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Actors might make a lot of money, but at least they work for it with long hours on set, paparazzi insanity, exhausting PR tours, and the pressures of handling the same questions over and over and over again with grace and charm. But even more impressive is when they can be graceful in the face of utter ignorance or idiocy.

We've watched John Cusack get interviewed by a clueless film student, and now (after the jump of course) you can see Ian McKellen handle the women from The View. Ah, there's nothing like having your television interview start out with an inflammatory rant about swine flu and socialized medicine. It's not a surprise really -- the once-sweet Survivor star Elisabeth Hasselbeck has made a career out throwing wild rants into unusual places on the show. But, sadly, that's only the start of the nonsense that McKellen handles with dashing grace. Whoopi Goldberg can't keep her actors straight, and Sherry Shepherd pulls off one of those classic moments where a clueless interviewer reads crap off the cards without knowing what the hell she's talking about.

Yet, in the face of all that, McKellen is pure charm. I always find that impressive. Sure, he's an actor and makes his living making fiction convincing, but to be ready with that clever retort, graciously correct someone who should know better, and take it all in stride ... I wouldn't say this about most of Hollywood, but I think we can all learn a little from that small part of the biz.

Watch enough movies and you learn pretty fast that they aren't about reality, they're about entertaining us. Which sometimes makes the world of the biopic a little tricky, because not only do you have to work in the truth, but you still have to keep those butts in the seats -- and the results are not always good. Over at Moviefone they've compiled some of the worst movie biopics, and no one was safe -- with films earning a spot for mixing up their facts, ridiculous casting, or just downright lazy filmmaking.

So who made the list? Well, you've got your usual suspects like Oliver Stone's Alexander, a film that has so much wrong with it I don't know where to put the blame (oh, that's right, on everyone). Other films that made the cut for the less than flattering title of 'Real Life Catastrophes' were Kevin Spacey's Bobby Darin flick, Beyond The Sea, Luc Besson's The Messenger, and Alan Parker's Evita. But don't think the classics made it out unscathed either, because both Captain Eddie and The Babe Ruth Story also earned a mention.

As a genre, I love biopics -- especially the bad ones. I've watched everything from made-for-TV movies on The Beach Boys to high art flicks like I'm Not There. So no matter what kind of biopic it might be, I will usually give it a chance. Over the years, I've seen movies that bend the truth and those that just mess it up entirely, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy them. Besides, if you're looking for unadulterated facts, you should probably head to the library and not the multiplex.

After the jump: five of my favorite movie biopics...

Back in August was when G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra hit the screens, and while I had no reason to expect anything but a merciless brain-pummeling from the experience, I walked out suitably impressed with the flick's popcorn-tastic mentality. I even ended my review with this: "Truth be told, the flick's action centerpiece, a crazy chase through Paris, will soon be on heavy blu-ray rotation around my house." Yes, the director who slapped me with The Mummy Returns and pummeled me with Van Helsing is now back in my good graces. (The awesomely amusing Deep Rising is always the tie-breaker for Stephen Sommers.)

You can enjoy my wonderfully insightful G.I. Joe review right here if you like, but this time out I just want to focus on the blu-ness and not the wackness: If you liked the flick, you want to own it on Blu-ray, trust me on that one. The supplemental features are basic but well-produced: there's an audio commentary with Sommers and producer Bob Ducsay that shows a good deal of enthusiasm and preparation on their part, plus on disc 2 you'll find a pair of rather slick and thorough featurettes: the 30-minute The Big Bang Theory is the "catch-all" behind-the-scenes piece that covers a lot of bases, and Next-Gen Action (about 20 minutes) focuses more intently on the special effects and production design.

Every few years, it seems necessary in the course of critiquing home video releases to clarify and designate the difference between all of those terms that distributors and producers come up with to describe films that arrive in stores in a version other than their theatrical iteration. For example, "unrated" no longer simply means that a film is too bawdy or offensive to garner a proper MPAA rating; rather, in many cases it means that the studio re-inserted footage, and didn't bother to screen it for the ratings board at all. "Director's cuts," meanwhile, sometimes really reflect the original vision of a filmmaker for his movie, and sometimes just qualify as an alternate version that was supervised or approved by the director. And most importantly, none of these changes are an automatic indication that the film will be superior to the one that you saw in theaters, even if there's a little more gore or nudity or (God forbid) character development.

Ironically, the new Blu-ray for Heat carries no such designation – to anyone buying it, this is the same film they saw in theaters and on standard-definition DVD. However, at the top of the list of the disc's special features, the topline attraction is "new content changes supervised by director Michael Mann." Even for someone who's seen more than his share of extended, alternate, unrated and director's cuts, this was particularly intriguing, which is why Heat is the subject of this week's "Making The (Up) Grade."

You know how you love movies so much that you watch them every minute of the day, but sometimes you have to pull yourself away from the DVD player in order to take a shower? Don't you wish there were a way you could clean your body AND watch movies, without the danger of putting a TV next to the shower, or the humiliation of bathing in a washtub that you dragged with you to a movie theater and filled with hot water from the restroom?

Now there is! Industrial designer Wu Chenghou has created the Waterdrop Shower Room, a fully functional shower/tub combination enclosed by a wraparound wall that doubles as a movie screen. It's shaped like a giant drop of water. Once you're inside, you fill the tub or turn on the shower, and whatever you've selected plays on the movie screen that now surrounds you. It's not "3-D," exactly -- well, unless it's a 3-D movie and you're wearing the glasses -- but it will certainly make you feel like you're part of the action! Especially if it's a movie with a lot of wet, soapy people!

Here's the blurb on the product from the Yanko Design blog: "The Waterdrop Shower Room brings to life the childhood fantasies of role-playing while taking a bath. Sometimes you're a beastly pirate and sometimes a brave hero rescuing your ducks. This exciting enclosure comes with a tactile touchscreen that almost envelopes you. Its giant screen happily plays for you [I'm glad the screen is happy in its work] soothing melodies of the Chinese Opera to Nemo (although I reckon the big guys will opt for something more seductive!) and transports you to fantasy land!" [Note: "the big guys will opt for something more seductive" means "adult men will probably watch pornography."]

Now that most of us acquire our music online these days, radio DJs don't have the same sway as taste-makers that they used to. But in the '70s, the final word in rock music was Rodney Bigenheimer. In George Hickenlooper's 2003 documentary about the infamous DJ and rock music icon, Mayor of Sunset Strip, we are shown Bigenheimer as an awkward and strange little fellow who, in the end, did it all for the music. Now, thanks to the nice folks at SlashControl you can now watch the documentary as one of their collection of (pretty awesome) free movies.

You wouldn't know it to look at him, but Bigenheimer was one of the biggest names in the rock music scene, and was credited with helping to break bands like The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Nirvana, and even Coldplay. Bigenheimer has been relegated to the 'graveyard shift' these days at KROQ, but considering that Hickenlooper was able to get appearances from some of the biggest names in rock (everyone from Mick Jagger to Rob Zombie) you can't deny Bigenheimer still has some clout.

Hickenlooper's film is more than just a walk down music history lane. It also manages to show you someone who truly loves the music, and maybe it's a little sad that it never quite loved him back. But this documentary reminds us that his legend lives on -- you might even remember a certain homage to Bigenheimer in Cameron Crowe's rock n' roll tale, Almost Famous when he works in one of Rodney's famous quotes "It's all happening!", and during the 'Mayor's' reign at KROQ, it really was...

Watch The Mayor of Sunset Strip at SlashControl

OK, so just before we start, I want you to know that I'm going to try very hard not to make any jokes about the French in this post (even though a certain line of dialog from The Last of The Mohicans keeps running in my head). But, back to the news at hand: Variety is reporting that more than 2,000 French movie theaters will be turning off their lights between 6 and 7PM in protest of a new anti-piracy law, and since Wednesday is new release day in France, exhibitors thought that would be the most opportune time to make their point.

So what is their point exactly? Well, it turns out that French movie distributors are starting to feel the pains of rising services like VOD competing with first-run movie theaters for business. Originally, movie theaters were granted a six-month window of exclusivity before a flick could move on to other distribution channels, but under their new anti-piracy law, the home entertainment market will now only have to wait 4 months before a film becomes available for the DVD and VOD market. French cinema owners claim that this law is, "degrading of theater owners' economic conditions." (Even though, according to statistics, the box-office is up 3.4% from last year).

After the jump; French movie theaters aren't the only ones suffering...

While tooling around online I came across a post over at Brobible on the 15 Best Man Caves on the Internet. A Man Cave, for those who do not know, is usually an area somewhere in the house (normally the garage or a spare room) designated for the guys to hang out in and do "guy things" like watch tons of sports or, in the case of one Australian homeowner, tons of The Dark Knight. I'm not exactly sure how much this cost, though Gizmag tells us the screening room won the highly commended prize in the 'above $100,000' category at CEDIA Asia Pacific annual awards, so more than likely this sucker cost a pretty penny to produce.

The room took about 20 days to piece together, while the installation of equipment and acoustic took another 8 days. Apart from very cool-looking and comfortable seats, as well as a big screen, the room also features a full wet bar and a bathroom that can be accessed via a remote-controlled sliding door.

From Gizmag: "Entry to the 'secret location' is via a remote-controlled pneumatic sliding door (unfortunately, not bat poles). A touch of the panel outside and the door opens, the lights turn on to a predetermined level, the projector and scaler come to life, and the processor goes into action. So, by the time you've chosen your movie and had your first mouthful of popcorn, everything is humming along, just like a well-oiled Batmobile."

Check out some images below and more stats on the equipment over at Gizmag. If you had the dough, would you put something like this in your home?

I am Jack's raging annoyance.

If you haven't heard yet, Fight Club is finally hitting Blu-ray on November 17, jam-packed full features including new bits about sound design, a search index, a bajillion commentaries, those great PSA's, and behind-the-scenes fare. In other words: a must-have disc if it is even half as good as it sounds. (Read the press release after the jump.)

To kick off the event, a new website has been created at www.welcometofc.com. As Coming Soon says: "The site connects to your Facebook and... you'll have to see what happens next!" For me, that means 30 minutes of annoyance as it "loads" whilst phrases get spray-painted on the wall over, and over, and over again. Marketers might be trying new techniques to connect with the audience, but something tells me that grating on their audience's last nerve is not one of them. With the help of Horror Squad writer Alison Nastasi, I found out this is what happens: You need to have an account with pictures, and then the website will create a video with Fight Club highlights and classic text laid over the photos in your account.

If Tyler Durden and his more passive self were ever told to sign up for a popular website notorious for shady practices, they'd ... well, there'd be big acts of vandalism, maybe some hacking, and possibly even an unsanitary soup or two. The first-come, first-serve soap that came with the big DVD release years ago, that was a cool marketing twist.

Nevertheless, this release is yet another reason to go Blu-ray.