Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine is in the news today after the MPAA slapped it with an NC-17 rating, and no one seems to know why. It played at Sundance, and people who saw it say it has “barely any nudity.” Meanwhile, the trailer just hit Yahoo movies, and it features Ryan Baby Goose Gosling playing the ukulele while Michelle Williams tap dances.  Ahh, now I see why it’s rated NC-17.  I wouldn’t want my kids around these f*cking hipsters either.

Hey, girl.  My fans are called huggalos. You should fan us on Facebook!  Haha, but only if you want to.

I’ve mentioned the planned adaptation of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (by Pride and Prejudice and Zombies author Seth Grahame-Smith) a few times now, but today’s news is that Fox has “won” a bidding war for the project.  It will be in 3D (duh) with Wanted‘s Timur Bekmambetov directing, Tim Burton producing, and a $69 million budget.  Grahame-Smith will write the script.  So, how did Fox manage to secure this surefire hit?  By colossal tools, apparently.

Fox went all out to win rights to the project, giving a detailed pitch for the film’s production, marketing, and release.  Studio higher-ups didn’t stop there.  When the filmmakers entered the Fox lot, they were greeted by a huge banner, plus parking signs stating, “Parking for Vampire Hunters Only, Park at your own risk.”

A banner and fake, personalized street signs?  Well la di dah.  Suddenly my birthday trip to the county fair when I was six doesn’t seem so hot.

Next there were bloody footprints lining the walkway and steps leading from their cars to the meeting with Fox execs.  Posters lining the hallway of the executive building showed images from the book and lines from the script, while there were silver bullets in a bowl at the check-in desk.

“I see you’ve read enough of my book to make photocopies, yet not enough to know that silver bullets kill werewolves, not vampires.  Very impressive.”

The showmanship continued.  Bloody axes were strewn about and a bugle player with a Confederate uniform played “Taps.”  [Variety]

And as they were about to leave, Fox presented the filmmakers with a scrapbook of their meeting, featuring a polaroid-filled photo album with “Best Friends Forever!” written on the cover in puffy paint.  Christ, this whole article gives me major douche chills. But let’s take a step back.  What exactly did Fox secure the rights to again?

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No! Bad hipster! You are not lobster dog and no one cares about your sh*tty band! Shoo, shoo!

I’ve been pretty open about my love of Greg Mottola (Superbad, Adventureland), but it sounds like if I ride my fixed-gear up to his next film wearing the wrong color keffiyah, I might get beaten to death with albums on vinyl (that haven’t even been released yet).

Mottola has been hired by Paramount to write the screenplay for its adaptation of “Important Artifacts.” A little over a year ago, the studio won an auction for the rights to Leanne Shapton’s book — full title: “Important Artifacts and Personal Property From the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion and Jewelry” — which Farrar Straus & Giroux had just published.

An art director at the New York Times, Shapton crafted a fictional estate auction catalog full of personal items and photographs from the four-year romance between a male photographer and a younger food columnist. Brad Pitt and Natalie Portman quickly became attached to star in what Mottola will spin into a romantic comedy.  [THR]

Ah, so you see it’s like an upper-class hipster yard sale as rendered in the archaic prose of an archeological dig, with a nod to Ernest Hemingway’s famous six-word story, “For Sale, baby’s shoes, never worn.”  If you listen closely, you can almost hear the sound of Dave Eggers’ semen landing on the latest issue of McSweeney’s.  Oh this is too fun.  Let’s look at a review, shall we?

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Check out this trailer for The Mighty Uke, a documentary about the ukulele trend I’ve been complaining about for a while now.  The trailer shows so many people from so many different walks of life enjoying the gentle ukulele that it makes me almost not want to cram one up a Williamsburg hipster’s ass when I see him with it in the park.  Almost.

“It’s an honest instrument.  Anyone can learn how to play a couple chords and then all of a sudden we can sit around in a circle, and sing songs together.  It’s a people’s instrument.”

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy at least some of the music in that trailer, but if I see any of you goddamned hippies even thinking of forming a uke circle on my lawn, I’m buying a flame thrower.

Official site

Six new Avatar clips hit the web today — mostly extended versions of stuff we’ve already seen — and you can watch them after the jump. I’m avoiding them so that I can keep at least somewhat of an open mind when I actually see the movie. Meanwhile, Collider had the new poster above. And uh… when did the Na’avi get ear plugs? They remind me of this guy, and this guy, and these guys.   I think what really happened when the humans landed on Pandora was that the Na’avi were all like, “Ugh, this place has gotten, like, so gentrified lately, you know?  It’s sickening.”  And then they rode off on their fixed-gear pterodactyls.

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