Just to be clear, I don’t hate March of the Penguins. It’s a fairly soulful and well-made film. What I don’t like…what I couldn’t stand as I saw the French-language version..was the tediousness of all that trekking across the frozen wastelands, and all the sitting around. If I were a penguin I would end it all. I would jump into the water in hopes of being eaten by a killer whale. George Clooney knows what I’m talking about.

Variety‘s Justin Chang is calling Gore Verbinksi’s The Weather Man (Paramount, 10.28) “one of the biggest downers to emerge from a major studio in recent memory…an overbearingly glum look at a Chicago celebrity combing through the emotional wreckage of his life.” This view has been understood by Paramount for some time, and is one reason why they put off opening it earlier this year. (The theory apparently being that gloomy films play better in the fall.) “Aiming for an Alexander Payne-style synthesis of wry comedy and unflinching character study,” Chang continues, “pic has been made with the utmost sincerity, but the frankly lugubrious material and barely compensating spasms of humor are all but impossible to warm to, spelling an uncertain B.O. forecast for Paramount.” I saw The Weather Man several months ago and I’m afraid I agree. It’s one of the most grossly depressing films I’ve ever endured. It’s right up there (or down there) with Peter Brook’s black-and-white King Lear (’71) with Paul Scofield. And Nic Cage’s sad-sack weather man is one of the most intensely dislikable characters I’ve ever reluctantly spent time with in a screening room. His hair style alone is enough to ruin your evening.

Funny The Legend of Zorro review by Variety‘s Brian Lowry…but how is it that I knew this period actioner would be “bigger, louder and considerably less charming than its predecessor” before reading Lowry or anyone else? I must be gifted with a sixth sense. The Martin Campbell-directed sequel (Columbia, 10.28) “gets by mostly on dazzling stunt work and the pleasure of seeing its dashing and glamorous leads back in cape and gown,” says Lowry. “But the firm hand [Campbell] exhibited on the first go-round is shakier here, as the opening hour flits all over and hits some curiously flat patches. Only in the second half does the movie settle in a bit. A quartet of writers contributed to the script, and it certainly has the feel of work by committee. And while there are again welcome moments of humor, some are pitched so broadly it’s easy to wonder if this is supposed to be a sequel to Zorro or Blazing Saddles.”

What a bummer year for George Clooney…seriously. I was thinking about this from time to time last weekend. Head pain, thoughts of suicide, short-term memory loss, and then his dog was killed by a rattlesnake…Jesus. It started with Clooney filming a scene in Syriana (Warner Bros., 11.23) in which he “was taped to a chair and getting beaten up and we did quite a few takes. The chair was kicked over and I hit my head. I tore my dura, which is the wrap around my spine which holds in spinal fluid. But it’s not my back, it’s my brain. I basically bruised my brain. It’s bouncing around my head because it’s not supported by the spinal fluid.” The scene in which Clooney’s chair is kicked over will presumably be in Stephen Gaghan’s film. (Jeffrey Hunter’s eye was damaged from flying sand during the filming of an Omaha Beach combat scene in The Longest Day, and the moment of injury stayed in the film.) Hey, shouldn’t WB be showing Syriana now? It’s less than four weeks away.

Performances that stay with you. Cinematography (by Roger Deakins) to die for. Waiting for Godot in the sand. All geared up and cranked up and no one to shoot. The hip journos — the ones I’ve spoken to who are sharp and fair-minded enough to get the unique character of it, not to mention the sublime quality of presentation — are liking and admiring Sam Mendes’ Jarhead (Universal, 11.4).

I’ve somehow missed what Jack Malvern of the London Times Online is reporting in advance of the London Film Festival debut of March of the Penguins, which is that U.S. conservative commentators have embraced the Warner Independent release as a monogamy and right-to-life metaphor. Rightie film critic Michael Medved says it √¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢√É‚Äû√ɬ∫most passionately affirms traditional norms like monogamy, sacrifice and child rearing.” Uhm, okay. Sacrifice and child-rearing, fine…but forget monogamy. Penguins creator Luc Jacquet says that penguins are far less monogamous than people. “If you want an example of monogamy, penguins are not a good choice,” Jacquet told Malvern. “The divorce rate in emperor penguins is 80 to 90 per cent each year. After they see the chick is okay, most of them divorce. They change every year.”

The most exciting (charming, pleasing, smile-inducing) thing I saw all weekend was recorded on a webcam in China last July. I’m serious. For all I know I’m the last guy in the States to see this, but this is the best non-pro music video I’ve seen in ages. These guys are geniuses.

Apologies for ducking out of sight since late Friday. I don’t believe in days off. Mentally, that is. But some inexorable force demanded a two-and-a-half-day shutdown & that was that.