As ongoing film producer education, and as part of my job as CEO of the nascent Cyan Pictures, I watch a lot of movies – usually at least one a day. It is to that, rather than to a love of the series or to high expectations for the film, that I attribute having gone to see Star Wars: Episode II on the day that it opened.

Unlike the critics, who screened the film hell-bent on skewering it sooner and more harshly than their competitors, and the die-hard fans, who frankly would have accepted even a flipbook of line drawings by Lucas as a work of unparalleled genius, I came to the film with a relatively clear and open mind. Having spent the few days since digesting mentally, I’m left with these main thoughts:

1. Sadly enough, the critics are, by and large, correct. Attack of the Clones is less a movie than a marketing event, replete with poor plot, dialogue and acting, and overwrought CGI effects that somehow lack the charm of the more slapdash originals.

2. None the less, I don’t in any way regret having spent $10 on the film. Lucas’ universe is immersively exhilarating and visually stunning, while Williams’ score bridges earlier and later themes in a sort of Wagnerian ring-cycle so beautifully realized it nearly justifies another trip to the theater just to hear the music again in Dolby THX.

Frankly, though, what I or anyone else says doesn’t much matter; everyone is likely to see Episode II anyway, which is why, in less than 24 hours, the movie grossed an obscene $30.1m at the box office, already recouping over a quarter of the cost of the film (the most expensive Star Wars episode to date).

So why bother to write this review? Mainly, as long-winded introduction to these two quirkily erudite articles: Jonathan Last’s The Case for the Empire and Joshua Tyree’s On the Implausibility of the Death Star’s Trash Compactor. Read them both, now. Or else.

I’ve been listening to Wilco’s Summer Teeth all morning – three times through so far, and I appreciate the CD better with each listening. Melodically, the album pulls away from Wilco’s alt-country roots, gravitating towards a Beach Boys-esque thickly orchestrated pop sound. Tweedy’s surprisingly bleak lyrics ride on top, beautiful in their subtlety – witness the ballad “She’s A Jar,” which begins as a tender love song (“She begs me not to miss her”) and slowly degenerates (“She begs me not to hit her”).

Wilco’s newest album, the self-released Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, is set to hit shelves in a little less than a month. Supposedly picking up where Summer Teeth leaves off, the album is already receiving wide-ranging acclaim in pre-release reviews. *Sigh* It appears Amazon will be siphoning off yet one more chunk of my disposable income.

In many ways, Tom Perrotta is the closest thing America has to a Nick Hornby. Both build loosely plotted novels around complicated yet likeable characters. Both have a thoroughly modern, bitingly ironic sense of humor and a solid understanding of vague, aimless, GenX slacker angst. And both can turn a sentence with far more style than the average novelist. Finally, both authors are similarly moviefiable – witness Perrotta’s Election and Hornby’s High Fidelity, two gems. There is, however, one major difference between the two: in recent years, Hornby has become something of a household name in the literary world, while Perrotta has labored on for a surprisingly small cult following.

Joe College, Perrotta’s fourth book, seems destined to change that. Coming off Election’s movie success, and boosted by a solid NY Times review, the novel is almost guaranteed bestseller status. That’s a bit unfortunate, however, as Joe College is probably the weakest link in Perrotta’s bibliography. Don’t get me wrong – as one reviewer points out, Perrotta at 80% is better than most novelists at 100%. But especially in terms of plot, the book pulls up a bit short.

Still, Joe College is worth the read simply to experience the beautifully rendered stream of consciousness of its protagonist, Danny, a Yale Junior trying to reconcile his snotty Ivy League education with his blue collar New Jersey roots. For any Yale alums, the book is even more enjoyable – Perrotta, a Yalie himself, catches the school’s every idiosyncrasy, from weenie bins and the Whiff’s to secret societies and the Jello endowment.

So, in short, read Joe College. But if you haven’t already, do yourself a favor and read Perrotta’s other books first (especially The Wishbones and Bad Haircut). If you move fast enough, you just might still be able to say you were reading Tom Perrotta before he became the next big thing.

The problem is, there are a lot of movies. I try to watch at least two a week in my continued education as a novice film producer, but my Netflix queue is already over 250 movies, and new pictures are released into theater every weekend. That doesn’t even begin to count the movies I should rewatch, which range from those meriting frequent repeat viewing (such as Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and The Thomas Crown Affair – taken together, my blueprint for life) to those that I watched so long ago I might as well now consider as having never been viewed (including such classics as the entire Indiana Jones series).

Yes, at times I feel like just giving up, unplugging my DVD player and receding into a wasteland of cultural illiteracy. But then it hits me: movie people are vastly better looking than tech people, and if I forsake the movie part of my professional life, I’ll be forced to look at geeks all the time. At which point, I fire up some popcorn and settle in to my seat – it might not be easy, but a serious devotion to the celluloid past more than pays off. Besides, there are many worse ways to spend an evening than bathing in the flickering glow of a truly American art form brought to life.

Went up to Berkeley last night to see Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater perform three short ballets. The first two – both recently written – left a bit to be desired. Repetitious, dull choreography paired with imprecise, passionless dance. At least the second piece, a West Coast premiere of a ballet written for the Winter Olympic’s Cultural Olympiad, featured imaginative new music by Wynton Marsalis. At many points, I found myself paying more attention to the music than the dance.

The third piece, Revelations, the classic that put Alvin Ailey on the map in 1958, was quite an experience. Not so much because of the ballet itself (which I’d seen performed before, more solidly, several times in the past), but rather because of the audience. Certainly, Revelations is extremely strong and has aged well – but so has Swan Lake, and the New York City Ballet doesn’t perform that every single year. Ailey Dance, however, has performed Revelations nearly non-stop since the early 60’s, largely to the exclusion of Ailey’s 78 other ballets. The audience certainly didn’t mind – they were whooping and screaming, ready to jump to standing ovation. And that was before the piece even began.

Still, I got the odd sense that they were applauding almost for themselves. Look at me, they were saying. I’m sooooo cultured, I even know a ballet. I suspect most of the audience had never attended the acclaimed San Francisco Ballet just across the bay, and most probably never would. So perhaps Alvin Ailey’s clinging to Revelations is a good thing. Sort of the ballet equivalent of smooth jazz – easy, safe, accessible, and with just a taste of the real thing.