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Under discussion:

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters  (2007)

• “If the personalities of The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters weren’t real, Christopher Guest would have invented them.” So begins a gushing review of Seth Gordon’s doc from FourFour. “It made me believe that video game scores matter, and I don’t think that anything matters, really.”
• Kristin at E! Online says she has “exclusive” information that the Arrested Development movie is going forward. No word yet on whether or not they’re taking any of our plot suggestions.
• If Kenneth the Page says the strike is almost over, it’s probably true.
• I think the entire internet must be hungover, because those are pretty much the only blog posts I could find in two hours of combing through and refreshing my feed reader that weren’t about the Super Bowl, Super Bowl ads, or Heidi Montag. Sorry. I’m sure it’ll be better tomorrow.

Either the URL is broken or the post has been removed, but according to my Google Reader, the horror site Bloody-Disgusting did a post this morning titled “Barack Obama Loses Our Vote, Insults Horror Genre,” in response to some comments the presidential candidate made at Thursday night’s Democratic Debate. Here’s the text of the post, from the RSS feed:

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) said Thursday that he is concerned about TV content and that he believes as president, it would appropriate to “work with the industry” to address issues of sex and violence, including the marketing of violent films in TV shows, but he believes parental control, not government control, is the best response, reports Broadcasting Cable. Obama literally “calls out” our genre and indicates it’s a problem.

I actually took notes on that part of the debate, in the hopes that there would be a discrepancy between Clinton’s answer and Obama’s that might reveal something about which candidate is more beholden to Hollywood donors. Unfortunately, Hillary wasn’t given a chance to answer the questions. Reviewing my rough transcription of Obama’s comments today, what’s amazing is how it transitions from typical, weaselly politician non-response??????which seems uncharacteristic for Obama??????into a minor strike against the Hollywood publicity machine. But of course, he’s not actually pledging to do anything, and any horror fan who takes this as the sole evidence that Obama doesn’t deserve their vote probably shouldn’t be voting in the first place.

My rough transcription of the debate quote follows after the jump.

(more…)

Michael Musto says Entertainment Tonight’s decision not to air the video they purchased of Heath Ledger at a coke party is a victory for publicists and a defeat for “truth”:

And once again, the PR industry succeeds in keeping the truth from the public. Flacks were suddenly outraged over the “bad taste” involved in running such a video, but THEY’RE the class acts who accept large sums of money to obscure celebrity realities on a daily basis. Talk about bad taste!…This tape couldn’t have truly hurt anyone. The truth???even in sensationalized form???can only heal.

The video, which you can watch here, doesn’t actually show Ledger doing drugs. In fact, he seems uncomfortable and seems to be repeating “I shouldn’t even be here” as if he’s about to walk out the door. When he makes the now-famous revelation that he “used to smoke five joints a day,” he proudly follows it up with the statement that he hasn’t smoked at all in ten months. So I’m a little fuzzy as to what kind of “truth” it portrays that its airing on a gossip show could have potentially “healed.” Are we talking about the truth that Heath Ledger once hung out at the Chateau Marmont? The truth that he felt guilty about partying and feared reprimand from Michelle Williams? The truth that sometimes people secretly videotape celebrities, and then sell those video tapes for six figures when those celebrities are dead and their mere proximity to cocaine suddenly becomes “valuable” news?