Former eBay CEO current billionaire Meg Whitman is campaigning for the Republican nomination for governor of California. Her ads proclaiming the problem with California is a "crisis of confidence" have been running nonstop for months, even though she's the only one in the world who's ever thought Californians lacked confidence about anything.

Anyway, she's having some press issues according to the SF Chronicle. She invited the media to cover her at Union Pacific Railroad's office, then barred them from any questions:

Instead, reporters were herded into a holding room while Whitman toured the facility. Sarah Pompei, the candidate's spokeswoman, said they were not allowed to accompany the former eBay executive on the tour because Union Pacific officials "did not want that to happen" and had barred the media.

A Union Pacific spokesman, Aaron Hunt, appeared to contradict Pompei - telling The Chronicle that the company had always expected media to attend Whitman's tour - and in fact, welcomed coverage.

Hm. Train wreck? Anyone?

She's already been compared to Sarah Palin, this will not help.

Also related: Jerry Brown supporters have launched a site called Level The Playing Field, a WikiMeg, it appears to be trying to crowdsource dirt/info on the press shy candidate. Although since there are no real reporters or anyone with investigative chops or credibility, it's all Glenn Beckish.

A famous person's death is sad, we're not debating that. Someone dying of a drug overdose at 38 is sad. Someone dying at 38 is sad. So no need to be hyperbolic. Corey Haim was an actor and maybe a teen star, but there's no way he was an "icon." Nope. Michael Jackson was an icon. Patrick Swayze was an icon. Corey Haim was an actor.

Yesterday filmmaker Michael Moore tweeted that the DVD of his movie Capitalism: A Love Story was not being sold in Walmart stores, only online. Then he was sent photographs from people all over the country showing that Walmart was in fact carrying the DVD. Crowdsourcing! So the Walmart site was incorrect.

In a funny twist to this whole saga:
Moore released his last documentary Sicko online for free. So the movie not about the corruption of making money at any price - didn't have a price.

Moore writes on his blog:

The fact that Wal-Mart is carrying this movie -- a movie that specifically exposes Wal-Mart's past practice of taking out secret "dead peasant" life insurance policies on its employees and naming itself as the lone beneficiary should the employee meet an "untimely" early death -- well, my friends, need you any further proof that Corporate America is so secure in its position as the ruler of our country, so sure of its infallible power that, yes, they can even sell a movie that attacks them because it poses absolutely no threat to them?

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Corey Haim, 80's teen heart throb died in Burbank this morning. The details of his death are still unclear, AP is reporting an overdose. Haim struggled with drug addiction for his entire adult life. We won't even mention his A&E reality show career. We'll just say that in the 80's he was the cuter of the two Coreys, starring in The Lost Boys and License to Drive.

AP story is here with updates. LAT is here.

Our condolences to his friends and family.

Photo credit KTLA.

It was only a matter of time before someone went after Avatar's $2 billion pie. Vancouver restaurant owner Emil Malak has filed a suit against James Cameron, Lightstorm and Twentieth Century Fox in British Columbia Supreme Court, claiming Avatar bears an uncanny resemblance to his own 1998 screenplay "Terra Incognita."

THR, Esq. has the story:

In Malak's story, a tree is a focal point of a community of indigenous people and contains their collective memories. His characters are odd-looking creatures, some with braided hair and others with tails. They are protecting their home planet from militaristic human intruders who want to mine precious minerals...

Malak says that in October 2002, he sent the script and some graphic designs to about 20 movie studios, including Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment. He never got a response.

Check out the point-by-point comparison of the two films.

In response to news of the suit, Fox told THR, Esq. Cameron wrote Avatar two years before Malak claims to have finished Terra Incognita.

2008 Oscar host Jon Stewart gives his take on Sunday's awards -- including the evening's most bizarre moment, when Oscar winner Roger Ross Williams appeared to be interrupted by Grimace during his acceptance speech.

More Daily Show Oscar parody after the jump.

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Many across the media and entertainment spectrum were shocked at this week's announcement that Variety had laid off its chief film critic Todd McCarthy after 31 years at the paper. Roger Ebert summoned a more appropriate emotion -- he was pissed.

I flew home from the Oscars to find half a dozen e-mails awaiting with the same unbelievable message: Variety had fired its chief film critic, Todd McCarthy. Its spokesman was hopeful Todd and its chief theater critic, David Rooney, who was also fired, could continue to review for the paper on a free lance basis. In other words, Variety was hopeful that without a regular pay check, McCarthy would put his life on hold to do a full-time job on a piecemeal basis.

Todd McCarthy reviewed films for Variety for 31 years. He was the ideal critic for the paper -- better, we now realize, than it deserved.

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"Everyone is pretending she's a part of show business... and she's never gonna be in another movie... it's so sad... you just want to say to her, listen honey, now you got a little money in the bank, go get yourself thin."

Of course, fat actors have been working in Hollywood since the film industry began. But they're usually white and male, the sort of folks Stern prefers.

Michael Moore's documentary Capitalism: A Love Story is released today on DVD. And the filmmaker just reported via Twitter that it's only available at the world's largest retailer online.

Moore writes:

Orange alert! Wal-Mart retaliates? They just put "Not sold in stores" up on their site: http://tr.im/RcUM Wow. That didn't take long.

Wait - is that a list price of $29.98?! Is that American? Jeepers.

Moore followed up with:

Just asked 1 insider why WalMart is saying "Not sold in stores" but still selling it online. Reply: "Because they hate Amazon more than u!"

UPDATE: Walmart IS selling the DVD in their stores.

Flattr? We like that it sounds like a verb and it means money. Here's the website.

It's an interesting idea. Nice analogy of cake for starving content creators. Ahem.

David Lidsky, editor at Fast Company alerted us to this via his Twitter feed:

Interesting, skeptical it'll work. Seems too passive. Just another button to ignore.

Cake!