About Ewan McGregor: We're getting contrasting reports about him, but it seems they all indicate that he's changing careers. Some say that he'll be involved in professional mastication, in which case he'll be henceforth known as Chewin' McGregor. Maybe he'll follow the likes of the horse whisperer and the dog whisperer, except he'll take a direction that's a little more fowl. Yes, he'll become the pigeon whisperer and then be known as Cooin' McGregor.

Okay, one more: Ewan McGregor will start his own show on the Food Network, and it'll be all about making soups, chowders, and possibly a series of gumbos. The show will be called Stewin' McGregor. Alright, enough for now.

I'm sure that most of us pedo … er, I mean, bibliophiles are frustrated when we go into a darkened theater to see an adaptation of our favorite or second-favorite book – or at least a book we appreciated decently. Sure, we go in with high hopes, thinking we'll see the things we visualized in our heads spring to life. We hope that the director of this trendy new film has somehow read our minds through some mysterious, psychic, Jungian link and plucked the images from our dreams so that he or she could make real the intricate world that we have formed around the words, phrases, and chapters that we have come to know and love so well.

We yearn to see the author's name in the credits, and not just in the blank following "Based on the Novel by." We want to see it under the title "Creative Consultant." That way, we know that the director of the flick didn't just go off half-cocked, making arbitrary decisions about the color of the protagonist's hair, the leading lady's country of origin, or cut of the villain's jib. We want nothing short of a passage-by-passage translation to moving picture with complete dialogue intact – with a kickass soundtrack and excellent special effects. Is that too much to ask?

With little exception, nothing close to this ever happens, of course. The scripters (or screenwriters, as I'm sure they prefer to be called) have a run at it; the producers get their hands on it and desecrate it in ways only they know how; and the director slices off what he wants and puts his "ideas" into the story, which usually involves changing or combining characters. Not necessarily in that order. You ever hear something like this: "Wait! Fredo wasn't all skinny and big-foreheady in the book? Well, he is in the movie, so that's all that matters." Hell, I know he got a Best Actor Oscar out of it, and the film won Best Picture, but Tom Hanks looks nothing like how Forrest Gump is supposed to look.

So, if you've read the book, don't bother going to see the movie. You'll be disappointed. You'd be better off spending all that money buying another book. If you were going to get concessions, you can afford to get a hardback. Movies were meant to be the open playground for destruction, action, sex, and dazzling effects. If you just watch movies that are designed to be movies and not based on books, or if you just don't read any books that might be turned into movies, you'll be happier. Plus, you'll never have to utter the phrase "the book was better" again.

So, if Ewan McGregor were not understood properly, folks would be misconstruin' McGregor …

Someone asked me what I thought about pirating movies. First off, let me say that there is nothing I enjoy more than going to see a movie in a theater. This is especially true at a midnight showing or opening weekend, where you get really honest reactions from a large group of people that are really excited about seeing this flick. I love just about every aspect of that experience. That being said, I'd love it more if I didn't have to pay for it. Draw your own conclusion.

If he takes up doing Chinese martial arts, he'll be called Kung Fuin' McGregor. Okay, I'm going to go crawl into a hole now. I think I might have damaged the fabric of space and time with that last pun.