It’s true, yes, that I’ve never been much of a Rob Zombie fan, but here‘s IGN’s Scott Collura listening to him talk about the failings of his Halloween remake.

We all know how most movie trailers tend to sell the sizzle rather than the nutrients — pushing the lowest-common-denominator elements with such emphasis that the trailer, in many cases, winds up ignoring what the film is really about, what it feels like to watch it, what the mood is, and so on. But the art of movie posters doing some of their own flat-out lying is pretty much a lost art. Or is it? I’m trying to remember recent examples as I write this and coming up dry.

This Beat the Devil poster is a good example of the bald-faced bullshit aesthetic that was commonly deployed in the ’50s and early ’60s, and perhaps before. Beat the Devil is a clever little intellectual-conceit adventure spoof, shot in southern Italy in monochrome and enlivened by a slight sense of its own absurdity and Truman Capote‘s witty dialogue. But the Beat the Devil promised by the above poster — vivid, panormaic, colorful, erotic — doesn’t exist.

Another lying poster is this lobby card for the original 1951 The Day The Earth Stood Still, which adds a dark gray monster hand afflicted with psoriasis. Which, like, isn’t in the movie.

Can anyone think of any similar-styled movie posters used recently, or even within the last ten or fifteen years? If you can, please (a) describe the lies as clearly and simply as possible, and (b) include a link to the poster being discussed.

The Hurt Locker had its South by Southwest screening last night (6:30 pm) at Austin’s Paramount, and there’s been nothing but radio silence from the live-wire types who are supposedly covering. Nothing from HE‘s Moises Chiullan, nothing on AICN, nothing from New York/Vulture’s Eric Kohn, nothing from MCN’s Kim Voynar or Noah Forrest, nothing from the transgressive James Rocchi. Snail-paced reportage every which way.

During their recent NYC visit Hurt Locker dierctor Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter-producer Mark Boal said that Jeremy Renner‘s edge-junkie character (i.e., Sgt. James) is an amalgam of guys Boal ran into during his embedded time in Iraq, which only lasted a couple of weeks.

How many adrenalin junkie/danger freaks did Boal run into over there exactly? It’s pretty remarkable that he ran into enough of them there in two weeks time to create an amalgam character. Who exactly are these guys? What are their names? Are any of them still in Iraq, or have they call come home to the narcotized comfort of life in the United States? Have any of them seen the film?

A special St. Patrick’s Day performance at the Half King, 23rd and Tenth, last night around 9:30 pm. As you can hear, most of the people in the room were too absorbed in their own vitally important blah-blah to listen. Classy. Here’s a Vimeo Plus version.

In a reference to Paul Blart, Mall Cop, Observe and Report director Jody Hill said during a recent South by Southwest press conference that “it’s annoying that every time I read an article, they mention this piece-of-shit movie. I don’t want a battle of the mall cops. If somebody’s doing something, I don’t want to do that.” Yeah, but you’re doing that regardless. And many — most? — of the schmoes who paid to see Blart are probably going to go “what, again?” Which wouldn’t be right or correct, given the allegedly superior, transgressive, Scorsese-like nature of Hill’s film.

In his latest South by Southwest report, N.Y. Times columnist David Carr (a.k.a., “the Bagger”) writes that AT&T “apparently did not anticipate the onslaught [of concentrated iPhone users in Austin]. The sheer volume nearly pulled down the grid by Monday, with frustrated users screaming about outages on Twitter and elsewhere.

“‘It’s one thing for AT&T to drop random calls, but when it starts to put your hookup in jeopardy, well, that’s crossing the line,’ tweeted 7daysageek. AT&T responded to the hailstorm of complaints with a chastened news release and increased capacity on Monday.”

Oh, please! The same exact thing happened in Park City during Sundance two months ago. Too many iPhone users resulted in a frequent inability to websurf and grab e-mail, with AT&T reps saying uhm, gee, we didn’t anticipate, very sorry. Sure — in the same way your alcoholic younger brother borrows your car and says he’s sorry about getting into a fender bender. Not anticipating and preparing for usage overloads is AT&T’s raison d’etre. That is what they do. Indeed, it’s what theyr’e (in)famous for.

Writing from South by Southwest, Variety‘s Joe Leydon is calling Jody Hill‘s Observe and Report (Warner Bros., 4.10) a “shockingly and sometimes discomfortingly funny comedy about an unstable security guard (Seth Rogen) who views himself as vigilant protector — and, occasionally, avenging angel — while patrolling a suburban shopping mall.”

The film starts with a setup “that could have been played for sitcom jokiness and family-friendly slapstick,” and yet Hill “attempts something much darker, if not downright transgressive.” (Sounds like a James Rocchi film! ) The result is a pic that’s “bound to divide auds and critics into love-it-or-leave-it camps when it opens April 10th. It’s a gamble that might pay off handsomely for Warners. Or not.”

Several details about 73 AIG bonus recipients were revealed today by N.Y. State attorney general Andrew Cuomo in a letter sent to House Financial Services chairmanbBarney Frank. The recipients weren’t named, so the option of a torch-carrying, pitchfork-wielding mob congregating in from of their homes with Stephen Colbert leading them on isn’t likely at this stage.

One detail in the letter was that despite a claim from AIG’s topper than over $160 million in bonus payments had to be paid to keep the highly-valued employees from leaving the company, 11 out of 73 recipients are no longer with AIG,and one of the departed individuals received $4.6 million before cleaning out his desk.

The 73 recipients were members of AIG’s Financial Products subsidiary, “the unit of AIG that was principally responsible for the firm’s meltdown,” according to Cuomo.

Cuomo’s letter stated that (a) the top AIG recipient received more than $6.4 million, (b) the top seven bonus recipients received more than $4 million each, (c) the top ten bonus recipients received a combined $42 million; (d) 22 individuals received bonuses of $2 million or more, and combined they received more than $72 million;(e) 73 individuals received bonuses of $1 million or more.

MTV’s Josh Horowitz continues to build on his rep at the reigning good-time, fool-around, nervous-laughter GenX-GenY guy with Duplicity costars Clive Owen and Julia Roberts.

People.com’s report about Natasha Richardson‘s ski-accident condition, filed at 1:25 pm by Kathy Ehrich Dowd, is sticking to a diagnosis of “serious condition with head trauma” while other reports — two to be exact, and appearing in the New York Post and Time Out New York — are saying Richardson is now brain dead.

A story in the Montreal Gazette says the same thing but apart from reporting about Richardson being up and around after falling during a ski lesson it leans upon Michael Riedel‘s story in the Post for the brain-dead diagnosis.

Time Out New York reported earlier this afternoon that sources close to Natasha Richardson‘s family have indicated that she is brain dead as a result of yesterday’s skiiing accident, but that she hasn’t passed away. They originally ran with a headline that said “RIP Natasha Richardson 1963-2009,” but have since clarified matters.

“Last night it was reported that the actor Natasha Richardson had critically injured her head in a skiing accident at the Mont Tremblant resort outside of Montreal, Canada,” their story now says. “Although public reports have not yet confirmed it, sources close to Richardson’s family and friends say they have already been told the awful news: She will not survive the accident, and is currently brain dead.”

Approximately six weeks ago Tintin partners Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson were seen in a private taped message shown to attendees of the International Comic Strip Festival in Anglouleme, France, which is on the Atlantic coast. They say they’re just about to start motion-capture photography on the first of two movies, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn. The video surfaced today via VanityFair.com. Here it is.

Yesterday’s suggestion by a Republican congressman that those AIG bonus recipients should resign or kill themselves was treated as a joke. But this is one of the few times when I’ve found myself relating to a Republican viewpoint. And the people who instinctually laughed at this idea should think again

$165 million is nothing compared to the billions in stimulus money that has gone to AIG, but symbolism counts in times like these. The recipients of the AIG bonuses should obviously not only give the money back but atone in some profound and public way.

Imagine the public reaction if just one of them took his shirt off during lunch hour on Wall Street, knelt down and opened himself up with a knife, and then was beheaded by a colleague. People would be aghast and traumatized, naturally, but imagine the respect that would gradually be showered upon this man and his family after people had taken the time to consider the meaning of such an act. “At least he got it!,” people would say.

One of the failings of American culture is that no one believes in shame, much less showing it in public by admitting guilt. Fewer still, if any, subscribe to symbolically (i.e., ritualistically) setting things right with a display of public humiliation and/or suffering. My suggestion two months ago that Wall Street scalawags should be placed in stocks and pillories was also treated as a joke. But I meant it sincerely. And the inability of people in this country to understand, much less respect, the concept of public penance for past sins is — no question — a sign of moral slackitude.

Ritual seppuku has always struck me as an extremely perverse and appalling practice, but at least it’s tied into the concept of honor — which is clearly not something that’s highly valued by the AIG ayholes who are now rolling in that $165 million in bonus dough and dodging the efforts of N.Y. state attorney general Andrew Cuomo to identify and expose them to the public.

That said, the scrappiest and most unequivocal reaction to the AIG bonus scandal was posted yesterday by Young Turks host Cenk Uygur, to wit:

“AIG executives will walk away with $450 million in bonuses,” he wrote, “at a company that was such a colossal failure that it lost $99.3 billion last year and required a $170 billion taxpayer bailout. Worse yet, the executives in the division that caused this epic meltdown will get $165 million in bonuses. I can’t get over the injustice of that.

“But don’t worry — we are told that Tim Geithner ‘was really upset by the news’ and ‘berated them’ over the phone. What a joke! Wow, that tongue-lashing must have really stung. I wonder if their several million dollar bonus will help cushion the blow of being yelled at.

“Geithner is responsible for setting the rules in the first place. It’s all in the rules. If you let people take the money, they will. If you don’t allow it as a condition for receiving the money, they can’t. As the politicians scurry to find someone to blame, they should look in the mirror. They’re the ones that set the rules of this game.

“Now the same politicians who brought you this piece of injustice will claim ((a) there is nothing that can be done and b) will pretend to be outraged and then not fix the underlying problem. The politicians will huff and puff and probably do nothing. So, after all this fake outrage, will this happen again? If this broken incentive system is not fixed, of course it will. You can bet your bottom dollar on it. In fact, you already have.”