I remember in 2000, during the Bush v. Gore recount debacle, watching with gross car-wrecky fascination, the twistedly taut Katherine "Kitty" Harris, Fla's Secretary of State on TV. Wow, I thought, who's gonna play her in the TV movie? Stuck in a small but charming Texas town this past Memorial Day weekend, I excitedly searched the motel's HBO for airings of the much-a-buzzed Recount. One was already in progress. The film recounts the time between Election Day 2000 and the U.S. Supreme Court's coronation of King George II (paint me donkey and color me biased). Sydney Pollack was originally set to direct, but after his passing, the torch went to Austin Powers' director Jay Roach. Roach was an interesting choice, and under his watch, the film teeters between recent-history docudrama and political farce, a dangerous combo any day of the week, but strangely befitting the Rove-diculous era which marked the nation's hard right turn into the dark ages. Kevin Spacey, Denis Leary, Bob Balaban all deliver thoughtful performances, but the film belongs to Laura Dern (June's Gay Place Crush of the Month). Dern is deliciously pinched and over-the-top in the HBO original, just as Kitty herself was during so many 2000 press conferences.

Legendary dancer and actress Cyd Charisse (Singin' in the Rain, Brigadoon) passed away yesterday at the age of 86. An Amarillo native, Charisse was inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame in 2002. In a recent After a Fashion column, Style Avatar Stephen Moser remembered the Hall of Fame night: "I remember standing backstage with Cyd Charisse as we watched the film tribute from the clips I'd selected. As one dancing scene segued into another, she seemed as entranced as the viewers and took my hand, whispering a grateful, 'Thank you.' Thank me? Making her look glorious was no challenge."

If you spend all day goofing around on the Internet like me, you can’t help but cross paths with a certain amount of Photoshop humor, often called “photo memes," or ultimate time-wasters. Lately, you can’t click ‘back’ without seeing another link to manbabies.com, where users submit a photo of a man with a baby; and then the site’s creators swap their heads to create, you guessed it, man babies. Have you seen a baby with an Adam’s apple? How about a bearded man in a onesie? What about a baby with an Adam’s apple tossing a bearded man in a onesie into the air? Are these images creepy or hilarious? The site has a ratings system. You decide. Now since the site only posts one new man baby per day, it’ll be a while before they get to your photo. Why not edit the photo yourself? What's that? You suck at Photoshop? Then brush up on your skills by watching “You Suck at Photoshop” on YouTube. It’s a video tutorial series in which the narrator, a true man baby, discusses his failed marriage while showing off Photoshop tips and tricks. Like how to expertly erase the wedding ring from his wife’s finger. Or how to edit his wife’s rescue-animal cat into a plastic bag, which could come in handy should you decide to submit to the new man-babies' spin-off, Cat Ladies. Other how-to videos could learn a thing or two from "YSAP." Like how to be funny.

Remember how we said yesterday that cavemen were over? Well, that was before we saw Karl Pilkington suit up as the "first ever bald caveman" for Ricky Gervais' new film This Side of the Truth. [Link via Underwire]

"Is he cutting out his own eye?" Just about every film fan has their favorite Stan Winston moment. For me, it was the bit in The Terminator when the T100 does some impromptu plastic self-surgery in a sleazy hotel with a scalpel. For others it's a decapitation here or a subtle wrinkle there or a psychotic killer knee-deep in someone's gizzards all over the killing floor. But there shall be no more such moments, because one of the special effects greats died yesterday. From 1972's Gargoyles to Iron Man, as a make-up artist, effects co-ordinator and designer, director and producer, Winston spent decades creating wonders and robbing audiences of a good night's sleep. It was Winston that aged the cast of Roots, that took the alien out of the shadows in Aliens, carved the scars into Edward Scissorhands' face, hid raptors in the weeds of Jurassic Park, and earned four Oscars, four Saturns, three BAFTAS, and two Emmys along the way. But amongst many horror fans, there will always be a soft, squishy place in their gooey, blood-filled hearts for his own films: like Creature Features, the short series of B-Movies he produced for HBO in 2001, remaking Samuel Arkoff classics like She-Creature and Earth vs. The Spider. And, of course, no movie summed up the vengeance-fueled demon genre like his directorial debut, Pumpkinhead.

Breaking news: Cavemen continue to not be hot. On the heels of the disastrous ABC sitcom Cavemen and Roland Emmerich's universally reviled 10,000 B.C. comes the release of Homo Erectus, the long-delayed lowbrow comedy from the now-shuttered UT production arm Burnt Orange Productions. In a Variety review posted Thursday, June 12, Peter Debruge – a UT alum and a former Chron contributor (as well as classmate of yours truly) – took a club to Homo Erectus and proceeded to pound at will. The opening whack:

Ran into Austin filmmaker David Modigliani at Barton Springs yesterday, and he had nothing but good news to report. First, there was the June 4th Crawford, TX, premiere of Crawford, Modigliani's doc about W's effect when he set up house in the small Texas town. He deemed it a wildly successful night, netting about 400 attendees and giving him a chance to do some more filming for future DVD extras. (Go here to see Variety's photo essay from the night.) But the good news doesn't stop there – during the Crawford screening, Modigliani received a text letting him know he'd just won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Brooklyn International Film Festival. Modigliani flies out on Thursday for the Munich International Film Festival, something Crawford's residents get an especial kick out of, Modigliani told me – that the little pic about the tiny town is going global, baby.

I can't decide if this new CBS reality show is one of the four horsemen of the Hollywood-has-so-run-out-of-ideas-alypse... or the awesomest guilty pleasure ever. It's called Greatest American Dog; the gist is that a bunch of super-talented dogs live in a house together with their show moms and dads and compete for the title of... well, you know. Although one does wonder about how they measure the greatness of a dog. Sure, back flips and skateboarding skills are impressive, but they're not really indicative of dogness, are they? That's more like Greatest American Dog Impersonating a Human. How about Greatest American Dog Licking His Balls for an Hour? Greatest American Dog premieres Thursday, July 10 on CBS. Show preview below. (link via EW's PopWatch)

Richard Linklater's loving doc of UT baseball coach Augie Garrido, Inning by Inning: A Portrait of a Coach, will make its nationally televised debut Sunday night, June 15, on ESPN2 at 9pm. Austinites were treated to its regional premiere and a Q&A with Linklater and Garrido at the Paramount Theatre Tuesday, June 3. Garrido sports the most wins of any NCAA baseball coach ever and has won five championships over four decades at two schools (Cal State Fullerton and UT). Our own Ashley Moreno interviewed Richard Linklater about his doc and her piece “Zen and the Art of Winning Championships” (Screens, May 30) can be found here. Not to be missed are Augie's locker-room “talks” with his players following disappointing (in his opinion, regardless of the numbers on the scoreboard) outings. I recommend programming your DVRs now before you forget.