Each week, The Exhibitionist comments on the latest news, trends and innovations related to the theater industry, or it discusses long-continuing problems with and complaints against cinemas in general, or it simply relates a specific moviegoing experience of yours truly. But rarely does this column get into the subject of actual movies. Well, seeing as there's not much new in the industry this week, and seeing as I'm fortunately not being dragged to see Sex and the City and therefore have no experience to relate about being a sole male in an auditorium packed with women, I figure this is a perfect time to bring up actual movies. Not just any movies, though: I'm presently only interested in discussing movies about, set in or prominently featuring movie theaters.

The earliest movie that I'm familiar with that significantly involves a theater is Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr. The silent comedian plays a projectionist who falls asleep on the job then has a dream in which he literally climbs through the movie screen and into a detective film. A similar idea of breaking the boundary between auditorium and screen is used in Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo and in John McTiernan's The Last Action Hero, both of which involve a movie character who manages to leave his respective film within the film. But nothing tops Keaton's screen-entering stunt, which utilizes special effects that still astonish more than 80 years later.

• Joy Page (1924-2008) - Actress who played the young newlywed "Annina Brandel" in Casablanca. In the film, she's about to desperately prostitute herself for exit Visas, for her husband and herself, when Rick (Bogie) steps in and fixes a roulette wheel so the husband is able to win the Visas instead. She also appears in Kismet, Bullfighter and the Lady and the William Castle-directed western Conquest of Cochise. She was the daughter of silent film star Don Alvarado and the step-daughter of WB chief Jack L. Warner. She died of complications from a stroke and pneumonia April 18, in Los Angeles. (Variety)

• Tristram Cary (1925-2008) - Composer and electronic musician best known for penning the theme to TV's Doctor Who. He also scored The Ladykillers (the 1955 original), Quartermass and the Pit and the 1971 horror film Blood from the Mummy's Tomb and did sound effects for the 1986 animated feature When the Wind Blows and 1967's Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush. A pioneer of electronic music, he co-designed a synthesizer that was used by Pink Floyd, The Who and Roxy Music. He died April 24 in Adelaide, Australia. (Telegraph)

Like most people on the internet, we at Cinematical love lists. I love them so much that I wish I could write about everyone I read, but unfortunately there are too many geeks out there making up too many lists, and not enough love to go round (can't you see this is the land of confusion .... ). But since another thing we love around here is Star Wars -- not just the movies but also the fans, the debates, the complaints, etc. -- I figured that these four lists were worth sharing. Because they all mention something related to George Lucas' popular universe. Three of the lists also reference a lot of Star Trek, but with J.J. Abrams rebooting the franchise and all, I think Trekkies have enough love right now. Meanwhile, the 30th Anniversary of Star Wars occurred this year, and we still had to read about things like the Harry Potter franchise out-grossing the Star Wars series and Serenity beating out Star Wars as a best sci-fi film poll. So, thanks to the people at Fark.com, who love lists even more than we do, here are four movie-related lists that give some appropriate props:

• First we have the Times' countdown of the 40 most memorable aliens. Unfortunately, the only Star Wars aliens listed are at #32 and #26, and they're the Ewoks and Max Rebo, respectively. Considering most of the characters in the series can be considered aliens, this is harsh, but since I'm one of the few Ewok fans out there, I appreciate the gesture. Even if ALF is higher up on the list than they are. At least they're still better than the Coneheads. Anyway the top ten here is full of other significant movie aliens, including the arachnids of Starship Troopers, E.T., the Transformers, Superman, The Blob, The Thing and, at the top spot, God.
  
• Next there's Kunochan.com's countdown of the top twenty starship captains. Once again, Star Wars doesn't get the #1, but it's understandable that Star Trek's most famous captains get the first two slots. At #3, though, is Han Solo. However, the list's author does point out that he had to put a Star Wars character in the top five to avoid having his house firebombed. I don't mind the disingenuous comment; Solo deserves to be higher up than Captain Janeway and the dude from Firefly/Serenity. Down the line at #11 we've also got Grand Moff Tarkin.

Since the 1980s was a time of truly horrifying fashions and some downright scary hairdos (pass the Aquanet, please) it's no surprise that it was also a boom period for horror films. Some of the biggest horror franchises in history came into their own then, and the decade was marked by the emergence of home video, the greatest thing ever to happen to horror. I'm presenting these in no particular order, but these are all flicks I found time to enjoy between solving my Rubik's Cube and admiring girls in leg-warmers (I keep hoping those will come back).

The Return of the Living Dead (1985)
Despite what ultimately ended up on screen, this project began its undead life as a more or less official sequel to the movie that gave birth to the modern zombie genre. After completion of Night of the Living Dead, director George Romero and co-screenwriter John Russo both held sequel rights. While Romero continued the series with 1978's Dawn of the Dead, Russo's sequel came in the form of a potboiler of a novel called Return of the Living Dead. The book is a real chore to plod through, but apparently writer/director Dan O'Bannon liked it enough to turn it into a film which fortunately bears no resemblance to Russo's novel. In the film, the events of Night of the Living Dead are more or less based on a true occurrence, but names and details were changed to avoid law suits. Several drums of the chemical manufactured by the military to reanimate the dead were mistakenly shipped to Uneeda Medical Supply. A dopey pair of guys release the chemical which makes its way into some cadavers in the warehouse and eventually the cemetery across the street, where a gang of punk rockers are killing time. These zombies are more selective than most, feasting only on brains. Not everything works perfectly, but the zombie known as Tarman is pretty cool, Linnea Quigley is naked most of the time and there's an awesome punk soundtrack.

The 1963 epic Cleopatra, starring Elizabeth Taylor in the title role, is often mistaken for being a financial flop. But it was actually one of the highest grossing pictures of its year. It couldn't turn a profit right away because its cost was just too high and so it may have seemed like a disaster originally, but after so many years it eventually made money. If the film were made today for an equivalent cost, it might not be as successful. Its budget would be close to $300 million. Judging from the grosses of other recent epics of this kind, it probably wouldn't come close -- even with international box office -- to making its money back, let alone the original's inflation-adjusted earnings of $442 million.

So, producer Scott Rudin will have to be tighter with the cash when he goes into production on a new Cleopatra film, which will be based on a book by Pulitzer-Prize winner Stacy Schiff due in 2009. Columbia Pictures bought the rights to this unfinished book based on a 10-page proposal for a reported seven figures (that's at least a million bucks, so already the budget is rising). It is expected to spotlight the Egyptian queen's strengths as a ruler as opposed to her reputation as a lover. Hopefully she will be played by someone closer in appearance than Taylor, though I would like to see Taylor have some sort of cameo.