Sometimes it’s funny to write a straight up the middle "ba-da-dump-tssh!" kind of joke and let the chips fall where they may. Say what you will, but I had a lot of fun doing the little pieces of character expressions in this one.

Blades of Glory is a movie that I’ve been excited about ever since I saw the early trailers. Will Ferrell in his custom cocky snarl uttering "You’re welcome, Stockholm…" just gets to me for some reason. I think this movie is going to be a real hoot. Ferrell is always at his best when he plays the cock-sure buffoon.

I recognize that Ferrell isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Every time I comment on how much I love his movies, invariably someone comes out of the woodwork to tell me how much he sucks. Obviously humor is probably the most subjective of art forms and the further out on a limb a performer goes, the more likely he is to attract equally forceful detractors. Whoever it shakes out, I’ve thrown my lot in with Ferrell and that’s pretty much all she wrote. Even in his worst movies, I can still find things I like.

Cami and I were able to get away for the house for a little while this weekend and see Reign Over Me and I really liked it. I’ll be doing a short, 100 word review of the movie that I will be submitting to The Des Moines Register as part of an online contest where they are looking to hire a new stable of reviewers. I wrote a post about it on Friday. There’s an online component to this competition. They’re going to select a handful of reviews and let their readers decide which one’s the like best. The reviewers with the most votes get added to the team. I’m going to call you guys in for backup when the time comes. Until then, keep your eyes peeled.

I was going to tell a story about the trials we went through to get there, but I have a comic about Reign Over Me in mind for Wednesday and I think I’ll wait to share it then. We’ll be talking about Reign Over Me during tonight’s Triple Feature talkcast and I might tell the story there, so you might get a little preview. We’ll also be talking about Netflix and the rumor that the company is attempting to make deals with local public libraries to distribute through them. We’re still doing a little bit of research on that one, so it’ll be interesting to see how it shakes out.

If neither of those options interest you, what about the promise of free stuff?

In a partnership with 20th Century Fox, I will be giving away copies of Copying Beethoven starring Ed Harris and which will be coming out on DVD next Tuesday, April 3rd. But the only way you can win is if you listen to tonight’s show.

At the end of the broadcast, I will be sharing one half of a secret code. Listen in and write it down. Then, be sure to come back to Theater Hopper on Wednesday for the second half of the secret code that will be right here in the blog. Send in the complete code to theaterhopper@hotmail.com with the subject "Beethoven" along with you name, age and full mailing address and the winners will be selected at random!

It would be great if we could get a lot of participation on this one. The more we generate buzz for this promotion, the greater likelihood that we’ll be able to do bigger and better promotions like this one in the future! So remember The Triple Feature talkcast TONIGHT at 9:00 PM CST.

In the meantime, be sure to check out Copying Beethoven when it comes out on DVD April 3rd!

See you then!