Every year around this time, NPR's Bob Mondello looks ahead at the movies, big and small, that'll be jostling for box-office bucks and Oscar attention in the last few weeks of the year. His annual holiday-movies preview airs tonight on All Things Considered — but for you, o Monkey See loyalists, he's got this early heads-up:

Vampires and werewolves? Sooooo last weekend. Now the effects-movie faithful are waiting for the blue-tailed Na'vi — those 15-foot-tall dragon-riders who're defending their planet from invasion by ... um ... us, in James Cameron's Avatar.

Me, not so much. Not after the underwhelming 15 minutes of clips the studio released a while back. I mean, hope springs eternal, but the hype's getting exhausting.

Ditto for Nine: I've been salivating over that trailer — with Sophia Loren upstaging upstart divas Marion Cotillard and Penelope Cruz in a frenzy of quick-cuts — for so long that I'm starting to entertain the idea that it can't possibly be as gorgeous as it looks.

So the quieter stuff's sounding more and more interesting — in particular, two smaller pictures with not much in the way of production numbers or special-effects budgets:

• Crazy Heart, with Jeff Bridges as a boozy, down-on-his-luck country singer. With an opening announced just a week ago, it's suddenly this year's The Wrestler, a late entry in the Oscar sweepstakes (and, presumably, a kick-ass soundtrack). Of course almost no one has seen it yet, so the buzz may be just much well-orchestrated ado over nothing.

• A Single Man, the debut film from fashion designer Tom Ford, is also freshly on my radar screen, though for a different reason. An adaptation of Christopher Isherwood's landmark novel about a college professor mourning the death of his longtime lover in 1962 L.A., it stars Colin Firth as the bereaved academic, Matthew Goode as the late lover (in flashbacks, presumably), Julianne Moore as the Firth character's best friend, and Nicholas Hoult as a student who looks much like the lover.

What's got some folks exercised is a brewing brouhaha about the film's don't-ask-don't-tell-ized ads.

The Weinstein Company picked up the film just hours after it screened at the Toronto Film Festival, then recut its wordless original trailer (that's the one above) to substitute laudatory review quotes where Ford's version had featured shots of a male-male kiss, or of men eyeing each other meaningfully. The rest was left more or less intact — so in the new trailer (it's at the bottom of this post), it looks as if the central relationship is between Firth and Moore, not Firth and his male co-stars.

Of course, a similar approach didn't hurt Brokeback Mountain — half that trailer was shots of the men with their wives. A Single Man would doubtless be happy to follow in its box-office bootsteps.

-- Bob Mondello

by Marc Hirsh

Like a lot of people, I've been watching ABC's Modern Family with a constant (maybe even increasing) sense of delight over the past two months. It's been a nice reminder that formulas can indeed work (which is why they're formulas, duh) as long as somebody actually puts something into them and doesn't just present the audience with the naked formula, with its variables hanging out for all the world to see.

Better still, it's picking up at exactly the right time, when a lot of promising new shows start fumbling under the pressure of settling in for the long haul. In the case of last week's episode, "Great Expectations," a crucial character issue was finally addressed, in exactly the right way.

We finally got to see what Claire (Julie Bowen) sees in her oddball husband, Phil (Ty Burrell).

The problem with Phil up to now has been that he's been all problem. Ty Burrell described his character to Entertainment Weekly as "basically a dog that can talk," as evidenced by his constant determination to be his children's pal instead of their father and his complete lack of a poker face when confronted with attractive women who may be his neighbor or his stepmother-in-law but who are most definitely not his wife.

As funny as his antics have been, there was no indication whatsoever as to why Claire would ever have married this golden retriever of a man. And that was beginning to play out in a weary sitcom dynamic: the put-upon, overburdened wife and the idiot man-child husband.

Thank goodness for "Great Expectations."

What went right, after the jump.

It's not just the fact that the tables are turned, though, since Phil has completely accepted this particular facet of his marriage. It's the fact that when Claire attempts to make up for it by hiring the bassist from Spandau Ballet to play "True" for them, Phil doesn't care that she's forgotten the details of their first kiss (turns out the soundtrack was actually OMD's "If You Leave") so much as he doesn't want her to feel stupid for making such an egregious mistake when she clearly went to great lengths to make such a grand gesture. So he plays along as long as he can to spare his wife the humiliation.

The entire storyline, and Phil's contribution to every aspect of it, is crucial to Modern Family's long-term viability, because it's precisely what the character needed to avoid becoming just another clueless horndog stereotype. Without abandoning the overgrown-puppy aspect of his personality, it became clear that Phil both loves Claire and deserves her love back. Combined with the end of the fabulous web-exclusive "In The Moonlight (Do Me)" video, which features the best fathering we've ever seen out of him, it shows Phil developing into an honest-to-gosh person while still hanging on to his inherent Phil-ness, and not a moment too soon. I don't think I want Modern Family to focus on this side of the character too often, but it's good to see that it's there.

by Glen Weldon

Last year at this time, we offered suggestions for books ideally suited to long, gray Friday-after-Thanksgiving afternoons when the relatives have gone, the house is quiet and the loginess caused by the tryptophanic residue in your bloodstream hurls you inexorably couchward.*

Such afternoons are meant for books, we said; great, thick, yak-stunning slabs of booky goodness. The ones we highlighted were rich, fully imagined and deeply immersive works. What's more, you could polish any of 'em off before 5:00 rolled around.

Which is to say: They were graphic novels. Mail Order Bride, From Hell, Blankets, Box Office Poison, and Bone. Those recommendations stand. (Again, you can read about them here.)

Here's some more suggestions for books to take with you to the sofa.

After the jump: Math, seizures, rootlessness, bearded ladies and more.

But that's not ideal, as having to continually switch from volume to subsequent volume means kicking yourself out of the book's fictive universe, however briefly. Besides, nothing hangs a giant Do Not Disturb sign on your interpersonal doorknob like the solid, satisfying heft of a really big book perched atop your abdomen. It says to your visiting uncle: Look, dude, I've heard enough about your knee surgery for now, thanks.

Any of these should do that work nicely.

Logicomix, by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitrou, published by Bloomsbury USA. 352 pages.

If the very notion of taking an afternoon off to read comics triggers in you a Puritan abhorrence of sloth, you'll want to pick a book of sufficient intellectual rigor to give yourself a pass. Enter: the recently published Logicomix, the story of philosopher/mathematician Bertrand Russell and his lifelong quest for the comforting structure of logic and mathematical certainty. Not for everyone -- I couldn't follow author Doxiadis through every logical thrust and parry in Russell's arguments with Wittgenstein, Godel and others -- but thanks largely to the friendly, open (and strangely reassuring) art of Christos Papadimitrou, it was a lot of fun to try.

Epileptic, by David B., published by Pantheon. 368 pages.

In pages heavy with beautiful, impenetrably dark swaths of India ink, French cartoonist David B. depicts growing up in the shadow of his older, epileptic brother, and the astonishing and heartbreaking lengths to which his family went in search of a cure. Epileptic rises above -- far above -- similar "disease narratives" by virtue of that soaring, expressionistic art. David B. does more than simply illustrate the emotions mentioned in his text -- he lends them the power to shape the readers' thoughts and understanding, just the way this own understanding of the world was shaped, all those years ago.

Local, by Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly, published by Oni Press. 384 pages.

This book is just as gorgeous, funny, and wise as it was when I wrote about it last year.

Castle Waiting, by Linda Medley, published by Fantagraphics Books. 472 pages.

Medley's light, gentle but exquisitely realized fantasy series, set in the castle left vacant after Sleeping Beauty wakes up and trots off with her prince, is about .... well, a great many things, including: Bearded nuns, knights with horse heads, the culinary preferences of various demons, ghosts, hobgoblins and unwed mothers. Written and drawn over the course of 10 years, which explains why the 12 stories collected in this first volume make for such a discursive read, Castle Waiting's a wryly funny fairy tale narrative that's both women-centered and women-powered.

Palomar, by Gilbert Hernandez, published by Fantagraphics Books. 512 pages.

Dense, vividly realized and both literally and figuratively magical, Palomar collects several stories from the justifiably revered comic series Love and Rockets, which author/writer Gilbert Hernandez produces with brother Jaime. Hernandez peoples the fictional Central American village of Palomar with complex, flawed characters, frequently sudsy plotlines and some of the most crisp, clean, resolutely efficient black-and-white art out there. Page by page, Hernandez builds the town and its history; by the end of the first story you'll be struck by his sense of place and his feel for its people, and that sense will only deepen as you read further. A perfect intro to the Love and Rockets universe for those who haven't yet visited.

Special Mention:
The TOON Treasury of Classic Children's Comics by Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly, published by Abrams ComicsArts. 352 pages.

If you've got the time, but not the attention span, to immerse yourself in a long, hot bath of sustained narrative, this anthology of kids' comics from the 40s to the 60s lets you enjoy a series of quick, refreshing dips. Featuring high-quality reproductions of the work of such greats as Walt Kelly, Carl Barks and Sheldon Mayer, each vignette functions as both a mini history lessons and a stand-alone entertainment (Little Lulu as ur-feminist! Sugar and Spike as li'l subversives!). Plus, those early Captain Marvel stories are, as we've noted before, goofy as all get-out.

*Scientists will tell you that any post-Thanksgiving sleepiness you may experience is caused by during-Thanksgiving overeating, and not the action of a single amino acid. Joykillers, every one.

by Linda Holmes

It's a little bit of a slow morning as the holiday weekend approaches and things begin to grind to a four-day halt, but that doesn't mean there's nothing to report.

• The New Yorker has this lengthy, ponderous essay about why people like to read cookbooks, in which it is argued that ... okay, I don't even know what it's arguing, in spite of having read the whole thing. I did notice that apparently, men like cookbooks with directions and women like cookbooks about the romance of generations or something.

• The timing of things yesterday prevented me from posting in a timely fashion the video of the Muppets covering "Bohemian Rhapsody," which you have probably now seen in every Twitter feed you follow. But if, by chance, you have not yet seen it, I assure you that it is well worth it.

• What are the top ten movie flops of the 2000s? The Hollywood Reporter has made its picks. I'll warn you right now: some of these, I didn't even remember.

Burn Notice, forgetting you're on television, and a surprise win for Fox, after the jump.

• Adam Lambert has managed to get days of publicity out of his performance at the American Music Awards, and during his appearance on today's The Early Show on CBS, he hilariously claimed that he got "carried away" in part because forgot he was on television. Plum forgot! His experience is in theater, after all, and he's never been on television -- except for the many months he spent on American Idol. I'm pretty sympathetic to the argument that this is all much ado about nothing, but ... don't push your luck, kid.

• Fans of Burn Notice will be relieved to hear that it was renewed for a fourth season. Unsurprising news given its strong performance for USA, but welcome news nevertheless.

by Linda Holmes

You know, you can hear all day that Jimmy Fallon did a really funny impression of Neil Young singing the theme song from The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air, and you can keep thinking, "I have to go watch that at some point." But when you actually hear it and it sounds really weirdly like Neil Young, you suddenly understand why you've been hearing about it all day.

Jimmy Fallon, people. I'm telling you.

Hat-tip, among other places, to Sling.com.

by Linda Holmes

When I got my copy of the Blu-ray combo pack that includes Up on Blu-ray and on DVD -- and includes a digital copy for your computer or whatever other sort of device to boot -- I happened to be hanging out with the same five-year-old and eight-year-old I saw it with in theaters, so we popped it into the player. The five-year-old even abandoned Spongebob to come watch it, and that is a big, big deal. This, I figured, was a great test. They'd loved it the first time, but would it hold up?

Up has completely stopped being good, after the jump. Just kidding.

I assume it's not necessary to sell the movie to you again -- and I shouldn't forget Partly Cloudy, the glorious short that aired with Up in theaters and is also included, and I loved that just as much the second time, too.

Fortunately, they've packed the discs with lots of other goodies.

The Blu-ray, in particular, has a sort of souped-up director's commentary, where you get little sketches and other visuals popping up in boxes on the screen to illustrate what the people are talking about, and some great supporting material including a long film about the trips to South America that allowed the visuals to be so powerful, a new short starring Dug the dog ("Squirrel!"), and a few sketches that illuminate alternate endings that were considered for the "villain" Muntz.

It's not big news, I don't think, that Up still makes for pretty great home entertainment, or that it looks tremendous -- seriously, it looks tremendous -- especially on Blu-ray or on a great TV, where the colors really pop and the animation looks glorious. But even if you're just plugging it into your completely pedestrian DVD player and your fifteen-year-old living-room television, it's going to be watched over and over, in all likelihood, so don't buy it if you're not ready to see it a few times. Bring tissues.

by Linda Holmes

This week in What We're Reading, we return to popular fiction, check out some short stories, and run with the space nerds.

If you're traveling this holiday season, you're likely to spot a few copies of Michael Crichton's final completed novel, Pirate Latitudes, which really does contain the line "Warm day for a hanging," and we have some thoughts on that. There are short stories from award-winners Ha Jin and Alice Munro, commented upon by familiar NPR voices Jacki Lyden and Lynn Neary. Finally, we'll peek at the latest installment of an intensely researched series on the Russian and U.S. space programs -- this one looks at the history of U.S. attempts at unmanned systems.

by Linda Holmes

The best reason to watch Dancing With The Stars is that every now and then, something profoundly bizarre happens. It's not a mean show. It's not even American Idol mean, where dreams are crushed or anything like that. It's mostly just very, very silly, and fortunately, as the ninth season (yes, ninth season) closes tonight, you can appreciate an entire season's worth of weirdness in one blog post. We're willing to throw ourselves on the grenade for you. That's how much we care.

1. The Robot Paso Doble

In the eighth week of competition, each couple was assigned a dance to do in the spirit of a particular decade. Singer Mya, for instance, did a samba in the style of the '70s. But apparently, with five couples left, they felt that there were really only four decades to work with that audiences would recognize as markedly retro: the '60s, the '70s, the '80s, and the '90s. (The effort at an '80s routine is how we wound up with Donny Osmond dressing like Adam Ant, as discussed here.)

But when they ran out of decades, they gave the fifth couple ... the future. This resulted in the following extremely literal interpretation of what a paso doble -- the dance inspired by bullfighting -- would look like in the future. When danced by robots. As robots are conceived in inexpensive robot movies. Made by elementary-school students. This is model Joanna Krupa, performing with her professional dance partner, Derek Hough. (Okay, if you'd rather watch Donny Osmond as Adam Ant, which is also extremely weird, you can find that here.)

Ultimate fighting meets dancing, the Muppets show up, and what the heck is with Donny Osmond? After the jump.

Ultimate fighter Chuck Liddell was a very good sport, but he was ... not a very good dancer. Here, he takes his best shot at a two-step, which could have been subtitled, "A Professional Dancer Does A Heroic Job Of Keeping Most Of The Dancing Out Of This Dance."

3. The Tom DeLay Extra-Patriotic Samba

We talked about this a little back when it happened, but there is no way you can cover this season of Dancing -- particularly the weirder moments -- without dealing with the DeLay samba where, apparently, we are seeing the touching story of a Democrat and a Republican falling in love through the dance.

4. Donny Osmond Does Not Age, Change, Or Acknowledge Time

One of the things you learn about Donny Osmond from watching this show is that it's as if he has remained in a glass case, or a biosphere, or a hyperbaric chamber -- or maybe one inside the other inside the other -- for many years. The '70s became the '80s, and the '80s became the '90s, and the '90s became whatever we are calling what we're in now, and Donny Osmond is still exactly the same guy. He doesn't age. Time doesn't affect him. He exists separate from the space-time continuum.

5. Aaron Carter Kicks It Muppet-Style

This is the one, more than any other, that makes me think ... "Whose idea was this?"

The quickstep is generally a classy, upbeat, sophisticated thing. Playful, yes, but in a romantic, flirtatious way, not in a "karate-chopping pig" way. The show has frequently made some odd choices about music, and sometimes they work out. But the theme music from The Muppet Show was really just too weird. The bright green suit made it seem like maybe Carter was supposed to be Kermit (if he wasn't, there is no excuse for that color), but the entire spectacle turned out to be rather puzzling.

Furthermore, this theme music is nothing without the "To introduce our guest star" part.

by Linda Holmes

If you missed The Big Bang Theory last night, then you didn't see Sheldon's appearance on Science Friday, where he discussed magnetic monopoles as part of a scheme to boost ratings.

Perhaps this clip will help clarify. It's always a hoot to see a good show like this make mention of National Public Wadio -- er, "Radio."

by Linda Holmes

Last night marked one of my holiday-season milestones: I saw the Hershey Kisses handbells commercial for the first time this year. As I mentioned last year, it is my favorite.

(iStockphoto.com)

And while I officially disapprove of holiday advertising before Thanksgiving, I have chosen to allow it, since heaven knows they've already leaped right into the whole thing this year, what with that genuinely atrocious Gap ad that has crawled into my ear like a mite. You know the one.

The one -- and a plea for help, after the jump.

Haaaaaate. As I -- once again -- mentioned last year, the Gap ads have undergone a truly epic collapse since the Rufus days.

So far this year, my favorite shamefully moving holiday ad is this Walmart commercial (I know!), which I may, just possibly, have slightly cried at when I first saw it. I'M SORRY. I know it's button-pushing, but -- but -- it's his Christmas wish!

This, I believe, is the time of year when it is important to own your susceptibility to warm cliches, to embrace your ability to be manipulated, and to face things like the Hershey handbells head-on so that you do not, in a frenzy of unknowing consumerist intoxication, actually run out and purchase things.

So I ask you -- in the spirit of "Peeeter!" -- to join me in separating the wheat from the chaff by acknowledging the holiday advertising that has -- perhaps against your will -- warmed your kitsch-weary heart. Confess with me. You will feel better.

by Linda Holmes

• Hey, if you're taking the opportunity this Thanksgiving to get up a game of golf (hey, it could happen), don't try the Happy Gilmore shot. You could wind up in legal trouble.

• What show on television has the highest percentage of "upscale" viewers -- meaning viewers between 18 and 49 who are in households making more than $100,000 a year? Make your guess, then learn the answer.

• Every time I get to the description of the Hugh Jackman project Real Steel that uses some expression like robot boxing promoter, I keep waiting for somebody to say it's a parody, but apparently, it's not.

The ethics of copyright and dating, and a movie "experience," after the jump.

• Slate critic Troy Patterson has a fascinating look at the creepy, womanizing behavior found on ... the Disney Channel.

• Would you pay $30 for a movie if it also included an "experience"? Early viewers of The Princess And The Frog will be doing just that.

by Linda Holmes

In about the last two minutes of this 60 Minutes episode that aired last night, Andy Rooney does his favorite thing, which is to tell you for two minutes that you are doing everything wrong.

Thanksgiving, he explains, is about family and togetherness and the things that we're grateful for. Therefore, you must not use canned pumpkin. Or canned cranberry sauce. Because, he says, "we should" fix Thanksgiving dinner exactly the way the Pilgrims did.

This makes absolutely no sense, and the story of the year I made Thanksgiving dinner, after the jump.

Of course, if we are all going to attempt to recreate a perfect Pilgrim Thanksgiving, we won't be able to stop there. According to this standard, it is also wrong to use your oven, refrigerate anything, use mass-produced flatware, purchase anything at the grocery store, use potatoes you did not grow yourself, drive or fly anywhere to be with your family, call anyone on the phone, watch a football game, play in a football game, hold a football, use a recipe handed down by your family (after all, at the first Thanksgiving, they didn't have the benefit of previous Thanksgivings, now, did they?), or, heaven forfend, watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

I'm fascinated by the idea that, rather than enjoying your own family traditions, you are obligated to travel back in time 400 years or so so that you can precisely duplicate the cooking and baking methods of the Pilgrims, and that this is somehow key to nailing down what you are thankful for. I am also fascinated by the fact that he says you shouldn't use anything in a can, and then says that he uses canned chicken soup to make gravy. Which is it, Andy Rooney?

My theory of Thanksgiving? Do what pleases your family. My family happens to include someone who only wants the cranberry sauce "in the shape of the can." So that's what we do. One year, when I was away from home, I went to a friend's house, and she said she was no cook and warned me they'd be getting the entire meal from Safeway. Was it the best food I've ever had? No. But she welcomed me to her home with her family, and believe me, I remember that year very fondly.

In fact, one year, my mother's knee was out, so I made the entire Thanksgiving dinner. The turkey, the gravy, the potatoes, the pies, the pumpkin bread ... I made everything, with my mom sitting there with her foot up in the kitchen. I'd bring over the bowl of whatever it was and say, "Does this look right?" And she would say it looked right, or that it needed a bit more flour, or she'd hop over and peer into the oven and say something was or wasn't quite done.

That was probably my favorite Thanksgiving of all time, in some ways, even though the food was probably not as good as it was when she made it. That was the year I learned to make everything as much like she did as I possibly could. And while I love the fact that we tear up a bag of bread and dump it into the turkey roaster as the beginning of making stuffing, I'm fairly confident that the canned pumpkin didn't destroy the experience for anyone.

So as you review the sentimental Thanksgiving pieces that will surely grace your local news program this week, give yourself a break. Andy Rooney wants you to cook like a Pilgrim, but I promise, the rest of us aren't judging.

by Linda Holmes

Love him or hate him, one thing Adam Lambert never was on American Idol was off-pitch. His singing style may not have been everyone's thing, but he tended to be technically on target. Not so last night at the American Music Awards, which is why it's a fortunate thing for Lambert that all the talk today is about the kissing and simulated you-know-what that took place on stage. If there weren't that to talk about, what you'd be reading about is that this was a pretty inauspicious beginning, musically speaking, for a guy who's been so highly praised.

A bigger stage, after the jump.

Of course, this isn't the major topic of the day. The major topics of the day are (1) He kissed the keyboard player; and (2) he pulled a dancer's face into his crotch and began thrusting. He's claiming that the kiss wasn't planned. He also says it's ridiculous to be bothered by the simulated oral sex and the S&M imagery, since women are always "pushing the envelope about sexuality."

Rolling Stone quotes him saying:

We're in 2009 -- it's time to take risks, be a little more brave, time to open people's eyes and if it offends them, then maybe I'm not for them. My goal was not to piss people off, it was to promote freedom of expression and artistic freedom.

He went on to say that if any part of the performance was snipped from the West Coast broadcast by ABC, that would be discrimination, because MTV didn't remove Britney Spears and Madonna kissing from one of their awards shows. Of course, (1) cable isn't broadcast; (2) MTV isn't ABC; and (3) simulated oral sex isn't the equivalent of kissing if you are a broadcast network. I don't think the kiss was ever in much danger of being cut, but I wasn't surprised to hear they cut away from the ... you know, grinding somebody's face into his crotch. I don't think I've ever seen a female performer do that on a broadcast channel without anyone being bothered by it.

But honestly, this is all a distraction, and probably one he should welcome. In the long run, his bigger problem is that, despite being a strong live performer, he was given a giant forum to perform live in front of a non-Idol audience and didn't sing very well. This isn't the result of lack of ability -- everybody who saw him on television, and anybody who's seen him live, knows that the talent is there. But this wasn't a strong performance, and he's pretty lucky this morning that he's getting to spend the day talking about artistic freedom and not pitch problems.

by Linda Holmes

I love a nice surprise.

The title Dear Old Love: Anonymous Notes To Former Crushes, Sweethearts, Husbands, Wives & Ones That Got Away sounds like it can only refer to a maudlin collection of drippy love letters and hand-wringing and boo-hooing. I almost didn't read it. But I'm glad I did, because it turns out that it's entirely made up of one-shot gems like these:

I'll be waiting for you after your mild fame evaporates.

You like the club scene. I like to knit. You said that wouldn't matter. It did.

It's nice you went to therapy after we broke up. I wish you'd gone while we were still together.

The bits of the book were gathered as submissions to the web site DearOldLove.com, run by Andy Selsberg, who also wrote the book.

This project should probably be insufferable -- the self-indulgent Hallmark card of the Internet. But it isn't.

Staying clear of the potholes, after the jump.

The book does a wonderful job of wrapping itself around the combination of anger and sadness and bitterness and warmth and regret that often accompanies thoughts of failed relationships. Consider something like this: The day you changed your Facebook status to "Engaged," I spent 40 minutes in the shower so my boyfriend wouldn't hear me crying. Yes, yes, Facebook is silly, Facebook status updates are silly. But leaving Facebook out of it, this combination of embarrassment and consideration of the boyfriend's feelings, rolled up with the gut-punch of finding out about the new relationship -- even when in one yourself! -- is nicely captured in that image.

But it's very, very important to stress that this book is also reliably funny. I giggled out loud a lot, turning page after page to little delights like, My love for you is like a mummy -- carefully preserved, with the brains yanked out. Come on now, that's just genius. Or this: I really did want to be a grandparent with you. It's just that getting to that point would have been an interminable slog.

I may have exaggerated my devotion to sports to win you, but my love of sitting, eating and watching things was genuine.

I think you came back because I asked you, not because you wanted to.

I still say you're an idiot for not falling in love with me.

How could you stand me? I'm glad you did, but I was such a jerk and poor dresser back then.

It's a rich little document, and it makes for a dizzyingly concentrated dose of humanity. I'd say it's the kind of book that would make a great gift, but of course, you will have to be extremely careful about the recipient.

by Linda Holmes

This weekend, New Moon made over $140 million. That's the third-biggest opening weekend ever behind The Dark Knight and Spider-Man 3. It helped create the second-biggest box-office weekend of all time. It's the biggest opening weekend of 2009 (obviously). It made twice as much money as the original Twilight did when it opened. The audience was 80 percent female, and 50 percent under 21.

In short, as much money as people thought it would make, it made even more.

$60 million more on opening weekend than Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince. $30 million more than Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen. More than twice as much as last weekend's 2012.

It may seem at times like the only people who can drive blockbusters anymore are teenage boys playing video games, but don't you believe it. You give them the right story, and teenage girls will fork over just as much money.