Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull debuted at the Cannes Film Festival, for some reason, on Sunday. Recently, the producers of Hollywood blockbusters have decided to use the prestigious, artsy fartsy international awards show to showcase their... let's say, more mainstream projects. A few years ago The Da Vinci Code got totally owned by critics at the press screening, but they've kept it up, all the same. So it's heartening to see that the festival's snobby audience had a fairly positive, if calculated, reaction. Here's a snippet from French reviewer Alain Spira, from the magazine Paris Match: “It’s good. It’s a product that is polished, industrial, we’re not getting ripped off in terms of quality. You know what you’re going to see, you see what you get, and when you leave you’re happy.” When you leave, you're happy?!? That's the very best kind of review a movie can get! Okay, maybe in France it's kind of a drawback. But everywhere else, that's exactly what I want to hear. Because let me tell you, leaving happy is the opposite of what happened to me in the past year as I saw most other other big budget stinkers, ...

Taped to my bedroom wall is a sealed envelope with all the treasures a man could ask for inside it. On the outside of the envelope is printed the following legend: Break Seal In Case Of Indiana JonesThat's right, the envelope holds my tickets to the long awaited fourth Indiana Jones picture, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which comes out this Thursday. And I'll be going to the 12:01 screening. A review will be posted shortly thereafter. This is serious, guys. I didn't even go to a midnight showing for any of the Star Wars movies. So, you know. Wow.

At long freaking last, Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie is again available on DVD. It was released yesterday, and for anyone who doesn't own it yet, or who wants a chance to replace an old VHS copy, I have this advice to offer you: Run out and buy it right now! It's bad enough that they're always taking MST3K away from us. By its very nature, there are a lot of issues of rights ownership and so many times a boxed set of episodes is released only to be pulled again pretty quickly. And previous releases of MST3K: The Movie have gone out of print almost as soon as they were released. So there's already incentive to snag a copy in a hurry. But consider this piece of news, in addition to all that. I went to my local Best Buy yesterday morning as soon as they opened. I was waiting outside and as soon as they unlocked the doors I went rip-roaring in. In that way, I managed to obtain one of the two copies the store had in stock. That's right—two copies was the entirety of their supply. Within minutes after I bought mine, the other was sold, and ...

So Quantum of Solace, the upcoming 395th film in the James Bond series, is not going to have its title song sung by Amy Winehouse, who apparently can't stop using drugs and getting in fights and recording songs that sound exactly like Easy Reader's theme from The Electric Company. But check out what her producer said about this situation. According to him, Winehouse is "not ready to record any music." Okay fine, whatever. A track was started (I don't know how much work was done on it), but in spite of that beginning he reports that it would take "some miracle of science" to complete the song. Some miracle of science? That's hilarious. Not "some miracle of hey maybe stop being an insane monstrosity of a woman." No, no, it will take some miracle of science. But perhaps I'm making too light of a situation that's actually pretty serious. This statement, as bizarre and stupid as it is, may be indicative of a grander, more sinister plan, on the part of Winehouse's producer. The signs point to his desire to do the whole Jaime Sommers thing with her and create an unholy robo-Winehouse, running fast and hearing whispers over great distances and ...

So, actor Wesley Snipes has been sentenced to three years in jail for tax evasion. Sometimes when you're busy making movies, things get a little hectic; I can see how you could forget to pay millions of dollars in income taxes over a period of several years. But seriously, tax evasion is such a lame crime for Wesley Snipes to be jailed for. Here are some better ideas. Aggravated Bad-Assery Possesion of Coolness with Intent to Be Hip Jaywalking While Daywalking

PZ Meyers, a Biologist from the University of Minnesota, Morris, recently tried to attend a screening of the Creationist film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, but was himself expelled. A policeman came to tell him that he must leave the premises, that the producers had singled him out, as someone who might apparently disrupt (read: disagree) with the hackneyed, propagandist drivel presented by the film. Yes, this middle-aged, balding professor probably would've set the theater on fire. If you ask me, though, I think the policeman was mistaken. I think the producer pointed to the man next to Meyers -- the man who was allowed to see the film, clearly by accident. Which man, you ask? Why none other than the enormously famous atheist biologist and writer Richard Dawkins, that's who. You simply must read Meyers' personal blog on the subject, written giddily from a Mac Store while his family, and Richard Dawkins, saw the horrible movie without incident.

The Directors Guild has just forged a new deal with the same Producer's union that the Writers have been striking against for several months. In four days. And it's not some watered-down, backstabbing deal. It resolves almost every single one of the problems that the writers have been "deadlocked" about for all these months--including increases in their share of internet-viewing profit, increases in DVD sales, and more. Not as much as the writers are asking for, but that's to be expected: the writers are asking for more than they'll get (it's called negotiating). Bottom line, the writers haven't actually negotiated in more than a month, and the whole rotten stalemate is due to the mere fact that the writer's representatives and the producer's representatives simply don't like each other. Thankfully, the Director's deal will probably force a similar deal with the writers in a matter of weeks. Then we can all get back to watching The Office.

For the past year and a half, there has been a fierce battle between two main factions of the entertainment industry for the technology to the next generation of DVDs--HD-DVD, backed by Microsoft and Toshiba; and Blu-Ray, backed by Sony. Now, Warner Brothers has thrown its support exclusively behind Blu-Ray, when originally it was producing titles in both formats. With this announcement, Universal and Paramount followed suit, indicating that although they've already pledged a few titles (less than Blu-Ray) to the HD-DVD format, those titles will likely be their last. It was an annoying war, with no clearly superior technology, and stoked on both sides by industry greed and pride. It was delaying a much anticipated warp-speed jump into the future of television--and the promise of home theater which was finally as loud, sharp, and exciting as a movie theater. People had grown tired of it before it began, and as of just a few months ago, there was no end in sight. Now, it looks like we might all get to ask for a Blu-Ray player by next Christmas.

Satirical newspaper The Onion has released its list of the "Least essential" albums of 2007, and the winner, the worst of the worst, is the original motion picture soundtrack for Alvin and the Chipmunks. The album includes tracks such as "Ain't No Party," which contains the following lyrics: "Ain't no party like a Chipmunk party 'cause a Chipmunk party don't stop..." The Onion A/V Club reports: "This is the music the Chipmunks make after they sell out to evil music exec David Cross, and it's presented within the film as awful, corporate sell-out music. And here it is for you to listen to."

The biggest movie news these days is that everything is go for launch on the long-awaited new X-Files movie. At any rate, that's the biggest news for people like myself, who only care about nerd stuff. A bigger fan of The X-Files than me there never ever was. I'm practically bouncing off the walls in anticipation. I mean, there's the new Indiana Jones and Star Trek movies to look forward to, and now The X-Files too! The only thing to say about it is: Hot diggity damn! In celebration of this momentous news, here's a list of my ten favorite episodes of The X-Files. 10. HOLLYWOOD A.D. 7.18 The one where they're making a movie about the X-Files and Scully, Mulder and Skinner talk to each other in bathtubs. 9. JOSE CHUNG'S "FROM OUTER SPACE" 3.20 The one where Charles Nelson Reilly is a kooky writer and Alex Trebek and Jesse Ventura are shady characters. 8. WAR OF THE COPROPHAGES 3.12 The one where cockroaches invade a small town and Mulder tells Scully she smells bad. 7. MUSINGS OF A CIGARETTE SMOKING MAN 4.07 The one where we learn the extent of the Cigarette Smoking Man's involvement in ...