Like those who enjoy their car-chases, their full-frontal nudes, their dance-and-song ensembles, the strip of the populace tickled by the thought of Hank Paulson cringing over a toilet is now, evidently, sufficient to launch a movie.

Various news sites are reporting that HBO has acquired the rights to Too Big to Fail, Andrew Ross Sorkin’s prodigious chronicle of the financial crack-up of 2008.  Aside from Peter Gould, who has been tagged to distill a screenplay from the book, and executive producers Paula Weinstein and Jeffrey Levine of Spring Creek, no names have been attached to the project.

Great with math – at 624 hardcover pages, Sorkin’s book shirks few of the difficulties of fathoming why Wall Street fell asunder – Too Big is also a prolific voyeur.  We see Paulson, stupefied by pressure, vomiting with the stress of his office.  We see Lehman Brothers’ Richard Fuld sobbing as his firm goes belly up. Too Big is a saga, in other words, not only of avarice and egotism but of the spontaneous discharge of bodily fluids, enacted by oldish white guys against a backdrop of impenetrable spreadsheets.

My question is, at whom will HBO be aiming this?  The excreting-elderly-white-guy-demographic (a devout lot, no doubt)?  Wonks who like a good cry?  Or will it be a flick for those who prefer their Schadenfreude still raw with the recent past?  More to come on this.

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I was watching "By the People: The Election of Barack Obama" (available on HBO On Demand), and I noticed one of those funnier-in-hindsight moments that pop up sometimes.  This documentary reveals much of the artifice involved in any political campaign, but on the heels of Sarah Palin's much-hyped "Handgate" gaffe, there's a neat pre-echo of that incident during a debate prep sequence. I think it underscores the silliness of the media's newfound obsession with "optics," and their misunderstanding of them.

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video Bill Maher is, among other things, a provocateur. He says things that are not just meant to entertain, but also raise eyebrows, or even get called out by media critics who don't know any better than take the bait. But that's not us! No - we are simply pointing out another example of Maher's polemical stand-up routine that premiered tonight on HBO. In this instance, his frank and candid portrayal of how he sees how we, as a society, treat the US military is...well, shameful. (more...)

For those who thought cinematized stasis had nowhere else to go after “My Left Foot,” in which a massively impaired Daniel Day-Lewis wriggled his toes for two hours and was rewarded with an Oscar, think again.  Today, HollywoodReporter.com reveals that HBO has started developments on “Tilda,” a half-hour comedy series centering on the exploits of a ruthless Hollywood gossip blogger with an unmissable resemblance to Nikki Finke.  Just so we are clear, that means HBO is going to be televising a show about blogging about television – a premise that makes me, anyway, feel abruptly in need of oxygen.

Finke, whom hardly anybody in Hollywood knows, but everyone fears, has made a name and a living for herself, in a handsome symmetry, by tearing down the names and lives of Hollywood’s ruling class.  Of course, Finke’s ability to do this is a function of her prodigious, and at times prophetic, reportorial powers.  Above all, Finke is renowned for breaking stories before the principals of these stories even know there is a story.

The HBO comedy is to be written and directed (the exact division of labor was not divulged) by Cynthia Mort and Bill Condon.  Mort recently scored acclaim for her single-season HBO series, the divertingly randy “Love Me.”  Condon, a bigger fish, has won an Oscar and directed “Dream Girls,” but is not yet famous enough to escape near-universal confusion, in the ears of the public, with the popular form of contraception.

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breaking Not since Hurricane Katrina have we seen this sort of united support within the broadcast television community, and perhaps only now do we start to see the scale of this disaster. MTV has just announced plans for George Clooney to host a telethon next week to raise funds for victims of the earthquake in Haiti. Thus far reports include ABC, NBC, HBO and CNN to simulcast the event. (more...)

The cable network to show the most improvement in the ratings year-to-year is one that far less of America has in their cable line-up. HBO, thanks to record-breaking ratings from their vampire drama True Blood and a new executive team, was up 41%, while "The Most Trusted Name In News" had the biggest drop. (more...)

Imagine, if you will, that you happened to be one of the many people (many in 2004 numbers anyway) watching the 2004 Democratic Convention. You happen to catch then Illinois State Senator Barack Obama's roof-raising, career-making (to put it mildly!) speech and you decide, wow this is a guy going places. I should get a camera and follow him! Amy Rice does not need to imagine this scenario because this is exactly what happened to her. And instead of thinking I should get a camera and follow this guy, she actually did, for four years. (more...)

review On Election Day this Tuesday, HBO will premiere By The People, which chronicles Barack Obama's campaign to win the presidency of the United States. (more...)

video Bill Maher took some shots at Fox News host Glenn Beck last month, but on Friday's Real Time the HBO host sounded a lot like the FNC star he knocked. Just as Beck has warned against the dangers of the vaccination, especially relating to Swine Flu, Maher continued his path of medical conspiracy theory, to the annoyance of his guests and confusion of his audience. (more...)

video Comedian and actress Sarah Silverman launched a viral campaign for then-Senator Barack Obama last year, "The Great Schlep," that combined comedic and political sensibilities - successfully, since Obama was elected. Last night on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher she debuted what appears to be her new viral campaign. Get ready to hear a lot about "Sell the Vatican, Feed the World." (more...)

video Two Joy Behar shows on HLN so far, two conversations about Fox News host Glenn Beck. Last night Behar had HBO host Bill Maher as a guest for her "below the beltway" segment, and as expected, Maher didn't hold back on any topic. But it is what he had to say about Beck that will get the most attention. (more...)

video Bill Maher's main "new rule" Friday night on Real Time was "Democrats must get in touch with their inner asshole." In his monologue and on a blog post on The Huffington Post, he explained his reasoning. And a lot of it related to Glenn Beck. (more...)

It was another exciting episode of HBO's La La Land buddy comedy about the good life this week on Entourage: Vince slept with someone, E slept with someone, Drama made out a lot and Turtle went shopping. This is the newest season of the once-interesting show - minimized plot points, maximized "character development." And still, we watch (at least I watch). Why do we still care? (more...)

Like it or not, sponsored content is a common practice all over the web.  Daily Telegraph, Gawker Media, Mediaite, The New York Times, LA Times, and National Geographic have all incorporated sponsored content amongst their editorial in some fashion. The practice is not native to online content and dates all the way back to the 1600s when the Japanese called them "Hikifuda" or drawing cards. (more...)