Here are some me-written things published elsewhere in the last couple weeks that may amuse, interest, or annoy you.

At Film.com:
Eric’s Time Capsule: “Leaving Las Vegas”
Memo to Shatner: It’s Time to Shut Up
Choosing Between “Saw V” and “High School Musical 3″
The Differences Between Nicholas Sparks and William Shakespeare

At Cinematical:
Soderbergh to Make a Live-Action 3D Rock ‘n’ Roll Musical About Cleopatra
Fan Rant: An R Rating for “Slumdog Millionaire”? Give Me a Break!
Forgetting Showing It — Now You Can’t Even Say the Word “Porno”
An Obsessive-Compulsive’s Guide to the “Friday the 13th” Movies (reprint from last year)

‘Snide Remarks’: Playing Rock Band, and mocking nerds who cry over video games. http://tinyurl.com/55ro79

Just got word that today’s ‘Quantum of Solace’ screening has been moved to Thursday. Hey! Some of us have schedules, you know!

Sure, there’s a new “Snide Remarks” column today, called “Boys Nintendon’t Cry” — but more importantly, the site has had a face-lift! Note how my eyes gaze upon my own name with awe and admiration. Feel free to do likewise!

The main improvement is the front page. It had gotten very cluttered, and it was hard to find things. Now it’s a bit cleaner and simpler. This site has three kinds of content — my weekly “Snide Remarks” column, my movie reviews, and my blog — but some visitors were only aware of one or two of them. On the new front page, whenever I post something new — be it “Snide Remarks,” a movie review, or a blog entry — it will appear at the top of the list, labeled appropriately. Hopefully people who make this site a regular destination will go straight to the front page every time and just see what’s been added most recently.

(Of course, if you use the RSS feeds, you’re not missing anything anyway. But you’d be surprised how many people, according to the survey we did several months ago, didn’t know I had a blog, or didn’t know I wrote a weekly column called “Snide Remarks,” or thought they were the same thing.)

My brother/webmaster Jeff has done all the actual work, as usual. He is to be thanked and lauded! He is also to be e-mailed if you notice anything that has gone amiss in the transition, or any other bugs related to the technical side of the site. There might still be some wrinkles we need to iron out.

Coming soon: the ability to do advanced searches in the movie review archives, an HTML version of my weekly “In the Dark” e-mail, and a button on the site that when you push it a candy bar comes out of your CD drive.

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.

Congrats to the /Film podcast thingee for being a featured podcasty thing on iTunes! Surely you are now too big to have me on as a guest.

@karinkydink That has been a longstanding policy of mine. I was glad to see SNL validate it.

@craigbates Congratulations on the anniversary! Condolences on not being able to watch football. Congratudolences!

“Get off my pirate ship or the girl dies!”

An Obsessive-Compulsive’s Guide to the ‘Friday the 13th’ Movies: http://tinyurl.com/5t96vt

Three wide releases this weekend, three movies that you’ve seen before.

“Saw V: Still Sawin’” offers nothing that was not already featured in the previous four entries. It is one of Hollywood’s Shameful Secrets®, too, which means I had to pay to see it at a midnight screening last night. The promotional screenings at the Lloyd Center are always full of weirdos and homeless people anyway; you can imagine what it’s like at midnight, especially when it’s a movie that attracts people who like to see movies at midnight and who are willing to pay for them.

“High School Musical 3: Senior Year” (review at Film.com) is also more of the same, though that might be one of the selling points. It’s fine for what it is, and I’m glad they made some effort to be bigger for the big screen, rather than just filming another Disney Channel movie and plopping it into theaters.

At the “HSM 3″ screening the other night, the cast of “High School Musical: The Ice Tour” was in the audience! The show is in Portland this week, and for sure the cast really wanted to watch “HSM 3″ on the big screen on their night off. How terrible it must be to actually be owned by the Disney company.

In other news, apparently there is an ice-skating version of “High School Musical,” and apparently it is welcome in Portland.

“Pride and Glory” isn’t a sequel, but it might as well be. It’s a gritty, violent drama about a New York City cop investigating other cops who might be crooked. Sound familiar? Like maybe there have been 10,000 movies like this already? Yeah. I saw it at the Toronto Film Festival and it made me angry, especially the part where a bad guy threatens to burn a baby with a hot iron and almost actually goes through with it. I was appalled by that. Yet afterward, walking back to the hotel with my buddy Eugene, I was making jokes about ironing babies, because in the abstract sense, ironing a baby is very funny. It’s only when you put it in a realistic context that it’s offensive.

Finally, my review of Oliver Stone’s “W.” is online, if you didn’t already notice it. Don’t misunderestimate it.

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