The new trailer for Knocked Up is remarkable not just for the stunning and unexpected comic timing of Katherine Heigl (somewhere, Jason Behr and Shiri Appleby are crying) but for how very, very much the male lead sounds like a 30-year-old Albert Brooks.

It’s uncanny.

From this story about San Fran mayor Gavin Newsom boinking the wife of his deputy chief of staff/campaign manager, Alex Tourk:

Alex Tourk “confronted the mayor on the issue this afternoon, expressed his feeling about the situation in an honest and pointed way, and resigned,” said one source close to Tourk and his wife.

Oh, to have heard that pointed expression of honest feelings.

PS: Just wondering–deep in the story, as all players are refusing to comment, there’s this funny line: “A family friend who asked not to be identified said she would have no comment.”

I don’t know much about journalism or anything, but if a source isn’t going to comment, they don’t normally then get to request that they also remain nameless, do they? Isn’t commenting the price of anonymity? And if you’re going to let anonymous sources not comment, then why include it in the story?

The only explaination I can figure is that reporter included this just to get the pronoun “she” in, to point suggest that this anonymous no-commenter might be Newsom’s ex-wife, Kimberly Guilfoyle. But that seems like a stretch . . .

Such a Dirty Old Man

Being a latecomer to HBO/BBC’s Extras, I’ve been catching up on the older episodes, including this one with Patrick Stewart. The man has got range!

According to Breitbart.com, certain parishes under the Church of England will now be able to perform services to the tune of U2 songs “in an effort to boost congregations.” Two of the songs to be used are “Mysterious Ways” and “Beautiful Day.”

As some of you know, I’ve listened to U2 since I was about 14. But if I were sitting in a church and suddenly I was told to please rise and sing the communion hymn, “Bullet the Blue Sky,” I think I would have to flee.

Sadly, this sort of gimmick is not new. When I was in Catholic high school, someone conned our teachers and the local priest into playing Mr. Mister’s “Kyrie” during the consecration.

Dan McLaughlin has been musing about the Star Wars prequels. I know what you’re thinking–Now?

Except that Dan isn’t working in terms of recriminations. He’s thinking about how the films could have been improved. And one of his ideas, in particular, will blow you. (Away!)

2. Combine the First Two Films. Since the original Star Wars (“A New Hope”) billed itself as “Episode IV,” the prequels had to be three films. But they didn’t have to be these three. In fact, I think most Star Wars fans expected the first of the three films to introduce Anakin, the second to cover the Clone Wars, and the third to bring Anakin over fully to the Dark Side.

Had Lucas stuck with that order, a huge number of the narrative problems and omissions in the prequel trilogy would have fallen away. First, Lucas himself has admitted that he had to pad out Phantom Menace to get to a full-length film. Making an Episode I that covered Phantom Menace’s storyline in 45 minutes before jumping ahead 10 years to pick up the Attack of the Clones storyline would have immediately removed or drastically shortened a lot of the filler and the redundant plotlines – the Gungans (Jar Jar even would not have been so bad with five minutes of screen time), the storyline where Anakin accidentally destroys the Death Star-lite, the fun but overlong pod race, the repetitive fight scenes at Padme’s palace. As a corollary, instead of being off in a star fighter Anakin should have been present for the final battle with Darth Maul. That would have presented several opportunities – have him witness the death of his first mentor, intensifying his emotional scars. Have him play some role, through a not-entirely-intentional use of the Dark Side of the Force (perhaps even a Force-choke on Darth Maul that isn’t noticed by Obi-Wan) that saves Obi-Wan and lets him kill Darth Maul, thus (1) establishing Anakin’s unusual precocity without the need for a midichlorian blood sample and (2) serving as a sort of original sin in his relationship with Obi-Wan. Personally, I would also have laid out near the beginning the death of Sifo Dyas, whose critical role in ordering the clone army is never explained onscreen.

Mike Goldfarb has a disturbing post about the unbelievably hot F-22 Raptor. Seems the fighter was designed without the ability to send data!

Ouch.

Caffeinated donuts. I’m just saying.

Galley Friend and Eagles Super Fan Michael Goldfarb has taken over the WorldWide Standard and looks to be taking the blog in different, highly interesting directions. For instance, here’s Goldfarb on the “MOP”–the Air Force’s new stealth bunker-buster:

Military and Aerospace Electronics reports that the Air Force is working to outfit the B-2 stealth bomber with a “30,000-pound bunker-busting ‘super bomb.'” The bomb, known as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), is designed to destroy deeply buried and reinforced bunkers of the type North Korea and Iran have relied upon for their nuclear weapons programs.

You can read more about the MOP at globalsecurity.org, but most significant is its ability to penetrate more than 200 feet of earth and reinforced concrete. That is a significant improvement over the GBU-28, which is a 5,000-pound laser-guided bomb that was initially used to destroy Iraqi underground facilities in the first Gulf War. And while some experts have questioned how effective bunker-busters will be against hardened targets in Iran and elsewhere, John Pike told me last year that he believed the military had deliberately fostered such doubts in an attempt “to lull the mullahs into a false sense of security.” He said the GBU-28 would cut through such facilities “like a hot knife through butter,” which makes one wonder just what a bomb six-times heavier could do.

Goldfarb is a fine reporter and a great writer and if you have even passing interest in military affairs, he’ll be required reading for you.