Someone grant sainthood to Cloris Leachman immediately

She's on Dancing with the Stars. In one 8-minute stretch, she foxtrots, gets two standing ovations, drapes her leg on the judges' table, spills out her cleavage, and calls one of the judges a "shit" on live national television. The woman is a goddamn national treasure.

And for some contrast:

"We know drama"? Nope, you don't

Finished watching Fox's newest game show "Hole in the Wall" (excellent), switched to the VMAs (bleh), got bored to tears (save for Russell Brand's subversive hosting behavior) so channel-surfed my way to TNT. On which was playing United 93. Which is fine. As the best movie of 2006, I think everyone should see it. TNT was playing it with "limited commercial interruption," which turned out to be an interruption every eight to 10 minutes or so.

Many movies can be interrupted by a word from the sponsors, and no one's worse off. A League of Their Own was on earlier today, and I was happy to use the commercial breaks to check on my laundry, and still was moved, as always, but that film's end. But United 93 -- sensitive topic aside -- must be viewed continuously. At least in its final stretch. TNT could've run the last 20 minutes commercial-free without detriment to their finances. They did not. They broke for commercial as the passengers readied their first and final mutiny.

It's classless. And clumsy. And it made me feel angry and cheap, like the film's engrossing craftsmanship was exploited to make me stew through commercials. Grumble.

Anyway, you should see the movie continuously and in its entirety. Don't stop and watch it if you catch it on TV. For what it's worth, here is my essay after viewing it for a second and third time on DVD.

Laura Dern in Recount

Recount is a gripping, articulate account of something I've never really understood: the 2000 presidential election. It's great entertainment and great reporting. You will come away from it with a deeper understanding of what exactly went wrong, and with more reason to appreciate Laura Dern, who plays Florida secretary of state Katherine Harris, the woman who delivered the election for George W. Bush. Dern's performance is something special: hilarious, deadly serious, a master class in walking the line between going for a laugh and going for the jugular. Harris in real life is a caricature, but Dern resists the temptation to turn that caricature into comic grandstanding. Rather, she plays Harris exactly how she should be: as a socialite who was gifted a tremendously important position in state government and has no business being there. Dern has only a handful of scenes, and each one is special in its own way, but this one is perhaps the most emblematic of her tragicomic turn:

Watch Recount tonight at 9 on HBO and look for re-airings. It's a marvelous, polished, nuanced movie made by the guy who did Meet the Parents (I know, right?).

Cologne meets the Seven Years War

A commercial for Diesel's fragrance Fuel for Life has been playing all over the tubes, and it's unnerving me because of its use of the first bar of music from the second movement of Franz Schubert's Piano Trio in E Flat (opus 100). It's right at the end of the commercial (left). Bah bah bah bah-da-dah. Gets my attention immediately, even though it seems to be in a key other than E flat. You might recognize the cue from Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (right), in which the trio's beauty is A) in the correct key, and B) not reduced to a catchy soundbite.

This thing just won't leave!

I just saw this commercial a minute ago on CBS! It's one of the DirecTV ads that re-creates a well-known movie scene and then "interrupts" itself to make the pitch. I think it's a serious coup for them to have gotten Sigourney back in the powerloader. And she looks about the same as she did 20 years ago in Aliens. Surgery? Good lighting? Digital airbrushing? Either way, this is both blasphemy and a delight.

'On the Lot' bombs

"Brett Ratner told me I could make commercial films! That hasn't really sunk in yet."

My God.

I had every intention of avoiding On the Lot -- a Spielberg-produced reality show that's dangling a million-dollar DreamWorks development deal over the groping hands of 50 wannabe directors -- because I didn't want to see Fox bastardize the magic of the movies. But you see, American Idol jumped right into it without commercial buffer time for me to switch off the TV. And then I had to watch, especially when they introduced Garry Marshall ("The king of comedy!" gushes one contestant), Carrie Fisher ("I'm sitting 10 feet from Princess Leia!" slobbers another) and Ratner as the judges/hosts/token dingbats. I'd be terrified to go in front of these three and pitch a movie, which is exactly what the contestants had to do in tonight's series premiere.

And it's a shame Marshall, Fisher and Ratner don't have a decent show to back up their crazy egos. I'd like to pick apart every piece of On the Lot, but let's not labor over this. Let's just conclude: Like any reality show about artistry, On the Lot doesn't use the magic of the creative process to craft its drama. It feeds on confrontations between contestants. It's all about discord and humiliation, not self-discovery and inspiration. Now that they're on this show, the contestants aren't artists. They are characters in a TV series and they are being duly manipulated by Fox. Yes, there were tears and yelling during the premiere. There was no delight or uplift. It's depressing to watch. So I won't be.

A parting note to Mr. Spielberg: You were born to make movies. Through pluck, luck and talent, you got into the industry and proved to be a consummate commercial artist. I know you want to give some kid the same kind of shot you had. That's great, but this is not the way to do it. You've thrust a bunch of budding, bushy-tailed filmmakers into a sitcom. It's a mockery of the filmmaking process and, on a superficial level, it warps the allure of "making it big." And it's delusional to think, in this digital age of populist filmmaking, that anyone would look to a reality show for the next big director. The next big director is unfolding his mind in his small apartment somewhere, writing and dreaming in private for now, instead of clamoring to be seen on Fox.