I love Joan Jett, but really?

Even if there really is no hope that the Baltimore Orioles will be nothing but awful for the foreseeable future (and, even worse, they're gonna be worse than the Nationals next year!), there are still plenty of great things that come from Charm City.

I've extolled the virtues of "The Wire," simply the greatest cop show of all time, in this space many a time. And even if he is more than a bit of a pervert, Baltimore's John Waters has made some seriously funny movies over the years (just the other night I was watching "Pecker" with Christina Ricci and Edward Furlong - a real hoot.)

And I always thought, when it comes to music, that Joan Jett was from Baltimore too, but it turns out you can add another thing to the growing list of things I was wrong about. She apparently grew up in Wheaton, Md., before dropping out of high school and joining the Runaways. But no matter where she's from, Joan Jett is just cool in my book.

About once a day or so, my cubicle mate Renee Martinez gets a call on her cell phone that plays Jett's first (and still best) solo single "Bad Reputation," which a few of you may know as the theme song for my beloved "Freaks and Geeks." As sad as this is, it is one of the dependable highlights of my predictably boring work day.

And I tell you all that to tell this, there's a biopic of Jett's all-girl punk supergroup of sorts, The Runaways, in the works, but it's quickly starting to stink so bad you can smell it already. In what can only be an ominous sign, it's being made a woman named Floria Sigismondi, who may indeed turn out to be a great movie director but so far has specialized in music videos for Sheryl Crow, Christina Aguilera and the like.

But, in much worse news, they've now seemingly just botched beyond belief the casting of Joan Jett by jumping on the "Twilight" train and grabbing Kristen Stewart. No offense to her, but I just can't see it,

The Runaways, for the four years they lasted, were exploited for sure but were all about fun and attitude, and Stewart just doesn't have it. The first question that came to my mind when I first read this this morning was whatever in the world ever happened to Ellen Page? She has to be up to something, right? A quick IMDB search finds she's playing the lead of "Whip It!," Drew Barrymore's flick about roller derby queen Bliss Cavendar, and then starring in some kind of psychological thriller called "Peacock." Surely she could make time to get in on "The Runaways" action if anyone bothered to ask.

And now I have to get ready for work, but I'll leave you with something that should make any Wednesday at least a little bit better, a clip of Jett's "Bad Reputation" playing behind one devoted fan's rather well-edited tribute to "Freaks and Geeks" (and be sure to stay until the end for Joe Flaherty attempting to give his "Korea" speech - priceless.) Peace out.

See Rainn Wilson as "The Rocker"

Not too much to report today, especially because - as usual - I'm already running late for work, but I figured just about everyone's Thursday would be brightened up at least a bit by the sight of Rainn Wilson in a really goofy haircut.

Before we get to that, however, there's good news today that for at least one veteran New Line director, John Waters, there will indeed be life after Warner Bros devoured and basically shuttered the little studio.

For his first feature film in four years, Waters is expected to be back with a "Christmas" movie called "Fruitcake," and the news today is that he's landed Johnny Knoxville and Parker Posey to star in it.

Now, in spite of that rather colorful title, this isn't an autobiographical flick, as many might believe. Instead, as with the previous Waters film "Pecker," the title simply refers to the nickname of the main character, a young boy named after his favorite dessert. Plot details are slim so far, but it apparently focuses on what happens when the youth runs away from home during the holidays after he and his parents are caught shoplifting meat, then meets up with a runaway girl raised by two gay men and searching for her birth mother.

Sounds as twisted as anything Waters has cooked up before, but hopefully with a sweet touch rather than simply gross. Look for it next Christmas, most likely from ThinkFilm.

In one other bit of news about "The Office," which has its penultimate episode tonight, it seems "The Wire" veteran and Oscar nominee Amy Ryan will be introduced as the new HR person when Toby departs next week. I'll really miss Toby, but assuming the great Ms. Ryan stays on for next season and more, I'd still have to say this is a case of trading up.

But now on to today's main course. As goofy as this looks, I'm hoping it will pair nicely with "Pineapple Express" to give us the kind of comedies that August so sorely needs. At the very least, Wilson should be a hoot. Enjoy this trailer for "The Rocker," and have a perfectly passable Thursday. Peace out.

Did "The Golden Compass" kill 600 jobs?

More than a tad simplistic, I confess, but that's certainly how it looks from here.

Yesterday came the news that Bob Shaye, who founded New Line Cinema in his New York apartment in 1967, and fellow executive Michael Lynne were being ousted from the somewhat-indie studio. And now comes word that New Line will be folded into Warner Bros., costing the jobs of some 600 employees and adding another big block to the move to consolidate movie production and distribution in the hands of fewer and fewer people.

You probably can't lay all this at the feet of "The Golden Compass," but it does indeed seem to be the final nail in the studio's coffin. Shaye, in particular, had been hoping for "Lord of the Rings" kind of magic, but the anti-religion (much removed from the movie anyway) baggage and the fact that Philip Pullman simply doesn't have the mainstream appeal of a J.R.R. Tolkein were just too much to overcome.

Despite the neutering of some of the book's message, I liked the flick enough to be looking forward to the sequel, "The Subtle Knife," but the chances of that happening now look to be about nil. It apparently has a script by Hossein Amini, but is still listed only as "announced" at the IMDB, with no cast attached as of yet.

But beyond that, what are we really losing in New Line? Well, in its best days, New Line launched the career of Paul Thomas Anderson and revived that of David Fincher (starting with "Se7en"), so for that at least we can be thankful. And they were of course also the studio that backed a little trilogy known as "The Lord of the Rings."

On the downside, they also birthed the career of Brett Ratner and his "Rush Hour" movies, but hey, everybody makes mistakes (and those were at least ones that made mad cash.)

One very important thing that New Line did early, before it got into horror (both "The Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Friday the 13th," among others) and "urban" (I hate that term!) fare ("House Party" and "Menace 2 Society," among many others), was a big boon for the city of Baltimore's oddest native son, and for that we should all say thanks.

I can only imagine the look on Bob Shaye's face when he saw Divine trailing a poodle and eating its excrement. But to its credit, New Line still did distribute even the grossest of John Waters' films, and they were there when he finally made some less shocking and pretty darn good ones ("Hairspray" and "Pecker" being my favorites.) Waters hasn't made a movie since 2004's "A Lowdown Dirty Shame," and is now teaching film at some kind of European university. He's also in the beginning stages of a flick called, appropriately enough,"Fruitcake," but who knows what studio will now bother to get behind that.

Waters himself gave a perfect eulogy of sorts to the Hollywood reporter: "To me, the scary thing is when I was younger, when you went to pitch a movie, there were 20 places to go. Now there are only a handful. They just keep buying each other."

It's hard to believe that the little studio that backed this seriously off-kilter but sometimes very funny dude would later go on to something as ambitious as "The Lord of the Rings." And yes, in case anyone is wondering, "The Hobbit" will still apparently go forward under Warner/New Line's guidance, with Guillermo del Toro still in talks to take the reins.

And what does New Line leave us with as its last offering? A goofy Will Ferrell comedy. I'll probably go see "Semi-Pro," but it would be hard to call that going out on top. In its defense, New Line did also just release Michel Gondry's "Be Kind Rewind," which I did have the chance to see and am still digesting.

The bottom line: Nobody wins in this sad story, and the biggest losers will be the movie fans who will get fewer and less diverse offerings as Hollywood studios merge into what might one day just be one gigantic conglomerate (here's hoping not!). In a crass move on my part to inject at least a bit of levity at the finish, here's the final one sheet for Pixar's Summer 2008 offering "Wall-E," a critter cute enough to make even the most cynical person smile a little. Peace out.