An erupting undersea volcano near Tonga “has been shooting smoke, steam and ash thousands of feet into the sky above the South Pacific ocean,” says an AP story. “Spectacular columns are spewing out of the sea about 6 miles from the southwest coast off the main Tongan island of Tongatapu. Authorities said Thursday the eruption does not pose any danger to islanders at this stage, and there have been no reports of fish or other animals being affected.”

The volcano aside, the most commonly known aspect of life on Tonga is that almost all the natives are lardbuckets. And yet it’s not true that there are more fat-asses per square mile in Tonga than in any other country. An article on TVNZ says that Tonga is actually “the fourth fattest nation on earth, with 90.8% of people in the country overweight. There is no social stigma [about] being big, with obesity traditionally associated with high social status and wealth.”

An official e-mail has confirmed that Up, the new 3D animation film from Disney-Pixar and director Pete Docter (Monsters, Inc.), will be the opening-night film of the 62nd Cannes Film Festival. The Disney Digital 3D will be shown to the press on the afternoon of Wednesday, 5.13.09, and to the formally dressed lah-lah crowd that evening. Up has been co-directed by Bob Peterson, who toiled as a screenwriter and author of Finding Nemo.

If you know your mafia movies or your Sopranos, you know that occasionally a major character — a respected person of some power, be it a capo, soldier or significant girlfriend — will suddenly appear weakened or made to look bad by a series of events, and there’s a feeling in the air — nothing you can put your finger on exactly, apart from a vague uh-oh vibe — that he/she could be whacked.

This is what’s going on right now with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. I’m not saying he’s a dead or even a marked man, but he’s definitely whackable at this stage of the game, President Obama’s statement of support notwithstanding. He may still be the Treasury Secretary next month or next year or three years from now, but there’s a sense right now that Joe Pesci went down to the basement last night (or the night before last) to look around for the ice pick.

People are furious at the symbolism of the AIG bonus thing — it symbolizes the whole cozily corrupt culture between Wall Street, the Feds, the executive branch and Congress — and the bottom line is that Geithner couldn’t muster the resolve to eyeball his AIG pallies and them “no way and no how” on the bonuses. He took the advice of a damn lawyer that it wasn’t the government’s business to renegotiate or “abrogate” business contracts. You never listen to lawyers when there’s a moral/ethical imperative that needs to be faced….never!

A 3.19 N.Y. Times article about the turmoil surrounding Geithner, written by Jackie Calmes, says that “the mixed messages on A.I.G. gave further ammunition to critics who had begun questioning Mr. Geithner’s credibility as the administration’s point man on the economy, an essential commodity if he is to help restore consumer confidence.

“Fair or not, questions about why Mr. Geithner did not know sooner about the A.I.G. bonuses and act to stop them threaten to overwhelm his achievements and undermine Mr. Obama’s overall economic agenda. Edward M. Liddy, chief executive of A.I.G., told Congress on Wednesday that he generally deals with Fed officials, figuring they would keep Treasury informed.

“The controversy comes as Mr. Geithner is about to announce details of the restructured bank rescue program, and it clouds prospects for more rescue funds that the administration is all but certain to need.

“Mr. Geithner’s once-heralded credentials with Wall Street were already marred by false starts in revamping the Bush administration’s bank rescue program, even as his perceived closeness to financiers — he is the former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York — and unease with populist politics left Main Street skeptical.

“On Wednesday, a junior Republican in Congress and some traders on Wall Street went so far as to call for him to quit or be fired. The Republican leader of the House, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, told a conservative talk-radio host that the secretary is ‘on thin ice.'”

“When Natasha Richardson and Liam Neeson met on the set of a Broadway play, the chemistry between them was so apparent the production became the hit of the season,” the The Independent‘s Ian Johnston begins his hail and farewell piece about Richardson, who died yesterday at age 45.

The following anecdote has been, for me, the best passage of all the obits because it reveals a bit of who Richardson really was deep down, and how she expressed herself when it came to matters of intimacy — i.e., straight from the shoulder.

“Neeson had a reputation as a bit of a Lothario after relationships with Julia Roberts, Helen Mirren, Brooke Shields, Sinead O’Connor and Barbra Streisand,” Johnston writes, “and his encounter with Richardson in Eugene O’Neill‘s Anna Christie in New York in 1993 could have ended in just another name on his list.

“But Richardson, the daughter of the director Tony Richardson and the actress Vanessa Redgrave, ensured that their relationship blossomed into one of Hollywood’s most loving.

“She kept ringing Neeson until he agreed to take the part in the play, even though he knew he was in the running for the lead in Schindler’s List. When the play’s run ended, he had to leave immediately to film in Poland.

“On Richardson’s birthday, he sent her a last-minute fax message from Poland that was flippantly signed ‘lots of love, Oskar’ — i.e., his character’s name. Richardson responded with typical directness: ‘This is like a letter from a buddy. What is our relationship?’

“Forced to make a decision, Neeson realized where his heart lay. And Richardson, effectively deciding to leave her then husband, the director Robert Fox, flew to Poland to join him.

“The gossip columns had a field day, but Richardson said they jumped the gun. ‘When everyone assumed it, we actually weren’t at that point,” she recalled. ‘We fell in love later. Well, he certainly fell in love with me later.’

“The couple married in 1994 and their son Micheal was born the next year, followed by Daniel in 1996.

“‘What turns me on about a woman,’ Neeson once said, ‘is if she’s an individual or has some talent. If she has both she’s worth remembering.'”

The recently posted British trailer for Stephen Frears‘ hailed adaptation of the Colette novel, written by Christopher Hampton and costarring Michelle Pfeiffer, Rupert Friend and Kathy Bates. Miramax’s domestic release date in 6.19.09.

I’m prohibited from saying where I was in midtown Manhattan from 3 to 6 pm today, but it was very cool hanging out and watching it all go down. One day I’ll be able to reveal the particulars. I’m not trying to tease or play games, but I so love this iPhone photo that I’m figuring it can’t hurt to post it. I love that it reveals absolutely nothing and yet prompts an inevitable “what the…?”

Talk about your lying one-sheets; this lobby card makes Steve McQueen look like some Euro stud from a Radley Metzger film.

Ditto, 2:25 pm.

I read late this afternoon that Natasha Richardson‘s family, knowing her condition offered virtually no hope, had turned off her life-support system. I read the news about her passing on my iPhone when I came out of this evening’s all-media screening of Alex Proyas‘s Knowing. Tragic news…so awful. And then I went into a Duane Reade and there she was on the cover of People. Fast work, guys.

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.