Jay Roach has had a weird career. (He also looks a bit like Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer, but that’s another story). Between directing horrific anti-comedies like Dinner for Schmucks and Meet the Fockers, he does acclaimed political retrospectives for HBO like Recount, about the 2000 election. In the same vein, Game Change is based on the 2008 book about the McCain/Palin ticket, starring Ed Harris† as John McCain and Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin. You can check out the trailer below, and just in time. It felt like it was almost five minutes since I’d last heard that c*nt’s name.

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Spike Lee and writer John Ridley have signed on to do an HBO biopic of Marion Barry, with Eddie Murphy attached to play Barry. No word on whether Murphy will also play Barry’s Jewish lawyer, his Italian limo driver, and his sassy, 400-pound secretary who constantly argue about boxing, but you’d think that’d be right in his wheelhouse.

Ridley is writing the script based on several pieces of source material, including the 1994 book Dream City by D.C. journalists Harry Jaffe and Tom Sherwood, who will serve as consultants. Lee is on board to direct. The two are executive producing with Murphy. HBO previously developed a Marion Barry biopic a decade ago with Jamie Foxx attached to star and Chris Rock to executive produce, but the project didn’t go forward. Barry, currently a member of the Council of the District Of Columbia, did two terms as a mayor of D.C., from 1979-91 and 1995-99, separated by a six-month stint in federal prison on drug charges that stems from a video of him smoking crack cocaine. [Deadline]

Barry got arrested with a prostitute in his hotel room and went from rising-star politician to prisoner back to mayor again and eventually to City Council. Which sort of mirrors Eddie Murphy’s career path as he went from hot young comedian, then got arrested with a tranny in his car and made Holy Man and Pluto Nash, then starred in The Nutty Professor and Dr. Doolittle on his comeback tour, and eventually ended up in a Brett Ratner film, the movie equivalent of the DC City Council. (I assume the DC Council gets to eat shrimp cocktail at all the official functions).

A lot of people will say, “Firemen, now those are the real heroes.” But I ask, isn’t the fire department just a fraternity for 30-year-olds? Superheroes which, like all superhero movies, contains an unnecessary cameo by Stan Lee, is a new documentary from newbie director Mike Barnett airing on HBO this Monday, following the real superheroes — no, not cancer doctors or hospice nurses — but weirdos who put on costumes and “fight crime.” Documentaries about weirdos tend to be the best documentaries, but I confess, I really wish it had more parkour.

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WEEKEND MOVIE GUIDE: Yes, Harry Potter is out this weekend. If you care at all, you already knew. Also on tap: Winnie the Pooh, a Bellflower screening in New York, and Monday’s HBO Documentary Series feature, Mann vs. Ford.

HARRY POTTER & THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2: The final chapter! All your friends are back — creepo, Cap’n Forehead, the ginger kid, the super-pretty one, and probably some other people — for a high-octane thrill ride of magic wands and yelling.

ROTTENTOMATOES: 98%

Gratuitous Review Quotes (out of the 202 reviews, guess who was one of the five negative. Go ahead, just guess…):

“The best possible end for the series that began a decade ago.” -Joe Morganstern, Wall Street Journal

“It’s a pleasant irony that, just as the first installments of Rowling’s oeuvre were better suited to page than screen, the final installments have reversed the relationship.” -Christopher Orr, The Atlantic (of course…)

“This is the way The Harry Potter saga was meant to end.” -Laremy Legel, Film.com

“Now that the Harry Potter series is over, maybe the truth can be realized: This has been the dullest franchise in the history of movie franchises.” -Armond White

“TRUTHBOMB’D, MOTHAF*CKAS! But before I go, I just want you to know that this fur hat is made out of Hoberman’s sister’s pubic hairs.” (*drops mic, dumps pimp chalice on Ebert, exits building to chants of ‘Hate hate hate hate hate hate…’*)

NEXT PAGE: Winnie the Pooh

*not including the price of HBO

If you read this site frequently, you probably know by now that I’m a bit of a documentary junkie, which is probably why HBO has been sending me screeners of their Documentary Films Summer Series.  It’s just one of the MANY ways I impress the ladies down at my local tavern.  (*uses alternating pectoral flexes to spell out ‘LET’S BONE’ in Morse Code*).  Tonight the series kicks off with Bobby Fischer Against the world at 9 pm ET/PT.

Directed by Liz Garbus, Bobby Fischer Against the World uses interviews and stock footage to tell the story of the world’s most famous chess player, his Rocky IV-like matches against his Russian counterpart, Boris Spassky in 1972, and his gradual descent into paranoid, anti-Semitic, A-holishness.  I’m not going to pretend it isn’t a mostly-talking-head documentary on the subject of chess, but the relationship between genius and insanity remains endlessly compelling.  And the cool thing about watching documentaries on HBO is that you can DVR them and you don’t have to watch it all in one sitting (you know, unless you’re poor and you don’t have DVR like a godd*mned caveman).  Probably my favorite scene in the film is Bobby Fischer’s last press conference, in 2005 in Iceland a country that had sprung him from jail in Tokyo, welcomed him as a citizen, and given him a hero’s welcome, even after his rambling diatribes and wild conspiracy theories about 9/11, Garry Kasparov, and everything else.  At one point in the press conference, Fischer confronts reporter Jeremy Schaap, whose father, Dick Schaap, had apparently once written an article saying Fischer “didn’t have a sane bone in his body.”  Fischer explains to a room full of nervously chuckling press how Schaap (the elder) had befriended him, acting as a father figure, and then, “like a typical Jewish snake,” turned around and written a nasty article (it should be noted that Fischer’s parents were both Jewish).  Schaap (the younger) interjects, saying he hadn’t read his father’s article, but “honestly, I don’t know that you’ve done much here today to disprove anything that he said.”

What follows is one of the longest periods of extended silence (broken only by the shutter snaps in the background) you’ve ever heard.  It is glorious. Anyway, it’s a little slow at times and could perhaps be more focused, but if you like documentaries about troubled Jewish chess champions who slowly turn crazy, paranoid, and anti-Semitic, you’ll love Bobby Fischer Against the World.