The L.A. marathon was yesterday, and my hotel was on the route — right at the 12-mile marker, apparently. It’s a bit of a challenge, keeping one’s mind on a press conference when literally hundreds of people are streaming past the window.

I took this shot when I got back to my room — the crowd had thinned somewhat by then, but you get the idea.

In other news, I’m not surprised to realize that when I see hordes of people running through the streets, my first instinct is to look for the zombies chasing them.

Mr. Romero, I hope you’re proud of yourself …

My latest MSN Movies gallery uses “The Bounty Hunter” as a springboard to look at a few other bad-breakup movies, and the actors who’ve clashed so memorably in them.

Now that I think about it, I should have included “Casablanca”, too …

Tomorrow I head off to Los Angeles for a junket run — earthquake season’s over, right? — so I find myself speeding through a whole bunch of stuff today in order to get ahead of my deadlines. And yet there are still movies opening this weekend! Damn movies!

“The Bounty Hunter“: Gerard Butler and Jennifer Aniston do the love-hate thing in Andy Tennant’s miserable romantic comedy. My review should be up any minute now, but you already know the deal, right? UPDATE: Linked!

“Cooking with Stella”: Newly arrived in Delhi, Canadian househusband Don McKellar finds himself squaring off against scheming housekeeper Seema Biswas in Dilip Mehta’s modest comedy of manners, which deserves points for confronting stereotypes but loses a few for being kind of dull. Susan and Jason were more forgiving.

“Diary of a Wimpy Kid”: I have no idea what this is.

“Hubble“: The latest IMAX space movie is worth seeing for the glorious views of distant galaxies, as captured by the titular telescope. The stuff about repair missions is just window dressing, really.

“Repo Men“: It’s “Logan’s Run” with credit ratings instead of an age cap, but there’s enough meat (sorry) on Miguel Sapochnik’s dystopian action thriller to hold your attention, and Jude Law is solid in the lead. Audiences will be split on the ending, but I thought it was pretty savvy, myself.

“The Runaways”: Floria Sigismondi’s scrappy story of Joan Jett, Cherie Currie and the original girl-power movement is your basic rise-and-fall rock movie, with the “rise” part far more satisfying than the “fall”, thanks to Michael Shannon’s pop-eyed Kim Fowley. And the music’s pretty great, but you knew that already.

Right, that’s everything. I’ll check in with y’all later …

Spring must be near, because we’re already wading through the wave of micro-festivals that always takes over Toronto when the snow melts.

This week’s NOW finds me tackling the Female Eye Film Festival and the Toronto Japanese Short Film Festival, with plenty more to come — there’s Cinefranco next week, Images the week after that, and Hot Docs looming at the end of April. Oh, and Sprockets and the Toronto Jewish Film Festival, too.

It’s exhausting being me right now.

I was expecting a massive opening weekend for “Remember Me”, based on nothing more than the passion of the Twi-hards for their beloved Robert Pattinson — there’s a wall of posters for the thing down the block, and every time I pass them, they’ve attracted a new cluster of teenage girls in full squee.

But that didn’t happen. As the AP reports, “Remember Me” came in fourth for the weekend with a box-office take of just $8.3 million — well below the $14.5 million gross of “Green Zone” and the $9.6 million pulled in by “She’s Out of My League”.

And holding steady at number one? Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” with $62 million smackers, bringing its ten-day total to a stunning $208.6 million.

I guess 3D is here to stay, huh? It’s certainly not the film that’s drawing these crowds …

My latest MSN Movies gallery uses “Remember Me” as a jumping-off point to flip through other actors’ attempts to slip the shackles of a popular character.

Because whatever else he is in this movie, Robert Pattinson is decidedly not playing a sparkly abstinence vampire.

Yeah, I know. But it was either that or movies that use real-life events in a pitiful attempt to invest otherwise mundane screenplays with depth and tragedy … and that turned out to be a pretty short list.

Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker” returns to theatres today in the wake of its Oscar win, and I’m guessing it’ll make more this weekend than it did in its entire North American run. Or it’ll be ignored all over again because people just bought the DVD. Let’s see how that goes.

Meanwhile, there are plenty of other distractions hitting the megaplex — let’s go through them, shall we?

“Cactus“: Two men in a car provide a feature’s worth of tension and suspense in Jasmine Yuen Carrucan’s efficient, economical thriller, which plays like a throwback to the Ozploitation movies of the 1970s. Worth a look, I reckon.

“Green Zone”: Paul Greengrass brings Matt Damon to occupied Iraq for a thriller extrapolated from Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s book “Imperial Life in the Emerald City”. I couldn’t make the screening, but Andrew liked it fine.

“Our Family Wedding”: Carlos Mencia and Forest Whitaker as rival dads forced together by their kids’ wedding? Why, that’s a recipe for wackiness if ever I heard one! Andrew‘s review includes what may be my favorite sentence of the month: “The goat on Viagra is woefully underused.”

“Prodigal Sons“: Kimberly Reed brings a camera into her family home to explore the fissures within in this powerful personal documentary, which ranks with “Capturing the Friedmans” and “Must Read After My Death” for dysfunctional intensity. (That’s a good thing.)

“The Red Baron“: A starchy attempt to turn the story of the WWI flying ace into a rousing Hollywood-style biopic, or at least the sort of movie German filmmakers think Hollywood is making. On the upside, it’s shorter and considerably less silly than “Pearl Harbor”. On the downside? Joseph Fiennes is in it.

“Remember Me“: Ironically, I would give anything to forget this risible tween-targeted tearjerker. On the other hand, never forget, never forgive, right?

“She’s Out of My League“: Alice Eve is hot; Jay Baruchel is not. And while there’s not much more to the plot of this lightweight romantic comedy, somehow it comes together in a very appealing and intelligent way. And any movie that features a mastiff named Captain Pickles deserves the benefit of the doubt.

That’s everything, isn’t it? Oh, except for Maren Ade’s “Everyone Else”, which is playing just three shows this weekend at TIFF Cinematheque, and is really terrific. Go see that, too.

The latest issue of NOW features my interview with Emilie de Ravin, who stars opposite Robert Pattinson in the new movie “Remember Me”.

Of course, she’s also Claire on “Lost”, so basically I spent all my time trying to stay focused on actual worthwhile questions, and not go fanboy and ask about backstory and structure and long-form season plans. Not exactly germane to the topic at hand, you know?

Continuing in the Australian vein, I also spoke with Bryan Brown, producer and co-star of the Outback thriller “Cactus” and closet Winter Olympics enthusiast. That, um, hasn’t gone up yet, but I’ll provide the link as soon as it does … (UPDATE: Posted!)