"You're a Bush! Act like one!" So begins the heartwarming teaser for W., Oliver Stone's lighting-round satire of George W. Bush's trajectory from hard-partying Texas schlub to dynastic political ringleader. And if we ever doubted the likelihood this would be a satire, one run through the casting roll call — a montage of furrowed brows and hammy smiles clearly drawing from the influential opening credits of Benson — all but confirms the variety-show flavor of the administration's antics. From Truman Capote as Karl Rove to Thandie Newton making her best law-circumventing face as Condoleezza Rice, this is shaping up to as the shrewdest political comedy of the season. NB: If our make-up looked as half-assed as Jeffrey Wright's does here as Colin Powell, we probably would have overturned the wrap party, too. Go easy on him, Shreveport. [via First Showing]

The good times keep a-rollin' in Louisiana for the Stray Cat Gang — including Josh Brolin, Jeffrey Wright and a smattering of crew members arrested at Saturday's W wrap party in Shreveport. New reports allege Wright fielded at least one ethnic slur from an onlooker after being escorted out of the Stray Cat with unruly lighting technician Eric Felland. Brolin and company went down a little later when coming to Wright's aid — i.e. "interfering with that arrest," according to Shreveport police Cpl. Robert Elliott. Furthermore, "a rep for Brolin ... didn't say what the rehabbed actor was drinking," according to Rush and Molloy. Next up for the group: An encore on Dec. 2, when all are due back in court. Meanwhile, chalk up another incentive for filmmaking in Louisiana — the only state where you can cast, scout and produce an entire movie faster than the legal system can prosecute its stars. [NYDN]

If we had just produced an entire feature film in about 12 days like the gang behind Oliver Stone's W, then we, too, would probably have been in a bit of hell-raising mood when it was all said and done. We're not sure if getting arrested would have been on the agenda, but we'll grant newly shorn Josh Brolin and Jeffrey Wright the benefit of the doubt, anyway: The duo, who play President Bush and Colin Powell in the film, spent some time in custody early Saturday after coming to the aid of a rowdy crew member at a bar in Shreveport, La.

• It's two days since Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline Jolie-Pitt were welcomed into the world by Brad and Angelina and it's been just as low-key as everyone expected. The mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, signed the birth certificate at a press conference; now the discussion has turned to pics of the babies, which are expected to fetch $15 to $20 million. [People, NYDN]

Actor Josh Brolin is getting way, way into character while shooting Oliver Stone's George W. Bush biopic, W., in Shreveport, Louisiana. He was busted last night for interfering with cops outside a local watering hole when they tried to arrest a pal of his for public drunkenness.

As the clock ticks down to the planned (and totally insane!) October 17th release date of Oliver Stone's W, more details are emerging about the plot and structure of what we're still fairly convinced is some sort of elaborate April Fool's Day stunt. We've seen the teaser poster, and now, the Los Angeles Times' John Horn checks in on the film and reveals what could go down in cinematic history as one of the medium's most outrageous structural devices:

Everywhere we've been around the LA Film Festival this week, the chatter du jour is either oversexed studio minions or how folks plan to spend their off-days during the increasingly inevitable-looking SAG strike. The latter conflict came into even sharper relief today in Variety, which published a SAG-AFTRA Bullshit Scorecard (hardly an improvement over our SAG Strike Mad Libs™, but whatever) breaking down the lies, celebrity endorsees and various other spin the unions are wielding in their steel-cage labor war:

Hollywood's power list got a little more diffuse Monday when Diablo Cody, Marion Cotillard, Judd Apatow and Sacha Baron Cohen were among 105 new invitees to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The number is the lowest since 2004, when the Academy instituted its "Riff-Raff Rule" limiting the annual invitee total to 137; that said, we're not sure what kind of internal politics and/or pledge drives would necessitate inviting Michael Haneke and Jet Li to assume even 1/6000th of the Oscar vote. Follow the jump for more of this year's celebrated AMPAS Cub Club!

While we long ago put to rest those rumors that Oliver Stone's forthcoming George Bush biopic W was a fantastically sophisticated April Fools gag on the media and all modest Americans of taste and discretion, it's not like Entertainment Weekly had to go rub it in with its new cover story. But there they are anyway: Josh Brolin and Elizabeth Banks as the President and First Lady, all set to ham it up in the drama Stone is apparently location scouting as we speak. Alas, with Stone swearing up and down he can have the film in theaters by election time, one critical vacuum remains: Who, who will play Dick Cheney?

The hyper-sensitive Defamer April Fool's Bullshit Scanner went off again moments ago as we browsed ABC.com's exclusive screenplay review of W, Oliver Stone's upcoming biopic about the transition of George W. Bush from spoiled drunk Texas asshole to election-stealing, malaprop-slinging, Jesus-loving Texas asshole. To this very moment, in fact, we can't verify the legitimacy of Marcus Baram's trenchant read-through whose very headline — "Daddy Issues, War Lust in Oliver Stone's W" — flirts with incredulity. To that end, we combed through Baram's script review in an attempt to determine the moments that seem authentic versus those that appear to be inexplicably hacky:

The March issue of Men's Journal (not online yet; subscribe, why don't you?) features a cover story on Josh Brolin, the mustachioed leading man who is stalked by Javier Bardem in "No Country For Old Men." As if that wasn't exciting enough, the story is written by child-loving Josh Stein nemesis Neal Pollack! Pollack doesn't get a chance to talk about his kids in the piece, but he does throw in some mentions of Brolin's kids, like this telling, priceless anecdote: "We did this one trip to Scotland. Just me and my kids. We had absolutely no plan...We used to have a running joke where I'd yell, 'Where do you wanna sleep tonight?' and the kids would yell, 'We don't care!'" Hahahahaha! We mention this by way of pointing out that this is potentially the least insightful celebrity profile in any magazine so far in 2008. Brolin picks Pollack up, they get stuck in traffic, they drive to Palmdale, they eat tacos, they go home. This is a completely accurate summary. Judge for yourself by this post-taco excerpt, which is, without exaggeration, the crowning achievement of Pollack's story:

With the fourth installment of The Terminator franchise (discounting, of course, that new Fox series Tween Terminator: The Jailbait Killing-Machine Chronicles) in pre-production, director Joseph "McG" McGinty Nichol, still euphoric from landing Christian Bale in the pivotal role of Adult Eddie Furlong, now has some serious, Governator-sized shoes to fill for the sequel's time-traveling robomercenary. From the213.net interview:

Via our friends at BoingBoing, we bring you The 10 Star Wars Toys that Unintentionally Look Like Other Celebrities, a highly amusing gallery of action figures and their accidental doppelgangers that's guaranteed to entertain. Meanwhile, fanboy memorabilia collectors who can't wait until the end of spring for The Dark Knight merchandising to hit store shelves might finally be tempted to crack open that mint Slave Leia specimen and slip her into something a little more black-latexy. [toplessrobot.com]

· This should make up for Hannibal: Oliver Stone's next project is a G.W. biopic titled simply, Bush. (Why is the frat boy in us suddenly compelled to add the words National Lampoon's to the beginning of that?) To play the Greatest American President Currently Holding Office—Josh Brolin, who's looking forward to taking on a role in which he gets to turn the figurative pitbulls on everyone else for a change. [Variety]
· Just days after the DGA reached a quick and dirty deal with AMPTP, the WGA announces that they have ended the negotiation stalemate, and that "informal" talks have been set, just as soon as the two sides can settle on which Koo Koo Roo sides would be acceptable for the catering. [Variety]
· DreamWorks Animation entered into a multibillion-dollar deal to build a theme park in Dubai. Michael Jackson must be rolling in his oxygen chamber for having left the country so tantalizingly close to the grand opening of Donkey and Puss n' Boots's Wacky Wave Pool. [Variety]

Oliver Stone is hoping to direct a film based on the life and presidency of George W. Bush. "Here, I'm the referee, and I want a fair, true portrait of the man," Stone insists. "How did Bush go from an alcoholic bum to the most powerful figure in the world?" Laconic, stoic Josh Brolin is attached to play our smirky, snickering President, but you needn't worry too much about inappropriate casting—everyone looks embarrassed and lost in modern Oliver Stone movies. [Variety]

There's more A-list casting goodness for Gus Van Sant's Milk, the late-70s biographical drama about San Francisco's beloved openly gay city supervisor Harvey Milk, an American civics story that probably wouldn't have two major, competing productions in the pipeline had Milk and then-S.F. Mayor George Moscone not been shot to death at City Hall by political rival Dan White. Reports THR:

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