, supportive wife hasn't yet left him for a more profitable auteur. Are you kidding, Kev? And miss out on the good times? Like, "Wes whatever" may have respect and success, but you won't hear about his toilet-pulverizing escapades on The Tonight Show. Buck up!

• SModcast 68 [Quick Stop Entertainment]

I know some folks just wanna get my back, but honestly - I'm fine. We're talking about a show set in a Hollywood so fictional that Ed Burns is a successful television producer (surprisingly, in the real world, Burns' brother is a writer on "Entourage"). We all know where the jabs are coming from (Vanilla [Entourage EP Rob] Weiss) as well as why they're being made: because Rob's still working out some issues he didn't cover in therapy...

Regardless, "Entourage" is still a guilty pleasure for me (even with the shots taken). And, like I wrote above - it's a fair jab: I've been to Sprinkles many times (just had no clue Weiss was stalking me during those runs)

We're relieved the director is able to take such jabs (the third, according to one message board poster) in stride, admitting that as cheap Entourage shots go, at least Sprinkles is a baked goods purveyor he actually endorses—if you define "endorsement" as holding a Sprinkles Platinum Visa that allows him to cut the line and head straight to the counter to pick up his regular. (An assorted baker's dozen "with a extra side of lemon icing, just-a like da Mister Kevin he likes!").

• The View Askewniverse

As director Kevin Smith told the LA Times today, "If [Zack and Miri] dies at the box office, I don't think we'll see another porn-related comedy for a long time." We have a better idea: Make all the porn comedies you want, just don't release them on Halloween behind a campaign featuring sanitized TV spots and stick figures of Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks. While the latter star still remains a relatively unknown box-office quanity, Rogen has done nothing but open one R-rated comedy after another since last year. Zack and Miri, not so much: It's Rogen's worst opening by far, collecting less than a third of Knocked Up's $30.7 million draw in May '07 and contorting his agent into insisting Rogen doesn't need fellow UTA-er Judd Apatow behind him — as with Knocked Up, Superbad and Pineapple Express — to deliver a hit.

Smith, meanwhile, probably won't even beat his opening for Clerks 2, triggering critics to ask how much demand — if any — remains for his digressive brand of raunch. But don't take our word for it: He anticipated it himself, pushing the script for his terrorism drama Red State during the press rounds for Zack and Miri. The Weinsteins didn't want it then and definitely won't take it now; their parting ways with the filmmaker (for now) has less to do with taste than insolvency, particularly with the backlog of films piling up next to the mop in their utility closet. It was fun while it lasted. Except the Jersey Girl part, of course, but they're over it.

Which leaves the Weinsteins themselves, having failed once more in their attempts to stir up ratings and title controversies, looking to Zack and Miri's Flopz™ eternity for a little nickel-and-dime magic for years to come. There's always this week's Soul Men, though, right? Not so fast, says R&B legend Sam Moore, who told The Independent this weekend that he may seek a share of the gate for the Sam Jackson/Bernie Mac comedy he thinks ripped off his life story. And it didn't even do it well:

The film infringes trademark rights over the duo's most famous song, "Soul Man", Moore alleges. It also wrongly portrays them as constantly swearing, making liberal use of the "N-word" and indulging in casual sex with groupies, he complains.

"The film is sexist, racist, and embarrassing, and that's not what Sam & Dave were about," said Moore, who is seeking "significant" compensation, together with a disclaimer distancing him from the narrative. [...]

"The Weinstein Company says the film's fiction. In that case, I'd like them to tell me what part's supposed to be fiction," said Moore. "I'd like them to tell me which two black soul musicians, signed to Stax Records, who worked with Isaac Hayes, it's meant to portray."

Oh — so that's why they wanted to share this one with MGM. Things may be lean around the office these days, but at least Harvey and Bob won't have to face a jury alone.

• 'School' still rules box office [Variety]

• 
  'Soul men' film is no laughing matter... [The Independent]

Last month the MPAA banned the movie's poster for being too raunchy. That was a huge red flag. The company responded by thumbing its nose with a cute little riff on the controversy, and continued on its merry way, marketing-wise.

But ads for the film were still getting banned across the country. Now it seems to be sinking in that the very title of the movie could prevent it from being properly marketed and advertised, dooming it to box office failure:

The public outcry has left the film's director and distributor flabbergasted. "I can't believe this is happening in the 21st century," says Mr. Smith. "When was the last time you saw a porno with the word porno in the title?"

"Anyone who takes the title seriously is missing the comedic aspect of the movie," says Harvey Weinstein, co-chairman of Weinstein Co.

"This is the one time I don't want controversy. This is a big, broad, fun Seth Rogen comedy," he says. "Hopefully people will see the movie for what it really is."

Do we detect a touch of nervousness in Harvey's quotes? As dumb as American puritanism is, you'd think that a company in Weinstein Co.'s position would go out of its way to make sure that a promising film actually succeeds financially. If Zack And Miri tanks because of a careless title... well, let's just hope it doesn't. For Harvey's sake!

After the jump: How did McCain's visit to Letterman affect the ratings? Here's a hint: They went up!

· Kevin Smith is hoping to make a $50 million sci-fi comedy, and the Weinsteins "have read part of the script and are interested." So that's where Harvey is! Securing funding on Venus. [THR]
· McCain's Late Show appearance brought in the show's biggest ratings in three years: 6.5 million, to be precise, were hoping to see the first shaming-to-death of a presidential candidate in history. They were left disappointed. [Variety]
· Opportunity Knocks—the Ashton Kutcher brainchild that brings the game show right to your upper-middle-class, suburban-white-family door!—has been pulled from ABC's schedule after three low-rated episodes. [TV Week]

Ads for the movie are being rejected across the nation! Boston ads drew complaints. Philly banned them altogether. And in Los Angeles, the dastardly marketing scheme is preventing children from understanding a baseball strategy in which a runner on third base breaks for home as the pitch is thrown and the batter simultaneously bunts, which can pay off in a run unless the batter misses the bunt, in which case it's almost surely an out at the plate:

One complaint came from a man watching a game in September with his young son, who did not understand a suicide-squeeze bunt the Dodgers tried, Rawitch said.

"He was explaining to his son what a squeeze bunt was. Commercial break, the ad comes on, and the kid asks, `Dad, what does porno mean?'" Rawitch said. "Dodgers baseball has always been about family, and we've always been sensitive to the type of advertising that runs on our games."

Is there nothing Seth Rogen's sex drive cannot destroy? [AP]

Boomp3.com

There comes a time in every big screen comedy movement to grow a bit and embrace its oncoming adulthood. To wit, frat pack pledge master Seth Rogen was spotted buying light beer at a Malibu grocery store on Sunday. When asked about his decision to go with the light beer, Rogen shrugged his shoulders and said that he’s at a point where he has to watch his weight and switching over to the lighter brews seemed like a good way to get started. Rogen said, “The beer pong tournaments are beginning to take a toll as well. It’s like two or four rounds and then I’m done. Maybe a lighter drink will help me out.”

[Photo Credit: X17]

*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.

It's fairly speculative for now, with MGM reportedly acknowledging the break-up to The Business Sheet and TWC staffers cranking the Muzak lest they hear the press ringing their phone ringing off the hook. (Or, more officially, Weinstein reps were not available for comment.) What we do know is that Harvey isn't capitalized enough to market and distribute Porno, The Reader and any of the five films in between — The Road, Killshot (a recent shelf-rescue capitalizing on star Mickey Rourke's Wrestler buzz), Fanboys, Crossing Over and Shanghai — without some outside help. And that's not counting the putative Oscar campaigns planned for at least The Road and The Reader, the latter of which film's embattled '08 release (it's not even finished, for Christ's sake) is looking decreasingly likely by the day.

We're also tempted to wonder what kind of hand Rudin might have had in pulling MGM's plug, but let's face it: He's too busy for sabotage, and the fraught MGM/TWC relationship didn't need him to push it over the cliff when Harry Sloan and Harvey were disintegrating just fine by themselves. Moreover, MGM has its own December delivery to worry about with UA's bumped-up Valkyrie — even more potential awards-season fodder (or so it hopes) that didn't need competition from Kate Winslet's own WWII Nazi drama. And its not like these were blockbusters; MGM did all right collecting its cut from joint releases like the $70 million sleeper 1408, but what does it lose hacking off The Road or Zack and Miri — an R-rated comedy with stick figures on the poster — at the knees?

Answers are forthcoming, believe us. For know, all we really know for sure is that this totally screws up our bold prediction for Harvey's return to supremacy.

• MGM Showing First Signs Of Weinstein Breakup [The Business Sheet]

· Paris, Not France premiered Tuesday night, with its subject in attendance as promised and with a letter from its beleaguered sales agent reportedly making the rounds beforehand:

"With less than one hour to go and no restraining order in place, I feel comfortable now letting you all know that this film was the subject of legal threats and was almost not shown at all here at the festival. [...] I am hoping that Paris will see, with the audience tonight, that there is nothing to be afraid of here. And will eventually let the film be distributed. What was originally conceived to be a 20-minute puff piece extra on the DVD release for her album, has in fact become a fascinating examination of what it's like to be a star in our star-obsessed culture. I can guarantee you three things: you may be the only people to ever see this version, you will not be disappointed, and everyone will be asking you if you saw it."

A few trusted sources were there, one of whom seemed to like the film more in theory: "Paris Hilton didn’t create this system––she’s just amongst its most photogenic exploiters. Its lack of perspective on its subject is troubling in the present, but at the very least, Paris Not France may serve in the future as a valuable time capsule of that exploitation in action." Another was less convinced, lamenting a larger Hilton conspiracy against the fest as a whole. And like you, we sense ourselves forgetting about the whole imbroglio before we even finish this sentence.

· IFC Films announced this morning that it acquired Steven Soderbergh's polarizing, 262-minute biopic Che for Stateside distribution. Look for one-week NYC/LA runs in December (followed by a VOD run in January), thus qualifying star Benicio Del Toro for an Oscar nomination that will probably go to Mickey Rourke anyway.

· Speaking of Oscars, The Hollywood Reporter notes that this year's fest is relatively light on awards-season hopefuls. Come back, Diablo Cody, all is forgiven!

· Kathryn Bigelow's actioner The Hurt Locker — which even mortal enemies David Poland and Jeffrey Wells agree is the best Iraq War film to date — also found a buyer, with the upstarts at Summit Entertainment grabbing it for under $2 million.

· Kevin Smith has officially moved into the I-slew-Goliath phase of his predetermined ratings squabble over Zack and Miri Make a Porno, telling an interviewer at Premiere exactly how many frames of fecal matter you can get away with onscreen before the NC-17 ax falls.

· Just for the record, Noah Emmerich's starring-role streak in New Line films — his latest being a cop in Pride and Glory — has nothing to do with the fact his brother runs the studio. If you don't believe him, ask him — it worked for Anne Thompson!

*Americans, please unclick this post.

[via Adfreak]

• zackandmiri.com