When you e-mail me through the site, there is a notice that says this:

STOP: If you are going to ask Eric how to contact a celebrity, DON’T. Eric has no such information for ANY famous person. If you ask him anyway, despite this warning, Eric will write back and tell you how stupid you are. And he’ll be right to do so.

You’ll need to know that as you read this e-mail that I received recently, with the subject line “contact Bill Fichtner”:

Eric, I’m not stupid I would just like to get this message to Bill. I meet a lot of celebrities at the Greenbier hotel where my shop is but I ran into Bill in Costa Rica.
If you can help, thanks, if not, don’t bother telling me how stupid I am.

Hey Bill, I met you and a friend at the Orquideas hotel in Costa Rica. Had a bit of breakfast with you and didn’t realize until later that I had seen you in many movies.
If you’re ever in Greenbrier Co. WV please look me up. My website is [website provided].
good luck with your career and it was nice to meet you
Tom [last name]

True to my word, I wrote back to Tom:

You’re actually among the stupidest. You read the notice that said I don’t know how to contact any celebrities, then wrote to me anyway and even acknowledged that you’d read it. What part of “I don’t know how to contact any celebrities” don’t you understand? You thought maybe Bill Fichtner was the ONE exception? Seriously: stupid.

That’s kind of mean, I know, but I did warn him. Bill Fichtner, by the way, is usually credited as William Fichtner, and you’d recognize him. He’s one of those “Hey, it’s that guy!” guys. He’s on “Prison Break,” or at least he was.

“Last One In” is fictional, but author Nicholas Kulish drew on his real experiences as a journalist embedded with the U.S. military during the 2003 invasion of Iraq to tell this engrossing, sometimes satirical story. The novel is about a shallow gossip columnist who gets sent to Iraq with a Marine convoy. (The reason his newspaper makes him go: He happens to have the same name as the incapacitated war correspondent who was supposed to do it, and the Pentagon refuses to change the name on their list at the last minute.) The character arc is standard (Jimmy learns what’s really important in life), and Kulish’s occasional dips into “Catch-22″-style wartime satire don’t mesh with the rest of the book’s more earnest tone. His believable descriptions of Marine culture and the daily routine of waiting in the desert for marching orders are compelling, though. His vivid, humane treatment of the characters will give you a new appreciation for the military and perhaps give clarity to the often-vague idea of “supporting the troops.”

The link that triggers people’s iTunes podcast-gathering mechanism was wrong earlier…. Here’s the right one…. You can ignore this post.

“I Love You, Beth Cooper,” by former “Simpsons” writer Larry Doyle, is a loving homage to the cheesy teen comedies of the 1980s, albeit set in the present and a book instead of a movie. (It is being made into a movie, though.) Denis Cooverman is a nerdy high school valedictorian who blurts out the title declaration during his graduation speech. The problem: Beth Cooper is the most popular girl in school, and she barely knows who Denis Cooverman is. The book covers the events of graduation night as Denis and his movie-geek best friend Rich interact with Beth, her friends, her angry coke-head boyfriend, and various other classmates. The details of the story are implausible, and some of the jokes are sitcom-ish. But I laughed out loud many, many times while I read the book, particularly in response to Doyle’s droll descriptions of high school angst and the absurdity of the teenage caste system. It is not high literature, but it is definitely funny.

Got a case of the Mondays? I know I do! I have to watch “Made of Honor” tonight, and you know how I feel about pun titles.

Speaking of how much I hate pun titles, this week’s “Snide Remarks” is called “Between Barack and a Hard Place,” and while this makes at least two weeks in a row that “Snide Remarks” has dealt with politics, I promise I won’t write about politics next week. (That’s an easy promise to make, because I’m not writing one next week, because I’ll be in New York. So there.) I don’t like to write about anything twice in a row, but I think you’ll agree that today’s column’s primary subject matter really needed to be addressed

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 with this URL.

You know, I sort of forgot about “Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay.” I saw it at South By Southwest over a month ago, wrote my review, and then cast it from my mind. Yet here it is, opening in theaters today. Weird! It’s like I’m living in two different time periods.

A better option for your movie-going dollars is “Baby Mama,” which isn’t quite as funny as a movie with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler should be, but it’s close enough. Those two gals crack me up. My review of it is at Film.com.

Did you know there is a movie opening today called “Deception”? Me either! But it’s opening on more than 2,000 screens, a full-blown wide release! They didn’t screen it for critics, though, so never mind.

In limited release, “Standard Operating Procedure” is a very good documentary about Abu Ghraib, while “The Life Before Her Eyes” is a cheap and mediocre drama about the aftermath of a Columbine-esque school shooting.

Finally, I reviewed “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” a few days ago. There’s already been quite a lively discussion in the comments. It’s a much smarter conversation than we get with, say, “Prom Night.”

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

This week’s bad movie is so famous that people refer to its title even if they haven’t actually seen the movie. It’s “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo”! There were some technical difficulties that kept the column from seeing the light of the Internet until just moments ago, but it’s at Film.com now, in all its splendor.

Here is a conversation I had with my 3-year-old niece Lindsay last week:

HER: Do you like Buzz Lightyear?
ME: Yes.
HER: Do you like Woody?
ME: Yes.
HER: Does Woody like you?
ME: Uh, yes, I think so.
HER: Does he make you funny?

I think she meant “Does he make you laugh?” I kind of like her version, though. Am I funny? And if I am, did Woody make me that way? These are deep questions.

(That’s Lindsay on the right. On the left is Emily, my 8-year-old niece, who is also adorable. That’s me in the middle, also adorable, but in a different way.)

On the comments form for movie reviews and “Snide Remarks” and such, there is now a link to the commenting rules.

Even if you’re been around a while, you should still give ‘em a look. Some are obvious (no swearing), while others may not have occurred to you (e.g., you don’t need to point out how dumb a commenter is; idiotic comments usually speak for themselves).

There is one rule that might be somewhat controversial to some of our younger readers, however, and it is this:

If you want your comment to be posted, write like an adult. Even if you’re not one. If you write like a 14-year-old girl (”OMG thiz actor is hott i luv this movie he is soooo fine!”), we’ll delete your comment.

There are many sites on the Internets where teens can gather to discuss how hott an actor is or how awesum a movie is. I am proud to say that EricDSnider.com is not one of them. I’ve been subtly doing this already, but now I’m doing it more ruthlessly: If I see a comment written in idiot pidgin English, I’ll just delete it. Such comments, in addition to being hard to decipher, usually don’t add much to the discussion, either.

Don’t get me wrong, in real life I love teenagers. I really do. I like their enthusiasm. I always thought teaching high school would be fun, and not much less lucrative than being a freelance writer. Many teens have bright, interesting things to say. They are more than welcome to post here, as long as they do it in a way that doesn’t bring shame and indignity to all who read them.

And people who are full-grown adults who still write in teen-speak — well, knock it off.

Treadmills, border fences, and bilingualism are among the topics discussed in this week’s edition of “Snide Remarks,” which has the horrible title of “Defence Is De Answer.” Seriously, that’s one of the worst yet.

In other news, we switched to a new server this weekend, almost living up to the promise of no downtime in the process. There are a few kinks in the system — for example, I can’t send any e-mail from my EricDSnider.com account — but that’s none of your concern.

If you find you can’t post comments on the site, that’s because the new host is still propagating, and your ISP is still accessing the old location, and — OK, it’s complicated. But comments should be enabled for some of you, not enabled for others of you, and enabled for one and all within 24 hours or so.

Finally, this is the last week to take the surveys and help us make EricDSnider.com a better place. I really appreciate all the feedback we’ve gotten so far. Some of the comments have had some really good ideas that I’m definitely going to implement and take credit for. There are three surveys; take any or all that apply to you. This one is for all visitors to the site; this one is for “In the Dark” newsletter subscribers; and this one is for “In the Dark” podcast listeners.

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 with this URL.