Pugilistic director Uwe Boll's latest offering, Postal, is being billed as a comedy. But reviewers, well, at least this one, isn't buying it. "With Postal, the widely mocked auteur and glorified carny barker tries something completely different: an out and out comedy. His latest effort-already infamous for having its planned release to 1500 theaters scaled back to double digits-is a provocation first, an insult second, a publicity stunt third and a film a distant fourth." [The Onion AV Club] But, I dunno, the trailer below has me thinking it's my kind of summer fare.

The Times chose wisely this weekend, dedicating its often miserable "A Night Out With" feature to super-dreamy Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull star Karen Allen instead of some dicky little 12-year-old writer who some editor found attractive. "Ms. Allen said: 'People want to see a movie that casts a mature woman across from a mature man. They're not matching Harrison with a 30-year-old.'"

Oh hey, it's me, your weekend guy (Who's now on the masthead! Yahee!). So I went to the first showing today of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, because how could I not? And I thought I would tell you what I thought of it, without spoilers. I am not a film expert, and certainly not a critic, but I am all full of Indy right now, so, if you're interested, here's what I think.

Hey, Sanjay Sanghoee, the hedge funder who's raising money from hedge funds to make a movie about a heroic hedge funder, has apparently been trying this nonsense since college. A former business school peer of Sanjay's just emailed us to inform us that back at Columbia, Mr. Sanghoee "was the founder, president and sole member of the Film Financing Club." He's been sending these fund-seeking mass emails for years. Former b-school associates received this one just a few weeks ago, as the banking crisis threatened the money Sanghoee had raised to date. If his screenplays are half as captivating as his pitch emails, it'll be a hell of a picture.

It's worthwhile sometimes to stop and think about the real victims of today's tanking American economy. Like Sanjay Sanghoee, a hedge-funder who's running into trouble financing the film version of his corporate intrigue novel. The novel, Merger, is your standard tale of "an Indian corporate titan who begins a hostile takeover of a satellite company that transmits information from the C.I.A." Obviously, it'd make a great little indie film. So Sanghoee, none of whose Law & Order spec scripts were ever accepted, raised millions in private money from his hedge fund friends. They loved the book, and the pitch, and the fact that it was a movie made by a banker about bankers. But then, the mortgage crisis! Suddenly, not even a verbal agreement from Lara Flynn Boyle "to take a supporting role as a sultry henchwoman" was enough to keep the checks rolling in.

Going to the movies is already way too expensive. In Manhattan, two tickets, a large popcorn, and a drink will run you more than $30. And since most movies suck, it's a hefty gamble. But "the price of movie tickets is expected to skyrocket by as much as 30% this year." What? Shouldn't competition from the internet and Netflix be driving the price of tickets down? How the hell can this happen? Besides the fact that Adam Sandler ain't getting any cheaper, this cinematic economic time bomb all comes down to one thing: precious, precious corn.

Forget the jerk-ass haters: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will make you happy. "[O]nce it gets going, Crystal Skull delivers smart, robust, familiar entertainment. Ford looks just fine, his chest skin tanned to a rich Corinthian leather; he's still lithe on his feet, and can deliver a wisecrack as sharp as a whipcrack. Karen Allen, 56, who was Indy's saucy love Marion Ravenwood in Raiders, still has that glittering smile and vestiges of her old elfin swagger. They needn't break a sweat keeping up with the (relative) kids: 39-year-old Cate Blanchett, the movie's villainess, and Shia LaBeouf, who plays the young lead Mutt Williams, and who may be tapped to continue the series after Ford's retirement - at least that's what Lucas hinted a few days ago here in Cannes." Slight spoilers after the jump.

So why did magnificent hottie Karen Allen pretty much disappear off the face of the earth after Animal House and Raiders of the Lost Ark before finally returning for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? (Starman doesn't count!) "[A]t some point she went to go knit in the Berkshire Mountains. There was also a marriage followed nine years later by divorce, and single motherhood that would, in concert with the dwindling Hollywood career and the shock of 9/11, prompt her to quit Manhattan permanently for the Berkshires. She had done summer theater in Stockbridge, Mass.; she felt at home there. With her Hollywood money she'd purchased an 18th century barn and remade it; the place came with its own beaver pond, and Allen added a hot tub. She cleared the attic of bats and made it into a master suite with its own sunken bath and office." But now she's back! Yay!

Business types are excited about the news today that General Electric is planning to sell off its appliance division in a $5 billion move. Normal types are excited because this proves that GE CEO Jeff Immelt is now making decisions for his $323 billion company based on how they would affect the characters of 30 Rock. After Alec Baldwin's character Jack Donaghy got relieved of his imaginary position running the microwave division of GE's NBC on the April 21 episode, it was only a matter of time before this sale happened. The loss of a leader of Alec Baldwin's caliber—and its ripple effects on Tina Fey—sends strong signals to Wall Street. Recap video of that fateful episode is below. If GE decides to finance Tracy Morgan's Fat Bitch 2 movie, we're rating its stock a strong buy.

TV networks continue to come up with new and better ways to morph their shows into continuous advertisements. MTV is already selling ads that are designed to be mini-shows in themselves, and ABC has gone subliminal. Not to be outdone, Turner Entertainment is now telling advertisers that it can strategically insert their ads into commercial breaks directly following part of a broadcast that relates to their product. I'm not sure how this is supposed to make us more disposed to buy crap, but it will certainly make watching movie reruns that much more annoying:

John Philip Law—you know him as Pygar, the blind angel in Barbarella—died Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 70. He was gloriously wooden in so many other nutty '60s cult classics, like The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming and Skidoo. [LAT]

Recount, the HBO film about the 2000 presidential election mess in Florida, premiers on HBO soon. It looks fiendishly entertaining if you are a nerd, like some of us. Primarily because OMG Laura Dern as Katherine Harris. The make-up! They even recreated the horse photos. Some people, though, are not so excited about this movie. Because they are characters in it. Specifically Warren Christopher, a respected elder of the Democratic party, who is portrayed as a spineless pussy. He is played by John Hurt in goofy (but accurate) prosthetics. Christopher was the "public face of the Gore team" and the film basically shows how he played fair while Bush's fixer, James Baker, waged war. All of this is public record, but Christopher's pissed anyway, saying the filmmakers distort the story. Baker, on the other hand, is hosting a damn screening of the film at his think tank. He says the film makes him out to be "a little more like Don Corleone" than he really is, but that is actually a dark and depressing joke. He's worse than Don fucking Corleone, because Don Corleone was pretend. Oh hey, the trailer's after the jump.

Conscious intellectual hip hop star Common has announced the winner of his big "Lincoln Spotlight" lyricist competition with Lincoln—the car manufacturer that represents hip hop culture. The winner wrote a song based on "Lincoln's brand truths: advancing the American dream, exploring what it means to reach higher, daring to do more and taking pride in one's history." That is so exactly Lincoln. And hey, just last week Common landed a role in the next Terminator movie! My irrational haterade judgment of him as a tool continues to be confirmed and re-confirmed. For those of you curious about what it takes to succeed in hip hop in 2008, the lyrics of the winning Lincoln Spotlight entry are after the jump. Feel the brand truths:

The anonymous jerk who blasted Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on Ain't It Cool News "is a theater executive who saw the film at an exhibitors' screening this week. He spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid reprisal from the studio." Problem? "Theater executives may have an incentive to play down a movie's prospects after such a screening, to get better terms." You see? This movie is going to be awesome! [NYT]

Early buzz over Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is kind of pooh. First, co-star John Hurt bad-mouthed the flick and executive producer George Lucas to the Times of London, saying, "It's cops-and-robbers stuff. And it's all to make Mr. Lucas an extra billion, as if he needs it." Now the basement-dwelling fanboys at Ain't It Cool News are crying like a bunch of YouTube commenters.

Everybody listen: Scarlett Johansson is saying stuff. About men. Heroic men! Iconic men! Men she would like to honor! The blonde actress, who insists on putting out an unwanted record, reveals the five guys she considers her "dads": Woody Allen, Bill Murray, Tom Waits, Barack Obama, and Bob Dylan. Suck it, actual dad! While a waggish type might be tempted to point out that none of these "dads" saved her from looking like an alien albino on the cover of Paste, a wiser person would examine her dad choices and ponder the question: Aren't these just a bunch of random old guys that probably don't even know her that well?

Turns out that you can't crowdsource a good book but you can crowdsource a good movie. The dark indie comedy Iron Sky was put together with the help of over 3000 people organized through an online system that has already turned out one film. They released a trailer Tuesday (shown below, along with the creators' first film). The premise: During World War II, Nazis escaped to the moon, and now they're back. Awesome.

Everyone in the fashion, TV, magazine, footwear, apparel, movie, and vodka industries is salivating over the various self-promotional opportunities that come with the release of Sex and the City, the movie. (May 30th; we'll be there tottering on heels, sloshed on Cosmotinis!) Today's casualty: "With the debut of summer's most anticipated movie, don't be a 'Fashion Roadkill!' Everybody is talking about replicating the looks of our New York socialistas. The fabulous four, Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha are back... But what about the fabulous look of Mr. Big."

Put aside any admiration for Iron Man's blockbuster opening weekend. The fourth outing of Rockstar's simulation of urban mayhem—Grand Theft Auto—took half a billion dollars in the videogame's first week on sale.