As we continue our weekly stroll down “Snide Remarks” memory lane (in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the column), we leave behind the BYU era and come now to the Daily Herald era.

Today’s “Snide Remarks” Classic, “We All Scream,” is an informal, chatty little column from Sept. 3, 1999. It was #71 total, but only the third official “Snide Remarks” I’d written for the Herald. I don’t recall how it was received, and I don’t think I’m still friends with anyone present for the activity mentioned in the column. But it’s a fun, quick read.

Click the “Children’s Letters to Raven-Symone” category at the right for previous entries, which give a fuller background. The basics: Kids and stupid adults think that if a Web site mentions a famous person, the site must somehow be connected to that celebrity, and they write in, asking for the famous person’s e-mail address. Tired of being pestered by inane requests, I made up a fake e-mail address for Raven-Symone and posted it here, with a clear disclaimer explaining that it was fake. Predictably, people used it anyway.

Now, of course, the e-mail address has spread. I suspect that most of the people who write to it now did not find it here on EricDSnider.com, but on some other site, perhaps on Raven-Symone message boards or chat rooms or wherever it is you kids hang out nowadays. Those people can be excused for thinking it’s a viable address, as they did not see the context in which I posted it. So we don’t mock their letters for being mis-sent. We mock them only for being illiterate and hilarious.

Continue reading…

No “Snide Remarks” today, on account of I didn’t write one. But as consolation, let me offer you the hilarious shoulder of “Wondermark” to cry on. It is a comic strip in which the artwork comes from 19th-century book illustrations while the jokes are distinctly modern. And it is funny.

Wow, was everyone off on their Oscar predictions. Yeah, we got most of the big ones right (Scorsese, Mirren, Whitaker, Hudson, etc.), but everything else was all over the map.

“Pan’s Labyrinth” wins three — the second-highest total of the night — yet fails to win Best Foreign-Language Film, which seemed like its most obvious victory.

“Dreamgirls,” which led the Oscars with eight nominations, got only two wins. Three of the five Best Song nominees were from “Dreamgirls,” yet it still managed to lose that category.

“An Inconvenient Truth,” which everyone figured was a lock for Best Documentary, did indeed win that award. But it also won Best Song, thus putting it ahead of the much-ballyhooed “Babel,” which got only one prize all night long. Poor “Babel.” Poor, crappy “Babel.”

There were surprising upsets (Alan Arkin over Eddie Murphy for Best Supporting Actor; “Happy Feet” over “Cars” for Best Animated Feature), but there were some comforting sure things, too. Helen Mirren is gorgeous, classy, and supremely talented; we should give her awards any chance we get. Martin Scorsese has finally won an Oscar, which helps to right a lot of the unbalance in the universe.

And though “The Departed” wasn’t the best film of 2006 — I’m not even sure it was the best of the five Best Picture nominees — it’s likable enough that we can be happy with its winning the big prize. I know people who didn’t see “The Departed,” and I know people who weren’t blown away by it. But I don’t know anyone who actually disliked it, the way a lot of people have disliked certain past Best Pictures (“Crash,” “Titanic,” “American Beauty,” and “The English Patient,” to name a few). We can feel good about “The Departed.”

Most of all, I am happy about this: I correctly predicted 13 out of 24 awards. That’s not very good, but it’s better than my friend Chris Clark, who routinely outguesses me but who this year only got 11 right. SUCK IT, CLARK!

* * *

As for the show itself:

I’m browsing around the Interwebs, and I’m discovering that I seem to be in the minority for liking the show! In fact, I thought it was one of the most diverse and entertaining broadcasts of recent years. I liked the opening montage of nominees, I liked the dancers making silhouettes of movie images, I liked the medley of movie sound effects as created by a choir of humans, I liked the song by Will Ferrell, Jack Black, and John C. Reilly, and I liked carefully watching Jennifer Hudson’s breasts to see if they would fall out of her dress. (Beyonce, meet Be-ouncy.)

All that stuff was slightly different from the norm, a little creative, a little vaudeville-variety-show-Ed-Sullivan-y. I didn’t love everything about the show — still lots of dull tributes and special awards and so forth — but overall, I came away from it with positive feelings. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe it was the seven doughnuts and one liter of Diet Dr Pepper that I consumed over the course of the broadcast.
* * *

The winners:

Picture: “The Departed”
Director: Martin Scorsese, “The Departed”
Actor: Forest Whitaker, “The Last King of Scotland”
Actress: Helen Mirren, “The Queen”
Supporting Actor: Alan Arkin, “Little Miss Sunshine”
Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson, “Dreamgirls”
Original Screenplay: “Little Miss Sunshine”
Adapted Screenplay: “The Departed”
Cinematography: “Pan’s Labyrinth”
Editing: “The Departed”
Foreign-Language Film: “The Lives of Others”
Documentary: “An Inconvenient Truth”
Animated Film: “Happy Feet”
Makeup: “Pan’s Labyrinth”
Art Direction: “Pan’s Labyrinth”
Sound Mixing: “Dreamgirls”
Sound Editing: “Letters from Iwo Jima”
Visual Effects: “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest”
Costume Design: “Marie Antoinette”
Original Score: “Babel”
Original Song: “I Need to Wake Up,” from “An Inconvenient Truth”
Animated Short: “The Danish Poet”
Documentary Short: “The Blood of Yingzhou District”
Live-Action Short: “West Bank Story”

What’s that you say? You’d like a week of great new movies! Sorry, bub. You’re out of luck. All we’ve got are these three mediocrities.

“The Number 23″ is ridiculous and laughable — but to be fair, it’s probably no more ridiculous and laughable than you thought it was going to be.

“The Astronaut Farmer” is the first big-time mainstream film for twin filmmakers Michael and Mark Polish, and I’m sorry to say it’s not very noteworthy.

And finally, “Reno 911!: Miami,” whose punctuation gives me the vapors, is just like the TV show it’s based on: 25 percent hilarious, 75 percent tiresome.

More on these films, plus the new DVD releases and so forth, can be found in this week’s “In the Dark.” The podcast version of “In the Dark” (which you can hear right here)has an anecdote about one of the screenings that might inspire discussion.

Don’t forget the Oscars are this Sunday at 5:30 p.m. PST (8:30 p.m. EST) on ABC. My predictions are here; feel free to make your own, and have your friends make their own, and then you have a game! It’s fun!

And let me also remind you that the various Eric D. Snider merchandise is almost gone. I’m down to my last 10 copies or so of everything except the “Snide Remarks” book, of which I have about 50. The chances of reprinting any of the items are slim, so now’s the time to buy, if you’re going to.

It’s a crazy, wide-open year for the Oscars. Usually the film with the most nominations is the frontrunner for Best Picture — except that this year, for the first time in history, the film with the most nominations, “Dreamgirls,” didn’t get a Best Picture nomination.

Furthermore: The total number of nominations for the five Best Picture contenders (26) is the lowest in decades. For the first time since the very first Oscars, none of the Best Actor nominees are from Best Picture films. None of the Best Picture films have Best Cinematography nods.

So it’s difficult to predict an overall winner. As Entertainment Weekly pointed out, if “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” wins the four technical Oscars it’s nominated for, that could easily be more than any other film gets. A situation where no film gets more than one Oscar is not impossible, too.

Here are my predictions. I usually do fairly well, although that whole “Crash” thing last year upset everybody.

BEST PICTURE
Nominees: “Babel,” “The Departed,” “Letters from Iwo Jima,” “Little Miss Sunshine,” “The Queen”
Should win: Of these five, “The Queen” is the best film, though “The Departed” is right up there.
Will win: No film that is wholly or largely in a foreign language has ever won Best Picture, so “Babel” and “Letters from Iwo Jima” are out. No film whose only acting nomination is for Best Actress has ever won Best Picture, so “The Queen” is out. Only once has a remake ever won Best Picture (”Ben-Hur”), so “The Departed” has the odds against it. Of course, so does “Little Miss Sunshine,” since it’s very rare for a film to win Best Picture without being nominated for Best Director. My point? If we let history be our guide, none of these films are likely winners, but obviously one of ‘em has to win. I think it’s going to be “The Departed,” due largely to the Academy’s affection for Martin Scorsese.

(My friend Chris Clark, who routinely out-guesses me, is calling for “Little Miss Sunshine” in an upset. If he turns out to be right, then I will officially start tailoring all my predictions to match his from now on.)

BEST DIRECTOR
Nominees: Clint Eastwood, “Letters from Iwo Jima”; Stephen Frears, “The Queen”; Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, “Babel”; Paul Greengrass, “United 93″; Martin Scorsese, “The Departed”
Should win: Paul Greengrass did the most impressive work with the haunting “United 93″ — but I suspect if I were an Academy voter, I’d probably vote for Scorsese anyway.
Will win: Whether they think he deserves it for “The Departed” or not, everyone in Hollywood wants Martin Scorsese to be an Oscar winner. It’s just how the world should be.

BEST ACTOR
Nominees: Leonardo DiCaprio, “Blood Diamond”; Ryan Gosling, “Half Nelson”; Peter O’Toole, “Venus”; Will Smith, “The Pursuit of Happyness”; Forest Whitaker, “The Last King of Scotland”
Should win: Whitaker’s work as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin truly is outstanding. O’Toole got an honorary Oscar two years ago, so it’s not like he’ll die empty-handed if “Venus” turns out to be his last worthy performance. My sentimentality only goes so far.
Will win: While O’Toole is a more beloved Hollywood figure than Whitaker, I think quality will win out and Whitaker will take home the prize.

BEST ACTRESS
Nominees: Penelope Cruz, “Volver”; Judi Dench, “Notes on a Scandal”; Helen Mirren, “The Queen”; Meryl Streep, “The Devil Wears Prada”; Kate Winslet, “Little Children”
Should win: Mirren, no question. The others are good, even great in some cases, but none of them accomplish as much as Mirren.
Will win: This is the only real lock of the night. Mirren has been the front-runner since Day One, and no one is coming close to defeating her.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Nominees: Alan Arkin, “Little Miss Sunshine”; Jackie Earle Haley, “Little Children”; Djimon Hounsou, “Blood Diamond”; Eddie Murphy, “Dreamgirls”; Mark Wahlberg, “The Departed”
Should win: Hounsou’s performance is one-note, and his movie isn’t very good. Apart from that, all the nominees are worthy of the award. I’d give it to Murphy, though, who showed a dramatic new side of himself in “Dreamgirls.”
Will win: The horrible ads for the horrible “Norbit” certainly haven’t endeared Murphy to voters in the last few weeks, but I think his momentum is such that he’ll win anyway. He’s the one people have been talking about for months.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Nominees: Adriana Barraza, “Babel”; Cate Blanchett, “Notes on a Scandal”; Abigail Breslin, “Little Miss Sunshine”; Jennifer Hudson, “Dreamgirls”; Rinko Kikuchi, “Babel”
Should win: Hudson blows the roof off with her show-stopping number in “Dreamgirls,” but let’s be honest: In the rest of the movie, she’s nothing special. Blanchett is the best of the lot.
Will win: Voters love Blanchett, but they’re used to loving her, so her performance in “Notes on a Scandal,” while excellent, doesn’t stand out. The “Babel” actresses cancel each other out. Breslin is too young. Hudson it is.

BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM
Nominees: “After the Wedding,” “Days of Glory,” “The Lives of Others,” “Pan’s Labyrinth,” “Water”
Should win: I’ve only seen the last two, but “Pan’s Labyrinth” made my overall top 10 list for the year, so I’d be surprised if any of the others are better than it.
Will win: “Pan’s Labyrinth” is the favorite, especially since it has nominations in other categories, too, which helps reinforce it in voters’ memories.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Nominees: “The Black Dahlia,” “Children of Men,” “The Illusionist,” “Pan’s Labyrinth,” “The Prestige”
Should win: “The Black Dahlia” is impressive, but “Children of Men” is downright stunning with its lengthy tracking shots and various other effective uses of the camera.
Will win: The Academy seems to share my thinking on “Children of Men.”

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Nominees: “Babel,” “Letters from Iwo Jima,” “Little Miss Sunshine,” “Pan’s Labyrinth,” “The Queen”
Should win: The sharp, funny screenplay is really the best thing about “Little Miss Sunshine.”
Will win: It’s rare for a foreign-language screenplay to win, so that eliminates two of these (three, if you count “Babel”). “Little Miss Sunshine” is a lovable movie that a lot of voters do indeed love, its witty dialogue especially.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Nominees: “Borat,” “Children of Men,” “The Departed,” “Little Children,” “Notes on a Scandal”
Should win: “Borat” was this year’s WTF? nominee, as the mostly improvised film is neither adapted nor a screenplay. (Academy rules say films based on previously used characters must be “adapted,” even if the actual film is brand-new. Hence, any sequel, or anything based on a TV show, as “Borat” is, is “adapted.”) Anyway, “Little Children” has a tight, literate screenplay that covers multiple characters in a smooth, entertaining way.
Will win: I’m going with a general “Departed” theme for the night and predicting it will win here, too.

BEST DOCUMENTARY
Nominees: “Deliver Us from Evil,” “An Inconvenient Truth,” “Iraq in Fragments,” “Jesus Camp,” “My Country, My Country”
Should win: “Deliver Us from Evil” is a devastating expose of the Catholic Church’s cover-ups of sexual abuse, and is beautifully filmed and composed, too.
Will win: Doesn’t matter. “An Inconvenient Truth” has been the Hollywood favorite since it was released.

BEST ANIMATED FILM
Nominees: “Cars,” “Happy Feet,” “Monster House”
Should win: I didn’t dig “Cars” all that much. It’s a step down for Pixar. “Happy Feet” is better. I’m sorry, but it’s true.
Will win: Be that as it may, “Cars” is the favorite.

BEST FILM EDITING
Nominees: “Babel,” “Blood Diamond,” “Children of Men,” “The Departed,” “United 93″
Should win: “United 93″ is one of the most intense films I’ve ever seen, and it’s largely due to the careful editing. It’s really a masterpiece in that regard.
Will win: The editor of “The Departed,” Thelma Schoonmaker, has won twice before, also for Scorsese films. Seems only appropriate that she should win again on the night her boss finally gets one for himself, too.

BEST MAKEUP
Nominees: “Apocalypto,” “Click,” “Pan’s Labyrinth”
Should win: “Pan’s Labyrinth” has amazing makeup effects. “Click” is a crap movie in which Adam Sandler looks old for a couple scenes. And I don’t even remember there BEING makeup in “Apocalypto.”
Will win: Entertainment Weekly summed it up perfectly: No one in the Academy has seen “Click,” and no one in the Academy is gonna vote for a Mel Gibson film. “Pan’s Labyrinth” it is!

BEST ART DIRECTION
Nominees: “Dreamgirls,” “The Good Shepherd,” “Pan’s Labyrinth,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” “The Prestige”
Should win: “Pan’s Labyrinth” is fanciful and ornate, but also very often darkly lit. “Pirates,” on the other hand, is sumptuous, detailed, and sparklingly photographed, highlighting every buckling swash.
Will win: “Dreamgirls” will have to win some technical awards, and this will probably be one.

BEST SOUND MIXING
Nominees: “Apocalpyto,” “Blood Diamond,” “Dreamgirls,” “Flags of Our Fathers,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest”
Should win: The jungles of “Apocalypto” are quite strikingly conveyed. Plus, if it wins, it will be the first victory for sound engineer Kevin O’Connell — breaking his 18-nomination losing streak.
Will win: Musicals are generally favored in this category, making it “Dreamgirls.” Sorry, Kevin.

BEST SOUND EDITING
Nominees: “Apocalypto,” “Blood Diamond,” “Flags of Our Fathers,” “Letters from Iwo Jima,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest”
Should win: Tough call, but I’d go with “Letters” or “Apocalypto.”
Will win: The two Eastwood pictures cancel each other out, and nobody’s voting for “Apocalytpo” for anything. “Blood Diamond” doesn’t live in anyone’s memories for any reason. That makes it a “Pirates” night.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Nominees: “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” “Poseidon,” “Superman Returns”
Should win: “Pirates” had more special effects total, and more individual ones that looked spectacular.
Will win: “Pirates.”

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Nominees: “Curse of the Golden Flower,” “The Devil Wears Prada,” “Dreamgirls,” “Marie Antoinette,” “The Queen”
Should win: It almost seems obvious that “The Devil Wears Prada” should win the costume award, right? But I have to say, the one thing “Marie Antoinette” had going for it was its fabulous, fabulous costumes.
Will win: “Dreamgirls” is the more Oscar-y movie, and that’s what generally takes this award.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Nominees: Gustavo Santaolalla, “Babel”; Thomas Newman, “The Good German”; Philip Glass, “Notes on a Scandal”; Javier Navarrete, “Pan’s Labyrinth”; Alexandre Desplat, “The Queen”
Should win: Philip Glass is a love-him-or-hate-him guy, and I love him.
Will win: Desplat’s “Queen” score seems to be the favorite here.

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
Nominees: “I Need to Wake Up,” by Melissa Etheridge, from “An Inconvenient Truth”; “Listen,” by Henry Krieger, Scott Cutler, and Anne Preven, from “Dreamgirls”; “Love You I Do,” by Henry Krieger and Siedah Garrett, from “Dreamgirls”; “Our Town,” by Randy Newman, from “Cars”; “Patience,” by Henry Krieger and Willie Reale, from “Dreamgirls”
Should win: I’m not a fan of a lot of the music from “Dreamgirls,” these three new songs included. I would probably vote for Randy Newman just because I love Randy Newman. I’d be selfish like that.
Will win: Does “Dreamgirls” split the vote? Probably not: The other two times a film has had three nominations in this category (”Beauty and the Beast” and “The Lion King”), they’ve won something. But which “Dreamgirls” tune takes it? The one sung by Beyonce, of course, “Listen.”

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
Nominees: “The Danish Poet,” “Lifted,” “The Little Matchgirl,” “Maestro,” “No Time for Nuts”
Should win: Haven’t seen any of them.
Will win: “The Little Matchgirl.” Total guess.

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT FILM
Nominees: “Binta and the Great Ideas,” “Eramos Pocos,” “Helmer & Son,” “The Saviour,” “West Bank Story”
Should win: Haven’t seen ‘em.
Will win: Let’s go with the singing-and-dancing “West Bank Story.”

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM
Nominees: “The Blood of Yingzhou District,” “Recycled Life,” “Rehearsing a Dream,” “Two Hands”
Should win: Dunno.
Will win: “Two Hands” is about a guy who lost the use of one of his hands — and he was a piano player. Inspiring!

The Oscars will air LIVE at 5:30 p.m. PST (8:30 p.m. EST) Sunday on ABC.

The Daily Universe, student newspaper at good ol’ Brigham Young University, ran a letter to the editor on Feb. 9 that read as follows:

Bad moon pricing

Recently, there was an article about a man selling an acre on the moon for $20. I must say, I am opposed to buying a plot of land on the moon for such a price. Don’t get me wrong, I love the moon, but I just don’t think $20 for land is viable for a college student these days. The main reason: opportunity cost.

With $20, you could supply yourself with food for an entire week, unless you’re a freshman with dining plus, in which case it is only two days. You may say, “but the moon is made out of cheese, and that’s way more food.”

However, I’ve learned through some secret sources, that it is primarily made out of oxygen, silicon and iron, which have nothing to do with cheese.

With $20, you can support a homeless child for months. As advertised on TV, it costs only 39 cents per day to help Pablo have shoes on his feet and corn in his mouth. You could help him for 51 days.

Finally with $20, you can find out whether someone likes you. Simply hand them $20 and ask “Do you like me?” If they say yes, you win. If they say no, you’ll actually save money by avoiding the costs of taking them out on dates. Combine that with all the time you’ll save, and you’ll notice $20 is too much to give up.

Jon Harmon
Portland, Ore.

A few readers brought this letter to my attention because of the remarkable similarity between the final paragraph and the closing paragraphs of this old “Snide Remarks” column.

Obviously Jon Harmon was familiar with the column and appropriated it for use in his I’m-trying-to-be-funny letter. I was flattered, bemused, and a little annoyed, but not much. And before I could decide what kind of response, if any, I should give, someone else wrote to The Daily Universe complaining about Jon’s letter, only for different reasons. It was published on Feb. 12:

Narrow-minded moon

In the recent letter, “Bad moon pricing,” (Feb. 9) the author steps outside the bounds of humor and into the realm of offensiveness. He turned the ads that run on TV asking for our help in fighting poverty by providing needy people with the basic necessities of life into a joke by stereotypically giving the name Pablo to all who suffer in such a way and minimizing the relief such organizations bring. In an effort to be comical, he has offended countless readers who don’t think it’s funny to make fun of the terrible living conditions of some of our less fortunate brothers and sisters.

It’s just inherently wrong to take the pleas for help that bring sorrow to our hearts and turn them into a quick laugh. Stereotyping is one of the great ills that plague our society, and it shames me to see that it is still very much alive.

What is one to think after seeing such an outrageous letter in the readers’ forum? I might begin to wonder if BYU really is the kind of place where I would want my children to study, after seeing the way that some people make such discriminating jokes at the expense of others’ suffering. As we “Enter to Learn” I certainly hope this mentality does not reflect the manner in which we will “Go Forth to Serve.” The author owes us all an apology, and I’ll be waiting for it.

Hyrum Hemingway
Menomonie, Wis.

Now, I didn’t think Jon Harmon’s letter was funny, either (though not for lack of good material to steal from!), but Hyrum Hemingway’s response was so … well, typical. Read any day’s letters in The Daily Universe and you’ll see at least one like that.

So at last I wrote a response and submitted it as a letter to the editor. Alas, several issues of the paper have been published since then, and my letter has not seen the light of day, so I am forced to conclude they won’t be printing it. So here it is for you:

Two recent letters in The Daily Universe caused me great alarm. First, “Narrow-minded moon” (Feb. 12) criticized a previous letter-writer (”Bad moon pricing,” Feb. 9) for making light of a serious situation: He had joked about the TV ads in which viewers are encouraged to donate money to help starving children.

Now, the writer of “Narrow-minded moon” makes a good point, and he doesn’t seem at all sanctimonious or humorless, nor does he make me roll my eyes. But he missed the REALLY offensive thing about the “Bad moon pricing” letter: The part about giving a potential date $20 to find out in advance whether she likes you was blatantly ripped off from an old “Snide Remarks” column published ON THESE VERY PAGES in November 1997!

What’s that, writer of “Bad moon pricing”? You figured there was no one left at BYU who remembered “Snide Remarks,” or who bought the “Snide Remarks” book in which that column was reprinted, or who had browsed at www.ericdsnider.com/snide/how-to-do-stuff-better and read that column? Figure again, my friend! You’re busted. I might begin to wonder if BYU really is the kind of place where I would want my children to study, after seeing the way that some people at BYU steal other people’s jokes. For shame, sir. FOR SHAME.

Eric D. Snider
Portland, Ore.

The fact that Jon Harmon is from Portland and I now live in Portland is probably a coincidence. Jon Harmon, are you reading this? (I assume Hyrum Hemingway isn’t.)

In the fall of 1998, a new mall opened in Provo. It was called Provo Towne Centre. Surely you remember this historic event as though it were yesterday. To celebrate, I hung out in the mall for a couple hours and wrote a column about it: “Mall in a Day’s Work,” which I present as this week’s “Snide Remarks” Classic. (We’re doing the Classics every Wednesday to celebrate 2007 as the 10th anniversary of “Snide Remarks,” don’t you know.)

It’s a pretty funny column, in my humble opinion, and it was the only one (#55, published Nov. 16, 1998, in The Daily Universe) for which I had a double byline. My friend Phil Stahle joined me on my mall tour and helped with some of the writing, at least indirectly. Last I knew, Phil was married and working in the public relations department for Disney World. I know this because in 2002, he got me free tickets into the park. Woo-hoo! Phil, wherever you are now, this one’s for you.

I received an e-mail with the subject line “[biblical word for 'donkey'] faces.” Naturally, I was intrigued. There was no name, and the return address bounced when I tried to reply, giving further evidence that people who write e-mails like this are cowards.

Anyway, here is what it said:

val kilmeris the best freakin actor and who are you to judge when you don’t even act yourself biotch

Of course, if being an actor oneself is a prerequisite for judging acting talent, then this person shouldn’t be judging Kilmer, either. (Saying someone is good is judging, too.) But why introduce logic into a matter such as this?(By the way, I have no idea which review, if any, this person was responding to. I can’t recall dissing Val Kilmer too harshly, but maybe I did.)

Next, if you’ve sent me an e-mail, you’ve seen the warning, in red letters, indicating that I don’t have contact info for any famous people, and that if you ask for such information anyway, I will write back to tell you how stupid you are. Amazingly, despite this warning, in red letters above the e-mail form, I still sometimes get e-mails from idiots who noticed a celebrity’s name on my Web site and concluded that I must therefore know that celebrity personally. And when I do, true to my word, I write back to tell that person how stupid he or she is.

For example, I got this e-mail the other day:

I am currently an Associate Publisher at the Forest Hills Celebrity Magazine. It is a very popular magazine about Queens lifestyle ( New York), a nice fine four color magazine. At any rate I am dying to contact Jon for an inetrview to appear in my magazine. I went to school with him at Queens College and hung out with him at CUPB, a social club. I beleive this would be so fitting because it is a local community publication, it will also help him promote his new movie… Cover story material I am sensing… any help would be appreciated.
Thank you,
Marty.

The “From” field in the e-mail said Martha Tucker. I responded to Martha with the form letter I have prepared:

[This is a form letter.]

Best wishes,
Eric D. Snider

Martha responded, only now her e-mail “From” name was Marty Sunflower. She said this:

Dear whoever you are, ["Whoever you are"? I signed my name to my e-mail, the "From" line says "Eric D. Snider," and the site she wrote to me from was called EricDSnider.com. And she's not sure who I am? This, from the woman who used two names in as many e-mails.]
I must say that you are the stupid one. In my years of researching information, I have never met anyone as arrogant as yourself figures, this is the trash that Myspace is composed of… [What MySpace has to do with anything, I have no idea.] Pity and to think there was hope for the journalistic wannabes…
Thanks for you time and for nothing. a simple I am sorry I cannot help you would have sufficed but know you reduced your self to name calling what are you twelve???? Would that have been to much and to think that you actually made this a form letter?????/ again a very sad representation of journalism.
Marty

Funny, the phrases “stupid,” “journalistic wannabes,” “what are you twelve,” and “very sad representation of journalism” all occurred to me while reading her letter, too….

Finally, my review of Eddie Murphy’s “Norbit” prompted this scathing reply:

I read your review of ‘Norbit’ and terribly disagree. [True to his word, he does disagree in a terrible fashion. Keep reading!] it is on of the main reason’s i don’t trust white movie critics reviews when it come to black films. norbit is the story of relationship, and if you have been anywhere close to this type of personality in one you can identify. with white critics you jugde your expectattion of the character instead of the overall movie itself. you will call a great movie lame and a lame movie great based on how you see it. [Well, yeah. Judging a movie based on how you see it is sort of what film criticism is. That's sort of the definition.] but being number on in the box office speaks for itself. i bet you’ll love ghost rider, or hanabal lechter. movies that i would never pay to go see. [Too bad, because "Ghost Rider" is apparently a great movie, judging by the fact that it's No. 1 at the box office.] i am a pretty good critic when it comes down to movies. and i don’t let my color get in the way of deciding what to see or not see. i also won’t let a actors personal life fuel my judgement of him on the screen. a good actor is a good actor, and the list of movies that you can questionable in eddie’s career some of which i actually enjoyed are not all flops. they may not have sold out box offices but check out the rental store and cable showing see how much money he’s mad from that. and i noticed that you didn’t mention shreck 1,2, or upcoming 3. [Actually, I did mention them, when I said that Murphy's movies "apart from the mostly harmless family flicks" tend to be bad.] i guess you didn’t want to insult mike myere hey?

Most of the outrageously poor logic in this letter should be apparent, but I want to point out something special. He makes the classic argument that being No. 1 at the box office means a movie is great, and then also says that just because a movie flops at the box office, that doesn’t mean it’s bad. He’s right about the last part, of course, but you can’t have it both ways. If being No. 1 is PROOF — irrefutable, case-closed PROOF — that a movie is good, then being No. 100 would have to be proof that a movie is bad.

Also, I should point out that “Norbit” is not a “black film.” Most of its characters are black, but the film has nothing to do with race. Race is never mentioned. There is nothing about the characters that would only apply to black people. They could just as easily have been white, with maybe Ben Stiller playing the two leads. (Wow, imagine how bad THAT would have been.)

Here is this week’s “Snide Remarks” (the conclusion [at last!] to the road-trip story), here is the podcast version of it, and — just for good measure — here is my review of “Ghost Rider.”