The 2008 presidential election held all the thrill of a classic Hollywood narrative, from the rise of its underdog hero to the unified support he received around the world.

Fireworks erupted as Barack Obama launched his campaign as the Democratic candidate and confetti fell when he sealed the deal. Music and good cheer filled the air. His grand oration provided the ideal antidote to eight years of a confused and ineloquent administration.

The hero rode off into the sunset and entered the Oval Office.

When Nina Paley's playfully cosmic feature "Sita Sings the Blues" premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2008, its crowd-pleasing potential became immediately obvious.

Paley, a New York-based cartoonist, toiled over the Flash-animated movie for years on her personal laptop, and the results of her painstaking effort showed in its deeply personal, handcrafted spirit.

When the trailer for Werner Herzog's upcoming Nicolas Cage vehicle, "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans," showed up on YouTube last Thursday, movie buffs were baffled.

Ostensibly a remake of Abel Ferrara's harrowing 1992 cop drama with Harvey Keitel in the lead role, the new version appears to spin the source material into the unlikely mold of a black comedy.

The news this week that Mike Tyson's 4-year-old daughter Exodus died in a sudden home accident marks a horrible personal tragedy for the victim's family.

They deserve the right to mourn in private. However, Exodus' death signals a new challenge for the retired boxer that's immediately visible to the public, and unavoidably ripe for psychological scrutiny. Audiences can find Tyson telling his story on the big screen, which directly informs this recent, morbid chapter.

These days, most discussions about film and new media revolve around digital distribution. But this emphasis often misses the point.

The Internet brought more changes to the business of making movies than merely the prospects of watching them online. The advent of social networking, the rise of the blogosphere and the public's growing comfort with online interactivity all contributed to strategies for getting movies made, period, no matter where they got shown. 

Theories are quickly turning into practice.

Bobcat Goldthwait called me yesterday with some exciting news: Magnolia Pictures has picked up his outlandish Robin Williams comedy "World's Greatest Dad," a delightfully raunchy and subversive work that served as my guilty pleasure earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival. (I originally reported about the movie's sales prospects in a story for TheWrap last month.)