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Last call, everyone! This is your last call for summer movies! Anything released after today must be a “fall movie”: Oscar bait, serious themes, and comedies not good enough to survive in the harsh glare of summer.

Summer 2007 goes out bleeding with three wide releases this week, two of which were not properly screened.

“Balls of Fury” opened Wednesday and has already been discussed.

Today we get two violent R-rated films: “Halloween,” Rob Zombie’s remake of the 1978 horror classic; and “Death Sentence,” in which Kevin Bacon turns vigilante after his family is harmed.

“Halloween” wasn’t screened until last night in most markets, and not screened at all in others. Hilariously, publicists were telling critics in some areas that they couldn’t run their reviews until tomorrow, even though the movie opens today.

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Frequently, when a comment-poster here on EricDSnider.com realizes he has made an error, he will come back and post a new comment correcting it, while also lamenting the fact that we have no “edit” feature on the site. If he could edit his previous comment, he wouldn’t have to post the follow-up correcting it!

Sometimes these lamentations are expressed in such a way as to imply that there are many, many sites that allow user comments which also enable users to come back and edit their comments, and that EricDSnider.com is merely behind the times.

We would love to implement this feature here. If you know of a site where this is done, please point us in that direction so we can copy their system.

I personally do not know of any such sites. Every site I know of that lets you edit your own comments is also a site that requires you to register in order to post comments in the first place.

We don’t want that system. We like the current system, where anyone can post, on a whim, without having to register a user name and password first. And under that system, I am not aware of any way of letting the posters edit their comments after the fact. If you’ve seen a site that does it, lemme know.

(Of course, it is also possible that when posters express frustration over our lack of a self-edit feature, they are fully aware that such a thing is not common and that their desires fall under the category of Wishful Thinking, similar to “I wish this site rewarded me with cash every time I visited!” or “I wish this site caused my computer to give off a lemony fresh scent!” In that case, I wholeheartedly agree that it would be awesome.)

“Balls of Fury,” the only wide release this week that’s actually being screened for critics, opens today. My review of it can be found at Film.com — my first one for that organization. I’m so nervous! I hope I reviewed it OK!!!

If you’re wondering, here’s the deal: I’m doing one review a week for Film.com. Our agreement is that each review will appear exclusively at Film.com for two weeks. After that, I’ll repost it here. In the meantime, if you go to that movie’s page here on my site, you’ll find a link redirecting you to Film.com.

I realize it is slightly inconvenient to have to go somewhere else to read one of my reviews every week, but I hope you will do so, if only to convince my Film.com overlords that hiring me was a wise, traffic-increasing decision.

All throughout 2007, we’re celebrating the 10th anniversary of “Snide Remarks” by spotlighting a different old column every Wednesday. It’s like taking a stroll down memory lane. A slow, lurching stroll, since we only take one step a week, but still. A stroll is a stroll.

This week’s “Snide Remarks” Classic is “Tightening the Belt,” originally published March 8, 2004. It is noteworthy because it marked the return of “Snide Remarks” after a 6 1/2 month absence. The hiatus began when I stopped working at the Daily Herald and ended here, when I relaunched the column as an Internet-based, by-subscription-only feature.

I distinctly remember how great it felt to write a column again after six months of not writing columns. Writing “Snide Remarks” is like riding a bicycle: You never forget how to do it, and it chafes your thighs. Or something.

If you wanted to make a website devoted to film, what would be the ideal location for it? Why, Film.com, of course! And if you wanted to drastically improve the quality of Film.com, whom would you hire to write reviews and commentaries three times a week? Why, Roger Ebert, of course!

But he’s busy, so they have me instead. Starting today, you’ll find two articles and one review per week from me, posted approximately every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The first one is here. Enjoy it, won’t you? And won’t you also make Film.com a regular stop in your Internet travels? It’s a fine site for light-hearted movie commentary. And they do TV, too — crazy, I know, given the URL, but it’s true.

Sunday was Totally Stupid Day (as some Provo jerk dubbed it years ago), also known as my birthday. How did you celebrate it? Did you think of me? I know I did!

One way I celebrated was by putting the finishing touches on today’s “Snide Remarks” column, entitled “You’ll Laugh Your Smirnoff!” I hope you find it edifying.

I also spent some time recording the audio version of the column, which was more complicated than usual owing to the nature of the column (which you’ll understand when you see it). I had to do different voices and everything! And I kept getting interrupted, what with all the well-wishers telephoning me to wish me well. It is burdensome to be so beloved!

Also, Lady Dawn made me a cake. She used to be a pastry chef, so she knows what she’s doing with regard to cake-making. It was devil’s food and it was delicious. Say what you will about the devil, but he’s got his act together food-wise.

Way back on Friday, I watched and reviewed a couple of unscreened new films: “September Dawn” and “War.” “War”: What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. Same goes for “September Dawn,” actually. Not Lady Dawn, though. She’s good for makin’ cakes!

I should have an exciting announcement later today, so stay tuned! (No, it is not that I am pregnant or getting married.)

Since next Friday is the start of Labor Day Weekend — traditionally a slow time at the box office — the studios know that today is really their last chance to dump a summertime film into theaters with any hope of anyone actually seeing it. Consequently, there is a metric shload of new releases today.

The rundown:

“Mr Bean’s Holiday” is a return to the style of the hilarious TV sketches from the early 1990s, starring Rowan Atkinson as the odd, mostly silent little man. The movie is far from perfect, but it is very pleasant and amusing.

“Resurrecting the Champ” premiered at Sundance but has a mainstream, crowd-pleasing sensibility to it. It’s about a sports journalist who finds a one-time champion boxer now living on the streets. He writes a story about the guy — and then there is fallout. Aftermath, even. Good, solid, honest movie. Me likey.

There was a screening for “The Nanny Diaries,” but I had a scheduling conflict. Review to come.

There were no Portland screenings for “War,” “Illegal Tender,” or “September Dawn,” though apparently they were screened in some cities. “War” has Jason Statham and Jet Li beating each other up as an FBI agent and an assassin; “Illegal Tender” is about a Latino man dealing with the thugs who killed his father; “September Dawn” is about some rogue Mormons who massacred a bunch of travelers in 1857 — although the movie posits they were not rogue at all but following Brigham Young’s orders. Which makes the film suspect from a historical standpoint already.

This week’s edition of “In the Dark” (the free weekly newsletter I send out with the latest movie reviews, DVD releases, and other news) also has capsule reviews of “Goya’s Ghosts,” “Arctic Tale,” and “Death at a Funeral.”

You can subscribe to “In the Dark” here, or listen to this week’s podcast version here.

As long as we’re posting funny videos we just discovered, here’s a parody commercial for “Spider-Man 3″ action figures that perfectly summarizes all the things that were wrong with that movie.

This has been posted a few places around the Internet over the past year, but it was only yesterday that I stumbled across it. Further research determined its source.

It’s from “The Beatrice Arthur Special,” which aired Jan. 19, 1980, on CBS. The clip features Rock Hudson and Bea Arthur singing about how nowadays everybody does drugs, whereas in the good ol’ days, all you needed were cigarettes and alcohol to feel good.

It’s hard to tell whether the song is endorsing drug use or discouraging it, especially since the song’s only real gripe with drugs is that the terminology used to describe them is hard for middle-aged people to grasp.

Regardless of its message, I love this song!

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My birthday is this Sunday — no gifts, please! But if you insist, here’s my Amazon wish list — and I share it with a friend of mine named Christopher. We were in the Garrens Comedy Troupe together back in the day, and then he married the sister of one of my best friends, so now he’s part of the family forever.

Anyway, Christopher’s wife C. Jane writes a delightful blog called C Jane Run, and this week she’s printing birthday greetings from his friends and family members. She asked me to contribute, and I was honored to do so! So honored, in fact, that I’m providing the link to what I wrote right here.