If I were making a list of the best movie bartenders, Brian Dennehy would be near the top for his wonderfully understated Donald in the 1979 Dudley Moore film, 10. Someone must have compiled such a list already, but I can’t find it. And I’m having a hard time coming up with names and movies. I think you’d have to include Sascha, the bartender in Casablanca (played by Leonid Kinskey). I would not include Tom Cruise (Cocktail, 1988) or any of the girls in Coyote Ugly. So help me out here. Who would you put on the list?

PS: I found Leonid Kinskey in the Find A Grave database. They claim 25,000 people a day search their 8 million grave records.

Update: Thanks to Terry McVey for Nick (Sheldon Leonard) in It’s a Wonderful Life and Lloyd (Joe Turkel) from The Shining.

Excellent piece at nytimes.com by Virginia Heffernan on Jeremy Piven who plays Ari Gold on HBO’s “Entourage.” Love the show. Love the writing. You gotta believe every agent in Hollywood is watching.

To the assistant of an elusive executive, he (Ari Gold) offers dictation: “I want you to pass this message along to Dana. Tell her that I still have the pictures from Cancun. Tell her that I’m going to start a Web site. I’m going to take a full-page ad out in The L.A. Times advertising it. Tell her it will be called I’mahollywoodexecutivewhore.com and that no password or fee will be required. Tell her I want a call back.”

PS: Piven had a small but wonderful part in Grosse Pointe Blank. When I clicked over to IMDB, I was reminded of the great cast of that movie: John Cusack, Minnie Driver, Alan Arkin, Dan Aykroyd, Hank Azaria.

The new season of Reno 911 kicks of June 14th. … Stephen Colbert’s new show on Comedy Central —The Colbert Report— will be a satire of TV talk shows such as The O’Reilly Factor. You can hear the NPR interview here. I’m counting on the show being funnier than the interview.

I never read Frank Miller’s Sin City stories (comic books?) but I did enjoy the movie. Sin City is one of those digital-with-live-actors-not-really-animation movies that –for me– really worked. I was immediately struck by the power of the soundtrack, which showed off all the great voices: Powers Booth, Rutger Hauer, Mickey Rourke, Benicio Del Toro.

I didn’t see any punches pulled but wasn’t offended by the graphic violence. It was all in fun. I’m starting to resent paying $25 to see a movie (for two) but Jessica Alba’s cowgirl dance on the bar was just about worth it. Barb said I moaned aloud. [Sin City website]