I think any movie fan worth their salt is familiar with Movie Law #948: Sean Bean Dies In Every Movie He’s In. I don’t care if the punchline of this strip falls a little flat. I just feel better broadcasting Movie Law #948 to the world so that we may all recognize it an celebrate it.

Of course there is a web site dedicated to all things Sean Bean and it keeps a running tally of the movies in which he bites it and the movies where he lives to see another day. For a career as long and varied as Bean’s, his batting average of deaths-per-film isn’t as high as you might expect. But it seems idiosyncratic that the more high-profile Bean becomes, the more often he dies on screen. I was almost tempted to make a chart.

Almost.

You have to wonder if it’s some kind of movie star reverse psychology. Kind of like how Tom Cruise or Johnny Depp almost pathologically INSIST on having their good looks mangled for their performances, perhaps Bean’s commitment to a perpetual on-screen demise is his way to make the audience invest in his work – make people care about him more? Who is this man who insists on dying in every single movie? Can I join his fan club? Is there a mailing list?"

Incidentally, Sean Bean and The Hitcher were topics discussed between myself Joe Dunn from Joe Loves Crappy Movies and Goron McAlpin from Multiplex in our weekly talkcast The Triple Feature on Monday night. If you missed it, you can download a copy of the broadcast from iTunes and listen to it in your free time. It’s only an hour long. Listen to it while you’re folding laundry.

In addition to The Hitcher, we also talked about Mike Judge’s Idiocracy and the career of Wes Anderson. We also discussed Monday night’s broadcast of The Golden Globes and I totally predicted Babel winning Best Motion Picture – Drama moments before it happened. That’s a feather in my cap. It was particularly funny because right before they read the winner, Joe said Babel was the one film he knew WOULDN’T win. Just goes to show who you should talk to about picking your lottery numbers!

There wasn’t really anything during the broadcast which surprised me except Forest Whitaker winning for The Last King of Scotland. I’m a big Forest Whitaker fan, but I’m not used to him winning anything. Beyond that, several safe choices. Could mean that we’re in for a very boring Oscar telecast this year. We’ll see.

The one thing I thought was kind of shocking reading all the awards show recaps was the subtle level of outrage and shock that Cars won Best Animated Feature. When your competition is Happy Feet and Monster House, what do you expect? I mean Monster House was good. Really good, in fact. But it’s not "Best" anything material. Pixar has shored up so much positive collateral, they can nearly do no wrong. Was Cars the best movie Pixar every produces. Plainly, no. But it’s still a heck of a lot better than Happy Feet.

Was there anything from The Golden Globes this week that surprised you? Any of your favorite movies or performers you feel were robbed? Leave your comments!