Just got a press release from Excel Entertainment regarding the film “Stalking Santa.” It says:

BREAKING NEWS 12/17

Stalking Santa trailer was posted on YouTube just two days ago …. We were at 300,000 viewers this morning and now a few hours later we are almost at half a million viewers(475,104) and going up.

Alot of Hollywood movie trailers on YouTube have only hit that mark and we believe we will pass half a million soon. “The Golden Compose” trailer with all its hype only hit just over 500,000. So move over Hollywood and make room for Independent filmmakers

News Updates 12/18 As of Today we at 750,00 viewers

Current YouTube viewing polls:
#1 - Most Viewed (Today)
#1 - Most Viewed (Today) -Comedy
#1 - Most Viewed (This Week) - Comedy
#12 - Most Viewed (This Week)

“So move over, Hollywood, and make room for independent filmmakers — independent filmmakers who will sell their films to Excel Entertainment after receiving promises of a solid theatrical campaign, only to have Excel chicken out and send the film straight to DVD after all!”

As for the “Stalking Santa” trailer getting over 750,000 (or 750,00) views on YouTube, that’s fantastic. I hope it helps sell DVDs. As for that being more impressive than “The Golden Compass” (or, possibly, “Compose”) getting 500,000 views, that’s a bit unfair. The trailer for “Compass” may have only gotten half a million hits on YouTube, but it was also readily available on dozens of other movie websites, where it presumably got thousands more hits; plus it was shown in theaters, which meant a lot of people didn’t need to look for it online at all. The “Stalking Santa” trailer, on the other hand, is pretty much only on YouTube. So yeah, 750,000 is phenomenal, especially for an under-the-radar indie film like this, but let’s not exaggerate things.

[YouTube link]

Here’s a video that some friends of mine made last year. It’s a familiar song given a new Christmas setting, and darned if it isn’t just about the cheeriest, merriest little video you ever did see. I don’t even know what it all means! But it sure is nice.

The people whose house is visited at the end are my old friends the Clarks (stars of “Stalking Santa”), including their children Miles and Owen, the latter of whom you may recall once had bees in his head.

[YouTube link]

When I wrote for a paper in Utah whose name escapes me now, one of my favorite things to make fun of was Utah Valley State College, the goofy little cousin to Provo’s more prestigious and selective Brigham Young University. I don’t know which of my UVSC columns a reader named Megan stumbled upon — it could have been this one, this one, this one, or this one (I think it was the second one) — but whichever it was, it roused her enough to send this e-mail:

Honestly I don’t see what you have against UVSC, it’s a really good school and it’s a heck of a lot cheaper than BYU. It must all come down to you being jealous. [She's a graduate of UVSC's fine Logic & Reasoning Department, apparently.] You were probably the one that go shot down to even enter into UVSC, so then you had to go to BYU, Big whoop. [This is like saying, "You couldn't get a job at McDonald's, so you had to take a job as a brain surgeon instead."] You’re an egotistical, presumptuous, and uncultivated man. (I forgive you if your uneducated mind had to look up all of those words but IÂ’ll sum it up for you. I just called you a really big jerk.) Yes, you won you offended me but I can still give you my input (it seems like you’re wanting it or you wouldn’t have written this article). UVSC is a great school and so many talented students have achieved great knowledge there. Though you hear on the TV about BYU and how students are being raped and robbing bars (yes, check the news sometime.) [Thank goodness no UVSC student has ever committed a crime! That would render her argument useless!] But you have no reason to trash UVSC. It’s not like it’s the best college, but neither is BYU. In the real world it doesn’t matter what college you go to just as long as you have a degree in something you’ll get hired for the job. So shut up and grow up. You may be old but you’re really immature and sophomoric.
I’ll be waiting for your reply.

Since she requested a reply, I gave her one. I didn’t say much, but I ended with this:

Thanks for writing. I do hope you enjoy your stay at UVSC, and that you work hard and earn your diploma. Well, not a diploma, of course; what they actually give you is a Chili’s gift certificate and a balloon. But still! Work hard!

Alas, that joke is recycled from one of the above-mentioned columns, but what can you do?

Of all the wedding receptions I’ve been to, I can count the ones that weren’t awful, dull experiences on the fingers of one hand. In fact, I can count them on the fingers of one finger. But if more people would do something like the Brubakers did in this video, wedding receptions might be enjoyable. Watch and learn, people.

(Note: You may wonder at first why you are watching this, but stick with it. Trust me.)

[YouTube link]

What’s with all the war movies this year? And what’s with all of them tanking at the box office? These issues are explored in this week’s “Snide Remarks,” entitled “War Is Hell (at the Box Office).”

Speaking of Christmas shopping (well, I was thinking about it), today is the last day to order something from Amazon.com, get free shipping, AND have it guaranteed to arrive before Christmas. You can still buy stuff this week and get it in time, but you’ll have to pay for two-day shipping. Either way, if you’re doing any Amazon buying, I’d be much obliged if you’d use this link to access the site, or the link at the top of this page under the “Buy Stuff” tab. I get a small commission that way, and that small commission helps me buy slice after delicious slice of coffee cake at the cafe that just opened across the street from my apartment.

Also, rent. But mostly it goes toward coffee cake.

P.S. To the people who thought I had made a “mistake” by posting a picture of Chip and Dale in Friday’s blog that mentioned “Alvin and the Chipmunks”: If you have to explain your jokes, or even explain that something is a joke, then life isn’t worth living.

This week’s “Snide Remarks,” including the audio version, is here.
The audio version (i.e., the podcast) is also here.
Subscribe to the podcast’s feed here.

December is one dickens of a busy month, if you’ll pardon the weak semi-pun. There are six films going into wide release next Friday the 21st, plus another three on Christmas Day — and that’s not even counting the five or six limited-release pictures that will open. So between watching movies, re-watching potential top-10-list movies, and doing Christmas shopping, I’ve barely had time to watch TV.

Anyway, the big onslaught is next week. Today, Hollywood has just a couple films that it’s hoping will distract you from more important things.

“I Am Legend” is worthy of your time, with Will Smith as the lone survivor (OR IS HE?????) of a virus that wipes out humanity.

“Alvin and the Chipmunks,” on the other hand, is not even worthy of the electrons it takes to write this — though I note it’s not nearly as horrifically bad as I feared it would be.

“Juno,” which we reviewed in limited release last week, expands a bit today. Peter Sciretta at Slashfilm was good enough to post a list of which cities get it and when, so you can check that to see when your metro area will be blessed.

“The Kite Runner” opens in a handful of markets today and goes wide next week. I’m reviewing it now because I wanted to get it out of the way of the aforementioned Dec. 21 onslaught. Anyway, it’s not particularly good.

“Romance & Cigarettes” is a daft musical starring James Gandolfini and written and directed by John Turturro. It’s in limited release, as is the documentary “For the Bible Told Me So,” an inspiring presentation on the conflict between religion and homosexuality.

Sign up for the “In the Dark” e-zine here.
Listen to this week’s podcast version here.
Subscribe to the podcast’s feed here.

Paramount Vantage sent out a press release today hyping a new type of banner ad that will allow people to buy their movie tickets right there in the banner, without having to leave whatever website they’re on. It is kind of cool, and it is kind of convenient. But the movie they’re launching it with is “The Kite Runner,” and here’s what they say about it:

“… transactional banners to promote and sell tickets for their up coming blockbuster movie The Kite Runner…”

We are going to overlook the miscasting of “upcoming” as two words and instead obsess over the word “blockbuster.” There are two amusing reasons why this is the wrong word.

- Most elementally, how can a film be a “blockbuster” (defined as “major box office hit”) when it hasn’t opened yet? With a cumulative domestic gross of $0, it’s actually more of a flop.

- Even after “The Kite Runner” is released, it stands absolutely no chance of being a “blockbuster.” It is a quiet film, mostly in Dari (a variant of Persian spoken in Afghanistan), and it’s about little boys who fly kites until one of them gets raped. I promise you, there is not a single person at Paramount Vantage delusional enough to think it will be a huge financial hit. It’s a prestige picture, the kind that’s released in the hopes of getting awards and maybe making $50 million if it’s lucky. It might be a “sleeper,” it might be a “sensation,” it might be a “critical darling.” (Actually, no, it won’t be that.) But it will not be a “blockbuster.” Sorry!

I do not care about the Golden Globe nominations.

I know there are quite a few fans here of the “Twilight” books about a teenage girl who has fallen in love with a vampire, so here’s some more big news about the upcoming movie based on the first novel. A director (Catherine Hardwicke) was confirmed a few months ago, and now we have our leads.

Bella will be played by 17-year-old Kristen Stewart, best known as Jodie Foster’s androgynous daughter in “Panic Room.” (That was five years ago; she has grown out of her androgyny.) She’s currently in “Into the Wild” and was seen earlier this year in “The Messengers.” She’s a solid actress and a good choice for the part, I think.

Edward’s the tricky one. The book spends many pages describing him, and in particular how beautiful he is. Can you find an actual human being to play such a role? Maybe it will be like Stephen King’s “It,” where it’s one thing to describe on paper how scary something is, but quite another to actually show it.

Anyway, they’ve hired 21-year-old Robert Pattinson, an English actor best known for playing Cedric Diggory in the Harry Potter movies. Does Edward have an English accent in the books? I don’t remember. English accents are romantic, though, so lots of male leads in chick flicks have them. Pattinson hasn’t been in enough movies for me to have an opinion on his talent, and I’ll leave the discussion of whether he’s beautiful enough to play the impossibly gorgeous Edward to others.

The book’s author, Stephenie Meyer, cheerfully admits on her website that she has no say whatsoever in the casting of the film, but offers some suggestions for whom she would choose. Given her previous selections, I’d guess Pattinson probably fits in with her tastes.

The movie is supposed to start shooting soon, with a tentative release date of late 2008.

Here’s another blast from the past. On the last broadcast of the semester in April 1999, for some reason I was the guest weatherman on the KBYU News. I don’t remember whose idea it was or how it came about. I was the editor in chief of The Daily Universe by then, and we worked closely with the TV people, so I guess it was synergy in action.

It wasn’t scripted; instead, you’d just watch the monitor in the camera and read the numbers off the screen, making you no more a meteorologist than the people at home doing the same thing. At the 1:32 mark, the numbers leave the screen and I realize I was warned about this and that I failed to glance at the last couple stats I would need before they disappeared, like I was supposed to. So instead I make something up.

Note: I don’t know what the anchorwoman’s name is (Joanna something) or what the deal is with my sweater.

Also note: They told me to take off my glasses so they wouldn’t get a glare off the lights.

Final note: I found this on the same tape as “Venus Envy.” What additional wonders will this old VHS tape hold??

[YouTube link]