Well, it's May 18th and I have relaxed a bit from my post Attack of the Clones euphoria and can now look forward to the next film on my list, Minority Report. June 21st is not that far away. What follows is a journal of my encounters with the trailers and such and the review.

May, 16th: Saw the new trailer in front of the aforementioned Star Wars. Oh wait, I did not see it! Because the chimps in the friggen projection booth forgot to check the framing. So, that preview and about 8-10 minutes of the movie I have only been waiting for 3 years was OUT OF FRAME!!!!!! And to top it off, one of the punk idiot savants they have working at this theater came up to us and told us they had a line and could we please leave We did not.

May 20th: Watched the footage that appeared on Entertainment Tonight. Wow, I am really getting pumped up. Not like I wasn't already. Mary Hart told me that more footage will be shown tomorrow. I think she is 47% plastic

May 21st: On my way to work, stopped by a gas station. Inside was a Cricket cell phone station and a little Minority Report poster was on the front. Cool, I hope they have little Tom Cruise silly straws at Burger King! Rushed home from work just in time to MISS THE FOOTAGE!!!! Luckily my lovely wife of 10 years recorded it. She didn't. Will this never end More tomorrow, hopefully I will catch it. "Use the VCR" you say It's also 10 years old and has decided to take on a life of its own. It only records the Dana Plato E! True Hollywood Story. Oh my God, is Dana in my VCR Dana Dana.

May 22nd: Caught more footage from the infotainment extravaganza, Entertainment Tonight. Cool stuff, but once again I have to ask myself, am I seeing too much That's always been my problem with movies I cannot wait to see. I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE THEM. I will search high and low for any tidbit, any morsel of information about the film that interests me. Then there is the inevitable, "Oh crap, I wish I didn't know that." Does that stop me Of course not. Like the pavlovian dog drooling at his dish, I will continue to search. You're in this with me, so it's kind of your fault also. Thanks a lot.

WAIT!! This has to stop. What you are reading now is being written on June 23rd. If you listen closely you can hear Jawad chewing on his finger nails and muttering to himself, "Can that man ever make a deadline" I changed course in the middle of this article to bring up a problem that we all share. See, this was supposed to be my account of all the hullabaloo surrounding the count down to Minority Report and then I was to finish the article with my own views of the film. Well, it's not going to be like this. Consider myself in your room sitting with you right now. Oh, and by the way, could you not eat the frosting out of the container while on the computer and put some clothes on for God's sake! This is your intervention. It's time to stop READING THE SPOILERS!!!!

Yes, that's right. Is there irony here Most definitely. I write for this site. This site reveals some things about upcoming movies that could be considered spoilers. Do I read this site Yes. Do I go to other fan sites and read info Yes. My God, I am a SPOILER JUNKIE!!! I cannot help it. It's the sites fault really. Sure, they warn you with those 2 little words, "Spoiler Warning." But does that stop us Do I watch the Oprah Show with guests Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg because I know that I am safe from finding out too much You all know the answer, "No."

I know a lot of you have seen Minority Report by now and if you haven't there is really great scene where Tom Cruise is eating a bagel and . Just pulling your leg. After I left the theater on Friday night, I got down on knee and thanked the movie gods that I stopped hunting for spoilers and therefore did not know the major plot points of the film. Like why does Tom Cruise's character wear tap shoes through most of the film and every time his character meets up with someone he knows, he winks and utters the words, "Nice suit, ya hump."

Spoilers are so easy to find now days. Back in my time, we had to go out into the sunlight and make our way to "stores." And in these "stores" were the spoiler mags of our day, Starlog and Cinefantastique. We would tear into them with wide-eyed wonder while LaDell was filling up our Slurpee behind the counter. Yes, Virginia, Slurpees were not always self serve. And LaDell I hear she WAS self serve. ZING!! Had to get that in there.

Another ritual in the early days of spoilers were the week long segments on the Today Show. It was the only place to see the "never before seen clips" and interviews with the stars. Now you just click a mouse. Sure the mouse has the same electric personality as Bryant Gumble but it does not tell you who turned 100 years old. Now the bad thing about this was that the Monday segment was always in the first hour of the sho w and by the time you got to Friday it was pushed to the last 15 minutes of the last hour. Now it only takes as long as your fastest connect time that your lousy ISP decides to let you connect at!!! Look at that, I am so upset with my ISP I ended a sentence with a preposition.

My favorite thing about fan sites is the minute detail that they will scrutinize a film and pass this important information on to us; the poor lost souls who wait out of the loop. Here's a scoop, the doorknobs are silver!! His hair is parted on the left side. Forty minutes of the footage is out of focus. These tidbits will enhance your viewing pleasure of the finished product immensely. Then these same sites that have dissected every frame of the yet to be released film complain when there is nothing left to discover! "Well, I guess there are no more surprises with this film." Really How did that happen After all, in a two hour film, there are only 172,800 frames to pick apart. I hope I did the math right on that one.

So, to remain spoiler free, here is my new releases resolution.

1. Only go to the official sites.
2. Be very careful with fan sites.
3. No more Oprah. (That's true on so many levels)
4. Go back to Starlog
5. Just because an over-weight Texan says it's good, doesn't mean it is.
6. Last but not least, call up LaDell and see how things are going.


P.S. I loved Minority Report. If you haven't, GO SEE IT!
P.P.S. I love the ending when Tom Cruise finds his dog!!!