By The People: The Election of Barack Obama, that long-reported-about doc partially funded by Ed Norton‘s Class 5 Films and directed by Amy Rice and Alicia Sims, will have a brief Oscar-qualifying run at Manhattan’s Sunshine Cinemas and L.A.’s Sunset 5 (no! not the Sunset 5! aagghh!) starting on 8.7 — i.e., a week from Friday. It will thereafter have its official big-time debut on HBO on 11.3. In other words, no press screenings or preferential press treatment of any kind? Okay, fine — I’ll be there opening day.

Vengeance producer-star Danny Trejo and director-writer Gil Medina “have started an aggressive distribution program that involves giving [their] film away for free,” reports Variety‘s Michael Fleming. They decided on the plan after co-funding the film but “finding no takers at [last November’s AFM,” he explains. In other words, the film is a huge problem to sit through.

“The effort is spearheaded by the ‘Vengeance Army,’ a group of kids who have so far received 74,000 orders. Those who give away the most DVDs — which are free, with $5.99 for shipping and handling — will be given substantial speaking roles in the sequel. About 40,000 people have responded. The rules are explained on the website Vengeancearmy.com. The top three finishers will join the production.”

Congrats to Team Movieline for having scored and posted an apparently legit Ben Stiller in-house short that mocks the coarse, corporate and highly invasive mentality of 20th Century Fox. Stiller’s Red Hour Films has been on the Fox lot since last February, and one can deduce from the short (which I couldn’t figure how to embed) that Stiller isn’t entirely charmed by the vibe.

Stiller’s key money quote is as follows: “[Fox CEO] Tom Rothman is so far up my ass, he’d probably have to send Jim Cameron up there with one of his 3-D underwater cameras to pull him out, and he’d still be hangin’ on for dear life.”

A time-frame issue needs to be considered though. Stiller says directly before the Rothman line that the reason he spent “$800,000 on this film” is “to talk about Red Hour moving from this shitty office to its new home at Fox.” Then he says rafter the Rothman line that he’s “so excited to be coming [to Fox].” In other words the short was made either in anticipation of or concurrent with Red Hour’s move, and not based on day-to-day experience there.

“I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume [this] Ben Stiller video was not meant for public consumption,” writes Movieline‘s Seth Abramovitch, “but as is the case with sex tapes, if you don’t want your production company’s lightly incendiary and completely hilarious inside jokes to leak — don’t make ’em.

“Back in February, Stiller’s production company Red Hour Films left its home at DreamWorks and took up residence at 20th Century Fox. Having been provided this footage anonymously and with no background, we’re going to assume the short film you’re about to watch was circulated among Red Hour employees and close friends to celebrate the move.

“Framed as a vintage” — i.e., ’60s or ’70s era — “industrial film, Stiller walks you through the transition, first by defining what Red Hour is: the producer of such quality entertainments as Zoolander, Blades of Glory, Tropic Thunder and…uh…Jaws, all funded by their proprietary ‘Kosher Meat Condom’ technology.”

In addition to announcing a maneuver by his lawyers to have himself legally become Newscorp owner Rupert Murdoch‘s adopted son, Stiller announces an intention to rename his company Red Foxx Entertainment. He then declares that the operation is grounded upon “charisma, personal magnetism and a deep yearning for huge quarterly profits.”

It would appear that Stiller was suffering through the usual pressure to generate popular/profitable features (“I’m gonna kill me!”) and decided to make the short as a creative emotional-venting exercise. I think it’s pretty terrific — the sort of thing that Stiller used to crank out during the glory days of the Ben Stiller Show, which ran on the Fox Network back in ’92-’93 but was cancelled after only 12 episodes.

Sam Taylor Wood‘s Nowhere Boy, a drama about the teenage John Lennon in Liverpool, has been chosen to close this year’s BFI London Film Festival on 10.29, as Baz Bamigboye is reporting. Why isn’t it debuting at the more prestigious (but almost two months earlier) Venice or Toronto film festivals? Can’t be done apparently. Producer Kevin Loader says the final sound mix is due to wrap in early October, and that the film will be released in the UK by Icon on 12.26. (Note: I tried checking on this yesterday but heard nothing back from the Weinstein Co.)

The animation and visual-effects industry in this town is pretty much committed to delivering the same kind of oppressive thing, over and over and over. Because coolness, whoa-ness, twee-ness and bitchin’ monsters only come in so many shapes, sizes and colors. Animation/FX is a hollow religion and a golden idol that the majors use over and over for understandable reasons. I’ve said over and over that the effects that truly impress are the ones you don’t notice. But 98% of the effects in films are intended to call attention to themselves, and in so doing become the very essence of boring fascistic entertainment.

I’m out in the North Valley visiting Full-Scale Effects, a pyrotechnic effects house. A first-rate place, nice guys who know what they’re doing, a major go-to place for big explosions, etc. But it’s hell to stand around in 90-whatever degree heat with no shade or a.c. The sun melting, baking, beating down — it’s like being in Kuwait.

A just-posted tracking report says that G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (Paramount, 8.7) has an average first-choice rating of 17 among all ages and quadrants. That’ll rise a bit between now and next Friday but for a film that has cost a huge amount to make and market, even a first-choice rating in the low 20s isn’t too good. The likelihood is for an opening somewhere around $25 million — perhaps a bit higher or lower. A mega-budgeter like G.I. Joe would need to take in at least $35 or $40 million the first weekend to look respectable, no?.

A friend confides that Vanity Fair “is doing a story on the Moneyball fiasco.” He doesn’t know who the writer is but says he’s “heard about the article from a friend who was on the project. Should be very interesting. My understanding is that the angle is pro-Soderbergh and will detail how he was screwed over. Screwed by Amy Pascal, Bryan Lourd and, yes, Brad Pitt. Soderbergh was certainly not a creative auteur run amok on the studio’s dime. The email trail from Pascal to Soderbergh makes it very clear that she was fully aware of what the film was and was excited and into it until the end.”

A Vanity Fair source said he couldn’t determine if the story was in the works or not. A call to VF spokesperson Beth Kseniak was unreturned as of 3:45 pm LA time.

This morning the InFilm group drove out to sun-baked San Fernando to visit Legacy, the model and digital effects shop created by the late, great Stan Winston. The biggest full-size device (the 22 foot tall one with the girl posing under it) was built for Avatar. James Cameron is calling it an “amp suit.” I know that it’s primarily deployed in the film by Stephen Lang‘s militaristic gung-ho villain. The other models more or less speak for themselves.

Vanity Fair.com’s Julian Sancton asks three Funny People guys — Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill — about the terrors and rigors of standup comedy. He tries to answer the question of why some jokes kill and some jokes die. “There’s truly a magic to why we respond to certain people and why they become immensely popular around the world,” Apatow says. “It doesn’t matter how mow many times you work on your act. That [special appeal] needs to be built into your genetic code.”