You learn the strangest things on this job. Not all of them are really worth an entire blog entry, but occasionally, the seriousness with which people take entirely frivolous aspects of what is, after all, a popular entertainment medium results in little pieces of dimestore surrealism that we just can’t keep to ourselves. Take the upcoming G.I. Joe movie in development at Paramount: for some reason, rumors have been circulating, especially among right-wing political blogs, that the film will be some sort of celebration of political correctness featuring a denatured Joe Team in thrall to Euro-weenie bureaucrats. How this rumor got started is beyond us, but it did lead Hasbro, who owns the G.I. Joe trademark, to issue a ‘clarification’ statement to fans containing this great moment in denials: “The G.I. Joe team will not be based in Brussels.” Elsewhere in weird movie news, the New York Times carries a profile of Heath Ledger this week which reveals that while filming The Dark Knight, the actor keeps a “Joker diary” containing, among other things, a list of things Ledger believes the supervillain would find amusing. Like AIDS. — Leonard Pierce
