"Total Eclipse of the Heart," literally

One of the funniest things I've seen on the web in a long time, a kind of parodic extension of the "Pop-Up" craze that was the last big thing in music videos. The same group has done several of these. Director Russell Mulcahy, who went on to Highlander, approves: "Based on one of my early 'great' works. Thank you to all the talent involved for FINALLY correcting the original! This is great!"

The Potty-Mouthed Knight

He might not win an Oscar for Batman, but Christian Bale may be up for a Grammy, courtesy of RuPaul's entrepreneurial producer:



As for the reel-life incident that inspired this budding hit, I found this on the IMDb:

"An associate producer for the forthcoming Terminator Salvation movie has defended Christian Bale's alleged on-set rant, insisting the actor was a "consummate professional" during filming. A man said to be actor Bale can be heard angrily screaming and using profanity at the movie's director of photography, Shane Hurlbut, for distracting him during shooting by walking into his field of vision.

In the four-minute tirade, Bale reportedly shouts: "I'm trying to do a f**king scene here and I'm going, 'Why the f**k is Shane walking in there? What's he doing there?' Do you understand my mind is not in the scene if you're doing that?"

The man later promises to "kick his f**king ass" before threatening to quit the film unless Hurlbut was fired.

But Bruce Franklin, an assistant director and associate producer on the fourth Terminator film, insists the star was only upset for a short period of time before his "moment" passed.

Franklin tells E! Online, "If you are working in a very intense scene and someone takes you out of your groove... It was the most emotional scene in the movie. And for him to get stopped in the middle of it - he is very intensely involved in his character. He didn't walk around like that all day long. It was just a moment and it passed."

And Franklin is adamant the rant has only been released to slander Bale, who he worked with on the 2000 movie Shaft: "This was my second movie with Christian, and it has always been a good experience with him. He is so dedicated to the craft. I think someone is begging to make some noise (controversy) about this, but I don't think it's fair. The art of acting is not paint by numbers, it's an art form."

The audio clip, allegedly recorded in July 2008, was obtained by TMZ.com, which claims the film's executives sent the tape to their insurance company in case Bale didn't finish filming the movie.

The 35-year-old actor was arrested in July in London - just days after the recording was said to be taken - over accusations he attacked his mother and sister at the city's Dorchester Hotel before the British premiere of The Dark Knight."

I'm not sure how the "art of acting" enters into a fourth (yawn) Terminator movie. Could just be that the star is melting down about being a franchise slut. (One per customer is enough.)

Better living through cinema

Lift your spirits, gird your loins: the Muppets and Braveheart, among many others, would like to have a word with you:

The shape of PR to come

I imagine I'll be getting more releases like this in the future. Maybe one day the weekly boxoffice grosses charts will stand alongside weekly YouTube pageview charts in Monday's papers, if newspapers are still being printed then.

"Acclaimed filmmaker Wayne Wang's new film The Princess of Nebraska made its world premiere on YouTube on Saturday, October 18, 2008 at 12:00am EST. With more than 165,000 views in its first two days, the online launch represents the most successful studio film premiere in YouTube's history. In relation to a theatrical release, the film would have placed around 15th on the box office charts. The free release was launched on YouTube's Screening Room, a new channel dedicated to premium film content: http://www.youtube.com/ytscreeningroom.

Magnolia Pictures' Ray Price said, “It’s astounding that over a two day period The Princess of Nebraska became the most widely viewed independent film in the country.”

The Princess of Nebraska is adapted from a collection of short stories by Granta prize-winning author Yiyun Li. It marks the eighth of Wang’s Asian-themed films that explore the bonds of family and Chinese identity in the modern world, making up one of the largest bodies of introspective work in independent film over the last 25 years.

In The Princess of Nebraska, Sasha (Ling Li) is a foreign exchange student who finds herself pregnant. She’s the new generation of China, unmoored to traditions and history. As she says, “In America I learned a new phrase, ‘moving on.’ Tomorrow I can start a new page.” She travels from Nebraska to San Francisco to get an abortion, but in her exploration of the city in the next 24 hours she learns that turning a new page doesn’t necessarily mean turning your back on the past.

Please use the link below to view the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJISq4MyfKg"

UPDATE: And so I watched. Not bad, but it's a movie with YouTube-sized only aspirations.