Your usual host Hamilton Nolan is off for the rest of the day, so you're stuck with me. Rest assured, I'm as sorry about all this as you are.

A fellow calling himself Bob Anderson is going around pretending to be a writer for W magazine. He even registered an entire fakey domain name, fairchildgrp.com, to make his emails look more legit, according to an email exchange we've reviewed between him and a media event organizer. But the scammer was nevertheless excluded from a recent event after he was busted trying to pass off another writer's online column as his own. The writer is a lady of the female persuasion, and her byline is on the online column submitted by "Bob Anderson" as credentials. So, be on guard against this guy, if you are very very easily fooled.

Forbes' executive editor for technology, Betsy Corcoran, is leaving the magazine after ten years. The Silicon Valley journalism fixture is launching a startup to bring more technology into America's classrooms (Lucere.org, not yet live). She tells us her departure is "really and truly about my passion for education and technology" — and not the relentless rounds of layoffs at her magazine.

Eighteen years worth of National Lampoon covers, starting at the magazine's 1970 inception, have been posted online. (Via Robert Newman). A perfect way to burn through the rest of your last day of "work" this week, no? (For the youths: The Lampoon was like The Onion of the 1970s and 1980s, but with a little bit more actual news, and a lot more questionable taste.)

Why is conservative, gay-marriage-hating Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz pouring money into right-wing DC media sinkholes like the Examiner newspaper and the Weekly Standard magazine? Because he can, is about the best answer anyone can come up with, according to a profile in Politico. Just your basic propaganda play, but with dying media. That should end as well as Anschutz's dabbling in movies, probably (i.e. poorly).

In fashion terms, two years may be an eternity, but it's not too long for us to notice the similarities. Both of these shoots were done by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott and both feature models in ridiculous get-ups lounging about in the woods during autumn. Sure, the Vogue shoot (above on the right), styled by our hero Grace Coddington, and has a much fairy-tale vibe to it, but knowing about the W shoot (above on the left) just makes it look like a retread of the initial spread by W's stylist Alex White.

We saw The September Issue, so we know that Anna Wintour remember every skirt, model, and accessory that has been in every issue of the magazine. Either that elephantine memory doesn't apply to other magazines, or Vogue doesn't care about its Condé Nast sibling. Either way, Mert and Marcus may need to find a new gimmick. Sorry guys, but shooting celebs as Disney characters is already taken, and it's all Annie Leibovitz has left.

Some more evidence:

W.

Vogue.

W.

Vogue.

As befits a modern man-duo, Brolin and Wright have a chemistry that's equal parts homoerotic bonding and Hollywood narcissism. The former is on display when Brolin attends to Wright's wounded ego with a little bit of kissy-kissy, and the latter is at full volume as the two tussle over who suffers most over the arrest. "I understand for you it's major," reassures Brolin, "but for me, it's bad." Still, we have to give the trophy to Wright: "They TASED me, man!" In the annals of celebrity pity parties, that's a hard one to trump.

• Cop Cam: Brolin Plays Kissy Kissy in Police Car [TMZ]

• The View [ABC]

Boomp3.com

At the London Film Festival, W. star Josh Brolin was so excited to be in London that he wanted to shout it from the rooftops. However, Brolin opted to shout next to his co-stars Elizabeth Banks and Thandie Netwon. A raspy Brolin said, “Whooooaaaa! I love London and I love this movie!”

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

Or, officially, W. — The Official Film Guide, an obsessive, somewhat addictive gathering of footnotes for amateur scholars ("14. Cheney - Unitary Executive Theory") and culture mavens ("80. W. loved Cats) alike, crammed with supporting details and citations behind some of W.'s more out-there moments. Like "W. on Non-Alcoholic Beer":

“I’ve won," said George W. Bush, one week before Election Day. A couple of reporters on the plane appeared unconvinced. But Bush was supremely confident, leaning against the bulkhead with a Buckler near-beer in his hand… [James Moore, Wayne Slater. Bush's Brain]

Or, our favorite, "W. as Paul Bunyan":

On most of the 365 days he has enjoyed at his secluded ranch [in Crawford], President Bush's idea of paradise is to hop in his white Ford pickup truck in jeans and work boots, drive to a stand of cedars, and whack the trees to the ground. [...] Sometimes this activity is the only official news to come out of what aides call the Western White House. For five straight days since Monday, when Bush retreated to the ranch for his Christmas sojourn, a spokesman has announced that the president, in between intelligence briefings, calls to advisers and bicycling, has spent much of his day clearing brush. [Lisa Rein, The Washington Post

]

And all this time we thought the president spent those long, languid days kicking back with a book. Who knew?

• Debating 'W.': Getting Bush Right [Slate]

• 'W.' — The Official Film Guide [Lionsgate via MCN]

In a neat trick, various news outlets are now able to go with totally opposite angles on this story—based on no new facts, and also sometimes based upon the same exact sources!

New York Post:

COPS EYE 'W.' ROLE
MYSTERY OF SAVAGE ATTACK ON BUSH-FLICK NEWS GAL

The cameo role of a bubbly, blond TV anchorwoman in the controversial movie "W." is being looked at as a possible motive in her bloody beating inside her Arkansas home, authorities said yesterday...

"It is possible that it is something other than robbery," said Little Rock police spokeswoman Cassandra Davis.

"Our detectives are talking with co-workers because she was a public figure, because she was on the news, in the media."

Police haven't ruled out the possibility that the assault was motivated by Pressly's portrayal of a right-wing pundit in the new Oliver Stone biopic about President Bush.

Sky News:

TV Anchor Beating Was 'Random'

Police spoke to Ms Pressly's colleagues and friends to try to establish whether a stalker or someone in the news recently may have been responsible for beating her up.

But the investigation has not turned up any evidence of that so far, according to Sergeant Cassandra Davis.

"Right now, it's being treated as a random incident," she said.

Just take the police spokeswoman's quote and fill in any angle you like!

Police have not yet explicitly ruled out the involvement of Dov Charney and the Montauk Monster in this crime.

"[It] is possible that it is something other than robbery," [a police spokeswoman] said. ". . . she was a public figure. . . on the news, in the media."

That's not much to go on, and it's also possible that robbery was the motive. And Pressly is listed on some "Hottest News Anchor"-type lists online, so who knows what kinds of stalkers she might have. But we must ask: Is there a White House connection? From her bio:

One of her most memorable interviews happened by chance. On the return trip from a news story in Humphrey, Arkansas, the highway was blocked in front of waterfowl outfitter Mack’s Prairie Wings in Stuttgart. Turns out, Vice President Dick Cheney was inside shopping. He allowed Anne to interview him while he was on the ammo aisle. Cheney told Channel Seven he loves Arkansas. Not as much as Anne does.

1. Max Payne - $18 million
Fresh off his ass-whispering turn on an especially excruciating, Sarah Palin-boosted episode of SNL, it's Mark Wahlberg who's doing most of the laughing today: The actor's latest cinematic foray clicked with young male moviegoers, despite being dismissed by most critics as being hyper-stylized junk, like some spiraling turd floating in the Wachowski brothers's septic tank. Still, not all were left unimpressed, as a giddy Colin Powell, his eyes reflecting a steady downpour of slo-mo bullets, gushed to his wife that the "transformational" third-person-shooter adaptation who would "electrify" our country's fanboy electorate.

2. Beverly Hills Chihuahua - $11.2 million
Audiences continued to roll onto their backs and squirm in delight as they had their bellies rubbed by Disney's bat-eared superstars. Not surprisingly, then, the hit's microscopic sequel—Fleas of Beverly Hills Chihuahua, about a poor, parasitic insect family that hops from rich chihuahua to rich chihuahua so that their children can enroll in the area's public schools—is being rushed into production.

3. The Secret Life of Bees - $11.05 million
Gracefully developing, is-she-or-isn't-she-stroppy? superstar Dakota Fanning and friends balanced out the vast gender divide for Fox, giving their Searchlight label the women who avoided Max Payne like the plague. "We had something for everyone," explained Fox VP Bert Livingston, temporarily forgetting about the 99.999999% of the world's population interested in neither.

4. W. - $10.55 million
Let's run down W.'s numbers: It's Oliver Stone's fifth-best opening ever, right behind Natural Born Killers. Exit polling showed 47% of audiences were over 40, 90% don't like the President, 80% were voting Obama, and 6% McCain. A round 100%, however, thought the movie was intermittently engaging, but by and large a cojones-deficient mess.

5. Eagle Eye - $7.343 million
"If you want to live, you'll do as I say. Now get wasted, hook up with Adrian Grenier's girlfriend, and lose a pinkie nail in a near-fatal car accident at the corner of Hollywood and La Brea. You'll get your next instruction there."

• October 17–19, 2008 [Box Office Mojo]

WHAT'S NEW: No one would argue that Mark Wahlberg's video-game adaptation Max Payne won't win the weekend, but with Beverly Hills Chihuahua still barking in theaters (it actually expands by 32 screens this week), the sour-cop actioner might see a tiny bite out of its margin of victory. Still, $20.8 million is a reliable bet, with Disney's purse dog settling settling with around $11.5 million.

The X factor is W., the Bush biopic which some forecasters see sneaking into second place with as much as $12 million. But to project any more than $10 million, maybe $11 million max is to overestimate it as anything more than a curio, an election-year stunt that wields neither the bite nor the influence that even we thought it would when the fall movie season began. Josh Brolin drawls and squints in fitful, fascinating bursts, and certain imagined powwows leading up to the 2003 Iraq invasion make for riveting ensemble drama. On the whole, though, W. connotes the rush job it was — undisciplined, tonally dissonant (Stone's professed empathy for Bush repeatedly knocks its head on low-hanging satirical fruit) and way, way too long. The American people deserve better, and at least until Nov. 4, they'll vote with their dollars. There will be no stealing this election.

Also opening: Seth Green's R-rated romp Sex Drive; Roy Disney's boat-race vanity project Morning Light; critic Godfrey Cheshire's acclaimed doc filmmaking bow Moving Midway; the indie tolerance drama Tru Loved; and for those of you in New York (and the rest of you on VOD), Madonna's directorial debut Filth and Wisdom. (L.A. will get its theatrical engagement Oct. 31.)

THE BIG LOSER: The Barry Levinson-directed/Robert De Niro-starring Hollywood satire What Just Happened is one of the year's finest case-studies in meta: A troubled, pedigreed film about troubled, pedigreed filmmaking, following in the flatlining tradition of every industry saga that preceded it. It false-started out of Sundance last January but finally found a taker at Cannes, and to its credit, Magnolia Pictures has aggressively pushed the film everywhere from baseball playoffs to presidential debates. Still, one half of that audience hates Hollywood, and the other half is off to see W. As recipes for disaster go — even in limited release — this one is ready to serve.

THE UNDERDOG: Is it too reductive of us to foresee good things for The Secret Life of Bees — a film featuring an Oscar-winner (Jennifer Hudson), a Grammy winner (Alicia Keys), two Oscar nominees (Queen Latifah, Sophie Okonedo) and America's favorite teen diva Dakota Fanning, presented in a nicely bundled chick-flick wrapper by the money-printers at Fox Searchlight? Like $7.3 million worth of good things?

FOR SHUT-INS: This week's new DVD releases include last summer's rapey adventure Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull; Errol Morris's dense, harrowing Abu Ghraib documentary Standard Operating Procedure; the Stephen Rea-in-Mena Suvari's-windshield thriller Stuck; and the much-awaited Nash Bridges: The First Season.

So is it time for Payne? Or is today brought to you by the letter W.? Or is this the weekend you clean up after Papi and Co.? Whatever you decide, don't leave Dakota Fanning out; her curfew is later these days, and she'll hunt you down without thinking twice. Choose wisely!

[N]one of us were drunk, we had just finished shooting three or four hours before. We were out...in the beginning, it was like [smacks hand] okay! It was time! We did it! We were so proud, what an accomplishment!...and then this fucking happens.

To me it was ridiculous. I have never seen...I have never ever, ever, ever, ever seen an escalation of paranoia and abuse like that...ever. And I know a lot of cops. Everybody knows I have a checkered past and I've been in situations that are kind of tough. I've never ever been treated like that by cops. Ever. [...]

I don't know the specifics between Jeffrey [Wright] and the bartender, but he was asked to leave, and I know that was why the cops came, to say okay, it's time to escort you out. Not because [Jeffrey] was yelling or screaming. He was just saying look, I'm here with my friends, I'm celebrating the end of our movie, and then they escorted him out, [and] we wanted to know why, and they didn't want to tell us. They immediately resorted to violence. Which is what the police are there to try and stop and prevent. That didn't happen. They were the violent ones.

Brolin also confirmed the existence of a cell-phone video of the incident: "It was us going ... you can see it on the tape ... us going 'whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.' There was no fight-back at all."

The fight-back apparently starts now, though, with Brolin retrenching in the press with references to other alleged police brutality in Shreveport — particularly with Tasers, which he claimed recently killed a 21-year-old detainee (although that incident actually occurred in Winnfield, La., about 60 miles southeast of Shreveport) and are ritually abused across the country. "I'm done being nice," he told Wells. "What's the worst, they're gonna put me in jail a couple of months because I spoke out about [their] abuse?" Only if they do it the week of the Oscars, hot shot.

• What Happened Was [Hollywood Elsewhere]

"The damn movie leaves you feeling sorry for this fucker at the finale, and that ain't hay." — Jeffrey Wells, Hollywood Elsewhere

"It's a gutsy movie but not necessarily a good one. Its greatest strength is that it wants to talk about what's on our minds right now and not wait for historians. ... The film gets off to an awkward start with a presidential bull session with speechwriters and top advisers that produced his 'Axis of Evil' speech about Iran, Iraq and North Korea. It borders perilously close to a Saturday Night Live sketch." — Kirk Honeycutt, The Hollywood Reporter

"At its best, it holds up as a dramatized character study of the father and son presidents which will be watched keenly in years to come. At its worst, it is submerged by an over-populated cast of characters and a tone which shifts awkwardly between dramatic storytelling and smartass political comedy. ... [T]he film is not a biopic by any means." — Mike Goodridge, Screen Daily

"For the most part, Stone and his actors meet the basic requirements of pulling off this quick-draw portrait of still-evolving history. ... Dominating are borderline distorted closeups, especially of Brolin, along with shadowy lighting and generally lackluster lensing. Some of the song choices are downright sophomoric in their too-obvious irony." — Todd McCarthy, Variety

"Brolin should be nominated for the Oscar. We'll see whether the crowd around Best Actor is too big for him to crack, but it is a letter-perfect performance that looks much, much easier than most critics and audiences, I think, will understand. ... The question of the film is, 'Why?' " — David Poland, The Hot Blog

Why, indeed? We're digging for the critics' bunker as we write this, determined to have an answer one way or another by the time W. opens next week. Send help if you don't hear from us.

Have you ever experimented with a woman?
Yes, I had my rite of passage. I was 16, and I wasn’t really in control of the situation, if you know what I mean. It was much more about a male fantasy of seeing two women together. But I loved the girl a lot; she was one of my closest friends. I think falling in love is actually more about falling in love with an individual. We’re all potentially bisexual; it all depends on your circle, your upbringing, and all kinds of things. Or maybe I’m just talking about myself. I could’ve easily fallen in love with a woman over a man. My husband Ol’s kind of a man-woman. Look, I once loved Tim Curry, so there you go.

Upon reading Newton's interview, Oliver Stone immediately scheduled reshoots for an elaborate lesbian dream sequence to accompany George W. Bush's 2002 preztel-choking incident. "Laura, Condi, why don't you root out each other's infidels. No, I'm just gonna hang back. I'm the Decider."

[Photo Credit: AP]

• Big Gay Following [The Advocate]

[W]e were turned down by everybody for money, including your Aunt Gertrude. It was humiliating. I make no bones about it. I think this is a great subject. I don’t think I have a bad track record. I needed a star, though, and Josh Brolin was not a star. Originally I went for Christian Bale. We did some rigorous prosthetic tests and spent a lot of dough—thousands and thousands of dollars—and then Christian said, “I just don’t feel like I can do it.” I met Josh and liked him. He was more rural Americana. But man, he was scared shitless. ...

[Bush] is a different man; he’s not as dark or deep as someone like Nixon. The style is a time trip through three different eras, to give you a sense of young, middle, and old. It’s light. [...] [I]t has to be done with an ebullience and a certain fun, because the guy is goofy. He’s a goofball! And I think he endeared himself to people because he couldn’t get anything right. Kubrick was an idol of mine. I grew up on Strangelove and movies like Network, and they made a big impact on me. So yeah, W. is a satire.

Yeah, whatever — again, we knew that. But what "rigorous prosthetic tests" must Bale have gone through to try out for President Bush? And how lucky is Stone to have went with the guy who got locked up for sassing the police and not for allegedly assaulting Momzo the Clown? Maybe this whole thing is meant to be after all.

• Bush Gets Stoned [GQ]

• Bush Gets Stoned [GQ]

If Brolin comes off as a good ol’ boy, he’s actually a Hollywood scion, the vigorous sprout of a six-foot-four tree named James Brolin. “My dad is probably one of the handsomest guys ever,” says Brolin. “I was making a joke and I said, ‘If I was a chick, I’d f—- you.’ He was like, ‘You can’t say that! Shut your mouth!’”

While we admire the younger Brolin's candor, we hope he left his paternal fixation at the palatial Streisand residence instead of bringing it onto the set of W. The audience appetite for two more hours of George W. Bush may be further diluted by a scene in which W., high on peyote and aroused by a marathon session of brush-clearing at his Crawford ranch, places a late-night, naughty call to his father, whispering, "How'd you like to make a preemptive strike against my Fruit of the Looms, Poppy?"

[Photo Credit: AP]

• Josh Brolin [W]

1. Brad Pitt will win an Academy Award. We know the post-Toronto establishment has all but engraved Mickey Rourke's name on this year's Best Actor Oscar (hell, even Rourke has engraved his name on this year's Best Actor Oscar), but taking both The Wrestler (release date TBD) and Pitt's epic The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (12/25) sight unseen, we'll take the aging-backward-on-other-people's-bodies gimmick over the gritty indie comeback 10 times out of 10. Not that it won't be close: Brad Grey will spend more on his old pal's campaign than Fox Searchlight is probably ready to drop on Rourke's, but Rourke will be the more accessible nominee to the media. Look for dark horse Sean Penn (Milk) to split the field late; Focus Features won't settle for another 0-fer in '08.

2. W. (10/17) will tip the election to the GOP. Opening less than three weeks before Election Day, the film will be too muddled to move the Democrats yet irreverent enough to galvanize the Republican base against Hollywood one more time before voting. Oliver Stone will be recognized as the new Ralph Nader.

3. You're going to miss Don LaFontaine a lot more than you think. Otherwise execrable trailers like this one for The Haunting of Molly Hartley (10/31) acquired bittersweet relevance overnight:

4. The Weinstein Company will muscle its way back to prominence. Harvey had a relatively hemorrhage-free summer, closed out by his $16 million-grossing (and counting) Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Meanwhile, Zack and Miri Make a Porno (10/31) left Toronto with goodwill to spare, the LA immigrant saga Crossing Over (10/24) has Harrison Ford, Sean Penn and others channeling Crash, and the company bumped up The Reader for Kate Winslet Oscar consideration. (NB: The Rourke Factor also reportedly inspired Harvey to finally slot his long-shelved Killshot on Nov. 7.) The Weinsteins being the Weinsteins, of course, the operation could crash at any time, but at least the ensuing conflagration promises Hindenberg levels of spectacle. That's our Harvey.

5. Owen Wilson will emerge from, return to hiding after explaining the trailer to Marley & Me (12/25). That is all.

6. The Soloist (11/21) will be better than it sounds. But it sounds great, right? Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx, directed by Pride and Prejudice/Atonement helmer Joe Wright? Alas, the logline: "A schizophrenic, homeless musician from Skid Row, Los Angeles dreams of playing at Walt Disney Concert Hall." Based on a true story, natch: Downey Jr. plays the real-life LAT reporter who befriends him, warning Foxx behind the scenes about the perils of going full-schizo. All things being equal, we like their chances.

7. Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York (10/24) will be this year's unlikeliest tearjerker. Not just for its devastating, beautiful final act, but also for the probability that Sony Classics will weep red ink when it makes about five cents at the box office.

8. Twilight (11/21) will only be the second-best vampire movie released this fall. You won't find Let the Right One In (10/24) on the cover of EW, but you'll find the Swedish export in a lot of festival juries' hearts since last spring. Half coming-of-age romance and half vengeful horror epic, it picks up the story of a bullied 12-year-old boy whose sweet new girlfriend next door ends up being several thousand years older than she looks — and behaves accordingly. Genre distributor Magnet Releasing might only get this on a hundred screens, but watch the word-of-mouth and top-10-list acclaim bump it into sleeper status by the end of the year.

9. Extreme Movie will open to a $0 gross after viewers confuse it with the other, less-illustrious Movie franchise. But you can be prepared: Extreme Movie is the teen sex comedy starring Michael Cera and Frankie Muniz; Disaster Movie et. al. are the ones whose auditoriums smell faintly of piss. Know the difference!

10. Daniel Craig will miss 2006. Casino Royale was a surprising, sporadically brilliant reboot, but the honeymoon is over: Quantum of Solace's trailer isn't dazzling anyone; the title is stillborn; Sony couldn't settle on a US release date (it finally chose 11/14); and unfairly or not, franchise obsessives want nothing to do with new director Marc Forster. And all this after the Bond curse cost Craig part of his finger. It's a cruel world, but not as cruel as it'll seem after Defiance (12/12), the WWII Jewish resistance drama in which he and screen bros Liev Schrieber and Jamie Bell fight off Nazis during the invasion of Poland. Among the last of Paramount Vantage's orphaned prestige titles, and opening opposite Doubt, an expanded Frost/Nixon and The Day the Earth Stood Still, it's bound to knock Craig back to stardom's second tier for a while to come.

11. Beverly Hills Chihuahua (10/3) will astonish and amaze. But you already knew that.