Give it up to my good buddy Mitch Clem for closing out this period of guest strips on a high note. He took the happy accident that occured when Brandon J. Carr and Fred Grisolm reached the same conclusion with their strips and turned it into a great running gag! I’m thinking this is probably something worth running with when I hop back into the saddle on Monday. At the very least to kind of prime the pump before I launch back into full movie commentary mode.

I must give sincere props to the others who helped me out while I was away. That includes Ali Graham, Joe Dunn, MadMup and Mike Morgan. These are all guys who have gone to bat for me before and I feel especially lucky and humbled that I have reliable friends such as these. Be sure to check out each of their web sites for a concentrated dose of their talents! Thanks, guys!

Being on vacation in Walt Disney World is sort of like being on another planet… or Texas. You feel totally severed from the modern world and the events that occur in it. Crap, even the TV stations piped into the hotel rooms are all Disney-owned. No cable except for The Disney Channel, Lifetime, ESPN and so on.

So shamefully, I didn’t have an opportunity to see V for Vendetta when it came out last Friday. I’ve been begging Cami to see it since we got back in town Tuesday night, but she’s been reluctant. Now she’s telling me she has no interest in seeing it at all and I can see it by myself when she returns to her night classes next week. Grr.

Oh, well. At any rate, Inside Man comes out today and she’s more in step with seeing that. I like to think it’s because she’s REALLY into Christopher Plummer, but I have a feeling it might have more to do with Clive Owen playing the heavy. Really, how can you NOT love Clive Owen.

Tossing in Densel Washington and Jodie Foster into the mix doesn’t hurt. What really surprised me, though was learning that Spike Lee was behind the lens on this one. You totally wouldn’t have guessed it from the trailer. That’s probably a good thing. The film looks like a straight-up-the-middle urban crime thriller. But I think we all know that Lee is a little bit smarter than that and reviews seem to indicate some really intelligent twists on the genre. So I’m looking forward to a good time.

I’ve felt way behind on movies all year. It’s not atypical for January and February to be slow. But now that we’re almost done with March, I feel almost starved. I think seeing these two movies will go a long way toward correcting that.