How badly has George Lucas damaged the Star Wars franchise? At BoxOfficeMojo.com, The Clone Wars' revenues are being compared to Final Fantasy and TMNT - and after two weekends, it's losing to both.

One of my clearest memories from childhood is seeing the 1978 disaster "epic" Avalanche - starring Mia Farrow and Rock Hudson! - with my family, and roaring at the ridiculous dialogue (even though, at age 10, I barely understood why it was ridiculous) and effects (which even a 10-year-old knew were shoddy). To this very day, I'll exit some piece of crap at the cineplex and think, "Well ... at least it wasn't Avalanche-awful ... ," and terrible though it was, the movie - or rather, my family's reaction to the movie - remains one of my absolute favorite film-going experiences.

Saw it at the drive-in.

America's first drive-in theatre - which was also the world's first drive-in theatre - opened on June 6, 1933, and the act of watching movies from one's car proved so enduringly popular that now, 75 years later, hundreds of drive-ins can be found in locations all across the country.

Then again, there used to be thousands.

PINEAPPLE EXPRESS

As the happily zonked, pot-dealing Saul in Pineapple Express - written by Superbad screenwriters Seth Rogen (who also stars) and Evan Goldberg - James Franco is wonderfully unpredictable. The actor has flashed the occasional grin in previous film roles, but his uncanny resemblance to James Dean finds him so often used for brooding melancholy, most notably in the Spider-Man films, that his emergence as an inventive and quick-witted comedian in this stoner-buddy action farce is cause for celebration. Or rather, it would be, if Franco had a better movie in which to display his gifts.