A friend of my g/f loves that movie.

There must be something about Kate Beckinsale and vampire movies. She's also in Van Helsing, which wasn't too bad of a movie.

A bit cheesy at times and some of the dialouge could have been left on the cutting room floor, but the action scenes and the beginning were pretty enjoyable.

Rod,

I like Cannery Row, too, though I think what didn't come from Sweet Thursday was made up by the screenwriter. I'm not sure any of it comes from Cannery Row. John Huston's narration is particularly good.

Marilyn,

How can you criticize me for my Star Wars comment, and then respond to Billy's articulate defense of Easter Parade with



You've pretty much dissed him worse than what I did anyone in my defense of Lucas' movie. You're telling him he doens't know how to evaluate musicals, and that your personal opinion is superior to his own.

The whole sub-plot of Mac and the boys catching frogs and planning the party that ends up in trashing Doc's place is from Cannery Row; the bit where Winger ends up trying to make home in a boiler and looks for something to hang curtains from metal is also in it but involved a homeless couple. All the characters from the whorehouse including the doorman appaer in the first book though they don't play as big a part. And a lot of Huston's narration lines are direct quotes, though my favorite lines (which involves how a knowledge of automobile upkeep usually balances an ignorance of female anatomy) in the book weren't spoken.

Are you sure about the pipe?

Irving Berling's stuff is like Alan Mencken's, the Disney songwriting maven. Catchy, simple tunes that have the good fortune to marry themselves to (mostly) top-rate productions. Musically, there's very little that's inventive or deep, just tons of solid, hummable ideas.

For musical scope and raw talent, Berlin isn't in the same league as Richard Rodgers or Cole Porter, both of whom were more versatile and -- at their best -- blew Berlin away. But neither Porter nor Rodgers wrote anything close to the brilliance of Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story.

And for sheer musical genius none of these guys could touch George Gershwin.