I guess it had to come to this. This December, you'll have the opportunity to buy the DVD extras for a hot new studio picture before the movie even hits theaters.

"Control of the initiative is control of the battle. In the alley, at the poker table or in politics. One must raise."

David Mamet on poker and politics.

Recapped is blogging the Toronto Film Festival. From the single-minded perspective of which women get naked in which films. Illustrated.

Mark Romanek, Jonathan Glazer, Anton Corbijn and Stephane Sednaoui will all be in attendance at a Film Comment Selects event moderated by Michel Gondry and observing the release of the four new Directors Label DVDs collecting their music video, commercial, and short-film work. The blessed event occurs on Tuesday, Sept. 13, and tickets ($15/$12 for Film Society of Lincoln Center members) should be available real soon now. I'm assuming the projection will take place from DVD, although it would be great to see some higher-quality sources. (I know the Beastie Boys have lately been finishing videos in high-definition, but I wonder how many older clips actually exist in anything better than NTSC or PAL resolution.)

Anyone remember the article in Film Comment some years back accusing Romanek of outright thievery for lifting ideas and images from famous painters, photographers and other artists in his videos? Guess there's no hard feelings.

"I've got a credit on this movie and still nobody has any idea who the fuck I am."

War of the Worlds screenwriter Josh Friedman (no, the other War of the Worlds screenwriter) has a blog. He's already blogged a WGA arbitration story, for which I'm always a sucker, and promises to write about his experiences working on The Black Dahlia, finally coming to the screen via Brian De Palma and based on one of the best books I've ever read.

"Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner ..."

I'm not normally one of those readers who loves to read elaborate pans of bad movies, but this Ebert review of Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo had me LOL for some reason.