Because a team of airport screeners failed to stop Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab from carrying an explosive substance called PETN (i.e., pentaerythritol) aboard a Detroit-bound airliner, the Transportation Security Administration is determined to make worldwide travellers suffer delays worse than ever before. TSA officials are reactive bureaucratic ninnies whose jobs are not precisely dependent on keeping terrorists off airplanes as much as putting on a show of attempting to do same. It’s all theatre and all tedium. I can honestly say this evening that I fear the TSA more than I do Islamic fundamentalist terrorists.

Abby Cornish delivers a vibrant, full-hearted performance in Jane Campion‘s Bright Star, but Greig Fraser‘s cinematography is arguably the film’s most transporting aspect. Which makes it seem odd if not strange that Sony has chosen to bypass releasing a Bluray version on 1.26.10, when the DVD is due for release.

Abby Cornish in Jane Campion’s Bright Star.

What could the thinking possibly be in deciding against a Bluray release? It costs $100 grand, I’m told, to properly master a film in the high-def format but if any film warrants this treatment in terms of visual rewards alone, Bright Star qualifies. My guess is that somebody calculated that the expected home video revenues wouldn’t justify the Bluray expense.

“Due to the surprising performance of Avatar and Sherlock Holmes, the total domestic haul for the 12.25 to 12.27 weekend could surpass the record-breaking weekend of July 18-20, 2008, which saw the release of The Dark Knight and Mamma Mia!,” reports boxoffice.com‘s Phil Contrino.

Weekend grosses could exceed $270 million by Sunday night, which would easily top the $260 million earned over the Knight/Momma weekend.

By Sunday night Avatar will have made $72 million for the weekend and $209,268,053 since it opened on 12.18. The mostly loathsome and despicable Sherlock Holmes will have pulled in $70,000,000 (two million less than Avatar…hah!), Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel will have $45 million in the bank. It’s Complicated will end up with $22,500,000, and Up In the Air with $13 million for the weekend and a $25,762,000 cume. The Blind Side will pocket $12 million for a $184,658,000 cume.

“Estimates have a tendency to fall on Monday,” Contrino cautions, “which means if some of the weekend’s strongest performers suffer a decline when actuals are released on Monday the ’08 record would hold. Either way, 2009 is ending with a bang.”

Alleged conman Simon Monjack, who’s come to be widely despised in the wake of the recent death of his late wife, Brittany Murphy, has spoken to the Daily Mail‘s Paul Bracchi in a 12.26 article, which has been echoed/reflected in a 12.26 Daily News piece by Soraya Roberts.

Simon Monjack

Both articles use George Hickenlooper‘s HE-posted opinion about Monjack (which appeared on 12.20) as a prosecutorial centerpiece.

People everywhere have been guessing/presuming that Murphy’s death was somehow Monjack’s fault. The thinking as I understand it is that no good can come of a marriage to an overweight scumbag with thinning hair and beard stubble, and that somehow Monjack’s allegedly skanky ways (nefarious wheeler-dealing, stealing from Peter to pay Paul, etc.) poisoned Murphy’s body or soul, and that in some curious roundabout way this contributed to her having a heart attack in the shower and dying soon after.

“My problem is that I do not look like Ashton Kutcher,” Monjack told Bracchi.

And he’s right. If you look like an undisciplined fatass people are going to presume the worst if — a big “if” — you hook up with a slender young actress. People are going to say, “Look at that bloated fat-ass…what’s his story? Why in God’s name would a famous actress hook up with a guy like that? Look at him! What is he, some compulsive cheez-whiz eater looking to advance his prospects by marrying her?”

Hollywood types also “don’t like the fact that [Brittany] married someone who was not famous,” Monjack added. “Here, stars like stars to marry other stars.”

There are reasons to consider that Monjack is some kind of scumbag apart from the fact that he looks like one. The lesson is that if Monjack did look like Kutcher, he’d be a lot better off reputation-wise. People see sloth and they assume the worst.