Despite all the troubles the automobiles of Quantum of Solace have, er, enjoyed in the last several months, from the Aston Martin that was driven into Lake Garda on its way to the set to the stuntman who was hurt when the Alfa Romeo he was driving crashed into a wall, car makers still seem to be rather fond of the Bond franchise. So fond in fact, that as reported by Motor Authority, Aston Martin has given Bond star Daniel Craig an open invitation to drive any car of theirs he pleases, for life.

Folks on the France set of John Travolta's One Night in Paris -- I mean, From Paris, With Love took a song from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack and made it literal. Only this time, the lyrics were "Burn, baby, burn! Auto inferno!" According to the AP, a suspicious fire caused the filmmakers to suspend shooting in "in one of the Paris area's toughest housing projects." Ten automobiles were turned into car-b-ques by vandals, and the movie's producers sound surprised that such a thing could occur. What did they think they'd get in the roughest projects in Paris? A welcome wagon filled with wine and cheese?

Tommy Lee Jones is suing Paramount for money (specifically, $10 million) he wasn't paid on the back-end of No Country For Old Men, and while I usually don't have a lot of sympathy for actors, what with all their money and perks and luxury, I have even less for movie studios. Plus, it sounds like Paramount is trying to get out of giving Jones the kind of money they used to lure him into being in the film.

Stop me if you've heard this before: Tom Cruise's troubled WWII movie Valkyrie is having problems. The film, which is in the can and tentatively scheduled for release on December 26th, is now the subject of a lawsuit brought on by twelve German extras. E! Online reports the actors were appearing in a "less than action packed sequence in Berlin" that turned into an injury packed tour de force: the actors fell out of an improperly loaded truck. I guess the force they toured was gravity. I know studios are cheap, but this is one case in which United Artists doesn't want to buy something that fell off a truck. It might cost them $11 million.

When I die and ascend to heaven's Pearly Gates, right before St. Peter says "Nuh-Unhhh!" and pushes the big button labeled Hell, he's going to sing "So long, see you honey/You can't buy me with your money." Thanks to the Hot Blog, I now know what my Hell is going to look like. Taking a cue from the numerous people who have danced in the aisles at the Winter Garden, Universal is now releasing the Sing-Along, Dance-Along version of Mamma Mia! That exclamation point belongs to the title, not my obvious excitement (not!) at this revoltin' development. As the worst part of any ABBA song appears onscreen, people can sing and dance, hopefully better than Pierce Brosnan does in the film. This is the beginning of the end, people! The 70's are returning and I'm all out of Afro Sheen! Next, folks will show up in bad jumpsuits and wigs, and CNN will catch self-admitted ABBA fan John McCain dropping it like it's hot to "Take a Chance On Me" at the AMC Googleplex in Phoenix.

After viewing the Watchmen trailer, this Watchmen purist said that Zack Snyder deserved a torch enema from the Columbia Pictures lady. Miss C. politely declined, but the folks at 20th Century Fox are more than happy to use their spotlights on the director. Fox is attempting to enforce their prior (and apparently current) "settlement and release" rights on the Watchmen property, which they acquired in 1991 from Larry Gordon's LARGO company, and the matter now resides in court. Adding fuel to the fiery panic of the fanboys, who drool over every aspect and detail of the film, is the judge who refused Warners' request for dismissal of Fox's lawsuit. This could get ugly, folks. Who watches this Watchmen? The answer could very well be nobody.

Why can't Terry Gilliam catch a break? As a former member of Monty Python, Gilliam should receive whatever he wants for life, a system Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and John Cleese have worked out with the British government, I believe. And yet the group's lone American still has to struggle and stretch to make his projects reality. Okay, so Gilliam makes strange movies. 12 Monkeys? Strange. Brazil? Stranger. And he has some bad luck, like when his movie about Don Quixote imploded (as documented in the film Lost in La Mancha), and when Heath Ledger, the star of his latest film, died in the middle of shooting. But he still managed to finish it, so why doesn't anybody want to distribute the thing?! Don't they know how important this man's work is? He was in Monty Python!

Perhaps the folks at Entertainment Weekly should read Movies Without Pity more often. As reported here, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince has been moved from November 2008 to July 2009. Usually when this happens (see Valkyrie -- if you can find out when it'll be released), it means the movie is in deep trouble. No such fate befalls Harry, which will be an enormous hit no matter when it's released. EW's "mistake" was putting Harry on their fall movie preview cover, which my mailman balled up and shoved into my mailbox while I was away on business. Looks like the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing over at Time Warner! (To be fair, Empire magazine did the same thing, but they're British -- they'd put Harry Potter on the cover of every issue if they didn't have to worry about selling copies to us Yanks, as well.)

Having sat at (and eventually under) this very desk just over two weeks ago when the 5.4 Chino Hills earthquake trembled its way through my fair city, my first reaction upon hearing that J.J. Abrams would be making an earthquake disaster movie was: "Ugh, no thanks." Seeing the lights above you sway violently while you're enveloped in an unnatural rumble that's loud and quiet at the same time kind of kills any desire whatsoever to experience it in THX or Dolby. Then again, the memory of the quake is still pretty raw; my stomach still flips whenever a big truck rumbles past our building. Maybe months down the road when the film is in theaters and my nerves have settled, I'll want to flock into a crowded L.A. theater with two puny exits (that it takes ten minutes to get through even when you're not panic stricken) to find out what the creative minds of our time believe will happen when the Big One actually hits. Ugh. Maybe not.

If this were a movie, we could call it Ballistic: Zach vs. Odie. Last week, I successfully challenged Zach about Pineapple Express not unseating The Dark Knight at the top of the box office chart, but he refuses to pay off our bet based on some fuzzy math he borrowed from a Hollywood studio. [The movie opened on a Wednesday! Obviously, the film would require opening-night revenue to pull off the victory. - Z] Today, the movie I predict will unseat the Batman opens, and if I am right, I should get my dollar bet with interest. Our female contributors here at Movies Without Pity are probably shaking their heads at the typical exploits of male one-upmanship, but at least we're not doing mixed martial arts fighting in the lobby. Score one for us guys for restraint!