Dasher, Dancer, Sneezy, Dopey, Larry, Curly, Tito, Marlon, Janet, Brad, Rocky, The Professor, Mary Ann, and Jerry Mathers as The Beaver

It's been well over a month and I haven't posted a damn thing in this blog. The following post was originally intended to be a Tweet, but I fleshed it out a tad to give credence to the notion that I'm not yet dead.

There are two films ready to be released later this year. Actually, there are lots more than two, but I'm focusing on two specifically. Both are generating lots of buzz, both are eagerly anticipated by audiences, both received accolades at their respective festival premieres, and both are safe bets as serious Oscar contenders.

One is called 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.'

The other is called 'Martha Marcy May Marlene.'

The first is a Cold War-era espionage thriller, set in Britain, directed by the guy who directed Let the Right One In, starring everybody's favorite cinematic chameleon, Gary Oldman.

The second is a psychological thriller, set in the Castskills, starring the soon-to-be-much-more-famous sister of the Olsen twins, directed by some guy without a Wikipedia page.

But plots aside, I want you to think slowly about the two titles. Aren't they very similar?

Four, stand-alone words. No connection. No syntax. Just four, seemingly random words, batched together to form two titles of two very similarly anticipated movies, with very close release dates.

The first I don't care for. It sounds silly. And I don't care about its context or its history as a franchise. It sounds like a children's picture book, and I'm having trouble taking it seriously.

The second I will never remember. It will be the year 2144, my brain will be in a jar at the National Archives, hooked up to machines to offer all future generations insight about motion pictures, and I'll still be calling it something like "Martha May Megan Mallory."

But why do I bring this up? Because I like wasting your time. Also, because I can see the future. I can see all the way to March 2012. I can see the jokes being fed through the teleprompters at the Oscar ceremony. And I can hear them echo all the way back to today.They are all the same. They are all jokes about the similarity of the titles of the two films. And they are old. And unfunny. And they've already been told a million times before. Even Jay Leno is tired of making jokes about these two film titles.

I can smell a bad joke coming miles away. And this smells like sauerkraut, mixed with wallpaper paste, left in a musty attic.