Martel's acclaimed novel chronicles the travails of a shipwrecked teenage boy stuck on a life raft with only a female orangutan, injured zebra, hungry hyena and brooding Bengal tiger for company. In recent years the likes of M. Night Shyamalan, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Alfonso Cuaron have all been attached at one time or another to the project, but none has managed to get a movie into production.

Lee told the Digital Spy website his version was still at the scripting stage and he had not yet begun to think about casting. "I'm delivering the first draft," he said. "I think I've cracked the structure of the movie and I'll figure out how to do it later. "How exactly I'm going to do it, I don't know … A little boy adrift at sea with a tiger. It's a hard one to crack!"

Lee said the film would most likely be out in two years' time. The Taiwan-born director's next movie in UK cinemas will be Taking Woodstock, his comedy-drama about the 1969 music festival, which premiered in May to lukewarm reviews at Cannes. It screens at the London film festival today and opens nationwide on 13 November.

It's almost a given these days that movie critics are elitist, while moviegoers are populist. When the highest-grossing films get panned by critics, what good are critics? As publishers across the country dump their reviewers, this is not exactly a rhetorical question.

Believe it or not, though, critically acclaimed films generally do better than critically panned films at the box office -- if you measure their performance in the right way.

I am at last returning to the movie beat. After my current stay at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, I'm looking forward to opening night of my annual film festival at the University of Illinois on April 23, and I will resume writing movie reviews shortly thereafter.

Are you as bored with my health as I am? I underwent a third surgery in January, this one in Houston, and once again there were complications. I am sorry to say that my ability to speak was not restored. That would require another surgery.

But I still have all my other abilities, including the love of viewing movies and writing about them. And at my side I have my angelic wife, Chaz. The festival is shaping up well. Thanks to festival director Nate Kohn, the schedule, which is already released at ebertfest.com, includes appearances by filmmaker and U. of I. graduate Ang Lee; directors Paul Schrader, Sally Potter, Tom DiCillo, Bill Forsyth and others.

*****

I am still cancer-free, and not ready to think about more surgery at this time. I should be content with the abundance I have. So that's the latest. I have been so moved by the messages I've received from so many of you. Thank you. Now let's go to the movies.

George Lucas, who is producing the upcoming fourth Indiana Jones film, confirmed to the Reuters news service that the story will feature Sean Connery's character of Henry Jones, but that the Scottish actor had yet to sign on. In a brief interview at the San Francisco International Film Society on May 3, Lucas said: "We have a script with him in it. If he doesn't do it, we'll do a quick rewrite."

Connery played Indy's dad in the third and last Indy film, 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, even though Connery, at 76, is in reality only 12 years older than star Harrison Ford. The San Francisco Film Society honored Star Wars creator Lucas with an award on May 3 to mark the 50th anniversary of the San Francisco International Film Festival, Reuters reported. This year marks the 30th anniversary of Star Wars.

SAW the show. Hated it, I'm afraid. Said as much, in 800 meticulously chosen words. But lo! Open the paper a few mornings later, and there, for the world to see, is an artful distillation of my review, all those paragraphs pared down to their essence. Well, their essence according to the advertising and marketing specialists hired by the producers. In big type liberally laced with exclamation points, readers would learn that, in fact, "I loved this play!!" Shocking, I know!

Yes, the art of selective quoting is one of the oldest games in the hype business, and readers are generally wise to it. Ellipses are not a good sign, and if an advertisement features quotes from critics pruned to just one word ("Brilliant!" — Joe Schmo; "Powerful!" — Betty Burns), chances are good the foliage surrounding them is less fragrant with affection.

*****

A new tactic seemingly on the rise is the Flagrant Elision of Ellipses. Last spring I reviewed a new play about Peggy Guggenheim called "Woman Before a Glass." The notice was markedly tepid. I called the show, among other things, "a big chunk of theatrical costume jewelry." Undaunted by my faintest of praise, the ad mavens scoured the review for positive — or even neutral — wording and strung together the following: "A trip to the Promenade Theater introduces us to the sensational history of Peggy Guggenheim, performed vigorously and meticulously by the formidable Mercedes Ruehl. Smoking, drinking, name-dropping, art, men and the men who make art. Some shindig, no? A trip to Venice! (Italics, and most punctuation, theirs.)

Now, I have written some regrettable paragraphs in my day, but this increasingly free-associative string of phrases seemed to suggest I'd channeled Diana Vreeland at her most deliciously madcap.

Steven Spielberg: I cannot tell you how many people come over to me on the street and repeat almost verbatim the line the Martians say to Woody Allen in Stardust Memories: "You know, we like your earlier, funnier films."..... They'll say, "Why can't you get back to making E.T. or Raiders?" This is not from young people but from older people, who I guess grew up with the movies I made when I was a kid and they were kids too. So I'm bewitched by Woody Allen in the sense that I keep hearing this scene from Stardust Memories played out in my real life. It's very bedeviling.

..... I keep looking around for things, but then when I get the opportunity, say, to direct Harry Potter, I say no. When I get the opportunity to do something like Spider-Man, I say no. The films that are offered me that have childlike souls, I tend to say, "I've done that." I don't know if that just means I've grown up for good or whether something's going to come along that's going to make me say, "O.K., whatever I said to you is full of hot air, and the child lives in all of us until we die."

"The idea behind the slate is to gain more control of our future," said Marvel Studios chairman Avi Arad. "Marvel, by licensing films, left on the table sizable amounts of money."

The Manhattan-based company signed a deal for up to 10 of the films over eight years to be distributed by Paramount Pictures, which will only be paid distribution fees rather than keeping the bulk of the profits as studios did with past Marvel movies. And Marvel will not have to share toy or merchandise royalties with studios.

In addition to Captain America, Marvel is planning to produce films featuring the Avengers as well as Nick Fury, an Army hero and spy who has been given an infinitely long life by an elixir.

Helping clear the way, Marvel also announced a settlement with Stan Lee, the company's chairman emeritus and co-creator of characters including Spider-Man and The Hulk, who had sued for a share of past and future film, TV and merchandise profits. The settlement with Lee, who joined Marvel in 1939, cost Marvel a $10-million first-quarter charge.

"Also headed for the big screen are Ant-Man, Black Panther, Killraven, Silver Surfer and Thor, Marvel said. Plus there are original videos planned for Iron Man and Dr. Strange.

"I had a great time making this short film, mostly because of the shortness of it," Ellen quips. "We wrote it in three minutes and shot it in two hours. I'm a purist that way. If it's going to be called a short film, it's going to be short for everyone involved. The caterer barely had time to put out the hoagies."

She adds, "I do enjoy working with American Express, although I was disappointed that they passed on my original idea. I wanted to make a feature- length historical drama documenting the rise and fall of the croissant. It's their loss."