Slowly Going Bald

Because it's Thursday:

The Pajiba trade round-up.

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Because Wednesday in L.A. can never be just another Wednesday in L.A.:

It's hostage-taking time. (And here's Defamer's take.)

The craziest stuff always happens near my building. First the immigrants' march, then this. Trust me, if you want to make it on the news, come on down to Wilshire.

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Little Miss Sunshine

Zoom

The Illusionist

Beerfest

The Quiet

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Elisha Cuthbert is now one film closer to either playing a stripper on Cinemax or quitting Hollywood to actually become a stripper. Either way, I'm sure we'll all be curious to see what happens.

Clickety-click.

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Because I'm a slave to the memes that clog the tubes of the Interwebs, here's my very own list of my top 25 TV characters. (This was also born of a challenge to The Sis, so be sure to check out her list and see how many overlaps there are.) Rules: No guest stars, no miniseries. Also, I haven't numbered them. I've expressed my opinions before on the inherent flaws in actually ranking things, and I don't want anyone falling into the trap that, say, No. 7 means less to me than No. 4. But trust me, there are 25. I counted. Okay, here we go:

Dan Rydell (Josh Charles), "Sports Night" — This is pretty much a given. "Sports Night" was the first TV show I ever truly loved, and though it's hard to pick just one character, I have to go with Dan Rydell, who was smart, funny, endearing, honest, and a fierce source of heart and soul for the ensemble. If you don't get even a little misty when Dan makes the on-air apology to his dead younger brother, you're a heartless thug. Great guy. Great character.

Toby Ziegler (Richard Schiff), "The West Wing" — This was another tough call, since the first four years of the show, under the guidance and pen of creator Aaron Sorkin, were some of the best TV in the past couple decades. But while Josh was eager to be loved and Sam was nothing but one gooey ball of sensitive, Toby's humanity was tempered with a caustic wit and an anger that grew from his frustration at the roadblocks that so often prevented the Bartlet administration from achieving its goals. A wreck of a man trying to get his life together. Dig the team-building speech he gives his staff in Season 3's "War Crimes" episode: "We win together, we lose together, we celebrate and we mourn together. And defeats are softened and victories sweetened because we did them together."

Chief Tyrol (Aaron Douglas), "Battlestar Galatica" — I could go on at length about how this is easily one of the best dramas on TV but is overlooked because of it's genre, but I've done that already. Just know that Tyrol is a great character in an ensemble of great characters, acted with nuance and emotion by Douglas. Oh, Chief. Hang in there, buddy.

Rube Sofer (Mandy Patinkin), "Dead Like Me" — Man oh man, what a great show. Young George Lass is killed and recruited to be a grim reaper, and one of her mentors is Rube. I had no idea Patinkin could actually act, having really only seen him before this in The Princess Bride and a video of him in "Sunday in the Park with George" when I was in high school, an experience no doubt weakened by my distaste for my 11th-grade English teacher Mrs. Heston, herself a bit of a man-hater who adorned her walls with frighteningly suggestive Georgia O'Keefe prints. Anyway: Rube is an amazing father figure to George. Great relationship. Great show.

Hoban "Wash" Washburne (Alan Tudyk), "Firefly" — Hawaiian shirts. A 'stache in a flashback. A warm, wonderful character. Too bad those Reavers caught up with him.

Xander Harris (Nicholas Brendon), "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" — Another tough call, since he's one of an ensemble, but Xander was constantly entertaining, and played with grace and humanity by Brendon, especially after the high school years, when his friends ascended to greatness and he remained a carpenter of middling ambition. But "The Zeppo" is and always will be a classic.

John Locke (Terry O'Quinn), "Lost" — Clarification: This is Season 1 Locke, who was mysterious and sad and burning with a fire of faith and learning. Once he found those damn numbers, things went downhill. Kind of like the show in general.

Buster Bluth (Tony Hale), "Arrested Development" — So hard to pick just one. But Buster's cries to heaven of "I'm a monster!" as he plunges his hook into his bed put him over the edge.

Veronica Mars (Kristen Bell), "Veronica Mars" — Man, what's with the lack of chicks on this list? Veronica is a killer combination of strength and vulnerability, and so cute I could kill myself. "Veronica Mars" is also one of the best shows on TV right now, and you're not watching it because you're too busy watching "American Idol" and sniffing glue (I realize I'm directing my ire at a nameless, faceless Middle America, but I don't care). This show is top-to-bottom fantastic. Come on, Dawn Ostroff, leave this show alone. Veronica's also got the best father-child relationship on TV, which leads me to:

Keith Mars (Enrico Colantoni), "Veronica Mars" — The best TV dad ever. Case closed. You say Dick Van Dyke? Pffft. Screw him. Keith wins. Keith always wins. Private investigator, single father, good man.

Jack Bristow (Victor Garber), "Alias" — I guess I've got a thing for good TV dads. Next to the smoking hotness that is Jennifer Garner, Garber was the best thing about "Alias." Watch how many emotions go across that big potato-shaped head of his. Great actor. And even though, yes, Jack pretty much lied to Sydney every chance he got, he still cared, man. He's a secret agent. Cut him some slack.

Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter), "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"/"Angel" — A great character that contributed amazing energy to the group dynamic. Then she transferred shows and eventually started getting really holy and martyrish, and the weels came off the wagon.

Stephen Colbert (Stephen Colbert), "The Colbert Report" — This is stretching those aformentioned rules a little, but it's my list, so I'm okay with it. And Colbert's bloviating pundit is indeed a character, a satiric representation of the talking heads that are slowly killing the last shred of intelligence left in the forum of public debate. While Jon Stewart is the straight man who takes jabs from the outside, Colbert is a proud member of the idiotic elite, who can do more to take someone down a peg by wholeheartedly embracing them than you'd think is possible. He can insult the president while also appearing to support him. It's a beautiful thing.

David Fisher (Michael C. Hall), "Six Feet Under" — Sure, Nate gets all the attention, and Claire's her own thing, and Ruth is just plain crazy. But David Fisher is a fascinating sketch of a man struggling to discover his sexual, religious, and familial identity. One of the strongest characters on a very strong show.

Barney Stinson (Neal Patrick Harris), "How I Met Your Mother" — Suit up! The show isn't terribly original, and the lead is about as thrilling as dead grass, but Barney makes it worthwhile.

Dr. Perry Cox (John C. McGinley), "Scrubs" — Bitter and funny and wounded and crazy. And awesome.

David Brent (Ricky Gervais), "The Office" (U.K.) — How could this not make the list?

Neal Schweiber (Samm Levine), "Freaks and Geeks" — An amazing show. I love this kid. Sometimes I think I am this kid. Then I take a step back and actually know I am this kid.

George Costanza (Jason Alexander), "Seinfeld" — The eternal loser. Endlessly quotable, too: "It's the summer of George," "George is gettin' upset," as well as pretty much anything from Season 5's "The Opposite" episode. Just brilliant all around.

Jim Halpert (John Krasinski), "The Office" (U.S.) — Great character, and a perfect straight man (this is easily the best thing Krasinski's ever done or had the chance to do). All the money in my pockets says that he and Pam will inevitably get together, then split up painfully.

Marshall Flinkman (Kevin Weisman), "Alias" — A total nerd who, when called upon, springs into action to save the day more than once. Plus he pulls a guy's eye out of his skull with a spork. Great comic relief.

Doyle (Glenn Quinn), "Angel" — " 'So don't lose hope. Come on over to our offices and you'll see that there's still heroes in this world.' ... Is that it? Am I done?" This episode, I am not ashamed to say, wrecked me for the rest of the day after the first time I saw it. Doyle was just wonderful, and you could see the way the story was starting to take shape, and then bam: So long. A funny, caring character who went out on a high note.

Lt. Jim Dangle (Thomas Lennon), "Reno 911!" — One of the funniest shows on TV. Dangle is greatness.

Det. Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher), "Homicide: Life on the Street" — An amazing character on a truly great TV series that's easily one of the best cop shows of all time. The "Subway" episode from Season 6 is still one of my favorites.

Adrian Monk (Tony Shalhoub), "Monk" — Honestly, this show has plenty of flaws: The cops are fairly inept, and the lieutenant is a staggeringly annoying moron. And some of the hour-long episodes feel like 90 minutes. But Shalhoub is a fantastic comic actor, probably better than the weak premise deserves. He skates the edge of irritating with his endless neuroses, but the character is also warm, and caring, and still reeling years later from his wife's death. Wonderful character.

So that's 25. I really don't know what else to say here, except that it's obvious that I've watched a lot of TV, and will probably only watch more. Nothing I can do about that.

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• The week in reviews:

"I’ll say this, though: Invincible does sport one monster of a rousing ending, absolutely dripping in feel-good dramatics. For any hardcore football fan who hasn’t seen a touchdown since January, however, the bar hasn’t been set particularly high. Still, it’s got all the sports-movie touchstones: Meaningful game, final seconds, and odds-defying heroics, even if it is on freakin’ special teams. But, for a real-life story, it all felt a little too perfect, a bit too Disneyfied ... "

"Outside of the musical numbers, Idlewild is nothing more than an old-fashioned crime melodrama, a generic jumble of Prohibition-era gangsters and aspiring musicians — any one storyline instantly recognizable from a dozen other films."

"The shame of it is that the earlier scenes, though not nearly as clever as Freundlich clearly thinks they are, suggest so many different ways that the story could have gone, and the plot is genuinely unpredictable for a while. That the film’s attempts at complexity and genuine human drama should wind up being tossed aside for such a pat, stupid ending is downright infuriating."

• In case you missed it, you should check this out, and even if you saw it, go read it again: A great, lyrical exploration of Terrence Malick.

• I spent my week in Neptune, and loved every second of it. As always.

• I'd like to see the people who thought this crap up eat some "Deadwood" pancakes. Pretty sure their heads would explode.

• Don't forget: The Emmys are stupid.

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I'm sure whoever thought this up means well, but still, this is frightening. Plus, what if you get them dirty and have to wash them and sleep one night in regular pajamas? Or what happens if you lose the shield or something?

Man, I'm glad I left the South.

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"But our shenanigans are cheeky and fun!"

A pretty enjoyable comedy: Clickety-click.

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It's time once again for The Pajiba trade round-up. This time around, I knock Tim Burton's subpar output of the last decade. Enjoy.

Also: The online editor of the Weekly Standard shares his love for the round-up. Now if only the rest of the conservatives would come around, things might start changing for the better.

And while we're at it: We even made it into USA Today, which is admittedly just a high-budget newsletter with pretty pretty charts and stuff, but hey, I'm not complaining.

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Wednesdays blow.

So enjoy this one by checking out the following:

"It’s actually shocking that a decidedly naturalist, meditative auteur like Malick survived his own self-imposed hiatus from the film industry to return, as I can see no popular interest or herald for his having done so. But those few who have seen and admired his work often agree that no one captures the essence of the strange, brutal, idiosyncratic beauty that is America quite like he does."

Mmm, Pattontastic:

Mmm, "Deadwood" pancakes (this video is in no way appropriate for those who haven't seen/don't like "Deadwood" and/or those who labor under the false delusion that I'm a slightly more wholesome person than is the case [I'm including all parents on that one, not just mine]):

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The first of several great upcoming releases hit shelves today.

I love my TV so much.

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I'm glad that someone else is looking forward to Feast, though my anticipation isn't so much based on the film, which looks to be a pretty standard horror retread, as it is that I enjoyed watching director John Gulager go absolutely balls-out crazy on the latest season of "Project Greenlight." I mean, who gets the chance to make a film with studio money and decides to cast their dad and girlfriend? And the rest of the cast is just as stunningly godawful: Balthazar Getty, Judah Friedlander, and a girl who got her start in softcore porn.

Keep it up, Gules. Keep it up.

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• It was a week of underwhelming media, whether Bible-thumping in Texas or shilling for a crappy movie.

• Speaking of crappy movies:

"Indeed, Snakes absolutely demands an audience. It’s a participatory event. And it may be the only time you can ever watch a film and not hate everyone in the theater for yelling throughout, because hell if you don’t find yourself treating the whole experience like a college basketball game."

"Accepted, with a PG-13, comes across as a hapless dilettante too soft for college humor but too indebted to it to appeal to anyone else. It tries to be both an Animal House paean to goofiness and lunacy and a Nerds call-to-arms for outcasts who couldn’t get into college — it succeeds at neither."

"When the reality is already so purposefully, unabashedly, conspicuously over-the-top shallow, what tools are left to the satirist? Such a send-up would be wonderful, but this movie certainly isn’t it. It’s just another insipid, uninspired advertisement for a lucrative brand. In fact, following the show, a theatre employee handed me a sampler package of perfume with the Hilary Duff trademark (quite literally) scrawled across the bottom. I don’t believe I could possibly have concocted a more appropriate conclusion."

• See Grover. See Jane. SeeListen to Freedy Johnston. If you don't love it, you just might be soulless.

• Trailer of the week: It's got a moderately cute concept and an okay cast, but most of all, a chance for Lorelai Gilmore to get naughty. Sounds good.

• Watch and laugh:

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Well worth the purchases. Even more reasons to love the Criterion Collection.

P.S. One of the highlights of the bonus features on Dazed and Confused has to be footage of McConaughey auditioning while wearing a c. 1992 "Headbanger's Ball" T-shirt. No words can capture its magnificence.

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A really good movie. Granted, given what I'm reading, I was primed for the material. But still, a good movie:

Clickety-click.

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You may have noticed that things look a little different around here. They might go back to normal after a while, but I really have no idea. Feel free to take advantage of the brand spankin' new search feature, located in the left-hand column, below the counter and maps that provide incontrovertible evidence of my gradual world domination.

But the real news: The Pajiba trade round-up.

Enjoy the totally sweet new banner, complete with photos of Shaun, Lola, Michael Bluth, Max Fischer, and even the Big Damn Heroes. I think it looks great.

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Well, it's finally here. After months of hype, a few creepy phone calls, and hundreds of articles written by befuddled reporters who use words like "blogosphere" and speak of the Internet culture with both the barely repressed fear and arrogant inaccuracy that seems common among the elderly, Snakes on a Plane is hitting theaters this Friday. And I, for one, can't quite believe it's happening. I barely know where to begin:

• The film itself is the kind of ludicrously plotted pulp that should only really exist within other films as a mild dig at the industry. Think of the cheesy adventure script Julia Roberts' character had to learn in Notting Hill. Samuel L. Jackson as a cop fighting killer snakes on a jetliner? This can't be real.

• But it is real, which is the exact hell of the situation. It's like a metafictional glimpse of lowbrow American culture come to life, which if you think about it is pretty frightening.

• It's one thing for a bad film to take itself seriously and, in so doing, become a cult classic. This is the Red Dawn Theorem, in which a film that is in no way good becomes liked and accepted for its inherent crappiness. Although it's not quite accurate to say that people like these films; really, they "like" them. The first would be weird, and display a definite lack of taste, but the second is defined by ironic distance and posturing in regard to the film itself. (See "Saved by the Bell" and its effects on my generation for further proof, namely, that a show can totally suck and still act as a valid cultural reference point, e.g., saying that someone has a "Zack Morris phone").

• But Snakes on a Plane isn't taking itself seriously, and yet also wants badly to be a thrilling action film. How can you like a crappy movie for being crappy if the movie is in on the joke?

• You can't.

• The film is a result of Internet culture, but it marks one of the few times that the online crowd, usually so wary of ads and fakery, allowed themselves to be played. Studios do not want you to be happy; they want your money. If you get happy along the way, then enjoy it, but the bottom line is cash, not creativity. New Line simply took this to new heights by utilizing input from online fans to craft the movie, even going so far as to insert specific lines of dialogue suggested by fans into the final cut. This might seem to be catering to the masses, but it's really the most shameless attempt in film history to earn a quick buck. Instead of making what they hope is an entertaining movie, the studio let the fans participate in the reasonable hopes that those fans will turn out in droves to see the story they "created."

• This is why there's nowhere for the film to go but far, far down. I've already heard Jackson say, "I'm tired of these motherf***ing snakes on this motherf***ing plane!" When that moment arrives in the film, people will probably cheer, but for the wrong reasons. It won't be a moment of sublimely cheesy filmmaking, but a chance to see just how far some studios will go to create a successful film.

• The film will either (a) live up to its hype, which will mean that the film itself offers nothing more than the hipsterish humor of simultaneously hating and loving something that we've all pretty much experienced plenty of by this point; or (b) the film will actually suck, in which case it will be remembered as a thriller that wanted to be bad and joked about being bad but actually turned out to be genuinely bad, and not so bad-it's-funny, but so-bad-it's-painful. Either way, no good can come of the film's actual release. Ultimately, you can't plan the kind of fluke that Snakes on a Plane is intent on becoming.

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A friend of mine was having a barbecue at his old apartment complex one day, and was in the process of grilling up some meat by the pool when he noticed a man and woman emerge from a nearby unit and walk over and grab seats by the pool. The man? Some random guy. The woman? His wife, porn star Briana Banks.

My friend described her as "gross; 6-foot-5; orange skin; a voice like metal." I trust his assessment.

He further relayed a story of how he was working out one morning in the apartment's gym when Briana and her husband came in to exercise. At one point, she excused herself to go the bathroom, and upon her return, she said, "I just threw up."

I have no idea what to say here, so I'll just get out of your way and let you reflect on those stories.

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I liked Super Size Me as much as the next guy, which is to say I found it a smart and humorous skewering of the fattening of America and the McDonaldization of our culture at the expense of members of lower social and economic strata. So when I saw last summer that the film's director, documentarian/brave-Fu-Manchu-wearer Morgan Spurlock, would be bringing a show called "30 Days" to FX that would conduct similar freshman-level sociology experiments in random areas, well, I was pretty excited.

And at first, I was a fan of the show. The pilot episode featured Spurlock and his fianceé attempting to live for 30 days on minimum wage, and it was an eye-opening hour into just how genuinely crappy it is to be poor in America (not like this is any surprise, but still). But Spurlock only played an onscreen part in that first episode, serving as a producer for the remainder of the season as the episodes (a) began to focus on regular people and (b) started playing pretty fast and loose with some blatant stereotypes (again, not like this is any surprise, coming from FX, but still). But the "Muslims and America" episode was merely a glimpse of things to come.

The show returned this summer for a second season, the theme of which seems to be Let's Find Simplistic Ways To Let People Talk Out Of Their Asses And Reinforce Nonexistent Divides Between Groups Of Disparate People. The season's first episode, "Immigration," transplanted a gun-toting Minuteman into a family of Mexican immigrants. Mmm. Deep. But oh, Morgan had some better treats in store for the third episode: "Atheist/Christian."

The episode followed a female atheist tasked with spending a month with a family of fundamentalist Christians. The entire concept smells like Texas, and sure enough, it all went down in the Metroplex. The entire outing was irrational and poorly planned, and overall just extremely depressing for two reasons:

1.) I'm so sick of reality shows that I could puke blood all over my TV. And I love my TV. The whole mindless sub-genre has managed to pare itself down slightly since the c. 2001 heyday of the format, but programs like "The Apprentice" and "Project Runway" and "Laguna Beach" still remain. The shows are tightly scripted and written/produced within an inch of their lives, pulling out every melodramatic trick to make the viewer think they're watching some kind of legitimate human drama when they're really not seeing anything but film-school-reject Final Cut Pro tricks accompanied by a predictable soundtrack. The shows are overprocessed to an insane degree. They're like the visual equivalent of late '80s adult pop, all synthed-out and soulless. Watching crap like "30 Days" is like listening to Starship's "We Built This City." Over and over again. And liking it.

Reality shows like "30 Days" thrive on creating conflict where none existed, which means that instead of having two clear-headed people sit down to discuss their respective beliefs/nonbeliefs in God, Spurlock's show found a couple of extremists, tossed them into a jar, then shook it up and watched them fight. This is an unfortunate but expected turn of events for reality TV, but it gets a lot worse.

2.) These are fractious times, the man said; fractious times, and we need each other badly. The country is bitterly split right now, and confused about it, not least because members of both political parties and those of various faiths and beliefs feel like the government has been hijacked. So I was hoping — because I cannot make myself stop hoping — that maybe Spurlock's show would take advantage of the current political climate and use their religiously themed episode to maybe spread a little tolerance.

But the atheist never got a straight answer out of the patriarch of the Christian family she'd been staying with about just why he believed what he did. Granted, I completely sympathize with the guy, since there's only like an 11% chance that someone who randomly lived with me for a month would pick up on any kind of religious belief. But this guy was (a) on TV and (b) attempting to answer some pretty big questions, and I would have appreciated it if either he'd been smarter or Spurlock had picked someone else.

I don't even remember most of the answers the Christian guy gave. As the month wore on, his temper seemed to shorten. At one point, he advised a group of atheists that, if they didn't like the fact that America was a Christian country, they were welcome to leave. Yes, leave.

I held my head in my hands.

As if the thousands of denominational splits in the country weren't sign enough, most people tend to forget that not all Christians are the same. Not even close to it. Referring to Christians as a solid group that acts/thinks/votes a certain way makes about as much sense as calling it "the black community." Still, I hoped that maybe this guy would try and use his public platform to say something along the lines of: I believe in an ultimate right and wrong; I believe that these notions of right and wrong are independent of human consensus, i.e., an act is right and therefore recognized as such, not right because it is called such; that God is the source of the right and its separation from the wrong; etc. Granted, that's all pretty vague, but still, it would have been a good place to start.

But "30 Days" offered none of this, just an angry, increasingly hypocritical and closed-minded man doing his best to alienate those who don't share his beliefs. The whole thing was just so sad and sick and depressing. I'm trying to figure out faith and culture and politics a day at a time, and it's extremely hard, and the last thing I need is Spurlock making it seem like I'm one and the same with the hardcore extremists who advise non-Christians to leave the country. But I guess I should have seen this coming: It's always the crazy ones that wind up in front of the cameras.

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• It doesn't matter if he was the bomb in Phantoms; he still has to prove himself all over again every time out.

• Videos of the week: A glimpse of Neptune and a wild goose.

• Things you should read:

"I don’t think that WTC offers any more understanding of the events of 9/11 than Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor did for December 7, 1941. In that way, Oliver Stone’s film feels like a failure."

"Sure, the outside world is constantly moving forward and leaking into the high-school bubble, exerting its influence in various meddlesome ways but, at the end of the day, high school is high school. And even if you weren’t exactly a geek or a freak when you went through the experience, there will undoubtedly be moments of this show that ring true for you, regardless of what caste you were in."

"Everyone in the movie has a cookie-cutter role to play that serves no higher purpose than to express what was obvious to the audience before setting foot in the theater."

"There was even a fat guy two seats over who insisted on delivering a running commentary — somewhat sotto voce but not nearly enough — throughout the entire film. This is the true horror of modern life, if you ask me — not the dehumanization of technology, but the sad fact that no one knows how to behave in a friggin’ movie theater anymore."

• Scorsese does Infernal Affairs? I'm there.

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Movie premieres and red-carpet events are one of the costs you pay to live in Los Angeles. They're best avoided, since they tie up traffic and bring crowds of photographers and crappy local news outlets and occasionally some unhinged fans. A buddy of mine really goes in for that kind of thing — seeing a movie at the Chinese and getting all sweaty when the director rolls up — but it's just not my idea of a good time.

But accidentally coming across one at the ArcLight for Pulse, which (a) gave me a chance to stand and gape like a teenager at Kristen Bell, and subsequently (b) to realize that she's just about the cutest thing you could hope to see on a Thursday night in Hollywood, with (c) a body that could cut glass, and even (d) to serendipitously get a couple photos of same; well, that's just a sign from God that all is right in his universe.

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First time I've ever walked out of a movie. Not even the presence of Ennis Del Mar's smokin' redhead daughter could keep me in the theater for more than an hour.

Clickety-click.

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Because it's that time of the week:

The Pajiba trade round-up.

Also, this is a pretty shaky video, and there's nothing new in here, just old clips from the first couple years. But man, just watching it makes me weak in the knees with anticipation. And if you're not okay with that, well, then you're not okay with me:

The VM promo video.

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Seth Rogen:

b. 4-15-82

glasses

beard

surly

sidekick

profane

tall

etc.

If the universe were kinder, this would have been my life. I was just a few months off.

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I went to college at a private religious university in the middle of the Texas desert, an experience that prepared me for a lifetime of group therapy and guilt complexes, and which turned out to be ultimately worth the social/political/religious/cinematic alienation (though just barely). Anyway, as a freshman, forced to deal with (a) being underage in (b) a town that stopped selling alcohol at 10 p.m. and (c) having to deal with a campus-imposed curfew, which was just full-on retarded — all these things added up to have a profound and dangerous effect on myself and my new friends. To wit: We kidnapped wild animals from the park.

P.S. Geese really do crap just an unbelievable amount. And quickly.

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The new trailer for Hollywoodland is online, and it looks promising. It's interesting, though, that the film's title has been altered from the working title of Truth, Justice, and the American Way. Maybe the old title was deemed to clunky, or maybe Focus and Miramax got all worried that the title might place a little too much emphasis on George Reeves, TV's Superman, and not the investigation of his controversial suicide, which seems to be what really drives the plot of the film. Ben Affleck is playing Reeves, yet most of the ads and merchandising are playing up Adrien Brody and Diane Lane over Affleck. This is what makes the following quote from the trailer so great:

"What's true or false doesn't really matter. If it hurts the studio — if it stops one person from buying a ticket — I have to fix it."

Were the title change and subsequent choices to downplay Affleck's role made because, well, he's Affleck? I have no idea. It's a good story, though, and feels like it might be right. And when the legend becomes fact, you print whatever you want, or something.

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Because no road trip is complete without music (or an iPod), below is a series of tracks that, when assembled, should give you a pretty good idea of what it's like to see the blasted old shacks of Bumble Bee, the sun over Red Rocks, the clouds above Prescott, the pines along the 180, and the heat shimmering off the Sonoran. Figure out the clues to get the songs.

1. Roger's no longer so refreshing, but he's still something of a peacekeeper. On the latest album, he draws circles from right to left, not unlike the pattern of draining water down under.

2. Not to be confused with the KU mascot, these guys once released an album all about the future being bright on the other side, and the track in question shows an affection for Lucinda and her six-string.

3. The band? The monarch who always keeps falling behind. The tune? A suprisingly upbeat ditty about mourning from someone unfamiliar.

4. You probably aren't pronouncing this guy's name correctly, but that's okay: He still wants to show you the Prairie State. The track is named after a Polish immigrant who commanded our side in the Revolutionary War.

5. Long before this guy went to Jerusalem, he just liked to cruise Guitar Town. First track.

6. If your father's brother were from Mississippi, he'd sound like this band's name. The track is Las Vegas' nickname, or the Robert Rodriguez movie, or the Frank Miller comic. Whichever.

7. The band sounds like a wreck of an Southern Railway train. They've got an album that starts off with a blast, but the track you're looking for is all about the daughter of Herodias.

8. The Format's first album is all about butting in to someone's problems and then singing them to sleep. The track you need is after you're done making the knots but before you get all redundant about your state of preparedness.

9. The Boss went Southwestern a couple years back. The song is about sharing a cot with a woman whose name seems to come up a lot in songs by the artist who performs track 9.

10. For this avian band, it all started with this album, which was about the eighth month and all that followed. The track is a wet-sounding one about being in the service of the queen.

11. Named for the abbreviated form of an old-school radio affirmative, this band's first album sounds like a radio format itself. The track is from the middle of the album; if you start realizing the simplicity of certain things, then you've gone too far.

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Me: so, i'm flipping through channels this morning and come across the crappy 90s tv show Step by Step

Me: from miller-boyett productions

Me: they also did Full House, Family Matters, etc.

Sis: right

Me: and it hits me:

Me: i hate miller-boyett productions

Me: hate them

Me: hate hate hate

Sis: haha

Sis: sorry

Sis: at least they're not making them anymore

Me: but they made them

Me: and recorded them for posterity

Me: and that is a grievous sin

Sis: hahaha

Sis: yeah

Sis: not the best shows

Sis: i sure did watch them as a kid, though

Me: but we were kids

Me: we thought as kids, spoke as kids, reasoned as kids

Me: now that we are grown

Me: we put those ways behind us

Me: and go find miller and boyett and beat the crap out of them

Sis: hahaha

Sis: ok

Sis: it's a deal

Sis: if they're in the LA area, then we know what we're doing one day next week

Me: kicking some ass

Sis: damn right

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Every time I see Carell, I can hear him saying, "I pooped a hammer."

Anyway: Clickety-click.

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Time again for the news:

The Pajiba trade round-up.

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I think this whole Gibson story is absolutely, violently, painfully, woefully unnewsworthy. It's tabloid gossip being reported as news. Not that that's a new thing, but still. I go out of town for four days and all this crap starts falling apart; it's like I can't even leave you people alone for a few days without everything coming unglued. The one and only funny thing — the best thing, in fact — to come out of this is the mix and match guide to degrading women just like Mad Max himself:

I called my boss "Caramel Nipples" and got a promotion. Thanks, Mel Gibson!

In all seriousness, The Sis pretty much knocks it out of the park when it comes to grounding this sensationalist gossip reporting in the context of world war and strife.

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It might be hard to hear, but at the very beginning of this clip, I quietly say, "I don't think those pennies are part of the canyon." Next to the observation point, there was a large flat boulder onto which people had tossed quite a few coins, for no apparent reason other than that I guess they felt like spreading cheap man-made currency into a national monument. Anyway, I said "pennies," but I was misheard, and, well, the rest pretty much writes itself:

The Grand Canyon: It's like the foreign elderly go there just to congregate in front of the cameras of young people.

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