AMC got all classy with critical and Emmy favorites Mad Men and Breaking Bad and then they went and ruined it all bypaying a whole lot of cash for a show about undead stumbling brain eaters. They acquired the rights to Robert Kirkman's comic book The Walking Dead which follows the lives of the survivors of a zombie apocalypse. Sounds to us like 28 Days or every other zombie movie. But, since it's on AMC, it's going to be a smart zombie show. [THRfeed]

Natalie Portman designs vegan shoes and went to Harvard. She's so hip and so smart. Fox thinks so to, and now she's producing a comedy called Booksmart about two smart girls who can't find boyfriends. Oh, they never can. [Variety]

Danish toymaker Lego has finally allowed someone to make a movie about their plastic boxes and barely bending men. Warner Bros. is developing a hush-hush, live action/animation flick from writers Dan and Kevin Hageman. Well, the performances from the plastic playthings can't be any worse than a heavily-botoxed actress. Variety]

MTV orders up two Jackass ripoffs, a Hills rip off (set in New York, watch out!), a variety show, and Hard Times their first single-camera comedy. It's about a kid who is trying to survive being 15. Hey, maybe he can go out with one of Natalie Portman's girls. [THR]

Ed Helms is on a hot streak. He just inked his second deal since The Hangover made all that money. His next pic (after Cedar Rapids) is a comedy called Central Intelligence where he plays an accountant who becomes a spy after finding an old friend on Facebook. Damn, all we ever find are the annoying girls who sat next to us in French class. [Variety]

The top shows last night were America's Got Talent, Hell's Kitchen, and Big Brother. Wait. You mean Americans like reality shows? [Variety]

The Emmys give up on the idea of presenting the writing and editing categories early so that they can speed up their telecast. Your local news is pissed. [THR]

It's a pity because we should all like Megan Fox! Some people love her the way you'd love your racist Granpa. Like she says enough crazy shit for you to love her in a bemused/horrifying sort of way. But Megan Fox is legitimately awesome because she knows exactly what she is: a real life version of a slutty Halloween costume.

And she makes no bones (heh) about it! She has repeatedly stated that her job is to be attractive. Unlike, say Scarlett Johansson who peddles sex the same way Fox does but tries to gussy it up with Tom Waits cover albums and erudite interviews. Isn't that infinitely more annoying? Fox's honesty is way more refreshing. Remember when Megan brought it with some real talk about ScarJo?

I don't want to have to be like a Scarlett Johansson - who I have nothing against - but I don't want to have to go on talk shows and pull out every single SAT word I've ever learned to prove, like, ‘Take me seriously, I am intelligent, I can speak.' I don't want… to do that.

You shouldn't, Megan! Because ladies like ScarJo and Natalie Portman, who are both devastatingly beautiful and educated, make Normals like me feel awful. At least with Megs, it's like, yeah maybe my boyfriend is thinking about her when he's on top but at least I could beat her in a game of scrabble, right? And isn't that what boyfriends really want? I mean, REALLY?

Also, Megan was a L.U.G. (Lesbian Until Graduation). Well, actually, more of a B.U.G. It's adorable! Even if it's untrue, it's a delight personal yarn that makes for great quotes like:

I mean, I could see myself in a relationship with a girl - Olivia Wilde is so sexy she makes me want to strangle a mountain ox with my bare hand.

Personal story of the time Megan Fox touched my life: I have done some press junkets and they a festival of terribleness. The studios essentially send celebrities down to the Four Seasons to read a press release, a couple of hacks ask "What was it like to work with robots?" and then it's over. But the couple of times Megs has shown up for these she's been chatty, off-topic, vulgar. It's a blast of fresh air.

I am pretty sure I am a doppelganger for Alan Alda. I'm a tranny. I'm a man. I'm so painfully insecure. I'm on the verge of vomiting now. I am so horrified that I am here, and embarrassed. I'm scared."

Awww, don't be Megan, we're here for you.

Natalie Portman cements her position as Ethereal Goddess to the fan boy population by signing off to star in Thor: a movie about the Norse god of thunder. [THR]

Did you know that Neil Patrick Harris is going to host the Emmys? Of course you did! Here's a press release about the worst kept secret in Hollywood. [Variety]

Beaver! Is the name of the ‘whimsical drama' Jodie Foster might direct and co-star in alongside Mel Gibson. Both Steve Carell and Jim Carrey were circling the role earlier but it looks like Gibson will be the one zipping up that suit. [LA Times]

Shark Tank is a new reality show slated to premiere in the fall on NBC. The premise is: an inventor pitches a room of dour looking investors. If the inventor woos them, they invest their oodles of capital into the inventor's dreams. Here's a clip from the Brittish verision which I'm sure is more droll but nevertheless heart-warming! [THR]

A&E is working on a reality project with the media shy Jackson family. [THR]

Just weeks after 20th Century Fox put the brakes on Tony Scott's "Unstoppable" -– the runaway-train with a ballooning budget — now Denzel Washington has backed out! What other indigities must befall the locomotive industry be we learn to appreciate them again?! Denzel was set to play a veteran engineer who jumps into a locomotive (the coal kind!) with a young conductor (Star Trek's Chris Pine) to halt an unmanned runaway train filled with a toxic chemical. [Variety]

When asked if she believed if some of Heath Ledger's die-hard fans would be upset about producers reviving Heath's role in the TV adaption of 10 Things I Hate About You. Meaghan Jette Martin, who will play Julia Stiles role in the TV Show responded, "That's such an interesting thing because the movie is an adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew and Shakespeare passed away. Was the movie disrespecting Shakespeare?" The question is ageless. [TV Guide]

Area unattractive person Natalie Portman may be working with the creepily-mustachioed Darren Aronofsky on a new supernatural thriller-chiller. Black Swan is about a prima ballerina who is suddenly threatened by a rival dancer—but is the rival dancer even real? The title is sorta interesting, given all the stuff about Black Swan theory and the creepy, tingling, post-millennial thoughts of destruction and apocalypse it evokes. But, yeah, this is just a movie about ghost ballet. So. [THR]

The Hallmark Channel is doing something with how commercials are aired, by like jiggering with the length and continuity of commercial pods, where like Mutual of Omaha will sponsor a whole, shortened commercial pod, and it's going to revolutionize, maybe, the way sponsorship is delineated and these are important things to discuss, no really they are, because TV is sorta scratching its head right now trying to figure out this whole DVR thing and industries rise and fall and Black Swans occur and here we are powerless to stop it and all, but mostly... Mostly we're just surprised that people want to pay to advertise on the Hallmark Channel. Really, guys? Really? [Variety]

That cutesy-sounding comedy You Again, about Kristen Bell being upset 'cause her brother is marrying a girl who used to make her life a living hell, has rounded out its cast with a bunch of fabulous broads. Like Kristin Chenowith and Sigourney Weaver and Betty White and Jamie Lee Curtis. The film's original title Lady Bits: The Legend of Bear Mountain now seems, more than ever, like it was the right one to go with. [THR]

Local butt-face Leonardo DiCaprio has signed on to star (and produce with his Appian Way movie making company) an as yet untitled thriller about online casinos. Yes, it's true. There are many online casinos and we've known many a young lad who've profited and suffered at their hands. Though that's all a kind of pallid-faced, blue-tinted early evening sadness sort of thing. Not really the stuff of thrillers. But, hell. If you can jazz up cellphones like they did in One Missed Call, sure, why not, you can jazz up internet cards. (Note: They did not jazz up anything in One Missed Call, which should have been called Just Don't Answer the Damn Phone, Shannyn Sossamon.) [Variety]

Thousands of sad people lined up on Sunday in Massachusetts. No, it wasn't a Bruins game. It was for American Idol! Determined to realize their dreams of becoming walking, talking, singing contracts, hopefuls like our proud homegirl Tiffany "Shorty" Dorsey from mighty Walpole (they've got a prison there, you know) showed up and belted-while-crying for the judges. We know it's happened before, Boston, but still some of us thought you were better than this. Nothing terribly Puritanical about weeping in front of Paula Abdul, is there? [THR]

Oh, more girlnews! Paramount has picked up an action-comedy pitch from Liz Meriwether called Honey Pot that is basically about if a bunch of ladies were superspies like Jason Bourne. Surely there'd be a lot more talk about periods and commitment! Meriwether is the salient cultural critic who is also giving us the upcoming TV pilot Sluts and the film Fuckbuddies. And no, we are not making those up! [Variety]

Stuart Beattie, who cowrote the documentary Australia, has been tapped to direct a movie version of Tomorrow When the World Ends. That book is part of a series (The Tomorrow Series) about a group of Aussie teenagers who band together to defend their homeland against invaders. Evidently the film has "youth-targeted themes and PG-13 sex and violence", so that's kind of exciting, but we thought we already covered all this with Home and Away. Isn't that what that was about? Australian teenagers? Saving Australia? Or something? [THR]

Convinced that Deal or No Deal can't get any better? Well think again. Not only will the show still have models and suitcases full of imaginary money, but now it will be filmed... in Waterford, Connecticut! Yes, because of tax incentives the show has switched production locations (from Culver City, CA), along with Jerry Springer, Maury, and something called the Steve Wilkos Show (which will all film in the same studio complex in beautiful downtown Stamford.) I can't wait until they start shooting Gossip Girl in Bridgeport! [Variety]

An American book made into a French movie will now become an American movie. Tell No One, based on Harlan Coben's best-selling mystery novel, was an international hit last year, so now America wants in on the action. [Variety]

Dusty old codger Bruce Willis will work until he can't stand up anymore. He's in talks to star in three new action movies, despite recently turning the unthinkably ancient age of 54. One's about a detective doggedly chasing a moiderer, another's about a grizzled retired Special Ops dude, and the third is about an FBI agent going undercover into the mob (though he's probably not going to do this one). So good for him. He's tapped into that same alchemy that Harrison Ford did about ten or fifteen years ago. [THR]

Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Rainn Wilson, maestros of quirk in their own ways, have joined Natalie Portman in the quirky sounding Hesher, about a wayward dude (Gordon-Levitt) who befriends a 13-year-old kid who's in love with a supermarket checkout girl (Portman), and who's dad (Wilson) is going through some tough times. How much you wanna bet the score involves a glockenspiel? [THR]

Hope, um, you didn't get too attached. ABC Family's Roommates series will not be picked up for a second season. Better luck next time, Tamera Mowry. In related news, Jackée Harry has been informed by her kid that her show, Jackée, Live!, will not be being performed in the living anymore. It's just too totally embarrassing for everyone. [THR]

Bradley Jane Pitt and Natalie Portman will be starring in a romantic comedy together, based on the book Important Artifacts and Personal Property From the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion and Jewelry. Then a sunset and a sunrise will do a movie with a forty word title and we'll be forced to argue forever about which one starred the more beautiful things and had the most annoying name. [Variety] Kevin Costner is still working. So that's something. [Variety]

Are you ready for a boy version of Splash? Too bad. Brian Grazer is producing a new movie called Merman that is about just such an abomination. Keep a close eye out for Darryl Hannah in one scene. She's that extra, all blurry in the background, weeping. [Variety] Speaking of weeping, poor sad former SAG exec Doug Allen, who was fired two months ago, popped back up on the picket lines yesterday. After he wandered around for awhile, distractedly eating a hot dog and faintly humming a song no one could identify, someone finally asked what he was doing there. "I heard that some of my friends were here," he told them (foreal). Everyone felt bad for him and let him hold a sign but afterwards when everyone went to go get beers together, they told him they were all just going home. [Variety]

Disney/Pixar's fancy new computer movie Up is set to open the Festival de Cannes, that humble little film festival that happens every May, going mostly unnoticed, down in the south of France. [THR] In the realm of actually small, actually important news, the husband of Adrienne Shelly, the New York-based Waitress filmmaker who was murdered two years ago, is producing a finished screenplay she left behind, a decades-spanning family drama called The Morgan Stories. [THR]

VH1 is kicking aside the pile of bottles, cans, and dead groupies to pick up one of their old standbys. The network is reviving its former flagship series Behind the Music, with Lil' Wayne and Lil' Scott Weiland already set to appear. Oh goody. Don't you want to know more about what happens behind the music of, say, ... (The sad/funny thing about this is that I was trying to come up with a joke about some current music star. But then I couldn't think of any because I have no idea what the kids are listening to anymore. So, I'll just leave it hear. A sad, sorry blank.) [THR]

The trailer above is just a sampling of the vaguely lesbionic tussling that can be found in Polanski's short film Greed, which is exclusively showing over at Dazed Digital. The project is the latest work from artist Francesco Vezzoli, who's known for creating trailers, premieres, and now a perfume ad for products that don't actually exist (you may remember his fake coming attraction for a Caligula remake starring Courtney Love, Benicio del Toro, and Helen Mirren). Finally, we've found a plausible explanation of the trailer for Crank 2: High Voltage!

• Francesco Vezzoli's Greed Online Premiere [Dazed Digital via E!]

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]

Some roles just don't suit Natalie Portman. At the junket for the film version of his "Doubt," playwright John Patrick Shanley was asked how Amy Adams won the role of an emotionally conflicted nun. "I'm trying to think of what the etiquette is on this," Shanley chuckled, blushing a bit. Urged on by a blogger for gossipsauce.com, he continued, "Well, we asked Natalie Portman, and Natalie was very interested but kept saying she had a problem. And we finally nailed down as to what the problem was. She basically said she didn't understand celibacy."

Sounds like someone's taking tarty cues from her former costar, the sexually generous Scarlett Johansson! Still, we hardly think Portman's ideals were at odds with the role — has she never heard of the "sexy nun" concept before? Nat, check in with Megan Fox next time and call John Patrick Shanley in the morning.

• ALIEN CONCEPT [NY Post]

Boomp3.com

West Hollywood conspiracy theorists have been working around the clock to find an answer to the age old question, "Was Natalie Portman picking out a wedgie or merely scratching her back?" Some believe that the positioning of Portman’s hand made it a quick back scratch. However, another theorist felt it was a wedgie, saying, “I was there and I got a wedgie, too. So I do believe a ghost haunts that particular shopping plaza. A ghost who torments and taunts those who need dry cleaning with vicious wedgies.”

[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.

From l-r: Megapuss cohort Greg Rogove, Banhart himself, words.

Here, we see that Rogove's lightsaber is no match for Banhart's knife.

Yes, yes, Devendra, we get it. Genitals. Here's a cookie.

• Megapuss LP Art Features Devendra's Naughty Bits (NSFW!) [Pitchfork]

But we're not here to cast aspersions, we're just here to handicap. As such, read on for your irregularly occurring guide to the latest in retreads — and their varying chances for winning us over.

THE TITLE: Suspiria
THE ORIGINAL: Dario Argento's 1977 giallo classic planted nubile Jessica Harper in the middle of a ballet academy-cum-witch's coven. Vivid, over-the-top bloodshed ensues.
THE REMAKE: Having long expressed interest in a remake, David Gordon Green is reportedly set to follow Pineapple Express with Suspiria — featuring Natalie Portman as his lead. She would produce as well.
APPEAL: Strong. Face it — for all its inspired demises and influence, Argento's original doesn't age well. It's saturated from eye to ear with genre cheese that could benefit from a modern reimagining with real cinematography (by Green's brilliant regular lenser Tim Orr, we presume) and a less-manufactured sense of peril. Only downside: Can it compete with the horror of Portman's real-life love interest?

THE TITLE: The Conversation
THE ORIGINAL: Between the first two Godfather films, Francis Ford Coppola knocked out this extraordinary drama about a surveillance expert (Gene Hackman) paranoiacally ensnared in a murder plot.
THE REMAKE: Oscar-winning Usual Suspects screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie is on board an AMC TV series with producer Tom Krantz, who has been trying to develop the show for a decade.
APPEAL: Zero. Krantz tells Variety that "[t]he issues of privacy and individuality, and issues of spying and listening, are as relevant now as they've ever been. This is the perfect vehicle to tell those stories." Exactly — which is why you broadcast the timeless original on AMC as opposed to embarrass yourself attempting to keep up. Coppola is behind it, though; there's only so much wine he can sell, evidently, to subsidize his nonsense.

THE TITLE: Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
THE ORIGINAL: Russ Meyer's 1965 saga set the enduring standard for busty-stripper murder rampages.
THE REMAKE: Quentin Tarantino, who already did sex-kitten speed-demonry in Death Proof, wants you to pay for a variation on himself and Meyer. Starring Britney Spears. Sigh.
APPEAL:: Sigh. It's a little easier to swallow once you remember how well the guy's always done without ever conceiving an original idea. But is this really news, or is he just hedging lest Inglorious Bastards' hype proves unsustainable? After all, the Spears/Mendes/Kardashian rumor mill has been churning since January. This whole mess screams, "Just in case." That said, we've heard worse. (See The Conversation)

THE TITLE: "French thriller Tell No One a word-of-mouth hit"
THE ORIGINAL: An Aug. 1 enterprise story by Steven Zeitchik of The Hollywood Reporter, spotlighting what has become the art-house sleeper hit of summer.
THE REMAKE: An Aug. 7 enterprise story by John Horn of the LA Times, spotlighting what has become the art-house sleeper hit of summer.
APPEAL:: Flatlining. Happy as we are to see Tell No One's out-of-the-blue indie traction, Horn's second head-slapper in as many days has us fearing he may need more direct supervision at the Times. At least yesterday's baseless piece "Wednesday is the new Friday in movie releases" was an original. Try harder, John — your paper needs you.

• WATCH VIDEO

I hated that character from the second she flounced on the screen. I remember distinctly Portman telling Zach Braff's character that she was "weird" and then doing a silly little dance to illustrate her "weirdness." Honestly? Anyone who telegraphs their so-called weirdness so outlandishly is not actually weird, they're merely quirky enough to be vaguely interesting without having their own thing going on. They're completely mainstream but have one really big tattoo, or occasionally sing really loud in the shower! "Oh, Natalie," the A.V. Club writes, "your unconventional ways are so inspiring, and your beauty is surprisingly non-threatening!"

As the A.V. Club deftly notes, "Like the Magical Negro, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype is largely defined by secondary status and lack of an inner life. She's on hand to lift a gloomy male protagonist out of the doldrums, not to pursue her own happiness." Since they've defined it so succinctly, I've realized that many recent films employ the MPDG stock character — Forgetting Sarah Marshall, for instance, where Mila Kunis's character is a free spirited nymph deposited on the shores of Hawaii in order to encourage Jason Segel to write the vampire rock puppet musical he's been fantasizing about for years. But what of the dude? You know, the brooding artsy loser in need of a MPDG to revive his creative and sexual juices? The ones who use MPDG's to stroke their fragile egos and project their muse-fantasies on? What should we call him? I think he deserves a name because these movies, and the notion of the MPDG, are really about him: his needs, his desires, his artistic endeavors.

Wimpster, while appropriate, lacks the specificity of MPDG and also is so four years ago. Maybe the new bromantics, because that term emphasizes their dudeliness but also their childish notions of romantic attachment? In any event, these self-absorbed whiners are to be avoided in real life, though, like (adorable!) Jason Segal in FSM, new bromantics can be charming in film.

Wild Things: 16 Films Featuring Manic Pixie Dream Girls [AV Club]
Soapbox [The Petite Sophisticate]
Meet The Wimpster [The Black Table]