Remember how I told you last week that I’d be writing a column for Film.com every Thursday called “Eric’s Bad Movies”? Well I wasn’t kidding! The second installment, addressing the 1987 debacle “Superman IV: The Quest for Peace,” is now available for your reading pleasure.

(Available for your viewing pleasure is the accompanying photo of Nuclear Man, the film’s “villain.”)

This whole business of not taking trips to New York has gone on long enough! I am taking a trip to New York!

I will be in The NYC May 1-7, seeing shows and doing touristy things. It will be purely a vacation, no work or anything. The Tribeca Film Festival will end the weekend I arrive, but Tribeca: meh.

I would also like to meet up with old friends and acquaintances who now live there. My last visit was in 2003, and since then, it seems like I’ve frequently heard of someone I know moving to New York, and I would think, “Oh, I’ll have to be sure to look them up next time I’m there.” Well, now I’m going and … I can’t really remember who’s there. I mean, you lose track of people, you know? Plus there are probably people who have moved to NYC without me even hearing about it.

So are you an old friend or friendly acquaintance or college buddy or professional colleague of mine who now lives in the NYC area? Maybe you should get a hold of me so we can have lunch or something! I think that would be fun!

Richard Wagner’s four operas known as the “Ring Cycle” or simply “The Ring” are the subject of a book with the ill-conceived title “Penetrating Wagner’s Ring.” Inevitably, some smart-alecks have posted entendre-laden reviews of the book on Amazon.com, which our old friend Luscious Malone was kind of enough to bring to our attention. Some of the sophomoric highlights:

“Before reading this book, the thought of penetrating Wagner’s ‘Ring’ left me cold.”

“When I initially came across Wagner’s Ring it was like a revelation. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it — but I wanted to.”

“I found Wagner’s Ring accommodating, even if it had the texture of Bach’s last movement.”

Tee-hee!

This letter appeared in The Oregonian on April 3, in response to coverage of the Bruce Springsteen concert in Portland several days earlier:

Bruce Springsteen’s band member tells us that it is a rush to him to “turn your guitar amp up to 11 and scream and shout and be presenting amazing music.” Amazing to me that anyone older than a demented 6-year-old can call that racket “music.”

True, my standards are high, as they are generated by the Metropolitan Opera. But the reaction to the Springsteen noise proves the truth of the old adage that “some people grow up, others just grow old.”

Robert E. Vanderzanden
Woodburn, Ore.

Assuming this letter is legit and not meant as a joke, I have to conclude that Robert E. Vanderzanden is the following things:

1. Very, very old. Anyone who was younger than about 20 in the mid ’50s, when rock ‘n’ roll came around, would almost certainly have succumbed to at least SOME of its charms. To have such disdain for the entire art form — and Springsteen isn’t even “niche”; his stuff is pretty much basic, pure rock ‘n’ roll — you’d have to have been already set in your musical tastes in 1955. At least generally speaking.

2. A pompous crotchbag.

For the record, being a fan of the Metropolitan Opera does not automatically make you a pretentious, insufferable jerk. But citing it as a credential does.

If you’re a “Lost” fan, this video might be particularly amusing to you. It’s simply a montage of characters saying “What?,” presumably comprising every instance in seasons 1-3. (Don’t worry, there are no spoilers.)

Note that while some of the What?s are the innocuous kind — “I didn’t hear you, so please repeat yourself”; “What’s wrong?”; etc. — most are the kind that means “What the hell are you talking about?!” or “What you just said is extremely alarming or surprising.” And that’s exactly the reaction you’d expect the people on this show to have on a regular basis. It’s kind of comforting to realize they’re as confused as we are. (Via SlashFilm.)

“Look! When people enjoyed this bad movie, that wasn’t just an isolated incident! They have poor taste in general!”

This week’s “Snide Remarks,” entitled “Little-Known Facts,” is exactly as advertised. Please to be enjoying it, won’t you?

This week’s “Snide Remarks,” including the audio version, is here.
The audio version (i.e., the podcast) is also here.
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I made a boo-boo with some of my linkage on Friday, and it prevented some podcast subscribers from getting their weekly dose of “In the Dark.” Here is where the podcast can be found; it should now download properly to your podcast-collecting device.

Three very diverse movies are opening in wide release today. If you’re not the target audience for at least one of them, see your doctor.

I rather enjoyed “Leatherheads,” George Clooney’s screwball comedy about the early days of pro football. An extra treat: Randy Newman, who wrote the film’s delightful old-timey musical score, appears in one scene as a barroom pianist. If he takes requests, I want him to do “Fat Man with His Kids and Dog.”

“Nim’s Island,” aimed at tweenagers (especially girls), is not especially good, nor is it especially bad. It does confirm something that should have been obvious, which is that Jodie Foster should not do slapstick comedy. My review is at Film.com.

Finally, there’s “The Ruins,” a horror flick about American tourists who encounter a threat at a Mayan temple in Mexico. It was one of Hollywood’s Shameful Secrets®, not screened until last night at 10 p.m., and even then press weren’t invited. I sneaked in with the audience, however, and can report that it’s actually not bad.

P.S. If you’re my sister Laura, happy birthday!

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I got an e-mail containing a press release from Peace Arch Entertainment, who is currently distributing “Chapter 27,” the film about the guy who shot John Lennon. You might know it as the movie where Jared Leto got really fat. The headline on the press release reads:

“PEACE ARCH ENTERTAINMENT EXPANDS RELEASE OF CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED ‘CHAPTER 27′”

Can you spot the funny part? That’s right: “critically acclaimed.” At the moment, Rotten Tomatoes has the film at 20%, with 24 negative reviews and only 6 positive. (It’ll be 25 negative as soon as I get around to posting mine.) The average score is 4 out of 10 — which means those who didn’t like it REALLY didn’t like it. Even champion quoted whore Pete Hammond panned it, and he gives out negative reviews about as often as Paula Abdul.

So how, exactly, is Chapter 27 “critically acclaimed”? I guess it did get acclaim from six people, and those people are critics, so technically the description is accurate. But come on, publicists. You’re not foolin’ anyone.