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Remember Masters of Horror? The name-brand horror directors anthology series on Showtime that gave birth to Valerie on the Stairs, as well as Joe Dante’s inimitable Homecoming, in which zombie veterans rise from their graves to storm the voting booths? Although Showtime has declined to pick it up for a third season, Masters executive producer Mick Garris and his team have signed a new deal to produce a similar show for NBC. This definitely means the show will attract more eyeballs, and it probably means the producers will have higher budgets, both of which will make luring talent easier. So this is good news for horror fans, right?

Wrong. Film Junk’s Sean writes: “The problem is that a network environment will be extremely limiting for a horror series — blood and gore will have to be borderline non-existent. I suppose there would always be the option for unrated DVD releases afterwards, but I find it hard to believe that the content wouldn’t suffer because of it.”

He may have a point. Take a look at the Homecoming trailer above. It’s a total sanitization of the movie, and I still can’t imagine ever seeing that shot of the guy on the table with the missing legs network TV. For more on Dante’s Homecoming, you must read Grady Hendrix’s Slate piece from December 2005, here.

The Thing is a new project out of the Bay Area, through which four filmmakers, artists and musicians a year will create art works, which will then distributed to subscribers on a quarterly basis. The artists are held to two rules: each piece must be based on an “every day object”, and each art work must incorporate text. Each project is reproduced by hand, and then mailed to subscribers, who pay $160/year for all four works, including shipping.

The first Thing, a set of window shades emblazoned with hand-painted disclaimers and pleas, comes from the mind of filmmaker/performance artist . There’s photo documentation of the Thing crew painting and preparing the shades for shipping here, and for more information on subscriptions, go here.

[Via The Underwire]

Apologies for the poor quality video, but above you’ll find evidence of sometime-movie mogul Mark Cuban’s debut on Dancing With the Stars. The Magnolia Pictures chief/simultaneous distribution evangelist/financier and distributor of Brian DePalma’s Redacted performed last night; his fate as a reality TV star will be decided by “America” tonight.

What you don’t see above is the prologue, which you can allegedly watch on ABC.com (I’m still waiting for the video to load). In a segment designed to introduce the audience to Cuban and his partner, Kym, Cuban revealed that he had hip replacement surgery just seven weeks before rehearsals began for Dancing With the Stars. “Most people are still on crutches,” Cuban says, lifting up his practice shorts to reveal a massive scar. Kym’s voiceover commends Cuban for working through the pain while we watch footage of him practicing with a tortured expression on his face. Cut to Cuban, interview style: “I’m not going through all this pain and agony just because. I’m there to win.”

It strikes me that, whether it’s his doing or that of Dancing’s producers, Cuban has managed to hit on a magic combination of about 100 winning reality TV cliches: rich fish out of water, an American Idol’s beginner’s enthusiasm for competitive performance, Extreme Makeover-branded physical struggle, non-household name reifying his stardom by going on a show mostly staffed by declining B-listers united in the deception that they’re so famous they don’t need to be there. On a show like this, it seems like a brilliant strategy: the audience, it seems, unfailingly rewards not those who perform well, but those who perform *surprisingly* well.

More on the dance itself after the jump.

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