The Wes Anderson Film Festival mentioned in type at the end of this video is hypothetical. The piece, made for a gradate design program, is by Alex Cornell and Philip Mills. It’s not bad. The Rushmore style is dead-on. The pipe is very Max Fischer, granted, but smoking cigarettes also makes it all seem a bit too affected. I don’t know if I’m doing these guys a solid or not, considering the likely drubbing they’ll get from the notoriously savage HE talk-backers.

Wes Anderson Trailer from Alex Cornell on Vimeo.

“Every summer has its surprise hit, and The Hangover is starting to look like this season’s unexpected breakout,” writes L.A. Times reporter John Horn. “Even though the bachelor-party-gone-bad comedy doesn’t open until June 5, The Hangover already is generating such positive reactions that Warner Bros. is developing a sequel — a strong vote of confidence for a movie with no big stars, no comic book tie-in and no obvious franchise traits.

“Just as the R-rated comedies American Pie, Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin transformed excellent word-of-mouth into strong summer ticket sales, The Hangover should benefit from the kind of positive moviegoer chatter that largely has been missing from the summer spell — save Star Trek.”

Note: Warner Bros. marketing would do well to remove this particular Hangover poster variation in all media, for obvious reasons.

Werner Herzog‘s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is going to be hilarious, a must-see cult film. Nicolas Cage vs. old ladies! His insanity levels are growing exponentially with each new performance, and all to the good. Plus his light-brown, blond-tipped rug isn’t bad in this one. I’m buying this on DVD — issue settled.

An Esquire movie-trivia quiz (i.e., 21 questions) that I could have linked to a couple of weeks ago but didn’t. Sample questions and answers: (a) The Wizard of Oz was the first movie filmed in color. Answer: Esquire even asking this tells you what they think of their readers’ awareness levels; (b) “Myth or true — if you watch The Wizard of Oz while listening to Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, they sync up perfectly.” Answer: True. (Never tried this!); (c) “Myth or True? Hollywood stardom is a cruel bitch-goddess that entraps even the purest souls into lives of ever-increasing degradations so punishing that the sweet release of the grave becomes but a faint stain in its shadow.” Answer: Better conveyed by clicking through.

A taste of last night’s celebration in Granada following the Barcelona soccer team’s 2-0 defeat of Manchester in the UEFA Championship in Rome. I should have run around and caught more action but I felt too removed in a Margaret Mead-ish sense to get into it. Not my scene.

N.Y. Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has pointed to a morality quiz website that determines the extent of your leanings along liberal/conservative lines. “One of the main divides between left and right is the dependence on different moral values,” he summarizes. “For liberals, morality derives mostly from fairness and prevention of harm. For conservatives, morality also involves upholding authority and loyalty — and revulsion at disgust.”

There are six questionaires covering six moral areas. Moral Foundations (i.e., what underlies the virtues and issues you care about? Why do you have the political orientation that you do?), a Satisfaction with Life Scale (how happy are you these days?), a Sacredness Survey (what would you do for a million dollars?), Systems & Feelings (which kind of understanding do you prefer?), a Need for Cognition Scale (what is your attitude toward mental work?) and a Relationship Survey (what is your “style”‘ of relating in romantic/love relationships, and how does that relate to morality?).

I filled out two of the forms (moral foundations, relationships). The results didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know before. But it’s interesting to explore the fundamentals every so often in a multiple-choice way.

Last night the comma/left carrot and b keys escaped from the keyboard. Just like that. And now the k and question mark/forward slash keys are thinking about liberating themselves also. Out of nowhere, rebellion in the ranks. “Guys…the comma/left carrot key is free. We can do it too! What’s Wells going to do? I’ll tell you what he’s going to do….nothing! Okay, he’ll have some computer technician stick us back on eventually but c’mon…we’ve been stuck to this damn keyboard for over three years!!”

What I’ve read so far tells me that Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama‘s nominee to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court, is more of a symbol of political-ethnic I.O.U.-ing than of anyone’s idea of impressive judicial distinction. She seems okay (i.e., generally liberal) as far as it goes but she’s clearly no William O. Douglas.

Sontomayor “has issued no major decisions concerning abortion, the death penalty, gay rights or national security,” N.Y. Times reporter Adam Liptak has written. “In cases involving criminal defendants, employment discrimination and free speech, her rulings are more liberal than not. But they reveal no larger vision, seldom appeal to history and consistently avoid quotable language.

“Judge Sotomayor’s decisions are, instead, almost always technical, incremental and exhaustive, considering all of the relevant precedents and supporting even completely uncontroversial propositions with elaborate footnotes.”

Here are ten significant observations/reportings about her.

HE extends solemn condolences to Mike Tyson following today’s tragic news about his four year-old daughter, Exodus. The chance of something like this happening is every parent’s nightmare. I’ve met the former heavyweight champ a couple of times but don’t know him except through James Toback‘s recently-released documentary. I just have an inkling of what he’s going through.

Give reboots the heave-ho, says Marshall Fine. Well, sure…where do I sign? Except reboots — remakes with fresh blood — will never stop being made. It’s far less terrifying for a decision-maker to greenlight a reboot of a previously sold-and-marketed property than to stick his/her neck out on something even semi-original. Fear rules, cowardice prevails, survival is all and forthcoming films like The Lone Ranger are relishing the opportunity to deaden your soul. It’s an old equation. Pauline Kael explained most of it nearly 29 years ago. Things have changed, of course, but in what ways?