True, I found McConaughey completely lacking in hotness, which is odd considering how the bald-with-tattoos thing can sometimes move me. But the rest...

Every time I see an ad for 300 I start laughing uncontrollably. It's like those Travolta pictures from Battlefield Earth, good for a random chortle when I'm feeling glum.

For what it's worth, Lee, I never warmed to any aspect of Mirrormask and wish I'd bailed towards the beginning. But this is a minority opinion in these parts.

So, I caught a bit of Notting Hill on USA (I think) this morning. The book thief at the beginning is played by the main guy from Black Books! I doublechecked with IMDB. The child actress from the space movie is played by Mischa Barton! (It's one of those films.)

I thought that visually Mirrormask was stunning, but the story and characters didn't grab me, despite an impeccable pedigree. But, oh, was it gorgeous to watch in a theatre!

The story was certainly less impressive than the pretty the first time I watched it, but, as I've watched it a few more times, I do love it for being a children's movie about the complicatedness of the mother-daughter relationship, and, once I started watching it as that, as much as just a story, I really fell in love with it.

Mirrormask had me from the scene where they take the books to the library. I don't think there are words to express how happy that sequence made me.

Mirrormask had me from the moment she said she wanted to run away from the circus. But I am easy that way.

I just watched Stranger Than Fiction and thoroughly enjoyed it. I may have cried at the end. I thought that it was specifically designed to appeal to me from the ads, and it was.

Now going to watch Rumor Has It, because it's on and DH isn't here.

It's not too bad...not as funny as I was hoping for, but not something I'd turn the channel on.

They do the same thing in Times Square at the beginning of Vanilla Sky. I think half of their operating budget must have been spent on bribing people in the government to make that happen.

My friend who's an urban planner in Manhattan just told me it costs nothing to get a permit to shoot in the city but I read in the neighborhood paper in Battery Park City the complaints were RAGING over Will Smith's shoot for I am Legend recently. It included a mob scene with helicopters. I'm assuming the mob was just the outraged neighbors pissed about the crew taking over all the available parking spaces.

This question goes all the way back to Omega Man. I still don't know how they managed those eerie, empty city scenes and highway overpasses.

My friend who's an urban planner in Manhattan just told me it costs nothing to get a permit to shoot in the city but I read in the neighborhood paper in Battery Park City the complaints were RAGING over Will Smith's shoot for I am Legend recently. It included a mob scene with helicopters. I'm assuming the mob was just the outraged neighbors pissed about the crew taking over all the available parking spaces.

The permits are free but the trucks to do a shoot take up enormous amounts of street space, the PAs can be assholes about letting you walk through your own goddamn neighborhood, and a helicopter low enough to shoot is extremely loud. I'd be pissed too.