…the most entertaining thing about illegal bootleg DVDs are the “crappy covers.”

…has listed all the ’80s and early ’90s films for which George W. Bush was a co-investor. They turn out to include Return to Oz, The Color of Money, Ruthless People, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Good Morning Vietnam, Ernest Goes to Camp, Outrageous Fortune, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Tin Men, Three Men and a Baby, Blaze, The Little Mermaid, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Pretty Woman, Beauty and the Beast, and Spaced Invaders.

…who wrote the first scholarly film book I’d ever read now offers his thoughts on just why Hollywood movies suck so much.

…my all-time favorite obscure Northwest movie Ring of Fire on home video. But you can see the trailer online, thanks to Turner Classic Movies.

…has reached its biggest slump in 20 years. The studios, as can only be expected, are blaming this catastrophe on everything except the suckiness of their product.

But I don’t intend today to talk about that, at least not directly. Rather, I’m ranting against the “news” media’s whoredom to the sucky-movie biz.

Even “local” news media are enthralled by the films we all hate, but which the studios desperately want us to love. I can’t even watch the KCPQ or KONG morning shows, or NorthWest Cable News, on a Thursday or Friday, ‘cuz every non-weather-and-traffic-together minute on those outlets on those days seems to be devoted to introducing the studios’ video press releases for this weekend’s new sucky movies. Then the following Monday, these same programs can’t stop repeating the “box office countdown” stories revealing how few people saw these same sucky movies.

O, for the old days of John Proccacino and Greg Palmer, when local TV stations had arts-and-entertainment reporters who got to cover actual local arts-and-entainment stories.

The puppeteer, cartoon-voice legend, and artificial-heart inventor (really!) was, according to his estranged daughter April, “a very troubled and unhappy man.” One could hardly expect any less from the voice of Gargamel and Dick Dastardly.

Like many of you, I enjoyed the word-candy that was the American Film Institute’s recent list of the “Top 100 Quotes From U.S. Films.” But, like many of you, I found too many of my own favotires missing, including these (in no order):

• “Z-Man! You’re a broad! A really ugly broad!”
• “I heard somebody wants to fuck the homecoming queen.”
• “You confess your sins, then you are not a sinner anymore.”
• “You really have a fine abdomen.”
• “Remember, I’m not double jointed.”
• “It looks much better on you than it does on her.”
• “What hump?”
• “It’s never just an egg.”
• “You know those Post-it Notes? We invented those.”
• “There are millions of guys. Be a man.”
• “It’s no trick to make a lot of money, if all you want to do is make a lot of money.”
• “I am the world’s strongest man AND most beautiful woman!”
• “The only thing I’m good at is lovin’.”
• “Let’s do crimes, like eat sushi and not pay!”

For the privilege of making a movie version of the video game Halo, the film companies were expected to put up all their own money. Microsoft would keep full creative control (including script and casting), would regularly send its people down to supervise everything at the filmmakers’ expense, and would keep all the merchandising rights.

Among the acclaimed actress’s dozens of film roles was The Slender Thread (1965), only the third major-studio feature film ever shot in Seattle. Bancroft shone as a suicidal mom (the original “desperate housewife”), calmed into continuing to live by Crisis Clinic volunteer Sidney Poitier. For a story contrived around a producer’s desire to team Poitier with a white actress but with no romance (the two characters never meet in person), it’s a near-classic of understated personal drama (and a beautiful B&W rendition of everyday life in post-world’s-fair Seattle).

…about media conglomerates getting ever-bigger? It’s working out to be a poor business strategy, at least as viewed by executives who only pay attention to The Almighty Stock Price.

Thus, Viacom’s thinking of spinning off CBS into a separate company. This comes just five years after Viacom (originally formed when CBS spun off its local cable systems and its pre-1972 rerun library) picked up CBS, which had been previously bought and spun off from Loew’s and Westinghouse.

The new CBS would include not just the eye-branded network and network-owned TV stations, but also the Infinity radio stations, the UPN mini-network, and the UPN-branded Viacom-owned TV stations (including KSTW here). Viacom would keep its cable channels (MTV, Spike, BET, et al.) and Simon & Schuster publishing.

Paramount Pictures would be severed, Solomon-baby-like. Viacom would keep the feature-film and DVD businesses; while CBS would get Paramount’s TV production and syndication arms (including all those old CBS shows). Among other results, this would mean TV Land (to remain part of Viacom) would have to pay CBS for most of the shows it airs.

American society and American discourse could still use more voices, more choices. There’s no guarantee that the split-up pieces of corporate media giants would behave any less corporately.

…what would happen if more people started living their ilves for the purpose of selling the movie rights.

…to Thurl Ravenscroft, whose deep resonant voice was heard in Disneyland singing-robot-animal shows, old time radio, religious albums, Elvis records, the animated film The Brave Little Toaster (as Kirby the vacuum cleaner), the original How the Grinch Stole Christmas (singing “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch”), and in commercials for over half a century as Tony the Tiger.

…of the best “All-Time 100 Movies” includes, besides most of the usual suspects, a few surprises–Detour, Brazil, Finding Nemo, A Touch of Zen, Talk to Her, Leolo, Miller’s Crossing, Ulysses’ Gaze, Drunken Master, Dodsworth, even the TV miniseries The Singing Detective. There’s still, alas, no critical reassessment of Revenge of the Cheerleaders.

Yep, once more the costumed and street-dressed throngs descended upon the Cinerama, engaged in a waiting and bonding ritual prior to the local premiere of a franchise fantasy sequel. This time, the film in question was the third-but-really-sixth Star Wars megamonster.

The low-budget, creaky-optical-effects charm of the original SW is, of course, long gone in this big digital-FX spectacle. The “New Hope” message of the first three films is also subsumed by the galactic-geopolitical epic plotline of the prequels.

I’ve previously written that the previous prequel, Attack of the Clones, was all about how a republic can devolve into an empire; it was an obvious parallel to the US political situation, even though Clones had been written before the 2000 election fraud and had been principally filmed before 9/11. Sith, some critics say, makes the analogy even more overt.

All that apparently didn’t matter (or, in SW geekspeak, “mattered not”) to the crowd that had gathered three-quarters around the block by 6 p.m. Wednesday, for the 12 a.m. Thursday premiere (and the 3:45 a.m. second show!). Some had camped out for days. (The self-proclaimed “Star Wars Guy,” who’d tried to camp out in front of the theater months before the premiere, had ran afoul of city authorities, and instead camped out in front of the IMAX theater at the Pacific Science Center.)

Anyhoo, the SW line was full of dudes, dudettes, and li’l tykes. All seemed boistrous and cheerful despite the miserable weather (torrential downpour, high winds, lightning). Some of them had brought card tables and card games. Some had portable DVD players spinning out the previous SW films. Some purchased light saber toys (with authentic SW sound effects) from roving vendors. Some teamed up to place Domino’s Pizza orders from cell phones, or to acquire snacks and beverages from Ralph’s deli-mart, kitty corner from the theater.

They were united in the spirit of fandom. They braved the elements, and the snickering local news media, to be part of something bigger than any mere movie. They were there to be among one another, to have fun, to dress up, to dare to look silly in public, to embrace their inner Jedi-osity.

That kind of spirit is potentially more powerful than any fictional “Force.” In a world gone all too serious, we need that spirit more than ever.

Besides his enjoyable, scenery-chompin’ roles on the original Batman, the original Star Trek, The Edge of Night, and many other TV series, I’ll particularly remember him from my all-time favorite never-released-on-home-video movie, the Washington-filmed Ring of Fire.