We hope you're proud of yourselves, music pirates. Hard times have apparently befallen everyone's favorite technology-averse hard-rock combo, and Metallica's Lars Ulrich is selling a Basquiat he purchased back in 1999, long before he'd even heard of P2P or personal computers. Untitled (Boxer), painted by the artist in 1982, is expected to fetch between $12 million and $16 million at Christie's, which you could probably easily afford with the money you've saved by downloading Metallica albums.

Metallica Drummer to Sell Basquiat ‘Boxer’ [NYT]

If New York cinema belongs to Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen, no other British filmmaker of the past 30 years has chronicled London quite like Mike Leigh (of Topsy-Turvy and Vera Drake fame), whose renowned, hands-on style entails months of improvisatory sessions to shape the narratives of his films. His irresistible latest work, Happy-Go-Lucky — which hits theaters tonight — is centered around Poppy (Sally Hawkins), a lovable singleton marked by an unsinkable optimism who offers up an endless stream of cheery rejoinders in response to life’s woes, much to the bemusement of those around her. Leigh spoke with Vulture about growing up in Manchester, the glory of Sally Hawkins, and why there’s big money to be made hawking drama in Japan.

"Music is my backup plan if acting fails. I don't want to put all my eggs in one basket." —Twilight star Robert Pattinson [Hero Complex/LAT]

"I hope whatever differences we'd accrued over the years, we'd be able to show up as professionals and accept it with dignity." —Slash reflects on what would happen if Guns 'N Roses were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame [AP via Yahoo]

"I'm more involved with, you know, trying to get the dessert we order at lunch than I am with the new Ghostbusters sequel." —Bill Murray [ComingSoon]

Every week between now and February 2, when the nominations are announced, movies and stars will help themselves — or, sometimes, hurt themselves — in the Oscar race. Vulture's Oscar Futures will listen to insider gossip, comb the Oscar blogs, and out-and-out guess when necessary to track who's up, who's down, and who's currently leading the race for a coveted nomination.

Best Picture	UP: Milk. Early whispers indicate it could be as good as its trailer.	DOWN: W. The first reviews confirm the worst — not only is it not the batshit-crazy lightning rod we were hoping for, it's not even a very good movie!
	CURRENT PREDIX: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, Revolutionary Road, Slumdog Millionaire

Not to get too ahead of ourselves, but how will The Office recover from losing Amy Ryan? The Oscar-nominated and beloved former Wire star has only, well, four episodes left as the daffily cheesy HR rep Holly Flax, and we already miss her. (Only Ryan could make us dread the return of the once-perfect deadpan, sad-sack Charlie Brown that is Toby.) Ryan’s unexpectedly screwball — she’s got a little Carol Burnett in her — but, more crucially, she’s brilliant at furiously sketching in an imaginary backstory on the fly without breaking a sweat.

The awesome feud between easygoing producers Harvey Weinstein and Scott Rudin over The Reader — previous highlights include Weinstein's alleged harassment of Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella on their deathbeds, a million-dollar bet with Nikki Finke, and one moved-up release date — got even more exciting last night when Rudin decided to quit the project and remove his name from the film!

Rogen's With Cancer: Mandate has picked up Will Reiser's autobiographical spec I'm With Cancer for Seth Rogen to play a supporting role in and produce with his writing partner Evan Goldberg and The Daily Show's Ben Karlin. True story follows Reiser's struggle to beat cancer after being diagnosed at only 25 years old. So it's practically Superbad 2. [HR]

Bana Armors Up: Millennium Films is remaking 2004's Le Convoyeur and is in negotiations with Eric Bana to star and F. Gary Gray (Italian Job, Set It Off) to direct. Now called Armored, the story (by David Ayer and Se7en's Andrew Kevin Walker) follows a man who takes a job working for an armored-car company to sabotage their heist. When it comes to heist movies, F. Gary Gray is definitely taking a quantity-over-quality approach. [Variety]

A Whole Bunch of Fame-ous Kids: MGM has rounded out the cast of their Fame remake. Ready? It now includes Kristy Flores, Paul Lacono, Paul McGill, Naturi Naughton, Kay Panabaker, Kherington Payne, Collins Pennie, Walter Perez, and Anna Maria Perez de Tagle (whew!). The actors range from virtual unknowns to those who were brutally chewed up and spit out by the Disney Channel machine (cough, Kay Panabaker, cough). [HR]

David Wain’s first two directorial efforts — Wet Hot American Summer and The Ten — were very much in line with the absurdist humor we've come to expect from Wain and his fellow alums from The State. But his latest moves him away from that scene for the first time — next month’s big-budget studio comedy Role Models, starring old friend Paul Rudd and new friend Sean William Scott as energy drink reps who, through a series of wacky machinations, are sentenced to community service as child mentors. Wain, who's hosting New York’s 40th-Anniversary party tomorrow night alongside Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black, spoke with Vulture about Paul Rudd’s writing, the future of McLovin, and whether or not girls on the street feel the urge to randomly make out with him.

In what's almost certainly a fit of wishful thinking, Billboard is reporting that Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy, the band's long-overdue follow-up to The Spaghetti Incident?, has finally been given a release date — Sunday, November 23! 2008! Apparently a spokesman for Dr. Pepper isn't returning calls, probably because he's busy asking the government for a bailout.

GNR's 'Chinese Democracy' Gets Release Date [Billboard]

Earlier: Dr. Pepper Would Like to Buy the World a New Guns N' Roses Album

Fans of Anne Rice, the beloved author widely credited for kick-starting the current vampire craze with her Interview With the Vampire series, already know that in the past few years she's shifted her focus from bloodsuckers to God. Now she's written her first-ever memoir, Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession, in bookstores this week. Rice spoke with Vulture about Hollywood, the election, and not watching True Blood.

"I would have been a fine Batman." —Bill Murray [MTV]

"We went, and we played the American Gladiators. We were cocky at the beginning, before we started, We're gonna beat the Gladiators, who do we play next?' And the Gladiators almost beat us. It was like 186 to nothing, we were shell-shocked." —The Office's Oscar Nuñez on participating on Celebrity Family Feud [A.V. Club]

"It's about what has always been the standard, and I don't look like the standard. I've got the flat chest. I'm more ethnic-looking than most people." —Debra Messing is ethnic-looking? [NYT]