Movie Cricket

What was thought to be an impossibility has happened: "The Cove," the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award-winning documentary about a secret dolphin slaughter in a Japanese town, finally played before a Japanese audience.

Director Louie Psihoyos writes a moving account of Wednesday's screening at the Tokyo International Film Festival on the film's blog.

Psihoyos tells of his nervousness about traveling to Japan (where there's an arrest warrant out on him), of seeing the Japanese officials featured in the movie sitting in the audience, and his call for activism to shut down whaling and dolphin hunting in Japan.

Imagine this ad in the classifieds: "Wanted: Talented writer with expertise in entertainment journalism. Internet experience essential. Must also be a lightning rod for old-media debates about industry's future."

If such an ad existed, Karina Longworth would be sending in a resume now.

Longworth, a movie writer whose Internet work recently sparked a fierce argument about the changing landscape of film criticism, will be leaving her post as editor of SpoutBlog when her contract runs out at the end of the month.

Longworth's boss, Paul Moore, made the announcement Wednesday on SpoutBlog. He also said that while the Spout.com online community would continue, SpoutBlog would stop running original content when Longworth leaves.

Longworth had been working to compile a book of SpoutBlog's greatest hits, and Moore said that project would continue.

On her personal blog, Vidiocy, Longworth (who co-founded the popular movie site Cinematical before starting at Spout in 2007) bemoans her impending unemployment, and posts her resume for anyone interested in hiring her.

"I will continue to freelance (here’s a sample of recent moonlighting) while I figure it out," she writes. "I’m primarily known as someone who writes about indie film, but I’m definitely open to trying new things, whether within the indie film world (programming, publicity, consulting, whathaveyou) or outside of it."

Good luck, Karina.

One of the pleasures of following the ins and outs of the Oscar season has been reading "The Carpetbagger," David Carr's blog for The New York Times.

Carr, the Times' media columnist, has been following Hollywood's annual praise-a-thon for the last four seasons, bringing the proper amount of circumspection and wry sarcasm to the schmoozefest — which stretched from New York critics conclaves to L.A. awards nights and crammed in the Sundance Film Festival in between.

But Carr's days on the red carpet are over. The Times, according to Sasha Stone at AwardsDaily.com, has assigned a new Carpetbagger: Melena Ryzik, a general-assignment cultural reporter who also runs the Times' UrbanEye video series and writes the daily UrbanEye e-mail.

Ryzik commented on the job change on her Twitter feed: "This will not affect my accessorizing. Probably."

The job nobody wants in Hollywood — producing the Academy Awards ceremony — finally has somebody doing it.

Two somebodies actually, according to Daily Variety: Bill Mechanic, the former head of Fox Filmed Entertainment, and Adam Shankman, the director of "Hairspray" and "Bedtime Stories" (and currently a judge on Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance").

The pair have a tough act to follow. This year's Oscar ceremony got some critical raves for its sleek production, as well as charming touches (like having five previous Oscar winners present each acting award, like a sorority initiation) and strong emcee work by Hugh Jackman. This year's producers, Bill Condon and Laurence Mark, had projects in development and couldn't commit to the Oscars for 2010.

Mechanic should be able to use his studio connections to draw big stars to the ceremony, while Shankman's dance background could mean lively production numbers. But the two will be under pressure to produce a show that doesn't stretch into the wee small hours — a task made harder by the decision to allow 10 Best Picture nominees instead of five.

The Oscars are set for March 7 (the date was set back from February, so it wouldn't compete with the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver), from the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood.

A judge has ruled that Chris Rock's documentary "Good Hair," which won a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival in January, can go ahead with its national release on Friday.

U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer ruled against a lawsuit filed by filmmaker Regina Kimbell, who said Rock stole the idea for "Good Hair" from her 2006 documentary "My Nappy Roots," Reuters reported.

Fischer said she watched both movies, and that they "don't seem to be made for the same audience," and that portions of them "are not similar at all." The lawsuit — seeking $5 million in damages — may move forward, though.

Rock's "Good Hair" discusses the cultural importance of hair to African-American women. Rock learns about the chemicals used to straighten curly hair, the importance of a woman's "weave," where hair for wigs comes from, and attends a hair-stylists' competition.