"If I weren't going to be a writer, I'd go to New York and pursue the stage. Are you shocked?" Very.

Do you think the Hollywood writers feel that the rest of us should be abandoning our own pens, or keyboards, in solidarity? I've always thought strikes were just appalling - all selfishness and attitude. Until Newsies came out and then I realized that sometimes you gotta take on the giants. Now my only real opinion about them is, "But you'll be back after Christmas break right? I mean, you can't leave us out here in viewer-ville with only -gasp - REALITY."

I've been thinking lately of something Mom said recently. She said that she hasn't truly lost herself in a movie since Little Women, the Susan Sarandon version, (which incidentally also has the guy from Newsies). It made me wonder if our disbelief has gotten more difficult to suspend. Perhaps we find it harder these days to forget about the serial divorces and court appearances and, well, contract negotiations. There's a new show on one of our four television channels - TMZ, the television version. If you don't know, that stands for Thirty Mile Zone, and it's basically celebrity stalkers (photographers, whatever) trying to catch our favorite stars in stupid clothes, temper tantrums, and otherwise compromising situations, in an approximately thirty-mile radius around Hollywood. I wish they had asked me. Don't they know I don't want Hollywood demystified?

What I really want though, is to believe that Little Women was made by people who really believed it when they wrote the dialogue about how "We are all hopelessly flawed." I want to believe that the writers of Spiderman 3 had my little boys in mind when they stuffed it full of the "Make the right choices" moral. I want to believe that everyone who ever puts pen to paper, that they are trying to be the best of themselves and that they hope the same for us. Don't be concerned about me. It's not that I don't know otherwise. I watch the extras on my DVDs. And I actually pick up at least one of the magazines you probably scoff at in the checkout aisle. I know there is plenty of ugliness out there. I'm just saying, it's so nice when you stumble upon a work of art that could almost change your mind.