OK, the second rule of Fight Club is, don’t be a homicidal pinhead and try to imitate one of the characters from Fight Club. Kyle Shaw, the misguided teenager charged with bombing a Manhattan Starbucks on Memorial Day, said that he was inspired by the character that Brad Pitt played in the 1999 film.

No one was hurt in the May 25 attack, when a homemade explosive device police say was planted by Shaw ripped a hole in a wooden bench outside the Starbucks. And thus we learn a valuable lesson: When you attempt to imitate a movie in which Meat Loaf is a main character, expect mixed results. Well, maybe when Shaw gets out of jail the UFC can use him as training fodder. Read more…

If you’re anything like us, you were probably devastated to learn that the Moneyball movie had lost its funding at the last second, mainly because the idea of Brad Pitt as a general manager who uses Bloomin’ Onions to seduce waitresses is spectacularly hilarious. Luckily, we have good news.

(A little yonic, don’t you think? No? Maybe we’re just perverts.)

As FILMDRUNK reports, the movie’s back in the works, albeit with some changes. For example, instead of being about baseball, it’s about the financial aspects of midget wrestling instead. Okay, no it isn’t. But it should be.

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Movie fans were no doubt grief-stricken at the news over the weekend that Sony Pictures axed Money Pit Moneyball, the Billy Beane biopic that, for some reason, was to star Brad Pitt. Maybe it was because they figured there’s no way a movie about sports stats would draw people to the theaters. Maybe it was because they figured there was absolutely no reason for it to cost $50 million to shoot since it’s a movie about statistics. Maybe they’re not big Oakland fans.

(So wait, the ball’s not actually made of money? Then the title makes no sense.)

So now we’re all missing out on what what was sure to be one of the finest cinematic treasures in baseball movie history, the best baseball movie since, like, The Sandlot 2. Lucky for all of us, the script (or at least one of the earlier drafts, anyway) is available online for your perusal (PDF, pops to new window). Quick hint: it gets good when they go to Outback.

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• Darren Rovell of CNBC finds a dilly of a delectable Olympian in Croatian high jumper Blanka Vlasic.

• KEZINS favors us with images of the new Madden 09 covers featuring Brett Favre in full Jets regalia.

• And YAHOO’s SHUTDOWN CORNER offers a review of the fab football video game, and shares the adventures of trying to buy a copy.

• THE SPOILER punches up news that Brad Pitt is boxing in Beijing.

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