Jerry Seinfeld attempts to do a comic riff about Lady Gaga giving Mets fans the finger.

Seinfeld was asked about this because the singer was moved to his private box at the stadium the other day:

"This woman's a jerk. I hate her," Seinfeld said. "I can't believe they put her in my box that I paid for! You give people the finger and you get upgraded? Is that the world we're living in now?"

"It's pathetic," he added....

"She's a jerk," he continued. "What is she giving the finger [for]? What's the finger anyway? Speaking of interesting and new, how old is the finger? How did it even get to be the finger?"

This finger incident happened a while back. All he has is "How old is the finger? How did it even get to be the finger?"? That's pathetic. If she'd just given the finger, I would have thought it was interesting to see how Seinfeld gets started working on one of his little what's the deal with that routines. But he's had time.

And, by the way, I remember the subject — "How old is the finger? How did it even get to be the finger?" — being discussed at great length back when the movie "Titanic" came out. It was an important moment in character development when Kate Winslet (as "Rose") gave some guy the finger. Was that an anachronism in a movie set in 1912? But I'm not going to do your research for you, Jerry. You're going on the radio. You've had some time to put some jokes together. Do some research!

Saw the movie "Changeling" last night but I don't like to write movie reviews...

... so let me do what I did for the last Clint Eastwood movie I saw and challenge myself to write a list of 10 things. Here goes:

1. There were several points in this movie where, if I didn't know it was a true story, I would have turned it off. It's incredibly melodramatic. But if it's true, it's not incredible. It's credible.

2. I loathe movies about children in danger, both because I don't enjoy seeing children suffer and because I don't want to watch an actress ham it up pretending to be a mother who is agonizing over her suffering child. But I shielded myself from knowing what the story was going to be because I was told — by my son Chris — that the movie contained the greatest acting performance of the last decade and once I decide I will see a movie, I avoid reading anything about the plot.

3. I'd never seen an Angelina Jolie movie before. Looking at the list of movies she's made, I can see why. Although she seems like the biggest movie star in the world, she hasn't made many movies, and they aren't very good. She's done genres that I don't much follow (anymore). For example, she did one of the voices in "Kung Fu Panda." When I think of "Kung Fu Panda," I think of the Joshua Ferris short story "The Dinner Party":

“They just got their dates wrong, is all,” he said, “and tomorrow, when they call, they’ll tell you how sorry they are. They had to turn their phones off during the late showing of ‘Kung Fu Panda’ or something.”

“So they went to see ‘Kung Fu Panda’ tonight,” she said.

“Or something like it.”

“And they turned their phones off so they wouldn’t ring during ‘Kung Fu Panda.’ ”

“Or,” he said. “Or.” He put his finger up. They were standing near the bedroom doorway. There was dim light coming from the dark room and he was suddenly irrationally afraid, as he had been as a child, that if anyone stepped inside, if she stepped inside, she would plummet to the center of the earth. He lowered his finger. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t think they went to see ‘Kung Fu Panda.’ ”

One wouldn't see "Kung Fu Panda."

4. Jolie emotes. That's for sure. It's what's called for and she does it. She goes all out and does it. She's the female Jack Nicholson. And this movie has a good dose of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" in it. Now, take your medication. Or we'll give you an electroshock treatment. "Changeling" also made me think about another great Jack Nicholson movie, "Chinatown." Lots of L.A., lots of corruption.

5. Did Jolie out-act Kate Winslet? Winslet won the Oscar that year — for "The Reader." "The Reader" is also a melodrama, but it presents itself in less of a melodramatic style. Although "The Reader" is set in the Holocaust, the character is fictional, and her story is presented in a more dignified Oscar-worthy vehicle.

6. Quite oddly, there is a scene in "Changeling" in which the main character is listening to the Oscars presentation on the radio and rooting for her favorite movie to win. The movie is "It Happened One Night," and Jolie's character expresses her fondness for Claudette Colbert, who won an Oscar for her role. "It Happened One Night" swept the top 5 categories at the Oscars, and it wasn't until "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" that another movie swept the Oscars. I wondered what Clint Eastwood thought he was saying to the Academy by putting that Oscars scene in "Changeling." I don't think he was kissing their ass trying to get Oscars. Maybe it was a way to say Oscars are amusement for the people and they don't really matter to me anymore. But it would be pretty funny for Jolie to win an Oscar for a role where we'd have a clip of her in character getting excited about an Oscar win. It would be cute. Maybe she got some votes from Academy members who liked that.

7. Like "The Reader," "Changeling" has a scene that depicts

a hanging and uses a closeup of the hanged person's dangling feet — or is it just the shoes on the floor in "The Reader"? I forget.

(Mouse over Highlight to reveal spoiler.)(I think that's the first time I've used HTML that way.)

8. If you like red lipstick, this is the ultimate red lipstick movie. You've got, first of all, Angelina Jolie's famous, immense lips, and then you've got red red lipstick — of the historically accurate matte texture. And it looks like it was put on amateurishly by the character.

9. You like cloche hats? You will see cloche hats. Angelina Jolie's character seems to require a cloche hat — and gloves. (I couldn't figure out how she avoided getting red lipstick all over her gloves.) This is the ultimate cloche hat movie. What does the cloche hat mean? It speaks of the character's vulnerability and need for armor, which makes it

especially painful for us to see her without its protection when she's thrown into the psycho hospital.

10. What's with Angelina Jolie's hands?

11. Jolie calls Clint Eastwood "very much the ideal man":

Maybe it's generational, but I think we could use more of it. People look up to him. He is absolutely who he is. He doesn't apologize to anybody. He has very, very strong, decisive opinions and is very gracious as a man, as a friend and somebody on set as a director, too.

She tags on the wifely niceness — "Brad knows that he's my ideal man" — but, reading that, I hear the emphasis on "my." Brad may be her ideal man, but Eastwood is the ideal man.

Oh! I went to 11. I thought it would be hard to get to 10. Ha. I guess I enjoyed that movie. Maybe I'll watch it again with somebody who hasn't seen it before. Back in the 80s, we used to love showing "The Terminator" to people who hadn't seen it yet. All the surprises would be new again. Last week, I was flipping channels and came to rest on "From Dusk to Dawn," which had just started. I'd seen it before, but Meade hadn't. Great vicarious fun for me.

Into the movie theater, "Into the Wild."

I saw the movie "Into the Wild" yesterday. This was only the second movie I've seen since arriving in New York in mid-August. (The other was "Across the Universe" — blogged here.)

Why don't I see more movies? 1. I don't like the physical constraint of committing to sitting in a chair for 2 hours. 2. I only go to movies I think I'll like and still don't much like the movies I see. 3. Few movies seem like the sort of thing I'll like. 4. I have no shortage of other things to do (which is the case for anyone who loves to read). 5. I don't find myself in social situations where going to the movies is what people do together (and I don't see why people want to spend their precious time together doing something that involves so little interaction with each other).

Why did "Into the Wild" overcome my resistance? 1. I wanted to take a cab to 27th Street and 11th Avenue to begin a walk that would take me through a bunch of art galleries...



... and then all the way back to Brooklyn Heights, and "Into the Wild" was playing at a theater on 19th Street and Broadway, so what I usually experience as noisome restraint would rest me up for the walk through downtown Manhattan and across the Brooklyn Bridge. 2. Having read the book "Into the Wild," I was interested in seeing a visualization of it. 3. Some of my very favorite movies are about men at the existential edge: "Grizzly Man," "Touching the Void," "The Pianist," "My Dinner With André." (I know André is just sitting at a restaurant table throughout the movie, but he describes a search for his soul through mountains, deep forest, the Sahara, and the inside of a grave.)

How did I like "Into the Wild"?

1. The actor — Emile Hirsch — who played Christopher McCandless, was cute — like the young Leonardo di Caprio — but he did not radiate emotion. Compare him to Adrian Brody in "The Pianist," whose character, like McCandless, is starving. Brody made me feel what was happening to him as he descended into the most desperate human condition. Hirsch couldn't do that, though he was supported by terrific actors (especially Hal Holbrook), profound landscapes, and that squalid little bus. He seemed like a really nice kid with a lot of idealism and enthusiasm who made a few unfortunate choices and so, sadly, never got the chance to grow up. Unlike the character in "The Pianist," McCandless made his own choices. He rejected society, but we can't see much anti-social edge in Hirsch's portrayal.

2. The photography didn't move me. The beach, the canyon, the desert, the mountains — these are all beautiful locations, but this isn't a travelogue. These things should be photographed to convey emotion, but they looked about the way they'd look if you went there and saw them for yourself. There are 2 key scenes where Hirsch climbs up a hill, acts enthused, and gets the old man played by Holbrooke to climb up there too. It reminded me of the scene in "Titanic" when Leo DiCaprio shows Kate Winslet how to live by getting her to stretch out her arms on the prow of the ship. It's a Hollywood cliché. (Too bad Hirsch didn't yell "I'm king of the hill!")

3. I nearly walked out about a third of the way in. Something about Hirsch and Catherine Keener romping on the beach and plunging into the ocean felt stupid and phony. We're told the character is afraid of water, and then Keener — the mother figure he finds to replace his real and too-distant mother — makes it possible for him to go swimming. I forced myself to stay, and I see the story arc this was part of. He leaves his inadequate parents. (They're excited about the idea of him going to Harvard Law School and haven't a clue why he doesn't want them to buy him a new car.) He goes on the road where he finds replacements for his mother and father (Keener and Holbrook). He interacts with water — gets caught in a flash flood, kayaks through rapids, plunges in the ocean, fords a stream — which are probably meant to symbolize birth/mother. And he encounters a rocky terrain and kills and butchers some animals — squirrel and moose — (squirrel and moose???) — which are probably meant to symbolize his struggle with death/father.

4. The movie raises but hardly explores the issue of celibacy. We're shown this attractive young man, who seems to have a feeling for other people, in the presence of sensuous females. Kayaking, he comes upon a bare-breasted woman, but she has a boyfriend and he has to run off. (He's running from park rangers). Later, a beautiful, sensitive girl throws herself at him, but she's 16, and he's upstanding about that. (He burns his money and Social Security card, he kayaks in violation of clearly stated rules, and he steals rides on freight trains, but he's rigorous about the age-of-consent laws.) So the movie shows us the path not taken — love from a woman could replace the inadequate parents — and the character is given pat excuses for not going there. Still, why did he forswear sex? In the end, dying alone, he writes in his notebook: "Real happiness must be shared." This is very affecting, and it is an important idea in the intellectual development of this man who reads a lot of books. But something is left unexplored. Why didn't McCandless want sex?

Did you walk all the way home?

"The rest of the Republican Party is like Kate Winslet, desperately trying to pry the McCain campaign's frozen clammy hand from our own..."

Analogies from the mind of Hugh Hewitt, which is seething with hostility for John McCain... in a post that's illustrated with a picture of a DVD box that does not contain "Titanic," because the "Titanic" box doesn't have a picture of a big, smoking gun.

Conservatives are not happy with the immigration bill -- if we may judge from this poll of 51 right-wing bloggers.

CORRECTION: It's Dean Barnett, writing on a blog called Hugh Hewitt. (I thought once you named the blog after yourself, you'd missed the chance to bring in a co- or guest-blogger. I impetuously named my blog after myself, without giving any thought to the matter, but I do find it confusing when there is a name in big letters at the top, but someone else is writing.)

"That's just some women sitting 'round in a book club, and you made it so interesting."

Don't you think that's an odd thing for -- of all people -- Oprah to say?

She's always pushing her book club, yet here she is revealing that she thinks women gabbing in a book club setting is the dullest thing in the world. Or is Oprah getting excited about "Madame Bovary" and the real, deep meaning of female adultery?

She's got Kate Winslet on the show, and Kate's talking about her (Oscar-nominated) role in "Little Children." And we've just seen the book club clip, where those other suburban women don't see the significance of female adultery, and our Kate -- in character -- says:

I think I understand your feelings about this book. I used to have some problems with it myself. But when I read it in grad school, Madame Bovary just seemed like a fool. She marries the wrong man. Makes one foolish mistake after another. But when I read it this time, I just fell in love with her. She's trapped. She has a choice. She can either accept a life of misery, or she can struggle against it. And she chooses to struggle... She fails in the end, but there's something beautiful and even heroic in her rebellion. My professors would kill me for even thinking this but, in her own strange way, Emma Bovary is a feminist... It's not the cheating. It's the hunger. The hunger for an alternative and the refusal to accept a life of unhappiness.

Oprah gushes:

Wow! Wow!! Wow. Thank you. I mean, the first time I saw that scene, I got chills. I thought that was so... liberating! I mean, and even now, the little hairs, standing on my head, when you said, "It's not the cheating. It's the hunger."

And X number of suburban housewives plunge headlong into disastrous adultery for the pure brilliance of the hunger. Even Oprah admits that life isn't found in reading groups! Over the years, she's made it seem that maybe it is, but in this intense moment, she makes it crashingly obvious that it is not!

Oscar nominations...

Did you watch the announcement live? I did. Poor Salma Hayek was devastated that "Volver" didn't get a Best Foreign Language Film nomination. I was glad Alan Arkin got nominated, even though I didn't think much of "Little Miss Sunshine." I do like him.

Lots of the usual suspects in the Best Actress Category. Meryl Streep and Kate Winslet are in some long contest for most nominations ever. Then there's Helen Mirren and Judi Dench. Makes you want to be for Penelope Cruz, doesn't it?

Here's the full list of nominees.

UPDATE: Drudge writes: "'DREAMGIRLS' LEADS PACK -- BUT SNUBBED IN FILM, DIRECTOR CATS..." Oh! The poor cats! What did those sweet little kitties ever do to deserve such treatment from the Academy?

"The way she conducts herself in this sort of lonely life of hers is not something that at face value I could really understand."

Kate Winslet talks about her role in "Little Children":

[S]he confirmed that Sarah, a neglected wife and a disaffected mother, was not an easy fit, especially for an actress who believes “it’s important to learn to love the person that you’re playing.”

“Sarah,” she said, “has some qualities that I didn’t necessarily respect or like. The way she conducts herself in this sort of lonely life of hers” — having a torrid affair with an equally unhappy stay-at-home father, played by Patrick Wilson — “is not something that at face value I could really understand.”

... [S]he was thrown by the character’s willingness to stay put in a bad marriage — Ms. Winslet herself quickly bailed out of her first marriage, to James Threapleton, then an assistant director, before settling down three and a half years ago with the director Sam Mendes.

Comparing herself to Sarah, she said: “I cannot sit back and just say, ‘Oh, well, this is my lot.’ If I don’t like something, I go off and I fix it. It was really, really hard for me to dampen down those impulses in myself, and to stop myself being frustrated with her.”

I hear the movie is great, by the way, the best of the year. And I've loved Kate Winslet since her first movie, one of my all-time favorites, "Heavenly Creatures." But I was motivated to break out that passage because I'm fascinated by the divorcee's contempt for the woman who stays in a bad marriage and chooses the problematic form of self-expression that is adultery.

Looking at a poster the wrong way.

I just glanced at this intended-to-be-gorgeous image in an ad for the movie "Little Children." Focusing on Kate Winslet's face, I had the impression that the mass of flesh in the foreground was part of her body. I was all man, Kate Winslet has one crazy-looking thigh.