Confident students do worse in math

The lowest-rated guy in Madden 2007 writes a rebuttal letter to Madden

BAKER’S IRAQ COMMISSION sings "50 WAYS TO LEAVE WITH COVER"

David Ayer has apparently written a sequel to The Wild Bunch which has nothing to do with the original except the name.

• That's my kind of remake, but I guess I'm just not famous enough, because nobody will take a look at my remake of Casablanca in which the trained seals help the human colony avoid an underwater nuclear meltdown on the planet Zanador.

John Cusack and Hilary Duff, together at last

• The good news for Cusack's ever-suckier career? There's no place to go but back up. Unless he makes a film with Carrot Top.

Two new clips from Borat

The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror - make your own episode

"Mom Spanked the Gay Out of Me"

The trailers for a new bullshit romantic comedy called The Holiday

• OK, maybe I'm being harsh, but check out this plot summary: two depressed women from different continents (Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet) swap houses and find new loves (Jude Law and ... Jack Black???). The only interesting thing about it is the possibility that Jack Black might really mix things up a bit. More likely, however, Black has simply sold his soul to Hollywood Satan.

McCartney Divorce On the Brink of Civil War, Experts Fear James Baker Calls Beatle Split 'A Helluva Mess,' and wonders how Clinton could have let this happen.

What's the origin of "tit for tat"?

The divorce battle between the McCartneys turns ugly

• She was not supposed to discuss their marriage as part of a "gag clause," but now she's coming out with accusations of abuse, which may actually hurt her cause even if true, because they constitute a violation of her contractual agreements. When it comes to managing the case, she seems to be stumped. She started with a decent legal case for a big settlement, but by the time she finishes her ugly public campaign, she won't have a leg to stand on.

Funnyman Jon Stewart talks with humor-challenged former Attorney General, John Ashcroft ... John Ashcroft, Part 2 ... John Ashcroft, Part 3

The Daily Show celebrates the three hundred millionth (estimated) American

The Daily Show's Rob Riggle meets someone who was turned down for a mortgage because a credit report claimed he was Saddam Hussein's son ... Part 2 of the story

Colbert gloats because he was the highest-value "pop culture" answer on Jeopardy.

Turns out Colbert called it with his bogus Wikipedia entry - African elephants are overpopulated.

Colbert and Sen. Rick Santorum explain Iraq in terms of Lord of the Rings

Colbert talks a little smack about the Saginaw Spirit's opponents. (That's the hockey team with a mascot named after Colbert.)

Colbert proves with flawless logic that we never invaded Iraq at all.

Grumpy Kazakhs invite Borat to "his" land, at last

• I have mixed feelings about Borat's feud with Kazakhstan. On the one hand, I feel that he might have been better off if he had simply made up a fictitious country in Eastern Europe or Central Asia. If you weren't aware of it, none of his material actually has anything to do with Kazakhstan, other than the occasional mention of a real place or name. The scenes are filmed in Romania; the phrases he speaks are actually derived from Polish; and the culture he affects is completely bogus. He could change his origin to any obscure culture and the routine would work just as well. He could just as easily have claimed an origin from Estonia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Herzegovina, Tajikistan or a couple dozen more places in the former Soviet Union or Soviet Bloc. Kazahkstan just happened to draw the short straw.
• Having noted that, we need to realize that an important element of Cohen's humor is derived from the ignorance of the real people he encounters in the USA and UK, and he constantly hammers away at the fact that he can say anything he likes about a real country - the ninth largest country in the world - and nobody ever seems to know that he is completely wrong in every detail. It is surprising that he never seems to get unmasked by the people he pranks. My family comes from Uzbekistan and still has family there and in Kazakhstan, and the older people in the family would immediately spot Borat as an imposter. And, of course, Polish speakers should immediate recognize the phrases he uses and pronounces almost correctly. It seems that someone in America would speak Polish or Kazakh or Russian to him and realize he's just winging it. But nobody ever does. (Or maybe those episodes are left on the cutting room floor.) That point would be lost if he came from a fictitious country.

This is not a Borat joke: Kazakhstan misspells "bank" on their bank notes. ... Hey, I'm just impressed they can spell "Kazakhstan"

This Week's Movies

• Flags of our Fathers - 1800 screens - 73% positive reviews. Iwo Jima movie from Clint Eastwood.
• Marie Antoinette - 800 screens - 68% positive reviews. Rock-n-roll history. Marie Antoinette as, like, Valley Girl.
• The Prestige - 2200 screens - 67% positive reviews. Christopher Nolan's dueling magician movie, starring Batman, Wolverine, and Johansson
• Flicka - 2800 screens - 56% positive reviews. Family story about a beloved horse.

The Weekend Warrior's box office predictions for the upcoming weekend

• It's an unusual weekend. There's no big dog to lead the hunt. There are four new films, and three of them come from big-name directors, but none of them is being released on 3000 screens. The battle for first is supposed to be between Eastwood's Flags of our Fathers (1900 theaters) and the Batman vs Wolverine dueling magicians movie called the Prestige (2200 theaters, directed by Christopher Nolan)
• Sofia Coppola's jazzed up rock-n-roll history lesson, Marie Antoinette, will be on a mere 850 screens, but is expected to perform well on a per screen basis because it is presumed to have the strongest appeal to women.

President's Remarks Commemorating God's Successful Creation of the 300,000,000 Most Awesome People on Earth (WHITEHOUSE.ORG)

Imagine Earth without people (Interesting article. How fast would things change if we all disappeared?)

"Iran's Islamic government has opened a new front in its drive to stifle domestic political dissent and combat the influence of western culture - by banning high-speed internet links."

You think only the American congress is loony? EU legislation could require anyone running a website featuring video content to acquire a broadcast license

iowahawk: It's the Homos, Stupid (An open letter from Howard Dean to conservative voters)

"LETTER FROM JESUS CAMP (A Parody of ‘Camp Granada’)"

David Blaine - Street Magic ... You need to see this. VERY funny.

"Dave Barry must be stopped!"

Dreamgirls - the trailer

• Twenty-five years after first bringing Broadway audiences to their feet, the Tony Award-winning musical sensation "Dreamgirls" comes to the big screen starring Academy Award® winner Jamie Foxx ("Ray"), Beyoncé Knowles ("Austin Powers in Goldmember"), Danny Glover (the "Lethal Weapon" franchise), newcomer Jennifer Hudson, Tony Award winner Anika Noni Rose (Broadway's "Caroline or Change") and Eddie Murphy ("The Nutty Professor," "Dr. Dolittle").

  Set in the turbulent early 1960s to mid-70s, "Dreamgirls" follows the rise of a trio of women—Effie (Jennifer Hudson), Deena (Beyoncé Knowles) and Lorrell (Anika Noni Rose)—who have formed a promising girl group called The Dreamettes. At a talent competition, they are discovered by an ambitious manager named Curtis Taylor, Jr. (Jamie Foxx), who offers them the opportunity of a lifetime: to become the back-up singers for headliner James "Thunder" Early (Eddie Murphy). Curtis gradually takes control of the girls' look and sound, eventually giving them their own shot in the spotlight as The Dreams. That spotlight, however, begins to narrow in on Deena, finally pushing the less attractive Effie out altogether. Though the Dreams become a crossover phenomenon, they soon realize that the cost of fame and fortune may be higher than they ever imagined.

  
  Rounding out the main cast are Keith Robinson ("Fat Albert"), Sharon Leal (TV's "Boston Public"), and three-time Tony Award winner Hinton Battle ("Miss Saigon," "The Tap Dance Kid," "The Wiz").

  "Dreamgirls" is being directed by Bill Condon from a screenplay he adapted from the stage musical's original book by Tom Eyen. An Academy Award® winner for his screenplay for "Gods and Monsters," which he also directed, Condon received another Oscar® nomination for his screenplay adaptation of "Chicago." He more recently wrote and directed "Kinsey."

  Academy Award®-nominated producer Laurence Mark ("Jerry Maguire," "As Good As It Gets," "I, Robot") is producing "Dreamgirls," with Patricia Whitcher ("Memoirs of a Geisha," "The Terminal") executive producing. The lyrics are by Tom Eyen, with music by Henry Krieger.

The trailer for Soderbergh's latest, The Good German

• "Based on the novel by Joseph Kanon, 'The Good German' takes place in the ruins of post-WWII Berlin, where U.S. Army war correspondent Jake Geismar (George Clooney) becomes embroiled with Lena Brandt (Cate Blanchett), a former lover whose missing husband is the object of a manhunt by both the American and Russian armies. Intrigue mounts as Jake tries to uncover the secrets Lena may be hiding in her desperation to get herself and her husband out of Berlin. Tully (Tobey Maguire), a soldier in the American army motor pool assigned to drive Jake around Berlin, has black market connections that may be Lena's way out -- or lead them all into even darker territory."