This x is the new y chart is the new x is the new y chart. My favorite one: "Friendster is the new Google." As if!

The Disney watchblog Jim Hill Media reports that Disney and Pixar are disappointed in Ratatouille's performance. They're trying to figure out what went wrong with a film that has grossed $200 domestically. The problem: unlike its predecessors from Pixar, it won't finish in the year's top five at the b.o. It may not be even be in the top ten. (via Vulture)

News from the FNL insider blog: Friday Night Lights won the Emmy for best casting. Too bad about the rest of the Emmys.

Tcritic has photos of the newly opened Threadless store in Chicago. More at the store's own website. And here's a typically clever Threadless design from their most recent crop of releases: My Favorite Pattern.

And I'm still thinking about last night's premiere of Tell Me You Love Me on HBO. I was prepared to hate it and felt pretty uncomfortable during most of the episode, especially during the characters' fights. The sex scenes are hardly extraneous, as some people have been saying. The scene of the couple who are trying to get pregnant in which the man ejaculates and she studies at his semen on her fingers is especially well motivated: she's wondering if he can be to blame for their fertility problems. Sex scenes in most movies and TV are incredibly banal but you can't say that of this show's lovemaking. That frisson that accompanies shots of penises and scrota won't last, though. After a few episodes it will be, like, yeah whatever. And I really don't care if the actors are having intercourse or not. What difference does it make? I really admired the show's visual approach, all the real estate porn and tight close-ups. In subject matter and approach, Tell Me You Love Me reminds me more of indie films about grownup relationships (Friends With Money, Your Friends and Neighbors), than anything else on television. I have wondered for awhile if and how the indie sensibility will carry over from American movies to TV, and this might be the best instance of it yet. This could be the show that keeps HBO fresh and vital in its post-Sopranos period. I can see people coming to care about these characters and being fascinated by the depths of intimate detail we learn about them.