Tonight, the latest episode of American Masters is about the career of Jeff Bridges. He’s a favorite around these parts…Check it out.

Last Friday night I went to the Little Lebowski shop on Thompson Street. It is run by a friendly guy named Rob Preston, a movie nut who previously worshipped cult classics like “Time Bandits” and “Withnail and I.”

The shop is filled with Lebowski t-shirts and toys.

It’s worth the trek if you dig all things Lebowski.

There’s Roy, pictured with Bridges, who paid a visit not too long ago:

Watch the full episode. See more American Masters.

“True Grit” hits Pay Dirt. The Coen’s remake will be their biggest-grossing movie to date. Also, the classic Charles Portis novel has sold over 100,000 copies since the beginning of November.

I freely admit I am so starved for baseball happenings that I actually did a news search just now for “baseball” –as if I wouldn’t have read about it already, on a blog or Twitter, if anything big went down. Aside from the Matt Garza trade (good news for the Yanks this season, probably, but nothing I can get too excited about) there ain’t nothing going on today. Except Brian Cashman is talking more and more like some kinda internet zealot. Adam LaRoche is finalizing his deal with the Nationals. Okay.

Unfortunately what I did turn up, like some gross bug under a rock, is the story over at Radar Online that a new reality show about baseball groupies is being developed. Baseball Annies are now being cast, with the idea of filming in Arizona during spring training. I’m not much of a reality TV fan — I’m too easily embarrassed on behalf of other people — and doubt I will watch this, unless I have to write about it. Anyone with half a brain realized many, many years ago that the vast majority of baseball players sleep around, and I really couldn’t care less since I am not married to, nor dating, a baseball player; that’s between them and their significant others and as long as everyone’s a consenting adult, hey, not my concern. The entire subculture has always seemed deeply depressing, though, and this newest cringe-inducing exploitation-fest is doing nothing to change that impression:

“The girls will go to any lengths to go to games and practices with the goal of sleeping with and getting material things from athletes as a notch under their belt,” the source told RadarOnline.com exclusively.

Ooh, an EXCLUSIVE about soul-suckingly shallow groupies! Great job, RadarOnline.com. Also:

The show will focus on the women and their ‘cleat-chasing’ lifestyle more than the players and their participation, added the source.

Well, of course. Why deal with the legal and societal repercussions of showcasing popular men behaving badly when you can just vilify the less wealthy and famous women who, inexplicably, are volunteering for this? Not that they won’t deserve vilifying, most likely, and no one can go on a show like “Cleat Chasers” and not expect to come out looking horrible.

I’m not someone who bemoans the decline of humanity, because I think humanity has always been pretty messed up, and even a show as tasteless as this is still better than say burning a bunch of people at the stake every time you get freaked out by an eclipse, but still.

That’s what Mel Brooks yelled at a nun one day when he was walking down 57th street (get Kenneth Tynan’s book, “Show People” or “Profiles”  for his great piece on Brooks).

Here’s a 1982 Rolling Stone Interview with Brooks conducted by Michael Sragow:

How did you first react to ‘My Favorite year’ ?

Brooks: I said, “Wait a minute, you’re singing my song. What is this – the story of a little Jewish boy from Brooklyn and a guest star on Your Show of Shows? I lived this life.” I looked at Joe Bologna and I said, “That is Sid Caesar.” There’s a certain primitive energy that Joe Bologna and Sid Caesar share, a very basic animal energy . Eat. Go. Sleep. The first thing I wrote for Sid was about a jungle boy who’s been captured and taken to New York City as an experiment to see how he will survive in the big city. He’s interviewed by Carl Reiner. “What do you eat, sir?” “Pigeons. Crave pigeons, go in park, many pigeons in park. Eat pigeons.” “What do you fear?” “Buick, Big, yellow, very danferous. Wait, wait till lights, eyes go out – smash in grille, all night, with club. Kill Buick.” Joe Bologna has the same thing going int he movie.”Send the girl some steaks,” he says, “I’ll send her some steaks.” Nothing romatic, no flowers. To make up with a writer, he sends some tires’ his borther owns a tire store. But they’re very real. I love all the tlittle touches int eh movie. I love when Peter O’Toole realizes that he’s going to be working in front of a live audience. That is the essence of the movie – when he says, “I’m not an actor , I’m a movie star.” There’s a big difference.

Tonight at 8:00 at the Museum of Modern Art:

Hot butter on what, say what, the popcorn.

R.I.P, Pete Postlethwaite, a wonderful actor who was wonderful in many things, most recently “The Town.”

“The Fighter” comes with the usual boxing movie cliches, both in and out of the ring. There is one fight sequence that looks ripped out of “Raging Bull” but only one (perhaps it was an homage). And there are a couple of scenes with Christian Bale, and one with Mark Wahlberg, that made me wince. But these cliches are minor and in no way disturbed my enjoyment of what I think is a rousing movie.

Wahlberg plays a passive character and has the right brand of natural understatement to make his performance convincing. Christian Bale is featured in the showier role, and I generally dislike this kind of character and performance but I thought he was believable. The women rule the movie, though, especially Melissa Leo and Amy Adams. And David O. Russell directs with his usual flair, his eye for the telling detail, and his sharp sense of humor.

I thought “The Fighter” was really funny. The score was great. Nothing too deep but a good picture of the boxing life. A simple story well told.

On that note, let’s kill the Beat of the Day while we’re at it:

I caught “The Kid Stays in the Picture” on cable the other day…I’d forgotten just how damn enjoyable it is.

And if you dig it, check out the audio cd of the book.

Here’s hoping you all have a great holiday no matter what you are doing. I had a terrific pastrami sandwich today in Brooklyn and then saw “True Grit.” I enjoyed it–it was really funny and also brutal–though I don’t think it makes my Coen Brothers Top Five (which is, in no order, “Raising Arizona,” “Miller’s Crossing,” “Fargo,” “The Big Lebowski,” and “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?”).

Now happy to be home with the Mrs and our kittens.

Merry Everything, folks.

Sergio Leone once told Martin Scorsese that “The King of Comedy” was Scorsese’s first mature movie. There was no fancy camera moves or cutting in what I find to be one of Scorsese’s most disturbing movies. Over at The New Yorker, Richard Brody picks “The King of Comedy” as his DVD of the week. I haven’t seen it in years but I get the willies just thinking about it. Maybe it’s time to check it out again.

Here’s A.O. Scott in the Times, reviewing Sofia Coppola’s latest:

What happens is something marvelous: a film that never raises its voice (its loudest and most assertive sound is that Ferrari) or panders to your emotions, but that nonetheless has the power to refresh your perceptions and deepen your sympathies. As it proceeds from one careful, watchful, slow shot to the next, a sad and affecting story emerges, about a father’s loneliness and a daughter’s devotion. But the experience of watching “Somewhere,” shot in lovely tones of Southern California haze by the great Harris Savides, is like reading a poem. The scenes play off one another like stanzas, producing patterns and echoes that feel like the camera’s accidental discoveries, even as they are the surest evidence of Ms. Coppola’s formidable and subtle art.

I thought of the old New Yorker theater the other day because it is where my brother and I saw “Tron.” Our old man dropped us off outside the theater and we asked some grown ups to get us in. Later, I saw “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” there. This was well past the theater’s prime, but I am fortunate enough to remember a bunch of the old movie theaters on the Upper West Side.

My favorite was The Regency which showed double features of old Hollywood movies. I’ll never forget seeing Harry Langdon’s “The Strong Man” (directed by Frank Capra). My bro did a spot-on imitation of Langdon by the time we got home.

 I also remember the Metro and the Cinema Village and the Thalia, and downtown there was St. Marks 80. What were some of your favorite spots?

More on Charles Portis. Here’s Charles McGrath, writing in the New York Times:

“True Grit,” Mr. Portis’s second novel, which was serialized by The Saturday Evening Post and appeared on the New York Times best-seller list for 22 weeks, is actually a divisive matter among Portis admirers. There are some, like the novelist Donna Tartt, who consider it his masterpiece, a work comparable to “Huckleberry Finn.” Others, like Mr. Rosenbaum, resent “True Grit” a little for detracting attention from Mr. Portis’s lesser-known but arguably funnier books: “Norwood” (1966), “The Dog of the South” (1979), “Masters of Atlantis” (1985) and “Gringos” (1991). The writer Roy Blount Jr., an old friend of Mr. Portis’s, suggested recently that Mr. Portis himself was a little embarrassed by the success of “True Grit.”

…What the other novels have in common with “True Grit” is their deadpan quality. Most comic novels — think of anything by P. G. Wodehouse, say, or Ring Lardner — are fairly transparent: they unabashedly try to be funny and let the reader in on the joke. The trick of Mr. Portis’s books, especially the ones told in the first person, is that they pretend to be serious.

…Mr. Portis evokes an eccentric, absurd world with a completely straight face. As a result there are not a lot of laugh-out-loud moments or explosive set pieces here. Instead of shooting off fireworks the books shimmer with a continuous comic glow.

Man, is there anything harder than writing funny? Look at sports writing, for example. How many humorists do we have? Hell, forget humorists, how many funny writers are there? Charles Pierce has a sense of humor and so does Pat Jordan. Richard Hoffer has a sly and subtle wit but he’s not around much these days. Closer to home, Emma has the rare gift of being funny without seeming to strain to get a laugh. Jay Jaffe and Steve Goldman can come up with some choice zingers, ditto for Repoz over at the Think Factory. Not easy, though.

Here’s a great gift idea for the movie nyerd in your life. Thomson is terrific fun to read even when you don’t agree with him.

Here’s a few other movie books of note…

“Lulu in Hollywood,” By Louise Brooks:

“The Parade’s Gone By,” By Kevin Brownlow.

“Picture,” By Lillian Ross:

“The Pat Hobby Stories,” By F. Scott Fitzgerald:

“Hitchcock,” By Francois Truffaut:

“Chinatown and The Last Detail: Two Screenplays,” By Robert Towne:

So many celebrity deaths lately. Blake Edwards, most popular for his work with Peter Sellers in the Pink Panther movies, passed away yesterday.

Here’s a You Tube highlight reel:

From “The Party”:

Mary Poppins is a Goin Off:

General Silliness:

I like Ben Affleck more as a director than I do as an actor and “The Town” is an efficient, if implausible, entertainment. Affleck has good taste and the movie is well-cast, shot, and edited. Affleck is wooden as an actor and I just don’t buy him as a tough guy. That said, I would have liked to see him swap roles with Jeremy Renner who is largely wasted in the Johnny-Boy Nutzo role. Renner, at least based on his work in “The Hurt Locker,” would have brought so much more to protagonist than Affleck. Pete Postlethwaite and Chris Cooper are terrific in supporting roles.

Then there is “Winter’s Bone,” the critical darling of the summer. If you missed it the first time around, do yourself a favor and rent it. It is a chilling movie that features a sensational lead performance (one that we should be hearing about come Award season). Everything about the movie is sure without being over-the-top. This is one of the special movies of the year, the kind that gives you faith in the medium. And that’s word to Uncle Teardrop.

Rest in Peace, Leslie Nielsen. You know what? This was the first movie that popped into my head when I heard the news:

He gave us many a laugh, didn’t he?

There’s always time to dip away on Thanksgiving. Watch the game, go online, sleep. Here’s some sticky You Tube treats, for the one you love.

Michael Keaton’s big screen debut:

Don Juan DiMarco:

The great Selma Diamond:

Sid Caesar, Carl Reiner and Howard Morris lay it on the only the way they knew how: thick.

I Spy:

Two pals…

George King reports in the New York Post:

Yesterday, general manager Brian Cashman strongly denied the organization has acted that way with its shortstop, captain and all-time hits leader.

“There is nothing baffling about our position,” Cashman said. “We have been very honest and direct with them, not through the press. We feel our offer is appropriate and fair. We appreciate the contributions Derek has made to our organization and we have made it clear to them. Our primary focus is his on-the-field performance the last couple of years in conjunction with his age, and we have some concerns in that area that need to be addressed in a multi-year deal going forward.

“I re-state Derek Jeter is the best shortstop for this franchise as we move forward. The difficulty is finding out what is fair between both sides.”

Also in the Post, Joel Sherman lowers the hammer on DJ:

Derek Jeter’s position when it comes to his contract negotiations appears to be this: I am Derek Jeter, pay me.

It doesn’t matter he has almost no leverage or he is coming off his worst season or the production of shortstops 37 and older in major league history is dismal.

Logic and facts are not supposed to matter. All that is supposed to matter is this: I am Derek Jeter, pay me.

The Yankees have offered Jeter $45 million over three years, which is being portrayed by the shortstop’s increasingly desperate camp as an insult. Except, of course, it is hard to find another organization ready to insult Jeter in similar fashion.

Mo Rivera wants his too.