* It’s not really even movie news in the usual sense, but Kevin Smith has been making big Internet news by making a big Internet stink about being ejected from a Southwest Airlines flight for being “too wide for the sky.” The latest: He might go on Larry King or “The Daily Show” to prove his point. Of course, this is movie news if it helps out the grosses for this upcoming buddy police comedy, “Cop Out.”

* This is really interesting and weird. All weekend, we’ve been hearing that Martin Scorsese has announced that he and old friend Robert De Niro would be revisiting the world of the mob in an upcoming film. Secondarily, there are numerous stories — actually not much more than written down rumors that he, together with cinema bad boy Lars von Trier, would be doing a series of remakes of some sort of his classic early collaboration with De Niro, “Taxi Driver,” possibly with the participation of the actor.

If anyone out there has seen “The Five Obstructions” they’ll have some clue what is supposed to be going on here. It’s a highly entertaining documentary in which the director challenged his filmmaking mentor, Jørgen Leth, to remake an experimental short film of his that von Trier admired five times, each time with some creative limitation thrown in the way. The idea being that creative obstacles can sometimes lead to more interesting work.

Of course, Scorsese and De Niro aren’t going to make five full-length “Taxi Driver” remakes based on the Danish director’s whims, but if there’s anything to this, it’s certainly something I’d pay to see. Peter Hall at Cinematical has the most concise version of this confusing story or non-story that I’ve seen, and likes the idea as much as I do.

* And that’s not all on the Scorsese speculation front. The Playlist passes on word from the paywall encrusted Variety that he may be contemplating making his next film, a movie about movies called “The Invention of Hugo Cabret,” in 3-D. It was good enough for Alfred Hitchcock in “Dial M for Murder,” so I wouldn’t be surprised and, for this particular project, it might make sense.

* Can you imagine the Oscars — or any award show — without innumerable thank yous? I can’t. Still if what Peter Sciretta at /Film reports turns out to be for real, it would prevent any more unpleasantness like this.

* Another Oscar institution really does seem to be on its way out: Barbara Walters’ post show interviews.

* Patrick Goldstein quizzes Quentin Tarantino on influences, why he likes them and why he doesn’t like them being used against him.

* The estimates for the entire three-day weekend are out. No huge surprises based on what I wrote yesterday.

Still, you’d think that we could’ve managed to wait at least a question or two without asking if we’d be seeing any of her colleagues from her day job on this new gig.

Behar took the question in stride, replying, “I’m sure we’ll have them on as guests here and there. They have great stories, great opinions. I love having my arguments with Elisabeth Hasselbeck. We might be able to even do it over there for a segment or so. And Whoopi, we know, has tremendous opinions about everything, and a philosophical way of looking at life that’s kind of unique. And, of course, Barbara is a living legend…as she likes to remind us. Well, we remind her, actually. And Sherri Shepherd is coming along and doing great over there. So all of them, I think, would be great.”

I couldn’t help but notice, unfortunately, that there’s the same kind of uncertainty around what we can expect from this show as there was around Star Jones’ ill-fated Court TV series. When Behar was asked about the format, she spoke almost exclusively in generalities.

“Well, I think it’s a show that will have interesting people on,” she said. “We’d like to do a little bit of alternative kind of bookings. We’ll have probably panels, you know, all different kinds. We’ll have maybe some bits. We’re sort of in the process of formatting it right now, so I can’t be more specific. We’re thinking, for instance, instead of interviewing Bernie Madoff, let’s have his secretary on. Something like that. Think of the news story of the day and we’ll think of maybe somebody who is a little bit on the outside of the main story to give some kind of a different point of view on the story that you don’t necessarily see on other shows.

“I really would like the show to be a conglomeration of different opinions. I don’t want people on who agree with me. There is nothing more boring than that. I like people to disagree with me, to disagree with each other, to have lively discussions, to have spirited debates about all sorts of things. And it’s not limited just to politics. I’m interested in everything except sports. And I’m interested in sports if there is some kind of an issue involved rather than, you know, batting averages. So it will be a very lively and sort of a lot of different things kind of show.”

Okay, I’m not the only one who has absolutely no idea what to expect, am I? I mean, I’m not trying to be flip here, nor am I suggesting that Behar’s show won’t be worth watching. I know the show’s not premiering ’til the fall and that it’s still in the throwing-things-against-the-wall-to-see-what-sticks phase of putting together the show, but right now, it kind of lives and dies by how you feel about Behar herself from her earlier efforts…which is presumably why everyone off and on the stage soon began referencing “The View” every other moment.

* When it was suggested by one critic that the phrase “lively discussion” can often be loosely translated as “people yelling at each other,” Behar said that she’d be trying to avoid that, explaining that, “even on ‘The View’ when it gets like that, it gives me a headache. I don’t think it’s true that the biggest fights get the biggest audiences all the time. I think that even on ‘The View,’ if we fought with each other in that way every single day, people would get very tired very fast. So some days it’s a very amiable conversation and people seem to like it, and then we butt heads and they like that too. I want to keep it real. I’d like to just keep it real. Not screaming at each other for no reason.”

* Another critic observed that Behar was approaching this more from a performer’s standpoint than from the news standpoint of folks like Bill O’Reilly and Keith Olbermann, then asked if she saw an element of performance to what they do and how it informs what she does on “The View” and what she’ll do on her new show.

“I think that they are performing, to a large extent,” she said. “Otherwise, they wouldn’t say half the things they say. But I’m not really approaching it as a performer, to tell you the truth. I’m a stand-up comic. That’s when I perform. When I’m sitting and interviewing a person, I’m actually interested in hearing what they have to say, so it’s not a performance for me. But I think that O’Reilly and Beck and those people, they are performing.”

Producer Ken Jautz chimed in and said, “Over the years, I think Joy has more than proven that she’s a very smart and tough interviewer. I mean, ‘The View’ has people from all walks of life. And I seem to remember John McCain saying that the interview he had on ‘The View,’ where Joy was principally the one questioning him, was one of the toughest he had on the campaign. So I don’t view it that she’s approaching it purely from a performer point of view either.”

“No,” confirmed Behar. “I’m approaching it from a point of view of, I’m an American citizen who wants an answer. And I like to do it as nicely as I can. I’m not confrontational, particularly. Am I?”

“Not at all,” replied Jautz. “So far.”

* And here’s one more for you: someone asked Behar if, in her years on “The View,” there had been times when the mix of personalities and political views left her wondering why in the hell certain guests had agreed to come on the show in the first place.

“You mean like John McCain, for instance?” she asked, with a smirk. “I think that John McCain might have thought that it was a very safe environment for him. You know, it’s a bunch of women talking, so maybe he walked into it with his eyes closed and didn’t realize that, you know, we are a smart group of women who havea lot of education and who are interested in politics, and we’re very interested in the election. And, you know, that was what happened, so I don’t know if that’s answering your question. Why would Blagojevich, for instance, come on? He came on, and I had a lot of fun with him, rattled his hair, et cetera. We had a lot of fun. Again, he didn’t know what he was walking into, either.”

Funny, that’s how I’m feeling about “The Joy Behar Show.” She’s a funny woman with a quick wit, so I’m sure that, at the very least, there’ll be quite a few laughs, but I’m gonna have to actually see the show before I have a definitive opinion about the show itself.