I can't believe I'm using IMdB as a source, but here it is: Mickey Rourke and Quentin Tarantino totally broke up, and it was, like, totally weird for like...both of them? Now, Mickey is all "psshh, let the bitch talk if she wants to talk, I mean she's a dirty nasty bitch who needs a good ass-whuppin', I'm just sayin'..." and Quentin is all, "like, whatev."

The long and short of it is thus: Rourke was set, locked, and loaded to play Stuntman Mike in Tarantino's Death Proof half of Grindhouse, and then, just prior to start time, Kurt "Snake Plissken" Russell took on the role. Shortly after that, True West Magazine broke that The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes ghost-directed Tombstone as Jeff reported here.

Oh the drama! All that lumped with Robbie Rod's divorce hitting during principal photography of Planet Terror and this gritty, grimy double feature is turning into a hotbed of art life imitating past art life: the exploitative, dirty process that making these cheap thrill pics was.

Was there a post-Sin City fallout between The Rourke and the Troublemaker/Band Apart camp? Who knows, and from someone who sees drama drenched in drama covered in nuclear-melted drama working in the theatre, I don't really care. That I-need-to-know-the-dirt impulse has become much less prevalent since TMZ and Defamer leave little to the imagination. Celebrity Glamour is dead, so long live Celebrity Grime? It's more often I find myself wishing I didn't know "how the sausage is made" in Hollywood so I can ignore what's being ingested. Wow, that was disgusting...then again, so are non-kosher franks.

Unfortunate as many parts of all the controversy may be, great art usually comes out of fiery conflict. In this case, of course, we're talking about trashy, dirty, guilty pleasure art, but art nonetheless. One thing I do know is that a Sin City sequel minus Rourke is a lot less interesting than one with, but I'm just hoping a second one gets made at this point.