A confession...I SUCK at box office predictions. Nonetheless, with the three massive titles of this May, it's hard not to ponder the future. I full-heartedly believe "Spider-Man 3" will win this war, easily taking in over $400 Million. It's marketing has been huge, and smart. It'll be the first to hit. The buzz has been slowly building. And the second installment was an improvement over the first, leaving the audience begging for more.

I suspect "Pirates" and "Shrek" will get to $300 Million each (hardly shabby) but are nevertheless past their prime. The marketing for "Shrek the Third," in particular, I feel has been quite poor while I can't help but wonder if "At World's End" is being released too close to "Dead Man's Chest."

Thoughts?

One of my two or three best friends in the world is a grad student at Virginia Tech. Yesterday morning he was supposed to be in the engineering building of Norris Hall that we all know quite well today to assist in teaching an undergrad class. He just happened to be running ten minutes late, arriving just as a massacre was waning.

I'm in the middle of a three month long road trip that will put me in Blacksburg to see my friend a week from today. One week and I'd have potentially been strolling a campus that became a sudden, unexpected war zone.

Sometimes a course of events can affect your life for its duration, as it has the friends and family of at least 33 individuals. Sometimes...sometimes it can simply scare the shit out of you.

It has scared the shit out of me.

I'm deep in the south now, and visiting a buddy in Athens, Georgia over the weekend, we decided to take in the buzz flick of the moment.

Let's face it. It's shit from start to finish, and that might well be the idea. But Rodriguez proves yet again that he's got great style and panache, a wonderful sense of tone, and hell, no one can shoot a sexy woman better. But as to story, he's stuck humoring himself so consistently that you have to just shake your head, kind of like watching a kid touch the burner on the stove over and over again. I'm not naive here. Yes, these are "grindhouse" movies. But give me something better than the next masturbatorial film school chump could have cooked up.

"Planet Terror" actually had me chuckling here and there, but one has to just cringe at the real opportunity there was. Tarantino and Rodriguez are also masters of "Hey, fuck yeah!" casting, so why is it that something as badass as Michael Biehn and Jeff Fahey playing brothers, and even turning in decent performances on top of it, seems to wither away as an afterthought?

And "Death Proof?" Are you fucking kidding me? I've never wanted to scream out "Shut the fuck up!" so badly while watching a movie. Never. Tarantino is so pathetically over the creative hill it might just be time for him to sit back and collect royalties. Great car chase, all obvisouly due to the great Zoe Bell, and maybe this or that shot that was ballsy enough to get right in there...but give me a break with the getting there.

And Quentin, for the love of God you fanatical geek, STAY THE HELL OFF OF THE SCREEN! Nothing makes me sigh with irritation more than when his bulbous, struggling-to-get-the-nifty-dialogue-out-while-sounding-like-a-badass-in-my-own-mind face shows up.

The best thing about "Grindhouse?" Rob Zombie's trailer for "Werewolf Women of the SS." Nic Cage as Fu Manchu? Nazis? Werewolves? I have no fucking clue what this made-up movie would have been about, but I want to see it immediately. I laughed my ass off for a solid two and a half minutes. Zombie's a guy that gets the grindhouse genre. Not two fanboys (hate to use the term but they own it entirely) who latch onto such things for purposes no greater than novelty. Sometimes you just want to tell a filmmaker to stop. Well, Robert, Quentin...stop.

But it's not so bad... "Ghost Rider" will remain the worst film of the year, if not in the history of cinema.

Now...I'll be on my way.

I had scheduled a "Happy Easter" blog post for yesterday; alas, I've never done this before and I...uhh...did it incorrectly.

Ah well...I hope you enjoyed your weekend.

No matter what one thinks of the film, this is an extraordinary piece of music which I haven't been able to get out of my head since I rewatched the movie the other day.

We were given another dose of Clint Mansell's talent last year. When will a director other than Darren Aronofsky give him another project worthy of his gift?