* Speaking of Finke, she claimed another “toldja” tonight. Channing Tatum will be Jonah Hill‘s costar in the upcoming comedy rendering of “21 Jump Street” written by Hill and Michael Bacall.

* A ballet comedy with Chloe Moretz, Kristen Bell and Jackie Earle Haley? Works for me. Moretz makes a lot of sense here. As we discussed when I interviewed her last summer, she has a background in ballet. She was also fairly gaga over the portions of “The Black Swan” she’d been able to see.

* A sweet tribute to the late Leslie Nielsen by David Zucker.

* Anne Thompson has a rundown of the selections for this year’s Sundance Film Festival, which is just about six or seven weeks away already, if you can believe it.

* Speaking of Anne Thompson, she posted an early review of the Coen Brothers new version of “True Grit” tonight. She was very positive about the movie herself but seemed to feel  that younger viewers don’t “get” westerns because they happened a long time ago. (Does that mean they dislike all films taking place more than a hundred years in the past? I find that a sad thought.) She also said the response at the screening she went to was “mixed.”

Well, at least so far it’s not so mixed with the geek elements of the film blogosphere because Drew McWeeney, Harry Knowles (who, yes, tends to be excitably positive), and Eric Eisenberg of CinemaBlend posted flat-out raves. This fan of Westerns, who recently read the Charles Portis novel and is looking forward to reacquainting himself with the 1969 version really soon, is excited. Only blogo-blowhard Jeffrey Welles has labeled it a “misfire” in what I’ve read so far, and I can’t help but consider the source. At least he didn’t spend the review calling Jeff Bridges fat or something. It seems like every time I read Welles, he’s criticizing someone for being overweight.

* Left over from last night. Christopher Nolan makes sense and tells us to embrace the ambiguity. Actually, the deliberate little bit of doubt at the ending was one of the few things I liked unreservedly about “Inception” which, overall, was a big, cold, glittering disappointment for me.

* Michael Douglas is apparently doing well in the health department and, from a totally selfish point of view, the best part is that it really does look like the Soderbergh Liberace movie is going forward.

* Whedonesque reveals a non-story as Entertainment Weekly manufactures a dubious scoop on the Joss Whedon-less “Buffy” movie.

* I’m sure Peter Jackson knows exactly what he’s doing, but it blows me away that a big scale fantasy epic like “The Hobbit” is going to be shot with RED Epic digital cameras. I know I have huge retro tendencies, but somehow, I’d feel better if he were using those massive old 3-strip Technicolor cameras.

Here are the 10 series from Stephen J. Cannell’s body of work that I’ll continue to enjoy ’til…well, ’til I join Stephen J. Cannell. If I’ve left out one of your favorites, be sure to cite it in the comments section.

10. Baa Baa Black Sheep (1976 – 1978): Based on the experiences of USMC flyboy Pappy Boyington and his “Black Sheep Squadron” during World War II, I couldn’t have cared less about this series when it was originally on the air, but it was required viewing for my father. Later, I realized that the man who played Pappy was the same guy who’d been kicking ass as James T. West on “The Wild Wild West” – Robert Conrad – and decided to give the show a chance. I don’t know if it was as historically accurate as it was probably supposed to be, but it proved that Conrad could even make WWII cool.

9. Baretta (1975 – 1978): Obviously, Robert Blake’s subsequent shenanigans in his personal life has tarnished his reputation as an actor, especially since there’s now an entire generation who only knows him for his work on Court TV, but in his day, Baretta was a full-fledged bad-ass…and so, for that matter, was his theme song.

8. Hardcastle and McCormick (1983 – 1986): The only thing that screams “the ’80s” more than McCormick’s car is the theme song, but Brian Keith and Daniel Hugh Kelly had good chemistry, and Keith helped set the decade’s industry standard for curmudgeonly characters.

7. Tenspeed and Brownshoe (1980): So, wait, which one’s Brownshoe again? You won’t believe how young Jeff Goldblum looks in this show, but if you’ve ever wondered where he honed the neurotic characteristics that have come to define his performances, look no further. Again, Cannell had an eye for chemistry. Who else would’ve imagined that Goldblum and Ben Vereen would work so well together?

6. Riptide (1983 – 1986): It’s the robot, right? Chicks dig the robot. Cody and Nick were cool, sure, but looking back on the show now, Tom Bray’s performance as Boz helped to define the concept of “geek chic.”

5. 21 Jump Street (1987 – 1991): A lot of people only think of “Jump Street” in terms of having been the show that really gave Johnny Depp his start, but let us not forget that, thanks to Richard Grieco, we were also blessed with the awesomeness that is “Booker.” Okay, actually, maybe we should just focus on Johnny Depp.

4. Wiseguy (1987 – 1990): The first season is nearly untouchable. Too bad we’ll probably never get the opportunity enjoy a non-bootleg version of Season 2’s “Dead Dog Records” storyline, which featured Tim Curry, Debbie Harry, and Glenn Frey. Damned music rights…

3. The Greatest American Hero (1981 – 1983): God bless William Katt, but the real heroes of this show were Robert Culp – Bill Maxwell is the FBI agent that actual FBI agents wish they could act like – and Joey Scarbury, who crooned the most insidiously catchy theme song of the decade.

2. The A-Team (1983 – 1987): Personally, I kinda liked the movie. But you can’t go wrong with the unbridled cheesy action of the original series.

1. The Rockford Files (1974 – 1980): Half-credit, of course, goes to co-creator Roy Huggins, whose success with James Garner on “Maverick” no doubt helped convince him to do the series in the first place, but there are virtually no one-man detective series on television today that don’t owe some degree of their success to the road paved by Jim Rockford. It might not be the single best show of the 1970s, but there are precious few from the decade that hold up as well.

And, of course, there’s no other way we could possibly close this piece:

If you saw “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” — and I hope you have as its one of the stronger comedies to be made over the last several years — you’ll likely have noticed the strong comic chemistry between British comedy sensation Russell Brand as three-quarters insane, recovering addict rock star Aldous Snow and Jonah Hill (“Superbad“) as a resort waiter and somewhat overly devoted fan of Snow’s. Well, you’re not the only one, and so we have the somewhat slapdash, sometimes brilliant, and ultimately winning new comedy, “Get Him to the Greek,” which once again brings us Brand as Aldous Snow, who, since the events of “Sarah Marshall” has suffered a failed marriage to rocker Jackie Q (Rose Byrne), had a seven-year old son, and removed the “recovering” from his addiction — kind of impressive since “Sarah Marshall” was only two years ago.

Nevertheless, having fallen headlong off the wagon, Snow needs help arriving on-time and semi-cognizant for an important TV appearance, a sound check, and a special comeback performance at L.A.’s Greek Theater. The task falls to ambitious young record company assistant Aaron Green (Hill, playing a different character than in “Sarah Marshall”), a huge fan of Snow’s in a sweet but rocky relationship with his improbably adorable doctor girlfriend (Elizabeth Moss of “Mad Men“). Frequently vomit-stained hijinks ensue as Green and Snow barely survive a number of unfortunate events, including a nearly apocalyptic visit to the set of “The Today Show,” one of the most truly mad Las Vegas sequences in film history, and the kind of freaky three-ways that would make most porn producers blanch. It’s all wrapped up with the sort of good-hearted traditional morality which reminds us that the producer is the Walt Disney of male-centric, R-rated comedies, Judd Apatow.

Since the film was set to premiere with a special screening and live concert at the Greek Theater a few days hence, it made sense to have a bunch of us entertainment-type writers show up for a series of roundtables with Brand and Hill, not to mention writer/director Nicholas Stoller and actress Rose Byrne, whose character has a special gift for singing the most obscene lyrics imaginable with the straightest possible face.

Nicholas Stoller

Director Nicholas Stoller was the first to drop by our table of mostly Internet types. Still in his early 30s and currently working with his “Sarah Marshall” cohort Jason Segel on the screenplay for “The Greatest Muppet Movie Ever Made,” he’s pretty much what you’d expect from a writer whose come up in the Judd Apatow school. He’s an apparently modest and low-key guy for a film director. Also, as things got going, showed off a fairly killer sense of humor.

So, one of us asked, just what was the germ of “Get Him to the Greek”?

“Russell and Jonah were a great comic team,” said Stoller. “They have great comic chemistry. [I thought] ‘That’s a movie, I don’t know what it is.’ During the shoot of ‘Sarah Marshall.’ I thought of this idea and then, writing a few drafts, realized it would be weird if Russell played a different rock star, so we made it a spin-off.”

How quickly did the wild storyline, both dramatically and geographically “all over the place,” come together? How much improvisation was involved?

“The big movements of this story really locked into place pretty quickly. I knew that I wanted to go to London, New York, Vegas and LA. I knew it needed to end with a threesome,” Stoller said to general chuckling. “There were like a few things I knew very early on — ‘I’m building towards this threesome, how do we get there? Really, every movie should end with a threesome. That’s my comedy theory — it’s in Syd Field’s Screenplay. ”

“So, you’re saying the Muppets movie is going to end that way,” suggested one of the writing weisenheimers.”

“I don’t want to ruin anything, but yeah. It’s pretty intense.”

“A bacon sandwich,” said someone else.

“Go write that down. You don’t mind if I use that” said Stoller, hungry for ideas for the world’s first pornographic puppet movie, but then he decided to get a bit less silly. “By the time we’re shooting, the movie certainly is pretty locked down. The scenes are where they are and a lot of the dialogue is where it is, but then we do a fair amount of improv. There are certain things, like the Vegas fight, which I had to choreograph a few weeks before.”

Then it was my turn to ask the question that had been burning a tiny hole in my brain. Though it wasn’t mentioned in the press materials, the premise of “Get Him to the Greek” is remarkably similar to the 1982 comedy, “My Favorite Year,” which starred Peter O’Toole as a drunken, Errol Flynn-inspired film star and Mark-Linn Baker (“Perfect Strangers”) as a young, Mel Brooks-esque gag writer and super-fan charged with getting O’Toole to a live “Your Show of Shows”-style broadcast in a reasonably sober state.

Would Stoller admit there’s a strong similarity? He would.

“I thought of the idea and pitched it and then someone said, ‘that’s a lot like ‘My Favorite Year.” And then I watched [it] and I said, ‘yeah, it is similar. It was a while ago, so it’s fine.’ There’s like three stories to tell. Shakespeare told all of them…but that’s a great movie,” Stoller said. I also pointed out for him that there were no threesomes in “My Favorite Year.”

Then a writer noted that this was Stoller’s second film as a director. Was it easier the second time around?

“In certain ways it was a lot easier because I literally didn’t know how to direct before ‘Sarah Marshall.’ After we finished and the movie had turned out well, Jason said to me, ‘the first week I was pretty nervous. Because I didn’t understand basic things like coverage,” said Stoller, getting a laugh from this film ex-film student by referring to the basic practice of ensuring a scene will cut together by obtaining enough footage during a film shoot.

“I had no business directing that movie, but in terms of the nitty gritty of literally how you make a movie, I understood that well, which is important when you make a movie. This is a lot more challenging. I call the movie ‘Running and Screaming,'” he said, referring to the fact that the movie features a lot of physical comedy and emotional hysteria, not to mention concert footage, fight scenes, and the like.

The next question was one I was going to ask, about the genuinely surprising and very funny cameo in the film by Nobel Prize-winning economist and liberal pundit Paul Krugman. Was this going to be the germ of another spin off?

“Yeah, ‘Get Him to the Economic Summit.’ I’m a huge Paul Krugman fan. I just enjoy his writing,” Stoller said. “I thought it would be funny to populate the film with celebrities, but every kind of celebrity from every walk of life. My brother [Matt Stoller, formerly of MyDD] was in the progressive blogosphere for years and now works for a congressman, so I’ve been aware of Krugman’s work forever.”

Then a question came up about one of the film’s more pleasant surprises, the strong performance of the former P. Diddy, Sean Combs, as thoroughly insane record company executive Sergio Roma, who considers himself a master of the art of the “mindfuck.”

“It’s no mystery to me why he’s a mogul having worked with him now. He came to it with ‘you guys know how to do comedy, I’ll do whatever you want.’ He was really trusting and awesome, just a great guy to work with” Stoller said.

But was he Stoller’s first thought for the role?

“I was thinking of him,” he said. “I thought he’d be really good. With someone like that, who you haven’t seen really do comedy, it was important to see him audition. He came in to audition, which was very cool and just nailed it, he was just hilarious.”

“After the audition, I had already decided that we are casting him. He literally got on his knees and said ‘I’ll do anything for this part.’ I was like, ‘I don’t know how my life has led me to the moment where Sean Combs is on his knees, begging me for something.'”

That was followed by some discussion of the various songs in the movie written by various hands, including Jason Segel. Some of the tunes, especially ‘The Clap’ and ‘Furry Walls,’ are actually quite good in an aptly silly way. Others are deliberately awful, including the hilariously condescending, career-decimating ethno-disaster, “African Child.”

“I was just trying to think of the worst song of all time. The words ‘African child’ popped into my head,” Stoller said. “These guys, Dan Bern and Mike Viola, who are singer-songwriters in their own right and wrote songs for ‘Walk Hard‘…took it and really had a field day with it and really delivered a terrible song.”

That led to a discussion of things that didn’t make it into the film, including a hilarious-sounding but sacrilegious musical moment with Rose Byrne/Jackie Q as the Virgin Mary and Russell Brand/Aldous Snow as the Baby Jesus. “They make out,” Stoller said, saying they chose not to “poke the religious beehive” with that one.

Then there was a moment left out for reasons having to do more with technical matters than taste. Lighting, and the relative size of objects was one of the many issues that flummoxed Stoller and ace Director of Photography Robert Yeoman as they attempted to put together an “anal cavity cam” suggested by Jonah Hill for the sequence in which Hill/Green is forced to rectally secure Brand/Snow’s heroin as they board an airline flight.

Then, suddenly, I had the floor. I was mightily impressed by the Las Vegas sequence, which builds to a truly impressive comic crescendo of insanity. How much, if any, improvisation went into scene? Stoller thanked me for the compliment and went into some detail.

“That was very figured out. I knew I wanted this thing to explode,” Stoller said. “The movie is structured like a bender and I wanted Vegas to be the part where it’s just not fun for the characters, and it just goes out of control. A big inspiration for that scene is the firecracker scene in ‘Boogie Nights.’ I don’t think our sequence is necessarily as tense, but just to have it building and building,” Stoller said.

“Everything that happens in the suite I graphed out with Jeff Dashnaw, whose my stunt coordinator and whose done a lot of Tarantino movies. There’s this stunt guy named Nash Edgarton, whose a friend of mine and helped kind of explain to me some of the concepts of how you do a stunt sequence,” said Stoller, explaining how carefully the scene was staged, a necessity to prevent injuries — though some dialogue and comic ideas actually were improvised or written on the spot. Stoller pointed out a moment involving Aldous Snow’s ne’er do well father and the increasingly insane Sergio Roma.

“That led to one one the best directions I’ve ever given. There’s a moment where Sean Combs takes the lava lamp to bash over Colm Meany’s head and everyone’s supposed to be so messed up. I kept telling him to do it ‘more Scooby Doo,'” said Stoller showing us a cartoonish face and posture that, yes, really looked like something from the Hanna-Barbara Saturday morning staple.

Russell Brand

If Stoller was low-key and funny, Russell Brand was the very much same person he appears to be everywhere — hilarious and considerably less low key. Already a hugely famous and controversial comic in England, known for overcoming addictions to, among other things, heroin and ludicrous amounts of sex, Brand has been able to combine sobriety with comedy and controversy quite nicely, and has recently done something almost normal by becoming engaged to singer Katy Perry.

So, how does Brand feel about doing publicity tours?

“It’s quite nice. It’s like a dinner party where I get too much attention.” Getting a big laugh so start things off, he segued into why he’s got mixed feelings about actual dinner parties. “You see, because my job is showing off, socializing I just consider to be more work. It’s just some work, ‘it’s that thing where I have to talk, isn’t it?…You can listen as well, I like that.”

Someone asked him about preparing for shows like Jay Leno. The producers, of course, expect a certain amount of planning to make sure there’s “content” but Brand looks at the process differently. “Me, I get very adrenalized and scared before a performance and I think that energy, that ‘fight or flight’ energy, is translated into neurological activity that I can then translate into anecdotes.”

Was he concerned that playing a very off-the-wagon addict might trigger something negative?

“No, I didn’t think I would relapse,” Brand said. “Its interesting, actually, because the props person who gave me pretend cocaine to take in one scene, which I don’t think was in the movie, was himself 21 years clean. I asked him ‘what is this?, ‘and he goes ‘it’s organic matter.’ That’s the sort of thing you would read on a Nestle label. ‘What is this ‘organic matter’?’ ‘Oh, nothing, we just killed some kids.’ ‘What?!'”

Brand continued on a more serious note, getting progressively more intense. “I am in a daily program of recovery and everything, so, one day at a time, I’m alright,” Brand said. “Its more the emotional stuff, when you get all angry or shout at people. Your body don’t know that you are not serious. Apparently you can tell your brain any old information and it will just respond to it. That’s that power of positive thinking which some people say is just mumbo jumbo, and perhaps they are correct, but apparently if you fill your head with positiva, it will all be alright.”

Brand went on to discuss how being so open about his many issues has been a bit of godsend, making him more or less scandal proof in terms of his personal life. “It transposes those things from being stuff that makes you sad to stuff that makes you laugh. There are some stories I tell on stage, and they’re funny, but, in the words of Morrissey, ‘I can smile about it now, but at the time it was terrible.'”

Next came a question about deleted scenes. Was there anything that he missed being in the finished cut of “Greek,” particularly that one sacrilegious bit?

“Ah, yes. ‘I am Jesus. Welcome to the Church of Me,” Brand started, getting a big laugh, but then he actually made a bit of sense about the filmmaking process. “When I was younger, if I had to make something of myself to send to TV stations, I would always make them too long. Because I was vain. I would think all of it’s brilliant. But now I think it’s good to be succinct.”

“Because I’m actually genuinely pleased with the film, I think they have done a good job. I would have done it really different and made me much more funny. They made me dead sad in loads of it, but they seem to know what they are doing better than I do, I hope. We will see if the film is a hit. Otherwise, I am going back and edit it and doing the Russell Brand version which is different shots of me just looking out of windows.”

Then someone asked a question about the fact that working in a collaborative medium like film gives him less control than as a stand-up.

“As you say, as a stand-up comedian you have this sort of absolute authority and once you are up on a stage you can just go nuts and I have done so lots of times. Sometimes you can get in trouble. When I was a drug addict, I got really badly beaten up on several occasions cause I would just think, ‘I could say this now. It’s what I believe.’ And sometimes I know I was right about what I saying. I was definitely, definitely right about the nature of consciousness and the nature of culpability. I was saying that we are socially culpable for each other and you can’t demonize certain individuals — even the most extreme criminals — we have to take social responsibility. People don’t want them kind of ideas in a comedy club. They just beat you up.”

“I was saying that we have to take responsibility for the notion of pedophilia, but I was unable to articulate it in the way that people thought was acceptable, and their response was much more to do this to my leg,” the comedian said, rolling up a pants leg and showing us an impressive scar.

“I got really badly beaten up and thrown through a door. Luckily, I was on quite a lot of heroin that day, it didn’t hurt. What was interesting was the blood which goes to the beat of your heart, pulsing literally. Then I went to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh is a good place to get heroin. I got to these kids and asked them to get me some heroin. I give them 40 quid up front…never pay upfront. Probably anywhere. There are very few places where you can make advance heroin payments.”

Yes, Brand is that kind of interview. Even knowing that, I was impressed by the response when I asked about an incident I had read about involving him and British comic and talk show host Jonathan Ross making a prank phone call to a cast member of a classic television show. It seemed to me that it would not be as big of a deal if it happened here in the States.

Brand had some thoughts on the matter. “This is a difficult question for me to answer…no, it’s not difficult, it’s just complicated. Here it is. That prank phone call, it was not the nature of the phone call itself; it was the nature of the sociological structure of the country where I am from. We have a thing called the BBC. The BBC is publicly funded. The privately owned media want to destroy the BBC because it is brilliant.”

“They don’t like me or Jonathan Ross at The Daily Mail, a powerful [Rupert Murdoch-owned] newspaper in the United Kingdom. They don’t like us because we are both from working class backgrounds. [Ross is actually the son of a well-known actress and television host.] I am a former drug addict and instead of dying I’ve gone on and fucked everyone and made loads of money. It’s confusing for their message. Plus I am innately anti-establishment in my behavior and stunts, so they want to destroy me.”

“The thing that was wrong that we did is we left a rude message on an elderly man’s [comic actor Andrew Sachs] phone, but in my head he was still the character he played in the sitcom 30 years ago. I didn’t think of the reality. He played the character of Manuel in the program called ‘Fawlty Towers’ which I loved.”

“I just saw this man in a white waiter’s jacket holding this silver thing. That’s who I thought I was leaving an answering message for. I had sex with this dance troop, and one of that dance troop was the granddaughter of this man. I was explaining that on the radio, actually in quite a funny way. We phoned up and ended leaving this message. It was very silly and juvenile but actually funny. So the newspapers, as you know as journalists, are dying, people don’t read newspapers anymore. People get news from other sources, so newspapers need to campaign,” Russell said.

“It was a perfect storm. The Daily Mail don’t like Ross earning so much money and me, they don’t like what I represent. They don’t like that he’s an old style comedian attacked by sort of younger folk. It became this big conglomerate of lunacy. To be honest, I found it amazing. It was like a sociological experiment. I like it. If the news begins ‘the main news: comedian Russell Brand…’ I think, ‘good, yeah, that is the main news. It’s about time.’ I’m narcissistic. I’m working on it. I recognize that the self is a kind of construct and it’s going to dissipate into nothing, isn’t it? If you take it too seriously, you’re fucked.”

But wasn’t he just really succeeding in what he had set out to do?

“I think a bit I am. As I remember, I used to be a penniless junkie. Now I am not. Something is going right. I’m happy with it.”

Things finally moved along to the more quotidian matter of his next big projects, which includes writing a book. (Which he considers boring, hard work.) The upcoming CGI animated super-villain comedy, “Despicable Me,” “I Hop,” (starring Brand as the Easter Bunny), and even Julie Taymor’s already shot, transgendered version of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” with Helen Mirren. He’s also starring in an upcoming remake of the 1981 comedy, “Arthur,” which starred Dudley Moore as a sweet-natured multimillionaire drunk falling for a waitress played by Liza Minnelli. Brand will be costarring with, again, none other than Helen Mirren, who will be doing a variation on the tart-tongued Butler played to stentorian perfection in the original by John Gielgud.

With all that going on, is he interested in branching out dramatically?

“I do not yet because, to be honest with you, the best comics actors ever — Charlie Chaplin, Woody Allen, Steve Martin, Richard Pryor, Jim Carrey, Robin Williams — the biggest proper movie stars, it’s not like they go, ‘and this week he’s a French hunchback.’ You want him to be doing stuff where you recognize him — at first, anyway. This is my first significant part in a movie, first lead role, so let’s see if this works and then ‘Arthur.’ I think I’ll stay within that palette. I can act, you know. I went to drama school and I can pretend to have a different voice, a different height, a different head — all these things are possible, they’re not hard. It’s just this is the best thing to do at the moment.”

Rose Byrne

Australian-born Rose Byrne is best known for her role on FX’s “Damages,” which pairs the attractive, round-faced actress with  Glenn Close, as well as films like “28 Weeks Later” and “Troy.” A solid talent, she is more than able to keep up with Brand on screen. In person, however, she was all too aware of the impossibility of following Brand. We can’t all be half-crazed forces of nature. Some of us are simply hard-working and talented professionals like Byrne. And you need people like that to keep a project like “Get Him to the Greek” from going completely bonkers.

So, just how did she keep her portrayal of the Courtney Love/Grace Slick/Madonna-like Jackie Q from getting too cartoony?

“That’s kind of where Nick would come in. Nick definitely set the tone. I agree, it’s easy to just turn it into an SNL skit or something like that, and that’s definitely where [producer] Rodney Rothman, Nick and Judd [Apatow] too [helped]. That very fine line of making it just the right tone,” Byrne said.

How did a traditional actress like her adjust to the amount of improvisation involved in many of her scenes, most of them on the phone, with Brand?

“I’ve done my share of acting classes in school and so on and so forth. It’s fun. It’s different. And Russell’s intimidating in his improv. You just met him, he’s amazing. He’s so erudite and bright and quick. And the thing with Jackie is that she has the upper-hand in the relationship, so I just always had to make sure that I was winning the argument or whatever it was.”

And what about Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, who turns up in the film as Jackie’s new boyfriend, Lars Ulrich?

“He’s such a good guy. Such a good sport. He’s not an actor, clearly, and immediately Russell starts making fun of him.’ Are you a hobby from ‘The Hobbit’? He really rolled with the punches.”

Byrne also had some insights, between praising director Stoller and co-star Brand, into how working on a Judd Apatow film is different from working on others. “It’s very collaborative, the way Judd Apatow works. Once you get cast then its, ‘Let’s create the character together. ‘What do you want to do?’ and ‘Who is she?’ Sort of like a think tank. Films aren’t always like that, really ever.”

She also discussed the fact that “Get Him to the Greek” is most definitely her professional singing debut. Apparently she was never asked if she could actually sing and, at a certain point, she requested singing lessons. She found singing hard but fun, and a special challenge was getting through the lyrics of songs like “Super Tight,” “Ring Around My Rosey,” and “Pound Me in the Buttocks” without laughing. “Ride me, inside me, it’s super tight” she sang earnestly for us, nicely in tune and describing her singing teacher saying “‘Come on Rose, come on, sell it to me!'”

Did she ever feel a bit uncomfortable with this kind of insanity?

“Jackie’s like 150 percent or nothing. If you’re doing a character like this, if you see even a glimmer of hesitation, it’s not gonna work. She’s the female version of Aldous Snow, is really what Jackie Q is, I think,” Byrne said. “Judd’s films often get criticized because the females aren’t as stand-up as the men. I think Jackie defies all of that. She’s just as ballsy as the guys and just as feisty and narcissistic and just as kind of foul-mouthed and all that stuff. It’ll be interesting to see how she’s received.”

Jonah Hill

A young comic actor and writer whose career is ready to take a new turn this summer with the appearance of “Greek” and a buzz-heavy title role in the upcoming comedy from indie favorites, the Duplass Brothers, “Cyrus.” The movie features Hill as the overly-dependent adult son none too pleased about the burgeoning relationship between his mother (Marisa Tomei) and her new boyfriend (John C. Reilly). The film has already caused a mini-stir with a humorously blunt t-shirt. It was also discussed, prior to having a title, right here on PH during my interview with the movie’s co-director, Mark Duplass.

An unashamed nerd, through and through, the “Superbad” star actually recognized one of the other bloggers at the table, CHUD‘s Devin Faraci, for his appearance in Jamie Kennedy’s docu-comedy “Heckler.” Hill immediately declared sitting down with us, in all seriousness, the highlight of his day and focused his attention for most of the rest of his visit on the end of the table where Faraci was. If there was a way to politely get his attention on the other side of the table, I wasn’t able to figure it out. Still, assuming you can get Hill’s attention, he’s definitely got something to say.

So, how did he approach the role of being a “babysitter to a mad man?” How did he wrap his head around that?

“I don’t know. I watched ‘My Favorite Year’ a lot,” Hill said, generating a knowing nod from me that no one saw. “I watched ‘Midnight Run’ a lot and ‘Almost Famous‘ and those were the three movies I would watch a lot to prepare.”

“A big correlation to me was I thought about what if I were 18 and with one of my heroes. I would often replace Aldous Snow in my head with Bill Murray or Martin Scorsese or someone like that and imagined what it would be like as a young guy, and being able to ask them any question you wanted or just to be in awe of them,” Hill said.

The movie is kind of the ultimate fantasy in that way. Who hasn’t fantasized about going on the road for 72 hours with your favorite rock star?”

That led to the natural question about who Hill’s favorite rock musicians are and the answer was Neil Young and, perhaps, Jay-Z. Hill likes to keep things diverse. Somehow, famed art music composer Philip Glass got a mention as well.

How does Hill feeling about being on the promotional treadmill?

“Honestly, it’s been great,” he said. “‘Cyrus’ and ‘Get Him to the Greek,’ between those two films I literally cannot be more proud of them. It’s such a delight and blessing when a movie actually turns out good. I’m sure I’ll be sitting in front of you guys one day with just a shitty, shitty movie and have to smile through a bunch of lies,” said Hill, getting a big laugh with some movie business honesty.

“It’s a joy to be able to go out and talk about them because you’re saying, ‘Hey, I worked hard on this and it actually turned out good.’ I’m super lucky to have this job, I tell you guys every time. I’m super appreciative of that. It’s fun. It’s a good group of people. It’s been tiring but it’s been super enjoyable.”

The next question came around to the topic of typecasting. Will “Cyrus” and “Greek,” which will be coming out a couple of weeks apart, free him from from forever being the “foul-mouthed, wacky slacker kid”?

“I’ve only starred in one other movie, that was ‘Superbad.’ I’m a foulmouthed, loudmouthed, obnoxious, horny teenager in that movie, which is completely appropriate for that movie. And I think the misconception is, because that’s the only movie I’ve stared in, that’s what I’m like as a human being. Probably fortunately, that’s not the case. Since then, I’ve done a lot of cameos and side characters. I’ve probably been written off as one type of thing,” Hill said.

“I understand that completely. It totally makes sense and I’d probably do the same thing. But the truth is, judge me on this year, and judge me on next year, because between ‘Cyrus’ and this movie, I think both characters are completely unrecognizable from my character in ‘Superbad’ or ‘Knocked Up,” said Hill.

“I chose not to out of respect and appreciation for my career, which I value. And, next year, the same thing doing ‘Moneyball,’ which is a straight-up drama with Brad Pitt and myself and Philip Seymour Hoffman. And then, ‘The Sitter,’ with David Gordon Green which is like an R-rated, fucked up, ‘Adventures in Babysitting’ type movie…all four characters will be unrecognizable from each other and I’m really prideful of that. I hope that didn’t sound dickish,” he said. “I’m super excited to take people’s expectations and change them.”

The next question expanded on the topic of turning down roles in movies which are, shall we say, of low quality — with Hill merrily suggesting such titles as “Boner Party 5” and “Titty School 6,” while more soberly assessing the reality that his career as a star “could be over tomorrow.”

“I looked at all the careers of the people I loved and respected. I looked at them and they didn’t do a good movie and immediately do a shitty movie. I don’t need to be super rich or super famous. That’s not why I did this. I would have probably gone into finance out of college if that’s what I wanted to do. I really care about this stuff. I’m lucky enough to not have to take any movie just to pay the rent, so there’s no need to be greedy, just do something if it’s going to be good, and I really put a lot of meticulous thought into these decisions.”

Hill went on to explain the fact that he’s also co-writing screenplays gives more options to exercise his workaholic tendencies and work on his career without being forced to act in whichever movie he’s currently being offered. That naturally led to some of his upcoming projects as a co-writer, including the comedy “The Adventurer’s Handbook,” currently set to costar Hill, Jason Segel, and Wes Anderson regular Jason Schwartzman, as well as a film version of “21 Jump Street,” the teen-friendly 80s cop show about young police officers infiltrating high schools to fight crime, which ran from 1987 to 1991 and launched the career of Johnny Depp and, to a vastly lesser extent, Peter DeLuise and Richard Greico.

Though it’s a project that has, not surprisingly, elicited some knee-jerk web criticism, Hill is high on the project and thinks he may have found his directorial collaborators. “Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who directed ‘Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs‘ had an amazing take on the movie,” Hill said, as someone mentioned that preliminary research for the film has been going on at high school proms, which is interesting.

“The best thing that movie has going for it is that people’s expectations for it are so low that our movie’s already so much better than what shit-talkers on the Internet think it is,” Hill said. “That’s the best thing you can have. People think your movie sucks and then it turns out being pretty awesome,” which Hill admitted had been his reaction to Lord and Miller’s “Cloudy” before he actually saw it and loved it.

While Hill didn’t want to say too much about the movie or the character he might be playing, he did want to give us a glimpse into the overall approach. “We want to make a really funny, grounded high school movie with action set pieces in it. To me, that’s really cool. When they asked me to remake it, I initially went, ‘Fuck that. I’m not doing that. It’s stupid.’ Then I thought about it. I watched the show again and revisited it,” he said. “To me, there’s a real ‘Back to the Future’ element in that you get to go back and relive a very important time period in your life, and that’s what I found fascinating. And then, the big idea that I had, which [screenwriter] Mike Bacall and I cracked, which was — so, these guys are cops in their mid-20s, and they’ve gained all of this confidence since high school. Then, they go back to high school and they immediately revert back to insecure high school students again.”

“It’s not a spoof of the show, it’s honestly not. It’s not a spoof of the 80s,” but he allowed that he might have a different attitude if he wasn’t privy to what he was planning. “If I didn’t now about it, I would talk shit about it, like people on the Internet do. In my opinion, that’s the best thing we have going for us.”

* Via Roger Ebert’s tweet, we have the news on the Critic’s Choice awards, which are voted on by broadcast and some internet critics. “The Hurt Locker” won best picture, and best director for Kathryn Bigelow. “Inglourious Basterds” also had an extremely good night, as did Jeff Bridges. There was a tie for best actress between Sandra Bullock and Meryl Streep. Good ol’ Nathaniel R. liveblogged the proceedings.

And, if I was a betting man (and I sorta kinda am), I’d be tempted to head up to Vegas and bet the farm on basterd Christoph Waltz and Mo’Nique of “Precious” for the supporting role categories at the Oscars.

UPDATE: I failed to note  earlier that “Avatar” managed a near clean-sweep of the more production/technical oriented awards, though the Best Make-Up award went to “District 9.”

* In light of what’s been going in Haiti, I’ve been feeling a bit guilty on not mentioning it and focusing on what is, after all, a business that is all about diversion and distraction. So, I’m glad to be able to make tonight’s longest item a mention of the massive fundraising telethon George Clooney is organizing and cohosting, along with Wyclef Jean and Anderson Cooper, on January 22nd. Nikki Finke is also reporting that Not On Our Watch, an “international advocacy and grantmaking organization” founded by Clooney and friends Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Brad Pitt, and others has donated $1 million to emergency medical care. The super-cool Anne Thompson has some more details and links to places where you can give, and also has some additional news on good works done by show biz folks.

It’s also nice to report that the interwebs have been doing a fabulous job of fundraising but, of course, this is a really massive disaster and more will be needed for a nation that has already been long on the ropes. On the political net, DailyKos diarists are posting new rundowns of places to help each day. The Huffington Post and Rachel Maddow‘s sites have an excellent rundown of organizations that need your help. If those links are a bit too latte-sipping Blue State for your tastes, conservative blogger the Anchoress has also posted a list of many of the same organizations. I’d also like to put in a plug for the excellent Oxfam America which is already on the the ground in Haiti and has been especially active in terms of providing water and sanitation, which is going to be absolutely vital. Please click on any of these links and, especially if you can afford to an haven’t already given something, do what you can.

* The bidding, or whatever it is, on MGM is underway.

* I should probably have mentioned yesterday how Nikkie Finke’s “Toldja!” yesterday was that Disney has a new production chief with a quite interesting creative background that includes the upcoming “Tron: Legacy” and Project Greenlight. Following up on yesterday’s news, Finke points out an apparent irony.

* The extremely smart Jonah Hill to turn producer for…”21 Jump Street” with the directors of “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs“? Sure, why not?

There was a time in this world when young people were frequently slightly ashamed of being bigger than average fans of horror, science fiction, fantasy, and especially comic books. I, personally, wasn’t embarrassed …and I paid a price. Those days may be over. In any case, the capacity crowd that showed up for Spike TV’s Scream awards, largely in costume and largely dramatically over- or under-dressed for a nighttime outdoor show after a very warm day, seemed more like club kids and less like the kind of uber geeks who become entertainment bloggers and film critics and stuff like that.

The Scream Awards are, in their fun/silly way, a big deal. Big enough to attract a good number of stars and even a few superstars like Tobey Maguire, Jessica Alba, Morgan Freeman, Harrison Ford, Johnny Depp and his living legend “Pirates of the Caribbean” muse, Rolling Stone Keith Richard.

I, however, am not such a big deal and was reminded of that fact when, prior to the show I found myself with the less fashionable members of the not-quite paparazzi on the “red carpet” (actually a checkered walkway) with my little digital camera and even smaller digital recorder device, wondering whether I’d really get a chance to ask a question of one of the super-famed folks, knowing that the only question I could think of at the time would be something in the nature of “What’s it like be the most notorious rock and roll star in the world, having your blood changed, and snorting your late father’s ashes?” That probably would have been inappropriate, especially if I asked it of Jessica Alba.

What actually seems to happen at events like this is that, if you’re a small-timer especially, most of the big stars either go through another entrance or walk right by you at warp speed. Meanwhile, folks who are a bit more anxious to meet the press find their way to you with the help of PR types. As an example, for about half a second, I was almost able to talk with actor Karl Urban, who did such a great job homaging DeForest Kelly while putting his own hilarious stamp on “Bones” McCoy in “Star Trek.” However, within a nanosecond he remembered he was in a big hurry and politely scurried off.

After a few odd reality show people I didn’t recognize, and the pretty young actress who assays the part of “Female Addict” in “Saw VI,” our first actual notable was statuesque model turned actress Tricia Helfer. Helfer is, make no mistake, a true superstar to TV sci-fi fans and is best known as Number Six, aka “the hot blonde cylon” on “Battlestar Galactica.” The actress appeared with her significant other, the owner of a British accent and a Giaus Baltar-style beard, but I’m sure that’s a total coincidence. I had a not terribly consequential discussion with her — lost because I apparently forgot to press the “on” button on my digital recorder. One would expect no less an effect from Number Six. UPDATE: Yeesh! As pointed out by my PH compatriot John Paulsen, the actress was actually Kate Vernon, who played the lady-MacBeth-like Ellen Tigh. It is true, all statueseque blonde women in shiny dresses look alike to me! My apologies to all concerned or unconcerned.

The lovely Ms. Helfer Vernon was followed by the somewhat less lovely David Paymer. A first-rate character actor who is also directing television these days, Paymer is still best known for his roles in “City Slickers” and his very justly Oscar nominated turn opposite Billy Crystal in “Mr. Saturday Night.” He responded to my brilliant question, about whether he’s gotten any negative feedback from bankers for his memorably oily portrayal in Sam Raimi’s “Drag Me to Hell,” with all the seriousness it deserved.

“No one’s complained but they should realize that if they evict poor people from their homes then they’re gonna get dragged to hell!” he said with a grin that would make Paymer a great old-school TV horror movie host, if they still had those.

Paymer was followed by another terrific supporting player from Raimi’s cult not-yet-hit, Dileep Rao. Rao was not only previously interviewed by PH Editor Will Harris, but when I mentioned it, he proudly described Harris as “a bud of mine — I knew him back in the day.” (Harris and Rao bonded primarily online as fans of the Trashcan Sinatras, a Scottish pop band.)

The sad truth was that, after sincerely complimenting him on his on-the-money turn in the film, I had nothing interesting to ask the actor. So, I resorted to the the eternal fall back: “What are you doing next?” His answer was a new production he’s very excited but was allowed to say absolutely nothing about. That led to a discussion of another little upcoming movie he will be in, James Cameron‘s much ballyhooed, yet also still mostly top-secret 3-D sfx/CGI extravaganza, “Avatar.” Naturally, there’s not much he can say about that.  “I think they do that so the story stays intact.” Hard to disagree, but a bit limiting.

Another reporter asked him if anything spooky happened on the set of “Drag Me,” and Rao gamely came up with an anecdote about an ill-tempered goat, which doesn’t quite add up to a supernatural occurrence, but that’s probably because supernatural occurrences are, you know, fictional. Anyhow, it was time for Mr. Rao to get going. Fortunately, the interview with Will has plenty of good stuff. If only I’d remembered he was a “Jeopardy” winner I could have at least asked him what question finally sent him off the show. Nice guy, though.

Soon, we watched Quentin Tarantino and Keith Richard stroll by us at warp speed and it was time to retire to my blogger’s station where I got to watch the show…on a big screen TV in a tent a few hundred feet away from the actual festivities. Oh, the glamorous life of the entertainment press.

****

Now, the consensus on the Scream awards is that it’s a loose, fun evening. And that’s largely true if you ignore some pretty strange or artistically indefensible award choices by the fans. (A terrific cover of Bob Dylan‘s masterpiece, “Desolation Row,” by My Chemical Romance from “Watchmen” defeated by some Linkin Park ditty from the second “Transformers” movie? Ouch. ) Another interesting quirk of the evening that was a small problem for me, but most fans will doubtless dig, is that Spike TV’s standards and practices folks seemingly have no issue at all with gore. It wasn’t only during the “Best Mutiliation” award that this gore-phobe had to turn away from the television set.

The first award of the night was typically offbeat in that it went to a movie that isn’t even finished yet. The “most anticipated fantasy film” award went to Tim Burton‘s upcoming version of “Alice in Wonderland.” That proved to be a pretty good excuse to make that film’s Mad Hatter, Johnny Depp, appear on stage for the first of two times that evening.

And that led to one of the better quips in the evening when the next presenter turned out to be comic actor Justin “I’m a Mac” Long, representing his straight-man gig in “Drag Me to Hell.” Long confessed his feelings of inadequacy in comparison to Depp. “I feel like Richard Greico,” he said, risking a “21 Jump Street” gag. Moving to the award for “Best Science Fiction Actress” Long admitted that his “first boner” could either be attributed to Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia or “the triple-boobed Martian in ‘Total Recall.'” The award itself seemed to have been based more on pulchritude than on acting skill as it went to…wait for it…Megan Fox for that notorious piece of Oscar-bait, “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.”

The actress who, as described by yours truly, got into some hot water a while back for comparing thud-and-blunder specialist director Michael Bay to Hitler (Holy Godwin’s Law, Batman!) tried hard to sound a sincere note and she certainly gave her attempt a unique ring. I’ll resist my tendency to mock and simply present the moment as is.

An entertaining combination of unintentional and intentional amusement occurred a bit later when 6’4″ Alexander Skarsgard of “True Blood” accepted his “Best Villain” award at a mike that had apparently been set up for the much shorter Kate Bosworth. Gamely leaning down, Skarsgard said that he was proud to be named the “most evil man in Hollywood” and dedicated his award to his fifth grade wood shop teacher in Sweden. “He was a very evil man and he inspires me.”

Eventually, there was the first award that went to something I’d both seen and respected. “Watchmen” — a flawed but accomplished film — won for “Best Comic Book Movie.” (If Frank Miller’s soulless travesty of “The Spirit” which, unbelievably enough, was also nominated, had won I believe the very earth would have opened up and swallowed us whole.) Accepting the award was the film’s perfectly scary Rorschach, Jackie Earle Haley, who responded with appropriate enthusiasm. “This rocks out loud!” He then wondered what director Zack Snyder would say if here there: “This is awesome!” That actually does sound like Snyder.

Then, for me, a highlight — a new trailer for Martin Scorsese‘s upcoming version of Dennis Lehane’s “Shutter Island” with Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo. It looks like Paramount is going for the full horror treatment in marketing the film, with this trailer at least. It’ll be interesting to see just how scary, or not, the new film is. One thing I’d bet on, however, about the movie: If Marty wants us to be scared, we’ll be scared.

Then, Johnny Depp comes back and I start to get annoyed. Not by Depp, but by the youngish guy next to me whose tweeting obsessively while having an argument with either his girlfriend, sister, or coworker, I couldn’t quite tell. (Let’s hope she isn’t all three.) Was he even watching? And, two rows back I’m being treated to a live commentary one older guy’s inside-dope on what’s going on behind the scenes that makes absolutely no sense. Fortunately, for you, however, the Spike TV people did provide a short video clip of the evening’s most historic moment.

Nice to see Keith looking about as hale and healthy as you can expect the guy to be, and in fine verbal form as well. His quotable line for the evening referred to a 1989 lifetime achievement award. “I liked the ‘living legend,’ that was all right, but immortal is even better.”

The next presenter was Jennifer Carpenter who was announced as the winner for “Best Supporting Actress” for her work as the title’s character’s endearingly emotional, foul-mouthed younger sister and homicide detective coworker on “Dexter.” I’m a fan of the show and I was happy to see her get the award. Like the rest of the show’s supporting cast other than Julie Benz, she’s taken some hits for her acting, especially as compared to the virtuosic efforts of star and her now real-life husband, Michael C. Hall. Her work on the show has always been solid in my opinion and she’s made what could have been a grating character into a sympathetic and integral part of the show.

Delivering some rather dumb lines that had been written for her with aplomb, it fell to Carpenter to present the award for “Best Horror Movie” which turned out to be “Drag Me to Hell.” Apart from lead Alison Lohman, who was not there, the entire main cast appeared on stage alongside cowriter/director Sam Raimi. After Raimi thanked the cast and his wife, the actors had their turn. Lorna Raver, who really did deserve an award of some sort for her role as the exceedingly unpleasant Mrs. Ganush, was very much in the spirit of the evening, despite looking shockingly normal, returning her director’s compliments and proclaiming “Raimi rocks!”

Next, it was the cast of “The Big Bang Theory” presenting a special farewell award to the multiply awarded “Battlestar Galactica.” Writer/producer David Eick made a comment about how a few years ago, the mere mention of BSG would elicit laughs (for good reason, I’d add) and thanked the fans for transforming that perception. Actress Grace Park made a gag about members of the audience getting “Oprah” style gifts of memorabilia.

The show’s Admiral Adama, Edward James Olmos, was in his usual philosophical frame of mind and still enjoying his role as a leader of sorts while recalling a past example of first rate science fiction in which he appeared. “‘Blade Runner’ got accepted more on its 30th birthday than it did when it was born,” Olmos said. “Battlestar Galactica” will do the same. We love you fans more than you love it. So say we all! So say we all!” The crowd seemed to like that.

Steven Moyer of “True Blood,” accepting the “Best Horror Actor” award from Liv Tyler was more in vein of a stiff upper lip. He acknowledged his real-life British accent as part of a growing number of English actors playing Americans on U.S. television. “If you think this is some sort of vampiric affectation, I’m channeling Hugh Laurie.”

Then came the most important award of the evening for the cinephile and movie geek set. Quentin Tarantino, dressed like a character from the proposed “Kill Bill” sequel in a polka dotted suit suit with perhaps one button too many fashionably undone (have we learned no fashion lessons from the seventies?) came on like a horror evangelist, hurling praise at the recipient of the “Scream Mastermind Award,” the man who basically invented the flesh-eating zombie in the original 1968 “Night of the Living Dead, 1978’s “Dawn of the Dead” and so on, George A. Romero. Though I quite literally have to get myself drunk to see his best known movies, that’s at least partially testimony to the Pittsburgh-based film-maker’s absolute command of his craft, and it was easily the most deserved award of the evening. Romero was characteristically good-natured and relatively low key, recalling his first job on that early horror classic, “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.” He also worked in a plug for the newly renamed next installment in his career-spanning zombie epic, “Survival of the Dead.”

After Anna Paquin accepted her “Best Horror Actress” award for “True Blood,” Harrison Ford presented the best director award to J.J. Abrams for “Star Trek,” who thanked Leonard Nimoy “for spreading the magic and Gene Roddenbery for doing all the hard work.” The audience was then told to “set your phasers on stud” for the appearance of Trek co-stars John Cho and Karl Urban, who presented a deleted scene from the film involving bad-guy Eric Bana and some violent action.

The next big award was for “Best TV Show” and, not surprising given the vampiric/romantic trend of the night, that award went to “True Blood.” Creator Alan Ball followed the trend of night by complimenting the audience for being “crazy!” and happily proclaimed Scream the “most fucked up award show I’ve ever been to in my life, and therefore the best.”

The pro-vampire-love-story trend also continued with Elijah Wood presenting the “Best Fantasy Film” award to, no surprise, “Twilight,” which won in a number of categories. Wolf-boy hunk Tyler Lautner accepted the award for the movie, quickly followed by the now justly derided clip from the upcoming sequel.

Actress Rhona Mitra then presented the “Break Out” film award to “Zombieland.” Accepting the award, a surprisingly wholesome looking Woody Harrelson appeared, looking like a balding version of Woody Boyd, the “Cheers” bartender. His speech, on the other hand, went in a more traditional Harrelson direction. “A little confession, I hate scary movies because they scare me, honestly. They the shit out of me. I couldn’t watch TV after ‘Poltergeist.’ I gave up surfing after ‘Jaws.’ I can’t go near a kitchen ever since ‘Julie and Julia.’ You know, nightmares.”

That was followed by the appearance of  real-life science fiction fan Morgan Freeman, along with some spiffy camera work, who presented the award for “the Ultimate Scream” to J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek.” In a fit of absolute brilliance by the Spike TV folks it was accepted by…well, I could tell you, or I could show you.

Really, this clip doesn’t begin to do justice to the brilliance of having the infamously non-featured Trekker William Shatner appear. Say would you will about the original James Tiberius Kirk, the man knows how to suck up attention. Sheer brilliance.

Still, the Scream organizers cleverly avoided too much of an anticlimax with the next and final presentation. The Comicon Icon Award was presented by an extra-personable Tobey Maguire at his most Peter Parkerish, to the most famed creator in comic book history, Stan Lee. Accepting the award, Lee was his usual theatrical and avuncular self. He was also clearly a bit overwhelmed, but not with gratitude and humility. He was brought on to the stage by a “Spiderman” themed device that USA Today called “a flying sled,” but which reminded me of a theatrical “god in the machine” kind of devices. Anyhow, poor Stan the Man thought the machine wasn’t entirely stable and was apparently scared witless. Nevertheless, he dealt with it in typical good humor, praised Sam Raimi and Maguire, and closed with a hearty “Excelsior!”

The clip I’m going to close with leaves out the best part of the moment, but it will give you a general sense of the evening’s somewhat calculated zaniness. Whatever else is true of “Scream,” it’s not stodgy.

For more on the Scream Awards including, as of this writing, a complete list of nominees but not the winners, check out Spike TV’s site here.