1. Deadline is reporting that Dianne Wiest and Chris Cooper are negotiating to play the leads in HBO’s forthcoming Noah Baumbach-helmed adaptation of Jonathan Franzen’s award-winning novel, The Corrections. We approve heartily!

2. Dark Blood, the movie that River Phoenix was filming at the time of his death, might be getting released almost 20 years later, thanks reedits from the director and some possible voice-over work from River’s brother Joaquin Phoenix. [via Vulture]

3. The Jeff Mangum-curated winter installment of All Tomorrow’s Parties has been pushed back to March due to “a set of extremely unfortunate and unforeseen circumstances.” Refunds will be available for ticket holders who can’t make the new dates. [via NME]

4. Multiple Tony award-winning writer Robert Lopez, who collaborated with Trey Parker and Matt Stone on The Book of Mormon, will also be teaming up with them for upcoming episode of South Park that will air on October 26. We expect big things! [via ArtsBeat]

5. Criterion will finally release a digitally-restored version Godzilla Blu-ray/DVD this January; along with a load of special features, you’ll be getting both the 1954 Japanese original as well as the 1956 American remake of the film, which starred Raymond Burr. [via Slashfilm]

Bonus Buzz: 10 Halloween Costumes to Avoid

Today at Flavorpill, we were thrilled to see Don Draper back in action on the set of Mad Men. We learned how to find out who has unfriended us on Facebook — but we were too scared to actually try it out. We watched two new sneak peeks from the upcoming season of Breaking Bad. We feared that the machines really are taking over, but decided that that’s OK if we get to see videos of our dreams. We thought that this Ewok-loving guy might be the coolest dad of all time. We met the man behind Elmo. We were surprised by how many famous actors got their start playing characters at Disney World. We previewed a clip from Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s upcoming 60 Minutes interview. And finally, in preparation for tomorrow night’s season premiere of SNL featuring Radiohead, we watched a few of the most memorable music performances in the show’s history.

Remember that time Johnny Depp came to your elementary school dressed as a pirate? Or when Larry David made fun of that annoying dude who sits behind you in lecture? Yeah, we don’t either, but sometimes these things actually happen. Recently, Matt Stone and Trey Parker shocked some NYU freshmen with a guest lecture on South Park‘s storytelling strategies — on the first day of class, no less. Watch videos of these celebrities, and many more, crashing classes (and football practice) after the jump.

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South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, along with an underrated assist from Avenue Q creator Robert Lopez, conquered Broadway with the foul-mouthed and heartwarming show, The Book of Mormon. Now, the duo have confirmed to EW that they plan to adapt their Broadway hit into a feature film.  “Hopefully it will have a big run and a big tour and then we can do the movie in several years,” says Parker, which pretty much makes this a done deal, right?

Here’s where things get a bit interesting, however. Stone admits the trio behind the Broadway hit will do all of the film work themselves, as it should be. “The great thing is, a lot of Broadway teams would have to go team up with a Hollywood producer and bring on a Hollywood director, but Trey’s a director and Scott [Rudin]’s a great producer. We’ve all made movies. So it’s kind of cool, it can stay in the same family.” There’s no timetable for a film adaptation, but Book of Mormon has been such a huge success it feels like this would happen within a few years time to capitalize on the show’s buzz. [via HuffPost]

1. Ben & Jerry’s has officially launched its new Schweddy Balls flavor — based on the famous Saturday Night Live skit starring Alec Baldwin — and it’s purportedly “loaded with fudge-covered rum and malt balls.” Says Baldwin: “For a long time, I thought that ‘Here Lies Pete Schweddy’ would end up on my tombstone. Now, thanks to Ben & Jerry’s, the goodness of the Schweddy family recipe won’t go with me to the great beyond.” [via Time]

2. ABC plans to adapt Candace Bushnell’s 2008 book One Fifth Avenue into a new series that’s being described as “Sex and the City meets The Good Wife,” with Gossip Girl executive producer Josh Safran on board to write the script. [via THR]

3. An 84-year-old driver ran into Reese Witherspoon yesterday morning while she was jogging in Santa Monica, but luckily the Oscar-winning actress only suffered mild injuries. [via MTV]

4. Apparently Ryan Gosling feels bad for breaking up that art heist/street fight in the East Village because the thief really loved the work of art that he was trying to swipe. “…he finally steals the painting and he’s getting his ass kicked by his hero, and then the guy from The Notebook shows up and makes it weirder. The whole thing, nobody wins. Nobody won.” [via Vulture]

5. South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker delivered a surprise guest lecture at a class called “Storytelling Strategies” at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts yesterday. Watch a brief clip here.

Bonus Buzz: The Dog With The World’s Longest Ears

1. Last night, Justin Timberlake visited Jimmy Fallon to promote Friends With Benefits, and the pair used it as an excuse to debut the second installment of their incredibly awesome collaboration, “The History of Rap.” Watch them pay homage to House of Pain, 50 Cent, Outkast, and plenty of other hip-hop favorites, here.

2. Discovery Channel is planning to air a new reality series this fall called Weed Wars. The show is set in Oakland’s Harborside Health Center — which is home to the country’s largest medical marijuana distributorship — and will star its owner, pot reform activist Steve DeAngelo. [via Inside TV]

3. Ron Howard and Dustin Lance Black are teaming up on an adaptation of Jon Krakauer’s book Under the Banner of Heaven, a story about two Mormon brothers who murder their younger brother’s wife and infant daughter because God told them to do it. Considering that Howard just had his Dark Tower project fall through, and Black has written several episodes of Big Love, this sounds like a good fit. [via Slashfilm]

4. South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone just signed on for two more seasons with Comedy Central, guaranteeing that you’ll be seeing new episodes of the series through at least 2013, no matter where their success on Broadway takes them. [via Aol.TV]

5. We find this oddly entertaining: The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial and Museum, which is currently under construction in Washington, DC, has signed on Clint Eastwood as its Honorary Chairman — and it sounds like they did it because they need more money to finish the project. [via UnBeige]

Bonus link: Top 10 Comic Book Moustaches

Today at Flavorpill, we watched Alison Brie and Gillian Jacobs share a “moment” on the set of Community. We visited Kraft’s 400,000 square foot underground cheese cave. We wondered if everyone is drinking their bagels in the future, then that means that we’ll have to chew our Bloody Marys — hopefully not. We were frightened by how much crap Janis Joplin used to lug around in her purse. We felt guilty for laughing at this hilariously bad sexual harassment stock photography. We got a gander at the playbill for The Book of Mormon, the new musical from South Park‘s Matt Stone and Trey Parker. We got a better idea of who is going to be working for Rupert Murdoch’s semi-mysterious iPad newspaper, The Daily. We looked at the microorganisms that live inside of our belly buttons under a microscope. And finally, we got sneak peek at Sue Sylvester’s Cheerios dancing to Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” while wearing blue wigs and flame-shooting tops in Glee’s upcoming Super Bowl episode. Unfortunately, it was less thrilling than it sounds.

The Sundance Film Festival kicks off tomorrow, with indie film blogs and glossy TV entertainment new shows alike converging in Park City to spotlight this year’s crop of would-be Tarantinos. The narrative, of course, is that you make your independent film, get into Sundance, and wow the potential distributors, prompting a fierce bidding war, theatrical release, and rock-star treatment now and forevermore. (Though, as we discussed last week, the translation of Sundance buzz to box-office dollars isn’t always as easy as it looks).

But what of the thousands — literally, thousands, every year — of filmmakers who don’t make that brutal Sundance cut? For the filmmaker, that Sundance rejection letter can feel like nothing less than a death certificate for their labor of love. And while a spin at the ‘dance can certainly help an unknown film’s chances of breakout success (see Reservoir Dogs, The Blair Witch Project, El Mariachi, sex, lies, and videotape, and many more), there are plenty of Sundance rejects who found success anyway. Here’s just a few of them.

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1. Remember how we asked if Matt Stone and Trey Parker are just assholes? Seventeen Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonists have signed a petition backing them up. [via The Comics Reporter]
2. Killers frontman Brandon Flowers is releasing a solo album entitled Flamingo. [via Spinner]
3. Can you spot all of the Madonna references in Christina Aguilera‘s new video for “Not Myself”? [via The Awl]
4. Colin Meloy has signed a three-book deal with HarperCollins to write a YA series called Wildwood that is a “classic tale of adventure, magic, and danger, set in an alternate version of modern-day Portland, Oregon.” His talented wife will do the illustrations. [via NPR]
5. According to DJ Premier, Kanye West‘s new album will not sound exactly like 808s & Heartbreak — but it should be sponsored by Grey Goose. [via Vulture]

Bonus link: The top 5 volcano paintings

At this point, you must have heard about the Prophet Muhammad brouhaha stirred up with last week’s South Park episode, “201“. It is certainly nothing new for creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who have already tackled the issue of censorship and Muhammed with their “Cartoon Wars” two-parter, when Cartman also goes on his Family Guy witch-hunt. The bigger issue here, “Censorship In The Media,” is again referenced in the episode with a guest appearance from Bart Simpson, his skateboard, and his impeccable comedic timing. Noting signs of an animated alliance, we began to wonder when and where signs of such a “relationship” between the shows first took shape…

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