Polanski, who is now 76 years old, was on his way to the Zurich Film Festival to receive an honorary award when he was stopped by police. The U.S. will now have to file an extradition claim to have him deported to Los Angeles.

Polanski is the director of such classics as Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown, but is equally famous for being a fugitive who fled from the U.S. a year after pleading guilty to having sex with Samantha Geimer. Geimer has agreed with Polanski that the charges be dropped, saying “she wants the case to be over.”

Read more about Polanski’s arrest here.

Despite his diagnosis becoming front-page news in early 2008 (including reports that he had days to live), he continued to work, primarily on the recently canceled A&E series “The Beast,” in which he played a rogue cop. Swayze is best known for his roles in Dirty Dancing and Ghost. Though he was rarely seen in any major releases since the early-to-mid nineties (following his turn as an adrenaline-loving bad guy in Point Break), Swayze was a worldwide star, whose credits also included Red Dawn (one of my favorites) and Donnie Darko.

“It has just been confirmed that Rupert Grint has taken a few days out of filming due to a mild bout of swine flu,” the publicist’s statement said, according to this article by the AFP.

“He has now recovered and is looking forward to joining his fellow cast members at the junket and premieres this week and will then return to filming directly afterwards.”

So, it’s clearly so serious that he will still attend the premiere of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and “risk” infecting his co-stars. The urgency of swine flu is renewed!

There was the time when we sat in front of the family of obese individuals who liked to kick our seats while eating loudly and breathing even louder in a very arduous, uncomfortable way. Sad, but true. Or when the guy a few seats down from us started talking on his cell phone in the middle of the movie. Or tonight, where we had not one, not two, but three different sets of weird or annoying moviegoers.

The first bunch was innocent enough. Two guys sat down practically right in front of us, and as box office results for The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 suggest, the theater wasn’t exactly full. To make matters worse, one of the guys – the tallest guy, who had a clump of curly, oily hair – got up and then moved even more in front of us, forcing us to move down. Of course, that didn’t stop two other people – thankfully rather short people – from sitting down in front of us after the movie had started.

But everyone deals with people like this who are either unaware or just don’t care that it’s rude to sit right in front of someone else in a half-empty theater. However…

Things began to get weird when a big guy off to the side decided he wanted some candy… and no, not just any candy but his candy, the same candy that his girlfriend – whom he’d been fighting with before the movie started – allegedly had.

Twenty minutes into the film, we hear, “I want my candy.” Not a shout, but not a whisper. A few moments pass, and we get another, “I want my candy!” This time, much longer. After a couple more rather loud demands… er, requests… he apparently got his candy, because he shut up. The man later stripped down to a wife beater that was much too small for him. Apparently that candy made him sweaty.

On the other side of the theater, however, was where the golden gem of the evening was sitting. A man, probably in his fifties with white hair and slightly overweight, had bad circulation. At least, that’s what I can assume. Because every five minutes or so, he had to rub his hands together. Hard and fast, like he was warming them up. This hand rubbing – which was distinctly loud and heard all the way across the theater by everyone (even during the action scenes) – lasted for about 20 seconds and varied in velocity and intensity. Maybe he just liked the feel of his own skin.

Though rubbing of the hands is innocent enough, the man’s timing and dedication to such a habit makes him one of the weirdest people I’ve had the pleasure of watching the movie with. Even though there’s little comedy in The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, he had Tom and I – as well as several other people in the audience – cracking up at the absurdity of it all. Who does that in a public place, repeatedly and oblivious to those around you?

What are your weird moviegoing stories?

But Aziz Ansari, one of the stars in the NBC comedy “Parks and Recreation,” has unleashed a firestorm against the company for diluting the IMAX brand and robbing him of dollars that were unnecessarily spent. And I have to agree with him…

Last Thursday night, I went to Star Trek at the Pacific Science Center IMAX in Seattle. This is real IMAX. I waited in line and I got seated in front of a kickass, six-story-tall screen that went from floor to ceiling. The screen is huge, and the seating, which runs much steeper than the traditional movie theater, guarantees you won’t glancing around someone’s fat head to see everything. In other words, it’s a unique experience that provides great sound, crystal clear display and an overall different perspective than a typical theater does. Even though Star Trek was not filmed in IMAX format as were parts of The Dark Knight last year, it was still a cool, in-your-face experience.

Having grown up in Seattle, this is what I come to expect of IMAX. As far as I know, IMAX screens are big, the seating steep and the sound engulfing in every part of the country. At least they used to be.

On Sunday, I went to Star Trek for a second time, this time by visiting Lincoln Square Cinemas in Bellevue, WA. Lincoln Square is an awesome theater with comfortable seats and large screens, but they had just upgraded by installing an IMAX theater. Awesome. So Lincoln Square tore out one of its theaters, installed vertical seating and a large screen, and now has the right to charge extra for that particular theater, right? Wrong!

To my disappointment, the screen was a little bigger – vertically at least – but the seating was just normal, old stadium-riser seating. I could clearly see IMAX projectors up in the booth, and the movie did look great… but it still felt like a normal movie for the most part. The IMAX experience was not to be found, but I did manage to spend a lot more money on my tickets.

From the sounds of it, Aziz went to an “IMAX” theater that was much smaller than the normal IMAX screen. If that’s the case, and from what I hear, it is, that really, really sucks. I felt a bit shafted, but not enough to ask for my money back. If I went into an alleged IMAX screen that ended up being a quarter of the size of a regular screen, I would be pissed. Either way, I’m not going to shell out money for marginally better picture and sound at Lincoln Square’s IMAX screen again.

So, all of this is very troubling. Sure, IMAX is making great profits right now (actually, the company itself is not profitable due to debt payments, but its revenue grew 43% in the first quarter of 2009 so it’s well on its way), but this expansion could destroy it in a long run. IMAX has always represented uber-quality and superior experience, but without distinguishing its fake IMAX screens from its real ones, it is going to dilute its brand strength quickly. It’s funny that Aziz brought this up, as the thought had been nagging at me all week; it wasn’t until he pointed it out and his rant made headlines that I realized how horrible of a strategy this was.

Regal, AMC, IMAX and other chains should think long and hard about how they want to position these new digital screens in the future. Call them IMAX Digital, or “with IMAX technology,” but for God’s sake, don’t fool moviegoers into spending their hard-earned cash by not distinguishing between the two.

Army Spc. Christopher Lanum was a suspect in the stabbing Spc. Mitchell Stone at Fort Eustis. Stone says that Lanum, who idolized the character of The Joker, stabbed him and used a taser gun on him before fleeing.

Here’s an explanation of how things went down, directly from the AP article:

Lanum and [his girlfriend Patsy Ann Marie] Montowski fled in her van, which a park ranger spotted about 200 miles northwest of the base, according to authorities. The ranger called for help, and Lanum led police on a slow-speed chase before running over a spike strip laid down by police and crashing, they added.

The FBI said Montowski told them that Lanum handed her the shotgun and asked her to kill him, but she refused. The affidavit says Lanum pointed the gun at police, his finger on the trigger, and refused commands to drop the weapon. A trooper fired through the driver’s side window, Lanum’s shotgun discharged, and police fired several times.

The trooper and park rangers involved in the shooting were placed on administrative leave with pay pending the outcome of internal investigations, according to a joint state police, FBI and National Park Service release.

The girlfriend was injured by gunfire and has since been charged with being an accessory after the fact.

I don’t necessarily agree with all the scenes mentioned in the list, but it’s fun to look at anyway.

Alternatively, I would have recommended the orgasm scene from When Harry Met Sally and the puking scene in Stand By Me. However, I absolutely agree with their inclusion of the scene from Ratatouille.

Check out the top 10 movie food moments.

Following that, I went on to read all four of the Twilight books by Stephenie Meyer. I had heard they were good, so I was willing to give them a chance. The first book was good and quite entertaining, as Bella attempted to discover what the mystery was behind Edward. The second book, however, was just OK.

New Moon, which is hastily being made into a movie this year, is not going to make much of a movie at all. The first half of the book is pretty good, as Bella starts up a quasi-relationship with Jacob, her soon-to-be-werewolf best friend. In reality, the book is just a retread of the first one, only with a werewolf in place of a vampire. Bella sure knows how to pick them, doesn’t she? It’s entertaining, but when it devolves into a race to save Edward from the Volturi, it takes a turn for the worse. Meyer ends the book with absolutely no action, and in fact there is only one suspenseful moment in the entire novel. How will this become a good movie? It’s hard to imagine.

Thankfully, Eclipse is a much-better book. Victoria, who has been lurking in the shadows since the first novel, amasses a vampire army to take down the Cullens and kill Bella. The result? A vampire vs. vampire vs. werewolf battle, which, if done right, should be amazing on the silver screen. Eclipse is exciting, smart and entertaining, and will make a perfect finish to the trilogy.

Except… the series doesn’t end as a trilogy. It ends with Breaking Dawn, a shockingly disappointing finish that takes the characters in unwanted directions. Bella finally gets to screw Edward, but not until he’s convinced her to marry at a young age (is this meant to teach young girls a moral lesson? It’s not “don’t have sex until you’re married.” It’s “if you want to have sex, get married so you can have sex.”). Then she gets knocked up, and spends much of the rest of the book lying around on her death bed, so much so that Meyer has to shift the narrative to Jacob to progress the story. Ouch. Eventually, Bella becomes a vampire, and this is the best thing that happens to her: however, how can you top being immortal and wanting to eat other humans?  Of course, Bella doesn’t get to suffer any of the consequences, as her father shrugs off her conversion with minimal conflict (that’s convenient) and she doesn’t have any of the urges a newborn vampire should have.

To cap it all off, Meyer sets up a gigantic battle between the Cullens and the Volturi, and then decides not to have a satisfying finale at all. Harry Potter, the Twilight series is not.

Essentially, the Twilight series is an entertaining series that doesn’t have a plot or much else. Unlike Harry Potter, which carefully and intelligently progresses its stories along to a massive, satisfying climax, Meyer seems more concerned about fitting her frustratingly annoying lead character into a childhood dream of immortality and endless love. The books aren’t bad, but they are overrated, and it’s sad that any young girl may idolize Bella. Bella is annoying, and her attempts to be selfless generally results in her being as selfish as possible. Driven by hormones and a silly, youthful love, she is willing to give up everything, including her family and friends, for her lover. That’s just pathetic.

The only reason I’m dwelling on the moral aspects of the story is because I’m disappointed by the general story arc of the books. They’re written by a woman for girls – and I am neither a woman nor a girl – so I understand that I’m not in the target audience. But when you write a story about vampires and werewolves and don’t follow through with such things… well, it’s embarrassing that this series is compared to Harry Potter.

Why?

Because they will spoil your love life.

And no, I’m not kidding. I meant to post this article a couple weeks ago, but I got distracted by other things… like booze, football, food, movies and so on and so forth.

The good folk over at Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh say that, based on a recent study, romantic comedies set unrealistic expectations about love and sex, causing them to “fail to communicate with their partner.” You can read more over at BuzzSugar.com, but these findings do make sense. Things don’t always end up happily ever after, and even if they do, they might not be that happy. And have you ever tried chasing after an ex who has just driven to the airport, managed to sneak through security and not get tackled within 20 feet? I’ve tried three times and it still hasn’t succeeded.

Damn you, romantic comedies! Damn you.