Widescreen

Saturday night really needed to be good.

A food-borne virus of some sort kept me from leaving my apartment (or my bathroom, for that matter) on Friday, which precipitated a horribly embarrassing e-mail in which I explained why I didn't show up for a wedding being held only 3 miles away. That was not a great start to the weekend.

I tested the culinary waters the next day and everything seemed all right, so I proceeded with my plans to see The Veronicas at Metro -- which turned out the be the best idea ever.

Our man Dann Gire has a great story today about Larry Doyle, a Buffalo Grove High School graduate who worked for "The Simpsons" and "Beavis and Butt-Head" en route to writing "I Love You, Beth Cooper," a book that has since been adapted into a movie starring Hayden Panettiere. Opening Friday, the movie is loosely based on Doyle's own experiences at BGHS. The most interesting bit of Dann's article? Doyle explains why the high school in the movie is called Buffalo Glen, not Buffalo Grove. Click on that link above, it's a good one.

The most curious thing about the Hollywood version of BGHS are its school colors: blue, gold and white. As a graduate of Wheeling High School -- BG's bitter rival, which actually does boast those school colors -- I find this strangely satisfying. The stand-in BGHS students must suffer the indignity of wearing the rival's colors. Take that, Terramere!

It seems to me that everyone I've heard complain about the non-stop coverage of Michael Jackson's death -- either on the news, on talk radio, or in personal conversation -- has been white.

I don't bring this up to make claims of racism. I bring it up because I think the domestic media is missing a hugely important part of the Michael Jackson story: what his legacy, both good and bad, means specifically to black Americans. I obviously cannot speak to this personally, but would love to hear from someone who can.

"The Cleanest Theme Park in the World!"

If you go to Six Flags Great America, you'll see signs and banners shouting those words at you every five feet. They're even printed on the rubber pads in the urinals, as I discovered Monday night. The ride operators all wear chartreuse polo shirts with this slogan on the back: "Have A ♥, Do Your Part, Help Keep Our Park Clean." You'll also find that printed on the side of trash cans throughout the park.

Good news, friends! I saw "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," and lived to tell about it.

The downright apocalyptic reviews of the film had me worried I might not get out alive. Erik Childress, the Elk Grove Village-based writer from efilmcritic.com, equated director Michael Bay to Satan in his headline, and offered this warning at the end of his review: "If you want to do your part to witness the saving of the human race, stop going to see Michael Bay films." Walter Chaw, perhaps the most infuriating film writer this side of the New York Press's Armond White, took the film as a personal affront, both to him and to his apparently idiotic readers: "The problem with Bay is that he hates you. He thinks you're a moron and then you go about proving him right by making his movies obscenely popular."

If we're morons for making the first "Transformers" movie a hit in 2007, then so are many of Chaw's peers. The first film scored a favorable 61 on Metacritic and almost wrestled a four-star rave out of Roger Ebert ("Everything comes down to an epic battle between the Transformers and the Decepticons, and that's when my attention began to wander, and the movie lost a potential fourth star"), who thought the new movie was so bad that it is destined to be studied by film classes.

Is "T:ROTF" a bad movie? Of course. But I'm more interested in explaining why than in issuing hyperbolic platitudes.

My earliest memory of Michael Jackson is from sometime around 1984 or 1985, when cable first came to the Stangland household. I was flipping through the channels and came across the "Beat It" video on MTV, which prompted everyone in the house to run into the living room. "Anything from 'Thriller' is good," Mom said. I remember that my Great Aunt Helen and Great Uncle Moe were there; Grandma Flo probably was, too. I remember liking the video, but not thinking much of the song. I bet I liked the "Weird Al" version much better.

But when that video for "Bad" came along in 1987, I joined the rest of the world in its collective Jacko hysteria. It seems hilarious now, but Michael did look really bad-ass to a young Sean, and I had never heard a song quite like that. (Indeed, many of Michael's songs sound like nothing else.)

The very next year, I visited Disneyland for the first time in my non-infant life, and saw Jackson in the Francis Ford Coppola/George Lucas 3D short, "Captain EO," in which Jacko brought joy to a hostile alien world ruled by Anjelica Huston (wearing makeup that undoubtedly inspired "Star Trek's" Borg Queen) by singing "Another Part of Me."

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that, from here on, ten films will be nominated for the best-picture Oscar each year instead of five. This used to be the norm; the Academy thinned the field to five beginning with the 1945 ceremony, in which Bing Crosby's "Going My Way" topped a field that included the film noir classic "Double Indemnity."

Why is the Academy doing this now? It would seem to be a direct nod to the public reaction to this year's nominees, particularly from the Internet: How could "The Dark Knight" and "WALL•E" not be on the list?

The Daily Herald's Eric Peterson reports that the Motion Picture Association of America has honored nine officers from the South Barrington police department for their role in bringing down an international video piracy ring. On Friday, April 10, officers arrested Gerardo Arellano of Hoffman Estates at the AMC 30 in South Barrington, charging him with videotaping "Hannah Montana: The Movie." They later discovered thousands of pirated DVDs and CDs in his home.

That AMC 30 has been my movie theater of choice for about a decade now, and I've always been impressed by the police presence there. I find it shocking that anyone thought they could get away with recording a film at that theater -- especially on a Friday night when a police officer is almost always visible in the building -- and I'm glad I've never been in a theater while someone was trying to do this. There are enough distractions at the theater already without me having to sic the cops on some dude with a camera.

That's not to say I'm some kind of morality cop or anything; I'm not necessarily appalled by the idea of someone videotaping a movie, but I am appalled by what it might mean for me as a moviegoer.

"Shutter Island" hits theaters Oct. 2.

The "Lost" season finale left all of us scratching our heads, wondering who from the cast could possibly be returning after Juliet detonated the bomb at the bottom of what will presumably become the Swan Station.

But details have started to leak about the futures of some of our island friends. Possible spoilers lie ahead in this cast-member update: