The BOURNE movies are slicker, smarter....and in a good way, colder. No one tries to stir up any touchy-tender feelings in this thing....fine!

And yet there's an emotional chord in SUPREMACY that's genuinely touching. It's about Matt Damon's Jason Bourne character being haunted by a killing he committed, and not being able to do a damn thing about it. Well, except apologize....but where's the solace in that?

There are many bad, abundantly stupid summer movies out there right now, and a lot more to come. This is one of the welcome exceptions. It's escapism, of course, but you have to turn your brain on, not off, to have fun with it.

I have one beef with SUPREMACY, and that's the frenetic, heebie-jeebie cutting here and there....but I'll deal with that later.

Once again, Matt Damon has his Jason Bourne character, an ex-CIA contract assassin stricken with amnesia, honed to a fine point. Damon owns this guy body and soul; he wears him like a second skin. I was thinking during the watching of SUPREMACY how how well he's handled his career over the last couple of years, in contrast to poor Ben Affleck.

SUPREMACY is also a great thing for director Greengrass, whom I spoke to a couple of years ago when his extraordinary, sadly-ignored masterpiece, BLOODY SUNDAY, was about to open via Paramount Classics.

SUPREMACY starts, I think, not too long after the ending of IDENTITY, when Jason had reunited with Franka Potente's Marie character on a Greek Island somewhere.

It kicks off in Berlin, confusingly, with a couple of spies getting killed by another guy (who turns out to be a Russian contract assassin, played by LORD OF THE RING's Karl Urban). I was going "what-the fuck?" for a while there, but the victims were doing some kind of information-for-cash deal that the CIA was interested to see happen. One of the victims was a CIA guy, and the Russian, for reasons we discover down the road, plants fingerprint evidence that points to Jason Bourne as the killer.

Cut to the southern coast of India, where Jason and Marie are apparently on vacation, and where Jason's having freaky nightmares. What do amnesiacs dream about except buried experiences that don't want to stay that way? Anyway, the Russian is suddenly in this same Indian village and trying to take Jason out. He nearly succeeds.

The phony evidence leads senior CIA operative Pamela Landy (Joan Allen) to travel to CIA headquarters at Langley to try and learn about the black ops assassin program that Bourne worked for when his memory was intact. Brian Cox's Ward Abbott, who was in charge of this program, urges everyone to kill Bourne (like he did in the last film), his motive, of course, being to cover something up. Guys like Abbott are always trying to get the good guy killed.

And then...what am I doing? I don't do plot recitations.

The big chase sequences -- two on wheels, one on foot -- are fantastic, and so are the fight scenes. But the editing, especially in the beginning and towards the end, is way too fast and crazy. I was actually angered by it a couple of times.

The culprits, I presume, are Greengrass, of course, and also his editors, Richard Pearson and Christopher Rouse. Maybe they were pressured from above. All I know is that the strobe cutting gets so intense you can't tell what's going on at times. In fact, this subject is so important I think it deserves its own headline....

Faster, Faster!

The cutting in ARMAGEDDON was like THE BOURNE SUPREMACY's at times; ditto BATMAN AND ROBIN. But does it have to be this way? Is there any chance that a people's revolt could persuade filmmakers to cool it a little?

Action-movie cutting is getting faster and faster...more and more MTV-hyper. And we all gradually adjust to the new rhythms. The cutting for the classic subway-car chase sequence in THE FRENCH CONNECTION is perfect, but that was the state of things 33 years ago. I loved the rapid-fire editing of the chicken-chasing sequence in CITY OF GOD, which is a good example of where things are now.

Still, some of the cutting in SUPREMACY pushes too fast and too hard...way.

I called up a director who just had an action film out a few months ago, to ask about this syndrome. He didn't want to go on the record, but he knows whereof he speaks. Blame not the directors or the editors, he says -- blame the studio execs.

"I am not a fan of overly frenetic cutting styles," he said. "And this is due, in part, to the fact that studio executives these days know far less than at any point in the history of Hollywood about production. Increasingly, you'll hear studio execs spout 'truths' of the marketplace, and one of these is that young audiences have been so influenced by MTV that they can't accept anything other than faster and more frenetic cutting.

"That's false and outrageous and dangerous to the business," he said. "It's yet another thing that's...well, it's false, first of all. The FRENCH CONNECTION subway chase is certainly one of the greatest action sequences of all time...you will not find an action sequence that affects you on a more visceral level than that, and it's cut quite quickly but in a way that lets you follow the geography...the cutting lets your eye to settle on an image here and there so you can root yourself and get your bearings.

"I know that mandates have been given in the editorial room by studio execs to cut it faster....cut it faster. I've heard this from a number of director friends, and when they're told this they'll always say back, 'Why?' and they'll hear back some arbitrary idiotic fiat like, 'Kids like it.' And in today's Hollywood, once that is offered as a way to do things, it's unassailable. Kids like it!

"These quick-cut techniques were really coming to the fore when THE ROCK was made, but if you look at it today it's not that bad by current standards...so yes, we adjust, we're malleable. But for me THE ROCK took it up to the limit and I can't go past that. I can't accept anything beyond that. ARMAGEDDON does go beyond that. I don't know what's happening, and my brain can't process it, and I get a headache.

"Every director I know has talked about this, everybody from McTiernan to Verhoeven and even Spielberg. I remember him talking about the cutting in the Omaha Beach sequence in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN and saying, 'Yeah well, it was my one kind of gesture to modern cutting techniques...he meant the frenetic choppy cutting in that sequence, which wasn't all that bad."

I haven't got time to get into this any further today, but if anyone has any particular beefs about overly-fast cutting in action films that has come close to pissing you off, please write in.

Next Phase

I've been quietly telling people around town that I'm nosing around for the next gig. I figured I'd line something up and then announce the new berth when I had the details sorted out. But David Poland broke the news yesterday in his "Hot Button" column, so I may as well cop to it. My Poop Shoot term will come to an end in late August.

Kevin Smith is one of the coolest and host humane guys I've ever known in this industry, and the Movie Poop Shoot guys I've worked with the last two years -- editor Chris Ryall and web-page designer Ming Chen, especially -- have been the best. I won't go into the reasons for my departure, but I will say everyone has been totally cool with each other, from Kevin on down.

I'll land somewhere; I've been talking to this and that editor. I may decide to cash in some stock to stay flush in the interim, or I may just lease out my private yacht. One way or the other "Hollywood Elsewhere" will continue into the fall and the foreseeable future, and without missing a beat.

Heat Seekers

Once again Michael Mann's 1995 crime classic HEAT has been invoked as a possible influence on the actions of a gang of real-life, heavily-armed, hard-core bank thieves.

The first instance was a February 1997 shoot-out in North Hollywood between heavily armed robbers and L.A. cops following a botched bank robbery. Descriptions of the fire-fight led many to observe that it seemed almost inspired by the stunning bank-robbery shoot-out scene in HEAT.

Mann's legendary gun battle, which easily matches the bloody finale in Sam Peckinpah's THE WILD BUNCH for sheer adrenalized ferocity, happens when Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer and their partners are ambushed by LAPD shooters as they emerge from a downtown LA bank robbery. The parallels between this and the real-life '97 shoot-out were obvious.

Now Mann's film, which he wrote as well as directed, has been referenced again in a 7.12 story in the WASHINGTON POST. The story is about a team of robbers who have hit six banks in the Washington, D.C.-lower Maryland area in the last six months, and escaped with roughly $370,000.

"Each time the robbers have been armed with high-powered rifles and outfitted in masks and bulky clothing that may cover body armor," wrote POST staffer Del Quentin Wilber, adding that the thieves "act with military-style precision in teams of three or more."

Wilber reported that then robberies "unfold in a matter of minutes as the masked, highly disciplined assailants threaten employees and customers with assault rifles and handguns" and that authorities "credit [the thieves'] organization and planning as much as their speed and firepower for enabling them to carry out six holdups in six months and remain on the run."

The thieves "have stolen cars and vans for each holdup, sometimes weeks in advance," the story continued. "Targets appear carefully selected, near major roads that offer several ways to escape. The robbers likely are using lookouts. Their bulky clothing and masks have frustrated attempts to identify them, despite surveillance photos and tapes.

"After loading up on cash, the robbers have sped away, disappearing into neighborhoods where they ditch and burn their getaway vehicles. The tactic destroys evidence, officials said, and distracts any officers who might be on their trail."

This is a fairly close description of the way De Niro and Kilmer's gang pull off jobs in HEAT. Taking down scores near major roads with several escape routes, ditching and burning escape vehicles, using high-powered weaponry, focusing on carefully-cased targets. The only thing DeNiro's gang didn't do was wear bulky clothing. Not sexy enough, I suppose.

"Does this look like gang-bangers to you, knocking off a local 7-11?" says Al Pacino's Vincent Hanna in the wake of an early payroll-truck robbery by DeNiro's gang.

In Wilber's POST story, he quotes Alex J. Turner, assistant special agent in charge of the criminal division of the FBI's Washington field office, as saying, "These are not off-the-cuff robberies.

Wilber reports at the end of the story that investigators are theorizing that "the strongest influence on the gang might be the 1995 movie HEAT, a drama about a heavily armed band of robbers, or television shows depicting similar crimes."

I left a message for Mann on Tuesday morning at his production office, Forward Pass, in hopes of eliciting a comment.

All this really shows is that he got the details right in portraying the modus operandi of high-end thievery, which he obviously got from research. The notion that HEAT might have inspired the D.C.-area gang is obviously speculation, but if it turns out to be true I wouldn't be surprised. I've never read a specific report about this, but it's an article of trust that Hollywood bad guys have been inspiring real-life criminals for decades, and vice versa.

Killer Divas

It's been suggested in biographical jottings about Marilyn Monroe that the stress and tension she brought to the set of John Huston's THE MISFITS (constant tardiness, emotional volatility, etc.) might have contributed to the heart attack that killed her co-star Clark Gable. He died not long after shooting wrapped in November 1960.

But linking this to Monroe's difficult behavior was speculation. An IMDB bio says that Gable "diligently performed his own stunts, taking its toll on his already guarded health," so who knows? If Gable had written letters to friends accusing Monroe of contributing to his weakened heart, okay...but he didn't.

But famed director John Schlesinger has.

Letters and documents have been made public in which the late director, whose credits include MIDNIGHT COWBOY, DARLING, and MARATHON MAN, directly accuses Madonna, another demanding, tempestuous blonde, of having contributed to a heart attack he suffered in 1998.

Schlesinger died almost exactly a year ago (July 25, 2003) after being taken off life support at a hospital in Palm Springs, California. He suffered a stroke in December 2000 after undergoing quadruple heart bypass surgery two years earlier.

According to letters and documents recently bequeathed to the British Film Institute, Schlesinger blames Madonna for giving him extraordinary grief during the filming of THE NEXT BEST THING, in which she plays a woman who becomes pregnant by her gay best friend, played by Rupert Everett, after a drunken one-night-stand.

Shortly after completing shooting on the film, the 73 year-old director was diagnosed with heart failure and underwent a quadruple heart bypass operation. Schlesinger had apparently complained of being "exhausted" before he left Los Angeles at the end of the NEXT BEST THING shoot.

Schlesinger's letter and production notes complain that Madonna tried to influence every aspect of the production, from the music to the final cut. According to a recent story in a British paper, an unsigned memo suggests that the actress, then 41, "wanted producers to 'beautify' 34 shots of her with CGI."

In a letter written in December 1999, to his agent, Andrew Cannava, Schlesigner also laid some of the blame for his collapse on Madonna's collaboration with Tom Rosenberg, the film's producer, to change the film.

"I am f***ing angry with Tom being influenced by Madonna," Schlesinger wrote. "We have tried all of these changes before . . . I do not for one moment think that their behaviour has not added to the reasons I have ended up here."

Okay, probably....but directing is a hard thing to do for a living. It's an activity that guys in weakened conditions should always approach with caution. There is comfort in the fact that Steven Soderbergh, who's reportedly been having difficulty with Julia Roberts on the shoot of OCEAN'S 12, is a young man in good health.

Final Drips

If Baz Luhrman's ALEXANDER THE GREAT movie is indeed kaput, as press sources are once again reporting (the latest emission being from London's DAILY TELEGRAPH by way of the NEW YORK POST's "Page Six"), it's been one of the slowest-breaking stories in the history of film-industry coverage.

The "Page Six" item said Luhrman has "called off his epic," which was to have starred Nicole Kidman and Leonardo DiCaprio. I couldn't find the DAILY TELEGRAPH story they were cribbing from, but I thought the project's demise was fairly obvious last fall when Luhrmann was quoted saying he'd be taking an extended furlough following the birth of his daughter.

As I recall, this followed a trade story that producer Dino de Laurentiis had run into difficulty with Asian investors over concerns about Oliver Stone's ALEXANDER, with Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie, Val Kilmer and Anthony Hopkins in lead roles, which posed an obvious threat to Luhrman's project by its ability to hit theatres first.

I've been saying the obvious all along, which is that it would be gross insanity for two $100 million-plus super-epics about the same ancient-era conqueror to be produced more or less simultaneously and released against each other.

On 10.11.02, I wrote that DiCaprio's then-recent decision to commit to star in Martin Scorsese's THE AVIATOR "has apparently pushed back plans" for his starring in Luhrman's ALEXANDER THE GREAT. Baz would have had to begin in early '03 to beat Stone's movie, but THE AVIATOR shoot meant DiCaprio wouldn't be able to make Luhrman's until the fall of '03, at the earliest.

That sounded like the death knell then and there. Then six months later (on 4.18.03), I pointed to a quote-in-passing from DiCaprio's publicist Ken Sunshine stating that Leo and Baz weren't necessarily aligned.

I reported in this story that the Leo/Baz ALEXANDER, a Universal/DreamWorks co-venture, was supposed to begin filming in November, according to a HOLLYWOOD REPORTER production chart, or about two months after the September start date of Stone's film

The Sunshine quote, given to the NEW YORK POST, was that DiCaprio "may not even get around to making ALEXANDER. Right now, THE AVIATOR is the only definite."

That was it, I concluded. And yet Baz's Alexander project has been presumed in some quarters to still have a glimmer of a pulse. Go figure.

Luhrmann's Australian rep Maria Farmer is saying Baz has not scuttled his Alexander project. "Baz is currently in Europe working on the final draft of the script," and that when he completes it "he'll decide whether Alexander is the next film on his slate. We do not know where these reports have originated from. They certainly did not come from Baz."

Candidate Crap

The extremely bright and capable David Poland, editor of Movie City News, was kind enough to link to my early-bird review of THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE two days ago (i.e., Monday) on his site. Thanks, pally. Except it ran three days after my review first appeared, and it cast a shadow on my motives.

David's link to my review read, "Q: What's The Best Way To Get Early Access & No Embrago on a Scott Rudin Movie? A: Print Negative Rumors About The Film That Get Picked Up By Page Six." The link is prefaced by "S&J...All So B&D," which stands for "Scott and Jeff...All So Bondage-y and Discplined."

He's asserting that I whored myself out to Rudin by delivering a kiss-ass review of THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE to make up for writing a who-knows?, maybe-or-maybe not piece for the June 30th column about CANDIDATE possibly having shot a new ending. Poland has thrown the occasional dart at me and my column for years, but this latest thing misses the board.

Poland is a media critic, among other things. He can therefore zing a fellow columnist by questioning his integrity, obviously a core issue for anyone in this racket, but if you zing Poland or throw a preemptive spitball in his direction, he gets all huffy.

The 6.30 story was inconclusive. It came from a trusted source, but I was also told by a Paramount publicist it was untrue, which I reported. I also wrote in the story, "Okay, it may not be true," and added that in any case "shooting a new ending is no biggie." The NEW YORK POST's "Page Six" column ran with the gist of the item a day or so later, leaving out the uncertainties and equivocations, as they tend to do.

Then on July 2nd I reported that Rudin had gotten on the phone and told me directly that the "recent extra shooting didn't involve a new ending - 'no new writing' -- and that it was all about pieces and close-ups and whatnot."

At the same time, Rudin said I could go to a CANDIDATE screening the following week, or last Wednesday. Okay, maybe he was gambling I'd like it and would therefore nullify the impression of the previous piece on some level by writing a positive review, but what if I thought it sucked? The earlier story or the Page Six item wasn't mentioned during our chat.

So I went and saw THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE and, to my surprise, liked it, despite having wondered in this space last year what the point was in remaking the original 1962 version by John Frankenheimer. I conveyed my initial reactions to a Paramount publicist after the screening, and I was told in return it would be cool to write about it the following Friday.

If and when the big studios let you see a film early on they sometimes, depending on the angle of their strategy, let you run an early-bird review. But it's always understood that if your reaction is negative or even mezzo-mezzo you'll keep quiet about it until opening day.

I called Demme's film "a better, fiercer, more jolting thing" than the Frankenheimer, and said that "as dark-toned political thrillers ever made, this is easily one of the best." But I was also very precise and measured in my comments, and admitted to having a couple of beefs with it. I wrote that I was giving the Demme a B-plus, or in other words less than a total bend-over rave.

I said that "if the Frankenheimer was mostly a dialogue-driven thing -- men talking in this and that room about clues and indications -- the Demme, no less smart or canny on its own terms, is a psycho trip....a mindbender. It's darker and creepier than the original, and a lot more unhinged.

"If you're going to do a remake, this is the way to go," I added. "Show respect, adhere to the original bones, update as intelligently as possible, but at the same time cut loose and put on your freak hat. Demme's film is its own bird, but also tethered to the nightmares and goblins of our time as fully as Frankenheimer's was to the currents of the Kennedy era."

So where's the bondage and discipline? I suppose by the Poland barometer the only honorable thing would have been to... what?....find a way to not like it and then wait to say so on opening day, so as to maintain a seeming consistency? Does he feel that my report-of-a-new-ending story was a kind of opinion piece, and that my subsequently expressing a 90% approval of the finished film was...what?....some kind of cop-out?

Poland replies: "You misunderstand the headline, the inference and my motivations. You can't comprehend my barometer because it is a little too steeped in principle. Sorry...I know it's terribly unfair to have standards.

"Also, you have chosen to report your actions and motivations selectively. If I thought either your spitball attack on the film or your subsequent embrace of it was worth as much as a dart, I would throw it. And if my hide were not already rhino tough, I might feel the dart you have sent in my direction.

"The headline was simple. You wrote a speculative piece about a re-shoot with no real information to offer based on second-hand speculation. You acknowledged as much, it's true. But the piece was so short on any factual information that it offered nothing to your readers except gossip and nothing to the film but potential p.r. damage. And indeed, there was a Page Six piece based on it. (I didn't see the follow-up about how much you liked the film.)

"Two days after that Page Six piece ran, Rudin allowed you to see the film and, according to you, Paramount publicists then allowed you to write without an embargo. One followed the other. You were a source of trouble, above and beyond your column, and you were then rewarded by Mr. Rudin. Now, if that's a fact...tell me, am I lying?"

Wells to Poland: No, you're not "lying," Rhino Man, but you sure do seem to enjoy poking at others with that big ivory horn. The point of my piece above is that I can't answer for the actions or motives of others; I can only answer for mine

Aussie Crap

"Wells a.k.a. shit for brains.....my ass THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE remake is better then the Frankenheimer classic. Get your hand off it, you rump jockey!

"Big fuckin' deal that your deadshit sons gave it the thumbs up. Is the mere fact that your pea brained 16 year old wanted to watch something else after 45 minutes of the original supposed to give the remake some kind of cred? All it tells me that your twat of a son has the attention span of a gnat and his taste is in his ass. He is probably the kind of douche bag that ensures pieces of shit like the MATRIX movies, SPIDERMAN, THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS and the X-MEN flicks pull in zillions.

"I watched the original during it's revival in the late 80s and I was roughly the same age as your son. As I appreciated intelligent cinema I was blown away. Clearly the same cannot be said for you, you dribbling, docile fuckwad." -- Adrian of Australia

Wells to Adrian: I saw the original too when I was fairly young, and I was damn impressed. Standards are different today, I guess. What I mainly said is that the Demme perhaps isn't as nimble or quirky or stylish as the Frankenheimer, but it's freakier, more jolting....more of a power-drill thing. I said that the sum of this is that the Demme seeps more deeply into your psyche than the '62 version and basically knows how to turn the screws in ways attuned to today's post-9.11 psychological climate.

Jett Wells to Adrian: The first MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE didn't drive me crazy, and in fact I came close to falling asleep. I'm not saying the original was a shit-bomb, but it just didn't do it for me. And in comparing the two versions there's no contest that Denzel pulls it off better than Sinatra. I don't give passes to films that are in it mainly for the money, like the ones you stated before, excepting the first MATRIX. I usually do not witness such transformations of films that show improvement at the same time. If you know a of well-made remake, please tell me. Maybe it's my modernized taste in movies that has wrecked my view on the classic perspective, but this original just didn't have what it took to make it in "my book." The new MANCHURIAN pulls it off nicely and even improved [things] with the changes to the original story, and it still worked. Well done.

Collateral Viper

I erred in using the term DV (or digital video) to describe the photography process that Michael Mann used on his new film COLLATERAL. It was shot on digital tape and all, and to me DV means digital tape but....well, this guy explains it:

"Michael Mann's COLLATERAL is not a DV movie like various Sundance films are DV movies, shot on digital video using light and tiny DV cameras. (Danny Boyle's 28 DAYS LATER is a notable example of a DV movie.) Mann used Thomson's Viper FilmStream camera, a high-definition video camera that is designed to shoot Cinemascope aspect ratio (2:35 to 1) pictures that can be printed on film.

"This is extremely expensive hardware that is far beyond the reach of independent filmmakers who can buy (or borrow) a couple thousand dollar DV camera and get acceptable results. The Viper competes directly with Sony's own high-end high-def cameras, the ones that George Lucas uses on his STAR WARS films.

"Here's some info on the Thomson camera: http://www.thomsongrassvalley.com/ products/cameras/viper." -- Milton Broadhound

"I saw the same preview you did of COLLATERAL and was un-impressed by the look of the DV, but I also attended the same screening as Chipman, and the actual movie was crisp and beautiful. I can see what they mean about a sci-fi look to it. It feels very alive.

"The best way I can put it is that DV allows every background pin prick of light to shine so that the screen just fills up with light and activity, but not in a way that disctracts ...except it wasn't precisely shot on DV.

"I agree that COLLATERAL is no HEAT, but I thought made LA look as beautiful as you can make it look. It was shot at locations that LA movies never touch (Tejano nightclubs, the shabby apartments west of downtown, what looked like Long Beach). I would recommend the movie although it does lose steam about 2/3rds of the way through and kind of limps to a conclusion. Watching it I couldn't help but wonder what Adam Sandler would have done with the Jamie Foxx role." -- Jerome Pitt

Wallow Walla

"You're dead on about ANCHORMAN, which for me is another of those Chinese food comedies (DODGE BALL, THE SWEETEST THING) that leave you hungry for a film with genuine characters, emotions and laughs as soon as you leave the theatre. Two things: Ferrell's chain-smoking, sotto-voiced newsman seems to be based on Tom Snyder in his 'Tomorrow' hosting days. Howcum no one mentions this?" -- John Kane, West Hollywood, CA.

Wells to Kane: Dan Aykroyd used to do Snyder on SNL in the '70s....one of his regular bits. Wasn't quite the same guy as Ferrell's. Funnier, I thought, because you could feel Aykroyd's intelligence snap-crackling underneath. His take on Snyder, after all, wasn't that he was an absolute cretin a la Ferrell, but a pompous windbag who took himself too seriously.

"I laughed harder at your son's assessment of ANCHORMAN than I did for the entire film itself. You should include his opinion for dumb-ass teenager flicks more often. My favorite: "I especially liked the silly, wacky style of the humor. It reminded me of my own way of joking and fooling around and using quick, predictable insults like 'whore, bitch, skank.'' I woke my roommate up because I was laughing so hard after reading that bit.

"I am afraid to ask if you merely fabricated the comments to simulate what your average teenager would think about ANCHORMAN. If you did, don't spoil it by saying so. There are a lot more dumb flicks that you are going to (justifiably) tear apart this summer, so I heartily recommend getting a quip or two from Jett on a regular basis. His comments made my morning. Plus, many of the fanboys would be a bit hesitant to send you hate mail if you included his views." -- John McGillicutty

Wells to McGillicutty: Jett wrote every word. Thanks for saying this.

Brando

"Brando's last years on film are only slightly better than Orson Welles' occasional appearances in things like Pia Zadora's BUTTERFLY, but there is one really lovely performance from his last years-- and it's the one that could have been the occasion for a sad trashing of his legacy: his Don Corleone parody in THE FRESHMAN.

"Even with the comic setup of the film, he radiates so much warmth and grandfatherly charm, and the scene in Broderick's dorm room, where he reads Brando the poem his own late father had written, is truly touching. Maybe it only proves that he still had talent to waste at that late date (1990), but it's nice that he left one thing worth saving from his old age." -- Mike Gebert

"I haven't seen (and hope never to see) ANCHORMAN, but I did finish my GODFATHER trilogy over the weekend, which was the end of my Brando farewell. (Did you know the family name was originally Brandeau or maybe Brandeaux?).

"Aside from the fact that every time I see GODFATHER III I love it more, and it really is starting to mesh with the others, Andy Freaking Garcia (in bed with Bridget Fonda) definitely deserves a place in your chest/belly hair-gone-wild pantheon, although I'll leave it up to you to decide whether he's closer to the Connery or Farrell end of the continuum. Boy, you don't see chests like that much anymore, not in these days of rampant body shaving and asshole bleaching." -- Kevin Smith (not the boss, but a guy who lives in the Phillipines).

C2

"I read the blurb in Friday's column about C2. I work for Coca-cola in Arkansas. When the higher-ups met with us about the C2 rollout a while back, they told us that it would have about 94% market penetration less than a week after it hit stores. Most everywhere I've traveled since, the supply has been plentiful. The only place I didn't see it was a convenience store in Bucksnort, TN, on my way home from Knoxville today. So unless you're frequenting stores in rural Tennessee, you should be able to find it." -- Bryan Sullivan, Carlisle, AR.

"Here's some info on where to buy C 2 in Southern California. The grocery stores don't carry it, but Target does have it in stock. They even had a promotion for it when I bought some. The closest Targets near Hollywood are West Hollywood Target at 7100 Santa Monica Blvd. Ste 201 or LA Target at 3535 S. La Cienega Blvd. Hope this helps!" -- Christina

Cracchiolo

"Thanks for the obit on Dan Cracchiolo. I worked with Dan on the development of THE MATRIX and LETHAL WEAPON 4 and was stunned by what it took to keep up with him. A lot of people were either scared of him or didn't like him, but I'd sum up Dan by the line John Amos says to Bruce Willis in Silver's DIE HARD 2, "I'm just your kind of asshole."

"Dan loved to torture his assistants. There was always time for a bit of immaturity and he was always on the look-out for accomplices. I started as an intern so I got my fair share (fresh squeezed o.j., wheat bread, no butter and a pitcher of water every morning on his desk, and absolutely no fingerprints on any of the glasses) but managed to get past that with him quick.

"The look on Dan's face when he'd close his door for certain casting auditions was priceless. I wasn't supposed to be even working in the States but he went to bat to get me a job so I could stay longer. Great guy, and my kind of asshole.

"For the last five years, I've checked up on what he was up to through the IMDB but saw nothing at all for the last two or so years. I'd assumed the worst knowing about some of Dan's 'issues' but was hoping he'd simply told Joel where to go and gone out on his own. Glad to see he did just that, but also sad to hear the news. " -- Zev