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A couple summers ago, I was at a San Francisco Giants game at which the opening ceremonies paid tribute to the fortieth anniversary of "the Summer of Love." "Tribute" bands made up the bulk of the lineup, but it was a genuine surprise to hear the national anthem performed by a Jimi Hendrix imitator who replicated the guitarist's spectacular version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" note-for-note. What's more, it was obviously modeled on Hendrix's performance of the patriotic tune at the Woodstock Festival in August 1969, right down to the simulation of dive-bombing aerial explosions. So caught up in the spirit did the ballplayers themselves become that the scoreboard camera caught Giants shortstop Omar Vizquel merrily giving the standard two-finger heavy metal salute.

To be technical, Hendrix's radical rearrangement of "The Star-Spangled Banner" shouldn't have even been on a Summer of Love fortieth anniversary playlist. The Summer of Love, at least as it's defined in San Francisco and most of the world, took place in 1967, not 1969. Yet its presence at a major sporting event in front of more than 30,000 spectators - virtually all of whom instantly recognized the duplication of Hendrix's version from the very first notes-testifies to the enduring power of both Jimi's arrangement and the Woodstock festival itself as iconic symbols.

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As the cost of moviemaking continues to skyrocket, studios are under greater pressure than ever to deliver hits-not just modest successes but blockbusters. But no one has ever figured out a formula for foolproof success.

Who would have thought a movie about talking guinea-pig spies would be a hit? But in the summertime, when kids are out of school, during a year when people of all ages are looking for escape, G-Force had a smash opening weekend.

Early in the summer, Universal had high hopes for Land of the Lost, but here was a product with no identifiable audience. Anyone who was nostalgic for the tacky 1970s television series would seemingly be out of the desirable audience demographic. Kids might have been attracted to a dinosaur film, but its PG-13 rating and foul language put parents off. And Will Ferrell's core audience of young guys probably thought it looked to childish. The movie tanked.

At the other end of the spectrum, studios that were gun-shy about R-rated comedies have changed their thinking, thanks to the box-office success of movies like The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up. This summer's comedy hit was The Hangover, but even Warner Bros. didn't anticipate just how big it would be-with women and men.

So within a week of its opening, Warners announced that it would make a sequel to The Hangover.

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Last month, an L.A. Times blogger, Carolyn Kellogg, mused in her blog about what former President Bill Clinton was reading. He obliged her and sent her a list of seven books he is currently reading, Media Bistro's GalleyCat reports.

We were pleased to discover that his first three current reads are Penguin books! Discover them for yourself, here:

The Invention of Air

Steven Johnson - Author 

$25.95 add to cart

Book: Hardcover | 9.25 x 6.25in | 272 pages | ISBN 9781594488528 | 26 Dec 2008 | Riverhead | 18 - AND UP

The Ghost Map

 Steven Johnson - Author

$15.00 add to cart 

Book: Paperback | 8.26 x 5.23in | 320 pages | ISBN 9781594482694 | 02 Oct 2007 | Riverhead | 18 - AND UP 

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When I worked on the first edition of Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide-then called TV Movies-some forty years ago, my editor, Patrick O'Connor, insisted that I devise a rating system. I protested the idea, explaining that I didn't think it was possible to boil every movie down to a number, be it ** or ****. He was insistent, and told me, "People love that kind of shorthand."

He was right. People do respond to these ratings and they love to debate the results. But I was right, too: it's often difficult to assess a movie with successful ingredients-and some unsuccessful ones-and assign it a number.

I decided then and there that I would rate each film on its own merits, instead of comparing one to another. If I'm watching a goofball teen comedy I don't try to measure it against King Lear, and vice versa.

People sometimes confront me with questions like, "Do you mean to tell me that Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is a better movie than Revolutionary Road?" What I'm saying is that Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein succeeds better in what it's trying to achieve than Revolutionary Road does. That's why the horror-comedy merits ***1/2 stars while the challenging social drama gets **1/2.

But when all is said and done, this remains a completely arbitrary process. My editors and I often bemoan the fact that we don't have a **3/4 rating, to bestow on films that are pretty good but don't quite hit the bull's-eye.