According to the Hollywood Reporter, the latest round of layoffs brings the company's total payroll down to 70 or 80. Just for perspective, Nikki Finke reported that they had 224 staffers in November 2008. How many more tear-filled dinners can they stand before they go from the Weinstein Co. to just the Weinsteins?

According to Guest of a Guest, Weinstein is leveraging the substantial marketing might of A Small World, the exclusive "Facebook for millionaires" that the Weinstein Co. stupidly invested in three years ago, on behalf of Basterds.

All 400,000 of them! And A Small World's self-satisfied, plugged in, wealthy membership are just the kind of people to go wild over a chance to win some signed movie crap.

As the Weinstein empire downsizes, Harvey is not too far from a joke Bruce Feirstein made in the New York Observer a few years back about his no-stone-unturned approach to awards campaigns:

I keep having this vision that I'm going to open the front door and find ... Harvey Weinstein himself, doing some door-to-door lobbying: "I've got Anthony Minghella out in the car. Want to meet him?"

Weinstein is reportedly trying to unload his stake in the site, which recently announced that it "plans" to be profitable by the end of the year. Smart move!

The Weinsteins seem to have lost the rights to a sequel to Sin City owing to lack of capital, and the Wrap says rumors are swirling that the company doesn't have enough cash on hand to mount its slate of fall releases:

The company, say the rumormongers, has run out of capital. There is no cash to release fall movies like "Youth in Revolt." Weinstein has been serially seen in the company of billionaires, desperate to raise more funds to replenish the $1.2 billion he has raised — and apparently spent so far, without a blockbuster hit in sight.

Even Weinstein company executives acknowledge the rumors are rampant.

Still, the Weinsteins kept up a appearances, hosting an appopriately extravagant penthouse party and showing reels from Nine, the new musical from Chicago's Rob Marshall, that the Wrap says has "boosted the company's confidence."

But wasn't Inglourious Basterds supposed to boost the company's confidence? Isn't it a replay of Pulp Fiction, the cheap and unstoppable monster that conquered Canne in 1994 and made both Tarantino and the Weinsteins what they are today?

The movie played for the press overnight, and early reviews are mixed. The Hollywood Reporter says it "merely continues the string of disappointments" at this year's festival—it's boring, there's too much talking, and it's crazy because the heroes [Spoiler redacted because you thought we were jerks for mentioning what was in lots of the reviews] at the end, which didn't actually happen. The Daily Telegraph says it's "not so much inglorious as undistinguished." Other people liked it, but it sure doesn't sound like the eye-popping, buzz-generating fare that the cash-strapped company needs. Of course it's not the critics who will be paying at the box office, and Brad Pitt's presence on screen combined with Tarantino's fanbase could be a potent combination.

So maybe Inglourious Basterds will still be a massive hit and save the Weinstein Co.! Or not:

"This is a thumbs-up, thumbs-down year for the company," said a senior executive from another independent film company. If ‘Basterds' does well, it won't be a new lease on life, but it will be proof of concept. By New Year's, it will be ‘pop the champagne,' or else — the reverse."

Another rival film executive was more skeptical: "If ‘Inglourious' is a misfire, it'll hurt them ... If it's a hit, I don't know if it'll save them."

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"Harvey hates us passionately, always did...He despises Bravo because he thinks we didn't pay him enough."

As the NY Post reports, Lifetime will be shelling out $1 million per episode to the Weinstein Co for Runway, while Bravo was set to pay only $600K per episode for the next two seasons. And sources say Weinstein had dollar signs in his eyes since Runway's early days: "The situation came to a head after Season 3 when Macy's...dropped its show sponsorship after Weinstein insisted that a representative from Wal-Mart, where he had a DVD deal, appear on the finale." Coupled with Weinstein's alleged resentment towards Zucker and co. for undermining his involvement with the show, the Post blames Harvey's ego and greed for all the animosity. For Weinstein's sake, we certainly hope one of his "five true friends" includes whichever judge is assigned to this case.

• IT'S MY PROJECT! [NY Post]