The prevailing character trait in Christine Jeffs‘ Sunshine Cleaning is a curious obsession on the part of Rose Lorkowski (Amy Adams) that she needs to look out for her wayward younger sister Norah (Emily Blunt). If you can relate to this on some level, the film might work for you. But it never did for me. It felt fake, or certainly strained.

I’ll always be ready to help my younger brother if he’s in a corner, but never to the point of a week-in, week-out constancy that would interfere with my own progress. I have my own struggles to overcome and demons to wrestle with; we all have to fend for ourselves. Life is hard enough when you’re strong and focused and organized and handling just the day-to-day (which for me includes the creative). Maybe women feel differently.

“Let me simply say, I feel like the old Alan Sillitoe short story ‘The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner’…and that’s what this is, by the way — a long-distance run.” — Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, speaking on 1.8.09.

Available on Amazon UK on 3.24.

The ruins of Detroit on Time‘s site and also the French reliques site: An HE reader called “x” asks, “Why not have Hollywood film all of its post-apocalyptic movies there? It would make money for Detroit, and it’s got to be even cheaper than filming in Canada. You don’t even have to build the sets before you burn them.”

Nobody has a softer spot for traditional Irish music than myself, so I think I know where I’ll be on Tuesday evening. Manhattan’s St. Patrick’s Day parade has always been a must-to-avoid because of the thousands of drunken pigs who flock to Fifth Avenue; ditto most of the city’s Irish bars. But the Half King (where I had lunch last week) might be a different vibe. It’s an old-fashioned place with plain wooden tables and pub food. My sense is that it doesn’t cater to the ESPN crowd.

When I was married I visited Ireland in the fall of 1988. Myself, my now ex-wife Maggie and Jett, who was then four months old. We stayed at the 200 year-old home/farm of Chris Ryan in the town of Knocklong in County Limerick. Ryan runs a fabled riding-to-hounds business out of his home. Several horses and something like 40 black-and-tans live in the rear stables and kennels. There’s a limited edition book about the operation written by Michael MacEwan called “The Ryan Family and the Scarteen Hounds.”

With St. Patrick’s Day two days away, it seems like the right time to explain a phobia that I’ve been grappling with for years. I hate the name Danny. It’s a cruel and idiotic prejudice, obviously, but there it is. I just hate the damn sound of it. Anyone or anything called Danny is therefore diminished if not discredited. Sorry.

Dan and Daniel are cool, but Danny is a cheap 1950s Irish punk street name. I’ve always disliked the Irish ballad “Danny Boy” because of the odious aroma in the title. If Daniel Stern, Dan Futterman or Dan Aykroyd had begun their careers as Dannys they wouldn’t have done as well, I’m convinced, and might have even failed to break through. I further believe that Danny Moder, Julia Roberts‘ dp husband, will always have career troubles unless he changes course and goes strictly by Daniel or Dan. If I read a script with a character named Danny, I’ll stop reading and put it away. And I’ve always disliked the 1958 Elvis Presley flick King Creole because it’s based upon Harold Robbins‘ “A Stone for Danny Fisher.”

I’m not the only one on this boat. Ask Danny Huston, who has no doubt suffered in one way or another because of it.

Those connected with or working for Julia Roberts and her about-to-open film, Duplicity, have to be grinding their teeth about a nip-nip snark piece by Newsweek‘s Ramin Setoodeh that asks, “Is Roberts over?” They have to be especially chagrined about such a piece appearing a day before the big New York premiere of Tony Gilroy‘s deceptive brain-tickler and six days before it opens nationwide.

The answer, as I’ve written, is yes, time moves on but no, Roberts isn’t “over.” She is, however, in her Bette Davis/All About Eve phase now, which probably means she’s no longer a stratospheric box-office draw. She puts fewer butts in seats, but that’s still a valuable asset if you grade this attraction on the curve of her marquee power-that-was. She’s still “Julia Roberts” but in a more mature (tougher, steelier, suffer-no-fools) guise. Which basically means she’s become someone else. Which is cool.

Roberts is returning to the screen “after essentially taking five years off to raise her three children,” the Newsweek piece begins. The problem is that things have changed in the interim. One, the romantic comedy genre, in which Roberts has enjoyed her biggest successes, is “practically on life support.” Two, movie stars “have become a dying breed.” And three, Roberts hasn’t opened a successful film in eight years — i.e., since ’01’s America’s Sweethearts.

On top of which Roberts is “Hollywood ancient” — i.e., 41 years old — and, in Newsweek‘s view, a ’90s relic. (That was then, this is now.) Plus “it’s almost impossible for a woman to drag her date to a chick flick,” the article claims. Is this because Sex and the City, Mamma Mia and He’s Just Not That Into You were so awful that males have come to believe that the bottom has fallen out of chick-flick badness?

Plus her strict sense of privacy seems out of synch, the piece notes, “in this age of TMZ, celebrity blogs and phone cameras in every restaurant. It’s amazing how much we don’t know about her. Does anyone remember what her husband, Danny Moder, looks like? Even her children are virtually anonymous, which is quite a feat in our Shiloh– and Suri-crazed world. This is all great for Julia, but it may not be great for her career now that saturation media exposure has become the one-a-day vitamins of any healthy Hollywood career.”

Your husband’s face has to be commonly recognized and photos of your kids have to be in Vanity Fair and People in order to fortify your movie-star credentials? I feel nauseous.

But the observation about movie stars being a dying breed is more accurate than not. And it’s satisfying to once more hear that guys are totally refusing to be dragged to chick flicks.

It’s commonly known that Clint Eastwood‘s The Human Factor, which Warner Bros. (a.k.a., the “Death Star”) will release next December, is based upon John Carlin‘s “Playing The Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation.” Yesterday’s news is that the first half-decent set photos turned up on TheBadand the Ugly. All shot from a distance, no close-ups, fuzzy.

Matt Damon, Clint Eastwood on the South African set of The Human Factor (Warner Bros., 12.09). This and other pics were posted yesterday afternoon by TheBadand the Ugly. I have the script on PDF, but the usual laziness and fatigue has kept me from reading it.

Morgan Freeman reportedly bought the rights to Carlin’s book, and is now producing and playing Mandela in the film. It tells the story of how the 1995 World Cup Rugby Final — a contest between the heavily-favored New Zealand team and the South African Springboks — helped to heal the post-Apartheid racial divide.

Matt Damon, whose hair has obviously been blonded and is now trim and buffed up (i.e., a sharp contrast from the chunky cholesterol bod he grew for Steven Soderbergh‘s The Informant, which may turn up at the Cannes Film Festival two months hence), is playing South African rugby team captain Francois Pienaar.

Unless he somehow manages to commit suicide, Bernie Madoff is going to die in jail. That seems appropriate to me, but I’m wondering why he didn’t just run for it when he had the chance. He knew the Feds were on his tail and it was just a matter of time. I’m asking because something in me can’t help but sympathize with a caged bird, especially when he/she is looking at life in the slammer.

If I was Madoff I would have prepared for my escape and disappearance during my ponzi-scam days. All criminals need to face the fact that sooner or later they’ll be forced to lam it. I would have socked away massive amounts of cash in a few Swiss, Cayman Islands and Venezuelan bank accounts under fake names, with debit and credit cards attached to each account. And I would have hired pros to create several sets of first-rate fake IDs and fake passports. And I would have arranged in advance for plastic surgery with a first-rate specialist based in Moscow.

I would have slipped out of Manhattan before the Feds arrested me. I would have taken a private plane to northeastern Canada and then another to Iceland, and then a third to Belgium. I would then enjoy a leisurely car trip to Russia, my pockets and briefcase stuffed with several hundred grand in Euros, ready to bribe whenever necessary. I’d meet my plastic surgeon somewhere in the Ukraine — haven’t decided where.

After the operation I’d move to Tartu in Estonia and recover for six or seven weeks. Then I’d drive down to Moscow and hire myself a team of four elite bodyguards — two guys, two women — and invest in the finest electronic security systems and outfit all my homes with them.

Then I’d make my way to Vietnam. I’d probably build myself a high-security home in the Central Highlands and live in it for two or three months — no more. The eventual plan would be to have several “safe houses” but never stay in any one for very long. Always moving, never sleeping with more than one eye closed, “like Yassir fucking Arafat.”

I’d buy a 100-foot sailing craft and move around from port to exotic port like a wandering character in a Joseph Conrad novel. I’d hire three full-time prostitutes to travel with me, but they’d have to be prostitutes who know how to sail. I might smoke opium from time to time. I’d pay for even more hookers to drop by on weekends, but they’d have to be highly educated and well-read. No booze, no cigarettes. But I’d chill out with quaaludes from time to time.

I’d volunteer with Red Cross organizations to help the poor. I’d move to Darfur and try and use my money to try and purchase some level of comfort or protection for the poor who live there. I’d move the operation to the Amazon jungle from time to time. I’d see about getting to know Hugo Chavez (although he might not want to know me). I’d travel to the South Pole and then to South Africa, and then take a ferry to Madagascar. I’d catch plays in London twice a year. I’d buy a studio in Montmartre that I’d visit every four or five months for a week or two. I’d always stay inside days, reading and watching movies on my 52″ LCD flatscreen, and working out on a treadmill. I’d go out to dinner and for walks in the evenings, wearing shades and a fishing hat.

I’d eventually get pinched, of course. Sooner or later somebody would sell me out or spot me (even with my altered appearance). But I might stay free for two or three years, and at least I’d have a great adventure under my belt and many things to remember before spending the rest of my life in miserable confinement.

John Hamburg‘s I Love You, Man “cranks out the kind of lowball humor that makes you gag on your own laughs,” writes Variety‘s Todd McCarthy. “Ever alert for opportunities to drop dirty bombs — and compelled to repeat every below-the-belt joke at least one time too many — pic never surmounts a deeply lame central premise that makes most of the action seem fraudulent and thoroughly unnecessary.

I Love You Man‘s Jason Segel, Paul Rudd

“[It] is propelled by the perplexing notion that a young man isn’t properly prepared for marriage or life in general unless he has a best male friend and, in the bargain, a guy who merits being his best man at the nuptials. It’s a rare film that features an operating principle less compelling or credible than this, although the script by John Hamburg and Larry Levin makes use of it to put Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd) into a succession of awkward and embarrassing encounters that can easily be — and are — misconstrued in aspiringly comic ways.

“But the notion of sending him on ‘man-dates’ in search of a best friend proves preposterously contrived, as if such a confidential and symbiotic relationship could be formed anywhere near as quickly as falling in love, or certainly lust. Add the fact that Peter’s fiancee becomes completely and understandably alienated by the process and the annoyance level hits the red zone. All the picture lacks is a nudgy mother constantly asking, ‘So when are you going to get a best friend already?'”

Everyone expected Watchmen to experience a steep revenue drop (40% or 50%) on its second weekend. Hardcore geeks contributed $55 million and change last weekend, but the mainstream crowd wasn’t expected to follow suit. But a drop of 71%, as reported by Big Hollywood’s Steve Mason, is devastating. And a 73% drop, as reported by Deadline Hollywood Daily‘s Nikki Finke, is obviously worse news.

The weekend’s #1 film is Disney’s family-friendly Race To With Mountain, which will probably earn $24 million and change.