Executively Produced by Elton John, Pride and Predator is "a fresh and funny way to blow apart the done-to-death Jane Austen genre by literally dropping this alien into the middle of a costume drama, where he stalks and slashes to horrific effect." (Via)

Clay Risen makes a point about health care in Tennessee that goes just as well for Rhode Island:

But focusing on Bredesen solely as a slash-and-burn free-marketeer misses the real nature of Tennessee politics and, I think, a strong argument for a national health care system. Tennessee had a great, if bloated, system in need of reform, not gutting. But the sharp rightward turn in state political sentiment in the 1990s--a turn that, amazingly, continues to gain speed today--means that any effort to raise revenue is a non-starter, and that the only acceptable reform is to eviscerate the system. It's a case in point for the downside to state-level experimentation, and evidence that, at least in conservative states, voters are willing to move backwards, not forwards. That's no way to build a better health-care system.

Interestingly, I don't think Jack Bauer killed or even knocked anyone down last week, is that possible? Last week we were treated to cameos by Aaron and Morris, WHICH WAS AWESOME! We also found out that Billy Walsh is at least one of the moles. We should be seeing Renee Walker fall in love with Jack Bauer, as if that wasn't telegraphed in the first episode. How will Larry Moss respond?

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Greg Rutter's Definitive List of The 99 Things You Should Have Already Experienced On The Internet Unless You're a Loser or Old or Something is awesome, though strangely does not include any of the recent bacon memes.

Michael Lewis movies are the next big thing, huh? First Brad Pitt and Steven Soderbergh in Moneyball, now word that Sandra Bullock will star in Lewis' The Blind Side. The star of the book, left tackle Michael Oher, is scheduled to be picked in the top half of the NFL's 2009 amateur draft, by the way. Seems like someone probably owns the option on Liars Poker, right? That would be topical.

I wish he'd lose the soul patch, but this is SO much better than the last 2 years.

RAMJAM! Daron Aaronofsky more than made up for The Fountain with this one. Should have been Best Picture AND Best Actor.

Bonus link: Long ass New York Times Magazine profile from November of this year, a Radar interview from 2006, and a NY Times profile from 2003. No obligatory New Yorker profile for you!

This is the type of movie I want to be watching. I didn't understand how a movie about a poor kid on 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' could be so raved about. But, you've seen it, so you know.

Not deserving of Oscar nominations for anything other than make up and cinematography, if Button wins any of the bigger awards, we'll know once and for all the Academy is full of shit. I didn't not like the movie and truthfully, I enjoyed it. Everyone who watches it probably sticks to the end to see how a man aging backwards dies.

Long, informative profile on the making of The Godfather. Can you believe I've never seen it? Here's what struck me:

Brando got the role, over the objections of almost everyone, by nailing his screen test.

Brando emerged from his bedroom in a kimono, with his long blond hair in a ponytail. As Coppola watched through the camera lens, Brando began a startling transformation, which he had worked out earlier in front of a mirror. In Coppola’s words, “You see him roll up his hair in a bun and blacken it with shoe polish, talking all the time about what he’s doing. You see him rolling up Kleenex and stuffing it into his mouth. He’d decided that the Godfather had been shot in the throat at one time, so he starts to speak funny. Then he takes a jacket and rolls back the collar the way these Mafia guys do.” Brando explained, “It’s the face of a bulldog: mean-looking but warm underneath.”

In meeting their idol, Robert Duvall and James Caan were moved to...moon him?

Driving down Second Avenue after dinner, Caan and Duvall pulled up beside the car in which Brando was riding. “Come on,” Duvall said, “moon him!”

“I go, ‘Are you crazy? I don’t do that. You’re the king of that,’” says Caan. “But he says, ‘You’ve got to do this.’ So I roll my window down, and I just stick my ass out. Brando’s falling down. And we went away crying laughing. So that was the first moon of my life, to Brando, and it was on the first day we met. But Brando won the belt. We had a belt made, mighty moon champion, after he mooned 500 extras one day.”

Of the iconic voice he used in the movie, Brando said, “Powerful people don’t need to shout.”

Lastly, Caan's take on Sonny was inspired by none other than Don Rickles.