Officer, who took an oath to serve and protect, taking a nap at the Tampa
International Airport.

I am on a Sonic shoot in Tampa Bay, Florida.

During the lunch break, the production company delivered a birthday
cake to a member of the crew.

He was surprised. Not so much that they had made a cake for him. He
was actually surprised that it was his birthday. From the look on his
face, he had clearly forgotten.

In the world of self-absorption, I found this moment both touching and
rare.

Photo credit

Anyone who knows me knows I love the game. It’s a fun sport that can be played indoors, it’s great exercise and you can play it your whole life. What’s not to love?

The name is officially called “Table Tennis.” The less formal name is “Ping Pong,” which happens to be owned by Parker Bros. Serious players say they are playing Table Tennis, but I prefer Ping Pong for three reasons:

Ping Pong is what the game sounds like. The ball off the paddle and then off the table produces a sound that approximates “ping” and “pong”. The name that describes the sound, the feeling and vibe is the one I prefer.

Ping Pong sounds more fun than Table Tennis. I put a lot into the game but I like the looseness that Ping Pong connotes. I don’t want to dress in formal whites and concern myself with clearing proper inches of toss on serve. I want to put back a few beers and have fun.

It’s the name I grew up with. I never said, “Hey dad, want to play some table tennis before dinner?” No, I said, “Dad, wanna play some ping pong?” Nostalgia. Tradition. The legacy of the basement.

I also prefer Bob to Robert and Vicki to Victoria. But that’s just me…

When Jaws came out in 1975, the nation screamed in terror. We went to the theatre in droves but we avoided the beach. The Great White Shark came into our lives and it changed movies forever as the first summer blockbuster.

If you rent the movie now, it’s still scary but hardly believable. It was a big mechanical shark and it moved liked a big mechanical shark. As a moviegoer, we wanted to believe it was real. We wanted to go there with Spielberg.

Think back to Jurassic Park in 1993. Most of you probably saw it. I don’t know about you, but those dinosaurs looked real. They were roaming the earth and I was in awe.

If you rent the movie now, it’s not too believable. It looks like early computer animation. The dinosaurs look fake, the background looks fake, it all looks fake. Except for the Jurassic Park waterfalls, which happened to be real.

Now we have Avatar and we’re all falling for it again. Oh sure, it is stunning and looks like nothing we’ve ever seen before. But in another 15 years will this 3-D technology look dated? Who knows? For now, I’m buying it.

The point is that we want to be transported. We want to believe. The reason that magic is so powerful has very little to do with the magician and everything to do with the audience. I want to believe what’s possible. Don’t you?

Hollywood’s Paramount Pictures decided to postpone the release of Martin Scorsese’s film “Shutter Island” from October 3, 2009 to sometime in 2010. In effect, this knocks the film out of Oscar contention for 2009.

Paramount Chairman Brad Grey was quoted as saying, “Our 2009 slate was green-lit in a very different economic climate and as a result we must remain flexible and willing to recalibrate and adapt to a changing environment.”

That may be what he said but what he meant was “We have Oscar bait with “Up In The Air”, not “Shutter Island.” The fact is that Paramount did not want to overspend marketing a movie that wasn’t going to win any awards on March 7.

In movie circles, Martin Scorsese is as close to God as you will find. He is considered the best filmmaker alive today. So I wonder how the conversation went down between Brad and Marty:

Brad: Sir Martin, could I have a moment of your time?

SFX: FOOTSTEPS AS MARTY WALKS AWAY