Mark Wahlberg’s latest project, about a guy with a teddy bear who talks to him, makes me wish I could remember which blogger recently suggested that someone should remake Harvey:

Harvey is the first movie I can remember being frightened by as a kid: I know it’s a sweet movie, but I found it profoundly disturbing. I supposed there’s an extent to which Donnie Darko is the logical remake and update of Harvey, infused with advances in science fiction and understandings of mental illness:

At least, that’s where the next Batman movie is shooting. The city’s Film Office director told the Hollywood Reporter that Nolan and his production team “really fell in love with was the diversity of architecture and the gorgeous buildings.” On that grounds, I’d love to have seen what the movie could have done with Detroit, particularly given how gorgeous Eminem’s Chrysler Super Bowl ad made the city look.





And Detroit could use the economic bump more: Pittsburgh’s unemployment rate is around 8 percent, while Detroits’ official rate is at 11.7. But I’d imagine Pittsburgh’s got more to offer in the way of filming incentives, too. For Detroit, the bump of getting a major film production in the area might not be worth the up-front costs.

I’ve had a chance to read and really absorb Tad Friend’s Anna Faris profile (Behind the paywall, but do I need to tell you to subscribe? Really?), which is excellent not simply because Faris is funny and engaging, but because it does a really nice job at what New Yorker profiles do best, which is use a person to explain a phenomenon: in this case, how comedies with women work. But while Jezebel and other outlets are right that the profile’s a stark explication of how reluctant Hollywood is to fund and film substantive movies about women, they’re ignoring something important. Hollywood’s decisions are determined as much by, if not more, what international markets respond to as by what American audiences are seeing. References to international grosses are everywhere in the article.

The U.S. is supposed to be a cultural leader, and there’s no question that the country makes a truly fantastic amount of money by exporting movies abroad. Rango, so far the top-grossing movie of 2011, has made just $7 million less internationally than it has domestically. Avatar made $760.5 million domestically and $2 billion internationally. When the market is that big abroad, American studios can export values and images—but they’re inevitably going to be responsive to what international audiences want, too. I’d be curious how Faris market-tests abroad. I wouldn’t be remotely surprised if raunchy women score much worse in major international markets than they do here.

It’s going to be an utterly fascinating sociological experiment to see how well Saving Private Perez, a comedy about drug traffickers who head to Iraq to rescue their cartel leader’s brother, does in the U.S. market. The subject matter’s probably not as controversial as that of Four Lions, a well-reviewed British indie about incompetent wannabe jihadis, which made just $310,007 in American theaters. And honestly, it’s probably got a larger built-in audience than that movie, both because British comedy has an uneven record in the States, and because there’s a larger Latin American immigrant population. But I’ll be interested to see both what that box office is and what the reaction to it is. This is a risky riff on sensitive territory.

If it’s true that 30 Rock will end after its sixth season, that’s a profoundly good thing. The show gave up on its core dual storyline—can Jack mentor Liz into personal and professional happiness? And does Jack’s approach to personal and professional happiness actually make him happy?—a long time ago. It would be good to resolve those storylines, and to say goodbye.

So, some news I’m really excited about. On April 18, I’m joining the team at ThinkProgress, where I’ll be writing about the intersection of culture and politics. We’re still working out some details of what that’s going to mean for the blog, so I’m going to hold off until I can give you a very concrete explanation and timeline. But I can assure you that if you like what I do here or at The Atlantic, with extra numbers and reporting thrown in, there’s going to be a lot more of it.