The video clip above, from YouTube, is grainy, but TechCrunch's Mike Arrington assures readers it's in the final movie. I hadn't seen the film myself, unaware it touched on social networking, but Arrington writes that MySpace takes up a solid five minutes of the movie.

The treatment is brutal. Early in the clip, MySpace co-founder Tom Anderson asks Sandler if he actually uses the product. The star's reply: "No, no no. I fuck girls, Tom. I don't have time for that." When he goes on stage, the comic greets the MySpace crowd as "nerds" and then trashes their users: "They say the more friends you have on MySpace the less friends you have in real life." .

Sure, MySpace's competitors are insulted, too. But companies like Silicon Valley-based Facebook are fighting hard to avoid Hollywood; Facebook trashed Ben Mezrich's book about the company, The Accidental Billionaires, and by extension the Aaron Sorkin movie based on that book, calling it inaccurate.

But MySpace is based in Beverly Hills, close to Hollywood, and seems to have a better handle on the big picture: Being on the silver screen, in any context, means you're culturally relevant. Why not embrace the opportunity to make your virtual community a lot more real? (Via TechCrunch.)

Early box office counts show Funny People pulling $23.4M since opening on Friday here and in Canada. Which, let's see, had Nikki Finke — who's been having fun with the picture of Apatow scratching his head, above - noting as "lousy," and Reuters pointing out in their lede that it was Adam Sandler's worst opening in almost five years. It was also the lowest opening for a #1 movie since Jim Carrey's Yes Man, it has a Metacritic score of 60/100, and on Rotten Tomatoes, has only 65% positive reviews.

So, no. Guess America doesn't like dramedy with their dick jokes.

As much as this plays into the Megan Fox as ultimate object of masculine desire cliche (which is just boring at this point), it's a relief to see poor Seth Rogen getting to talk about something different at this stop on his (and Sandler, Mann, and Apatow's) seemingly never ending Funny People tour. And, actually, it contains an infinitesemally revealing fact about Megan Fox: she was so nervous before the first show that she stopped by Seth's dressing room to ask him to stay and help her be funnier. If Megan Fox is the current blank screen onto which we project our ideas about ultimate femininity, the fact that she did that adds one little tiny pixel of coolness to that screen. I can't imagine a lot of actresses doing that, or even knowing who Seth Rogen was at that pre-Knocked Up point in time. And, bonus: next time Megan Fox is on Kimmel, she'll have something to talk about besides her tattoos.

You wouldn't know it from watching the commercials playing constantly on TV, but in Observe & Report Ronnie (Seth Rogen) date rapes Brandi (Anna Faris) after taking her out to dinner, and today, bloggers are talking about it. This is how The New York Times review describes the scene, which you can watch in the final 20 seconds of the trailer above:

In another scene [Rogen] forces himself on a makeup-counter saleswoman after a date of heavy drinking and drug use. (Before the scene is over she indicates that she had given her consent.)

In the scene, Brandi has thrown up on herself and appears to be totally unconscious as Ronnie is pumping away on top of her. He stops for a second, and then she murmurs the line that The New York Times says indicates her consent, "Did I tell you to stop, motherfucker?" before passing out again.

Dan Kois writes on New York Magazine's Vulture blog:

The movie doesn't mitigate that sex scene at all. In fact, it makes it even more clear than the trailer does that when Brandi and Ronnie get home from dinner, she's unbelievably trashed on antidepressants and tequila. Not only does she throw up all over the place, she can barely walk - and she certainly can't give any kind of informed consent. She's way too wasted for her yelling at Ronnie to mean anything.

But Kois doesn't get is that it's a dark comedy. People are so disturbed by rape that the fact that Brandi is too out of it to give any kind of consent what makes the scene so hilarious. Anna Faris told New York Magazine, "It's like date rape - that's funny, right?" Seth Rogen agrees in this interview posted by the Washington City Paper. He says:

SETH ROGEN: When we're having sex and she's unconscious like you can literally feel the audience thinking, like, how the fuck are they going to make this okay? Like, what can possibly be said or done that I'm not going to walk out of the movie theater in the next thirty seconds? . . . And then she says, like, the one thing that makes it all okay:
BRANDI: "Why are you stopping, motherfucker?"

Rogen explains that everyone in the theater then lets out a good long chuckle. See, even though she's probably blacked out and has no idea what she's saying, it isn't rape. (And Brandi's kind of a dumb slut anyway.) In the beginning of the trailer, a flasher is exposing himself to women in the mall parking lot and it looks like he's masturbating in front of Brandi. In this interview Anna Faris says:

It is the most traumatic event that's ever happened to her, which is funny because I always imagined that she's seen a bit of male anatomy and it wouldn't normally scare her.

Women who have many sex partners obviously love penis, so they'd welcome a stranger jerking off in front of them on their way to work.

And if you aren't already laughing at the idea of a pervert exposing himself to women and someone getting date raped, Sady points out on her blog Tiger Beatdown (via Shakesville) that the film will be even more entertaining for women with history of sexual assault. Sady writes:

"The incredible frequency of rape and sexual assault in our society means that many, many victims of rape will see [the movie], and the PTSD that often accompanies rape will mean that, for a joke, for some dipshit filmmaker's attempt at being edgy, they are going to experience all of the pain and psychological trauma associated with that experience, they are going to feel that rape all over again, there, in their seats, in the theater, and they are going to pay for the experience, and if they try to talk about what that filmmaker did to them it's probably going to get sidetracked into some conversation about the Sanctity of Art which is invariably given more consideration than their actual lives."

An Auteur of Awkward Strikes Again [The New York Times]
Does Seth Rogen Rape Anna Faris in Observe & Report? [New York Magazine]
Observe and Report's Date Rape Apologism [Washington City Paper]
Um. [Tiger Beatdown]
Quote of the Day [Shakesville]

Though we hear that the movie is darker and stranger than you'd imagine, really that's secondary to the fact that, probably because of The Green Lantern Hornet!! It's Hornet!!! I'm sorryyyy!!!!!!, the once-portly comedian has slimmed down to a more Hollywood size. And now he'll have to talk about it for the rest of his life.

(Thanks go to intern Whitney Jefferson for the clip.)

Variety reports the director—an unabashedly quirky filmmaker whose lo-fi, kinetic visual flourishes have influenced everything from Coke commercials to Oscar opening numbers—will be taking over. What does that portend for the project? Look for Hornet to sacrifice Chow's jokey, action-heavy Hong Kong cinema aesthetic, replaced instead by Gondry's decidedly more meta flights of fancy. His touch could ultimately prove to make all the difference in bringing some of the script's more static scenes alive, however, such as when the Hornet kicks back with a bowl of Funyuns next to bong-hogging sidekick Kato, the two unmotivated crime-fighters giggling hysterically at a Sweded version of their own misadventures.

• Michel Gondry set for 'Green Hornet' [Variety]

Sandler plays a successful comedian who moves the less-successful Seth Rogen into his house to write additional jokes for him. In real life, Apatow once lived wth Sandler and wrote jokes for him and other comedians after realizing he had no future as a stand-up.

One of the Sandler character's posters bears a strong resemblance to this real-life poster for Going Overboard, which starred a pre-fame Sandler and is always inexplicably facing outward on the DVD rack whenever we go to Best Buy.

In Knocked Up, Rogen's character worshipped at the altar or Eric Bana's ass-kicking Jew in Munich and announced, "If any of us get laid tonight, it's because of Eric Bana and Munich." Who, then, would Apatow pick to play Sandler's impossibly perfect romantic rival in Funny People? Bana—ironically, a former comedian Down Under.

Yup, Apatow's real-life daughters with Leslie Mann are once again featured as Mann's on-screen children (after stealing the show in Knocked Up).

Rogen and friends are spotted numerous times in the trailer hiking up and down Runyon Canyon for exercise. Poor guy—even on a big-budget, well-catered film like this one, Rogen has to keep slimming down until he's the size of a toothpick-waisted hipster standing in line for MGMT at the Echoplex.

• Judd Apatow's Funny People Movie Trailer [/film]

Obvious as it is, there's always room for amazement watching what a few creative edits, realignments and tweaks can do to a story. And the shorter the piece (a two-and-a-half-minute trailer, for example) the more jarring the impact: Slashing a few dirty jokes here and there has diminished first impressions of Observe from those of a ribald, radical dark comedy of insecurity to more of a mopey, emasculated Rogen dramedy. Sure, it withholds some gags you'd probably want saved for the theater. The downside, naturally, is that who's to say this would get you to the theater if you didn't know better?

Which of course gets us into the nature of what a trailer should or shouldn't do, etc. etc. Debate that one among yourselves (the original, NSFW red-band trailer is below), but at least give Observe and Report some credit going forward: At least there's no Segway.

• 'Observe and Report' [MySpace]

Sure, you've got Anna Faris refining dizzy drunkenness to almost molecular purity and a fearlessly multi-ethnic showcase led by Aziz Anzari's brown-dick rejoinders. That's funny, but Rogen seems to have more substantial motivations than love and duty, and higher ambitions than retail rectitude. "The world needs a fucking hero," he growls, and we believe him, if only because of the existential terror anchoring every gag here. Who'd argue? Keep your $100 million and your script-ownership issues, Paul Blart; violent, cold-blooded, pitch-black revenge is no doubt the future of mall-security cinema. [YouTube]

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]

Drew McWeeny at Hitflix had alleged that in the wake of director Stephen Chow leaving the film, several Sony sources had confirmed that Hornet had been permanently swatted. Rogen, however, wasn't pleased by the rumor that he had shed all his pounds for a project in turnaround. McWeeny recounts what happened next:

I had sourced the article from several directions, but there was one person I hadn't spoken to when I published, and that was Seth Rogen.

Let's just say he wasn't pleased. And he has a very different take on things.

"'The Green Hornet' has many people working for it, including production designers, costume designers and many conceptual artists, office staff, etc.," he said during our e-mail exchange back and forth. "[The studio heads] have every intention on making it, and assuming we're able to hire a new director in the upcoming weeks, which seems like a distinct possibilty, it should still hit the release date."

Otherwise: aborted wrap party at Fatburger's! Apatow's paying.

• Seth Rogen Says 'Hornet' Still Has Wings [Hitflix]

Says Drew McWeeny:

Ever since [costar/director] Stephen Chow started to waffle about his participation in the film, I've been hearing rumors that there were major hesitations at Sony. Then at Sundance, I heard several people say that the film was off completely. I spoke this afternoon with a source close to the film, and while they didn't call it completely dead, they did say it is "highly unlikely" that the film will shoot in 2009 at all.

Too bad Rogen didn't lock down all the necessary Hornet talent before he started eschewing cheeseburgers for lettuce slices and cross-training. Still, there is one potential save: time to swathe Katherine Heigl in latex for a role-reversal sequel to Knocked Up!

• Has Rogen's 'Green Hornet' Been Defeated? [Hitflix]

Slashfilm interviewed actor Ben Best about his experience on Observe and Report, a mall cop comedy starring Liotta and Seth Rogen (directed by Jody Hill, who made The Foot Fist Way). According to Best, Liotta does not take kindly to simple blocking:

One day, we’re lining up a shot, and we’re standing on these courthouse steps, Seth is there, and Jody tells us to move down. And Jody says, ‘Hey Ray [Liotta], why don’t you go here.’ And Jody’s literally talking about the next step down, and Ray’s like ‘…Why?’

Seth and I just look at each other, like ‘Uhhh?’ So, Jody thinks for a second, and goes ‘Why not?’ And Ray goes, ‘Well, I just don’t think my character would stand on this step.’ And Jody just goes ‘Fuck It.’ So, after it’s over, Ray says to me, ‘You know what I think about that?’ And he just goes [makes ginormous fart noise—-an IRL wet fart]. The smell….it was the most disgusting thing ever. He’s crazy in a good way. [laughs]

Crazy, or crazy like a fox? Sure, Liotta's behavior might seem outrageous and out of line, but give the guy a break: he probably just came off an "I" bender that would send a lesser Apatow alum to Cedars Sinai.

[Photo Credit: AP]

• Observe and Report: A Little Story About Ray Liotta [Slashfilm]

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]

WHAT'S NEW: The Pepto-Bismol is on ice at Weinstein Co. headquarters, where Harvey awaits the numbers for Kevin Smith's hopeful studio-savior Zack and Miri Make a Porno. But anyone who has followed our own prophetic Zack and Miri coverage since last summer is at least a couple steps ahead: Our predicted $14 million opening is right about where the raunchy Seth Rogen/Elizabeth Banks comedy is tracking, faced with heavy competition from holdover Saw V and other holiday hellraising outside the 'plex. Still, it's not a terrible showing; it will fall about $4 million shy of High School Musical 3's number-one spot, but should have relatively strong legs in weeks two and three, which is about the most Harvey can hope for with a movie he can't even market accurately.

Clint Eastwood and Angelina Jolie's Changling killed last week in limited release ($33,000 per screen) on its way to an 1,800-screen expansion today. Jolie portrays Christine Collins, whose son's kidnapping in 1928 led to one of the most damning police-corruption scandals in Los Angeles history. Plenty of critics are down on the star as some hysterical dervish chewing up Eastwood's period scenery, but we don't see the point in criticizing an unapoloegtic melodrama for being successful at what it does. Eastwood cranks out lugubrious movies for adults, emphasizing presence and technique; Jolie matches him step-for-step. What's the problem? It's a likely top-three finisher at $10.7 million and probably the best thing going wide today, and either way it's preferable to dealing with costumed punks at your doorstep for three hours.

Also opening: The animated suspense anthology Fear(s) of the Dark; the midnight-movie horror-comedy-romance Just Buried; the indie gorefest Splinter; and the bleak circus dramedy Little Big Top.

THE BIG LOSER: The teen-possesion The Haunting of Molly Hartley has little but a brow-furrowed turn from Chace Crawford and a laugh-out-loud trailer voiceover from the late Don LaFontaine to recommend it. If this breaks $4 million this weekend en route to Flopz, we will personally finance the sequel ourselves.

THE UNDERDOG: Paul Krik's 9/11-noir Able Danger is a nifty, paranoiac piece of work, a kind of Maltese Falcon meets JFK rendered in startling monochrome that defies the far more complicated scenario faced by its protagonist: Adam Nee plays a Brooklyn bookshop staffer and renowned conspiracy theorist chipping away at the German connection to the 9/11 terrorists. A mysterious femme fatale (Elina Löwensohn) drops in from nowhere, exposing the writer and his colleagues to secret agents, counteragents and all the deadly cloak-and-dagger mischief they imply. Krik's deft chemistry of density, humor and style are all the more admirable for the microbudget that enabled them; even if you don't understand a lick of it (and we can't say we've quite caught up ourselves), we think you'll appreciate the opportunity to give it a try.

FOR SHUT-INS: New DVD release include the Halloween must-see Zombie Strippers and a surplus of diverse, essential TV collections: NewsRadio: The Complete Series, Good Times: The Complete Series, Sanford and Son: The Complete Series and The Flintstones: The Complete Series. It must be the holidays.

So are you into Porno? Is it your time to catch up with HSM3? More importantly, have you seen Synecdoche, New York yet? Get on it, already; this week's crop seems to be making it easy for you.

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!

[Photo credit: WireImage at the Porno premiere, and Scream Awards (center)]

• Seth Rogen on 'Green Hornet': 'We're rewriting it right now' with Stephen Chow's ideas [LAT]