Bits and pieces from over the long weekend:

A 16mm copy of Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” retrieved from Buenos Aires contains missing scenes long thought lost. David Hudson at Greencine Daily has the full report, adding “Frankly, I’m beside myself.”

It’s a bold new era of journalism: Village Voice editor-in-chief Tony Ortega digs through Harvey Weinstein’s trash, and lo, a feature article is born. It’s a rare day when I find myself wanting to come to Harv’s defense.

“Ballast,” one of the best-reviewed films at Sundance this year, is taking the distribution road less traveled. Producer/writer/director Lance Hammer has pulled the film away from IFC Films in order to oversee putting it in theaters himself, Anthony Kaufman at indieWIRE takes a closer look and talks with Hammer: “The problem is the larger issue that’s plaguing every filmmaker right now: The distributors don’t really offer any money. That’s not that big of a deal if they would allow you to have control of your project, but they don’t.”

The Huey Lewis & The News title track for “Pineapple Express” is here and unbelievably 80slicious. Karina Longworth takes it as an opportunity to look back at 50 years of plot songs.

Rose McGowan and Robert Rodriguez are a couple no more, says the New York Post. “[S]ources say the couple, who we reported last October were engaged, have split, partly over the problems Rodriguez had finding financing for ‘Barbarella’ – the 1968 cult classic in which Jane Fonda played a sexy space adventuress – with McGowan in the title role.” Just another of the many breakups “Barbarella” has caused over the decades.

[Photo: “Ballast,” Alluvial Film Company, Required Viewing, 2008]

+ “Rediscovered”! Metropolis. (Greencine Daily)
+ Trash Talking With Harvey Weinstein (Village Voice)
+ “Ballast” Steadies Course Alone: Sundance Winner Chooses Self-Distribution (indieWIRE)
+ Pineapple Express Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (MySpace)
+ Pineapple Express and A Brief History Of Plot Songs (Spout)
+ H’WOOD SPLIT GOOD FOR JESSICA (NY Post)