Wednesday, February 28, 2007

The Cup of Joe: Month-End Review

* If we learned nothing in the last month, we learned that February is for lovers. In a very special post from Feb. 15, read about Joe's Valentine's Day Card. WARNING: You may need a Kleenex to wipe the tears, or the vomit. LINK.

* When Abe Lincoln argued with his close friend Joshua Speed about slavery and the protective tariff (you know, what all couples argue about), what were they really arguing about? Read an alternative view of Lincoln from a very special President's Day post exploring the gay side of this melancholy man. LINK.

* You may not know this, but a very special post from Feb. 19 featuring George Bush, Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain was not really about lightning bugs. Or was it? LINK

* With Election 2008 heating up, it may be time to review some very special "ELECTION 2008: AMERICA AT THE CROSSROADS" coverage from TCOJ. Coming next: An endorsement. LINK.

* Why are Joe's ultra-Christian friends ignoring his emails nowadays? Find out why in this post that NEVER ONCE mentions Jesus. LINK. (OK, I'm lying, it mentions Jesus four times.)

* I hope you are not homophobic, because a gay guy is trying to get in your pants. Yeah, you! LINK.

* February saw two new entries in Joe's FIVE FAVES series. LINK.

* And the Oscar goes to ... YOU, the dear reader of The Cup of Joe. Review the last month's Oscar and movie coverage, with notes on a scandal, little children, Jennifer Hudson, Ellen, a review of The Departed and more. LINK

* We have a winner of the contest announced on Feb. 1. The movie contest. The porn movie contest. The winner is reader Johnboy, who gives us the winning entry Pan's Labia. Johnboy, you are one sick puppy. And I mean that in the best possible way. LINK

Just Read The Whole Thing: I Swear
On A Bible That I Do Have A Point

Imagine you were writing a history of, say, the time George Bush walked on earth. But there are no computers, and no ballpoint pens, and no spiral bound notebooks to accomplish this task.

Now imagine telling the story of George Bush using only an oral tradition over a period of more than three decades. In other words, between now and 2044 there is no written account of George Bush until, 37 years later, there appears the first of what would be four accepted biographies.

The first biography, written by Mark Jones, is also the shortest. Later, say in 2064, other biographies appear. One is written by Luke Smith, another by Matthew Johnson, and a fourth, the last to be penned, is written by a quirky fellow who emphasizes different things than the other three. His name is John Schwarzenbergerhopperstein.

There are other accounts of Bush, too, many other accounts, but they don't stand the test of time. One is written by Thomas, who portrays George as a spoiled child and a vindicative being who bites the head off of birds. These books, including the one written by Thomas, are later suppressed as untrue accounts of the reign of George Bush.

This suppression happens hundreds of years later, sometime around 2407, when it comes to be accepted exactly which of the George Bush biographies are sound, and which aren't. Eventually people come to agree that 27 books form an acceptable canon of the culture of 2000-2008, and other accounts are discarded. Only four actual biographies make the cut -- the ones written by Luke, Matthew, Mark and JohnSchwarzenbergerhopperstein.

And even these four can't seem to agree on the details.

***

Now, in this fictional scenario, remember that the first biography of George Bush, the one by Mark Jones, was written in 2044. However, and this is a big however, we don't have a copy of the scroll -- er, I mean, the neatly typed manuscript -- that dates from this time.

In fact, the earliest remaining paper copy of the Mark book is from hundreds and hundreds of years later, perhaps 2444, and even these copies exist only in fragments.

What happened? The original book by Mark was hand copied many, many times, and only after decades in the oral tradition.

Sometimes the copying was done well, by a secretary I'll call Jenny; other times, it was done sloppily. We'll call this secretary Brenda.

Brenda, who always gets "needs improvement" on her performance reviews, sometimes would change the biography to suit her own purposes. Other times she accidentally introduces mistakes to the text. Brenda is lazy, and she makes terrible coffee, too.

All this happens over a period of hundreds of years, by hundreds of different Brenda's. And only THEN do we arrive at the first known fragments of Mark's book on Bush.

Jenny isn't innocent, either. Sometimes super-efficient Jenny would note what she thought was a mistake by Brenda (Jenny is annoyed by Brenda), and she'd correct a text to what she thought the original document was. Unfortunately, Jenny is not always correct and sometimes copies and changes documents so that their meanings are completely shifted.

Oh, and one more thing: The original Bush biography from 2044 (post oral tradition) was written in English, but over the years the language has changed. Jenny speaks Spanish and Brenda speaks German. So some of the surviving texts are in German, others are in Spanish, and some are in Aramaic and Greek and Latin. You also notice that some languages don't have the exact word to describe what you're trying to communicate. German, for example, has Schadenfreude to describe "delighting at the misery of others"; English has no equivalent.

Now, project yourself even further into the future: Say the imaginary PRESENT DAY: the year 4007.

After thinking about The Telephone Game that small children like to play in kindergarten, think to yourself how accurate, on a literal level, this biography of George Bush would be?

Would you be quoting from this biography like it's ... scripture?

***

I only mention all this because of two things:

1) James Cameron says he's found the tomb of Jesus, and that Jesus was buried with a woman that JC (as in James Cameron) says was Jesus' wife. He says all the EVIDENCE points in this direction.

2) Equally as silly, that cutie pie little honey on The View (Elisabeth Hasselbeck ), a graduate of Boston College, a Catholic school, showed she knows absolutely nothing about New Testament scholarship when she embarrased herself yesterday on the show by taking a literal and uncritical version of the New Testament events.

"There's so much EVIDENCE to prove that ... in what I have read, that Jesus did indeed resurrect," Elizabeth says in condemning Cameron. "... There's been proof in the Bible: All four accounts of the Gospel. I mean, Paul's account."

She goes on: "You take Luke -- a great historian of the Bible. [huh?] Just the factual information that Jesus appeared after he resurrected to, like, 500 people at a time on all these different occasions."

She continues: "There were two tons of rocks outside the tomb. A Roman guard. If anyone were to move that stone away ... you know they would be crucified upside down for violating Roman law."

Rosie then counters, not quite exactly correct but still with a correct general observation: "Wasn't the Bible written 200 years after the death of Jesus?"

Elisabeth: "I don't know exactly how many years... It may have been published 200 years later," she opines, ignorant of the oral tradition, scroll copying and the Gutenberg printing press, which wasn't developed until 1445, and which left a bunch of scroll copiers (like Brenda and Jenny) looking for work. [I think Brenda wound up starting a blog.]

"The New Testament, the Gospels, were written by people who actually saw what was happening. You know, so they actually saw what was happening and witnessed," Elisabeth concludes.

"That is essentially the cornerstone of the Christian faith -- that he actually did indeed physically rise from the dead.

"There was nothing in that tomb when they opened that tomb," Elisabeth said yesterday on The View, with unshakeable certainty, without a doubt in the world, based on all available evidence.

***

NOTE: I'm not questioning anyone's faith, but merely saying that one's faith should not be based on ignorance, either. An understanding of textual criticism does not necessarily undermine one's beliefs, but people like Elisabeth have beliefs that are based on woeful and unquestioning ignorance. She defends her beliefs not with a single word -- "faith" -- but by "citing" faulty texts that are full of contradictions. There is no exclusionary criterion that people of faith can't also be people with brains.
What's more: James Cameron is an idiot, but you already knew that, didn't you?

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Simple as ABC: American Idol's False Note

If you've ever seen Jason Mraz in concert, you know that he sounds even better live than he does on his CDs. He puts on quite a show.

Nameless Boy Contestant (NBC) sang "The Geek in the Pink" tonight on American Idol. Randy said NBC sang it better than Mraz did on the original CD.

Uh, I don't think so.

Another contestant tried to pull off Marvin Gaye. Another: Cyndi Lauper.

What's going on here? It's not that they were bad, necessarily, just pale in comparison to the original artists.

Republican Could Make Democrats Blue

In politics, the taller candidate usually wins. The better looking candidate usually wins. The better spoken candidate usually wins. In presidential contests, the former governor usually beats the senator or former senator.

Democrats should be very, very afraid of Mitt Romney, who looks more presidential than most presidents. After I saw him announce his candidacy a few weeks ago on This Week With George Stephanopoulos, I thought to myself: Isn't this guy already on some U.S. coin?

Think about it: Romney could win his adopted state, Massachusetts, and his home state, Michigan. These are two states that both Kerry and Gore won. It's two states Democrats need to keep.

As Sen. Hillary Clinton starts getting muddy with Sen. Barack Obama, with John Edwards and Al Gore (and the very presidential looking Sen. Chris Dodd) standing in the background, it's time for a reality check: Despite seven years of disaster under a Republican president, the Democratic candidate for president has absolutely no lock on the job come 2008, and Democratic voters need to think long and hard about electability.

Monday, February 26, 2007

On Golden Stars: Was Mirren Being Snarky?

"My sister told me all kids love to get gold stars -- this is the biggest and best gold star I’ve ever had in my life," Helen Mirren said as she accepted her Oscar statuette Sunday night.

Was this some sort of shout-out or allusion to fellow nominee Judi Dench? Could she have been rubbing it in that she won, or sending a subtle "you were great, too" message to a friend?

The reason I say this is because "gold stars" play a role in Dench's movie Notes On A Scandal. Whenever her character, Barbara Covett, has a particularly juicy entry, she puts a gold star (or two, or three, or four) next to it in her diary, a way of marking the pages she finds most devious and thrilling. (I allude to this in this note on a movie.)

Was Helen sending a subtle shout-out or was she being snarky?

Or am I reading too much into this?

***

Go to this website. Click "Trailer and Clips." Go to the last video on the list, Gold Star Day, and enjoy Dame Judi Dench in a deliciously revealing clip. It's a great clip, despite the mistake noted below. (It's worth taking the trouble to find; make sure you click "next" in the trailer and clips section so you can find the final clip, which is Gold Star Day.)

***

From www.moviemistakes.com:

"There's a scene where Barbara Covett is writing in her journal and the voice-over refers to it as 'A Gold Star Day,' and we see a close-up shot of Barbara's index finger pasting a gold star on the page of her journal; her fingernail is unpolished and just a bit grimy. In the next shot, we see Barbara still writing in her journal but now her nails are polished pink. "

***

There's A Hole in Healthy Donut Logic

So Krispy Kreme is introducing today a new whole-wheat donut, eh?

I don't know who wrote this press release -- with an exclamation point in the lead and one of those horrible manufactured quotes from a company executive -- but it is worthy of The Onion.
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C., Feb. 26 -- Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Inc (NYSE: KKD) announces the introduction of a new Whole Wheat Glazed doughnut made with 100% whole wheat that has a sweet caramel flavoring covered in Krispy Kreme's Original Glaze. And, to make it even better, the doughnut is ONLY 180 calories!

"The Krispy Kreme Whole Wheat Glazed doughnut delivers the delicious taste that our customers have come to expect from us," said Stan Parker, Senior Vice President of Marketing for Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Inc. "This sweet treat is an alternative for health conscious consumers with the benefits of 100% whole wheat and only 180 calories," he added.
Do you think Stan really talks like this? For the sake of Mrs. (or Mr.) Stan and all the loved ones in his life, I certainly I hope not.

And with all due respect to the good folks at Krispy Kreme, I have another idea for health-conscious consumers: Eat a banana or an orange or oatmeal for breakfast, and join a gym.

Health and fitness is just ... a donut away? Next stop: Washboard abs? And we wonder why American has grown so fat.

***

Post-Sunday Letdown

I can't believe it's over. The press coverage. The media punditry. The office pools. After weeks of frenzied speculation in the blogosphere, Sunday's presidential election in Senegal is now just a memory.

And although we know that Binta & The Great Idea (starring a little girl from Senegal) did not win for Best Live Action Short last night at the Oscars, the results of the Senegalese Presidential election still remains in doubt as millions of Americans anxiously await word from half a world away.

Will the winner be the octogenarian incumbent Abdoulaye Wade, a professor and free-trade advocate who opposed socialist rule in a surprise win seven years ago?

Or will be it be one of 14 other opposition candidates, including the popular Idrissa Seck, a former Wade ally?

Or how about Ousmane Tanor Dieng, a diplomat who represents, perhaps, the best hope for the Socialist Party?

But don't count out Moustapha Niasse, leader of the Alliance of Progress Forces. His former experience as a diplomat and prime minister could be just what Senegal needs right about now.


This is an important election for the 11 million souls of this west African nation. The country ranks 156 among the 177 countries listed in UN's 2006 human development index ranking. Can this fragile young democracy break the Top 125 under a new president?

In other news, did you see that Jack Nicholson shaved his head?

***

Five Movies to Watch For in 2007,
Inspired By Movies From 2006

Now that the Academy Awards are over -- the broadcast did eventually end, didn't it? -- it's time to look ahead to the great movies of 2007 that will be loosely inspired by the movies of 2006 and early 2007.

Notes On A Sandal: A lesbian diarist spends a summer at the beach.

Charlotte's World Wide Web: A spider starts a blog and captures the heart of a nation

Last King of Scotch Land: A biopic on the life of Peter O'Toole.

The Ghost Writer: A man sells his soul to the devil (Harvey Weinstein) to get a movie script produced. Nicholas Cage stars.

Blood Diamonique: The seedy underbelly of faux jewelry.

***

Ellen Hosts the Oscars

I don't agree with this. I agree with this.

***

Sunday, February 25, 2007

These Little Girls Are Winners

Two little girls portrayed in movies set half a world apart -- Albuquerque and Senegal -- could win Oscar gold tonight.

Binta & The Great Idea is a movie about a young girl who tells the story of a man (her father) who hopes to change the world, and a girl (her cousin) who wants to go to school. It's nominated for Best Live Action Short. It'd get my vote.

Over in the Best Picture category, it's certainly possible that Little Miss Sunshine could pull off an upset, and in the Best Supporting Actress category, voters tend to like surprise choices. This puts a win for Abigail Breslin in the realm of possibility, even though Jennifer Hudson already has the mantle space cleared off.

In any case, I'd say it'd be a great idea not to bet against Binta, a ray of sunshine that left me beaming.

***

You can download the nominated live action and animated shorts here.

***

MONDAY UPDATE: Binta did not win for Live Action Short, and Little Miss Sunshine won two Oscars: best supporting actor and best original screenplay.


It's Your Turn to Be A Movie Producer

I knew I'd regret this. Voting is still open.

You people are SICK!

This is Horrifying

Dancing cardboard stars. Snow White. Rob Lowe. Oy.

This is 10 minutes long. It feels like forever.

But it is fun watching the phonies clap.

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Oscar Prediction For Best Film

Last Sunday was TV Sunday -- 12 straight hours of hangover-induced TV watching, and a span where I didn't bother to crack a book, strike a yoga pose or utter a responsorial psalm.

Today is Big Movie Saturday. Within a 24 hour period I will have seen three full-length movies and five shorts -- all of which have some connection with tomorrow's Academy Awards.

After today, I'll be qualified to judge 80 of the 113 individual nominations covering every category, which isn't bad considering I saw fewer movies in 2006 than in a long time.

This includes seeing every nominee for Best Picture.

So, what movie do I think will win, and what should win?

If the vote were held an hour from now, I'm not sure which film I'd choose for Best Picture. It really would depend on my mood at the time.

For starters, I wouldn't vote for Babel. Why? Here's my "54 word" review.

I also wouldn't vote for Little Miss Sunshine, though I loved it. By even being nominated, this movie has won, and it's a ray of welcome sunshine in a world that needs great comedies.

So it's down to three movies as my personal choice:

* Letters From Iwo Jima. This is one-half of the Eastwood World War II masterpiece, along with Flags of Our Fathers. This film had moments that will stick with me forever. (Here's my thoughts on the film.)

* The Departed. Maybe the most entertaining film of the year. Think about it: This film was based on a Hong Kong film that was inspired by Scoresese in the first place. So it's derivative of something that was derivative of Scorsese to begin with. How often has that happened? But this isn't Scorsese's absolute best movie. How can Scorsese win for this fine film when two finer films, Goodfellas and Raging Bull, didn't?

* The Queen. I think this film, on all levels, was the most perfect this year, all things considered: acting, writing, everything. All involved should celebrate with a nice cup of tea. Good show!

So what do I think will win? The Departed.

Which film would I vote for, if push comes to shove? ...The Departed.

But if either Letters or The Queen comes out on top, I certainly won't be disappointed.

All three films tower over Babel.

***

What do you think?

The Departed: Must-See Scorsese


THIS WAS WRITTEN LAST FALL


Come February, some tear-filled actress or emotional actor or on-top-of-the-world director are going to accept Academy Awards for their work in the motion picture industry.

It's a feeling that Martin Scorsese wouldn't know. He has never won.

Not for Goodfellas: Dancing With Wolves won in 1990, with Kevin Costner nabbing best picture and director Oscars.

Nor for Raging Bull: Another actor-director, Robert Redford, won in 1980 for Ordinary People.

And Scorsese wasn't recognized, either, for one of the all-time great comedies, The King of Comedy, a satire about media and celebrity that remains as relevant (and probably moreso) than the day it was released in 1983.

He also hasn't been honored for great work in recent years for The Aviator and Gangs of New York.

That he has never won for best director or best picture -- and yet movies such as The Greatest Show on Earth and Terms of Endearment have -- kind of cheapens the Oscar a little, don't you think?


Does anybody still care two bits about Dances With Wolves? Who wants to sit through this movie again?

Yeah, didn't think so.

That's one of the key things about his movies: Like a work of Shakespeare, Scorsese's films stand the test of time and multiple viewings. Sometimes, and I suspect this may be true of his new movie The Departed, they're even better the second time.

So when Ellen DeGeneres hosts the Oscars next year, and when a winner starts gushing a la Halle Berry or Sally Field, just remember: The work of Martin Scorcese has never been honored. Nor has the directing of Alfred Hitchcock, Robert Altman, Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles and Stanley Kubrick.

And this, my friends, cheapens the value of the Academy Award itself.

Pick up a cell phone, call a friend and go see The Departed. It's in the same league as ScorSese's all-time best.

***

A Note On A Movie


Last night Wally and I saw Notes On A Scandal. Judi Dench is indescribably good playing the lonely and loathsome history teacher. It would take the pen of Barbara Covett herself, the diary-writing character Dench plays, to come up with a wickedly appropriate description of this astonishingly good performance.

In any other year, Dench would be the easy front-runner for Best Actress. No matter who else was on screen, including her co-nominee Cate Blanchett, it was hard NOT to look at Dench and relish every forced smile, grimace and (more often than not) blank stare, a stare that haunts as it betrays Covett's inner emptiness and utter loneliness.

To look away from Dench for a moment would be to miss something: This character speaks volumes even when, and especially when, she speaks nothing.

Dench probably won't get the golden statuette tomorrow night, but this performance deserves a dozen gold stars neatly placed (and long remembered) on those pages of Oscar history describing the greatest performances that didn't win.

***

Friday, February 23, 2007

Oscar Predictions: Part I

On Oscar night, we here at The Cup of Joe predict that Hattie McDaniel, the first-ever African-American winner of an Academy Award for her role in Gone With the Wind, will be smiling down from heaven, celebrating the fact that 75 percent of the acting awards will, quite deservingly, go to a black person.

Here are my predictions:

Best Actor: Forest Whitaker
Best Actress: "Lone Caucasian" Helen Mirren
Best Supporting actress: Jennifer Hudson
Best Supporting actor: Eddie Murphy
Best Director: Martin Scorsese

I just hope that some Academy voters aren't of the mindset, for some strange reason, that they wouldn't vote for THREE black actors in the same year. Would that be a horrible reason, to, say, withhold a vote for Murphy or Whitaker and tilt the balance just enough in favor of another actor?

After today, I will have watched almost everything nominated in the bottom four categories above. Acknowledging that I haven't seen quite everything (like a number of Oscar voters, I suppose), my predictions are exactly the same as the way I'd vote, even though there was nothing "supporting" about Hudson's "leading" role in Dreamgirls.

I'll discuss Best Picture choices in a post tomorrow.


A Movie About, But Not For, Little Children

Little children, particularly those of a certain age, are not ones to put restraints on their urges. If they want a cookie, they'll eat it. If they're tired of doing THIS or THAT, they'll start crying and usually mommy and dad will be there to take care of the situation. The parent, giving in to the tears or the screams or even the simple unemotional request, will push the swing, switch the TV channel, empty the diaper.

There are plenty of adults who continue to act like children all their lives, always wanting something, unable to control the urges in their life. They may be married, or in a monagomous relationship, but they will cheat on their spouse because they can't resist the urge. They may have extreme credit card debt, but they'll buy that jacket they don't need because they WANT it. DESIRE wins over CONTROL.

A new movie by Todd Field, Little Children, is about adults, adults with obsessions, who for a variety of reasons can't resist the same kind of desires that cause children to steal cookies.

The mental instabilities of the characters in this film all involve obsessions: the ex-cop obsessed with harassing a sex offender; the brainy woman obsessed with the not-so-brainy hunk; the married man obsessed with masturbating on the internet; the sex offender obsessed with his complex desire to expose his genitals ... and masturbate publicly.

Most of the main characters in Little Children give in to their urges, their obsessions.

Other characters live lives of repression. The results are no better.

***

Little Children is directed by the man who did In The Bedroom, which was my pick as the best movie of 2001, and is still one of my favorite films of the decade.

***

AND I'M TELLING YOU

Phyllis Somerville, who plays the mother of the sex offender in the movie, gives a performance worthy of an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress. She wasn't nominated, maybe placing sixth on the list since Jennifer Hudson's LEAD role was honored with a SUPPORTING nod for Dreamgirls? What a shame. Her son in the movie, played by Jackie Earle Haley, did receive a nomination, and is so worthy of this honor.

***

Near the end of the movie, a little girl around 3 years of age gives in to an urge -- the desire to get off her swing, leave a public park at night and stare from the middle of a street at bugs swarming a light pole.

What did she see in that stare? Just bugs swarming around a light?

These weren't moths drawn to a flame. These bugs aren't going to die.

But they're going to keep swarming around that light because they can't help it.



Thursday, February 22, 2007

Smart Casting Move

So they're making a movie version of the old Get Smart TV series, created by Buck Henry and Mel Brooks? I guess there were no original scripts or ideas out there? Sounds terrible, huh?

Think again: Steve Carell is playing Maxwell Smart.

***

KAOS over CONTROL: Both Brooks and Henry have not exactly been under a cone of silence regarding their exclusion from the creative team for the movie. Attorneys for Brooks and Henry have been busy working the shoe phone with legal threats, which you can read about here.

No word yet about any potential litigation involving Hymie the Robot.

***

Lost Producers Need to Get Smart


... or fans will start saying Get Lost.

Yes: I'm talking about last night's episode.

If they jump the shark, as Fox's 24 has, how many viewers do you think will jump ship?

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

The Bottom Video is The Real Thing

One of the below commercials is about a soft drink, and the other one is not. They were both released within a year of each other: 1971 and 1972, respectively.

Although you can say that both commercials are inspired by the trends in advertising of that era, one of the ads goes down smooth and is still "clean and refreshing." But be careful with the other, because if you're drinking something, say a refreshing bottle of Coca-Cola, you just might do a spit-take.



TV Fun Times, Almost Spoiled By A Brit

Sunday afternoon, perhaps after drinking a wee bit too much on Saturday night, I spent about 12 hours just watching television. It's all I did, and is probably the most television I've ever watched in a single day.

Among the odd variety of shows I watched, either live or on Tivo: Reno 911 (Comedy Central), The McLaughlin Group (PBS), the last 9 minutes of Meet the Press (NBC), Scrubs (NBC, via Comedy Central), The Presidents (The History Channel), The Sarah Silverman Show (Comedy Central), The Amazing Race (CBS), CBS Sunday Morning (CBS), Ebert and Roeper (Ind.), The Simpsons (Fox) and This Week With George Stephanopoulos (ABC).

In addition, I could also stomach about 30 minutes of the one-hour Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace, before Brit Hume belched something annoying and I had to run to the bathroom in case I suffered from yet another Brit Hume-induced episode of vomiting.

Included in this marathon was about six episodes of Scrubs from season 1, a show I've only watched a few times but have always liked. Below are some videos from season 6. They are must-sees if you like musical theater, songs about poo and "guy love." And they are a delight.

Warning: At some point during these videos, hilarity may ensure.





Michael and Walt:
What Might Happen on 'Lost'

It's been some time since we've heard from the characters of Michael and his son Walt on Lost. They were last seen getting a free boat ride away from the island courtesy The Others.

Here's a theory I haven't read anywhere: Since the last few shows have hinted at time travel and rapid aging, my guess is that when the child Walt returns that ... he's no longer a child.

Under this scenario, I would also guess that when Michael returns later this season, he returns quite old, and won't live to see the end of season three.

This is a total guess.

And don't forget: It may be 2007, but it's still 2004 on the show.

In any case, the longer they drag this show out, the question becomes: will anybody still be watching to care? Last Wednesday's episode, one of the best of the season, had its lowest ratings of the season.

And for people who watch Lost a little more closely than I do, constantly freeze-framing and posting still frames of evidence on the internet: Please feel free to ridicule this theory.

***