News roundup

Rogen's high times on the set
Metromix talks with Judd Apatow

You famously had critical but not commercial success with your TV shows [“Freaks and Geeks” and “Undeclared”] and yet your movies have almost all been hits. Why do you think that happened?
Well in TV you’re a victim of marketing and scheduling. You’re dealing with a lot of flipped out executives who want a hit instantly and they have a lot of opinions. I never think that’s good for the work. If you tell them you disagree, they get mad at you and cancel your show. In film you can find the people who get what you do and it’s an easier collaboration. In television you can have a debate every week, on every episode, on every choice and that’s awful. Unless you have a big hit, you can tell them to hit the road. But I never had a big enough hit where I could ignore their calls.

Have you thought about doing a series for cable TV? It seems like the perfect medium for someone with your interest in characters.
In a way I just continue to make “Freaks and Geeks” episodes as movies. “Pineapple Express” is like a “Freaks and Geeks” episode from season five. You know, when I see a show like “Mad Men,” it makes me miss television because I like writing for the same people, obviously. I’m just making a lot of movies with the same people. Maybe one day.

Can you tell me a little about your next directorial project, “Funny People?"
It’s about a stand-up comedian who has a near death experience and it takes place in the comedy world but it’s not about comedy. It’s just an interesting texture to the movie that this experience happens to someone who is a comedian.

Are you pulling stuff from your own experiences in stand-up?
A little bit, it’s mainly fabricated. It’s more based on the feelings we all have and insecurities and neuroses that make any of us want to do this.

SuperBad, meet Pineapple Express. Pineapple Express, meet SuperBad. That would be an interesting crossover!

While campaigning for John McCain, Senator Joe Lieberman has been busy donating to the DSCC.

Lieberman, a former Democratic vice presidential nominee, donated $115,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee this year, matching what he contributed to the political arm of the Senate Democratic Caucus in 2007, Lieberman's spokesman confirms to CNN.

Since leaving the Democratic Party in 2006 - Lieberman supporters have said the party left him - the Connecticut senator has crafted a new identity as an Independent Democrat. He is a prominent campaign surrogate for presumptive Republican nominee McCain, but still included in the Democratic head count that gives them a majority in the Senate by the slimmest of margins — one vote.

In turn, Lieberman chairs the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee — a powerful perch with wide jurisdiction over the Bush administration.

"Senator Lieberman supports both Democrats and Republicans, and he gave to the committee as a senior member of the caucus," Marshall Wittmann, Lieberman's spokesman, said Friday.

Why you won't hear certain people voicing their movie characters in The Clone Wars...

“When we decided to do the feature, we went back to the actors and said, ‘Look, we’re doing a feature. Would you like to do the voice? Could you come in a month?’ Some of them were all over the world. It was hard to get all the actors that would be off on set,” Lucas told reporters at a press conference last week. “You need people available every week. [Also] you can’t really afford multi-million dollar actors to do a television series. Those guys make more during their coffee break.”[...]

“It used to be in animation you just had [unknown] actors do the parts. The idea of hiring a really good actor – Tom Hanks [for instance] – was a really revolutionary idea,” Lucas said. “Partly they did it because they were great actors, partly they did it cause they wanted to use them for publicity. To be very honest with you, I don’t really think I need to hire a big movie star to publicize my movie. I don’t need Angelina Jolie here. That’s what it comes down to in the end. They have two days in the studio and then they have like two weeks doing press. They are mainly paid for the press stuff.”

In baseball news, Jason Isringhausen's career is likely finished.