Film

This is -- gulp -- Bugs Bunny's 70th birthday:

While we're waiting for the Supreme Court to finalize arms-bearing as an individual right in that Chicago case, here's something fun: "5 ridiculous gun myths everyone believes (thanks to movies)." No. 1 on the list is, "Bullets explode everything," especially things that are flammable such as car gas tanks. The problem is that:

ERIC SEGAL DIED LAST WEEK.

Oh, yeah, and Probert B. Parker, too.

Does that convey typographically that I was annoyed by the coverage of their deaths? Well, I was peeved, anyway. In fact, I had a near Mother Teresa moment. She and Princess Diana, recall, died within days of each other in 1997, and the coverage seemed stunningly lopsided. Oh, dear God, Di has been taken from us! How can any of us cope with our grief? She can never be replaced! The world mourns! Oh, yeah, and some nun expired. Worked with the poor or something.

I've always been impressed by people who have talent in more than one area. And I have so much respect for people who can create music. So I'm especially awed by those who succeed in one field but probably could have done well in music, too. Politicians like Bill Clinton and his saxophone and Condi Rice and her piano. Comedian Jack Benny and his violin. NBA great Oscar Robinson with his flute.

So James Cameron now has two $1 billion movies. I saw the first one, which was supposed to be this magic combination of chick flick and guy movie, but my friend (a chick) and I (a guy) both had the same reaction: Will you please stop with the schmaltz and just sink the damn ship already!!?!??

Just a follow-up to my reported intent last week to go see the new "Sherlock Holmes" movie. We did, and I enjoyed it very much. I would recommend it as an entertaining movie that doesn't pretend to be anything else. I sort of agree with Steven Barnes, who "really wanted to love this movie" and instead "just kind of liked it. A lot." Since I didn't have any particular expectations but also liked it a lot, I guess that makes my review a tad stronger than his.

Roman Polanski, who drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl, in a letter to the "French intellectual" Bernard-Henri Lévy, is expressing his "overwhelming" graditude for all the messages of sympathy he has received "from across the world":

Last year, my sister's intended trip to Fort Wayne to spend Christmas with me and mutual friends was thwarted by the weather -- you remember that lovely ice storm, don't you? So she came up the following week, and we celebrated Christmas on New Year's Day. That was such a good experience that we decided to start a new tradition, so we'll be celebrating the holiday a week late this year, too.

Ever see "Anatomy of a Murder?" It's a great, gritty courtroom drama from Otto Preminger, considered pretty daring for its time (1959) and featuring one of Jimmy Stewart's best performances. At the heart of the story is the character played by Lee Remick, a boozy, cheerfully amoral slut of an Army wife ("slut" in the film noir movie sense, I hasten to add, not in the 21st century making moral judgments sense).