The Newsies is a regular feature that sees The Dissolve cheerfully adding to the awards glut by handing out imaginary awards related to the day’s movie news.
Most Dystopian News Of The Day: Overstock.com’s imminent reign of terror
Not to be outdone by Amazon—that wily minx of an online-retailer-turned-movie-and-TV-magnate that’s always making all the other online retailers feel inadequate and uncool—Overstock.com has announced its plans to launch a content service by the middle of this year. This is a particularly sobering announcement, one that confirms all of our 3 a.m., Ambien-induced suspicions that The Onion is made up of powerful and omniscient prophets. CEO Patrick Byrne calls the forthcoming subscription service a “skinny Netflix” (Netflix, don’t even hear that noise, you’re beautiful the way you are), adding that it’ll have about 30,000 titles to start and will be offered as a part of Overstock.com’s “Club O” loyalty program, which runs its users about $20 a year. (If you’re one of these users, please come forward and expose all of Byrne’s weaknesses before it’s too late and we’re all just bought and sold to each other online as overstock.)
Eventually, Byrne wants to expand into original programming, noting “that the company is in talks to be the center of a reality TV show revolving around the company.” In talks with…itself? To be the center of a TV show revolving around itself? Ha, sounds cool. Love it, Patrick! Lastly, Byrne confirmed that he wants to buy his own rainforest and name it Overstock, and, a few years later, when rainforests aren’t a thing anymore, burn it to the ground, then buy and dismantle our country and reign over it as the Overlord of The Overstocked States Of America.
Mandy Patinkin News Of The Day: Mandy Patinkin cast in The Smurfs
I pledge allegiance to the overabundance of flags of the Overstocked States of…Oh, not yet? Okay, good. While we still have freedom of press, let me express pure, unfiltered joy over the news that Mandy Patinkin has been cast as Papa Smurf in Sony Picture Animations’ reboot of The Smurfs. Listen, I don’t care about anything else in that sentence except “Mandy Patinkin has been cast.” I don’t care if he’s been cast as Papa Smurf, as Papa John in a Papa John’s commercial, or as Patrick Byrne in a biopic of Patrick Byrne that revolves around Patrick Byrne. Mandy Patinkin will grace our screens in the guise of a small, old, blue man, and that is wonderful and good. Thank you, Overlord Patrick Byrne, for your benevolence.
Women CAN Have It All, After All, Of The Day: Julianne Moore to help design the Oscars green room
Because being nominated for an Oscar in Still Alice isn’t enough—it’s never enough, dammit, when will you ever be satisfied?—Julianne Moore’s also going to help decorate the Oscars green room, and bake an organic cherry pie with one hand while driving her kids to soccer practice while threading her eyebrows while sleeping. Why? Because you can have it all, remember? Actually you can’t, so stop it, Patrick Byrne. It’s because Moore “knows what it’s like to be backstage on Oscar night [when the green room was designed by some ham-fisted, drill-wielding man with a Napoleon complex and a bedazzler].”
Will They, Won’t They Of The Day: Mark Schultz and Foxcatcher
In case you haven’t been following the saga of Mark Schultz and Foxcatcher, all you need to know is that Schultz first liked the movie, calling director Bennett Miller a “genius.” Then, as suddenly as a summer rain or a wrestler punching another wrestler when the second wrestler isn’t even expecting it and the first wrestler screaming, “I win!,” he hated it, calling Miller “scum” and saying that, among other things, the director’s version of the story incorrectly suggested that Schultz engaged in a gay relationship with mentor-turned-murderer John du Pont. Now, Schultz is backpedaling again: “I’m sorry I said I hated it. I love it,” he tweeted. Classic Ross and Rach—I mean, Mark and Foxcatcher. It’s too little, too late, Schultz. Foxcatcher’s already moved on with its charming, cute, previously-assumed-to-be-unthreatening neighbor. You’re just going to have to sit there in your wrestling gear and watch them canoodle on your couch.
They Won’t Of The Day: George Lucas and Star Wars
Wondering whether George Lucas and Star Wars might make it work after all, find their way back to each other and make a real go of it, those crazy kids? Or, uh, hoping they wouldn’t, because of that whole those-last-three-Star-Wars-movies thing? Or are you Patrick Byrne, and you just wrote, shot, edited, and distributed your own Star Wars movie? Well, good or bad news, depending on where you fall: They’re only growing farther and farther apart. Cinemablend reports that none of Lucas’ original treatments are being used in J.J. Abrams’ upcoming The Force Awakens. Lucas told the site, “The ones that I sold to Disney, they came up to the decision that they didn’t really want to do those. So they made up their own. So it’s not the ones that I originally wrote [for Star Wars: The Force Awakens].” Furthermore, Lucas has only recently seen the trailer for The Force Awakens (because he “doesn’t watch movies online” [is that a diss meant for Patrick Byrne? Careful, Lucas!] and “it’s hard to watch, it’s all still so fresh, guys”). He called the trailer “intriguing.” All right, George. Let’s all be adults who love movies about fake things happening in space about this.