Yoda, Interrupted - My brother Nathan made an excellent analogy relating Attack of the Clones to those cheesy books "inspired by" tv shows, where the characters and the settings are the same, but some random writer has taken the characters you once loved and bastardized them. George Lucas, have you lost it? To paraphrase the San Francisco Chronicle, maybe the wrong man-child ran away from Marin to join the Taliban...at least John Walker Lindh has a story to tell.

Another note on Clones...Natalie Portman, doing a worse job than she did as a pregnant teen living inside a Wal-Mart in Where The Heart Is can't even believably stand up from a fall in this movie. Generally speaking, I like Natalie's work, even if it tends toward the Chick Flick variety (shaddup, John). By the way, Ms. Hershlag (OOPS, sorry, Portman!) wrote a letter to the Harvard Crimson last month about the Middle East situation. Too bad her punditry skills didn't serve as better motivation for the role of Senator Amidala.

Props, however, go to Jimmy Smits for accepting the "Billy Dee Williams Memorial Blink-And-You-Miss-Him" cameo role. (/me pours a Colt 45 on the ground). I suppose anything that let you skip the L.A. Law reunion was worthwhile, Jimmy.