I’ll be attending Cinemacon 2012 for four days and nights. Arrive Monday, 4.23 and check out on Friday morning, 4.27. Big-studio splash, early screenings, product reels, personal appearances, etc. Got a good four-night deal at the Hard Rock for only $278. Southwest RT is only $160. $440 so far…maybe another $250 for food, cabs & knick-knacks. No gambling, drinking or comfort of strangers.

“What if you just used the found footage gimmick during the scary parts?,” Badass Digest‘s Devin Faraci wrote on 3.20. “That’s what Eduardo Sanchez, co-director of The Blair Witch Project, does with Lovely Molly. The main character (Gretchen Lodge) is haunted by (or thinks she is haunted by) a malevolent spirit. Whenever the spirit approaches she picks up the camera and we go from a standard narrative to a first-person-camera POV. It’s effective.

“Lovely Molly is a decent film, but what really intrigued me was the way the found footage aesthetic — including night vision — was integrated into a traditional narrative feature. In some ways this only highlights the gimmick nature of first person POV, but so what? This aesthetic is a gimmick — sometimes an effective one, but one nonetheless.

“The film is structured in a way that makes you guess whether Molly really is haunted or whether she’s relapsing into drugs and a paranoid state. It all hinges on Lodge’s performance, and I found her magnetic and intriguing, so it worked for me.”

Here are several SXSW reviews of Sanchez’s film.

An email from Down Under’s Mark Sheridan reads as follows: “I saw your blog briefly on Australian TV yesterday [in a piece about] a US news story about the backlash against Jennifer Lawrence‘s body shape in The Hunger Games. They used your ‘big-boned lady‘ quote from your review of the film.”

I’ve tried re-posting what I actually said and meant and nobody cares. What should I do, just give up and plead guilty? I merely said that Lawrence doesn’t have a toothpick frame (which is obvious) and that she’s physically bigger than costar Josh Hutcherson (which ahe absolutely is). You know what? To hell with it. Once these simplistic stories take off nobody wants to read the original — they just accept the copied quotes and ignore the source.

Yesterday Chicago Sun Times columnist Bill Zwecker passed along Lawrence’s alleged reaction to certain comments about her physique, which came to him second-hand:

“A source close to the actress told me Sunday that the Oscar nominee had a sarcastic reaction to some of the critics,” he wrote. “‘This is hilarious,’ Lawrence has allegedly said. ‘First, people say how so many actresses in Hollywood look anorexic, and now they are criticizing me for looking normal.’ She reportedly added that overly thin body images ‘are too often adopted by young girls and women — thanks to what they are constantly being shown as being attractive.'”

In a related development, Kate Winslet (once allegedly referred to as “Kate weighs-a-lot” during her youth in the mid ’90s) has said that Leonardo DiCaprio has gotten “fatter” since they made Titanic 15 years ago.

Forget narratives, Movie Godz, Derek Cianfrance, Funny or Die…staff meeting videos are everything, all of it…the finality and totality. Miles Fisher, the Tom Cruise-like agency honcho, is really good. Directed by Dave Green, written by Henry Gayden, produced by Ryan Hendricks.

David Lynch‘s Crazy Clown Time is…what is it? Definitely about young bouncy breasts in a dark backyard. Angsty metallic garage band sounds. Whose back yard? Those wood beams slamming into barbage cans…aaah, man! Big barbecue flames. Two blondes and a brunette. Floundering. Crazy Clown Time album out now.

A Cannes Film Festival blogger is claiming to have glimpsed a rundown of the 2012 official competition slate, and has posted the list. Take with a grain of salt, etc., but these selections seem real, make sense.

[Text capture courtesy of Sasha Stone]: “Une indiscretion a brievement filtre sur le site officiel du Festival de Cannes avant d’etre retiree en hate : la liste OFFICIELLE des films qui seront presentes en competition. La selection ne devait etre annoncee que le 19 avril:

“Trois constats : le retour en force du cin√©ma americain, la large representation du cinema asiatique et 80 ans d’ecart entre le plus jeune et le plus age des selectionnes! (Dolan / De oliveira, ou est-ce l’inverse?)

“Voici donc les titres en competition (24 au lieu de 20 l’an dernier) en totale avant-premiere meme si nous attendrons la conference de presse le 19 avril pour avoir confirmation.”

“I consider Comic-Con, the annual San Diego geek festival, an insidious and reductive force in pop culture,” writes Marshall Fine. “[And] I am aggressively opposed to the mentality that has turned Comic-Con into the force that seems to guide Hollywood. But I had a super time watching ‘s Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope.”

“I came out vastly entertained, admiring all over again the intelligence and humanity with which Spurlock imbues each of his films. He’s a filmmaker who always has a unique angle, a different take, a sense of compassion and wit — all of which make Comic-Con” an insightful and just plain surprising documentary.

“It’s not that Spurlock isn’t out to show the massive weirdness and frothing fanboy gush that Comic-Con is. He does — in spades. But he also wants to show the diversity and dedication of the [faithful].

“The only thing missing is the downside…[the fact that ComicCon] has polluted the movie industry, turning the studios into factories manufacturing mindless comic-book, action and horror movies in pursuit of a narrow demographic. The studios’ slavish attention to the Comic-Con audience has caused any number of misfires, movies that killed at Comic-Con and died in the marketplace.”

I watched last night’s Mad Men episode (i.e., fat Betty might have cancer…whoops, false alarm) and heard Don Draper say that the Rolling Stones did a commercial “for cereal in England…three years ago” (i.e., 1963). Until this morning, I never knew it was actually true.

YouTube comments so far….

“Wake up in the morning, holy fuck this ad sucks. Wake up in the morning, Mick Jagger‘s such a schmuck. Wake up in the morning, this should have ended the Stones’ careers. Wake up in the morning, Rice Krispies can suck a dick.”

“I just lost all respect for the Stones. Damn you, Mad Men!”

“I always knew they were fucking idiots, but this proves it. At least other pop stars do ads for beer or cars. These guys do it for rice filled with air at $5 per pound. You can buy steak for that.”

“Knowing all the facts.” — William S. Burroughs.

“As a news anchor, you’ve almost religiously avoided stating a political allegiance. The Jay Leno of news anchors. You’re popular because you don’t bother anyone. How do you feel about that?” And then: “Are you willing to say whether you lean right or left? I’m not letting you go back to the airport without answering the question. I want a human moment from you.”

In short, Aaron Sorkin‘s The Newsroom, which begins on 6.24, feels like Network in 2012. It feels like heaven. I can’t wait.

A YouTube commenter named karbin89 responds as follows: “A news anchor knows some facts and isn’t just a giant idiot with a good speaking voice? Please, this is just too high fantasy. I’ll stick with realistic characters like Ron Burgundy.”

“The series chronicles the behind-the-scenes events at a fictional cable news channel and features an ensemble cast that includes Jeff Daniels as news anchor, Will MacAvoy, who, together with his staff, set out to put on a news show “in the face of corporate and commercial obstacles and their own personal entanglements.”

“Other cast members include Emily Mortimer, Jane Fonda, Alison Pill, Dev Patel, John Gallagher, Jr., Olivia Munn, Thomas Sadoski and Sam Waterston.

“HBO ordered a pilot in January 2011 and then a full series eight months later. Sorkin did his research for the series by observing several real-world cable news programs first hand.” (And by hanging out with Keith Olbermann, I read or heard somewhere.) “He serves as executive producer, along with Scott Rudin and Alan Poul.”