Catching up on news...

It's been a while since I've blogged about non-strike news.

Here's a tidbit about the upcoming December movie from Judd Apatow, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.

John C. Reilly gives voice to 50 years' worth of popular music in Columbia's "Walk Hard," which opens Dec. 21. His tour de force performance as the Johnny Cash-like Dewey Cox was the subject of an afternoon panel with writer-producer Judd Apatow, director Jake Kasdan and the film's songwriting team.

"Before we'd even begun writing, Judd and I almost immediately said it should be John," Kasdan said. "It's a well-known secret that he's an amazing singer and the kind of actor who might play someone for their entire life in a biopic. It's a level of acting that you just wouldn't expect in this kind of movie."

On the Columbia soundtrack, due Dec. 4, Reilly sings all 15 songs, which were penned by such names as Marshall Crenshaw, Van Dyke Parks, Dan Bern and Mike Viola. Sony's Vollack said an expanded edition of the album with 15 additional tracks will be available on iTunes.

"He covers a lot of different genres and a lot of different kinds of singing," Kasdan said. "He was the other major voice in this writing development process of getting the songs together and then making them sound right coming out of his mouth."

Among the songs previewed during the panel was "Let's Duet," which Cox sings in the film with backing vocalist Darlene Madison (Jenna Fischer). "As soon as we heard that phrase, "In my dreams you're blowing me ... some kisses,' we knew we'd found our duet," Kasdan said.

"Walk Hard" features cameos from artists including Eddie Vedder, Jack White of the White Stripes and Ghostface Killah, which Apatow said helped "to create a credible world." Apatow even wrote some lyrics with Ghostface, which he describes as "as uncomfortable a moment as you could imagine for me. But he was very cool and was not at all offended when I asked if we could get the word 'shiv' in there."

Apatow recently spoke about the writers' strike. Longtime writer Larry Gelbart also commented on the strike.

How about an Oscar nomination for Steve Carell's performance in Dan in Real Life? After his great performance in Evan Almighty, I'd say he deserves it!