tell me why

Congratulations to Brent Thompson and his wife who had their baby yesterday. Brent is co-host of Eleven O'clock Rock, the daily streaming video show that emanates from Market Square.

The baby's birth didn't sneak up on them. When I was a guest on the show in December, Brent and co-host Lauren Lazarus said I could fill in for him one day while he was on paternity leave. Turns out they weren't just being nice. I got the call from Jessie Greene, one of the directors, asking if I could be the guest co-host on Monday.

They were still in the process of booking guest for the show. In addition to a musical performer, they wanted somebody for the "Movie Monday" segment. I unabashedly offered up "Fish Bait" director Jeff Joslin, who will join us via Skype at 11:27 a.m.

If you can arrange your schedule to be downtown between 11 a.m. and 12 noon on Monday, c'mon by and get some food at The Lunchbox, which shares space with the studio. Otherwise you can watch "Eleven O'clock Rock" at knoxivi.com.

laugh factory

On the trip to bring him back to school, one of the many things my son and I talked about was my blog entry about "Ed Gein: The Musical." I was pleased that the film's producers had seen my post and left a comment. They liked my idea for a parody song called "You: Suede Shoes."

I explained to my son that I didn't feel particularly funny when I was writing that post. Most of it was fairly standard but I thought it needed some jokes to close it out. Since comedy comes in threes, all I had to do was make up three quick punchlines. To do so, I used a comedy technique that I call "one from column A and one from column B."

In this case, column A would be a list of easily recognizable Elvis songs. I've been to Graceland and worked at an oldies station, so I knew plenty. If I didn't, a list is only a click away at Wikipedia. Column B would be anything Gein-related, like body parts or heinous crimes. Then it's just a matter of finding matches.

I suspect that certain movie companies in the San Fernando Valley use the same basic concept to name their movies. Last month, I used it to make up a bunch of "Avatar" jokes on Twitter.

sneak preview

The compelling independent film "That Evening Sun" opened in Cleveland and Kansas City yesterday. Next Friday it opens in Knoxville, Nashville, Atlanta, Athens, Charlotte and Sarasota. I watched a screener DVD last weekend and loved it.

On the public affairs radio show that airs tomorrow morning in Knoxville, I have another enjoyable conversation with Larsen Jay. His company produced the film, which has been nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards. Larsen told me he hopes for more nominations during award season, especially for Hal Holbrook who appears in his first film role as lead actor.

If you won't be awake at 6:30 a.m. to hear it on the radio, go ahead and listen online at your convenience.

jailhouse rock

Not everyone has a wife as understanding as mine. I briefly mentioned that one of the Christmas gifts she gave me was a book about killers called "Human Monsters" by David Everitt. One of the six evildoers whose pictures were chosen for the cover was Ed Gein, who is credited as being the inspiration for the character of Norman Bates in "Psycho." Each nutjob gets about two or three pages in the book. The brief chapter on Gein alludes to the psychological damage inflicted on him by his mother. However Gein's crimes were more reminiscent of Jame Gumb in "Silence of the Lambs."

As I write this, my wife is at a Knoxville Choral Society rehearsal. She also sings with the choir at All Saints Church. In high school, she played Laurey in the student production of "Oklahoma!" I bring up her interest in music because of a news story out of Menasha, Wisconsin. The small town was the location of the debut screenings of "Ed Gein: The Musical." According to the follow-up article, the songs are parodies of well-known tunes. For example, "All Cooked Up" is a spoof of "All Shook Up."

I wonder if there are some Elvis songs they could use in a sequel. It would be great to hear "Love Me Tenderized," "Good Luck Arm" and "You: Suede Shoes."

tenne-scenes

The screener DVD I watched today gave me a feeling similar to one I had years ago after watching another then-unknown movie. Executive Producer Larsen Jay sent me a copy of "That Evening Sun" before my upcoming interview with him about the film. Back in 1997, a publicist sent me a screener disc of "Sling Blade," hoping for some airtime on KLOS.

Like "Sling Blade," "That Evening Sun" takes place in the South. Both movies have a despicable character, although Ray McKinnon's Lonzo Choat isn't quite as evil as Dwight Yoakam's Doyle Hargraves. The story, which is set in Tennessee, has a plot development that I didn't see coming. I hope to have time before the interview to watch the movie again with the benefit of hindsight. I was extremely surprised to discover that I had seen a clean-shaven McKinnon as the high school coach in "The Blind Side."



I was also surprised to learn that Hal Holbrook and Dixie Carter appear together on the big screen for the first time in "That Evening Sun." The cast consists mostly of Southerners with one notable exception. Australian actress Mia Wasikowska does an outstanding job as Pamela Choat. I guess Australia is pretty far south. Mia is about to become a lot more famous as the title character in "Alice in Wonderland." For her audition, she learned a Southern accent by watching clips of "Coal Miner's Daughter" on YouTube.



One of my favorite characters is Thurl Chessor, played by an unrecognizable Barry Corbin. I was sorry to see a recent article about Corbin that said he filed for bankruptcy this past week.



"That Evening Sun" won several film festival awards including a special jury award and an audience choice award at South by Southwest. Many more moviegoers get a chance to see it over the next month as the film gets a theatrical run in fourteen cities. It opens in Cleveland and Kansas City on January 15. Knoxville, Nashville, Atlanta, Athens, Charlotte and Sarasota get the movie on January 22. It goes to Bismark on January 29 and Williamsburg on February 8. Greenville, Santa Fe and San Rafael get it on February 12, while Boise viewers can see it on February 19. Updated listings can be found on the movie's Facebook page.

rikki-tikki-tavatar

Somebody needs to tell James Cameron that two and a half hours is too long for a cartoon, even a fancy-looking one like his "Avatar." Yet, I was disappointed that he cut it off right before we got to see the Ewok Na'vi celebration at the end. Just because it took him twelve years to make it, doesn't mean we should have to take all day to watch it.

The excessive running time didn't seem to hamper the crowds at the Regal Pinnacle Stadium 18 today. Because the 3:20 p.m. IMAX screening was sold out, my family and I went to a regular 3D show at 3:50. In hindsight, I'm glad I didn't pay the extra $4.25 per ticket. I had to struggle not to fall asleep during the early scenes on Pandora. The excitement picks up toward the end.

The environmentalist subtext had a save-the-rain-forest feel to it. Rich Hailey discusses the obvious parallels to Native Americans with a surprising twist on his blog. None of that matter to me. After two hours, all I could think about was visiting the lavatar.

I'm on a boat

One of the first things Dr. Bill Bass asked during his lecture aboard the Volunteer Princess was whether anyone in the audience had seen "The Blind Side." He hasn't but knew the movie has a scene that mentions dead bodies in Neyland Stadium. In the film Kathy Bates' character frightens Michael Oher by misrepresenting the UT forensic anthropology program. She tells him that there are body parts buried under Shields-Watkins Field. In reality, the bones of 7,000 individuals are stored in cardboard boxes in the anthropology department offices in the recesses of the stadium's structure. The body donors were reduced to skeletons across the river at the Body Farm before taking up residence in the stadium. Other than that one scene, the movie is amazingly fantastic.



The purpose of the book signing cruise was to help raise funds for the Dr. William M. Bass Building Fund. I attended as a guest of the Bone Zones team that organizes Jefferson Bass events.



The tag line for the presentation was "when your days end, our day begins." Dr. Bass told us about the history of the Body Farm, the life cycle of the blow-fly and the four stages of decomposition: fresh, bloat, decay and dry. A familiar face popped up on screen during the slide show. I saw pictures of the same man decomposing when I took the FBI Citizens Academy class on forensics. I whispered to the lady next to me to keep an eye on the screen during the bloat stage. At that point the dead man looked a lot like John Goodman.

I have interviewed Dr. Bass several times and heard many of his forensic anecdotes. A new one on me was the story of a victim in Morgan County. On the way back to Knoxville with the body in the back of the vehicle, Dr. Bass and his team stopped off at a Cracker Barrel for lunch. When they returned to the parking lot, their car was surrounded by a cloud of flies.

Dr. Bass' good friend, Dr. Al Hazari of the chemistry department, is mentioned on page two-hundred-and-something of "Death's Acre." The Bone Zones crew had the great idea to get him to autograph that page. As he signed a stack of books, he talked about the Forensic Chemistry Summer Camp for Middle Schoolers that he runs every June. So many of the parents were interested that he added a spring class for Adults on Thursday nights in April.



Speaking of the Bone Zones crew, I was amused by their use of artificial joints that had been recovered from corpses. The artificial hips were paperweights and the top part of an artificial knee made for a great business card holder.

advent-ure

For the second year in a row I bought a Christmas ornament sight unseen. My wife and I didn't get a souvenir from Lake Winnipesaukee during our trip there in July. We buy ornaments when we find ones we like but we don't go too far out of our way to look.

Last year I persuaded a sales clerk in Branson to describe some ornaments to me. I picked one and had it shipped here. Earlier this week I called The Christmas Loft and asked if they had what I wanted. The clerk described a porcelain piece made by Barlow Designs that sounded just about perfect. It arrived yesterday with plenty of time to spare before we begin decorating.



In other Lake Winnipesaukee news, I may finally get around to watching "What About Bob?" Although filmed in Virginia, the story is set at the New Hampshire lake. It will be shown on Starz Comedy this coming Friday. My DVR is set.

live like you were Mayan

The preposterous new movie "2012" has some good parts. However I am baffled about why they put the worst scenes in the trailer. Surely you've seen the limo racing just ahead of crumbling streets or the plane dodging falling buildings and the 10 Freeway. Those sequences reminded me of the old "Back to the Future" ride at Universal Studios.

Willing suspension of disbelief is required for an audience to accept a work of fiction. I was fine with the big picture stuff about the inside of our planet melting and the earth's crust shifting. I liked their take on the government's secret mission for the survival of the species. It would have been nice to see more of their plans to save civilization. All I got were brief cameos by famous artworks and some zoo animals.

What almost ruined the movie completely were the many, many narrow escapes by John Cusack's character. He launches a limo through a collapsing building, among other implausible events. Some small details are equally irksome. Although the movie is set three years in the future and even has the year 2012 as its title, the filmmakers forgot about the digital TV transition of 2009. There are several shots of televisions with the type of analog static that was eliminated by the switch.

I wondered if the producers have a real problem with two of my former homes, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. As the trailer shows, they destroy both cities on film. They also show the Vatican demolished in a way that must have made the crew of "Angels & Demons" jealous.

As for the good, Woody Harrelson steals every scene he is in. He plays the crazy host of a conspiracy-theory radio show who has all the answers about the world's impending doom. I wish the syndicated overnight show on the local talk station was 1% as interesting as Woody.

shiver me timbers

"60 Minutes" had an interesting story on movie piracy on Sunday night. The report shows how the bad guys sneak video cameras into movie theatres, often hiding them in strollers or diaper bags and using their families to help avoid suspicion. Even here in Knoxville, a security team at advance promotional screenings prohibits audience members from bringing cell phones with cameras into the theatre.

The video pirates sit in the back row where their cameras pick up crowd noises and the silhouettes of people in front. Leslie Stahl asked why anyone would buy a DVD with such poor quality. An expert responded that buyers are not quality-conscious and that they want to pay very little for their entertainment.



In addition to bad DVDs, the pirates are distributing movies online via BitTorrent. The Internet file-sharing brings to mind the problems the music industry faced when Napster first came on the scene. Back then, they would overcharge consumers for albums on CD when the fans actually wanted singles. iTunes came along and dropped the price of a hit song to 99¢ and people gladly paid.

For a time, the movie studios got it right. While a music CD had filler songs we didn't want, DVDs were packed with fancy extras that added value. Plus, the price of a cool DVD was about the same as the price of a lame CD. Now they are trying to get us to buy the same movies we already have in a new, Blu-ray Disc format. They also jerk us around by adding or changing the extra features and releasing new "collector's editions" or "director's cuts."

I suspect that the studios and theatres will use piracy as an excuse to raise ticket prices yet again. What would happen if the studios dropped the price of admission to be the same or less than the cost of a pirated DVD? It would put the pirates out of business and have movie fans lined up at the multiplex.

rockabilly bob

When Jeff Joslin showed us a rough cut of "Fish Bait" during a break from our reshoots in May, I was concerned about my performance. As I mentioned in one of the DVD extras, it sounded like I was using my "outside voice" during the scenes inside a car. Fortunately for me, most of those scenes were reshot.

I was relieved when I saw the movie last week. The editing and soundtrack music made a big difference. I got an email from a woman who attended the screening on Friday night at Patrick Sullivan's with her visiting sisters. They didn't buy a DVD at the bar but now want to get one. Jeff Joslin has set up a PayPal account and a page on the "Fish Bait" site where they (and you) can purchase one now, should you be so inclined.

In addition to the "Fish Bait" theme by Jeffrey Joslin, the soundtrack features two songs from Billy Bob Thornton and The Boxmasters. I first learned of Billy Bob's musical ability while I was working at KLOS. He would appear regularly on the Mark & Brian show in the late '90s to promote his movies. He was on the show one day and heard that rockabilly legend Carl Perkins would be interviewed an hour or two later. Billy Bob asked if he could stick around and see Carl. He did and ended up playing snare drum as Carl sang "Matchbox." We used the performance as a track on the "You Had to Be There!" CD, which hit stores only two months before Carl died.

belly of a whiskered beast

The recent death of Vic Mizzy had many TV critics reminiscing about the good old days of TV theme songs. I saw one website with a list of the best current themes, which included some of my favorites, "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "The Office" and "Dexter."

At the screenings of the no-budget horror film "Fish Bait" over the weekend, I was pleasantly surprised to hear a theme song over the closing credits. Jeffrey Joslin, son of director Jeff Joslin, is a singer-songwriter based in Murfreesboro. Jeffrey appears in the film, entertaining at a party scene. For the end credits, he composed a song called "Fish Bait" that mentions the fictional Fear Hollow Marina and the big catfish my character hopes to catch.

scene of the crime

The audience watching "Fish Bait" at Flat Hollow Marina & Resort surprised me. They laughed at different parts of the movie than the audience at Patrick Sullivan's did the night before. The folks at the saloon responded well to the scenes where four of us from Einstein Simplified were driving and talking. They've seen us do that on stage for years. The people on the boat dock responded well to the mishaps we encountered on the water. While the Knoxville crowd said "ewww" to a quick shot of a floating dead fish, the Speedwell viewers said nothing.

The staff at Flat Hollow went all out to celebrate the movie we filmed there last year. They made some large posters and redid the menu in their restaurant to include items like Chum, Chicken Parts and Fried Fungus. The restaurant was converted into a movie theatre for the night. Enough boaters and marina regulars showed up to warrant showing the film twice.



After the screenings, the cast members in attendance were asked to autograph several DVDs at the sales counter. While the others were using the Sharpie markers, Dave Snow and I amused each other with some tea candles. When all was finished, the cast and crew raised a toast on board one of the two houseboats where we would spend the night. Coincidentally, my wife and I slept aboard the White Lightning. This morning I woke up to a lovely view of the fall foliage.



After breakfast, the remaining cast and crew posed for a photo in front of The Lady, the decrepit houseboat that we used in the movie. I was wearing my new FBI Citizens Academy hat, which we joked now stood for "Fish Bait Inspector." The Lady looks even worse than she did last year. Some family members of the man who used to own the boat came to the screening last night. They were a little chagrined that the boat their relative lost to foreclosure was used to represent all that is janky. Some of the other audience members pointed out that shots of particularly redneckish houseboats were filmed downriver in Union County, not in their nice part of Norris Lake.

one down, two to go

The laughter from the first audience to see "Fish Bait" gave me a big sigh of relief. As the screening time approached last night, I was nervous about how it would go over. A sizable crowd filled the upper room at Patrick Sullivan's to watch the no-budget comedic horror film that features the members of Einstein Simplified.

The first thing I saw after climbing the stairs at the saloon was a table where DVDs were available for sale. I hope my kids will pretend to be surprised this Christmas. I'll need one for myself too, as a souvenir of one of the best weekends of my life. Before the screening, director Jeff Joslin asked the cast members present to come forward. During the movie, I couldn't resist taking a picture of myself on screen. You know you would have done the same thing if it were you.



Erin Donovan of WBIR gave our little project a nice publicity hit on Live at Five at Four yesterday. I was especially thrilled by the kind reaction of Russell Biven and Beth Haynes who said, "c'mon Frank Murphy!" after the report.

Tonight my wife and I will head up to Flat Hollow Marina & Resort for another screening. Flat Hollow is where we shot the movie last October and did some reshoots in May. The marina staff is thinking that they may have enough people there to show the movie twice, once around 7:00 p.m. when the Vols game ends and again around 9:00 p.m. Gary Farwick and Benny Green said so when they took to the Lafollette airwaves yesterday to promote the movie.

By the way, thanks to Frank Scott for name-checking me in Part two.

in the brook

It's "Fish Bait" time in Tennessee. The no-budget horror movie featuring the members of Einstein Simplified will have its world premiere this weekend. We're screening it on Friday night at Patrick Sullivan's and on Saturday night at Flat Hollow Marina & Resort. Tickets are $5 at the door.



Erin Donovan from "Live at Five at Four" was kind enough to give us a little publicity for the film. She interviewed Jeff Joslin and me at Volunteer Landing for a story that should air Friday. A moment of potential karma occurred while Erin was interviewing Jeff. Larsen Jay of Doublejay Creative walked by on his way to lunch with some business associates. Erin stopped the interview so that Jeff could meet Larsen.

After I got home from the interview, Jeff emailed me a photo of the DVD cover. "Fish Bait" DVDs and soundtrack CDs will be available for sale at the screenings and eventually via EinsteinSimplified.com. The soundtrack has music from Billy Bob Thornton and Tommy Shaw.



The Lafollette Press published an article about "Fish Bait" in Thursday's paper. Earlier in the week, a showbiz blog ran a nice feature on actress Patrice Bunch. When Erin Donovan's piece is posted on WBIR.com, I will put a link to it here.

back to back, belly to belly

Back to back weekends in Virginia kept me from seeing "Zombieland" sooner. I finally got around to it this past weekend. My wife wanted to go to a movie so badly that she was willing to sit through my first choice of films even though she didn't really want to see it. I think she almost bailed out after the first few minutes. I had promised her more yucks and less yucky. Once we got past the gory opening sequence, the comedy, or should I say zomedy, kicked in.

Fortunately no one spoiled the celebrity cameo appearance for me and I won't spoil it for you, even though the appropriate amount of time has already passed. The Wikipedia page for the movie does give away the surprise. However, I'm pretty sure this publicity photo from Columbia Pictures does not..



The Wikipedia entry for actor Jesse Eisenberg says that his mother worked as a clown. If that's true, it gives layers of psychological meaning to Jesse's clown encounters in the movie.

Jesse and Emma Stone make a cute couple and the audience naturally roots for them to get together. It seems that the two of them, along with Woody Harrelson and Abigail Breslin are the only four humans left on earth. But if Jesse and Emma are together, it leaves another combination that is too creepy to contemplate.

I read that the filmmakers are interested in making several "Zombieland" sequels and maybe even turning it into a television series. Their first priority should be to write in a potential love interest for Woody.

take the bait

"Fish Bait" director Jeff Joslin was burning up the phone, text and email lines from New York today. He had already made arrangements for a cast and crew screening of his low-budget horror film at Flat Hollow Marina & Resort on October 24. Today's mission was to add a Knoxville screening the night before.

Jeff was able to get the "great room" at Patrick Sullivan's, a location chosen because it is the home turf of Einstein Simplified. Most of the troupe members appear in "Fish Bait." Admission to the October 23 screening will be $5 with the money going to defray some of the costs of making the film. In addition to the movie, there will be live music. I was thinking it might also be fun to play a few improv games for the amusement of our regulars.

Please help us spread the word to get the tickets sold. Put something on your Facebook or your Twitter. You can either retweet like Berry Sensei did or write your own message. Best of all, you can show up yourself.

tick tock tober

In a way, I'm glad I got the flu when I did. It was a shame to miss several events over the weekend but it would have been worse if I had gotten sick a week or a month later. My October will be exceptionally busy.

The excitement starts later this week when I start an eight-week class at the FBI Citizens Academy. On one October weekend, we will take a field trip to the firing range. My uncle served in the FBI for many years. He and I will have a lot to talk about when I travel to Norfolk for a family wedding on another October weekend.

I was happy that my work schedule will allow me to emcee a great event in Virginia on October 10th. My friend Maureen is organizing the Ride for the Cure at her horse farm in Middleburg. Three celebrities I know have donated items to the silent auction. Thanks go to Jimmy Kimmel, Susan Olsen and Richard Cheese. By the way, Susan tells me that she already mailed off an autographed book to the auction before her son's cat used her last four books (including my copy) as a litter box.

I've already written about my plans to attend the screening of "Fish Bait" at Flat Hollow Marina & Resort on October 24. We are also going to attempt to participate in "Thrill the World," the worldwide "Thriller" dance. Director Jeff Joslin emailed me today to say that he is working on lining up a venue for a screening and party in Knoxville on Friday the 23rd.

With all this activity, there has to be something I will miss. Because of my commitment to the FBI Citizens Academy and because my wife will be singing at a wedding, we cannot attend her college reunion weekend at James Madison University. One of our favorite bands from our college days is reuniting for the event. The Skip Castro Band is playing a gig called "Boogie at Midlife."

But wait, there's more. I'm still undecided about whether or not I will attend the Knoxville Snuggie Pub Crawl on October 17th. What do you think? Obviously, I have the uniform of the day.

high pasta system

Most of the people at the preview screening of "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" were there with their children. My wife and I wanted to see it despite the fact that our kids are hundreds of miles away.

The adorable Anna Farris, who was so good in "My Super-Ex Girlfriend" and "The House Bunny," does a great job as the voice of weather reporter Sam Sparks. Mr. T plays the police chief who looks exactly like, uh... Mr. T, except that he has hair where Mr. T doesn't and a bald stripe down the middle of his head where the real Mr. T has a Mohawk.

Some of the other voices are recognizable as "Saturday Night Live" cast members. Andy Samberg plays a man whose only claim to fame is the TV commercial he starred in as a baby. Flint Lockwood, the scientist who invents the machine that turns water into food, is voiced by Bill Hader. Two names surprised me when they turned up in the credits. I never would have guessed that Benjamin Bratt played Manny the cameraman or that James Caan played Flint's dad, Tim.

USA Today ran a great illustrated feature the other day. It compared images from the movie with similar pictures in the 1978 children's book that inspired the film. Unfortunately, the online version of the story shows only one of pictures.

"Cloudy" was in 3-D, which didn't do all that much for me. I wanted to take the glasses off but the movie is blurry without them. The story is fun and doesn't need the special effect to hold the viewer's attention. I saw a feature on "Access Hollywood" that showed Anna Farris eating real cheeseburgers while recording Sam's dialogue. It made watching that scene all the more enjoyable. "Cloudy" isn't perfect but it's good enough for me.

fishy, campy

The big news in East Tennessee has been the announcement of a highly anticipated movie premiere, with some of the actors in attendance. Yes, "Fish Bait" will be shown on October 24th. In other movie news, two of the stars of "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" will be in Knoxville on November 17th.

Jeff Joslin has been working out the details for the "Fish Bait" screening at Flat Hollow Marina & Resort in Campbell County. I was one of several members of Einstein Simplified involved in the filming at Flat Hollow last October. We filmed some additional scenes in May.



The date of the premiere means I will have to decline an invitation I received from Sharky at Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies. The costumed mascot had asked me to come to Gatlinburg and do the "Thriller" dance on the 24th. They plan to close the street and participate in "Thrill the World," a worldwide simultaneous group dance which is an attempt at a Guinness World Record. Not wanting to miss out, I decided to organize a "Thriller" dance at Flat Hollow that night. Now all I have to do is learn the dance.

in an octopus's garden

Turkey Creek felt more like a theme park or aquarium on Monday. I went to an advance screening of "Under the Sea 3D," which opened this morning. The film has already been showing at other IMAX theatres, many of which are located at science museums or aquariums.

The filmmakers spent thousands of hours underwater to get 40 minutes of footage, most of which seemed to be about cuttlefish. The "masters of camouflage" were screen hogs. The only thing I really knew about cuttlefish prior to this was that my sister had a parakeet named Gladstone who gnawed on a cuttlebone.

There were some shots of cute sea lions and a cameo by a great white shark but it was the sea snakes and the eels that stole the show, partly because they got the best musical score while they were briefly on screen. One kid starting crying when a frogfish ate a smaller fish that had just escaped another predator.

The obligatory global warming message was palatable. Jim Carrey's voiceover was the medicine and the pretty pictures were the spoonful of sugar. Not so pleasant was the cover version of the Ringo Starr song used for the film's close. Betsy Pickle and Wayne Bledsoe, who were seated in the same row as me, both expressed their dislike of the song as we were leaving the theatre.

According to Fandango, tickets for "Under the Sea 3D" cost $14.75, the same as for "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: The IMAX Experience." Perhaps they can justify the price because the 40-minute fish movie is longer than the 12-minute 3D portion of "Harry Potter." When Harry arrives at the Burrow, three red symbols appear on screen telling you to remove your 3D glasses for the remaining 141 minutes.

Despite the crying kid, "Under the Sea" is intended to be a family film. Oddly the showtimes for Wednesday and Thursday are 11:20 a.m., 12:45 p.m. and 2:10 p.m. Maybe they forgot that school started Monday in Knox County. I suppose they could be going after the field trip crowd.

prawn shop

The trailer and television ads did not make me want to see "District 9." Instead it was the Entertainment Weekly story that motivated me to get tickets to a preview screening. The magazine cover called it "the must-see movie of the summer."

Security personnel had to turn people away from the packed theatre. The only trailer before our screening was for "Zombieland," which looks like a lot of fun. Then again, I laughed at "Night of the Living Dead."

The people next to me left about an hour into the film. An usher later told me that they weren't the only ones. About thirty people left, some complaining that the cinéma vérité style gave them motion sickness. The filmmakers wanted the science fiction plot to be believable. One person I know left early because his last row seat was uncomfortable and his back hurt. He plans to go back to see the rest.

Another person I know stayed to the end but didn't like the shaky camera or the gory scenes. My son and I reacted differently. We said "ohh" in mock horror every time something gross splattered on the camera lens. My son said it might be his favorite movie of the summer. I liked it too but wouldn't rank it above "Star Trek" or "Up." Come to think of it, I also really enjoyed "The Proposal" and "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and "Julie & Julia." It's been a good year for movies.

down by the schoolyard

It was a Julie, Julie and Julia weekend for my wife and me. On Saturday night we laughed a lot at the very funny Julie Scoggins. She performed at Side Splitters Comedy Club. It would be well worth your time to see her show the next time she's in town.

On Sunday, we saw the terrific new movie "Julie & Julia." I really enjoy watching Amy Adams in just about anything. One of my family's favorite films is her first, "Drop Dead Gorgeous." The real Julie Powell's blog is still online. If you had the time, you could go back to the beginning and read the whole thing.

Once again, it was loads of fun to hear Meryl Streep's voice. Certain syllables rang especially true. The only thing missing for me was the John Morris theme song I remember from later episodes of "The French Chef." The theme music used in the movie was the same as in a black and white 1964 episode that PBS has posted online. They had time for Dan Aykroyd's memorable "Saturday Night Live" parody but not the music I wanted to hear.

Julia Child came to KLOS once. Around that time, we had a string of food experts on as guests on the Mark & Brian show and I was looking for ways to set their segments apart. When Debbi Fields came in, I had her book publicist send along a food stylist who set up little Pyrex dishes with various ingredients. While she was being interviewed, Mrs. Fields mixed together a batch of cookie dough. Emeril Lagasse was also promoting a book. I arranged with a nearby IHOP for all of us to show up and have Emeril surprise some patrons. He added some "Bam" to their breakfasts while broadcasting live.

Before Julia Child's visit, I thought about what would be the most intimidating thing when meeting a famous chef. She would be promoting a new "Baking with Julia" cookbook. I challenged Mark and Brian to each choose a page at random. They had to prepare the dishes at home and serve them to Julia the next morning. Either the food tasted good or Julia played along. She was nothing but gracious to us all.

it's Harry Potter day

When Jo Rowling made up a birthday for Harry Potter, she gave him one that would be easy to remember, her own. Happy birthday to them both!

On the night before "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" opened, I had great fun at the Einstein Simplified show. In one improv game, I played a video store clerk who was overly excited about the new film. Since today is a Harry Potter day of sorts, here is the video of that scene. The first time you watch, try skipping past the first 2 minutes and 17 seconds. During that time, the audience suggests three movies while I am outside in isolation. If you start watching when I re-enter the room, you can try to guess what the customers want to rent before I do.

mush!

A recent movie reminded me of the trip that is responsible for my quest to visit all fifty states. My wife and I saw "The Proposal" after it had been out for a couple of weeks. I really liked it and was pleasantly surprised that the trailer didn't give too much away. Most of the film is set in Sitka, Alaska, although the credits indicate that it was actually filmed in Massachusetts. The beautiful mountains in the background were added by a special effects company in Boston.

When my mother and my sister invited me to meet them in Anchorage, I had nothing but time on my hands. The Comedy World Radio Network had gone bankrupt and I had not yet landed my first job in Knoxville. I arranged my flights from Burbank to Anchorage with a 24 hour layover in Seattle so I could visit my friend Bean and his wife Donna.

My mother had a Sony Mavica camera at the time. Before the trip, I bought a package of 3.5 inch disks to use as "film" in case I saw a moose. The only moose I saw was a baby at the Big Game Alaska Wildlife Center, which now has the more politically correct name Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. I remember buying two Christmas ornaments in their gift shop.



We saw some animals in their natural habitat during a wildlife cruise through the Kenai Fjords. The ship sailed past some cool-looking glaciers, pardon the pun, and a Dall's porpoise swam alongside.



The best part of the vacation was a Denali (that's Mt. McKinley to the non-Alaskans) "flightseeing trip" aboard a Talkeetna Air Taxi. The little Cessna landed on a glacier with a good view of the mountain. We got out of the plane and walked around. I used the opportunity to eat the "portable birthday cake" that my wife and kids had put in my luggage.



I didn't know it at the time, but on the way to Talkeetna, we passed right by Wasilla. Unfortunately, it is not possible to see Russia from there, no matter what Tina Fey says.



By the time I got home, I had been to 25 states, including the two hardest-to-reach ones. I set a personal goal to visit the rest within ten years. When my wife and kids were ready to move from California to Tennessee, we routed our trip mostly along I-70 instead of I-40 so I could add Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri and Kentucky to my list. As you probably know, my current tally is 43 down, 7 to go.

dot comedy

The guest on "Fresh Air" this afternoon was Judd Apatow, the writer and director of "The 40 Year Old Virgin" and "Knocked Up." His new movie has an Internet component that piqued my interest.

Terry Gross and Apatow talked about the fictional websites that were built for the characters in "Funny People." The site for George Simmons has well-made clips from parodies of cheesy movies. Be sure to watch "Merman" and "Re-Do." They also played a clip from a fake sitcom called "Yo Teach!" It was uncomfortably bad on purpose, which made it hysterical.

do you believe in magic?

To get ready for Harry Potter Day, my wife and son planned ahead. On our road trip two years ago, it didn't occur to us to buy a CD copy of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" until we got to a small town in Illinois. This year they went to the Knox County Public Library and reserved an audio copy of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince."

We listened to Jim Dale's narration as we drove to Maine and back. I have the same complaint with the sixth book as I did with the seventh about the way Dale voices female characters, especially Ginny, Luna and Hermione. The only woman's voice he gets right is Professor McGonagall. As I heard the climactic scene, I couldn't help but think of the fake ending I wrote four years ago.

The detailed plot was fresh in my mind as we watched the excellent movie adaptation this afternoon. I was okay with the stuff they had to leave out. Both Harry and Hermione are dealing with their changing feelings toward a Weasley. It was fairly true to the book although there are brief scenes I might not have understood had I not read the novel. Specifically, I thought they did not do a good job of explaining the Room of Requirement. Of course most of the moviegoers will have seen "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," which explained the Room fully.

A listener called to challenge something I said on the air this morning. I mentioned that there were two more Harry Potter movies to come. She said there was only one film left. I tried to get her to understand that one book was being divided into two movies but she kept insisting that it was one movie divided into two parts. I finally won the argument when I asked her if she thought she could see both parts with one ticket or if they would make her buy tickets to two movies.

I saw an awkward live segment at the end of the late local news Tuesday night. The reporter interviewed fans who could not get tickets to one of the sold-out midnight shows at the Regal Pinnacle Stadium 18. Most were young and dressed in costume and one guy was dressed as Dumbledore. The awkward part came when the reporter didn't know how to react to a girl who said she didn't even like Harry Potter. Meanwhile, I heard that some local girls got ready for the movie by buying used neckties from Sacred Heart Cathedral School, which has the same colors as Gryffindor House.

east ender

Because we had a reservation, we had to make sure we got from Newport to New London in time to catch the 6:00 p.m. Cross Sound Ferry to Orient Point. The boat was almost exactly the same as the ferry we took from Bridgeport to Port Jefferson on our road trip two years ago. This time we also took two smaller ferries to get us from Greenport to Shelter Island to North Haven. From there, it's a short drive to Sag Harbor and Noyac.

Once we were on Long Island, I tuned the car radio to the so-bad-it’s-good WLNG, which does stream online if you want to hear it for yourself. Rusty Potz would ask a TV trivia question, start a song and then interrupt the song a moment later to say "we have a winner, no more calls please."

I was saddened to hear of the passing of 92.1 WLNG's legendary Paul Sidney. Somehow I find it appropriate that he died on April Fool's Day. Or, depending on who you ask, April 2, which was the 92nd day of the year.

When my wife and I honeymooned in the Hamptons, Paul gave us a tour of Broadcast House and then gave us a ride in their newest mobile unit. He drove us to Main Street in Sag Harbor where Alan Alda was filming a scene from "Sweet Liberty." I had a chance to tell Alda that my father knew him when they were both enrolled at Fordham University. In subsequent years, we would vacation in the Hamptons and go see Paul at the Southampton Fourth of July parade. Long Island won't be the same without him.

beach bath & beyond

The Snuggie that I bought while sick made somebody think that I would also want another odd item. At least I guess that's why they sent me a link to the Wearable Towel. The similarities are obvious. The Snuggie is a blanket with sleeves. The Wearable Towel is a towel with arm holes.

Weather permitting, I go for a swim every day during the summer. I usually come downstairs wearing only a beach towel around my waist. I grab my swimsuit off the clothesline and pull it on under the towel. After my swim, I put the towel around my waist again and slip off the suit underneath. So it's not that I couldn't use a Wearable Towel, I just don't think that I would look good in a toga. All the guys in the video are sporting six-pack abs and wearing it off one shoulder. Whereas John Belushi knew to wear his toga on both shoulders.

squirrel!

"Up" is not a children's movie. It is a tearjerking, tenderhearted comedy that will resonate most with the middle-aged and the elderly. It is also a masterpiece of film making and of storytelling. My teenage son loved it too. He put "Up"in his top 3 of all Pixar movies, which means that either "Toy Story," "Monsters, Inc." or "The Incredibles" has to drop to number 4.

My wife, our son and I saw a preview screening of the movie last night at the Regal Pinnacle Stadium 18. Fortunately, I knew very little about the plot beforehand, which meant I was constantly surprised by the twists and turns of the tale. The review in USA Today yesterday indicated that there was an amazing montage at the beginning of the movie. They undersold it. The exquisite encapsulation of the life of curmudgeon Carl Fredricksen was so moving that I found myself laughing, crying and everything in between. Those eight minutes are as good a love story as any film I can remember.

However "Up" couldn't hold the attention of some of the youngest kids in the audience last night. They simply didn't have the life experience to appreciate the heartwarming and heartbreaking aspects of Carl's relationship with his precious wife. The television ads emphasize that the movie is "funny, funny, funny." It would be more accurate to say "funny, sad, exciting." I was reminded of the trailer for "Miracle on 34th Street," in which the studio executives didn't know how to market a movie that hits the full range of emotions.

sweating the details

The long holiday weekend gave me the opportunity to see two recent movies. Well, technically my son and I saw "Terminator Salvation" on Thursday night at the Regal Riviera. I liked the way the chase scenes and fight scenes were easier to follow than many of the action movies I've seen recently. As usual, I tried not to drink too much so that I wouldn't have to go to the bathroom during either film. (Thanks for the link, Bean!)

"Star Trek" was easily the best movie I have seen in a while. We saw it at the often overlooked Carmike Wynnsong. The seats are almost as comfortable as those at the newer Regal Cinemas. However unlike the Regal Pinnacle, every screen at Carmike offers DLP. However I recently read that Regal plans to install Sony's 4K digital projection system at all its theaters.

There seemed to be more commercials before the trailers at Carmike than at Regal. An ad for Axe Dry was very funny in a Farrelly brothers sort of way. A spot for Dove Body Wash showed some attractive body parts in an effort to be sexy but the ad was about as sultry as a segment on "The View." The combination of ads made me think that someday R-rated commercials will be shown before certain movies.

angels 1, demons 0

"Angels & Demons" is better at being an action movie than "The Da Vinci Code" was. I started to remember a few things from the book as the movie unfolded during a preview screening last night. It's been several years since I read all of Dan Brown's books. The filmmakers changed enough plot points to keep me guessing. Fortunately they omitted a ridiculous scene in the book in which Robert Langdon uses his blazer as a parachute. The story conveniently calls for the lights to be turned off in sectors of the city, always just as Langdon arrives to investigate. The darkness covers the fact that they couldn't use the actual locations portrayed.

It didn't feel like an anti-Catholic movie to me. Granted there are bad guys attacking the Vatican but there is also respect shown to Catholic ceremonies, such as a papal conclave. They try to make you think that the church is anti-science because of the way they treated Galileo in the 17th century. In reality the modern Catholic church is known for its education system from kindergarten through college. At least one character in the movie points out that science and religion can co-exist. I'm one of those people who believe that God created evolution and that science will ultimately prove the existence of God.

shine on

Two camels and some bison roam on the land next to the Pro-Anglers Shop on Route 63. Jeff Joslin told me to meet him there to shoot an additional scene for "Fish Bait," the low-budget horror movie we filmed last October. Three of the other members of Einstein Simplified and I only had to improvise a few seconds of dialogue that explained which of us was Paul. We ended up creating a fun scene in which the store owner chased Jaybo (Dave Fennell) while waving a .357 Magnum at him.



On the way through LaFollette, I saw a sign that amused me. It said "Crack A Tooth Cold Beer," which reminded me of one of my first blog entries. On the houseboat at Flat Hollow Marina & Resort, the label on the sinks also made me smile. They use a regional spelling of "spigot" to indicate which faucet dispensed fresh water. My wife and I spent the night on the houseboat. Thanks to the label, we didn't use lake water to brush our teeth.



At the marina, we watched the footage from last fall and shot some different camera angles on multiple scenes. When we were almost done filming for the night, Jeff Joslin and Darby Totten filled our wine glasses with a local delicacy. The apple-pie flavored beverage was poured from a mason jar with a cinnamon stick inside. I thought it would make me more tired but it had the effect of Granny's Spring tonic.

cyrus circus

Friday's unannounced appearance by Miley and Billy Ray Cyrus gave me a chance to chat with other members of the media and to fraternize with a couple of my dancing competitors. Oh and I also talked with the stars of "Hannah Montana The Movie," who were in Knoxville briefly as part of Walt Disney Pictures Opening Weekend Surprise. Marc & Kim and I were asked to "interrupt" the noon showing of the film, give away t-shirts and then bring out Miley and Billy Ray. I tried to take a picture but found myself on the wrong side of them. There are more photos on the Star 102.1 website and at Knoxville.com.



The local media were there in full force. All three news stations sent their own crews, as did the News Sentinel. Terry Morrow and Lauren Spuhler represented the paper and its website. Terry felt it necessary to strike a pose when I took a picture of Lauren Davis from WVLT and Beth Haynes from WBIR. While we were all waiting for Miley to arrive, I talked with Terry and Beth about our upcoming dance performances. Lauren Davis wanted to hear about it too. In the course of the conversation about me facing my fear of dancing, I showed her a couple of "before" photos that were on my Walkman.



Kristyn Caddell from WATE joked that we always seem to see each other at the "fun" stories. She also covered the new Bishop's press conference and the Christmas penguin. I asked Kristyn to turn around for a picture because at the time, I could see Miley over her shoulder. But then Miley moved on to the next interview along the press line.



The behind the scenes passageways inside the Regal Pinnacle Stadium 18 would have allowed Miley and Billy Ray to walk unseen from the theatre to the interviews in an upstairs conference room. However Miley found her way to a balcony where she could wave to the fans who didn't get in to the noon show.



The next stop for the Cyruses was Salt Lake City where they repeated the surprise. The Salt Lake Tribune says Miley received some Marshmallow Peeps, which are her favorite.

get 'em while they're hot

Actor Kellan Lutz said that his plans for a "Twilight" viewing party last Thursday were thwarted when he couldn't get an advance copy of the disc. Like everybody else, he had to wait for the DVD to be released. I heard the story on "Access Hollywood" and would have quickly forgotten it except that Lutz said he and his guests were all going to wear Snuggies while watching the film.

The amazing popularity of the sleeved blanket was highlighted for me on a recent drive to Gatlinburg. As we passed the As Seen On TV store in Sevierville, I noticed that they have now slapped the Snuggie name on all their signage.

why so serious?

On the flight home from Florida, I was impressed with the in-flight entertainment options. My son and I played a trivia game and watched some short films from the Tribeca Film Festival. We chose "Gerald's Last Day" and "Cold Calls." We also had the option of paying to watch an assortment of recent movies and television shows. Obviously, the free stuff was good enough for me.

At first glance, I thought the article on the front page of this morning's USA Today would describe some of the more interesting features of in-flight technology. Once I started reading, I realized it warned about the dangers of similar entertainment systems. Fortunately we had no such problems on our flight. The only glitch occurred during the safety announcements. The prerecorded audio was fine but the video remained frozen on an amusing facial expression.

nannerpuss

After the town hall meeting at All Saints Church on Saturday, my wife and I made a beeline for the mountains in an effort to catch a movie at the Gatlinburg Screenfest. The meeting had run long and the rainy weather slowed our drive which made us miss the beginning of the film. Fortunately, my pal Brad Bumgardner is one of the festival organizers. After the screening room cleared, he restarted it for us. He happens to be in "Boys of Summerville," the movie we drove all that way to see. Most of his screen time comes early in the film including the corn dog scene that I mentioned last year. Brad stole the show, as expected. I told him I would have enjoyed seeing his character more. How about a "Summerville Origins: Murr" prequel?

After the movie, we looked for a place to get something for dinner. Driving past all the pancake joints in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge left me with a craving. I hadn't had a pancake since that Oreo concoction last summer. Obviously I wasn't going to wait six or seven hours for one of the breakfast restaurants to open. The problem was solved as a familiar sign came into view.

The only Denny's within 50 miles of my house is in Pigeon Forge. We walked in around midnight, thinking that getting a table would be easy. Not so much. The place was packed with church group kids who were in town for the Smoky Mountain Winterfest at Thompson-Boling Arena. Note to the KTSC: the chaperones told us that even though the event moved to Knoxville, they continue to stay at hotels in Pigeon Forge because there is more there for the kids to do.

The large groups taxed the restaurant staff. Our waitress disappeared after taking our order. She had to serve a group of 70 kids from Georgia who were wearing matching t-shirts. Half an hour after we placed our order, another server delivered our Grand Slam Breakfasts and refilled our water glasses. While we waited, some women approached a large man with Elvis hair and glasses at an adjacent table. They wanted a picture with him.

The delay gave me plenty of time to study the amusing Rockstar menu featuring items named after alternative bands and a plug for the Warped Tour. The menu got me thinking that the last time I was at a Denny's was either in Burbank or maybe at the rock 'n' roll Denny's on Sunset Boulevard. Oh, and the two pancakes satisfied my craving for another six months or so.

cheez whiz

Just inside the doorway of the Cheeburger Cheeburger in Jensen Beach is a sign that says "Pepsi Pepsi – No Coke," an obvious reference to the Olympia Restaurant sketch that I wrote about on Tuesday. The sign is held by a cardboard cutout of the Three Stooges.



Our waitress was pleasant but not especially knowledgeable about the business. She knew nothing about the Lenten Menu being promoted on their website. She also forgot to deduct a 10% discount for showing her our movie ticket stubs. My son and I had just seen "Watchmen" which was okay except for Blue Man Group's numerous nude scenes. Fortunately, the restaurant manager quickly fixed the discount. The Lenten Menu wasn't a factor either, since we weren't there on a Friday.



The minor inconveniences did nothing to ruin our meals. My son ordered the Semi-Serious burger and I ordered the Classic and a salad. Both come with a choice of dozens of free toppings. I chose lettuce, tomato, Swiss cheese, and onion rings. I'm pretty sure they left off the A1 Steak Sauce I had ordered but our waitress brought me a bottle when I spoke up. Everything tasted good and made me want to visit one of the other Cheeburger Cheeburger locations during my next trip.

tribute site

Do not follow Google's directions to the Burt Reynolds & Friends Museum in Jupiter, Florida. They have you turn onto Indiantown Road, proceed 95 feet and then turn right into the museum's parking lot. As it passes the facility, Indiantown Road is an overpass with a drop of about 25 feet to the parking lot below. Fortunately my son and I spotted a sign that said "BR Museum" which pointed us around to the back of the nondescript building.



Once inside, we saw all the stuff Burt Reynolds has accumulated over the years. The displays ranged from his Palm Beach High School football letters to the keys to various cities. A good portion of the items are pictures and various things autographed by other celebrities. Some of the photos had small engraved nameplates, others did not. For example, the brass plates identified the "one and only Fred Astaire" and the "one and only Elizabeth Taylor." Also rating a plate were "kind, wonderful, talented Robby Benson," "the dearest cowboy of them all, Mr. Doug McClure" and "actor, artist, teacher and dear friend Charles Nelson Reilly." The picture of Jim Nabors had no nameplate but did have a long message from Jim: "To Burt, You're the best! And you've been more than just a friend! With love and respect, your other brother, Jim."



A large steel door was ajar next to a collection of memorabilia from "Evening Shade." It prompted me to ask the museum staff if the building had once been a bank branch or if Burt had installed the vault himself to store his most precious artifacts. I guess I was a little disappointed that the place had once been a bank. Nevertheless, I stuck my camera in the opening to get a glimpse of the things Burt didn't put on display.



Burt's Emmy and Golden Globe for "Evening Shade" were in a display case by the front door. However the docent told us that his most prized award was a huge trophy from the World Stunt Awards. As you can see from the nearby photo, it took both Burt and Arnold Schwarzenegger to lift it. Another case held a sculpture of a reclining Burt, that I thought looked pretty good.



One corner of the room held a few paintings of Burt. I didn't ask whether they were made by fans or commissioned by Burt himself. One shows him shirtless, on a horse, holding a dog. Another is a representation of his character in "Deliverance." It hangs next to the actual canoe from the film, which is inexplicably tucked away in a little nook, where it will be the last thing you see before leaving.

just to be nominated

The Oscars have been awarded and my score is five winners and five losers. I only saw ten of the nominated films, five of which won an award. Now that the pressure to see the nominees is off, I can probably wait until the other five films that interested me show up on one of the HD movie channels. I saw "The Visitor" on Starz the other day and thought it was pretty good.

Here are the five winners I saw:
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
The Duchess
Slumdog Millionaire
WALL-E

The five losers I saw:
Doubt
Iron Man
Tropic Thunder
The Visitor
Wanted

And the five still on my "to do list"
Changeling
Frost/Nixon
In Bruges
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
The Wrestler

force of habit

In an effort to see at least some of the Oscar nominees before the awards ceremony, my wife and I watched "Doubt" this afternoon. The story takes place in 1964, before people became aware of the failings of an organization which is built on the forgiveness of sins but exists in a society that requires justice and demands vengeance.

The film is set at a fictional parish in the Bronx within walking distance of the Parkchester neighborhood where my mother grew up. Most impressive was Meryl Streep's perfect accent. She sounded exactly like my Aunt Marion, with maybe a dash of Aunt Grace thrown in. The parish school is run by the Sisters of Charity, an actual order which has put information about the movie on their website.

The first time Father Flynn did the sign of the cross during Mass, I absentmindedly crossed myself along with the onscreen congregation. In that scene, Sister Aloysius hits a disruptive child on the back of the head. I wanted to her to do the same thing to a disruptive audience member at the Regal Downtown West Cinema 8.

My wife said that they used the modern arrangement of "Holy God We Praise Thy Name" instead of the old-school version of the tune. Also, they had the priest deliver his sermons following a hymn instead of right after the gospel proclamation. Several scenes are so theatrical that you can't help but be reminded that the film was adapted from a stage play. There were also a couple of times when the camera is tilted on an angle, just like when a villain's lair was shown on the old "Batman" series.

I hope Viola Davis wins for Best Supporting Actress. There was one emotional scene that should clinch it for her. It's the one where her nose starts running. I may feel differently after I see "The Wrestler," but for now I'm pulling for Viola.

I came out of the theater whistling "Blame it on the Bossa Nova," which is featured during a small scene in the film. It reminded me of an interview I did with Emily Procter when I had a show on the Comedy World Radio Network. At the time, she had a part on "The West Wing." I was rather smitten with her Ainsley Hayes character because of a well-known bathrobe bossa nova scene. I tracked down a copy of the song, which wasn't quite as easy then as it is now, and played it for her during the interview.

microfilm

It has been a big week for Jeff Joslin. First, he gets cast as an assistant D.A. on an episode of "All My Children." Then he and his crew finish a trailer for "Fish Bait," the partially improvised movie featuring most of the members of Einstein Simplified. I was complimented that they used several of my scenes in the trailer. The three-minute preview sets up the premise. We think we have reservations at the beautiful Flat Hollow Marina but are in fact booked into the decrepit Fear Hollow Marina. And there are giant catfish in the water.


"Fish Bait" trailer

or else it gets the hose again

The security crew at the promotional screening of "The International" made it very clear that no cameras or cell phones with cameras were allowed into the theatre. They looked into purses of female filmgoers and once the movie started, they used night-vision goggles to scan the crowd in search of anyone recording it.

If someone were trying to pirate "The International" last night, their copy would be easy to spot. The first few minutes of the film on were out of frame, similar to a television with a vertical hold problem. The bottom of the picture was on the top of the screen and the top was on the bottom. The problem got fixed but then returned at the start of the second reel. Two weeks ago, at a promo screening of "New in Town," the first few minutes were out of focus and the pre-show music continued playing in the auditorium. Could these problems be Hollywood's latest anti-piracy measure?

Former News Sentinel critic Betsy Pickle sat in front of me at both screenings. She told me that her reviews are now available on the Alliance of Women Film Journalists website.

I asked Betsy if she had attended the memorial service for photographer Clay Owen this week. It was held at St. Mary's Hospital in the room that St. Albert the Great parish uses for Sunday Mass while their church is being built. She was there and described to me the priest who spoke. It could only have been Fr. Ragan Schriver, which made sense. I recently found a Fr. Ragan fan club on Facebook and was touched to see that Clay had joined the group before his death.

trashing my scene

The big story in entertainment news this week was the angry rant by Christian Bale which was recorded on the set of an upcoming "Terminator" movie. Yesterday Bale, without the help of his publicist, made more headlines by calling the Kevin & Bean show on KROQ to publicly apologize. You can hear the call on the KROQ website. I think they'll let me embed it here too:



Both Kevin and my friend Bean thought they were being punked. Earlier in the week, Ralph Garman had done an excellent imitation of Bale. On Friday, Ralph had to insist that he had the real Bale on the phone. To put the apology in context, you can listen to Ralph's comedy bits that Bale said made him laugh. It sounded like the real thing when the fake Bale called to apologize but then launched into another tirade. It's at the beginning of Tuesday's Cinco De La Tarde podcast.



At the request of a listener, Ralph did the voices of both Christian Bale and TV's Batman Adam West. That happens about 20 minutes and 40 seconds into Thursday's morning show podcast.



In a similar vein, the NPR program "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!" mixed Bale's rant with audio of Tom Daschle's apology. You can hear it about 4 minutes into the "Who's Carl this Time?" segment of today's show.

a long, long time ago

"The Day the Music Died" was commemorated at the Surf Ballroom on Monday night. Anyone with even a passing knowledge of rock and roll knows that the phrase refers to the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper. Most people also know it as a lyric from "American Pie," a song by the most famous alumnus of my high school, Don McLean.

When I saw the movie "La Bamba," some girls in the theatre were shocked to tears by the film's ending. I guess they didn't know it was a true story. Los Lobos, the group that provided Ritchie Valens' music for the soundtrack, performed at the Surf Ballroom on Monday as part of the "50 Winters Later" concert. Reading about the tribute show has me interested in watching the possible TV special, should it get made.

A Minneapolis TV station did a story about a woman who recently found her photos from the February 2, 1959 concert. The Des Moines Register has tons of material online about the 50th anniversary of the crash, including something with a Body Farm connection.

In a couple of our interviews, Dr. Bill Bass has described his participation in the exhumation of the Big Bopper. He and Jon Jefferson allowed the Register to reprint a lengthy excerpt about the case from their non-fiction book "Beyond the Body Farm."

entice you with some bacon

Film director John Hudgens is a panelist at Chattacon this weekend. I assume he's at the sci-fi convention to promote the February 17th DVD release of his "American Scary." Or maybe he would have gone there anyway just for kicks. I wrote about John's movie prior to its Hollywood Film Festival debut in 2006.

John sent me a message last night after he had sampled some Elvis-themed, sushi-looking snack cakes at the convention. Imagine peanut butter, bananas and marshmallow creme wrapped in white bread and topped with bacon. Picture Twinkies sliced like California rolls and decorated with breakfast cereal. And it was all served by an Elvis impersonator dressed as a Japanese chef.

final answer

There was a time when the Regal Downtown West Cinema had lines wrapped around the building for movies like "Jurassic Park." Our friend Jennifer told us about those days when my son wondered why Regal Cinemas would have two properties as close as Downtown West and West Town Mall. Downtown West survived by screening smaller, independent films that are rarely seen in other markets our size. Its very existence serves as a reminder that the country's largest movie theater chain is headquartered not in Hollywood, but in Knoxville. Coincidentally, Regal CEO Mike Campbell was interviewed tonight by Lori Tucker on WATE. And Byron Chesney shared a link to a new interview with Campbell on the BusinessTN site.

My wife and son and I met our friend at Downtown West tonight to see "Slumdog Millionaire." I realize that most people can't drop everything and rush out to a movie on a Thursday night but I would have liked to have seen a bigger crowd there tonight. "Slumdog" deserves to have lines wrapped around the block.

Jamal, the lead character, works in a call center for a cell phone company, but not as a customer service representative. He's the chaiwalla, the guy who brings tea to the operators. The authorities suspect him of cheating on the Indian version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" Flashbacks to his childhood illustrate how he learned the answer to each of the game's questions. They also tell the heart wrenching story of Jamal's life in poverty. He is covered in filth, both literally and figuratively. It is both a feelgood movie and a shocking look at slums, orphanages and crime. On top of all that, Jamal is searching for his childhood love, the beautiful Latika. As someone who always stays for the closing credits, I was rewarded with an unexpected yet very entertaining Bollywood-like dance number. I hope the movie is rewarded with some trophies at the various award shows in the weeks ahead.

returning the favor

Several other bloggers have mentioned me on their sites recently. That Chick Over There was especially kind in her remarks. She says I remind her of her husband. That Chick and MDA are the most recent to say that they are coming to blogger night at the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra. Earlier RSVPers included Rich Hailey, Barry Wallace, Rob Huddleston, Doug McCaughan and Byron Chesney.

More recently, Byron wrote that he was impressed with the amount of traffic that flows from my site to his entertaining Knoxville Trivia Blog. It makes sense to me. He writes about local news anchors more than I do.

Speaking of anchors, Stacy McCloud got a kick out of my post about her clown interview yesterday. But mostly out of the photo.

Cassie Kiestler was happy that I found something interesting about digital TVs in her blog. She was just as happy when I was amused by a clever comment she left on one of my posts. I hope she doesn't feel obligated to write about me mentioning her again.

Leeann Samples and her husband Don came to see Einstein Simplified at First Night Knoxville. They didn't tell me they were bloggers. My Google Alert did.

A former Knoxville deejay nicknamed The Greek writes a blog called Knoxville Radio History 101. He took my picture last week while he was in the building to be on a WKTI show called "The Voice."

In a sort of the same but different vein, my friend Rodney Lee Conover informed me that I'm briefly visible on his YouTube channel. The clip is actually one of the DVD extras for his movie "BachelorMan." The disc just came out in November and the film will turn up on HDNet Movies. I visited the set one day back in 2001. Look carefully and you can see me seated behind the director John Putch, who happens to be the son of Jean Stapleton.

party quirks

More often than not, my wife and I stay home on New Year's Eve. One year we went over to the next door neighbor's house. Another year we went to the home of some church friends. We had three memorable New Year's Eves in California.

We rang out 1999 at a spectacular black-tie party for the film "Fantasia 2000." So many people were afraid of Y2K, that we got invited to fill out a table that had been purchased by a corporate sponsor. After a screening of the movie, there was live music by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and Chicago. Maybe you've heard of them.

Another year we got tickets to see the Brian Setzer Orchestra at the House of Blues. Because the tickets had come from Setzer's management, we found ourselves seated at the same table as Brian's wife. I've already written about the New Year's Eve we spent in Pasadena, getting within smelling distance of the Rose Parade floats.

I had a great time saying farewell to 2008 on Wednesday night. I got to play improv games with my Einstein Simplified pals as part of the First Night Knoxville festival. The evening started early with an appearance on "Live at Five at Four" to promote our performances. Then we had dinner at The Tomato Head, which was packed with people. Despite the huge crowd, the staff found a way to seat our party of 16. I amused myself by ordering the vegetarian chef salad and then having them add free-range chicken to it. The words bacon and salad on the menu got me wondering if there is such a thing as bacon salad. It would have mayo and celery like tuna salad but with bacon instead of fish.

I was a little anxious about whether or not we would draw an audience. Our performance space was in a conference room in an office building across the street from Market Square. I said that I hoped ventriloquist Gene Cordova could draw a crowd. He had shows at 7:00 and 8:00 p.m. in the same room we would use at 9:00. When we got to the TVA West Tower, Gene Cordova had a standing-room only crowd that spilled out into the lobby area. Another conference room across from ours had musical performances by Bantry and Tennessee Schmaltz. They had a decent sized audience too, not Gene Cordova numbers, but decent. Most of the audience who filled the room for our two shows had never seen us before. I was surprised when a former WAVA listener in the crowd re-introduced himself to me. It was Don Samples, cousin of the late Junior Samples. Our shows went very well and I think more than a few of the people will come see us at Patrick Sullivan's in the future.

We ended our second show around 11:30 p.m. and went outside to see the "ball" drop. It was more like a balloon on a tether and not that impressive. Next year they should drop an orange construction barrel, as suggested by reader Cassie. A live band on the Market Square stage made the event feel like Sundown in the City, except for the bitter cold. Like the popular summer event, there were way too many cigarette smokers blowing their exhaust on others. We found a spot that was relatively smoke-free and watched the countdown to midnight. It was 25 seconds slow but who's counting?

death by telekinesis

During a recent remote broadcast from a car dealership, a coworker told me that he was going to an "ugly Christmas sweater party" that night. Although the self-explanatory concept reminded me of a funny scene in "Bridget Jones Diary," I had not previously heard of it. As often happens once something shows up on your radar, I started noticing several pictures of "ugly Christmas sweater parties" on USA Today's Pop Candy Blog.

A few days later, that same coworker saw me wearing one of the Alpaca wool sweaters I received as a gift last year from my wife's brother and his family. They live in Peru, where he is a missionary for Globe International. I felt like I had hit the jackpot when they drew my name in the family Christmas lottery. The Alpaca sweaters are the warmest, softest and most comfortable I've ever had in my life. I wore a light brown one to the Christmas parade two weeks ago. Anyway, my coworker asked if I was going to an "ugly Christmas sweater party." He thought that the llamas on my gray sweater were reindeer.

On Tuesday night I wore the gray sweater to the last regular Einstein Simplified show of the year (not counting our New Year's Eve gig). I kept it on during one of my favorite games, "Story Story Die," but soon got too hot on stage and took it off. Paul Simmons' wife Michelle took pictures throughout the show. I asked her to send me one that I could post here to show that the llamas look nothing like reindeer. Feel free to add your own captions in the comments section.

light bulb factory

Maybe this week I can clear out a few things that have been sitting in my drafts folder for a while. The clever blog called We Have an Idea and Then We Write It Down came to my attention back on September 27 when they used the words comedy and improv in the same sentence. I have a Google alert for that phrase. They were hoping for a live comedy radio station, just like we were trying to do at the Comedy World Radio Network, which as I've said before, was ahead of its time.

You could spend hours scrolling through the archives at We Have an Idea. I like that they spell idea with an r in their URL. That's the way my dad's old boss, Nelson Rockefeller, pronounced the word. The idea bloggers want a button to bookmark songs on the radio for later download. My friend Sandy recently wrote on her blog that such a thing is on the horizon. I especially liked their ideas for pressure sensitive brake lights and model roller coaster sets.

Tonight's post has me thinking of two different tangents, one about improv and one about radio. You might recall that the members of Einstein Simplified were cast in a partially improvised horror film called "Fish Bait." Our co-director Darby Totten was recently cast as an FBI agent on three episodes of the Fox series "Fringe." And, of course, our live show happens on Tuesday nights at Patrick Sullivan's. Come see us before we take time off for Christmas.

While looking for a link to include with tonight's first paragraph, I discovered that the Internet Archive Wayback Machine has much of the old Comedy World site online. The page that they saved for my show mentions some of my favorite interviewees including Miss Yvonne, the Armenian Comedian and Billy Bob Thornton.

see bond

Early reviewers said "Quantum of Solace" was more like a Bourne movie than a Bond movie, which was okay with me because I like the Bourne movies. Now that I've seen the latest in the 007 series, I can understand that they were mainly referring to a chase sequence that goes over rooftops and in and out of windows. I felt like the action sequences used fast cuts as short cuts. They used to choreograph those scenes better, making it easy to see what was going to happen. An old-fashioned Bond boat chase would have used long shots and less edits to show the vessels moving closer and narrowly missing obstacles. In "Quantum," they used more close-ups of things crashing into each other. During hand-to-hand combat, it was difficult to tell who was killing whom. I just had to assume that James Bond was winning all his fights, which of course he was.

The lukewarm reviews lowered my expectations to the point that I could easily enjoy the movie. Rather than stress over the unexplained plot points, I let myself relax and take in the pretty pictures. Speaking of that, a secondary Bond girl named Strawberry Fields, played by Gemma Arterton, deserved more screen time. Much has been made about the lack of some standard James Bond-isms in the latest film. However those of us who remember staying up to watch our first Bond movies on ABC on Sunday nights during sweeps months will appreciate a certain visual homage to "Goldfinger."

it's the economy

Film critic Betsy Pickle sat behind me at the screening of "Role Models" tonight. She showed up even though she found out today that she was a victim of staff cutbacks at the Knoxville News Sentinel. 13 people lost their jobs in the newsroom along with about 40 more in other departments. I didn't hear all their names but the ones I remember are style writer Kevin Cowan, arts writer Doug Mason, and travel editor Linda Lange.

Some of those names have turned up on my blog in the past. Kevin Cowan wrote about my makeover and Doug Mason sat next to me at the circus. I've mentioned Betsy many times, usually after seeing her at a promotional screening. In the midst of expressing my condolences over the loss of her job, I forgot to offer my sympathy to Betsy for the loss of her father, who died last month.

I don't know if the stock market being down in the dumps the past two days had anything to do with the staff reduction. It was probably in the works longer than that. The News Sentinel does seem to be shifting more focus to its online products. I suspect that the remaining staff will be expected to write more blog entries and to shoot more web video. Betsy didn't know if her old blog and archived reviews would remain online or disappear.

By the way, the movie was pretty good. It has a few gross-out moments but it isn't as shocking as some of the other movies Paul Rudd has been in recently. There are times when the jokes take a back seat to the plot, which isn't a bad thing. Rudd and Seann William Scott play court-ordered big brothers to kids who need a friend. The film builds to a satisfying conclusion at an event I thought they made up. However Laire appears to be an actual event where people pretend to be someone else.

a thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole

The directors of "Fish Bait" must be on the lookout for fish stories. Today Jeff Joslin sent along news of the Goonch, a giant catfish believed to be feeding on corpses in India. Sky News has fish photos. Bodies are regularly set adrift on funeral pyres in the Great Kali River. The locals now think that the Goonch have started attacking live swimmers because they are not satisfied with eating the partially burned remains.

All this sudden publicity for the Goonch comes because biologist Jeremy Wade will host a documentary called "Nature Shock: Flesh Eating River Monster" on Britain's Channel Five later this month. On this side of the ocean, an American fisherman, Larry Dahlberg, has a DVD of his adventures with giant catfish in Venezuela. Larry has given Jeff permission to use some of his footage in "Fish Bait."

new beast of the east

Some of the cast and crew of "Fish Bait" slept aboard the luxury houseboat at Flat Hollow Marina & Resort. Those of us who arrived later in the week were given rooms on land in the gorgeous A-frame chalets overlooking the water. I was one of four people in the Pinewood Chalet.



One of the producers, Andrew Rogers, arranged the shooting schedule so that I didn't have any scenes to film while my wife and I went to church on Sunday. After Mass, we still had enough time to watch the first half of the Redskins game. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the chalet not only had DirecTV but the NFL Sunday Ticket also. Just because I could, I flipped around to other games briefly during commercial breaks. However the Redskins game was actually on regular TV in our area this week.

The picture froze a few times during the game. I assumed that someone or something had gotten in the way of the chalet's satellite dish. I wasn't too concerned because I was recording the game in HD back at home. I was called to the set at halftime and avoided hearing the score until I got home last night and could watch the second half. Unfortunately my reception at home was poor too. Instead of glorious HD, WTNZ switched to SD for most of the game, which makes me think the problem was on their end, not mine.

Last night, while I was uploading my photos from the weekend, I finished watching the game and then flipped around the dial hoping to at least see some highlights in HD. Instead, I saw every play on NFL Sunday Ticket SuperFan's Short Cuts. A normal football game takes over three hours to watch. NFL Replay fits the game into an hour and a half. Short Cuts gives you the whole game in only half an hour. You get every play and none of the in-between stuff. However the audio is a little disconcerting. While re-enjoying the Redskins victories over the Cowboys and Eagles, I got used to ignoring the sentence fragments from the color commentator and focusing on the play-by-play announcer. For example, Troy Aikman would be in the middle of one of his favorite Jay Novacek stories when Joe Buck would interrupt to bring us back to 2008.

Speaking of the past, last week I also watched Brett Favre's record-setting performance in those weird Jets throwback uniforms against the Cardinals.

the good kind of tired

The other cast and crew members who I met this weekend on the set of "Fish Bait" are probably posting their personal snapshots to various social networking sites tonight. I will add a few minutes to my own personal sleep deprivation and put mine online here. Co-directors Jeff Joslin and Darby Totten filmed the movie on location at the very nice Flat Hollow Marina & Resort on Norris Lake.



Cinematographers Pierce Cook and Wes Halula used a Panasonic DVCPro HD camera to capture the action. They transferred the footage directly on to a computer and did some rough cut editing each day.



Former pro wrestler Kodiak Joe made a cameo appearance during a party scene filmed last night. He's also a former college football player who is now better known as Fr. Joe Campbell, pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in nearby LaFollette. My wife and I went there for Mass this morning.



I had a great time as three of my fellow Einstein Simplified members and I played a group of fishing buddies. We did our fishing boat scene very late Friday night as the fog rolled in. Those shots were finished somewhere around 4:30 a.m. Saturday. Earlier today I spotted a pile of movie props that may or may not have anything to do with our characters' fates. You'll have to see the movie to find out. If you know any independent theater owners who might be interested in showing it, we wouldn't mind one bit.

big girls don't cry

There's a lot more to the plot of "The Duchess" but I couldn't help but be reminded of TV's most famous blended family. Feel free to sing along: Here's the story of a lovely Duchess, who was bringing up three very lovely girls. All of them were not male heirs, like their mother, the eldest wasn't even hers. Here's the story of a lovely Lady, busy with three boys of her own. They got separated, thanks to the father, which we cannot condone. Till the one day when this Lady met this Duchess and they became fast friends from the start. Then the Duke got busy with the Lady and they truly broke the skinny Duchess' heart.

Keira Knightley plays the Duchess of Devonshire, a character more than a little like her descendant, the late Princess Diana. Her husband is older and only wants her to produce a male heir. Somehow it's okay for him to have mistresses but not for her to be with her true love. The Duchess becomes hugely popular for her sense of fashion. She uses her fame to help political causes that she supports. Throughout the movie, the Duchess bears four children and never retains an ounce of baby weight after each pregnancy.

During a party scene and a theater scene, artists drew pictures of the Duchess and those around her. At one point they captured an image of an unhappy Duke watching his marriage being satirized in the play "The School for Scandal." I imagined the Duke to be cursing the dreaded sketch-arazzi.

night crawlers

If all goes according to plan, next weekend I'll be having fun with my improv buddies on the set of an independent film. Quarterback-turned-actor Jeff Joslin asked us to be in the movie that he and Darby Totten are producing and directing. It's called "Fish Bait."

Jeff and Darby were excited this past week when their movie made it into Variety's listings of upcoming film projects. I will be excited if I can get my name on IMDB. Then I'll see if I can get them to also list my role as an uncredited extra in the cinematic masterpiece "It's Pat."

UPDATE: There's an opportunity for you to be an extra in "Fish Bait" during a party scene on Saturday. If you're interested and available, send a photo of yourself and your contact information to info@fishbait-themovie.com

holy hurdles!

A couple of years ago Disney and Universal traded Oswald the Lucky Rabbit to settle a dispute. Universal had the rights to the cartoon character Walt created before Mickey Mouse. Disney got the rights to Oswald by allowing Al Michaels to move from Disney-owned ABC to Universal-owned NBC.

I was reminded of Oswald when my friend Bean sent me a link to an article at the Comic Book Resources site. He knew I would be interested in a potential bargaining chip that could help resolve a lawsuit between 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. over the upcoming movie "Watchmen." So, who might save the day? TV's Batman! According to the article, Fox wants to get some rights from Warner to finally release my favorite show on DVD. They might then drop their suit to block the release of "Watchmen."

Before I get my hopes too high and bust open my piggy bank, TV Shows on DVD reports that there are still many more issues that also need to be settled before the 120 episodes of campy fun can be put on disc. At least Adam West has started working on his own version of DVD extras that could be released separately from the series.

no need to feel down

Carbo-loading for tomorrow morning's Swim for Life is the excuse I'm using for eating fair food tonight. It was media night at the Tennessee Valley Fair. The organizers set up a buffet for all us media moochers. I sampled a few things including a corn dog and part of a funnel cake.

The featured attraction tonight was Village People. While we waited for the concert, my wife and I saw someone who looked exactly like David Keith going in the same stage door from which the singing group would eventually make their entrance. Maybe he wanted to say hi to them. I drew a red circle around him in the photo below:



This week's Metro Pulse has a couple of paragraphs by Jack Neely that perfectly explain what people like me thought when Village People hit the scene. I wasn't the only one who was too young or too naive to see the subtext at the time.

The Village People confused America more successfully than any other band in history. In 1977, some may recall, heterosexual men wore blow-dried hair styles, chartreuse pants suits, heels and jewelry. Old-fashioned institutions like the YMCA, the U.S. Navy, and machismo in general were withering, the rough equivalent of the Temperance League. Then, suddenly, all over TV, here came these guys dressed in unfashionably, boldly masculine costumes, as a cop, an Indian chief, a cowboy, a biker, an infantryman, a construction worker in a hard hat. And they sang, in commanding masculine tones over a driving disco beat, songs extolling the Y and the Navy, the old things our grandparents were always trying to talk us into. And even in the fruity '70s, these men boldly emphasized the necessity of being macho.

Good hippies cringed at what looked like a giant step backward into gender stereotypes. Conservatives rejoiced. Then America slowly realized that most of these guys were gay. What were we to think? We still haven't quite figured it out, even as we stand up to do the Y-M-C-A dance at baseball games.

At the end of tonight's concert, the Veepers (as they call themselves) taught us how to properly do the Y-M-C-A hand motions. To do the M, your hands should be in front of your sternum, pointing down, not atop your head. But I'm getting ahead of myself. "YMCA" was the obvious encore. The group sang their other well-known songs mixed in with a couple of cover songs and a part-medley, part-mashup thing called "Trash Disco." After pretending to end the show with "In the Navy," they came back on stage and said they would take a risk by letting the audience request their final song. Of course everyone screamed for "YMCA."



They had plenty of processing on their microphones but I was still left thinking that the members of Village People are very good singers whose voices blend well together. During their cover of "Iko Iko," it occurred to me that without their costumes and backing tracks, they would be indistinguishable from an experienced and talented a capella group. All they would need is a mouth percussionist.

When I was at Power 106, the station booked Village People to perform at a retro dance party for listeners. I was assigned the task of arranging for some celebrities to attend and appear on stage. The three stars I got were Susan Olsen, Hervé Villechaize and Norman Fell. It was the first time I met Susan. Who knew we would work together several years later?

The Veepers got to L.A. a couple of days before the concert. They came in for an interview on the morning show and had some free time on their hands. Meanwhile the station had a preview screening of a new movie that week. I will always remember that I saw "Jurassic Park" seated directly in front of the world famous Village People. The group will soon head back to California to perform at the L.A. County Fair and to receive their star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Meanwhile back in Knoxville, my David Keith sighting was confirmed later tonight in the midway section of the fair. My wife and I were waiting in line for the Giant Wheel when I saw David getting into one of the cars. He gave a thumbs up for my camera:

in a world

Movies were on my mind this morning even before I heard the sad news about Don LaFontaine's death. Don was, of course, the ultimate movie trailer voiceover announcer. YouTube has some great footage including a short documentary about "the voice" and routine by comedian Pablo Francisco. I especially enjoyed seeing "5 Guys in a Limo," which featured Don and four other voiceover guys in a skit for an industry function.

I was lucky enough to get Don to appear in one of the live radio dramas I directed at KLOS. As you would expect, he was the consummate professional, eagerly taking direction from me and waiting for me to point at him before he delivered his lines. It's no accident that I chose to stand next to Don in the cast photo.



My original plan for today's entry was to gripe about the summer box office reports. With Don's passing, I've lost some of my vitriol on the topic. Hollywood touts the amount of money movies bring in but rarely mentions the number of tickets sold. A news story I heard on ABC this morning said that the movies collected $4.2 billion this summer, up slightly from last year's $4.18 billion. This came despite a four percent drop in attendance. The increase was due to higher ticket prices. I just want to hear the Hollywood studios publicly acknowledge that attendance is down because ticket prices are up. Every time they raise prices, they increase the divide between the blockbusters and the bombs. If tickets cost less, the average person would be willing to take a risk on seeing more movies in the theater rather than waiting for them to turn up on DVD or HBO. Don't even get me started on the concessions.

lucky number eight

WVLT held a local version of a network upfront presentation this afternoon at the Tennessee Theatre. I called Dino Cartwright and got myself invited. Alan Williams served as emcee for the event, which was targeted to advertisers.

Actor David Keith was there to plug his upcoming appearance on "CSI: Miami." I spoke to him briefly, choosing to tell him that when we met about ten years ago at KLOS, it was the first time I had ever heard anyone talk about Vols football. David responded by saying that he had been in Mark Thompson's first film. It was definitely a better choice than bringing up the time we met again three years ago.

In addition to Keith, I saw and spoke with Chef Walter, Gary Loe, Rick Russo and Bob Kesling. Russo and Kesling took the stage to talk about the Vols for a little while. Most of the time was devoted to watching previews of the new shows coming to CBS this fall:

• The pilot episode of "Worst Week" looks funny. But can they maintain that frenetic pace in episode two or three or four etc?
• I'll take a look at Jay Mohr's show, "Gary Unmarried," because I like his guest appearances on KROQ. Will the sitcom writing be up to the level of his standup? He looks like he's taken up weightlifting or something.
  
• Of the dramas, "The Mentalist" intrigues me enough to record a few episodes. It airs on Tuesday nights, while I'm out improvising.
  
• They said that "Eleventh Hour" got the best grades from test audiences. The short preview I saw didn't convince me to commit to it. I'll probably watch the first episode, just to be nice.

took a whole lotta tryin'

The satire in "Tropic Thunder" was so rich I wanted everyone else in the theatre to stop laughing so I could just soak it all in. At times, I sat there in open-mouthed amazement at the bulls-eye accuracy of the parody. Because it's an R-rated comedy, most of the jokes cannot be shown in the trailer. As a result, I was able to enjoy the movie, unlike "Get Smart," which was ruined for me by watching the previews.

Robert Downey Jr. carries the film. He plays an Australian method actor who has his skin darkened to play an African-American sergeant. Obviously he is spoofing actors, not African-Americans. I haven't heard any reaction yet to the use of the N word in one scene. Instead, some people are upset over use of the R word. I think a satire should be given more leeway than a broad comedy. They're making fun of actors who portray mentally-challenged individuals, not the people who are challenged. Think about "Rain Main," "Forrest Gump" and "I Am Sam" and all the other roles that actors have used as Oscar bait.

There are many reasons to recommend "Tropic Thunder" for audiences ready for some outrageous humor. Not only does Tom Cruise steal every scene he's in, he steals the closing credits too. Which reminds me, I really liked the way the cast list in the credits was organized by scene. I expect to see a favorable review too from Betsy Pickle, based on her laughter during the preview screening last night. She sat right behind me in the crowded theatre.

all of the above

There are three possible reasons why I truly enjoyed Krisha Newport's performance in "Cactus Flower" at Theatre Knoxville Downtown. a) she's a friend of mine; b) she's remarkably talented; or c) she has the best part in the play. My wife and I were part of today's matinée audience.

Krisha plays the spinster nurse who just may bloom like the cactus on her desk. That same character was portrayed on Broadway by Lauren Bacall and in the movie by Ingrid Bergman. Those are some heavy-duty actresses. They try to trick you into thinking that the story is about a pretty young girl (Oscar winner Goldie Hawn in the movie, Brenda Vaccaro on Broadway) depressed over her affair with a dentist. In reality, the nurse is the linchpin on whom the whole plot turns.

I found a scene from the movie on YouTube. It seems a little sluggish compared to the play, which is a quick-witted farce. It has enough of a plot twist to keep you guessing how the romantic partnerships will work out. Krisha's character, Stephanie, could end up with the writer, the actor, the diplomat or the dentist. Her red wig put me in mind of another great comedic actress, Carol Burnett.

Pat and Morgan Fitch are in the cast as the rich patient and the struggling actor. In real life, they once invited me over to see their pet turtles. After another actress dropped out, Pat offered to play two parts. A different wig and costume transformed her into the actor's girlfriend. In a compliment to her technique, I didn't realize that the second character was also her until the curtain call.

"Cactus Flower" runs for two more weekends. The News Sentinel had a nice write up about the show the week before it opened. Theatre Knoxville is housed in a little space across the street from Regas Restaurant that I had overlooked until now. I'll be back for Krisha's next show.

ain't ashamed to tell ya

To say that I was bummed by the death of Bernie Mac would be an extreme understatement. My daughter knows that I am a fan and called to tell me about Bernie's passing. That's how I found out. When I told some co-workers, they hoped that it was some sort of false rumor. A check of the headlines on their cell phones confirmed the sad news.

The first I ever heard of Bernie was when I saw "The Original Kings of Comedy." Two of the film's other stars, Steve Harvey and D.L. Hughley had made multiple guest appearances on the Mark & Brian show in the time I worked at KLOS. They were enough of a draw for me to want to see the movie.

My wife and I were just about the only white people in movie theater that day. Harvey, Hughley and Cedric the Entertainer were all funny but Bernie Mac stole the show. I started watching for him in other movies and on TV. A year or so later, I set up a Season Pass on my TiVo when "The Bernie Mac Show" debuted. Since 2000, I've seen at least eight of Bernie's movies, including the underrated "Pride" and "Mr. 3000."

The best remembrance of Bernie that I read today is by Alan Sepinwall in the Newark Star-Ledger. He reprinted his 2002 interview with the comedian. Meanwhile, my friend Bean spotted a mistake that the Chicago Tribune certainly must regret. You can read the corrected version of their obituary online as well as a better article that came later. When it was first posted, they had not yet inserted some anecdotes about Mac's early years:

Life changed dramatically for Mac when he was 32. He won the Miller Lite comedy search that year and that performance took him to the standup stage, which ultimately led to regular performances on popular shows like HBO's "Def Comedy Jam."

In a few short years, he was able to put a stamp on this tell-it-like-it-is brand of comedy that audiences had come to know him for. He was a hit on the stage, delivering sordid tales of his early life growing up on Chicago's South Side. Would be great to get a couple examples here

His work hit home to the African American audience -- his aggressive, brash comedy had a down home feel to it, tackling everything from family life to black romantic relationships -- yet Mac was able to cross it over, connecting with a majority entertainment scene.

The obituaries aren't enough. I'm going to look for some videos and watch Bernie Mac at his best.

björn again

A box office record was set this weekend by "Mamma Mia!" Huh? Oh sure, "The Dark Knight" broke all kinds of records but "Mamma Mia!" had the biggest opening for a musical. My wife was included in the 75% of the film's audience who are female, which makes me part of the other 25%. "Mamma Mia!" was okay. I only liked hearing the ABBA songs that I already knew, which was a little less than half of them. The unfamiliar tunes didn't do it for me. True ABBA fans would know all the songs.

I have seen enough clips on talk shows to know that Pierce Brosnan's singing voice is not in the same league as his co-stars. Meryl Streep's voice was believable as Donna, a former pop singer. Amanda Seyfried, the actress who played her daughter, sings well too. All through the movie, I kept trying to figure out how one of Donna's backup singers could possibly be Mrs. Weasley from the Harry Potter films too. Julie Walters disappears into both roles.

In the course of clicking around for "Mamma Mia!" information, I found a less than favorable movie review by Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York Daily News. I once did some work for her parents during Oscar week in Hollywood. Her dad is Stuart Weitzman, the famous shoe designer.

On Friday we met some friends at the Regal Knoxville Center 10. Our original plan to see "The Dark Knight" got modified when one of our friends suggested that we could see "Mamma Mia!" too. The show times allowed us to take a break for lunch in between. I got a salad at Chick-fil-A and somehow resisted the urge to get one of their delicious, hand-spun, 790-calorie milkshakes. In the end, we were all glad that ABBA was the opening act and that we made Batman the headliner. It wouldn't have been as enjoyable the other way around.

rough riders

The embargo is lifted. I saw "The Dark Knight" yesterday and can now read articles and watch shows about the film. The movie is amazing. It's so full of action and plot that it's almost like two movies in one. I want to see it a second time just to enjoy a spectacular scene with the Batpod and an eighteen wheeler again. The action is great but my favorite scene was a superbly acted conversation between Batman and the Joker.

I'm glad I waited until today to watch "Batman Unmasked: The Psychology of the Dark Knight" on History. It included a lot of footage from both "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight" as experts discussed the mental states of Bruce Wayne, Harvey Dent, Catwoman, the Joker and others. According to the show, director Christopher Nolan feels that Bruce Wayne is a lot like President Theodore Roosevelt. T.R.'s father was also a rich philanthropist. When the future president experienced great personal tragedy, he went off to the Dakota badlands, possibly with the intention of killing himself. Instead he came back a determined man. He became police commissioner of New York and rode a bicycle through the streets at night to deter crime.

The release of each new Batman movie brings the opportunity for some collateral publicity for the 1966 classic camp version. The best thing I've recently read about the old Adam West series was an article in Variety by Lorenzo Semple Jr. He describes the process of writing the show as well as some other backstage anecdotes. And the best thing I've seen about my childhood hero lately was a photo of Batman riding an elephant. Seriously.

Since "The Dark Knight" is a somber movie, I'll end this blog entry with some sad news about bats. Researchers are trying to determine the cause of a white nose syndrome that is killing off bats in the Northeast. It has nothing to do with Studio 54.

sleep-e

First of all, "WALL-E" is a very good movie, despite what happened. We went to see it yesterday to escape the heat at the Smoky Mountain Invitational swim meet, just like last year when we saw "Ratatouille." If this weren't our fourth and final year going to the meet, we could have started our own Pixar tradition.

Our son had to be at the Springbrook Pool in time for team warm ups at 7:30 a.m. While he hit the water, my wife bought a heat sheet and checked his schedule. With 33 teams and a ton of swimmers participating, there would be a lot of time between his four events. He was due to swim at 9:49 a.m., 1:15 p.m., 6:44 p.m. and 8:46 p.m. The five and a half hour window between his second and third races gave us the perfect opportunity to get away for a while. The well-run meet had gotten 25 minutes ahead of schedule by 11:45 a.m. but that time vanished when everything stopped for half an hour.

Although it's an older theater, all the screens at the Carmike Foothills 12 offer digital projection. I now find it hard to watch movies without DLP. The beginning sequence of "WALL-E" is as good as all the critics said it was. I especially got a kick out of hearing a song from "Hello, Dolly!" that mentioned my old hometown of Yonkers in the first few seconds. Maybe it was the hours we had already spent in the sun or perhaps the cool air in the dark theatre or maybe it was the scarcity of dialogue in the story that made my eyelids start getting heavy toward the middle of the movie. I'll have to watch the whole thing again when it's on satellite next year.

to the Batcave

Perhaps the best place for me to be this week is in an honest-to-goodness cave. Where else can I go to avoid the hype surrounding the new Batman movie? With all the publicity I've seen so far, until yesterday I really thought "The Dark Knight" was opening tomorrow (or tonight at midnight). There's actually another week to wait. Or more if it's sold out on opening day.

Christian Bale and Heath Ledger were on the cover of the Entertainment Weekly that came in the mail last Saturday. There's a review of the movie in the Time magazine with Mark Twain on the cover. I had to take my wife's advice and stop reading it when it started to reveal more about the film than I want to know. She knows how I can be. When I'm really looking forward to a movie, I'll watch and read too much about it. "Get Smart" was a disappointment for me because I had seen all the best jokes in the trailers.

To a certain extent, I can't help it. Batman stuff is everywhere. Today on the Knoxville Blog Network, I saw an interesting entry from The Screening Log about the Bat Signal in Manhattan. In my on-screen satellite guide I saw a listing for a show on History called "Batman Unmasked: The Psychology of the Dark Knight." I set it up to record.

The aforementioned Entertainment Weekly had a Batman reference that didn't spoil anything. Under the heading "Even the Darkest of Knights Shines Brightly on Blu-ray" was a near-silhouette of Adam West as Batman standing on a Gotham rooftop. It was an ad for the Blu-ray edition of "Batman: The Movie." I enjoyed the connection between the old and the new. By the way, when Adam West appeared on the "Today" show recently, it was to promote that same Blu-ray disc.

It's clear that Christian Bale is the best Batman since Adam West. Oh alright, Bale is the best Batman since Kevin Conroy, who was the best Batman since Adam West.

and here we go...

Batman fans are buzzing today about the first review of "The Dark Knight." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone absolutely loved it. He's talking about a posthumous Oscar for Heath Ledger. The movie trailers have allayed any fear I had that Heath's untimely death would distract from the film. When I look at him in character, I only see the Joker, not the actor.

Meanwhile Adam West fans can set their TiVos to record the 9 a.m. hour of the "Today" show on Tuesday. Adam, Burt Ward and Lee Meriweather will be interviewed. A couple of Adam West interviews popped up online this week. If you only feel like reading one, I would recommend The Den of Geek instead of ComicBookMovie.com. It's no surprise that Adam is less than enthusiastic about the darker version of the caped crusader.

I don't think it's a contradiction for me to be a fan of both the '60s TV "Batman" and Christopher Nolan's interpretation in "Batman Begins." Of course, I also loved all the other Nolan films I've seen: "Memento," "Insomnia" and "The Prestige."

Some other bat-bits: It's too bad that Adam West wasn't chosen to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame this year. I hope his supporters keep trying. My friend Bean wanted to make sure I had seen a cool behind-the-scenes photo of Adam and Burt filming one of their famous Bat-climbs. My friend Lee sent me a sound clip of a 1960s radio deejay telling his audience that it was time to go watch "Batman." That's a sure-fire ratings winner. Lastly, I saw a picture on the Knoxville Blog Network of what is truly the worst Batman toy ever. Funny, though.

the bad, the good and the promising

After seeing "The Happening" this past weekend, I wasn't particularly inspired to write about it. An hour into the movie, people were laughing at parts that weren't meant to be funny. On the plus side, I think it might play better on HBO or DVD. All the hype about it being M. Night Shyamalan's first R-rated movie seemed overblown to me. One or two quick edits probably would have brought it back down to PG-13.

Another movie I saw over the weekend was a pleasant surprise on DVD. "Dan in Real Life" was much better than I expected from the marketing campaign. Neither the TV commercials nor the theatrical trailer did it justice. There's a scene at the end of the trailer that wasn't even in the movie. The part where Dan panics as his daughter pulls out into traffic turns up in the DVD extras. Forget the trailer. All you need to know is that Dan inadvertently meets and falls for his brother's new girlfriend right before she shows up at a family gathering. Except for one cliched pratfall off a roof, the jokes are original and very enjoyable. Steve Carell plays Dan. An understated Dane Cook plays his brother. Don't let your Dane Cook preconceptions get in your way. A radiant Juliette Binoche plays the woman in the middle.

Meanwhile, Steve Carell has been all over TV tonight in the commercials for "Get Smart." My wife and I are still planning to see it this weekend, probably on Sunday.

don't get dumb

The battle at the multiplexes this weekend will be between "Get Smart" and "The Love Guru." It's very unusual for two comedies to open at the same time. Both have been heavily hyped almost everywhere you turn. Mike Myers promoted "The Love Guru" on "American Idol," the MTV Movie Awards and elsewhere. The cast of "Get Smart" is in one of the ads that remind you to silence your cell phone in the movie theatre.

Trailers for both films have been running for months. If you haven't caught them yet, click here and here. I feel that I've already seen as much of "The Love Guru" as I care to. However I'm left wanting more "Get Smart." Based on the trailers alone, my wife wants everyone to get out and "vote" for "Get Smart" this weekend by buying a ticket. Who's with us?

feet in the air like you just don't care

Back in the olden days, we would look in the newspaper to see what movies were playing at our local theaters. Yesterday my son and I watched Roeper & Phillips (or whatever it's called) and then wanted to check the opening dates for some upcoming movies like "Get Smart." Nowadays, we go to the Internet for movie times and locations.

I already had a million tabs open on my laptop and was in the middle of researching yesterday's blog entry. Since my TiVo is also connected to the Internet, it was easy to use it instead. On the list of movies opening this weekend was one we've heard nothing about. It's called "Miss Conception" starring Heather Graham. From the trailer, you can tell that it's a biological clock comedy and that it won't win any awards. Not even for Heather's fake British accent. My son and I laughed when we saw that TiVo had it listed as a "horror" film. Maybe they've already seen it.

ridin' the whip

The opening weekend crowds didn't deter us from going to see "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" yesterday. It may not be the best in the series but it is certainly not the worst either. I think it's just as good as "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade." The new movie is a feel-good thrill ride that hits all the points you would expect. The plot twists didn't surprise me but they didn't disappoint me either. From big ants to atom bombs to UFOs, it is filled with nods to science fiction movies of the 1950s. Many of reviewers who had no problem with the supernatural elements of the first three movies found the plot of this fourth movie to be far-fetched. Without giving too much away, it shouldn't shock anyone that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg are big believers in space aliens. They probably read "Chariots of the Gods" back in the '70s too. I thought it would have been funny if the creature in the body bag at the beginning of the film looked just like E.T.

I went to my TiVo to see what Roeper & Phillips (a/k/a Not Siskel & Not Ebert) had to say about the latest Jones saga. Unfortunately some basketball game ran late and WATE joined the show in progress. Naturally, Indiana Jones was the first movie they reviewed, so I missed it. The episode is still not on their website as I write this. For what it's worth, I think Michael Phillips should get the job as Roger Ebert's permanent on-camera replacement, even if he didn't like "IJatKotCK." There is a review of "The Last Crusade" in the Siskel & Ebert archives. I didn't expect Gene Siskel to give it a thumbs down.

After watching the new movie yesterday, I tried to think about how it compared to the first three. That's when I realized that I had absolutely no recollection of "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom." The synopsis on IMDB.com didn't help either. Thuggees? Doesn't ring a bell. It's like I have amnesia. I'm positive that I saw "Temple of Doom" in a theatre. I'm pretty sure that it was a midnight screening on the day it first opened. Did I fall asleep? Last night after dinner we popped in the DVD of "Temple of Doom." It was really bad. No wonder I had blocked it out. Did you remember that "Temple of Doom" was a prequel to "Raiders of the Lost Ark"? I didn't.



My friend Richard Cheese sent an email plugging his version of the Indiana Jones Theme, now available on iTunes. I heard it on his MySpace page. The instrumental tune sounds like something from the soundtrack of "A Charlie Brown Christmas."

My matinée ticket cost $6.50 at West Town Mall, 25 cents cheaper than a ticket at the Pinnacle at Turkey Creek. Evening tickets cost two dollars more at each place. An article in the Kansas City Star points out that many theaters raise their ticket prices on Memorial Day weekend. An executive at the AMC Theatres chain said that their most recent ticket price increase was due to the rising cost of corn. Corn! An executive with Regal Cinemas says that movie tickets would cost $20 if not for the concessions. I don't buy popcorn and therefore I don't mind that high concession prices help keep my ticket price lower. But I don't want my ticket price to go up just to keep the popcorn price from rising. It's a double standard, I know.

weakly reader

The only magazine subscription I have is to Entertainment Weekly. I enjoy reading about the latest movies, books, DVDs, television shows and more. I especially like their coverage of the business side of the industry.

I knew I would have about two hours to wait before the start of my son's graduation ceremony this morning. I grabbed the new Entertainment Weekly out of the mailbox and brought it with me. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that almost the entire issue is devoted to "Sex and the City." The front cover boasts that they have 63 pages worth of articles and photos. Why do I need 63 pages of that?

Sure I'm cranky. Maybe it's from exhaustion.

hair slicked back, wayfarers on

This is my friend Brad. He makes me laugh.



As shown here, he's taking a quick break from filming a scene with his corn dog to inform us that "The Boys of Summerville" will have its premiere at the Regal Downtown West Cinema this Thursday at 7:00 p.m. Brad and the rest of the cast will make their red carpet arrivals starting at 5:30 p.m. He tells me that "Live at Five" plans to have a crew there.

The movie was filmed in East Tennessee last summer. Knoxville's Official Movie Star, David Keith, has a part in the film as well. I wonder if any longtime readers of this blog took advantage of the opportunity to be extras in the movie. I mean besides David.

to pry or not to pry

John Charles Carter died yesterday. The world knew him as Charlton Heston, the star of two of my favorite movies, "Planet of the Apes" and "The Ten Commandments." I had the pleasure of meeting him twice.

Mr. Heston visited KLOS a couple of times to promote his books. It is unusual for a movie star of his magnitude to do a radio interview. He came because the publishing business has a better appreciation for the power of radio than the movie industry. I was there when he came in to plug "To Be a Man: Letters to My Grandson." On another occasion we needed to bring the show to him. I can't remember exactly why. I made a few calls to his house and spoke with Mrs. Heston to make plans for the broadcast. On the appointed day, we took the Mark & Brian Mobile up Coldwater Canyon Drive to the Heston home. The entire interview was conducted in the driveway, near his grandson's sandbox.

The broadcast from Heston's driveway was similar to our on-air visits to the exteriors of the homes of Peter Falk and John Travolta. We didn't presume to set foot in their houses either.

ballroom brawl

Adam Carolla got some good news last night. He wasn't the first celebrity booted from the current season of "Dancing With the Stars." Although the judges gave him a low score, enough viewers voted to keep him on for another week. I suspect that more than a few of those votes came from fans of his dancing partner Julianne Hough, but it still counts.

I have some remorse about the way Adam and I first met. He was trying to get his foot in the door at KROQ while it was my job to try and keep the door shut. KROQ is constantly bombarded with people who want to get on the air. Every day the music director is asked to consider dozens of songs by both new and established artists. The Kevin & Bean show hears from people wanting airtime for their movie, TV show, book, restaurant or any type of event you can imagine. As one of the gatekeepers, I had to help keep the show from getting overrun.

Jimmy Kimmel and I were both up for the morning show producer job at KROQ. I got the job and Jimmy was hired a couple of months later as our comedy writer. He developed an on-air character as Jimmy the Sports Guy and eventually got into a comedic dispute with another morning show regular. Michael the Maintenance Man and a KROQ van driver would go out to a different neighborhood each morning to give away prizes to listeners. Somehow Jimmy and Michael had a disagreement that they decided to settle with a boxing match. After it was announced, I got several messages from a guy named Ace offering to coach one of the fighters. Ace is Adam Carolla's nickname. I kept having to put him off until we could have a morning show meeting and figure out how we were going to proceed. Adam had experience as a boxer and as a carpenter and as a cast member at the Acme Comedy Theatre. Thanks to his talent and persistence, Adam became Jimmy's boxing coach. It was the beginning of their beautiful friendship.

The fight between Jimmy and Michael came to be known as the "Bleeda in Reseda." I booked some celebrity judges including Pat O'Brien and John Wayne Bobbitt. At the time, O'Brien refused to pose in a group photo with Bobbitt so as not to harm his reputation. Bobbitt shocked me by knowing who I was from my days at WAVA and from his days in Manassas before he became famous as a news story.

Boxing and Adam are back together again in his new movie, "The Hammer." it was recommended by both Not Siskel and Not Ebert on a recent edition of "At the Movies." I hope it plays at the Downtown West, otherwise I'll have to wait for the DVD.

lines of code of Harry

Video games have never been my thing. I was too cheap to ever put my quarters into an arcade game and too interested in other aspects of my TV and computer to get involved in gaming at home. The computer games I owned were titles like "Jeopardy" and "You Don't Know Jack." Even though I'm not a gamer, I still think I want to see the documentary "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters," which is about a champion Donkey Kong player. I've heard many good things about it.

Like any normal boy his age, my son enjoys video games. He plays "Madden '08" at home and is going to a "Mario Kart" party tomorrow night. Today I jokingly told him that there was a new game coming out that may finally get me interested in picking up a controller and exercising my thumbs. The game will be based on one of my favorite TV shows, "Dexter." I've previously written about the Showtime series, which is currently being shown on CBS. Are any of you watching it on regular TV? I wonder what a "Dexter" video game will be like. Maybe you'll control the main character as he goes to the store to stock up on cellophane, duct tape and syringes before going about his bloody business.

reaches across the room

The time of our arrival at the local art house cinema would determine which Oscar-winning movie we saw today. If we could get there before 4:30, we would see "No Country for Old Men." As it turned out we saw "There Will Be Blood," which will always be known as the "I drink your milkshake" movie. I found it easier to stop trying to figure out the unexplained plot details and just concentrate on the character study of crazy Daniel Plainview.

Afterward we went to Mimi's Cafe for dinner. While we were placing our order, some other servers brought an array of huge desserts to the family sitting at the next table. We asked our waiter to tell us what five different things they had ordered. The Triple Chocolate Brownie and the Bananas Foster Mud Pie were especially large.

We behaved ourselves by each ordering a salad and splitting one entree between us. When we got our check we saw that the total was five dollars less than the amount of the gift certificate we had. On an impulse we ordered a dessert from the special, seasonal menu, choosing the one thing the family at the next table had skipped. My decision was pretty much based on the photo alone. Although the description of Mimi's S'mores sounded good too: "Layers of toasted marshmallow cream, chocolate crunch and a cinnamon graham crust. Served warm and topped with caramel and chocolate sauces."

We told our waiter that we were going to save it for another day. He had them put it in a carryout box without heating it up. They put the chocolate and caramel sauces in little containers on the side. Now we have to decide whether to freeze it until after Easter or to eat it tomorrow on the grounds that technically Sundays don't count as part of Lent. Either way, we'll need to toast the top of it and drizzle on the sauce to make it look like the picture.

thank the academy

The Oscars are always must-see TV at our house even though I've seen hardly any of the nominated movies this year. In the past, my wife and I have made an effort to see the films nominated for the major awards. With the price of gas and everything else going up and money getting tight, I am reluctant to shell out cash for movie tickets, much less the concessions.

Lately some movies I had wanted to see in the theater have been showing on a plethora of HD channels. In the past month I've seen "Children of Men," "Pride" and "The Astronaut Farmer." None of them won any Oscars but I enjoyed them nevertheless.

I won't attempt to live-blog the awards like they're doing at Best Week Ever and elsewhere. However, I noticed a few things worth mentioning. Did Steve Carell actually curse when pretending to be upset that he was presenting the animation award instead of the documentary award? One of his "shoots" sounded like the real deal to me.

During the dead celebrity tribute, I always feel embarrassed for the people who don't get applause. Some of the deceased get carryover applause by having their name announced right after a popular actor or actress. Shouldn't they mute the microphones during the annual montage?

I thought I saw Knoxville Catholic High School alumnus Cormac McCarthy in the audience when the Coen brothers won the adapted screenplay award. Yes, it was him. They pointed him out when "No Country For Old Men" won Best Picture.

All night long I've been trying to catch a glimpse of Diablo Cody's shoes. I read that she was going to wear the million dollar pair from Stuart Weitzman. Why do I care? One year, Stuart's publicist hired me to help out during Oscar week. According to her blog, Diablo has mixed feelings about wearing them. Oh yeah, she won an Oscar for "Juno," one of the few nominated movies that I saw.

Hey, the "I Drink Your Milkshake" guy won! I look forward to seeing that movie next year when it's on HBO or Showtime.

brings all the boys to the yard

Pop culture obsessions, although fleeting, are fun while they last. My current PCO is the "I drink your milkshake" scene from "There Will Be Blood" even though I haven't seen the Oscar-nominated movie yet.

My enthusiasm was fueled when a guy named Brandon Hardesty did his reenactment of the scene on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" last week while wearing a Mr. Potato Head mustache. Then on Friday night, "Best Week Ever" had a segment on the catch phrase. I was sucked in, as if by a straw that reached across the room.

Hoping that others had seen Brandon's funny take, I referenced the scene during my opening remarks at last night's improv show (it was my turn to emcee). I quickly got the feeling that most of the people there had no idea what I was talking about. Oh well. Maybe I'll try again next week, after the Oscars.

three (million) penny

One of the many things I liked about living in Burbank was driving past the television and movie studios and seeing the huge banners for their upcoming productions. Along W. Olive Avenue, a series of giant movie posters adorn the walls of Warner Bros. Studios.

Those days out West came to mind the other day when I drove past the Scripps Networks headquarters in Knoxville. They had put up something new since the last time I was there. I went back today with a camera. A giant banner for "Nailed at 9" is visible from I-40. An enormous three-dimensional nail sticking out from the wall catches the eye from multiple angles to promote the different home improvement shows that air on DIY at 9:00 p.m.



Personally I'm looking forward to a day when Food Network might get the chance to display some colossal food porn along the interstate.

person pot pie

In the new movie, "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," Benjamin Barker gets sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit by a judge who wants to steal Barker's pretty wife. Barker gets out of prison, changes his name to Sweeney Todd and re-opens his barber shop with the intention of getting revenge on the judge who sentenced him. After missing an opportunity to murder the judge, Sweeney decides to take out his anger on all his other customers. Somehow, he has a steady stream of victims to dispatch. Wouldn't someone notice that people go in and don't come out? Where do they go? Fortunately for Sweeney, his business is directly above Mrs. Lovett's meat pie shop.

The movie is chock full of blood, gore and music. Or as they might say on Broadway: Blood! Gore! Music! The only song from the stage musical that I ever heard is not in the movie. It's the one that goes "attend the tale of Sweeney Todd." It was part of a Broadway medley that my wife and the rest of the church choir once sang in a special benefit performance.

We went to an advance screening the other night. Even though the film hadn't opened yet, we saw some people dressed as Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett, which made me wonder why the movie is opening at Christmas instead of Halloween. Sweeney's motive for wanting to kill the judge was clear. He thought the rest of his victims deserved to die only because they were the vermin who live in "a hole in the world like a great black pit." Sweeney seemed a lot less discriminating about who he killed than than my favorite fictional serial killer with a conscience, Dexter Morgan.

Johnny Depp looked a little like Edward Razorhands when he handled the tools of the barber trade. His character even says that the razor makes his arm complete. Sacha Baron Cohen got laughs as a flamboyant Italian barber. The audience members probably recognized him as Borat.

All in all, "Sweeney Todd" is a well-made film although definitely not a feel good movie. The colors are bleak and the story is tragic. It's the ultimate date movie for Goths.

laugh hard

There will probably be dozens of newspaper reviews with the same headline as today's blog entry. I went with the obvious choice because I did enjoy "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story." The film is a wild spoof of musical biopics like "Walk the Line" and "Ray." Everyone will be talking about the nude scene but the rest of the movie is plenty funny too. At the beginning, Dewey's brother keeps saying things like "nothing bad will happen to me today" and "I have my whole life ahead of me." We all knew what was coming but the details of the inevitable tragedy were surprising and funny.

Two of my favorite funny women from TV appear as Dewey's wives. Kristen Wiig of "Saturday Night Live" plays his 12-year-old bride Edith who eventually leaves after Dewey finds some success. Jenna Fischer of "The Office" is absolutely radiant as Dewey's duet partner and second wife, Darlene. They sing a double entendre filled song called "Let's Duet" and suggestively eat ice cream cones as the romantic tension between them builds. Jenna writes about that scene and warns people about the R-rating in her MySpace blog. I do wish that the singer who provided Darlene's singing voice was a closer match to Jenna's speaking voice. The difference was just enough to notice. Then again, maybe it was done on purpose for comedic effect.

The cast is stocked with actors who have appeared in other Judd Apatow films. Some of them are only on screen briefly but memorably, especially Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Justin Long and Jason Schwartzman as the Beatles. The movie hit all the rock star cliches I could think of: personal tragedy, drug abuse, trashing hotel rooms and the ultimate redemption. If you can take your comedy served deadpan with a dose of outrageousness and some naked junk, walk, or better yet run, to see "Walk Hard."

alpha and omega man

Is it possible for me to boycott a movie I was never going to see? The Catholic League and other Christian groups are urging supporters to avoid "The Golden Compass." Okay. Nothing about the story interested me anyway. They're saying that the controversy did put a dent in the box office returns.

As movie ticket prices rise, I've gotten pickier about which films I pay to see. I did pay a little extra to see "Beowulf" in 3D and I might pay a little extra to see "I Am Legend" on the new IMAX screen that opens this week at the Regal Pinnacle Stadium 18. If you want to see the new theater and save some money, you can catch a $2 IMAX screening of "Spider-Man 3" or "300" on Wednesday and Thursday. The money goes to the Empty Stocking Fund.

bury, bury good

How could a movie from the 1950s be in hi-def, my son wanted to know. I was about to watch "The Trouble with Harry," which I had never seen. It was on at three o'clock this morning during an Alfred Hitchcock marathon on HDNet Movies. The answer came shortly after I hit the DVR's play button the VistaVision logo filled our plasma screen. The movie opened with images of Vermont in its autumnal glory. My wife jokingly asked if I was actually watching "Planet Earth," the renowned HD nature series. The movie looked so good that my wife and son ended up watching it with me.

Last night I caught the end of "Psycho," which, even in black and white, was spectacular. I turned it on just in time to see Arbogast arrive at the Bates Motel. My "Psycho" DVD may not be working, but I still know the movie pretty well. While we were out today, I recorded the HD broadcasts of "Rear Window" and "The Birds." One is for my wife, the other is for my son. We'll have to save the Bodega Bay travelogue for a time when she's out of the house.

Grendel's mom has got it goin' on

The family that lived next door to my boyhood home in Crestwood had a cat named Beowulf. That ancient memory came to light when my son said he wanted to see the new movie "Beowulf" to get some extra credit for his English class.

The film is available in regular or 3D. Even though it cost extra, we opted for the 3D version. The 3D technology comes from a company called RealD. Entertainment Weekly said that the glasses they give you are more like the sunglasses Tom Cruise wore in "Risky Business" than the old school paper framed red and blue glasses. I thought they were a little less Tom Cruise and a little more Drew Carey.

The last two previews before the feature were also in 3D. One was for "Coraline." The other was for a remake of "Journey to the Center of the Earth." Once you commit to a 3D screening, you have to keep the glasses on. Without them, the picture is blurry.

The characters are created with motion capture computer animation. The technology has improved a lot since it was used in "The Polar Express." The faces move realistically but, as my wife pointed out, the eyes still seem lifeless. I thought the movie got better as it went along, mostly because I didn't care for the way they designed Grendel. His speech, provided by Crispin Glover, was hard to decipher. The movie builds up to a spectacular fight scene between Beowulf and a dragon.

If the movie had come out a few weeks earlier, Jimmy Kimmel could have dressed his father in chain mail and included him in this year's "Half and Half Halloween Pageant." Mr. Kimmel would be perfect as Beowulf Blitzer.

a little mad sometimes

This is going to sound like the setup for a meme, even though it's not. What was the first DVD you ever bought? Go ahead and post your answer in the comments. About nine years ago I chose one of the all-time classics, "Psycho," as my first disc. At the time I didn't have a DVD player but I had just gotten a DVD-ROM drive for our family computer. I loved the idea that technology had progressed to the point where I could keep a permanent copy of one of my favorite movies. It wasn't on a tape that could get erased or on film that could decay. This was a digital video disc with Hitchcock's masterpiece converted to bits and bytes, preserved forever in plastic.

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