King James: Lionsgate has teamed up with Interscope Records to nab the rights to More Than a Game, a documentary about LeBron James's high-school days. The film, which follows James and his teammates at Akron, Ohio's St. Vincent-St. Mary High School as they go from rundown gym to national glory, debuted to much fanfare at Toronto this year. Now all that's needed is a storybook ending to LeBron's incredible story — a trade to the Knicks. [Variety]

Mumbai Calling: The writer behind Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, Paul Schrader, is packing his bags and heading for Mumbai to write and direct Bollywood action flick Extreme City. The cross-cultural tale will focus on an American man who's in India to resolve a kidnapping case for his father-in-law, when he finds himself caught the middle of a gangster plot. Think Travis Bickle dancing in the streets while wearing a puffy shirt. [HR]

Don't Do That, Bro: Barry Sonnenfeld and CBS are developing a dude-friendly single-camera sitcom called Things a Man Should Never Do Past 30. The project is based on a list of 500 such rules written by Esquire contributing editor David Katz, who's penning the script with fellow Esquire scribe A.J. Jacobs. The show focuses on an editor at a men's magazine who can't embrace adulthood. Finally, a man-child comedy! [HR]

CW Gets Punk'd: Ashton Kutcher's production company Katalyst Films is bringing two projects to the CW: The Beautiful Life is a drama that centers on male and female models who live together in New York, including Christopher, a 22-year-old "destined for the JC Penney catalog," and 15-year-old Reyna, "destined to become the next Heidi Klum." Chloe Gamble is about a Texas beauty queen who moves to Hollywood to achieve stardom. Both shows end each episode with Kutcher jumping out from behind a truck to reveal scenes from next week. [Variety]

Love Story: Production is set to begin next year on an indie documentary chronicling the fight for same-sex marriage across America. Produced by Robert Zimmer Jr., Matthew Mishory, and Michael Einheuser, the doc will follow philosophy professor Dr. John Corvino as he travels the country learning inspiring personal stories and debating gay marriage's biggest opponents. We're especially looking forward to the reasoned, thoughtful debate with Fred Phelps. [HR]

Society Girls: Producer Maurice Kanbar and Daphne Zuniga are teaming up to make The Scene, a dark satire about the Manhattan party circuit and entertainment industry. In the Theresa Rebeck screenplay, adapted from her play Gossip, Zuniga plays a cynical TV talk-show producer who must deal with a chameleon-like social climber. But the film is being shot in San Francisco, which is a mistake, because there's no social climber like a Manhattan social climber. [HR]

Read more posts by Adam Raymond

Filed Under: a.j. jacobs, ashton kutcher, barry sonnenfeld, chole gamble, daphne zuniga, david katz, dr. john corvino, extreme city, katalyst films, lebron james, matthew mishory, maurice kanbar, michael einheuser, more than a game, movies, paul scrader, raging bull, robert zimmer jr., taxi driver, the beautiful life, the industry, the scene, theresa rebeck, things a man should never do past 30, tv

The up coming collection by Petar Petrov looks like it is straight out of the country club, and into your closet. No normally I would say how much I hate preppy frat dudes, but I think that the way this collection is cut and designed, it turns country club trendy. I can’t help but feel there is a bit of satire in the color choice of this collection, but for Spring the colors are more than appropriate. There have been a ton of collections that have come out for Spring that seem to focus heavily on the cooler Spring months, and less on the hot Summer ones. The use of white in this collection makes it perfect for the pool side, or just hanging out in the shade of Central Park. Love the collection, and the way it screams Summer on the Upper East Side.

Thanks Selectism for the pictures.

Editor Amy Goldwasser has been reading teenage girls’ diaries for the past three years. Well, sort of. Former New York staffer Goldwasser sifted through more than 800 personal essays to find the 58 authors included in Red: Teenage Girls in America Write on What Fires Up Their Lives Today. Since then ‘Red’ has evolved into a teen-centric multimedia empire: Each girl has a daily blog on redthebook.com. There’s a fashion collaboration with Pepper + Pistol. And a book drive for underprivileged would-be writers. Tonight, Red’s paperback tour kicks off at Housing Works, where authors Maya Popa, 19, Kelly Otterness, 16, Olive Panter, 18, and Zoe Mendelson, 18, and novelist Francine Prose (her new book, Goldengrove, stars a teenage sister) will be discussing “The American Teenage Girl in Fiction and Reality.” Vulture caught up with Goldwasser en route to New York from Los Angeles where she’s been workshopping yet another extension of her empire: Red, the play.

High School Musical 3 raked in $75.7 million in three weeks. Gossip Girl is must-see TV for grown-ups. Twilight is the only thing sustaining the publishing industry. Why are teen girls so popular now?
We’ve always had a mixture of fascination and repulsion and abject terror at being right back there in our own teenagehood. But the current, highly stylized, highly fictionalized idea of the teenage girl is palatable and commercial.

So that's a bad thing, right?
Actually, I’m all for this. It’s fun and can contain tremendous insight — Freaks and Geeks, My So-Called Life. But since when was teen pregnancy cool? I saw Juno on an airplane, and it made me furious. It was the first time I considered swiping a credit card in that phone just to rant to someone.

What surprised you most about the girls’ work?
The two big surprises are that they’re really good at writing satire and they’re really deep. I didn’t get essays about boys and clothes. One 13-year-old wrote about vowing to end female circumcision. Another wrote about the ludicrousness of her teacher turning to the “one black boy” in her fancy Brooklyn prep school for his opinion on the civil-rights movement. I did get a lot of cutting essays and can’t believe the proliferation of that whole anorexia-into-bulimia-into-cutting trend. It’s so familiar to these girls that they're able to identify what kind of knife their friend is using.

Are New York girls different from the other girls you’ve gotten to know?
They cut right to the chase — there’s no bullshit, and they have an incredible ability to self-diagnose their own drama. They also seem better at tricking therapists.

You say this generation of teenagers are all writers since they live on MySpace, or e-mailing and texting. Does all that writing about themselves mean they're healthier because they're so in touch with their feelings?
I do think all this has incredible self-esteem benefits. Every teenage girl in every generation thinks she’s alone with her problems. On the Internet, you get a second shot at finding the right group of friends and a community for yourself. You can live one identity in high school, then come home and have an entirely different one. The Internet’s also created a funny idea of privacy. These girls will read on national TV before they’ll read in their school library or local bookstore. The more public, the farther from home and safer it seems.

Why aren’t they embarrassed about exposing themselves?
They are embarrassed. It made me realize how much adult writers, however confessional, can hide. These girls have to go to school with their subjects the next day. An unrequited crush in the hands of the entire soccer team is tough to face. Which brings me to the parents, especially the New York ones, who have been heroic about supporting their daughters. There’s one piece that ends “What a bitch” about the author’s mother, and there she is, clapping away at the reading.

Late last year, French film Producer Philippe Rebboah (whose most recent credit is as an associate producer on Amy Redford’s indie film “The Guitar”) made headlines by announcing his intention to cast the then chaotic Britney Spears in his upcoming satire “Sweet Baby Jesus.”

Production is set to start rolling in Bethlehem, Md., in January — but what happened to the pop princess?

“Britney read the script and she really liked it and really wanted to play the role of Mary,” Rebboah told Tarts. “She isn’t as scandalous in Europe as she is in the States, and I knew she would do a good job, but [people] were so against it and she was pressured. Then she ran into all the trouble with her family so we mutually decided the timing wasn’t right.”

The 1970s film centers around a pregnant 19-year-old who is unsure of her baby’s paternity and goes into labor on Christmas Eve in Bethlehem, Md., amid speculation that the birth is Jesus Christ’s second coming. Drew Barrymore’s ex-husband Tom Green has just signed on to play Mary’s boyfriend “Joe” and will star alongside comedic actress Lily Tomlin and Pierce Brosnan’s son, Sean Brosnan.

But replacing Spears put serious delays on production and the decision-makers have now decided to go with a “real” actress as opposed to a pop personality, 22-year-old rising starlet Alison Pill, who is set to make waves when “Milk” is released this month.

But wait! There is still a chance Miss Spears will still be part of the immaculate film conception.

“Britney was so touched by the script, so we are in talks about having her write and perform the closing number,” Rebboah added. “Music of the ’70s is a real focus in the film. We don’t want her to do anything religious, but something that captures the beauty of the story.”

(source)

In the latest episode of The Simpsons, Nelson said that Milhouse is “super gay”. The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network is peeved at his choice of words, arguing that it’s inappropriate. (TMZ has a clip of the offending scene here.)

I’m inclined to agree, but not necessarily because I’m offended. Sure, folks shouldn’t use “that’s so gay” to describe something bad, Katy Perry, but it’s a term dimwits use, and Nelson is a dimwit.

Mostly I just find it lazy. The Simpsons has generally been pretty progressive about the gays - ‘Homer’s Phobia’ was pretty forward for 1997, even if that episode seems tacky and dated now - and to rely on easy, satire-free cracks like this is (yet more) evidence that the show should be retired, even if it is putting said cracks in the mouth of a fool.

"How we gonna make this shit funny?" Jon Stewart plaintively asked last night on The Daily Show, in the middle of a series of lukewarm bits about Barack Obama's historic presidential victory. And it's a good question. During Tuesday's Election Night special, Stewart's Daily Show correspondents gathered around to weep for the end of the election. "We've been on the campaign trail for two years," Jason Jones cried. "What do we cover now?" It was a funny bit, but we think the correspondents were asking the wrong question. The end of the election campaign won't doom The Daily Show. The Barack Obama presidency just might.

It's no secret that plenty of satirical outlets — Saturday Night Live, the Onion, late-night talk shows — have had trouble finding good Obama jokes. But we're not forecasting their doom. The Daily Show is unique, though, in its audience and in its comedic approach, and we're very worried that an Obama presidency might send Jon Stewart's show speedily on the road to obsolescence.

Why? First of all, in one eventful day, the prototypical Daily Show viewer has been transformed: Once disaffected and angry at Washington's power structure, he's now delighted and hopeful about the new president and all that he symbolizes. And if you're an Obama fan — eager to give Barack the benefit of the doubt, and proud and excited about the change you've helped bring the nation — do you really want Jon Stewart sitting on the sidelines, taking potshots at your hero?

Beyond the problem of audiences souring on Obama jokes is the question of whether Jon Stewart even wants to make Obama jokes. Of course, The Daily Show has found ways to goof on the Obama campaign, but it's no secret that Stewart and his writing staff lean leftward. And The Daily Show differs from nearly all other popular political satire in that the show's strength is in its writers' outrage and anger at the powers that be. Stewart memorably described the show's writing process to Michiko Kakutani as a bunch of "curmudgeons" writing about the things that upset them the most. If President Obama's administration is the love-in that progressives hope it will be, we think it's awfully unlikely Stewart's heart will be in Obama-bashing. The guy teared up at eleven on Election Night! Not that we didn't, but still.

So let's say that Stewart's half-hearted Obama gags just keep on flopping on The Daily Show. ("Your William Ayers joke bombed," a sage Chris Wallace observed on last night's episode.) With Bush and Cheney heading off into the sunset, and Sarah Palin hopping a charter back to Wasilla, who's left to skewer? Roll call!

•Republicans. Obama's win doesn't mean, of course, that the Republican Party is dead. There will still be plenty of Republican operatives, wing-nut school boards, and convicted-felon senators to belittle. But it's a lot less fun — and brave — to kick the losers than it is to take the winners down a peg. And political satire that only goes half-heartedly after the ruling party sacrifices relevance in order to appease its audience.

•Other Democrats. There's great potential for mischief in the party's control of the House and Senate, and Stewart would be wise to make great hay of Congress's still-likely inability to get anything done.

•The media. Last night's episode included some great potshots at CNN's stupid holograms and NBC's stupid ice rink. Stewart could make even more regular targets of Fox News and other right-leaning outlets, but Steven Colbert satirizes that world far better than The Daily Show could ever hope to.

•Obama fans. One Daily Show writer suggested as much to the Times on Election Night. "I get worried that all of us who wanted Obama will take themselves too seriously," he said, noting that there was still humor to be had in the Obama crazies who will "sit on the couch" and expect the impossible from their hero: "Hey, Obama, where's my jet pack?" But it seems to us like there's a substantial overlap between America's young Obama acolytes and America's young Daily Show viewers; how often can Stewart and his writers make fun of their studio audience?

•Random celebrities. But then you're The Soup.

That the real highlight of Election Night was Steven Colbert's begging a cockatoo to slit his throat suggests that the balance of power on the Stewart-Colbert axis might have shifted. We can see a future in which The Colbert Report becomes Comedy Central's late-night star, mixing Dadaist whimsy with legitimate critique of the Obama administration. And, sad to say, in that future, Jon Stewart sits on the sidelines, happy that Barack Obama is the leader we all hoped he would be, but wistfully remembering his words from last night's episode: "Oh, George W. Bush impression, I'll miss you most of all."

The Simpsons' latest installment of its traditional series of Halloween episodes drew the most viewers the show has experienced in the last five years.

The fourth episode of the show's 20th season played to approximately 12.5 million viewers and was well-received by critics and fans.

Taking advantage of the election atmosphere, Treehouse of Horror XIX opened with a political satire, wherein Homer is killed by a heavily right-biased voting machine. The show goes on to parody film and television, including but not limited to a clever homage to Charlie Brown, which was the most lauded of the special's sketches.

So we guess people are still watching The Simpsons!

Jezebel swoops in and defends Tina Fey from an attack by Shapely Prose blogger Kate Harding, while the Times' Alessandra Stanley says, "Her satire hews so closely to the original that it is almost mimicry." Also, Gawker wonders if 30 Rock's stunt casting this season will screw up the show. [Fimoculous]

Ceaselessly productive comedy genius Harry Shearer has a new album out, Songs of the Bushmen, with his band the High-Value Detainees. In anticipation of their show this Saturday at 92YTribeca, Shearer rapped with Vulture recently about making funny music sound like music and the only time it's not okay to quote The Simpsons to him.

You've merged music and comedy with Spinal Tap as well as your own albums. Is it difficult to keep it rooted so it doesn't veer off into Dr. Demento "Witchdoctor" comedy territory?
No, my wife polices me strictly. She's a very talented singer, songwriter, and musician, and she said, with typical British disdain, that it was okay for me to dip into funny music, but it damn well better sound like music.

To quote AC/DC, "Rock 'n' roll is just rock 'n' roll." But judging from High Level Detainees' album Songs of the Bushmen, it appears you think it can be much more. How does your music prove that AC/DC is just plain wrong?
Well, first of all, most of the music on Bushmen isn't rock and roll, so maybe they're still right. Also, when you're that loud, who cares if you're wrong? I do think music can be an effective form of satire. I was raised on Tom Lehrer and Stan Freberg and memorized most of their stuff, which I didn't do with the spoken-word comedy I loved at the time. So, just from the standpoint of colonizing brain cells, music seems to be an effective way of making a point.

In the last few months, an oft-bandied-about thesis is that this is the most important presidential election ever. Your feelings are clear, but are you just pulling for your guy or do you agree with that?
I'm not even really pulling for "my guy." I said at the beginning of this year that my vote was available to the first candidate in either party who said something substantive and cogent about the failure of the federal levees in New Orleans and the need to rebuild the coastal wetlands. That offer still stands. As to the importance of this election, I'd put 1860 up against it.

Two of your art pieces, Telesthesia and Wall of Silence, feature language — either focusing on the lack of it or the more banal parts of it. What fascinates you about language? Is this an actor-writer interest or political commentary?
They both, like the more recent Silent Echo Chamber, focus on the weirdness of a supposedly visual medium, television, being so utterly dependent on yak. And then, when people on TV are yakking at you, the words — especially at cable-news yelling volume — seem to almost act as a jamming mechanism to keep you from noticing how the people behave, how they really look. So I get to take away the language, and people get to see the behavior without any words getting in the way.

You write novels, host a radio show, are an actor, had an art exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art, perform music, etc. How do you keep track of all those residual checks?
I let people screw me as much as they want. That seems to take care of that problem.

And finally, give me one scenario where it's not okay for someone to quote The Simpsons to you.
When we're trapped in an elevator. For hours.

Just looking at this bag makes me feel twelve again (but in a good way), when I would wrestle my shoes out of my mother's hands as she was headed toward the garbage with them. It is the kind of treasure you would hope to run across in a Florentine flea market or inherit from a thrillingly well-travelled great-aunt. If I see you with one, I won't blow your cover.

Herman Bag by Marc Marmel at AlohaRag.com