Julie Bowen in the Movie Night Fall

I just finished reading Nelson DeMille's thriller Night Fall. I pictured Julie Bowen playing the book's character Kate, if and when this book gets made into a feature film. I hope the director's reading this! I hope it gets made into a film, and I hope they cast Julie. She'd be perfect!!!

James Spader Sings Love Songs

That's the name of an album I wish I could buy.

It seems that women of all ages and marital status (and even some men, of all sexual preferences) are in love with Jimmy.

I have no idea if he likes to sing. But if he made an album of love songs, it would be a best seller. The people who idolize him would have his sexy voice all to themselves, in their heads or rooms or cars, as if he were singing to them alone.

I have no idea how to get this idea to Jimmy himself. Agents don't want to hear about ideas unless you're signed up with them, and besides, I'm no record producer. I don't know what my role would be. Idea person? The one who chooses the songs and writes the cover notes? I'd love to. I'm compiling a list of songs I'd like the album to contain. But of course it's up to Jimmy. What he feels like singing. If he feels like singing. Jimmy? What do you think?

Are Movie Theaters On Their Way Out?

Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban has a long post on his blog asking what's going to become of movie theaters in an increasingly crowded media marketplace. I posted a comment on his blog suggesting two main things:

(1) There ought to be more theaters that have built-in cafes, like The Angelica on Houston Street in Manhattan. An on-premise cafe (with a nice assortment of interesting food, including raw vegan recipes) would create a sense of community and would attract people.

(2) Megaplexes ought to dedicate one or two of their screens to indy films, ones less likely to get distribution.

As a writer/director, I prefer to watch movies in theaters, as there's something magical about an experience shared with a large audience, not to mention the larger screen and top-notch sound.

But there are a few things that bug me:

(1) When we're paying $8 to see a film, we shouldn't have to sit there watching commercials.

(2) It used to be that films would have long runs, but now they're here and gone in a flash. The window of opportunity to see a film in a theater has become way too small.

(3) There's just not enough intelligence and wit in most theatrically distributed films. Hollywood keeps sliding downhill--maybe it's the mud?--and we wind up with dreck: RawStyle

(4) There are lots of films that get made that don't ever find distribution. Google will soon be showing people's films online, and that will make a huge difference in the quality of films that are out there and widely available. https://upload.video.google.com/