I thought this was a joke when I saw this the other day, but it’s not. Uggie, the Jack Russell terrier who has appeared in films such as The Artist and Water for Elephants, released a book recently, which means that Vince is probably going to drink a lot tonight. As for Uggie, though, the book was actually written by his British author Wendy Holden, as told by the dog’s owner, Omar Von Muller, because people apparently love reading about some random dude bragging about his dog. And if that’s true, you should have seen my dog roll around in cat crap the other day.

So what’s so cool about Uggie anyway?

As an unruly nine-month-old puppy, Uggie had been destined for the dog pound but was rescued by animal trainer Mr Von Muller. Since then, he has starred in a number of television adverts and had minor roles in films before being cast as Queenie alongside Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson in 2011′s Water for Elephants.

So enamoured was he with Reese, he dedicated his book to her – “For Reese, my love, my light.”

Mr Von Muller said: “He was crazy about Reece. One of the only people I’ve ever seen distract Uggie was her.”

But it was his role as Jean Dujardin’s sidekick in silent film The Artist that turned him into a superstar.

In February this year, Mr Von Muller made the decision to retire Uggie now aged 10, from full-time feature films. (Via the Belfast Telegraph)

There you have it, folks – a dog is retired. So that should make you blue collar warriors feel great.

That said, please make a movie about Uggie, Hollywood. Dogs rule, cats drool. After the jump, I’ve included some pictures of Uggie because that’s what God wants me to do.

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In a heartwarming story of people helping people and triumph over adversity, police helped a blind British novelist recover 26 pages of her book when she continued writing without realizing that her pen had run out. Unless of course her book turns out to be Twilight fan fiction, in which case the story is a Kafka-esque nightmare about the inevitability of horror.

I worked very hard on this Photoshop

Penny Marshall recently wrote a memoir, My Mother is Nuts, which is apparently full of Hollywood stories in addition to the usual blah blah my family stuff that’s always in memoirs (kudos to Penny for not revealing some decades-old story of molestation and/or drug use to promote her book, that alone speaks to her being a class act). Movieline recently published an excerpt from the book detailing the development process for Big, and we all love playing the old they wanted Nick Nolte for Han Solo?!?, what-if game. Basically Penny Marshall wanted what she says were the three biggest box office stars of the day: Tom Hanks (the eventual winner, obviously), Dennis Quaid (HAHAHA), and future Stephen Baldwin defendant Kevin Costner. They all passed at first, but she eventually got Robert DeNiro interested and leveraged his interest to have her pick of the litter. The whole thing is a bit rambly and she does that punctuating-the-importance-of-a-thought-by-making-it-its-own-paragraph thing, so I’ve edited liberally. I’ll just start with my favorite bit first:

To make the high concept work, I wanted it to be real and believable. The biggest challenge would be casting the lead. I went straight to the three big box-office stars at the time: Tom Hanks, Kevin Costner, and Dennis Quaid. All of them passed. Everyone passed. I tried a different approach. I looked for the kid who would be Josh’s best friend, and I picked Jared Rushton. He had the most spunk of those I saw. He worked well as I brought in actors, including Sean Penn, who was terrific but too young, and Andy Garcia, who was also great, though one of the studio executives said, “We don’t want to spend eighteen million on a kid who grows up to be Puerto Rican.”

That was how they talked.

“He’s Cuban,” I said.

Haaaa. Oh, Hollywood execs. “This kid is supposed to be from Bergen County, New Jersey! We can’t have him be Hispanic! They only make up… the vast majority of the population there!” Man, I wonder what they’d have done if they’d known he was born with a malformed siamese twin growing out of his shoulder. Additional trivia: He also played “Vince Mancini” in Godfather 3. That’s me!

I sense I’ve digressed.

I also read Gary Busey, who had the energy of a child, but I didn’t think he could pull off playing an adult.

Gary Busey actually has the energy of three coyotes and some of the rabbits they’ve eaten, on account of the coyote necklace he wears, which is made out of some coyotes that he killed and ate. He wears it as a talisman whenever he goes out for headbutts.

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If you’re a serious Ahnuld-file like myself, you might remember that back in April, Arnold (pictured above in his smallest golf cart) took to his official Facebook page to ask us fans which stories he should include in his impending memoir. Because when you’re Arnold Schwarzenegger, you’re too busy being awesome and getting chicks pregnant to remember your own life. Doers do, homey, yolo. Being in the 99th percentile of Arnold fandom myself, I submitted my own suggestion:

Well now, his memoir, Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story, is set for October 12th and even has its own movie trailer. By the way, that title is bugging the crap out of me. Shouldn’t it be “Unbelievable True Story?” It’s not just unbelievable and true, it’s UNBELIEVABLY TRUE! I guess both wordings are equally hyperbolic oxymorons, but “unbelievably true” is like a brain scab I can’t stop picking.

Here’s the pitch from the trailer:

If my life was a movie, no one would believe it. The directions I’ve chosen, the careers I have conquered. I started out as a bodybuilder from Austria, and became the strongest, most muscular man in the world.

But, I had bigger dreams. I wanted to be in movies. I came to Hollywood, and within a decade, I was one of the biggest action stars of all time.

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Not pictured: Very disappointed fathers.

This was pretty much a given from the start, but 20th Century Fox is purchasing the rights to the book “ESPN: Those Guys Have All the Fun,” a very candid history of the rise of the World Wide Leader, as told by the famous anchors and reporters who have annoyed us all along the way. While it’s still too early to tell what film style will be used to portray the book, I do know that we’re about to be bombarded by Forest Whitaker/Stuart Scott jokes.

In case you’re unfamiliar with the book…

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