Brian G

Engadget,

I own the trademark for the Infant Carry Grabber (a product to carry infants around for easy transportation) I note that one of your commenters has suggested you use "Grab", "Infant" & "Carry" to replace the words "Snatch", "Child" and "Tote", we would advise against you using these words as they will infringe upon our trademarks. Thank you for your cooperation in this matter. A prompt reply to this request will be much appreciated.

Gim Dumb

Chief Legal Counsel: DumbCorp

I don't know if this is indicitive of the "Auteur" movement getting out of hand, or just lazy filmmaking. The worst thing Hollywood did was allow James Cameron to make a 3 hour movie. Suddenly every director had to make a three hour epic, but here's the thing, more isn't necessarily always better.

Take Donnie Darko. The theatrical version is tight, and forces viewers to make some logic jumps. The "Director's Cut" is long, plodding, and spells out every damn thing (sometimes hammering you over the head with the "Do you get it? No seriously, did you get what I was saying there?").

Gangs of New York, good movie...would have been a GREAT movie with about 20 minutes trimmed out of it.

The problem is that it takes discipline to trim those 20 minutes out. It's so much easier to "leave all of that great stuff" in the movie, but all that extra great stuff rarely leads to a better movie.

I don't understand the hatred of Voice Overs. Blade Runner without the VO just loses "Film Noir" something. Dark City is Film Noir, one might even say "Film blackest pitch", one of the conciets of Film Noir is the voiceover...

Rumour has it that those figures are actually Australian dollars, meaning that it's really closer to $240million USD. Still a ridiculous amount of money for a dude in spandex underwear, but maybe a little more reasonable. I wonder if that takes into account all of the false starts and stops over the years? There must have been 10 scripts commissioned, and about a half dozen directors and talent on "pay or play" contracts. I wouldn't be surprised if the pre-production costs on Supes end up being over $100million alone!