Beaks here...

If you haven't read Art Linson's brutally honest WHAT JUST HAPPENED?, I'd recommend that you breeze through it between now and the fall (it's a quick 206 pages) because I'm worried that Barry Levinson's feature adaptation of the Hollywood tell-all (scripted by Linson, and due out October 3rd) won't work quite as well with self-parodying stars like Bruce Willis stepping in for, say, a highly volatile Alec Baldwin.

Granted, the below video is pretty damn amusing in its own right (I'm a sucker for the use of the word "trim"), but the actual beard-shaving tantrum depicted in Linson's book - which went down on the set of Lee Tamahori's THE EDGE - is so much funnier. The particulars: Baldwin shows up to the set of THE EDGE sporting a full beard, which he deems appropriate for his character; the studio, already cheesed at shelling out $5 million for a non-bankable "star", flips and demands that he shave; Linson, facing the possibility of replacing Baldwin with the less physically intimidating Bill Pullman (hot off of ID4 at the time), girds for war and, roughly, the following blow-up occurs (thanks IGN!).

Good scene, but the real punch line comes later when Baldwin's then agent, John Burnham, gets served the foulest shit sandwich in the history of shit sandwiches. Even if they include this kicker in the film, it's funnier in the book because it's real. I mean, I doubt Burnham's laughing, but he's currently hanging in there at ICM, I think. He's still got Woody Allen!

And if you just read all of this inside baseball blather and said, "Fuck Hollywood!"... well, I don't blame you. At this point, I'm just hoping that WHAT JUST HAPPENED? is better than THE PICKLE.