the other night my roommate josh and i were standing in the concession line at an AMC to buy candy before attack of the clones started. i figured i’d indulge in some three-dollar sour patch kids since it was star wars, and those are pretty much the best candy ever invented. that’s when i had this funny idea, and i said to my friend, “hey josh, i bet you that roughly one third of the movie trailers we see tonight feature either eddie griffin, martin lawrence, or chris rock, and failing those three, some other ‘sassy black guy’ character that pretty much serves the same purpose.” i even went into more specifics and said i would put actual money on the 30-40% range, and he could have all the rest, but he didn’t want to actually bet money because he knew i was probably right.

trailers we saw:

1) lil’ bow wow in like mike (he gets magic shoes and can jump really high — NBA stardom follows)

2) minority report (i have to say i’m interested, A.I. notwithstanding)

3) undercover brother (eddie griffin! AND chris kattan!)

4) spy kids II (oh christ.)

5) men in black II (less grating than griffin or lawrence, but still not a fan)

6) matrix reloaded (this teaser did it’s job — i REALLY want to see this movie)

7) austin powers: goldmember. (can you say ‘jumped the shark’?)

alright, let’s do the math. 3 out of 7 if you count will smith and lil’ bow wow as ‘sassy black’ characters, which i do. that’s 42.85 percent. josh should have taken that bet, i think. he would have won five bucks. unless, of course, you only count lil’ bow wow as half a sassy black character due to the ‘lil” which precedes him — not an unfair assumption, i’d say, and a point worth arguing perhaps — and you get 2.5 out of 7, or 35.71 percent, and i would have got the 5-spot. either way, it’s pretty funny to have done the math here. the important thing though is that episode II is badass.

i’m also somewhat disturbed by the fact that four out of the seven trailers (57.14 percent!) were for sequels. honestly, hollywood must be getting scared to take risks and i don’t know, try producing a film that wasn’t already a box office hit. pretty lame if you ask me.

and in yet further movie commentary — i saw about a boy last night with my buddy joe and his roommate ben who can’t come to my barbeque this afternoon because they’re going to a dodger game. wow, did i like that movie. the book i read last summer and was in love with, and the film is a hell of an adaptation. it does a fine job of capturing both the hilarious callousness of hugh grant’s character will, and the heartbreaking awkwardness of the little boy marcus too, the combination of which made the book so good, i thought. i would fully recommend you see it (after you see star wars, of course).

oh yeah, and i’m having a barbeque tonight at 7:30 and you should come. kickin’ off summer and breaking in the summertime apartment with some grilled meat, which is really the only way to do it.

[now hearing this: the white stripes – white blood cells. they’re playing like four shows here next week and they’re all sold out long long ago. pretty weak.]