This is, what, the third straight issue of NOW where I don’t talk to anybody? Ridiculous. Rest assured that steps are being taken to correct this; next week, I’m down for at least three interviews and possibly four, and you won’t believe with whom I’m talking this weekend.

Anyway, it’s not a total dead zone. I take a look at the shiny new Canadian Screen Awards in advance of Sunday’s gala ceremony, and there’s this online-only Top 5 in which John Semley and I make fun of The Last Exorcism Part II by rounding up other one-shot pictures that managed to turn themselves into franchises.

And yes, I considered George A. Romero’s Living Dead series, which basically starts off with a new set of characters every time, but that’s not quite the same. But the narrative gymnastics required to make Phantasm II would have qualified, now that I think of it …