Physically, I haven’t gone anywhere lately. I had to miss my first-ever trip to the Telluride Film Festival because it coincided with my health problems, and then I had to miss the Toronto Film Festival because it coincided with none of the people I write for wanting to cover any expenses. But who needs to travel when there’s the Internet?? I’ve been everywhere on the Internet lately! Here’s a sampling.

NPR! I was on National Public Radio! Weird, right? Back on July 28, I wrote a piece for Cinematical about how the word “retard” had been dubbed out of the movie “Miss March” for its DVD release, even though the rest of the film continued to be intentionally offensive, vulgar, and outlandish. (I was reviewing the DVD for Film.com.) NPR’s Neda Ulaby saw the piece and contacted me for an interview, presumably because when you think of retarded people and political correctness, you think of me, Eric D. Snider.

Two days later, I went to the NPR affiliate station in Portland (Oregon Public Broadcasting) and talked to Neda, who was safely located in Washington D.C. I gather that at this point she wasn’t sure what direction the story would take, or what the overall story even was — it wasn’t JUST going to be about this particular DVD being edited — so she talked to me about a variety of things, covering all the bases. That’s what good reporters do. And it’s why, despite talking to me for 15 minutes or so, only a brief snippet of the conversation actually made it into the story.

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Whew! Such a day it’s been! But enough about my personal life. Here’s a new edition of “Snide Remarks,” entitled “How Sweat It Is,” about my perspiration habits.

Over at Film.com, “Mystery Men” is the subject of Eric’s Ten-Year Itch. I also have a review of Hollywood’s Shameful Secret® “The Collector” there. And at Cinematical, here’s my review of “Aliens in the Attic,” plus an item about the word “retard” being removed from the DVD version of “Miss March,” plus an item defending Netflix’s honor against a cranky old man who writes for Time magazine.

By the way, the “retard” item led, rather improbably, to my being interviewed by NPR’s Neda Ulabi. Her story will air sometime this week. I will say something about it on Twitter (which means it will show up in the right-hand column here) once I find out when.

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.

Over at Cinematical, I wrote a piece called “Happy 25th Birthday, PG-13 Rating!” that you might find interesting. At Film.com, we have another edition of Eric’s Ten-Year Itch, this time examining “Deep Blue Sea,” a shark movie that I still find entertaining a decade later.

Next, take a gander at the right-hand column of this here website and you’ll see two recent changes. One is that I’ve added my Twitter feed so you can see what sort of fascinating observations I make in 140 characters or less, without actually having to use Twitter. I feel like the only legitimate uses of Twitter are 1) sharing amusing links and 2) cracking one-liners, and I’d hate for you non-Twitterers to miss out. As an alternative, you can just ignore it.

The other change is the ad for Dish Network, the one that seems to suggest you can only use that particular satellite TV service if you are Mormon and/or if you intend to watch the LDS General Conference in October. Rest assured, this is not the case! People of all religious inclinations, or of no religious inclination at all, are welcome to use Dish Network. That ad was chosen by the people who choose such things because they knew I had a lot of Mormon readers, and what’s the use in having Mormon readers if you can’t sell things to them? (Of course, most of my Mormon readers live in Utah, where you don’t need satellite, or even cable, to watch General Conference, but shush.)

Anyway, I get a commission if you sign up for Dish Network by calling that phone number, so you should sign up for Dish Network by calling that phone number.

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First of all, you got your “Red Sonja” over at Eric’s Bad Movies at Film.com. It stars Brigitte Nielsen in her breakout performance. Do you ever sit around remembering your favorite Brigitte Nielsen performances? I know I do.

And hey, while I’ve got your attention, here are the various things I wrote about the CineVegas Film Festival, some of which might amuse and/or irritate you:

- A wrap-up of the movies that played there (Film.com).
- Reviews of “Mercy,” “Easier with Practice” (which won the Grand Jury Prize), and “Redland” (Cinematical).
- On-the-scene reports about opening night, promotional items, and a Jack Nicholson impersonator (Cinematical).

At Cinematical, I wrote about my experience seeing the hilariously bad “Troll 2″ for the first time, in response to the South By Southwest screening that followed “Best Worst Movie,” a documentary about the film’s cult following. Now Rosella Drudi, the Italian woman who wrote the “Troll 2″ screenplay (and wife of the director), has posted a comment on my article in which she says … well, honestly, I have no idea what she’s saying. But remember, this is how well she speaks English now, 20 years after she wrote “Troll 2.” I’m starting to understand why the film’s dialogue is so nonsensical.

They are much content of the involuntary happened one of this old film turned in 1989 to Park City in Utah.E’ one of the first history that I have written, today is to 100 scenarios. I do not understand because horror demential comic and intentionally ironic on the sense of the life and against the fanatical vegetarians us, or be considered mistaken, defective and involuntarily comic. Because it is not wanted to be understood that l’ idea originates them is a comic and ironic history. Perhaps because l’ European irony is difficult to understand for the Americans. I do not know. The title it Troll2 is not true, the just one title it of the film is Goblin, the title it of the script is Goblin. The MGM America, has changed to the title it with Troll2, not I and not even the director of the film. The MGM America has declared that Troll2 is the continuation of Troll, but is not true. I have not never seen that film and I do not know it. I have sold my history to Eduard Serlui for the society ” Eureka film” Serlui made to realize the film to the Italian society ” Filmirage” like executive producer. I hope finally that the truth comes mnemonic. You could not know it. The actors of the Troll2 film ” Goblin” they were not actors. They have been chosen to Park City, nobody of they was a true actor professional. The director, Claudio Fragasso has asked to it to recite in that way ” strip comic” and funny, in order to make to laugh the public. Troll2 is a fable for children a crazy horror, much comic. The film did not have to be prohibited, nothing censorship, therefore nothing blood that I have replaced with the chlorophyll, using the green color of the goblin, North European Celtic legend, like monster vegetarians many fanatics us of the salutista, macrobiotico food. I have used the goblin like vampiri, using the amburger (tipical american food) of meat to the place dell’ Saint water, of the , like the mortadella of the famous sandwich ” Bologna” this is the true name of ours mortadella, a company for my Italian identity, a way in order to laugh to us on, but you could not know it. They are much content that a film thus small, turned in sun 4 weeks and only cost 50 or 60 million old Italian lires, in 1989, today is a phenomenon, are content that the cast of the actors, particularly Michael and George, today make transactions also with gadget of they the production, and te documentari director ,ex baby goblin actor, thanks to my small history and the personages from me invented and the food from invented me. Rossella Drudi

At Cinematical, I’ve written about the footage we saw of the upcoming “Bruno” film (Sacha Baron Cohen’s followup to “Borat”), and about the screening of “Troll 2″ I attended Saturday night. The latter article also explains why I won’t be covering that film in Eric’s Bad Movies — not because it’s not bad, but because its badness is so self-evident that mocking it is redundant.

At Film.com, I’ve posted two dispatches of mini-reviews — you know, of the movies I’ve been seeing here at this film festival, where people occasionally watch films. Here’s dispatch #1, and dispatch #2. (I should have chosen a word other than “dispatch,” since that’s what I’m using here on my blog. But it’s a little late for should-haves.)

Also, unrelated but I don’t have anywhere else to mention it, this week’s edition of Eric’s Time Capsule at Film.com is about “The China Syndrome,” released 30 years ago today.

And now, more anecdotes.

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The final “Snide Remarks” of 2008 is, as is customary, a clip show featuring my favorite parts of all of this year’s columns. So put on your reminiscing hat!

Eric’s Time Capsule at Film.com is off this week, but I forgot to tell you about last week’s, which was “Naked Lunch,” so maybe you can read that now if you’re not doing anything else.

Finally, this item at Cinematical — The Worst MPAA Ratings of 2008 — might hold your attention for a few minutes, especially if you often find yourself thinking that a particular R-rated film should have been PG-13, or vice versa. Or maybe you were one of the millions who walked out of “Prince Caspian” thinking, “Holy crap, how did that only get a PG?!” The MPAA ratings board is such a failure that if they were to rate themselves, they’d get an NC-17 for “pervasive failure, and some smoking.”

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.

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)

Two items of possible interest:

At Film.com, I wrote “The Differences Between Nicholas Sparks and Shakespeare,” which was necessitated by Sparks actually comparing himself to the Bard. Seriously. He repeated it again in Entertainment Weekly last week. This guy needs to be punched.

And at Cinematical, Scott Weinberg interviewed me and Will Goss about our respective reviews of “An American Carol,” and the reaction they got. Will reviewed it for Cinematical, totally hated it, and got ripped to shreds. I reviewed it here, expressed milder feelings about it, and, um, also got ripped to shreds. Anyway, the conversation about the whole thing might interest you, if you like reading conversations about things.

For the most part, my writing in Toronto was focused into “dispatches” containing mini-reviews of two or three films. Here’s a handy list o’ links to them, with the pertinent titles indicated.

For Film.com:

Dispatch #1 (“Burn After Reading,” “Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist,” “The Brothers Bloom”).
Dispatch #2 (“JCVD,” “Il Divo”).
Dispatch #3 (“Rachel Getting Married,” “Genova,” “The Burning Plain”).
Dispatch #4 (“The Wrestler,” “Slumdog Millionaire,” “Zack and Miri Make a Porno”).
Dispatch #5 (“Pride and Glory,” “What Doesn’t Kill You,” “Religulous”).
Dispatch #6 (“The Burrowers,” “Synecdoche, New York,” “Miracle at St. Anna”).

For Cinematical:

Dispatch (“Ghost Town,” “Dean Spanley,” “RockNRolla”).
Review: “Nothing But the Truth”
Review: “The Lucky Ones” (which I actually saw at a pre-Toronto screening)
Review: “Lovely, Still”

(More to come for Cinematical, too. Will update.) (Nope, that’s it.)

Finally, if you’re curious, here’s a list of everything I saw at the Toronto International Film Festival, in order. The links do NOT go to my reviews (which for the most part I haven’t written yet), but to the films’ pages at IMDB. I’ve also indicated what my grade will probably be for each movie, though you must bear in mind that letter grades are an inexact science and sometimes change between seeing the movie and writing the review.

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