C'est Non Un Blog

Dear Lord, I haven’t posted anything since the Monday Movie Review. That’s not good, with tomorrow being Monday again. When I haven’t been busy I’ve been lazy, and vice versa, so here’s a greatest hits version of the last week for all of those who give a damn.

——Getting a Haircut——

Counting back two weeks from last Tuesday I had taken my sister in to get her hair cut (and, actually, chopped off much to her chagrin) and it was at that time while she was getting her hair cut/chopped that I grabbed a hold of Sharon if I could maybe get a haircut two weeks from that date. She said sure, signed me up, and that was that. (I probably could have used a haircut right then, as by two weeks later I looked like one of the Wild Men lost from civilization when I got up in the morning.)

So I walk in Tuesday but only Terry is there. I’m confused as is she, since she couldn’t figure out for the life of her which Ben she would be seeing that day. Granted, Terry used to cut my hair, but for the last two years at least I’ve been seeing Sharon for that duty. And SHE’S the one that signed me up for Tuesday, even though that was her day off. Why, we’ll never know. But I just wasted a trip into Hoosick Falls and had to come back the next day.

So to finish up what has become an extremely boring story, my hair is now cut and I again look like a normal human being. The sides and back were cut back quite a lot, while the top remains long and shaggy, giving me a more hip look instead of the normal, “Don’t touch my hair if you ever want your hand back” look.

——Getting a Job——

Wednesday I finally broke down and went to the Vermont Department of Employment and Training in hopes of finding a job through them. (Why Vermont? Well, I’m closer to them really than I am to the nearest cities in New York.) I went after getting my haircut and got a little lost trying to find the place, and I walked in just under the gun. Little did I know office hours ended at 3, but I saw Steve anyway and he was real nice about it. I was in there for about an hour and got two decent job opportunities out of it, which hopefully one of which will turn into something.

The first is with Bose Stereo equipment in Manchester, doing presentations and working sales or something like that. So anyway, Steve hooks me up with a job interview. Sue, who I would be talking to won’t be there until next week, but she says come in anyway and talk to Jim, their new assistant manager. So the next day I have my first big job interview, or as I like to call it, the morning from hell.

First of all, I get like no sleep, as this is the first important thing I’ve had to do since I graduated Bard. I actually get up a few minutes early, but somehow manage to spend too long in the shower, and thus am now late. The pants I picked out don’t fit. I need to grab another pair. I jump in the car and am about to throw in a new tape I just made the night before, but the tape in there is jammed and won’t come out. So I start playing with this thing as I’m speeding down the road, and it starts to snow.

Now I haven’t been up to Manchester in at least ten years, and I have no idea where I’m going. I’m speeding on a road I’ve never driven where you can’t even see the lines because of piled up snow. My windshield wiper fluid doesn’t work. I get stuck behind not one, but two dump trucks. By some stroke of luck I get there only one minute late and find the place fairly easily. I walk in and Jim makes me fill out an application. I have my resume handy, but OK. I fill out what’s needed, come back and…thanks! Nice to meet you. Uh, wasn’t there an interview somewhere in there? Jim doesn’t seem to know there was. Fuck. I drive home in disgust.

The second job is one at Global Z, some company that translates foreign addresses so that we in America can understand them. I’m not really sure what the job entails, and I hope that they don’t require that I’m a programmer to do the job, but otherwise it sounds interesting. It’s a family operation, and the family is from somewhere in Europe. I can’t get out of my head the image of the dude ranch couple Francis works for on Malcolm in the Middle. I could only be so lucky.

——Harry——

After the disaster of the Bose interview that wasn’t, Harry came over and we watched Princess Blade and talked DVDs. Also we happened to come upon the topic of his new conquest, a Filipino from, you guessed it, the Philippines, that replaces the crazy Egyptian girl and the ex-stripper as his new internet girlfriend. He’s an odd one. When I asked why he couldn’t just find a girlfriend in the US around here, he said he like foreign women, mainly Asian women right now. They aren’t around here. When I asked why he couldn’t just go to the mall to find one, he kind of avoided my question.

Afterwards we went to his house to play a little Tekken 4 and watch Bjork videos while we waited for Brian to show up. Then we went to this place in Albany called Bombers that was freezing cold but gave you a burrito I swear was the size of your forearm (if you chopped off the ends it would fit around your arm easily) for 6 bucks. Interesting dinner conversation included the fact that no, Harry does not indeed have the clap. Way to go, man.

——TV——

Scrubs and the Apprentice are both awesome shows, but could NBC please quit being a bitch and find a proper place for them? It appears that they have, after American Idol’s third night of tryouts thoroughly kicked the Apprentice’s ass in the ratings. So Apprentice is now permanently on Thursdays 9-10 to try to suck ratings off of CSI, while Scrubs gets fucked in the ass repeatedly as it gets moved to its new timeslot on Tuesdays. Well, at least its going to be on regularly now, and at least Sam, the crazy man, was fired off of the Apprentice (in what was probably the most surreal “the tribe has spoken” moment ever, when Trump fired him he just sat there and starred intensely at Trump, either trying a last ditch effort to get him to change his mind or preparing to go loco and kill everyone).

American Idol season 3 has only proved that there is an incredible multitude of morons in this country. And they all believe they can sing. It’s all gotten very idiotic, and even Paula is getting a little bitchy having to watch all of these losers. Hell, Randy is as nasty as Simon is now. My favorite audition was the black kid who didn’t give a fuck about being the American Idol. He simply showed up because he thought it would be cool to be the American Idol, but other than that the whole thing meant nothing to him. He was a big old apathy sandwich. The judges, appropriately, kicked him out before even letting him sing.

Thank the good Lord, WB is FINALLY showing new episodes again. It’s been what, almost two months since there has been a new episode of Gilmore Girls? What’s up with that, WB?

Ed has come to his final two episodes. Presumably ever. And I seem to be the only one that even slightly cares. And I really only really slightly care. America’s love story, or as I like to call it, TV’s most annoying promos ever, has finally come to an end.

One more week until Survivor All-Stars! Sweet!

——The Golden Globes——

I almost didn’t watch these, because it just seemed so pointless. But it was actually a pretty nice show. You’ve got to respect the Globes for keeping a tight schedule, especially in light of next month’s Oscars, which will probably be, like always, bloated to degrees that no one wants to watch. Most of the speeches were pretty good (except for mainly Rene Zellewigger, who was unusually extremely boring) especially Bill Murray’s. That’s probably the closest I’ve ever seen anyone come to saying fuck you to the whole award’s show bullshit, and it was hilarious. Bonus shout out to the lead actor of the Office, who upon winning his second Globe of the night just rambled on wasting time until the light came on telling him to rap it up, and as soon as it came on he just stopped what he was saying and walked off the stage.

And you’ve got to love the winners for best picture: Lost in Translation and LotRs: Return of the King. 9 out of the last 10 years the Globes predicted the winner of the Oscar; either one of these films is extremely deserving of it. Nice!

——EW 2004 Preview——

This issue has probably the worst cover EVER. It’s Hallie Berry in her Catwoman costume. I pulled it out of the mail box and thought I had received some fucked up S&M magazine. Nope, just horrible pictures of Catwoman. (The costume looks ever WORSE from the back!) And from the article that went with it, the movie sounds like it is going to be just as shitty as the costume.

If you thought the cover was scary, stay the hell away from page 29. There is a picture of David Carradine with no shirt on that is possibly the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen A LOT of sick shit.

For those looking for Dawn of the Dead news, I give you the following:

“So how many zombies are going to get shot in the head in the Universal’s Dawn of the Dead remake? “I’d constantly fight with the studio over how many head shots to put in the movie, because the more the better,” reports director Zack Snyder. “I want zombie war. But [they’re] like, ‘If it was a war movie, you couldn’t show all those people getting shot in the head.’ And my argument was always, They’re zombies! You can shoot them in the head all day long. There’s no Zombie Defamation League!”

Lining up a good bit of product placement–the movie is set in a mall, after all–was tougher. “Starbucks didn’t want to be part of our movie, I guess because they didn’t want to see their logo with blood sprayed all over it, which I find sort of a pussy approach to marketing,” Snyder laughs.

Zombie Defamation League! Fantastic! On a sad note, the zombies in the picture appear to be running, which sucks.

——Foxy Brown DVD——

81 days after I put my check in the mail, I finally received my Foxy Brown DVD in the mail. What a dickhead. Again, it came from Deep Discount DVD, making me wonder why I didn’t just buy it from them in the first place. I would have gotten it a lot quicker. After getting it I promptly went on eBay and gave him two negative ratings. What pisses me off is that I never noticed it before, but there are tons of negative reviews on there talking about how items came late. But he has so many positive ratings that it still says that he has a 97% positive rating. How many other people are getting suckered in to buy from this fucker?

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I had more material that you probably would have seen had I posted on a regular basis. But then, if you compare that to what I just rambled on above, I probably saved you a lot of pain and misery. I had a lot to say, but it was probably all shit anyway. Stuff like how I wished I was living in California right now, because it’s so fucking cold up here. See, just bullshit stuff. Although it is really, REALLY fucking cold up here. I’m not kidding, it’s cold.

——Rio Lobo——

(B+)

Although this is just a Rio Bravo remake and an inferior one at that, this is still a pretty entertaining movie. Yeah, the supporting actors couldn’t act their way out of a paper bag, but the Duke is in top form hitting people, drinking and overall just having a great time. The plot kind of bounces all over the place, but then that gives it that nice “Where the hell is this movie going?” quality that doesn’t excuse the reusing of the plot of Rio Bravo, but does do a nice job of making the whole thing pretty interesting. The women of the movie were unfortunately chosen for their looks and not their acting ability, as the leading lady especially managed to make me cringe every time she opened her mouth. It’s not the greatest movie, but it is fun enough and definitely worth a watch.

——Owning Mahowny——

(B+)

This was a pretty high quality production with a pretty interesting story, but I did come to have issues with its dreadfully slow pacing and the lack of any character arc for the main character. What I found odd about this movie is that at the very end of it Mahowny is talking with a psychiatrist and happens to note that the biggest thrill of his life is gambling, and that on a scale of 1 to 100 it’s a 100. And yet, not once in the film do we actually see him enjoy gambling. Not even when he’s up 9 million dollars does he look happy. Instead he always looks like he’s on the brink of having a stroke. It’s an all right movie, but I don’t think I’ll ever see it again.

——Swimming Pool——

(A-)

If you want a really interesting experience, watch this movie and then go watch Peter Pan (like I did). Tinkerbell takes on a completely new meaning. Anyway, Swimming Pool was pretty interesting. I think I know what it all means, but I’m not really sure; it’s one of those things where I’d have to see it again to really see. If you’ve seen it please write me to discuss the ending. But anyway, if you haven’t seen the movie it’s about a prudish Englishwoman who writes detective novels who decides to take up her publishers offer to write her next book at his French villa. There she meets his wild, sexually liberated daughter who at first annoys and distracts her from her novel, but then becomes so interesting to the Englishwoman that she starts writing a new novel based on the girl. (For those who haven’t figured it out yet, the girl is the one who plays Tinkerbell.) There’s a whole hell of a lot of nudity and lots of sexuality, and a twist ending reminiscent of Mulholland Drive. It’s not perfect, but if that isn’t enough to get you to see the movie, I don’t know what will.

——S.W.A.T.——

(C+)

It’s not like the writing of this movie is particularly bad, it’s just really sloppy which is unfortunate because it takes away from what otherwise could have been a really good summer action movie. Where the writing fails is in trying to decide what type of movie this is. It seems more like a hodgepodge of good ideas in first draft form than a tight and focused final draft. There are just inclusions of things that really don’t need to be there to make the movie work. If you aren’t going to focus on how their job in S.W.A.T. affects their personal lives, then why spend so much needless time at home with them? A throwaway line or a glimpse at a photo in a wallet would do just as much as these pointless scenes at home do. Having an ex-S.W.A.T. guy try to break the international criminal out of police custody would have done just as much as having Colin Ferrel’s ex-partner (now evil diabolical genius) pull it off. It’s all sloppy one-dimensional writing that goes nowhere. If you’re going to do it, fine, I’m all for it, but you’ve got to go all the way with it. Otherwise just have it be about being on S.W.A.T., which I think would have been an interesting movie on its own (but Hollywood would never have something like that made if it didn’t have the cheesy cliches too). It’s a shame, because I otherwise I really liked this movie.

——Peter Pan——

(C)

I’m sorry, I tried really hard to like this, but I just couldn’t do it. This movie sucks. It really does. It’s just a way too literal adaptation of the book and it just doesn’t work in parts (especially the spastic beginning, in which the director follows the Hollywood rule that kids won’t follow non-action plot unless its cut together really fast with insane spastic energy). And what the hell’s up with Tinkerbell? She acts like she’s been snorting a little too much pixie dust, if you know what I mean. The movie isn’t all bad though, there is a lot of good stuff crammed in there. Most of it has to do with the subtext of the movie though (which isn’t really a good sign for the movie itself), the whole Peter Pan syndrome thing. I had more fun comparing Hook to Peter and the Pirates to the Lost Boys then I actually did watching the two interact. I liked too the idea that women are ultimately what makes boys grow into men, and if there are no women, no Wendy for your Peter, then you either stay Peter forever or turn into a Hook, pretty much a giant ill-tempered boy. What I really didn’t get though was the decision to cast Wendy’s father and Hook with the same actor. What the hell does THAT mean?

The special effects were competent, but nothing spectacular. Most of the time they looked more like a cartoon than real life though, which makes me wonder why the hell they felt like adapting it anyway if they were just going to remake the Disney cartoon. This isn’t really worth seeing unless you are a hardcore Peter Pan fan.

I found this extremely amusing. This is totally a conversation I would have (have had).

For those of you keeping track and especially for those of you who placed bets (real or imagined), I just finished reading the Hobbit. If you had me out before then, well you lose.

On a sadder note, my sister went back to college today, which means watching TV isn’t nearly going to be as fun as it was the last few weeks.

Why is Britney Spears so stupid? Seriously, I want to know. How could she be so amazed that everyone wants to know about her quicky marriage and say things like, “Why am I the only thing in the news? We landed on Mars the same day, why wasn’t anyone talking about that?” Well, besides the fact that rocks are boring, there’s the fact that if anyone I know got a quicky marriage in Vegas, I’d want to know about it. When that person is Britney Dumbass Spears, I want to know even more. I’m just amazed that someone can yell at the press for wanting to know so much about her and then do numerous headline catching things right afterwards. She’s like a two year old testing her parents. You don’t want the press to hound you about your personal life? Then keep it private and not so damn public, you dumb bitch.

Man, the Simple Life Reunion show last night was the LAMEST reunion show I’ve ever seen. Forget the fact that it aired before the last episode (LAME) and it still was incredibly lame. Liza Gibbons is the worst host of anything ever, and the people involved in the reunion show could not look less interested (especially, unsurprisingly, Paris and Nicole). I can’t believe no one had the balls to call them crazy bitches like they are.

Man, I wish I was drunk more, or at all. Don’t you love checking your IM messages or looking at someone’s blog, only to see that they wrote an extremely embarassing message there while they were drunk? God I miss that. The one thing you could always look forward to at Bard was a weird rambling IM message or 30 messages on your answering machine at three in the morning going, “Hey, are you there? I know you’re there. Why aren’t you there?” I miss completely embarassing myself. I embarass myself all the time, but never to such a high level of shame as when I’m drunk off my ass and telling everyone I love them. And I do love you all, but wouldn’t you rather I say so like, “Mann, i lov uuuuuuuuuuuu!”

I wanted to title this “News Briefs”, but since it is news to no one that I’m a total dork, I went with the above.

Well, I just watched all of the Apendices on the LotRs Extended Editions. Yes, that means all four disks of Fellowship and Two Towers. It’s something like 12+ hours worth of documentaries. I did it over three days. What am I…I’m not sure proud is the right word. Happy? That’s good and non-descriptive. I’ll use that. Nice.

Anyway, the documentaries on the Extended Editions are awesome, and I totally recommend everyone watch them (maybe not all at one time though. Yeah, not a good idea.) Probably the best, most informative and yet highly entertaining documentaries I’ve ever seen. You can tell they put as much effort into them as they did the finished films, which I think is pretty cool.

The TTT EE and the documentaries got me all on this LotRs high, so I decided to read the book again. Of course then The Hobbit was sitting there on the shelf looking at me, all sad and half read, so I’m going to read that first and THEN read LotRs again. Or so goes the plan. Watch me woose out in a week. If you want to take bets on how far I’ll get, I’m totally all for that.

——

Is anyone else watching the Simpsons lately? Is anyone else noticing how GOOD it’s been this season? The last couple seasons there has been this gradual decline in quality with a few high points here and there, but nothing that reaches the former glory it once had. While I wouldn’t go as far as to say this season is as good as the best seasons of Simpsons past, I will say this is the best season in at least 5 years, if not more.

Anyone watch last Sunday? Hilarious. Homer as a robot to look cool in front of Bart. Priceless. And what about Snowball V? That was unexpected. But I love how they tied that in with Armen Tanzarian for the first time EVER since that original episode aired. All of us fans will know Snowball is of the V variety, but thus refered to as II. It’s the subtle touches that let us know that the creators have been watching the show too, like Flanders looseness with language after sleeping with the movie star that really show the makers care. And Judy Dench’s fish and chips doesn’t hurt.

Also, for the first time EVER Fox showed the Sunday lineup in its entirety, even though Football pushed it back a half hour. Now I’m not sure if that means that for once they actually care about the viewer, or just that they think Simpsons is more important than the eternally crapped on King of the Hill and ill-fated Futurama, but whatever it is, thank you Fox.

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If you haven’t been watching Arrested Development, shame on you. It’s the funniest new show on TV (or really the only funny new show on TV). With Arrested Development and The O.C., Fox is actually doing pretty well this season (although that doesn’t really excuse Tru Calling. I mean, come on, what is this crap?)

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Everwood is actually pretty good. Who knew?

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I LOVE Average Joe. This season has totally got me flipped from last season though. Meliana was obviously just in it for the pretty boys, but this new girl is actually going for guys with, I want to say good personalities, but that doesn’t really explain the whole David Dasscle phenomena. I mean, what is with that guy? When he started singing, it was one of the few times in my life that I HAD to turn away from a show I wanted to watch. Here’s a hint to any guy wanting to go on a TV dating show. DO NOT SING. DO NOT RECITE POETRY. Unless you are truly talented (and thus not on the show) these are sure fire ways NOT to get the girl. And since the show is being watched by millions, you aren’t really helping yourself once you get dumped and have to go back in the dating pool. Get a clue.

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You know, Two and a Half Men isn’t nearly as horrible as I thought it would be. It’s actually kind of good. I leave you with that.

——

——Chinatown Kid——

(C+)

I don’t know what it is, but Kung Fu movies just don’t play as well in the modern day. I’d rather see someone beat up a Manchu over a street thug any day. Maybe it is the fact that there aren’t really too many Kung Fu masters in the modern day that makes the problem. As it is in this movie, it’s pretty much one guy who’s really good cleaning up the streets. Guns, I think, take a little bit of the magic out of it too.

Anyway, this movie suffers from wanting to do too much in a small amount of time (how much of that is the director’s fault is debatable, since my version of this is obviously cropped to fit into the 90 minute mark). The story starts off with a young kid trying to make it with his Grandfather in Hong Kong. He gets mixed up with a mobster and has to go to America. In San Fran he once again gets involved with the mob, but this time a rival gang realizes that he’s the only guy in America that can actually fight and recruits him to join their side. He rather quickly moves up the ranks to gang boss, but then the people who liked him before say he’s sold out and won’t talk to him. He then decides to tell his underlings that they are out of drugs and other questionable activities (how exactly are they going to make money then?) and then his gang tries to take him out.

It’s a rather predictable mob story, extremely subpar in a lot of ways. The Kung Fu is the only high point, but it’s of the more street-brawling variety and left me wishing for the more graceful fighting of the period pieces. Not really recommended.

——Coffy——

(B+)

While at times not the greatest film (the writer likes to use exposition like how some people like to use salt; some scenes tend to hang around longer than they should) it is an extremely entertaining piece of exploitation cinema. In the first scene Coffy blows off a dealer’s head with a shotgun, and just about every woman in the movie becomes topless at some point. That’s just some of the general bizarreness that’s in this movie.

Pam Grier plays Coffy, a nurse (which is kind of a joke, because you never actually see her do any work) who’s little sister got hooked on smack and is now in the hospital. Coffy has thus decided to take out a one woman vendetta against all the dealers, working her way to the top. While the plot is pretty predictable, every thing else is hilarious. Coffy becomes a Jamaican whore for a pimp mack-daddy King George, and is so hot that she makes all of the other whores jealous, which results in a gigantic cat fight where Grier proceeds to beat the hell out of and then rip the top open of every whore there. Grier gets naked quite a bit too, but you know that everyone that sees her naked is going to end up dying some horrible death. She’s like a black widow.

The soundtrack is funkalicious. The dialog is hilarious. It’s also pretty raunchy, surprising even me. There is definitely none of Hollywood’s holding back in this movie. And Grier is fantastic, especially in the last sequence, which probably made black women everywhere stand up and cheer. This is a very entertaining movie.

——LotRs: The Two Towers (Extended Edition)——

(A)

Out of all three films, TTT I thought had the weakest theatrical cut, and honestly, although I like all of the added scenes in the Fellowship EE I still prefer the theatrical cut on that film. That didn’t bode well for my viewing of the TTT EE, but luckily it didn’t matter at all, because the TTT EE is amazing.

Magnificently, all of the pacing problems I had with TTT has been corrected, and I feel like almost every added scene should have been in the theatrical cut, they’re so good. I still dislike how the film opens, but after that first five minutes or so it’s all gravy from then on. A lot of people commented on the whole middle movie syndrome, on what a middle movie should do since it has no real beginning or end. What should it do? Prop up the two bookends, silly. So much added good information. I loved it.

Two scenes that could have been left out. That scene at the beginning where Frodo and Sam climb down the elvish rope rightly was cut, because all it did was show how cool the elves were, and how Sam thought they should keep the Shire in mind, two themes that are only brought out, say, a hundred more times in the movie. And while I loved the inclusion of the Ent Draught sequence, the scene where the tree roots eat up Merry and Pippin just seems really wacky and out of place. If you hadn’t read the books, what the hell would you make of this scene?

Two scenes that should have been left in the theatrical. Aragorn is like 87 years old? No shit! It’s so cool, and the scene is so short I don’t know why it didn’t get left in. And the flashback with Boromir, Denethor and Faramir, why the hell was that cut? Not only does it set up RotK nicely, it also helps give important backstory and motivation for Boromir and Faramir. Boromir and Faramir aren’t really jerks, they are really nice guys spoiled by daddy. Watching their spirits get crushed by their father was an important scene, I though.

All and all, giving back time to Treebeard and by lengthening out our time in Rohan a little bit helped a lot in strengthening the movie. Interestingly enough, the sequence that I thought worked best in the theatrical cut, the intercutting of the different battles, is the one part of the movie that appears to contain no new footage. Thank God we have this EE.

——Gentlemen Prefer Blondes——

(B+)

I’m not really sure, is this a musical? I think it’s a musical. They definitely sing enough. And yet, except for maybe one or two exceptions the songs seem to fit seamlessly into the plot. And then there are big chunks of time where there is no music, and it better resembles a straight romantic comedy. Either way, this movie is pretty entertaining.

The two leading ladies are quite good, Marilyn Monroe especially as the ditzy blonde seemingly only interesting in money, who actually isn’t as stupid as she acts. The Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend number especially is really good. Lots of great color use. Worth seeing once.

——The Big Sleep——

(B)

Great acting, great one-liners, and a plot so confusing I’m still not really sure what the hell happened. That’s definitely the film’s one weakness, it becomes so complex and confusing, with so many characters giving exposition instead of just talking that the movie can become exceedingly dull at points. It’s not really anything I would ever watch again, but it was OK, and Lauren Bacall was really good.

——Big Fish——

(A-)

I was actually kind of surprised I ended up liking this as much as I did. The movie doesn’t really start out too well out of the gate, but as the movie moves on and (contrary to what you might think) it becomes more sentimental, the better it gets. The father/son relationship is quite good, and most of the weird stories that make up the film are really good. Some of them are a little too quirky though, which is where I find fault in the film. It’s not too big a deal though, and I immensely enjoyed this. Allison Lohman, who plays the young version of Jessica Lange, I absolutely love too, by the way.

”Kill Bill” fans who’ve been waiting anxiously to learn the ultimate fate of Uma Thurman’s sword-wielding Bride character will have to wait two months longer. According to Variety, Miramax has delayed the release of Quentin Tarantino’s ”Kill Bill — Vol. II” from Feb. 20 to April 16. (Parent company Disney has already taken advantage of the move by slotting the romantic comedy ”Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen,” starring ”Freaky Friday”’s Lindsay Lohan, in the February date.) Miramax gave no reason for the move, but it would allow the studio to whet interest for the theatrical release with the expected April 13 bow of last fall’s ”Vol. I” on DVD. April 16 also sees the multiplex debuts of Greek bride Nia Vardalos’ new comedy, ”Connie and Carla,” and the Marvel Comics vigilante saga ”The Punisher.” The Bride vs. The Punisher: Now there’s a showdown.

For those keeping track, that’s 95 days.