"Every time it rains I get wet," sings Ace of Base. "Every time I smile I get my way," sings Mei Pin Phua.

LET THE OSCAR BUZZ BEGIN

The Insider opens in theaters today, and it officially gets the Oscar race underway. After all, the Oscar race officially begins once three worthy Best Picture nominees have opened (that's totally an arbitrary definition, but who cares!). So you have The Insider, American Beauty and Three Kings starting all the buzz, and you can look forward to a boatload in upcoming weeks. The Talented Mr. Ripley (starring Matt Damon as the "talented" asexual murderer), The Green Mile (from the director of The Shawshank Redemption starring Tom Hanks), The Hurricane (with Denzel Washington in the controversial lead role), Snow Falling on Cedars and Magnolia (flying frogs!) all open in the next two months. So start getting to that movie theater to catch up on all the ones you've missed (if you haven't seen American Beauty yet, you're certainly not in the [k]now). Because just like your Gov 10 reading, once you're behind, you're behind for good.

MALKOVICH!

Being John Malkovich is wack. And I don't mean that it's incomprehensible--like Mission Impossible or The Thin Red Line. The movie is so deliberately logical and well thought out that you find yourself nodding with your mouth wide open in shock. (You gotta love Spike Jonzes. First came that prank he pulled on the MTV Video Music Awards as a slightly retarded "dance troupe" leader, then came the scene-stealing in Three Kings and now prancing Malkoviches! He might single-handedly move us out of the Adam Sandler/Farrelly Brothers gross-out comedy era.) Critics are comparing it to Alice in Wonderland, but that's misleading; Wonderland was always either a) the product of Alice's dream b) a series of psychedelic hallucinations or c) an exercise in wordplay. Cameron Diaz' and John Cusack's tortuous journey inside the head of Mr. Malkovich is no Wonderland. This is for real.

I was a little antsy after the movie, so we made a quick detour into Uno's to grab a midnight snack. I half expected to see John Malkovich in the bathroom mirror. "Hey, remember me?" said a kid standing in front of the bathroom door as soon as I exited. "Yeah, we went to camp together in seventh grade," I said, shocked that I could recall this guy's face on the spot. "Yeah. It's so funny how we keep running into each other. Camp, then Harvard Summer School, and now..." "I didn't go to Harvard Summer School," I answered. He shrugged and walked away.

Now if only I could find that portal into the brains of everybody else....

MEL G

In a week where John Malkovich is the subject of intense psychological deconstruction (Let's Go should be pondering a budget guide for Malkovich's head), I wonder why Melanie Griffith wasn't considered a worthy subject. After all, everyone thinks she's just the epitome of a blond but no one ever really bothers to see her movies or read her interviews to find out what's really going on underneath all that frizz and collagen. So I come across this quote the other day from our darling Mel G: "I always wanted to go back to school, you know to major in something like philosophy. Do they have that? You know, like majors in, like you know, philosophy?" I change my mind. No need to go in Melanie's head. Insert brutal punchline here. (I still think Gwyneth Paltrow is the devil!)

TRENDORAMA: THE FIFTH BUSINESS