Ah, the fun you could have with the new trailer for W., Ollie Stone's biopic of our current president! The latest trailer's use of scenes, music and credits can all be pulled apart for your enjoyment. The strangest thing about it is that it seems to be missing Stone's penchant for controversy. Sure, it has several scenes with different film stocks, like Natural Born Killers, and scenes of binge drinking set to George Thorogood songs, but other than that, it comes off rather ordinary. Until you start reading between the lines, that is.

Dear Miss Bette Davis,

Only you could appreciate me writing you. After all, in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, you sang, "I've written a letter to daddy/His address is Heaven above." I'm sure your address is Heaven above too, but just in case I'm wrong, I'm sending a fireproof version of this letter to my eternal resting place as well. Your biggest fan is here to ask you two favors: Say hi to Barbara Stanwyck for me (hubba hubba!! Sorry...) and PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE forgive me for not noticing a crucial detail about your new postage stamp. I wrote about it before, and am using it to mail this letter. Please have a look at it. I know, I know! How could I have missed that you've been censored in it? Your second most famous attribute is missing: They removed Margo Channing's cigarette! Ms. Channing has been castrated by the politically correct post office! Holy Marlboro Man, Miss Davis! Your hand looks as if you should be screaming out "WESSS' SIIIIIIIDE!"

As Odie Henderson pointed out recently, Spike Lee seems to have a thing for getting into fights. According to Variety, Lee's Miracle at St. Anna is being derided "as mispresentation of the facts" by Italian veteran organizations after a press screening yesterday in Rome. Lee didn't really start the latest skirmish, but he's not exactly being Mr. Diplomat about things, either. He responded by telling those critical of his film: "I am not apologizing for anything. I think these questions are evidence that there is still a lot about your history during the war that you [Italians] have got to come to grips with." Pretty much the best way to make sure people don't come to grips with something is by telling them to come to grips with something. It's like telling an angry person to calm down. Does that ever work?

There have been many rumors about who would play Robin Hood in Ridley Scott's upcoming Nottingham. Scott needed someone who could match wits with Russell Crowe as the Sheriff of Nottingham, and the latest rumor is that Scott finally found someone who fits the bill: Russell Crowe. [I haven't seen casting that inspired since Jean-Claude Van Damme played twins in Double Impact! - Zach]

Paul Newman died on Friday, and the whole world mourned. There isn't much to say about Paul Newman that hasn't been said already, and better. Well, there is actually probably a great deal more to say, but it's hard to find the words, or the means, to sum up the man. I use the word "man" here because he was so much more than an actor, even though he was one of the best of his time. But "actor" is too small -- and, frankly, unimportant -- compared with what he did with his life. He was a family man, a race car driver, and a philanthropist.

Nicolas Cage is a busy man -- very busy. He's got 10 films slated for release over the next couple of years. While I'll readily admit to anyone that I enjoy quite a few of Cage's pre-1990 movies, I'm hard-pressed to come up with an explanation as to why he's gotten so much work since then. There have been a couple of good performances in the nearly 20 intervening years, but there have also been those so wooden that I thought he would turn out to be the titular character in 2006's The Wicker Man. Well, add film #11 to the slate: Variety reports that Cage is set to star as a 14th century knight transporting a suspected witch in Relativity Media's Season of the Witch. Did a real-life witch lose a bet or something?

Did you know that Sherlock Holmes never said "Elementary, my dear Watson" in any of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's written works? The line pops up in movies, but the exact phrasing never shows up in the original stories. Why am I bringing this up? No reason, except that I just wanted to. In actual news, Variety is reporting that Jude Law is in talks to play Dr. John Watson to Robert Downey Jr.'s Baker Street detective in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes. This will be a dramatic tale, not to be confused with the Judd Apatow-produced comedy starring Sacha Baron Cohen as Sherlock and Will Ferrell as sidekick Watson. My first thought is, "Man, the movie theaters are going to be chock full of Sherlocks." My second thought is, "I kind of wish Law and Ferrell would switch places."

The United States Postal Service has put a lot of people on stamps, from Ella Fitzgerald to Elvis (skinny Elvis for letters, fat Elvis for packages), but they've outdone themselves this time. To the delight of All About Eve fans everywhere, the Post Office has put Margo Channing on a stamp. A first class character for first class mail! I've always fancied myself a sarcastic viper on par with Eve's Addison DeWitt (George Sanders), and since Eve is my all-time favorite movie, the gov'ment's going to get a little more money out of me than they usually do for postage. I'm going to buy a roll of these bad boys. Now I can use the star of The Letter to mail a letter! How meta, I say, but putting Bette Davis on a stamp is as wonderful as it is dangerous. I bet when you lick the stamp, Bette punches you in the mouth.

What do you do for an encore after your film, The Wrestler, was the buzz of this year's Toronto Film Festival? What's your next move after you've directed Mickey Rourke to a potential Oscar nomination in said film, revitalizing his career in the process? If you're Darren Aronofsky, you don't go to Disney World. Instead, you tackle a flick about Old Detroit's knight in shining armor, then write a script about the Original Love Boat, Noah's Ark. To hell with readin', 'ritin' and 'rithmetic; the new R's are rasslin', Robocop and religion.

If you've ever been to Hollywood, you know that prices can run pretty high on some things. A prime ZIP code in the Hills will set you back several million, easy. Chic clothes, regular spray tans, and the perfect veneers don't come cheap. Even dinner at a decent restaurant can cost a pretty penny. But it's possible to find a bargain, if you've got the right connections. For example, a mere ten bucks buys you a golden-skinned man with a perfectly ageless physique. On the down side, he's only a little over a foot high. On the plus side, he's highly portable! The man in question is none other than the famous Oscar statuette, and, unfortunately, only the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences can snag this deal. Or so says the Academy.