Since American democracy seems hell-bent on becoming a satire, why not skip the middleman and just watch the satire it's doing its best to be?

The trailer for The Campaign, the new Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis film, just hit the web and its depictions of dueling campaign commercials between North Carolina politicians feel just about right. Check it out below.

When Hollywood makes a film that involves the military, it generally approaches hat in hand, and asks big poppa Pentagon if it can borrow an F-15 or two for the dance on Saturday night.

Such was the case with the record-smashing new film from Marvel Comics and Joss Whedon, The Avengers.

But according to an article from Wired, it was too unrealistic to warrant military involvement in the production.

From the article:

“We couldn’t reconcile the unreality of this international organization and our place in it,” Phil Strub, the Defense Department’s Hollywood liaison, tells Danger Room. “To whom did S.H.I.E.L.D. answer? Did we work for S.H.I.E.L.D.? We hit that roadblock and decided we couldn’t do anything” with the film.

And any comic fan will tell you, that's a dumb reason with an obvious answer. S.H.I.E.L.D. answers to Nick Fury, and Nick Fury answers only to his optometrist. Duh.

The military vehicles in the film were not actual planes, but digital inserts. The members of the invading alien army were also digital inserts, not actual aliens.

On April 30, Warner Brothers released scripts as e-books for the first time ever, including films such as Ben-Hur and Casablanca.

Apple's iBookstore, Amazon's Kindle and Barnes and Noble's Nook stores are all selling titles from Inside the Script, the company's digital publishing effort that offers the scripts from classic movies in illustrated e-book format.

Each e-book retails for $10, and includes rare historical documents from the Warner Bros. archives, like Casablanca producer Hal Wallis' production notes and excerpts from Ben-Hur star Charlton Heston's acting and shooting journals.

An American in Paris and Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest are also available.

Perennial prankster Sacha Baron Cohen is set to release a new movie, The Dictator, on Friday, May 16.

The opening scene just hit the net as a preview. Check it out below.

Generally, being rambunctious in a library can result in shushing, angry looks and even a really silly MTV reality show. But today, branches of Boise Public Library are inviting patrons to bring on the noise.

The 10th annual Get Loud At The Library celebration takes place today from 5-8 p.m. at the Library's Hillcrest, Cole and Ustick, Collister and Main branches. Each location's celebration will be slightly different, but will employ the theme Movie Magic.

The Main Library's celebration will include music by Jeremy Schrepple, who has scored several movies; Hillcrest will feature photos with Harry Potter (well, cutouts anyway); Cole and Ustick will have a make-your-own-movie-poster session; and Collister will feature red-carpet glamour shots. Crafts, films, puppet shows and a variety of other movie-related activities will take place at all four locations.

Children, teens and adults are all invited to participate and encouraged to dress like their favorite star.

Visit the library's website for info on each location's events.

A trailer for the remake of the classic action film Total Recall has hit the Web. It definitely delivers a grittier, more Blade Runner-esque vibe than the original Paul Verhoeven-directed campfest, but it doesn't reveal one of the most important elements of the film: the new face of the three-boobed Martian prostitute, something director Len Wiseman has assured fans will be in the film.

Come on Sony Pictures. Don't hold back the deets. Who is the actress daring enough to become an adolescent fantasy for the next generation? How quickly will she be offered a role in some new Joss Whedon series that will be canceled just as the plot starts to unfold? Inquiring minds want to know.

Deadline reported Wednesday that Sacha Baron Cohen, this generation's preeminent cinematic prankster, had his ticket to the Oscars revoked over fears he would show up as the character from his latest film, The Dictator.

From the article:

“Unless they’re assured that nothing entertaining is going to happen on the Red Carpet, the Academy is not admitting Sacha Baron Cohen to the show,” an insider just told me [article author Nikki Finke]. The reason is that a proposal reached the Academy for Baron Cohen to strut the Red Carpet in full costume as his title character in the upcoming Paramount film The Dictator.

However, after that story went live, officials from the Oscars tried to clarify things with a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.

"We haven't banned him," an Academy spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter. "We're just waiting to hear what he's going to do."

Still, the Academy is making it clear that Cohen is not welcome to use the red carpet as a platform for a promotional stunt for his upcoming movie, and other sources say the threat of booting him became more substantial on Wednesday.

Cohen has a history of pulling pranks both on and off-screen, including giving a speech to Harvard as Ali G and trying to seduce presidential candidate Ron Paul.

But the move is unusual considering his major role in the film Hugo, which is nominated for 11 awards at this year's ceremony, including Best Picture.

Hollywood is buzzing today about a blockbuster deal between Netflix and The Weinstein Company—the Harvey Weinstein-driven distributor of countless Oscar winners and this year's guardian of The Artist and The Iron Lady.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Weinstein's new multi-year licensing agreement will see scores of movies make their American TV debut exclusively on Netflix. As an example, company officials said this year's Oscar frontrunner, The Artist, will debut exclusively on Netflix rather than on traditional premium cable. Also making its pay TV premiere on Netlix will be Undefeated, nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary feature.

The deal will cover foreign-language movies, documentaries and other films in the Weinstein vault.

Neither Weinstein nor Netflix would disclose financial terms.

Registration for i48, Boise's annual 48-hour filmmaking fest, is now open. The competition will be held Friday, June 1-Sunday, June 3, and screenings of the films will be held the following weekend.

To register for the competition—in which teams of filmmakers must write, shoot, edit and score a 3- to 7-minute film using several elements provided by the organizers in only 48 hours—teams must fill out the registration packet and drop it off at The Flicks during business hours. The entry fee is $50 before Saturday, May 19, and $100 after.

The ultra-lazy and well-funded can actually register the day of the competition at the pre-production meeting.

More info and the registration packet is available here.

Ira Glass, National Public Radio host, knows radio. He even came to Boise to discuss it a few months back.

But somehow, comedian Mike Birbiglia talked him into producing a film. Turns out Glass had no idea what he was getting himself into, something he discusses the video clip below.

The film, Sleepwalk With Me, is based off of Birbiglia's one-man show of the same name and is premiering at Sundance Film Festival in Utah. Birbiglia will be in Boise March Friday, March 23, at the Egyptian Theatre to perform a different one-man show: My Girlfriend's Boyfriend.

Until then, you'll have to make do with this clip of a very befuddled Ira Glass.