I got to interview Jeph Loeb, a writer on Smallville. (He also wrote Teen Wolf which is a credit that's too cool for words.) It was just posted on TWOP. You can read it here.

A Mighty Wind: All right, I'm not an idiot, but I really didn't like it that much. Maybe I've seen Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show too many times, but this one really just didn't do it for me. I thought it was a great idea, but it just wasn't as funny as it should have been. However. I saw it as South by Southwest and was told it was a rough cut. So maybe I need to see it again because so far it's getting great reviews and I'm wondering if somehow they injected a bunch of the elusive ingredient, Funny, into the mix.

Daddy Day Care: You can read my full review of it here. What I didn't mention was how a huge group of parents with kids walked out about 15 minutes before the movie was over. It's really not as bad as it could have been, but I sure wouldn't pay to see it.

Divine Intervention: This is one of those geopolitical "comedies" where absurd stuff happens and people with machine guns are portrayed as idiots while artists are portrayed as saviors and, like the Bosnian movie No Man's Land, is about how futile and stupid war and strife are. I probably won't see it because, hey, Matrix is coming! I may get to see it on Monday.

I've been completely remiss not pimping this earlier, but it's not too late. Pamie is doing a wonderful and amazing thing. Go visit her site and help donate books to the Oakland Public Library system. See? The Internet's not all bad.

I forgot to do "Movies This Week!" I'll get on that later tonight. My computer, not surprisingly, was acting up all day at work. For, now, I gotta run to the show! Read a review of it. Or don't. The Internet will survive.

It's up! Go check out the official Journalcon 2003 Web site. Register, tell all your friends, bring Vanilla Stoli.

There's a radio show in Austin called Eklektikos that's on every morning when I drive to work. It sounds like some sort of fancy boutique at the Galleria that sells stained glass and $15 candles, but it's actually a really neat program where they play anything from Dylan to classical to a jazz interpretation of "Paranoid Android."

The host, John Aielli, really looks like he ought to be hypnotizing you and asking where the bad man touched you when you were five. But this morning, he played "Amphibian" by Bjork from the Being John Malkovich soundtrack. Then he played some other instrumental stuff from that same disc, which I absolutely love and just didn't know it. I remember seeing the film and thinking that taken out of the context of the movie, I would still recognize that music anywhere. It's one of the few movie soundtracks that I, being ignorant on most movie scores, can use to see the movie in my head readily. I may have to go and purchase it.

Then it got me thinking about Spike Jonze and how he's made only two movies, but both were awarded with lots of acting Oscar nominations, making him like this showboat director for Oscar wannabes and wondering what he's up to now and whether the next thing he does will be a Charlie Kaufman script and then it occurred to me that I was probably thinking way too much about Spike Jonze before I've finished my morning coffee and then I was in my work parking lot and it was time to shut off my brain for a while.

I thought I was being all clever and funny with that Golden Girls thing earlier, but now I have that stupid theme song stuck in my head.

Damn you, Golden Girls!

You win. This time.

Yay, Rodney! In sadder news, though, my "I Don't Get No Respect" cassette melted in the back seat of my car recently.

Lifetime, Television for Women is airing "The Golden Girls: Their Greatest Moments" on Monday, June 2 at 7 p.m. (Central time). You better set your TiVo or your VCR or whatever you have, because this is 90 minutes that are going to entertain the living SHIT out of you.

No, Lifetime. Thank you for being a friend.

This just astounds me.

A family member who also happens to be a photography enthusiast called me this a.m. and said he took a photo of an athlete recently. Being the generous guy that he is, he gave a 4 x 6 print of the photo to the athlete. The athlete was profiled in a South Texas newspaper and he gave the newspaper that photo to run with the article. They ran the photo, blowing it up hugely on the front of their sports page, with just a "Special to the... " and no name credit for the photographer.

He called to find out what was up. He wasn't looking for financial compensation -- all he wanted was to have a credit in the paper with his name. He was told by the managing editor (THE MANAGING EDITOR!) of this newspaper that the photo was the property of the athlete and they didn't need to run a photo credit. Apparently, they do things this way all the time.

WHATHEFUCK!? So when you give a print of a photo to someone, that automatically makes them the copyright holder? I know he's beyond wrong on this point, but the sad and astounding part was that this wasn't a reporter or a designer, this was a managing editor of a (pretty sizable) newspaper who is completely clueless about copyright law and unwilling to cover his own ass by just running someone's name in the paper in a tiny correction.

Hubris and ignorance. It's what's wrong with quite a lot of newspapers today.

Still feeling way, way behind, but at least I got the recap done (it was just posted) and I was able to make it out of Daddy Day Care early since it started at 6 p.m. last night.

I'm not sure when filmmakers decided that simply having kids burp, fart and scream was the height of hilarity for general movie audiences, but maybe it's that I don't have kids. Maybe once you've taken care of a child with vocal chords and bodily functions, this kind of stuff just blooms with nuance and humor.

It just started raining and judging from the reaction in the newsroom, you'd think we were potato farmers or something. Everybody's grass has been dying and it's been humid without the benefit of actual rain for a few weeks now. So, now my grass doesn't have to die and maybe this summer won't be so awful. Doesn't this mean more mosquitos, though?

I'm really, really behind today. I think it's that I overextended myself over the weekend with the show and with obligations on the Journalcon 2003 committee (coming in October to Austin! Stay tuned!) that I am just completely in the hole, brainwise. My recap for last Tuesday's episode of Smallville isn't done yet, I've got a list of things at work that I haven't done yet, and I remembered this morning that I have to go review Daddy Day Care tonight. Daddy fucking Day Care. Maybe if I give it a bad enough review, they'll blurb me on the back of the VHS box someday.

When I was on my way in to work this morning, I looked behind me in the long hallway that goes from the back entrance to the newsroom. I swear, I saw myself coming in from the back door as I was on the other end of the hall. That's how behind I am.

Remember that movie day I wanted where I'd just take a day to catch up on old movies? I think it's gonna have to wait for another lifetime.

It's funny how quickly one night's semi-disaster can turn into the next night's triumph.

Our Thursday show was sketchy, and not in the sketch-comedy form of the word. But then Friday night, the audio problems were fixed, things on stage tightened up, and things began to click. Saturday night was also good and on both nights we went out for some much-needed drinks. Instead of drowning our sorrows, we were toasting and laughing.

I have no doubt we're gonna dissect this show nine ways to Hell when it's over, but right now it's just nice to feel that all that work has amounted to something and that we can enjoy ourselves now on stage.

Now if I could just figure out how to make those head lice tights chafe a little less...

Quick note on the Two Weeks Notice thing. It's the VHS version of the movie, not the DVD. I went to Tower Records and looked for the DVD and didn't see the blurb and suddenly felt like the world's biggest idiot. But my folks picked up the copy of the tape version and said that the quote is indeed there on the back of the box. I'll try to pick up a copy this week. Not only do I get my name on the back of a movie I didn't particularly like, it's not even in the better format. Ah well. Anybody need a blurb for any other crappy romantic comedy? "It sparkles with just enough romantic chemistry to keep you from clawing your date's earwax out with your fingernail in boredom!" You can quote me on that for your next one, Sandra.