"On the other side of the aisle, you have some pretty despicable people," [he said]. Duvall called out liberal NYT columnist Frank Rich, a former theater critic: "He knew nothing about acting." Then there was the time he met Gloria Steinem: "She totally ignored the woman standing behind me. Totally ignored her. So much for her feminism." Duvall was more restrained when it came to Barack Obama: "As far as I'm concerned, we've got to keep this guy out of the White House."

Duvall was immediately besieged by scripts from the reps of Jon Cryer and the dude from The Cutting Edge, each actor proposing a "buddy Western" in which Duvall and the C-lister of his choice would ride around D.C. and Manhattan on horseback, lassoing liberals together before vying for the attention of the shrill, blond-streaked little lady from the ranch next door.

[Photo Credit: AP]

• Robert Duvall, Bare-Lipped Pit Bull [Washington Post]

After the jump: David Gordon Green gets animated, Robert Duvall ponies up and Ellen Burstyn does serious drugs with Tim Robbins.

· Finally, at age 77, Robert Duvall is bravely venturing into the uncharted career territory of Westerns, attaching himself to star in an untitled drama about the Pony Express. From AMC, of course, which makes him a likely Emmy front-runner in 2010. [Variety]
· Talk about dodging a bullet: By going straight to TV with his animated Fox surfer comedy Good Vibes, a relieved David Gordon Green won't be forced to follow Matthew McConaughey's recent beachgoing high-water mark Surfer, Dude. [Variety]
· Jesse Ventura's predictable career arc will continue ever-skyward when he hosts an untitled "conspiracy theory" reality show for truTV, in which the ex-wrestler/actor/politico will "hunt down answers, plunging viewers into a world of secret meetings, midnight surveillance, shifty characters and dark forces." Or, as they call it in Minnesota, running for reelection. [AP]
· Ellen Burstyn will join fellow Oscar-winner Tim Robbins for his Showtime pilot Possible Side Effects, a drama set in the pharmaceutical industry — kind of like Mad Men, but with scores of exquisitely photographed pills in the place of cigarettes. [Variety]