A funny thing happened last night. Paulette and I went to see the recently-released remake of *Planet of the Apes*. That wasn't the funny thing, but the funny thing happened there. This is not to say that voluntarily spending a couple hours of your life watching a movie that has so much potential to be so bad isn't, in and of itself, kind of funny. I mean, let's be honest: Mark Wahlberg is no Charlton Heston, and it'll be hard to top the Rod Serling twist of the original. (I'm probably misspelling the actors' names, too... sorry about that.) Although, when all was said and done, Helena Bohnam Carter did a mighty fine Roddy McDowell. But, where was I?

Oh, right. A funny thing.

So, before the movie, they showed roughly six commercials (including a bizarre music video of Brittney Spears singing the praises of Pepsi, with comic relief provided by Bob Dole. Since we don't have a television feed, we miss a lot of the latest trends in commercials. But, this Brittney Spears thing was just plain weird. And besides, there's no Coke to be had in the movie theater. It's Pepsi or some other Pepsi-owned product. That's your choices. Why are they advertising Pepsi? You have no choice!) and then six or seven previews.

Six or seven previews! I loved it. It's like watching all the good parts of six or seven movies without having to pay for the privilege of seeing the bad parts, too. I dig previews.

Among the previews were: a movie called *The One*, which looks like *The Matrix, Part Two* starring Jet Li who must fight, well, himself; a movie with Bruce Willis as a bank robber who just can seem to help letting a neurotic whiner join his bank-robbing gang; and a movie in which Mark Wahlberg plays a lead singer of a cover band who is invited to join the very band that his band was covering.

As soon as I saw that preview, I perked up. "Metal Gods!" I told Paulette. Turns out the movie is now entitled "Rockstar."

"Metal Gods" was the working title of the 80's-era movie that filmed in Seattle last summer. I worked on it as a backgrounder... it is entirely possible that there will be a scene or two in the movie in which you will see a fat old man in the background wearing a raincoat and a beret, walking in the rain. That's me. If I had a credit in the movie (which I won't), it would be: "Fat old guy in a beret and a raincoat walking in the rain."

I'm excited. The movie looks big. It looks cheesy. Pride of ownership swelled up within me as I watched the preview. Mmmmm. Big and cheesy.

...Although, come to think of it, I didn't even own the silly beret I wore. Oh, well; so much for pride of ownership.

Now that I've seen how expensive and labor intensive it is to put together a few minutes of film, though, I'm excited that I'll now get to see the finished product. Fun!