Christian Bale Goes Batty
TMZ has a audio tape of Christian Bale's insane tirade after the Director of Photography of Terminator Salvation accidentally walked into the star's eye line during a shot. The recording was apparently sent to the film's insurance company in case Bale bailed on the movie mid-production. I don't get why the director didn't step in and try to save his DP — and the crew — from Bale's tirade. Was McG just sitting there and watching? This was a much as insult to the director's control as it was a humiliation for the poor DP.
The sad truth is that Bale is so successful that he can get away with this repugnant, unprofessional behavior like this — nobody wants to offend a guy who makes the studios this much money, no matter how offensive he might be. I've worked with a couple of actors like that — but they weren't big enough stars to get away with it and didn't. It's not pleasant.
The Best 25 List Yet…
…comes from my brother Tod. It's "25 Random Things I Hate About F**ktards On Facebook I Don't Know In The Least But Who, Nonetheless, Are My 'Friends.'" Here are some of my laugh-out-loud favorites:
4. I hate that I know you just got home from work and are having a Lean Cuisine and watching your VHS collection of Benson reruns.
8. I hate that you have been stalking my sisters Linda and Karen and now suddenly figure out that even though they won't speak to you, it might be neat to become friends with me, and my brother, and my mother, and my cousin Mike, and my cousin Danny, and my uncle Burl, and my wife Wendy. And none of us know who the f**k you are. And so we email each other and say, "Who the f**k is Irene?" And we all agree that we don't know. And then we agree, after reading your profile, that you need mental help and need to scrapbook a whole lot f**king less than you do.
24. I hate you, you dumb motherf**ker, who sent my agent a book and said that you were my friend and when she asked me, "Is this person your friend?" I said, "Uh, not that I know of." And then I got a wild idea and looked on facebook and there you were.
TV Main Title of the Week – Special Government Bail Out Edition
It seems to me that now would be the perfect time to remake this sitcom…
25 Writers Who Have Influenced Me
Author Raymond Benson started this meme on Facebook and it's quickly catching on. My list, of novelists and screenwriters, in no particular order is:
2. Ian Fleming
3. Robert B. Parker
4. John Irving
5. Larry McMurtry
8. Roy Huggins
9. Ross MacDonald
10. Richard Maibaum
13. Elmore Leonard
15. Ed McBain
16. E.F Wallengren
17. Michael Gleason
18. Ross H. Spencer
19. Stephen King
20. A.B. Guthrie
21. Blake Edwards
22. William Goldman 
23. Norman Lear
24. Neil Simon
25. Carl Hiaasen
Of course, immediately after compiling the list, I started thinking of people I left out… like Charles Willeford, Donald Hamilton, "Franklin W. Dixon," "Carolyn Keene," the guy who wrote "Encyclopedia Brown," the guy(s) who wrote "The Three Investigators," Steven Bochco, Leslie Charteris, Levinson & Link, Robert Ludlum, James Crumley, Trevanian, and Rod Serling…but I only had 25. (Pictured: Michael Gleason and Robert B. Parker & I).
Mr. Monk and the Audio Book
I'm delighted to report that that MR. MONK IS MISERABLE is now available as an unabridged audiobook from BBC Audiobooks. You can find it at the iTunes store, Amazon, and from Audible.com. I've heard a few hours of it and Laura Hicks does a great job channeling Natalie and capturing all of the other characters. She wisely doesn't try to imitate the actors from TV series and makes the characters her own. I especially enjoyed her, as Randy Disher, singing "I Don't Need A Badge." I was stunned that she actually did her homework and sang it to the tune from the episode where the song first appeared. That's dedication!
They Do Things Differently Down Under
Did you know that if an Australian publisher reprints a foreign title within 30 days of it's release anywhere else in the world, there's a copyright law Down Under that requires Australian bookstores to only sell the Australian edition? I didn't either, until I read an article in The Guardian about prominent Oz authors protesting a Government review aimed at perhaps rescinding the law.
This can mean that books are more expensive – and harder to get hold of – in Australia than they are elsewhere, but also allows the country's local publishing to flourish, rather than forcing it to compete with a flood of cheaper-priced editions from overseas.
[…]Booker prize-winning author Peter Carey argued against making any changes. "As long as we have a territorial copyright our publishers have a commercial argument to support Australian literature," he said. "They will battle for the sake of our readers and our writers, even if their owners have no personal commitment to the strange loves and needs of Australian readers, or the cultural integrity and future of the Australian nation."
Rewording Press Releases Just Isn’t Enough Anymore…
Are the Hollywood trade papers on borrowed time? Reuters reports on the precarious state of Variety and the Hollywood Reporter, both of which stopped practicing anything close to genuine journalism years ago:
For more than 75 years, Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter have battled to be the movie industry's top newspaper, but recent layoffs due to the recession and competition from Internet blogs has Hollywood wondering if it will soon become a one paper town.
Publishers of the showbusiness newspapers say advertising has plunged, even during the current Oscar season when movie studios pay well to hype their films with cover page ads.
Moreover, the papers face increased competition from bloggers providing a daily diet of Hollywood news and gossip, such as Nikki Finke's DeadlineHollywoodDaily.com, Tina Brown's TheDailyBeast.com and David Poland's MovieCityNews.com.
There's no point to subscribing to Variety any more. Nikke Finke's blog reports more genuine news in one day than Variety does in a year…and without their blatantly biased "reporting."