● Joe Jackson has elected himself the new King of Media and demands Kanye West be banned from all award shows and show business in general; it’s what Michael would have wanted. [PopCrunch]
● Barack Obama called Kanye West a "jackass" for his Taylor Swift stunt during a (not so) off-the-record interview with CNBC on Monday. [HuffingtonPost]
● Matt Damon will play Michael Douglas’ lover in the Steven Soderbergh-directed Liberace biopic. This is not a joke. [USAToday]

● To no one's surprise, Foxy Brown received "special treatment" while serving her prison sentence at Riker's; guards made sure she had plenty of clean clothes and TV time. [MSNBC]
● Members of the band Rooney will make a cameo in Sofia Coppola’s new film Somewhere; lead singer Robert Schwartzman just happens to be Sofia Coppola’s cousin. [Rooney]
● Bad news for Brad Pitt and Steven Soderbergh. Columbia head Amy Pascal cut loose their new film Moneyball, which was set to begin today in limited turnaround; they're looking for a new studio to fund and distribute the film. [Variety]

Known for his stylistic and thematic variety, Academy Award-winning director Steven Soderbergh's latest film, The Girlfriend Experience, is a low-budget feature, shot in 16 days, largely improvised by Soderbergh's cast of mostly non-actors. Set during the economically challenging weeks leading up to the 2008 presidential election, 21-year-old porn star Sasha Grey stars as Christine, a special brand of high-class escort, who provides for rich Manhattan men what is known as The Girlfriend Experience. Paid $2,000 an hour for her services—sex and emotional intimacy—Christine provides simulated relationships, while maintaining a real romantic relationship with her boyfriend Chris (newcomer Chris Santos—a triathlete and gym trainer) who accepts Christine's employment so long as she follows certain rules to maintain the sanctity of their relationship. But when you try to restrict the human heart to a prescribed code, something's gotta give. Sitting at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles, the 45-year-old auteur is articulate and outspoken as he discusses his latest provocative film, and the tricky, sticky world of sex workers.

One perk of the Sundance Film Festival inundation is that, insofar as every random event is a random PR opportunity, pretty much everything is somehow sponsored. This means various things, but at 8 a.m. it means breakfast and coffee and a panel discussion with Steven Soderbergh, thanks to IFC. Apparently IFC now has its own obscure Comcast On-Demand sub-labyrinth (see: long-winded in-panel explanation/demonstration and photographic navigation handout ... on how to use your TV) where they will show six new films that have premiered at major festivals. These are essentially the same flicks IFC is barely showing in theaters. Really, these are good movies -- like Soderbergh’s two-part roadhouse marathon Che, starring Beni-cheo Del Toro -- and it’s not exactly IFC’s fault that mega-conglomerate theatres aren’t ultra-receptive to films with titles like (the admittedly Golden Globe nominated) Gomorrah. Go figure.

Filmmaker Steven Soderbergh sat down with BlackBook previous to the release of his newest film, the four-hour two-part epic CHE!, about the life of Argentine revolutionary Che Guavara. The film is open in limited release right now, will be opening in more locations over the next two weeks, and is going to be made available On Demand come January 21. It's pretty fitting that -- like CHE! -- our interview with Soderbergh was long, epic, and eventually had to be spliced into two parts; the first is here. Below, Soderbergh discusses his plans for revolution, his work with Sasha Grey, and why petty crimes deserve totally draconian punishments.

Despite director Steven Soderbergh's several belt-notches -- Traffic, Out of Sight, Erin Brockovich, Oceans Eleven (Twelve, and Thirteen) -- he continues to work as hard as ever, with projects as impressive in their ambitions of size, scale, and high art as they are in actual execution, something that rarely happens in Hollywood. His latest is Che, a four-hour epic about the life of Argentinean revolutionary Che Guevara. Che is split into two parts, with a majority of the time focusing on actor Benicio Del Toro's portrayal of Guevara from his early years through his death. I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Soderbergh; in the first part of our interview (see part two), Soderbergh discusses the trouble he had getting the movie made, and his plans for changing the world (none of which involve movies).

You and Benicio Del Toro started talking about Che eight years ago, when you were doing Traffic -- what were those first conversations about? At any point, did you see what came to fruition as a possibility when you were directing Traffic?
There really weren't many conversations at the beginning. Because, obviously, the first thing we needed to do was start researching. We had, at that time, John Lee Anderson's book. There were a couple of other books, of course. But the key was to get to Cuba, to start talking to people. That was our first order of business. And we sort of started backwards, because the end of Che Guevara's life was the period I didn't know at all. I knew about him, but I really didn't know anything about him.