It’s been one of those weeks…

I know how much people enjoy when I start making excuses about not getting the column done on time – or at all, as happened this Tuesday. But it’s been pretty relentless lately. I guess it could be slowed significantly if I stopped saying “yes” to things… but I like saying “yes” to things.

Between the Disney board fight and the National Board of the Ridiculous and the IFP double feature, “Independent Spirit Nominations” & “Courtroom a Go Go,” there is a lot to chew on… and I haven’t even started to mine the MCN 100 for trends.

At the movies, Rings has been the thing. I’ve seen it twice this week and I don’t think anyone’s going to be disappointed… including Jeffrey Wells, who will hate it like he hates all non-literal movies… except Kill Bill, Volume One, which apparently reminded him of an ex who cut him once.

There have been some other movies, but I’m not allowed to talk to you about them quite yet. This includes on that I have to go see at 10am this morning… which means, the real column (and for that matter, the real MCN 20 Weeks To Oscar column) will have to wait until the afternoon, as even just 6 hours of sleep won’t give me enough time to write before my screening.

I know… more info than you needed… but the schedule should relax a bit after this week. Dear God, I hope so… and I hope not… geez… pretty Smeagol/Gollum of me, huh?

READER OF THE DAY: JOHNNY ENGLISH writes: “Well, Disney does seem pretty soulless these days. Some examples:

1. Last year we got a Disney Trivia game. There are five categories. Animation, Film, Song, People, Mousellaneous. 95% of the Mousellaneous questions are about the theme parks.

2. Disney not only churns out the straight-to-video crap like Atlantis II, but they're now sending them to theaters first, like The Jungle Book 2, which did not deserve big-screen treatment. Whenever they package together DVD deals, like seven Disney titles for $70, at least one of them is a straight-to-video sequel. (Get Bambi, Dumbo, Robin Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Lady and the Tramp 2 and Hunchback of Notre Dame 2 today!) Thank goodness for DVD though. Rent any

Disney video from the past 10 years and you'll get commercials for a Disney theme park, a Disney cruise, Disney songs, a Disney TV show, maybe some ABC shows, Disney video games, previews for Disney movies, and maybe even a personal message from Michael Eisner before your feature presentation. It was 20 minutes of fast-forwarding every time.

3. I despise the way they position every Pixar movie on a date where DreamWorks has already scheduled an animated film.

4. ABC's marketing plan of the past two years is to emphasize the color yellow.”

And BUFFALO BRI goes wild (with naughty language): “After seeing Lost in La Mancha, on DVD, how can anyone really attack any movie just by seeing how hard it is to actually make one? How many people on earth actually have the constitution to roll with punches when shit happens? Terry Gilliam’s dream of a decent Don Quixote movie never seems to be given a shot by any studio or even by nature itself. But, then he pisses me off in that Telluride Film Festival interview with Salman Rushdie, on disc 2, by saying he could do Harry Potter better, edit Close Encounters of the Third Kind better, make E.T’s appearance better, etc. I watch a lot of Charlie Rose on PBS and he has had just about everyone on his show from authors, Presidents, actors, directors to you-name-it. I will always remember what he said about people, he has interviewed, who at the top of their professions. Charlie said such people don’t need to be arrogant or nasty. They know who they are and have a confidence that doesn’t require such pettiness Gilliam seems to possess. The Matrix and Star Wars movies are way to difficult to be cast aside by critics who really are just misplaced sportswriters or whatever newspaper arenas editors have moved them from.

After saying this, allow me to trash some of his stuff (12 Monkeys and Time Bandits were pretty good but not good enough to own on DVD): Brazil sucked, Fear and Loathing was retarded, and I couldn’t see how anything he would have put to film in The Man Who Killed Don Quixote would have made a compelling enough movie trailer for me to give it any thought of going see it in theaters. I changed my mind in this second paragraph because Terry pissed me off.

Gilliam is not confident. Stay in London, you American jackass.”

E ME: Viggo’s cut his hair… most of the actors are unrecognizable in person if the film is your only point of reference… Peter & Fran were like a just wed couple at a wedding, all they were missing was Mark Ordesky standing around accepting envelopes full of cash… but I do think I heard a truck full of cash backing up to the party tent… instead of that irritating beeping, it played the Universal theme… any other questions?