Fellow actor Seth Rogen is sticking up for his “Pineapple Express” co-star, albeit belatedly.

Rogen, most recently seen in “50/50,” contends it’s the producers’ fault when an Oscar host stumbles. And, in the case of Franco’s ill-fated pairing with Anne Hathaway last year, no one could have saved the show from itself, according to comments from Rogen published at MovieLine:

I think when you agree to do something like that, you put a certain amount of faith in the institution, hoping that they’ll take care of you, and I feel like they didn’t [take care of him]. Why hire James Franco and then give him Billy Crystal’s monologue? It was like, “Oh, we’ll hire these young hosts and then we’ll just do the same sh*t we do every f*cking year.” Which to me was really odd. I think they just approached it wrong. They didn’t think it through, and they were way underprepared. I think they hung him out to dry. So I wouldn’t do it unless they hired some better writers [laughs].

Rogen deserves credit for sticking up for a pal, but his logic is ultimately flawed.

Oscar hosts are given a set amount of material they likely can’t change, but they still are responsible for creating a sense of comfort and ease. Billy Crystal isn’t the best Oscar host in recent memory because of his killer punch lines. He’s great because he lets us know he’ll be there to guide us through the long, and often torturous, ceremony. We’re in good hands with Crystal, period.

Franco looked alternately bored and bemused, and that’s hardly the best way to approach the gig.

Most importantly, if Franco didn’t think he could work within the Oscar format he should have politely declined the gig. After all, the actor is pretty busy these days and is hardly wanting for work.

A prologue to director Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight Rises” will hit theaters Dec. 21 in front of the new Tom Cruise feature “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.”

Nolan says the upcoming film will be set eight years following the action seen in “The Dark Knight,” according to TheWrap.com.

Nolan told the British film magazine that the prologue is “basically the first six, seven minutes of the film” and will serve as “an introduction to [the villain] Bane, and a taste of the rest of the film.”

“The Dark Knight Rises,” the third and presumably final film in Nolan’s Batman trilogy, will hit theaters July 20, 2012. The new film stars Christian Bale, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway and Marion Cotillard.

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Blu (Jesse Eisenberg) is a Blue Macaw whose domesticated life in Minnesota with bookstore owner Linda (Leslie Mann) has left him flightless yet book-smart. He also happens to be the last male of his species. To keep his kind from becoming extinct, Tulio (Rodrigo Santoro), a Brazilian ornithologist, brings Linda and Blu to Rio de Janeiro where Jewel (Anne Hathaway), the last female Blue Macaw, is being kept in a bird sanctuary. But efforts to breed Blu and Jewel go south when a gang of bird smugglers, with the help of a villainous cockatoo named Nigel (Jemaine Clement), kidnap the birds and try to smuggle them out of Rio. The birds escape, but not before being chained together – the flightless Americanized geek Blu and the fiercely independent Jewel. It’s a race against time as Linda, Tulio, and the thieves hunt for the birds, and the world’s biggest party, Carnival, hits the streets of Rio.

“Rio” is not a heavy, Oscar-worthy film like “Up” or “Toy Story 3.” This lighthearted adventure avoids a truly serious antagonist, in that while Nigel (played in dry villainy by Clement) is pretty mean, his human counterparts are essentially buffoons. The romance of Blu and Jewel serves as comic relief, as the nerdy Blu struggles to find his inner romantic, and unwittingly wins Jewel because of it.

What makes “Rio” stand out is its beauty. Rio de Janeiro is nes

tled in the jungle of Brazil, and the lush vegetation and striking animal life are flamboyantly colored in this animated feature. The gaudy Carnival complements this setting. It is juxtaposed by the seedy underbelly of Rio – the slim, dirty streets and smuggler’s hideout could be worlds away from the frivolity of Carnival.

Carlos Saldanha, director of the “Ice Age” franchise, has put his signature organized chaos into “Rio,” and having flight and 3D to work with definitely played to this strong suit. Having a bird as his protagonist gave Saldanha plenty of wheeling and diving aeronautics to exploit.

The film also boasts the vocal talents of Jamie Foxx and Will.i.am, and the soundtrack has a definite South American bent with a bit of Black Eyed Peas flair.

Eisenberg gives the nerdy Blu life, though Hathaway’s feisty Jewel outshines him. They are supported by a great cast of comic characters, most hilariously by Tracy Morgan as the slobbering bulldog Luiz.

But perhaps the best reason to see “Rio” is the “Ice Age” short at the film’s beginning, featuring one of the greatest animated characters ever: Scrat. The short takes Scrat’s eternal search for a safe acorn haven to a continent-altering new level.

We, the editors of this fine website, confess to having many flaws, but among those flaws you will never find the second-guessing of geniuses such as Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder.

Anne Hathaway is womanly, a fine actress, and — if you’ll forgive the expression — stacked. Most importantly, her sexual heat was the only thing memorable in the otherwise forgettable “Get Smart” remake. And if she can bring smoke to that fluff…

Catwoman must be sexy, intelligent enough to credibly come off as a formidable foe opposite Batman, and look good crawling around in tight leather.

Check, check, and double-check.

More here.

James Franco and Anne Hathaway will co-host the 83rd Academy Awards in February, the producers of the Oscars show announced Monday. …

Hathaway, on her fifth appearance when she takes the stage on February 27, is currently in “Love and Other Drugs,” and was nominated for an Oscar in 2008 for her lead performance in “Rachel Getting Married.”

“James Franco and Anne Hathaway personify the next generation of Hollywood icons — fresh, exciting and multi-talented,” said telecast producers Bruce Cohen and Don Mischer.

“We hope to create an Oscars broadcast that will both showcase their incredible talents and entertain the world” when stars and industry chiefs gather for the show at Hollywood’s Kodak Theater.

Read the full article here.

In the new romantic dramedy “Love and Other Drugs,” Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway play a pair who hook up – literally and figuratively – in 1996, just as Viagra entered the American marketplace and created a seismic shift in the romantic lives of countless couples. Jake plays Jamie, a freewheeling ladies’ man who enters the world of pharamceutical sales just in time to make a lucrative living hawking both Zoloft and the sexual wonder drug.

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Hathaway’s Maggie, however, veers between being way more reserved than Jamie , and engaging him in bouts of sexual abandon. She’s an artist who lives in a fancy loft (despite having no visible source of real income, a rare flaw in this film), and runs hot for Jamie as long as there are no romantic entanglements beyond the base level of wanton sex. Anything deeper suddenly drives her away, a fact that eventually drives Jamie crazy as he wonders what she’s hiding.

Yet the fact is, he already knows her worst secret: Maggie has Stage One Parkinson’s Disease. As Jamie starts to see the appeal of hot monogamy over emotionally cold promiscuity, he finds he’s falling hard for Maggie – and that fact will lead to plenty of complications.

“Love and Other Drugs” does have some cliched aspects to its plot (after all, do romantic comedies ever seem to end sadly?), and a couple of holes (how does an artist like her afford a place like that without any major sales depicted?, and why does the movie shift its attention completely away from the rollercoaster ride of selling red-hot drugs in the second half?). But what it does have going for it makes up for the problems in spades.

First off, Gyllenhaal and Hathaway have a chemistry that is both hotter, funnier and even more touching than almost any screen couple in at least a decade. They seem to spend half the movie either fully naked (sans crotch shots) or in various states of undress in bed, but their chemistry and the sheer joy they bring to their performances is thrilling to watch. Gyllenhaal reinvents himself before the audience’s eyes, making a welcome and daring departure from his usual morose demeanor in heavy-handed message dramas like “Rendition,” “Brothers” and “Brokeback Mountain.”

Hathaway is pure magic as well, radiating heat in the first half while delivering the film’s zesty dialogue with aplomb. But as the film starts to shift to more serious matters of the heart and spirit, she takes viewers along for an often-heartbreaking ride. It’s a credit to writers Ed Zwick (who also directed) , Marshall Herskovitz and Charles Rudolph, who all previously worked their magic on television in winning relationship dramas like “My So-Called Life” and “thirtysomething”, that they are able to make the shift to deeper territory without taking the charm out of the film.

For those who are easily offended by nudity and sex scenes, be forewarned that this movie goes way beyond most studio romcoms. Face it: It’s either going to get you lucky or offended. But for those wondering if the movie has any typical Gyllenhaal sucker-punches, the only time the film wanders any where near being about an issue is in having fun showing Jamie’s wheeler-dealer side in his attempts to do anything to have doctors and others try Viagra, and when he is shown being taught not to have moral qualms about the doping of America during his training at Pfizer. That aspect is also played for laughs, however.

But yet it works in depicting the milieu and lifestyles of people who think they have all the time in the world to have great sex and put off the harder parts of love and living, and then have to face the inevitable knowledge that great sex is not enough. And as they learn the meaning of true and lasting love, “Love and Other Drugs” winds up as wise as it is witty and hot.

They say exposing Hollywood’s liberal sucker punches is like a drug, and Big Hollywood’s secret script source had just handed one over that was practically ticking:  The Adjustment Bureau, coming out in March.  John Nolte ran down the situation for me:  Zinn-loving Hollywood half-wit Matt Damon is the star.  He plays a liberal politician.  And since it’s a fantasy, the liberal politician is the hero.

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This could have been the H-Bomb of sucker punch movies.  I knew that if I didn’t handle it just right it could detonate and splatter me with razor sharp shards of progressive clichés and jagged fragments of left-wing memes.  “Suit me up,” I said, “I’m going in.”

Sweat collected on my furrowed brow.  I cut the red wire.  Nothing.  I cut the blue wire.  Nothing.   I had defused a sucker punch dud.   

I was actually let down.  Where was the thrill?  I felt like trotting over to Safeway and acting bewildered by all the choices in the cereal aisle.

Sure, I’m disappointed – you don’t need me if a movie doesn’t treat half its audience like borderline morons.  But The Adjustment Bureau still has some important lessons – like how to be a liberal, make movies according to your vision, and still not gratuitously alienate potential moviegoers.

First, a quick look at the plot.  We’re not here to blow the lid off of the script’s surprises, so if you want more detail it’s probably lurking out there on the web.  In short, the story involves the aforementioned Matt Damon as a liberal congressman with a fateful destiny that an unexpected infatuation threatens to derail.  The infatuee is a quirky ballet dancer – she’s wacky in a kind of “Look at me! I’m wearing Doc Martens with this vintage prom dress!” kind of way that is only slightly less tiresome on-screen than it is in real life. 

I just assumed Zooey Deschanel would be playing her, since by law she gets first crack at any of these roles that get stamped out of the Hollywood cookie cutter.  But it appears Zooey had other commitments – maybe The (501st) Day of Summer – so Emily Blunt will play the aforementioned free spirit.  You might remember her as the heavy-lidded starlet in The Devil Wears Prada who was not as quite hot as Anne Hathaway, but was somewhat hotter than Meryl Streep.

Anyway, their love must be denied for reasons that remain obscure to me even after reading the script.  The deniers are members of – surprise – the titular Adjustment Bureau, a secret cabal that ensures that some unspecified universal master plan is fulfilled. Antics ensue as Matt Damon’s character decides that hooking up with a too-chatty, mediocre chick is more important than saving the world.

The script by George Nolfi (who will also direct) is competently written and reads well.  That’s actually high praise.  I peruse a fair number of scripts, and they tend to confirm my worst fears about the state of public education.  But this one is coherent, uses some big words –correctly – and generally kept my interest at a mild simmer throughout.  Look, I’m not this romantic movie’s target demographic, my body being flooded with roiling torrents of testosterone and all, but I’ve read worse.  Much, much worse.

Sure, in some of the publicity photos I’ve seen Damon looks like he’s playing dress-up as a congressman– Presenting Matty, the Boy Politician!  In others, it looks like he’s just seen Barry Bonds’s ex-doctor as he drags a skeletal Emily Blunt along the wet-down street.  With that ironic retro hat he looks like a bulky hipster. 

Note that the hat plays a role in the plot; I think it’s magical.  Yeah, you read that right.

Now, Damon’s liberal congressman is supposed to be a great guy, but none of this revolves around his liberalism.  People tell him he’s awesome because he “tells the truth,” but no one discusses what those unspoken truths are.  He also gets in occasional fistfights, making me wistful for the long-passed days when Democrats were as pugnacious toward America’s enemies as they are toward other Americans.

In fact, except for some off-hand references to him being a Democrat, the only way you could tell he is a liberal is by the fawning suck-upery which he experiences from members of the media. Diane Sawyer appears in the script, which goes for gritty realism by depicting the kind of hardball interview questions left-wing pols face from the MSM every day (“Your awesome popularity is overwhelming, with many voters unable to decide whether you are the savior or the messiah.  What are your thoughts on why your racist Rethuglican opponent is so jealous of you?”)

Who knows what kind of sucker punches might appear via some on-set improv by the talented Mr. Damon, but on paper it’s all fairly innocuous.  Yeah, everyone he meets seems to love him for no apparent reason other than the script demands it, and there are references to his hero, JFK.  At one point (*pseudo-spoiler*) the Adjustment Bureau functionaries imply that the fate of the world depends on this Democrat becoming president, but they quickly start chasing each other again and the moment passes.  That’s about it.

Look, I’m not going to see The Adjustment Bureau.  There’s not a gunshot, explosion or shower scene in the script.  It’s got nothing for me.  But if you like movies about love conquering all and people sharing feelings and magical hats, hey, give it a shot.

But you don’t need to skip it because of a sucker punch because there just isn’t one.  A sucker punch comes out of nowhere, a secret first strike designed to disrespect conservatives and to give liberals chance for a smug laugh at our expense.  Here, the character is who he is, but it’s not played at our expense.  Tiresome?  Yeah, a little – the assumption of the character’s awesomeness is a bit much.  But it’s not Avatar-level tiresome.

George Nolfi has written a script that stays true to his vision (well, his adapted vision – it’s based on a story by Phillip K. Dick, which probably means something to sci-fi loving shut-ins) yet does not insult those he probably disagrees with.  That should be encouraged – our point is not to make everyone conform to our vision.  Our point is that if you treat us like dirt we won’t watch your stupid movies.

Sure, there’s the Damon Factor.  A lot of folks won’t go see a movie with Matt Damon in it because he is such a leftist tool.  I don’t go that far– in LA so many of the people we know work in the industry that we don’t boycott lightly.  Damon’s annoying, but he doesn’t offend me to the core of my being.  On the other hand, you best have a taser and cuffs if you want to get me into a movie with Hanoi Jane.

Will it be a good movie?  I don’t know.  It isn’t my kind of movie.  But it does what we ask movies to do – it’s original, it’s at least mildly interesting and it doesn’t treat us conservatives like something you’d want to scrape off of your shoe before you walk into your house.  If The Adjustment Bureau does bomb, it won’t be because of a sucker punch.

“Alice in Wonderland” borrows elements of both of author Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, telling the story of a grown Alice who is set to marry the oafish son of her deceased father’s business partner. But as her trophy wife future pans out before her, she gets cold feet and flees her engagement party, inadvertently chasing a rabbit in a waistcoat and falling down a hole into a strange world. Once there, she learns that it is her destiny to rescue “Wonderland” from a swollen-headed Red Queen, obsessed with beheading others. As a rebellion brews in preparation for the foretold day of victory, Alice must reconcile that to save Wonderland she must battle the terrifying dragon-like Jabberwocky. Despite the dreamy atmosphere of Wonderland, Alice slowly realizes that if she accepts the task of slaying the Jabberwocky, it might kill her.

**SPOILERS COMING INCLUDING THE FINAL ACT**

Tim Burton’s vision is complete: dragon and horse flies with miniature dragon and rocking-horse bodies, decaying heads floating in the moat outside of the Red Queen’s castle, oddly shaped villains with long or lumpy bodies, vibrant colors everywhere. He expertly incorporates favorites from Carroll’s stories: food that makes you grow, drink that makes you shrink, talking animals, squat little twins, walking cards and chess pieces, and a tea party madder than September 12, 2009. But the story doesn’t quite match up. At the heart of the tale, we have a tame, Disney “classic” which has been told more effectively in “Mulan.” The film’s title character is portrayed as an early feminist, not content to sit back and let men have all the adventures. It doesn’t fit in the world of Wonderland.

While Burton has a long-running relationship with Disney, including the cult favorite “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” nothing about Burton is classic Disney. And everything about Woolverton is. Burton is about the quirks; Woolverton, the classics. What follows from their relationship starts in a stereotypical picture-perfect English party scene with understated characters who are all about conforming to societal norms. Thus, emotions are minimal. Mia Wasikowska, as Alice, should defy societal norms; instead she plays her emotions close, giving her performance a dreamy, trance-like quality for the better part of the film. Indeed, until Alice enters Wonderland, nothing drives the plot except the knowledge that at some point, we will get to a more interesting land.

But in Burton’s Wonderland, Wasikowska hardly wakes up, starkly contrasting her performance with Johnny Depp’s split personality Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham Carter’s spoiled and angry Red Queen, and even Anne Hathaway’s airy White Queen.

But visions sync beautifully in the Red versus White battle, as an army of playing cards clashed with an army of chess pieces led by a claymore-weilding Depp, accentuating Alice’s epic battle with the Jabberwocky. But Depp’s bizarre jig to out-of-context techno music immediately after the battle quickly breaks the spell. Even the White Queen looked a little embarrassed at the performance.

The film ends with Alice returning to England and, predictably, rejecting her suitor. She goes on to do greater things in classic Disney fashion. Avril Lavigne’s unspectacular “Alice” plays as the credits roll—a choice that pretty much sums up the film.

The film, set to bow at the Starz Denver Film Festival this weekend and already airing on Showtime, does offer more than just those recycled themes. It’s an occasionally fascinating look into the modern actor’s mindset as well as the anger the general public feels when they hear celebrities pontificating on events of the day.

Director Barry Levinson

We’re also given a peek at the passions driving some celebrities to speak out on the issues. Yet the film is emblematic of Hollywood productions which strain to achieve balance but come up mostly empty.

The bulk of the film features liberal celebrities from the Creative Coalition, a nonpartisan group, maneuvering around last year’s Democratic National Convention in Denver.

The group itself may not choose sides, but we see plenty of footage of its actors beaming as President-elect Barack Obama speaks. And when some of those celebrities pack their bags for the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, they look as if they’re preparing for a funeral.

“She’s All That” actress Rachael Leigh Cook is forlorn when she realizes Republicans will be invading her Minnesota hometown. “But what can you do?” she asks with a shrug.

Maybe, if you’re part of a nonpartisan coalition, you go and learn what people who disagree with you think about politics.

Levinson, who conducts one interview wearing an Obama knit cap, complains about the rise of flash over substance while watching Gov. Sarah Palin’s appearance at the RNC. But he has nothing to say about similar hoopla surrounding Sen. Obama or his throng of admirers.

“Poliwood” takes a half-hearted stab at defending actors for being out of touch elites who don’t understand how reg’lar folks think. Levinson lets actor Matthew Modine shares memories of back breaking work of his youth and the pride he felt in a job well done.

That’s wonderful, and it’s likely many of today’s stars worked just as hard – or harder – before fame and fortune came calling. But living in a cocoon of fame and wealth for an extended period can change a person’s perspective, sometimes radically.

When Jennifer Lopez sang, “I”m still Jenny from the block,” was anyone buying it?

A few celebrities acquit themselves well regarding their right to speak out, including Susan Sarandon, Ellen Burstyn and Modine.

Aging political troubadours David Crosby and Stephen Still ramble on in platitudes that add nothing to the debate and only support those who say celebrities should keep their yaps shut.

“Poliwood’s” focus keeps shifting, robbing whatever potency the film essay might have had otherwise. Levinson detours into a conversation about how the mainstream news is getting too bogged down in tabloid fare and often exploits story lines that tell us little about the way government works.

The film also takes time to savage Joe the Plumber for overstepping his bounds by acting as a war correspondent for PJTV. And yet the entire film is about celebrities who, one could argue, overstep their bounds every day by talking about matters they’re not well versed in.

A few scenes prove pure dynamite, like watching pollster Frank Luntz gently lecture some Coalition members about the harsh words they use in trying to sway the masses. Before Luntz can finish, actors Josh Lucas and Gloria Reuben nearly jump out of their seats, both recoiling at being told their methods might not be effective.

Even better, listen as actress Lynn Whitfield shares why she won’t be joining her Coalition peers at the RNC. “I don’t have the skill to communicate with people who have hurt my feelings so deeply,” she says.

Anne Hathaway makes a valid point that often journalists will ask an actor about a political topic even though the actor had no intention of of discussing the subject.

We almost get a reason to applaud the celebrities and their outspoken ways when director Spike Lee nails New York Governor David Paterson with a tough, but fair, question about city school funding. Paterson can’t come up with an answer, but the liberals in attendance, including Lee, simply laugh at the governor’s awkwardness and the question is dropped.

The Creative Coalition co-produced “Poliwood” but the film does it few favors even if it proves intermittently enlightening.

My friend Kitty sent me this link to an article about the ongoing saga of turning the 1,100 page book “Atlas Shrugged,” by Ayn Rand, into a feature film:

Rand’s popular but polarizing book — it’s derided by many literary critics but has a huge public following — tells the story of Dagny Taggart, a railroad executive trying to keep her corporation competitive in the face of what she perceives as a lack of innovation and individual responsibility.

A number of stars have expressed serious interest in playing the lead role of Taggart. Angelina Jolie previously had been reported as a candidate to play the strong female character, but the list is growing and now includes Charlize Theron, Julia Roberts and Anne Hathaway.

Although it was written a half-century ago, producers say that the book’s themes of individualism resonate in the era of Obama, government bailouts and stimulus packages — making this the perfect moment to bring the 1,100-page novel to the big screen.

Rumors about Angelina Jolie’s interest in the film have been swirling about for some time, but Charlize Theron? Julia Roberts? Anne Hathaway? What’s up with that? Let’s take a look at these lovely ladies and their left-wing credentials, talented actresses though they may be:

Julia Roberts: During a fundraiser for Al Gore’s run for the presidency back in 2000, she explained her preference for Democrats over Republicans by saying the word “Republican” is right between “reptile” and “repugnant” in the dictionary. Tee hee. She also described former President George W. Bush as “embarrassing. He’s not my president and he never will be either.”

Back in 2006, Roberts was also in favor of California’s Proposition 87, which would have taxed oil to fund alternative energy research. (It ultimately failed at the voting booth.) I guess growing your own kale stamps out the carbon footprint of traveling on private jets. 

Charlize Theron: According to this bright light, Americans are just as oppressed as the good folks of Cuba. From a CNN interview:

Theron: No, but I do remember not too long ago some people getting fired from their jobs in television because they spoke up on how they felt about the war.

CNN: Do you think the lack of freedoms in Cuba are parallel to the lack of freedoms in the United States?

Theron: Well, I would, I would compare those two, yes, definitely.

Has she ever heard Dwight Schultz’s story of being called a “Reagan a**hole” by director Bruce Paltrow at Schultz’s audition for the television show St. Elsewhere? My guess would be no. Theron, like Roberts, didn’t have nice things to say about Bush either, calling “him irresponsible and taking exception with politicians in their very expensive suits and air-conditioned buildings, telling us how our soldiers are doing in Iraq. “I wonder what she thinks of her man Obama in his expensive designer suits in a wintertime toasty-warm Oval Office, telling us how our soldiers are doing in Afghanistan.

Anne Hathaway: The young woman whose road to stardom began by playing a princess of a fictional European country, is really concerned about the disparity of wealth in America. “Right now, the disparity between the uber-rich and the uber-poor, it’s worrying and it’s not getting better. We need to focus on a way to just get our economy back, to get it back on track.” By the way, Hathaway earns $5 million per film, and might be on her way to asking for $8 million. Maybe she’s talking about the disparity between her salary and that of Angelina Jolie, who earns $15 million per film…

And what about her support for Obama during the election? Was it due to his policies, his experience, his ability to get the job done? Not so much: “He inspires us to be the best Americans we can be.” Wow, that’s deep. I understand so much more now.

Frankly, out of the three, Hathaway seems to be the most obvious choice, as Theron and Roberts are just a little too long in the tooth to play the young Dagney. Darn it, there I go again with the non-PC stuff. According to the “Today Show,” 40 is the new 20. Sorry.

What’s so confusing here is that Ayn Rand’s writings reflected views that are antithetical to those held by left-wing libs, especially many in Hollywood:

Politically, Rand wanted to provide liberal capitalism with a moral foundation, to take on the prevalent notion that communism was a noble if unworkable idea while the free market was a necessary evil best suited to flawed human nature. In this she succeeded brilliantly (even if the notion that socialism failed because it has never been properly tried is still alive and well among the intelligentsia). Her arguments against “compassionate” redistribution–and persecution–of wealth have lost none of their power in the decades after they were made.

Perhaps they think the script will ultimately “improve” the book to match current politically correct views on life and society.

If these ladies are serious about being in the film, they’d best start reading the book now. Maybe they’ll be finished with it by 2010, which is when producers Howard and Karen Baldwin are hoping to start filming.

As Kitty said in her e-mail, “You’d think they wouldn’t be caught dead in a ‘conservative’ movie. Which only goes to prove that Hollywood lefties do have their price.” Seeing as the movie’s projected budget is currently in the $50 million range but could go up, I can see her point.