So The Life of David Gale is set to open this weekend. As a reminder, this is the movie that inspired Haiwen to dicate the following letter to me as we were watching the trailer a few months ago:

To the producers of "The Life of David Gale":

I've just seen the trailer for your latest movie, "The Life of David Gale." I am writing to point out a small factual error that I've noticed in your film:

THERE'S A WHITE MAN ON DEATH ROW!!!!

Sincerely,
Haiwen Chu

This was a pretty funny joke the first twelve times I heard it. Anyway, don't know if I'll be seeing this movie or not (Dark Blue, the Kurt Russell cop drama with a story by James Ellroy, seems like a much more promising choice), but I was just reading my weekly box office update on Box Office Guru, and was struck by the following sentence: "Despite a bland title, David Gale automatically becomes looked at as a smart picture thanks to its lead actor." Amazingly enough, this is true. I can't think of any major star besides Kevin Spacey whose presence immediately suggests that a movie will at least be intelligent. Not sure why this is the case (for every Usual Suspects on his resume, Spacey has at least one Pay it Forward), but Spacey's presence seems to have become an unofficial heuristic for intelligent moviegoers.

Personally, I think people would be much better off going with Tom Cruise...but hey, that's just me.