Larry “Bud” Mehlman, the “Late Night with Letterman” guy with the black J.C. Penney suit and the dark-framed glasses and the mincing, high-pitched voice who always spoke like he was closely related to Robby the Robot, has left the planet. He was 85 years old. His real name was Calvert DeForest. The Larry “Bud” Mellman irony is that he may or may not have been ironically hip. He was a guy who looked and sounded like a clueless middle-class droid but seemed on a certain level to be mocking himself, or at least mocking the stooge that he seemed to be “playing”. But he may not have been. He may have really been that dorky guy in actuality.

The guy who created that “Hilary 1984” spot that’s been making the rounds over the last several days has been exposed by Arianna Huffington, and subsequently whacked by his employer, Blue State Digital, which has had technical dealings with the Obama campaign.

The renegade’s name is Philip de Vellis, and he’s saying in a statement on the Huffington Post that he’s proud of having created the attack ad, that he “wanted to show that an individual citizen can affect the process,” and that “this was not the first citizen ad, and it will not be the last…the game has changed.”

A statement by the managing director of Blue State Digital, which is under contract with the Obama Campaign “for technology pursuits including software development and hosting”, says that Vellis “received a call [this afternoon] from Arianna Huffington regarding the ‘1984’ video currently circulating online. Initially, de Vellis refused to respond to her requests. He has since acknowledged to Blue State Digital that he was the creator of the video. Pursuant to company policy, Mr. de Vellis has been terminated from Blue State Digital effective immediately.”

Blue State Digital “is not currently engaged in any relationship with the Obama Campaign for creative or non-technical services,” the statement went on. “Mr. de Vellis created this video on his own time. It was done without the knowledge of management, and was in no way tied to his work at the firm or our formal engagement [on technology pursuits] with the Obama campaign.”

A congressman’s mistress is killed, and a team of investigative reporters secretly work with a police detective to solve the murder. The movie will be called State of Play, an American version of an acclaimed British miniseries that you can buy on DVD. The new version, which will star Brad Pitt and directed by Kevin McDonald from a script by Matthew Michael Carnahan, will start shooting in November. The plot isn’t what anyone would call strongly similar to Clint Eastwood‘s Absolute Power (’97), but it’s the same line of country — I need to watch the British miniseries.

Expressions of support and comfort aren’t exactly fitting in the case of poor Cathy Seipp, a first-rate journalist, blogger and mom. I’m very, very sorry. Anne Thompson said it better yesterday.

The original Alamo Drafthouse on Colorado Street in downtown Austin is closing down. Another native operation done in by some greedy-ass landlord reacting to the proverbial corporate chain stores pushing up urban rents and making all downtown areas (including those in Prague, Moscow and Beijing) look exactly the same. The upside is that there’s a bounceback coming. The downtown Drafthouse will be reborn at the historic Ritz Theater off of Sixth Street.

“Of all the things to make you pause, hand on wallet, before shelling out for a movie ticket, try this: a film about the aftermath of 9/11, starring Adam Sandler. What possible cultural need, one might ask, could be met by such a project? It is thus with a degree of amazement that I find myself nominating Reign Over Me written and directed by Mike Binder, as a movie that might be worth your time.”

A near-rave review of Reign Over Me from New Yorker critic Anthony Lane? I know it’s a good and uncommonly haunting film with a surprisingly powerful performance by Sandler, but for some reason I’m startled that the snooty Lane not only agrees, but has found other particular Reign things to praise.

The bottom line with the Joe Roth-recutting-Julie Taymor‘s-Across The Universe story (as written by N.Y. Times reporter Sharon Waxman) is one thing and one thing only — the trailer.

We all know that trailers never tell the truth about a movie, but it’s hard to watch this one and not be at least a little bit impressed. It’s a kids-tripping-out-in-the-late-’60s thing with the cast singing and dancing to Beatles songs, and it kind of looks to me like Milos Forman‘s Hair. The trailer has an aura of vision and intelligence — a carefully measured, ultra-colorful, extra-vivid quality is there from start to finish.

The gist of Waxman’s story is that Taymor’s cut of Across the Universe, which cost $45 million to make, ran two hours and eight minutes. But like many strong directors, Taymor (Frida, Titus) has a tendency towards willfulness and obstinacy, and she freaked when Roth created his own version — “about a half-hour shorter” — without her agreement.

“Roth’s moves have left Taymor feeling helpless and considering taking her name off the movie,” wriites Waxman. “Disavowing a film is the most radical step available to a director like Taymor, who does not have final cut, one that could embarrass the studio and hurt the movie’s chances for a successful release in September.”

There must have been something askew and/or unsatisfying with Taymor’s film for Roth to have stepped in like that. Research audiences must have said some pissy things about it. A guy on the IMDB who may or may not have seen it says “it would be cruel to call Across the Universe a two-hour music video because it tries so hard to be more than that, but it wouldn’t be entirely inaccurate either. The movie can be summed up as a series of punctuated scenes and characters each represented by a Beatles song and strung together by a boilerplate love story.”

I say again — look at the trailer.

The costars and cameo-ists are Jim Sturges, Evan Rachel Wood, Joe Anderson, Dana Fuchs, Salma Hayek, Eddie Izzard and Bono. I don’t know who plays what. The release date is 9.28.07. A celebration or a roasting at the Toronto Film Festival could be in the cards.

TMNT “never wears out its welcome and gets the story told efficiently without dragging us down with subplots to pad out the runtime. Nor is the story rushed to ensure a certain number of shows per day in the megaplex. This is a movie about mutated, humanoid turtles who talk like New Yorkers and fight like ninjas…get over it.” — from Moises Chiullan‘s HE review.

I should have posted a link two days ago to Mark Ebner‘s Hollywood Interrupted interview piece about one-time recording mogul and accused murderer Phil Spector, who “was always a fatal train wreck waiting to happen,” Ebner declares. Spector’s trial for the murder of Lana Clarkson is now underway, and Ebner is pledging to provide live-blog gavel-to-gavel coverage from Los Angeles Superior Court.

A pass-along from renowned cartoonist and old-time (i.e, ’70s and early ’80s hangover) Connecticut friend Chris Browne, who’s been writing and drawing “Hagar the Horrible” since 1988.

Denmark’s Niclas Kockum says that yestersday’s post on Premiere.com’s list of greatest movie posters “should acknowledge that the history of good movie posters goes a bit beyond the American borders. If your criteria for a good movie poster is how ‘striking, innovative, eye-catching’ it is, then you just can’t go wrong with old Polish movie posters. Trippy as hell. Practically all of them beat the original posters.”