I forgot to tell you that last week’s “Snide Remarks” column is available to be read by all mankind, not just subscribers. It’s called “I Was a Junket Whore,” and it’s an in-depth look at how studios waste money wining and dining nobodies like me in the hopes that we’ll write nice stories about their movies. The column can be found here. It even has photos.

I’ve caught only glimpses of Fox’s “So You Think You Can Dance? Really? You Call That Dancing?,” but a lack of intimacy with the show does not prevent me from commenting.

- Whenever the guys are doing their freestyle dancing, they wear the same costumes: long, raggedy shorts and sleeveless shirts, barefoot. They look like the Lost Boys in “Hook.”

- “Modern dance” — the writhing around in semi-balletic poses — particularly when the dancers look like super-serious Lost Boys — always makes me laugh. Always. I do not think this is the intended effect.

- The name “Jaymz” is such a trainwreck that I think if I ever met him, I would only want to slap him. However, I found some unexpected glee on his bio page on the show’s Web site. First, in his own words: “My girlfriend was diagnosed with a disease called ‘Endometriosis.’” The disease is capitalized and in quotation marks because evidently Jaymz thinks it is a title. “Endometriosis! The Musical,” perhaps. Second, his girlfriend’s name is Mekenna. I bet it’s pronounced the same as McKenna, but spelled differently because her parents thought it would be cute. Did you know that having a dumbly spelled name is one of the leading causes of “Endometriosis”? How does that make you feel, Mr. and Mrs. Mekenna’s Parents?

- This isn’t really about the dancing show, but at the same time on a different channel there’s “America’s Got Talent,” which I think should also end with a question mark (”America’s Got Talent? Really? And This Is It?”). One of the judges is David Hasselhoff. David Hasselhoff judging a talent show is like — it’s like — it’s like Paula Abdul judging a singing contest, OK? There, I said it.

If you happened to be listening to Portland’s KUFO (”the only station that really rocks,” don’t you know) Friday evening at around 6, you surely heard me reviewing “Miami Vice” on the Cort & Fatboy Show. My pal Mike Russell (backup guy for The Oregonian) is their usual Friday night reviewer, but he hadn’t seen “Miami Vice,” so he called me in to be his tag-team partner.

It’s actually a long-running joke now that every week, Mike hasn’t seen one of the pivotal films. Our friend Dawn Taylor has been his partner several times now, but she hadn’t seen the movie either. And so it fell to me.

It was fun. I like doing radio. Cort and Fatboy are both nice and funny and not all radio-y like a lot of DJs are.

In case you didn’t happen to be in Portland listening to KUFO Friday evening, Cort and Fatboy have the entire incident available for your listening pleasure on their Web site — here, specifically. Mike and I are just a few minutes into it. The nice thing about the podcast version is that the heavy metal songs KUFO plays aren’t included: It’s just Cort and Fatboy, in all their Corty, Fatty goodness.

Will “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man Walking” top the box office for the fourth weekend in a row? If it does, it will be the first film since “Passion of the Christ” to achieve the elusive four-peat.

There’s a good chance of it, too. A $20 million weekend is likely, and I don’t see any of the newcomers beating that. “Miami Vice” is SUPPOSED to be big — but is anyone actually looking forward to it? “The Ant Bully” might do OK if it weren’t opening just a week after another animated film. “John Tucker Must Die” is negligible. And “Scoop” is a Woody Allen movie — and, more to the point, only playing on a few hundred screens (though it’s the best new film this weekend by far).

Speaking of “Scoop,” Woody Allen stands out as probably the most prolific of the “living legends.” He’s made 17 films just since 1990, an average of one a year — and he writes, directs and usually stars in them. (It’s 18 if you count a 1994 made-for-TV movie.) You can quibble about the quality of these films, and certainly many of them have been substandard, but there’s something to be said for a guy who’s always TRYING to do something worthwhile, and who keeps at it constantly.

After I finished writing my review of “Miami Vice,” I remembered something I’d said to my seatmate after seeing the film’s trailer a couple weeks ago: “That movie looks really serious.” As in joyless. As in not fun. And it turns out the trailer is completely accurate in depicting the movie’s non-fun-ness.

“John Tucker Must Die”: I have nothing to add about this movie beyond what is in my review.

“The Ant Bully”: I did not see this movie. I think if they want critics to review movies, they shouldn’t schedule the screenings for 10 a.m. on a Saturday. I’d have had to be up by 9, which normally is not a problem, but on a Saturday? Come on! Anyway, I’ll try to get to it over the weekend, since I HAVE seen next week’s “Barnyard” and it would be a shame not to be able to compare the two.

As always, I heartily encourage you — admonish you, even — to subscribe to “In the Dark,” a free weekly e-mail full of reviews, DVD releases, box office scores and other important data. Whatever excuse you have for not having subscribed already, it is a poor one.

I thought so.

My, what a busy week! Four new films open in wide release today, and not one of them is going to knock “Pirates of the Caribbean” off its perch. Even if it drops 50 percent from last week, that’s still $31 million.

Curiously, three of the four films have potential to do extremely well, just not well enough. “Clerks II,” the long-awaited sequel to the 1994 indie classic, has a wide base of rabid fans, but the film’s hard-R rating will keep its numbers low-ish.

“Lady in the Water” is the latest from M. Night Shyamalan. His films have opened huge ever since “The Sixth Sense,” and I think this one will be no different. Many of my brethren in the business, however, think audiences are getting tired of M. Night and “Lady in the Water” won’t open particularly well. The mostly negative reviews (including from me) certainly won’t help any.

“Monster House” is aimed at kids (a sure bet in July) and is getting mostly positive reviews. It’s also opening on more screens than the other new releases. Hence, many predict it will be the No. 2 film (after “Pirates,” of course). I just don’t see it, though. I don’t think there’s any anticipation for this movie. But maybe that’s because I don’t have kids watching 11,000 commercials for it on Nickelodeon every day.

The fourth new film is “My Super Ex-Girlfriend,” which nobody cares about, not even the people who made it.

I got to see “Clerks II” way back on June 8, the extra-early date being because the two stars were going to be available for phone interviews and of course we’d want to see the movie before we talked to them. I passed on the interviews, but not on the early screening, which was well-attended by local press and quasi-press. (”Press” people come out of the woodworks when there’s a hotly anticipated movie being screened.)

“Monster House” had about 10 evening promo screenings over the last month, including one last night. I saw it almost four weeks ago, on a record-settingly hot Monday evening. My pal at Willamette Week, David Walker, who had little interest in the film itself and wasn’t obligated to review it, showed up simply because he wanted to go someplace that was air-conditioned. Don the Movie Guy, who runs many of the local screenings, had chocolate for the kids, the leftovers of which he put in his trunk afterward and forgot about. So you can imagine how that turned out.

“Lady in the Water” screened this past Tuesday and “My Super Ex-Girlfriend” last night. I have no anecdotes to share regarding either experience, except to say that there was a woman at “Lady in the Water” who laughed LOUDLY at EVERYTHING in the film. I mean, I got some unintended giggles out of it, but this woman was GUFFAWING at stuff that wasn’t meant to be funny. Maybe she thought the movie was hilariously bad, or maybe she’s just one of those dimwits who laugh at everything.

Remember how “In the Dark” will send you an e-mail every week with the latest reviews, DVD releases and other important movie stuff? Well, it will.

One of the cool things about Portland (well, about any big city, really, but I’ll claim it for Portland) is that during any given week, there are usually several older films playing somewhere in town alongside the current blockbusters.

I see 10 such films playing this week in P-town, from “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls” at Portland State University’s campus theater (free admission for students!) to “All the President’s Men” at the Laurelhurst (my personal favorite among Portland’s non-chain theaters) to the silent Buster Keaton classic “The General” at the historic Hollywood.

This is great for people like me, who have seen everything in current release but still like to go to the movies sometimes. Home video makes all of these movies available whenever we want them, of course, but the big screen and the big sound system make it a whole different experience.

So I was delighted to see that “Scarface,” Brian De Palma’s infamously excessive tale of a Miami drug lord from 1983, was playing at the Clinton Street Theater this week. I had actually never seen this film, though I am familiar with its most famous line (”Say hello to my leetle friend!”). Yes, it’s on DVD. But a real theater will have a real sound system and a big screen, plus an audience of movie fans. This will be a great experience!

Now, I felt some compunction about going, knowing that the owner is a lunatic who once assaulted a fellow movie critic with a pie after getting some negative press from her. Some of us had vowed not to patronize the theater again. Since I’d never been there at all, though, I figured I could make an exception just this once.

Alas, it was a dreadful experience. The theater itself is fine — old and charming and all that — and the screen is big enough. But the sound system is atrocious, or at least it was Saturday night. I had to strain just to make out the dialogue because the sound was muddled and bass-y. It seemed to be turned down too low, but when audience members complained and management said they’d see what they could do, it got no better. I had to assume that was just how the sound system is there.

After an hour of barely enjoying the film because I couldn’t hear it very well, I left. I figured I could rent the DVD and see the rest of it, but the Hollywood Video near my house didn’t have it in stock. (Well, their computer said they did. But it wasn’t on the shelf.) So I can now say I’ve seen one-third of “Scarface,” and that I’ve been to the Clinton Street Theater enough to know it’s not worth going again. Unless someone can demonstrate that Saturday night was a fluke — maybe it was a fault in the film print itself, not the system — I see no reason to go back.

The movie world is still reeling from last weekend’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Two and a Half Hours,” which has broken about a dozen records since it opened and will surely eviscerate both newcomers this weekend.

Even if the “Pirates” gross is down 75 percent this weekend from last, that’s still $35 million. Neither “You, Me and Dupree” nor “Little Man” will make anything close to that. (Nor should they.)

“You, Me and Dupree” is Owen Wilson’s first time opening a comedy on his own, without being teamed with Jackie Chan or a monkey or something. It’s a movie in which a lot of things go wrong — destruction of property, random fires, etc. Consequently, the woman across the aisle from me at the screening Tuesday constantly reacted vocally as if these events were befalling her rather than fictional characters:

“Oh! Oh no! Oh dear! Ooooh! Oh no! Tsk! Geez! Oh dear!”

I don’t know if she found the movie funny or merely horrifying.

Behind me was one of those people who has to say out loud everything that he thinks. In addition, his wife was apparently both deaf and blind, as he often had to repeat lines of dialogue for her and tell her what various signs and bumper stickers had said.

Here is a list of the things he said out loud during the movie:

- Oh no!
- Paco.
- Short bus.
- Racked his Duprees.
- Do the Dewey.
- There he is.
- No.
- Best man.

But I promise, the talking man and the horrified old woman did not influence my opinion of the movie itself. I was sitting with my critic friends Dawn Taylor and Mike Russell, and I also had some Chocolate Fudge Pop-Tarts. So everything evened out, external factor-wise.

“Little Man” is every bit as bad as it looks. I urge you to watch the trailer, if you have not already done so. (You can see it here.) It includes the promotional line, “From the guys who brought you ‘White Chicks’!” The sad part is, there are a lot of people for whom that is a selling point. There are people who will say, “This ‘Little Man’ doesn’t look very funny — oh, but it’s the same guys who did ‘White Chicks’! We should give it a chance, then!”

People, “From the guys who brought you ‘White Chicks’” isn’t a selling point! It’s a warning label! Come on!

(Kansas City quote whore Shawn Edwards already said of “Nacho Libre” that “you won’t see a funnier movie all year.” He must have been figuring you wouldn’t see “Little Man,” then, because he has declared it “the wildest, funniest, most hilarious movie of the year.”)

More reviews and box office scores and DVD releases and suchlike can be found in “In the Dark,” my weekly movie e-zine (which is a fancy word for “e-mail”). It’s free and nutritious. Check it out here.

I’m a little late here, but let me add my voice to the chorus of people wishing Roger Ebert a speedy recovery.

As you may have heard, he had surgery June 16 to remove a bit of cancer from his salivary gland. It was a relatively minor event and went smoothly. However, on July 1 a blood vessel burst near the site of the operation. (Details, some of which I have just paraphrased, are in the Chicago Sun-Times’ story about it.)

Ebert is recovering from the emergency surgery to repair the burst blood vessel and is expected to be back on his feet before too long. But this marks the first time in memory that major films are being released without Ebert’s reviews to read in the paper or online. When a vacation or a surgery is planned, he often can see the film early (he has that kind of clout) and still run the review in a timely manner. No one expected these complications, though.

So there’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” unreviewed by Ebert. Would he have given it three stars, like pretty much everything else these days? Yeah, probably. But honestly, I hardly care what he thinks of a movie. I just love reading his reviews, which are witty and insightful. Often I read something of his and think, “Yes, that’s what I thought, too. Except you said it so much better.” I wish I were half as good a writer as he is.

We in the movie critic world kid Ebert, but only because we love him. He was one of the early adopters of the Internet as a movie-lover’s tool. He’s a tireless defender of good taste and good manners. In person he is amiable and kind. I know everybody’s gotta go sometime, but I hope he still has a few years left in him.

(P.S. His wife, Chaz, published a statement on RogerEbert.com. It says in part: “I am asking you to pray for Roger during his period of recovery and to visualize him being enveloped in healing light.” What does that even MEAN?!)

Remember those “Akeelah and the Bee” e-mails I got a couple months back? I just got another one, which I’ll include later in this post. But first I want to publish an exchange I had with a reader named Frank, lo, almost two months ago now.

It’s an instructive back-and-forth, I think. Watch how the arguments start out being about lofty things like race and tolerance, and then eventually boil down to what the REAL issue was all along: “How could you possibly not like a movie that I liked?!”

Frank writes:

I do think that you missed the point in your review of Akeelah. Allow me to quote:

[This is Eric quoting someone who had previously written to him]“But here, in racist America, in post-manumission times, just 141 years on the other side of centuries of atrocity and just forty years on the other side of Civil Rights, people who have been held from reading and writing, people who have been held from enterprising, such as movie-making, are trying their hand at it.

[This was Eric's response.] “All of this is true enough … and yet it has nothing to do with what we’re talking about. Unless your point is that since blacks have been oppressed for so long, we ought to cut them some slack and like their movies just because they went to the trouble of making them, whether they’re any good or not.”

[This is Frank again.] No it means that if you cannot understand how some people may find this movie refreshing and enjoyable your lens is quite racist; at the very least you are insensitive to the African American experience, which unlike some other dominant group who will remain nameless, has not afforded us centuries of ethnocentric propaganda from which to grow weary of cliched messages of love, community and personal triumph. [In other words: Sure, it was full of clichés. But for the first time, it was BLACK characters experiencing those clichés! That makes it new and fresh and exciting!]

I replied:

See, but I CAN understand how some people may find this movie refreshing and enjoyable. I’m just not one of them.

Frank writes back:

Your complete disregard for the responders of your article on Akeelah as well as the tone of the article itself would suggest that you dont.

My response:

You may recall that one of those responders implied I was racist for not liking the film, and another said it outright. If that kind of foolishness doesn’t deserve to be disregarded, I don’t know what does.

As for the article itself, ALL movie reviews express the reviewer’s own opinion. Unless he says specifically that he can’t imagine anyone disagreeing with him, I think it can be assumed that he allows for the possibility.

Frank says:

I would argue the latter. Whether or not you agree with it, your insistence on calling it foolishness denotes insensitivity and a lack of deeper understanding.

We aren’t talking about ALL movie reviews. We’re talking about this one. And frankly by insisting that the film was utterly derivative, 100-percent-recycled, completely forgettable while facilely referring to two films about Italian American athletes to support your claim, you reveal your shortcomings as a film critic, precisely for your failure to comprehend (or acknowledge) how race works in American film. It’s not so much that your review says that it’s not possible for people to disagree with your “opinion” but the tone that implies to do so is laughable. I would argue that for the disproportionate numbers of African American who were brought to tears by this film, your review essentially mocking them naturally resonates as offensive.

I say:

It’s not so much that your review says that it’s not possible for people to disagree with your “opinion� but the tone that implies to do so is laughable.

I assure you, that was not my intention. My intention was only to say what I thought of the FILM, not what I thought of people who like it. I can think a movie is derivative and generic but still respect the people who enjoy it. It happens all the time. We can all be friends, even if we don’t agree on the movies.

Frank:

I can think a movie is derivative and generic but still respect the people who enjoy it.

The film is no more generic than half the violent movies you give positive ratings to. The different here is the PG rating, XX chromosomes and high melanin content of the lead character — the new twist, by the way, that makes this film different from your Italian American fairy tales. [I'm sorry, but the same old cliches don't suddenly become new merely by being applied to a new race.] Obviously you can’t force yourself to enjoy a film that you don’t like. But there’s no way you can argue, convincingly at least, that race had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Me:

See, and that’s where you lose me. Since you can’t imagine any good reason why I didn’t like it, it MUST be because of race. And that’s preposterous.

Where in my review do you find support for the idea that the reason I didn’t like it was because of the race of the characters? The only time I even mentioned race was at the end, when I said the movie deserved credit for showing African-Americans in a different light than they are usually shown in Hollywood movies — a POSITIVE observation, you will notice, not a negative one.

I’m telling you race had nothing to do with it. I know me pretty well. I’ve been well-acquainted with me for more than 30 years. I would know if race were a factor in my dislike of the film. And I’m telling you it’s not. Now, if you, a stranger who only knows me from glancing at a couple movie reviews, want to psychoanalyze me and tell me race WAS a factor and I just don’t know it — well, then be my guest. But don’t expect me to take you seriously, any more than you would take me seriously if I started trying to tell you about your motivations.

The reasons I didn’t like the film are clearly enumerated in my review. Race is not one of them. Period.

Someone suggested that when people say I’m racist for not liking a movie about African-Americans, I should just reply, “You’re right. I hate black people. You can imagine how difficult it is for me when I have to watch movies about them.” But what purpose would sarcasm serve, really?

Also, I wonder what people like Frank say to the black critics who didn’t like this movie.

Anyway, a few days ago I got this e-mail from someone named Robert:

I’m not sure who you are, or what makes you a venerated movie critic. [Who says I'm venerated?]But after stumbling upon your review of “Akeelah and the Bee” I can assure you that I won’t be reading your comments again. [Bah. You'll be back. They always come back.]

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a critic miss it as badly as you missed it with this film.

One of the most enjoyable films I’ve ever seen.

A solid 7.5 out of 10. Maybe 8. [My C- grade would be about a 4 on a 10-point scale, and you only give it a 7.5 or 8. And I'm the furthest off you've ever seen someone? You never saw a 10-point movie that a critic only gave a 1 or 2? Come on!]

Dude, if I were you I’d choose another line of work. [You're right. If one guy disagrees with me about one movie, I pretty much have no choice but to start over in a new profession.]

Eh, at least he didn’t play the race card. Good thing, because you know how I hate those black people.

But you know who I REALLY hate? Child molesters. There, I said it. And I said it in my review of “Peaceful Warrior,” which was directed by a confessed child molester, Victor Salva. I pointed out the man’s prior record, which prompted a reader named Chris to write in — yes — defending him.

I’ve known Victor Salva for a number of years and it pains me when I see ‘hit’ descriptions like you included in your interview. He’s a realy nice guy and he paid the price. For someone who objects to moral preaching in film, perhaps you should adhere to your advice and take it out of your reviews.

As to the film, I saw it, and found it to be inspiring. I didn’t read the book, but I imagine it wasn’t very easy to translate. I’d love to see you try..

Yeah, and I’d love to see you try to write a movie review, too.

Anyway, I don’t consider coming out against child molestation to be “moral preaching.” If that qualifies as moral preaching, then what else does? Saying I don’t think people should murder each other? Coming out in favor of curing cancer?

I’m sorry, but if you molest a kid, you’re tarred with it for life. It’s on your permanent record. The best way to avoid being known forever as a child molester is to not molest children. I’m just sayin’.

Finally, my dis of “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” elicited this response from a reader named Trevor. Trevor’s e-mail address implies he was born in 1988, so take what he says with an 18-year-old grain of salt.

I think critics are the most annoying people in the entire world, especially you. [You don't know the half of it. Try eating with me!] you want to know why? [No.] well, i will tell you. [Damn.] critics completely miss the point of movies. you are supposed to go in, sit down and get comfortable and be taken away into a different world. movies are made so that we can forget about our own lives, and be entertained. and critics walk into the movie, waiting to see what they can bash first, which completely destroys the magic. [We do?! All of us?! Every time?! Why wasn't I taught that at Film Critic University?!] it’s like you were tying to NOT like the movie, so that you can seem like you know what your talking about.

and what the heck was up with your whole popcorn reference? “People call flicks like this “popcorn movies,” but I think cotton candy is a more accurate comparison. Popcorn comes from an actual food product and has some substance to it. You could live on popcorn, at least for a little while. Cotton candy is light and fluffy and not only has no nutritional value, but doesn’t even really fill you up, either.” that has nothing to do with the movie at all!!! [It's what we call a metaphor. It's when you compare one thing to another thing. This isn't even a very complicated metaphor. If Trevor truly doesn't understand what I'm saying, then I have to conclude that Trevor needs to retake freshman English.] i wanted to know how the movie was, not to get nutritional facts about popcorn and cotton candy. [Oh. My bad. Here's how the movie was: not very good.]

and besides, you said dead man’s chest wasn’t entertaining? [Well, no, I didn't say that. I said it was dazzling and amusing, but not in any kind of memorable way.] well i felt like i was in the theatre for half an hour! and forgetful you say? [Um, again, no. "Forgettable" would be closer, though still a paraphrase.] AND superman returns (which you gave an A- for…) was the most anti climactic movie i have ever watched. i think the movie should hav ended once he landed the plane in the baseball field, just as much as i think you should stop writing reviews

I wrote back to Trevor, quoted his last line — “I think you should stop writing reviews” — and said, “I’ll take that under advisement.” He apparently thought I was telling HIM to stop writing reviews, because he responded: “cool. cos i’ve never actually written one……yeahhh”

So he’s pretty smart, that Trevor.