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Tagged onto the end of a NYT story describing director Wes Anderson's bid to bring his trademark quirkiness (read: small budget, small box office) to a mass audience (read: big budget, big box office) with The Life Aquatic is one studio executive's key to staying viable as an auteur in Hollywood:

"Nobody ever wants to hear this, but the older you get as a director, the smaller your universe becomes. Older directors who stay hip are directors with excessive curiosity. I mean, you see Ridley Scott hanging with Russell Crowe at 4 a.m. and everyone his age is tucked into bed. You have to stay current."

So "excessive curiosity" is what we're calling it now? That's the best euphemism we've heard in a very long time. Unfortunately, that kind of inquisitiveness doesn't work for everybody. It seems like Oliver Stone got really, really "excessively curious" while shooting Alexander, then blew what was left of the budget on snakes and Colin Farrell's badly-dyed fright wigs.