I can't take all the credit; while it was my idea, it was ZXC who engineered the Big Immovable Glowing Object, without which the Incredible Stunt would never have gone off. A golden glowing sphere ten meters in diameter placed atop the Ka'ba at the center of the Al Haram Mosque in Mecca, the omphalos of Islam, the holiest of holies (a bit of a kludge, Dr. Jones admits when he's had a few drinks: it being a simple matter to instruct the Muslim masses to pray toward Mecca from wherever they happen to be in the world, but a somewhat more difficult problem for those actually present within the city). Printed in Arabic upon one side of the glowing sphere: Allah loves the USA above a United States flag, it's colors vibrant within their frame of golden light. On the opposing side: Allah loves Israel above an Israeli flag, it's blue field undisturbed by gasoline or flame. The stunned Muslim masses disoriented, fearful, anxious, suddenly wondering if everything they know is wrong; the mullahs unable to publicly question the apparent sign from their god, unable even to verify that the Object is in fact Immovable (a quality which, in retrospect, proved unnecessary--but it always pays to be cautious when hacking an entire culture); the word of the miracle spreading... Allah loves the USA... Allah loves Israel... Allah loves the USA... Allah loves Israel...

I saw Minority Report last night, and I have to admit I was somewhat disappointed. The sfx were cool, the story idea was cool (that being a pretty standard PK Dick story--which I read about a hundred years ago), but the screenplay could have been better, it could have evolved the story in more interesting ways, and it could have maybe tried to avoid all the hackneyed and tedious social commentary that Spielberg seems compelled to foist on us these days. I don't know why I allow my expectations to rise for a Spielberg film anymore; that hideous piece of garbage AI should have informed me that he's exchanged his creative mind for a regurgitative mind, especially in Science Fiction, in which he must feel free or compelled to go Huxley-o-matic.

The cliches in this movie are stomach-churning! The ending alone (SPOILER WARNING) is like a greatest hits album of movie-of-the-week plot devices: the revelatory video shown to the assembled crowd of cocktailing notaries; the final confrontation on the balcony outside; the single gunshot between two people's chests--a murder or a suicide? The ironic part is that, just as in AI, he had already delivered a few quite acceptable endings prior to the actual ending, any of which would have made it a much better movie, favoring instead this typically tidy sentimental Classical Resolution I've come to expect from Hollywood. Maybe the key to enjoying a Spielberg movie is to leave half-way through it. (Excluding of course Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List, and the Indiana Jones movies--of course of course--and check this out!)

But my biggest annoyance came prior to the movie even starting. Who can I hold to blame for the deluge of advertising in and around theatrical movies now? Who exactly is responsible for making me sit through five commercials before the start of the movie I just paid for? Is it the theater? Is it the production company, the studio, the distribution company, some other middle group I don't even know about? Please let me know so I can hate them. What I do know is the sponsors themselves: Coke, M&Ms, Court TV, US Army, and some PR group. The army I can forgive; let them advertise on the sky if they think it will attract more soldiers to protect the country. But I'm done with the others now. DONE!

Speaking of advertising, the product placement in Minority Report is extremely garish. Nokia, The Gap, Guinness, Lexus, Ben and Jerry's, American Express, Aquafina, Bulgari, Burger King, Century 21, Fox, Pepsi, Reebok, Revo, and USA Today all wrote checks to Dreamworks. And I think I saw a Rice Krispies box in there too. According to MSNBC, the film's reported budget of $102M was offset by 25% by the placement revenue. There are several scenes where personalized billboard-sized ads address people personally (based on eye-dent recog), apparently in an effort to extrapolate the dangers of the ubiquity of advertising. But these are real advertisers! The audacity of this simply boggles my mind!

For some reason lots of reviewers of this movie have been uttering the sacred words "Blade Runner". This is like book jacket blurbs and reviews that compare the author to Thomas Pynchon or James Joyce or JD Salinger; it's hyperbole, symptomatic of advertising's responsibility for the decay of meaning (and don't think for a moment that the vast majority of movie reviews are anything more than advertisements). The only things Minority Report has in common with Blade Runner are the future setting, some pseudo-detective groping about, and the color gray. Otherwise it is to Blade Runner what Battlestar Galactica is to Star Wars.