Fahrenheit 9/12: Michael Moore is making a sequel to Fahrenheit 9/11 (due in 2009) for Paramount Vantage and Overture Films, implying that the original 2004 documentary did not make right all the problems with our democracy. [Variety]

R. Kelly Jury Stocked With Haters: A fourth juror has been selected in R. Kelly's child pornography trial, "a college student studying criminal justice who says she wants to be a police officer." We suppose it could be worse; they could've picked Jay-Z. [Chicago Tribune]

American Idol Now Television's Most Popular Show by Slightly Less Huge Margin: The ratings for last week's two episodes of American Idol were the lowest in years, and viewership is down 18 percent from last season. If this alarming trend continues, Idol could lose its status as TV's most-watched show by 3059. [AP]

L.A. Times Politely Disagrees With Janet Maslin, Fries Frey: Providing a nice counterpoint to Janet Maslin's rave review of James Frey's new novel is the L.A. Times' David Ulin: "Bright Shiny Morning is a terrible book. One of the worst I've ever read." [LAT]

MoMA Kills Exhibit: Literally! It was a living coat of mouse stem cells which had to be killed because “It was growing too much.” This is horrifying. [NYT]

David O. Russell Shut Down: Production has reportedly been halted on David O. Russell's film Nailed, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Jessica Biel, owing to SAG concerns about the film's financing. While this is undoubtedly a blow to the film, of all the reasons a David O. Russell set might be thrown into turmoil, this is the one least likely to wind up on YouTube. [Deadline Hollywood Daily]

Donnie Darko 2?: Though without Richard Kelly's participation, a sequel to Donnie Darko, S. Darko, will reportedly start shooting next week. Daveigh Chase, who played Donnie's youngest sister in the original, is the only cast member to return, although reportedly that enormous talking rabbit will be in it too. Expect no one to write a nerdy 5,000 word exegesis of this one. [Screen Daily]

McSpaced Is Dead: The McG-produced version of popular British comedy Spaced, derided by the show's creators Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright and called McSpaced by fans of the original, has been rejected by Fox, sources tell Nikki Finke. And the Internet breathes a sigh of relief. [Deadline Hollywood Daily]

CBS Visits the Ice Storm: New CBS drama Swingtown features seventies-set stories of open marriages and group sex. On hearing the news, NBC wunderkind Ben Silverman slapped his forehead and ordered six of his VPs killed. [NYT]

The New Yorker Finally Explains Idol: The odorless, colorless gas "air" is a combination of many elements, but its primary component is oxygen. Air was created by forces of nature, and first appeared in the form of the Earth's atmosphere roughly 250 million years ago. Nature's genius was manifold: It created a gas encircling the Earth that could support both animal life (with oxygen) and plant life (with carbon dioxide). [NYer]

Sorry, Ladies: According to the Post, reputed cocksman Michael Jackson is hard at work in a Las Vegas recording studio on his comeback album. To minimize distraction, he's "sworn off women for the time being." [NYP]

Mariah in No Danger of Winning Oscar: Proving just how difficult it is to write an Oscar blog in April, Gold Derby's venerable Tom O'Neil authors a post that dares to ask the question, Will Mariah Carey be nominated for an Academy Award for her role in Tennessee? (Answer: no.) [Gold Derby /LAT]

Carly Smithson: Satan? According to American Idol message boards, ousted contestant Carly Smithson may have been voted off the show because Christians were offended by her decision to do a song from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Judas-y musical Jesus Christ Superstar. Remaining finalists are urged to tread carefully during next week's Slayer night. [NYT]

Boll to Judge Boll Challenge: What could possibly make the previously announced Boll Challenge — in which awful filmmakers will compete to make movies as bad as Uwe Boll's — even more exciting? Uwe Boll himself has volunteered to serve as judge. [Matthew Dessem]

Starbucks Quits Music Business: Starbucks has turned over control of its record label, Hear Music, to Concord Music Group after executives at the coffee chain came to their senses. [Variety]

Miley Cyrus Makes Memoir Deal: Disney acquires a memoir "by" 15-year-old Miley Cyrus for publication next year. Scoff all you want about the inflated advance: We guarantee this book will make money. [Us]

Cannes Announced: Which American movies will lose at Cannes to some masterpiece from the Philippines that'll never get released here? Soderbergh's two Che Guevera biopics, plus Clint Eastwood's Changeling. We're particularly excited that Kelly Reichardt's follow-up to Old Joy made Un Certain Regard. [Variety]

Blair Witch 2: Taliban Version?: Daniel Myrick, one of the directors of The Blair Witch Project, is finally back with The Objective, a horror movie about post-9/11 Afghanistan. We are among the few people we know who will still go to the mats to defend Blair Witch as a bolt-of-lightning work of genius, but does this sound unbelievably awful or what? It's playing at Tribeca. [SpoutBlog]

Take the Uwe Boll Challenge: Occasional Vulture contributor and Criterion Contraption writer Matthew Dessem has launched the Uwe Boll Challenge, in which competitors must make films according to Boll's derisive instructions: with a bottle of ketchup and your little brother. Entries are due May 16. [Official site]

Art-Fair or Comic-Con Attendee?: Take this quiz to see if you can separate the art nerds from the comics nerds. Highlight: How many people believe Jocelyn Wildenstein to be some kind of crazy cosplayer. [Art Fag City]

Atari Games Get Remixed: We remember our 8-year-old self happily playing game after game of Old-Timey Cop With a Stick. If you click on anything in this link roundup, click on this. [Mightygodking.com via Defamer]

Scott Kids Lends a Hand: A blogger points out today that esteemed New York Times film critic A.O. Scott has frequently incorporated the opinions of his children into his reviews. We'd complain, but they're actually remarkably perceptive. [Looker via Defamer]

Idol Finalists to Shriek: Tonight on American Idol, the seven remaining singers will perform music made famous by Mariah Carey. The fact that it's April will, sadly, preclude any of them from doing her best song. [Reality TV]

Incredible Coincidence: The eagle-eyed nerds at io9 have noticed that the awesome new poster for The Incredible Hulk looks pretty much exactly the same as the famous cover for The Amazing Spider-Man, issue #50. Also, the movie itself bears a few passing similarities to 2003's Hulk. [io9]

Neal Leaves L&O: Diane Neal, better known as Senior Assistant District Attorney Casey Novak, is leaving Law & Order after five years. Why? No one knows! [Daily Intel]

No Reality Show for Axl: Via Guns N' Roses' official Website, Axl Rose has announced that rumors about a reality show based on his life are completely untrue. He also denies that he is working on an album. [Official site via Idolator]

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG: "Click Click Click," the first single from the reunited New Kids on the Block has leaked, and we've posted it above for your enjoyment. [A.V. Club]

Lost Is Written the Way People Talk: Intrepid blogger Defective Yeti read a few scripts from the first season of Lost and discovered they have awesome, profanity-enhanced stage directions. Such as this one: "And as Jack slowly looks up — standing right in front of him — just FIVE FUCKING FEET AWAY — Is ETHAN." [Defective Yeti]

Get Chabon's Spider-Man 2 Script!: If you act fast, you can download Michael Chabon's original screenplay for Spider-Man 2 here. Why didn't Marvel use it? Possibly because it's set in Alaska and deals exclusively with Spider-Man coming to terms with his Jewish identity. [McSweeney's via /Film]

Everyone Claiming Credit for MILF Island: Three years ago, comedy writer Adam McKay, friend of Tina Fey, gave an interview in which a journalist pitched him a reality show called MILF Lagoon. Is that where Fey got the idea for MILF Island? We doubt it, since setting it in a lagoon would completely change the tone of the show. [Daily Intel]

Barbarella Still Happening After All: Rose McGowan tells MTV that she's still slated to star as space vixen Barbarella in Robert Rodriguez's upcoming remake, even though some say that might not be a good idea. [Movies Blog/MTV]

Clooney Goes Fi-Core: It's apparently just come to light that handsome, rascally screen idol George Clooney went financial core last fall after the Writers Guild decided that his rewrite of Leatherheads ("the third and by a wide margin the weakest movie [he's] directed" —A.O. Scott) did not justify him receiving a writing credit. (Financial core WGA members are still members of the guild, but forfeit many of their rights.) Clooney allegedly kept his decision quiet because WGA was preparing for the strike. Man, what a class act. Shame on you, writers! [Variety]

Dance Crews Needed: Season two of the Randy Jackson–produced America's Best Dance Crew is auditioning new contestants in New York next Friday (April 18) at Pier 60, with callbacks happening the following day. If anyone reading this can pop and/or lock, please leave us your info in the comments, since producers have already informed Dan and Lane that they, alone, do not qualify as a dance crew, regardless of how funky fresh their choreography is. [MySpace]

Thom Has Sent You a Friend Request: Since there's a dearth of these things on the Internet, Radiohead have started their own social-networking Website. [W.A.S.T.E. Central]

This Likely Means Nothing: Axl Rose is reportedly playing six songs from Chinese Democracy for "music industry honchos and tastemakers" indicating that it could finally be nearly half-complete. [E!]

People Still Using Televisions: According to the results of a new study, thanks to DVDs and video games, people didn't use their TVs any less during the writers' strike; they just spent less time watching crappy television shows. [HR]

OH MY GOD, EVERYBODY!: Beyoncé and Jay-Z are getting married, like, right now! [Insider]

OH MY GOD, EVERYBODY!: Christopher Walken is hosting SNL tomorrow night, so we strongly urge you to leave work right now to run home and set your TiVos before you forget.

McConaughey P.I.?: EW reports that Matthew McConaughey has been offered the lead role in an upcoming film version of Magnum P.I., which we doubt he'll take since he'd have to grow a mustache and wear a shirt. [EW]

You Have Wasted Your Life: Two 23-year-olds will have their musical on Broadway next month. We don't feel bad; by 23 we'd already given up on our dreams, so we're actually way ahead of them. [NYT]

Apple Beats Wal-Mart: During the month of January, iTunes was the No. 1 music retailer in the U.S., overtaking Wal-Mart for the first time ever. [Ars Technica]

Apple to Beat MySpace, Too: MySpace announced today that it's teaming up with three major record labels to open a digital-music store to compete with iTunes, a plan almost certainly doomed to fail. [Reuters]

Superbad to Be Unfunnily Parodied: Superbad, contemporary cinema's undisputed high-water mark, is getting its own spoof version by those idiots who made Meet the Spartans and Superhero Movie. We'll stick with the original, thank you very much. [/Film]

Velvet Revolver Now Just a Bunch of Guys Who Used to Be in Guns N' Roses: Velvet Revolver front man Scott Weiland has left the band, presumably to spend more time with his "increasingly erratic onstage behavior and personal problems." From the press release, it sounds like VR plans to forge ahead, so Brett Michaels and Sebastian Bach may want to start polishing their résumés. [Business Wire via Idolator]

Tonight, Simon's Won't Be the Only Cleavage: In a few short hours, the remaining American Idol finalists will interpret songs made famous by Dolly Parton, who'll also appear as a guest judge. [EW]

Movie Critics an Endangered Species: In this morning's Times, David Carr investigates the thinned ranks of newspaper movie critics. Soon, American moviegoers wishing to avoid stinkers will be forced to adapt Vulture's math-based Judd Apatow formula to predict the quality of all films. (Rule to live by: If it stars McLovin, it's probably worth your $10.) [NYT]

Shore Scores: Howard Shore will reprise his Lord of the Rings role as the guy who writes the orchestral score for the upcoming Hobbit movies. [Ain't It Cool]

April Fools: Google did this, ABC News did this, /Film did this, Jezebel did this, and Rick Astley is popular as ever. [April Fools' Day On the Web]

NOTE: Today’s Early Evening News is dedicated to our Daily Intelligencer sistren and their praise-worthy decision to begin appending the Law & Order "chung-chung" to random posts.

The satellite-radio system used to be made up of two separate yet equally important groups — XM and Sirius. Now, thank God, Americans will be able to listen to both out-of-market baseball and out-of-market football on the same gadget. This is their story. [NYT]

The Breeders are hosting a listening “party” for their new album on their Website tonight. It consists of a video taken several days ago at an actual listening party. Was this the plan all along … or did their listening-party planner listen in on the wrong party’s plans? [Breeder’s Digest]

The Smashing Pumpkins are suing former record label Virgin over use of their music in a Pepsi promotion. For Virgin, this news must seem like a Siamese … nightmare. [Pitchfork]

Fox’s Parker Posey vehicle, The Return of Jezebel James, gets yanked from the air owing to low ratings. We guess that's one Parker that won't be posing anymore. [PopWatch]

Defamer is attempting to lure John Hughes out of seclusion by collecting questions from avid fans. Our question: Is "Blaine" actually, in fact, a major appliance? Here's hoping that the John Hughes Challenge works, and that Hughes hasn't disappeared ... without a trace! [Defamer]

Wait, we did that wrong.