We could barely read the paper this morning, we were so depressed. So we thought, "Hey! Read Datebook instead! It's always quote unquote fun!" So what should our scarred soul see? Infighting over the future of the Castro Theater, where the newly-involved family owners of the theater fired their programming director, Anita Monga, over what they perceived to be overly-quirky film selections. Wonderful!

As a result, a number of staff members have resigned from the theater in support of Monga, and other independent theater owners and movie programmers have expressed dismay about the Castro's future direction. The family owners were apparently upset over the overtly-gay content of many of the movies (and they didn't like the program cover with two shirtless men hugging each other either). Um, well, it the Castro, we can't imagine why Monga thought that gay-themed movies would do well there -- no wonder they fired her.

The family is apparently hoping to replace those dirty homer-sexual films with a more family-friendly slate of movies in their place, like with early-afternoon screenings of National Velvet. (Horsies! The little straight girls love horsies!) As another distributor says, "Karen [one of the owners] is hankering for the job (of film programmer) because she thinks it is glamorous and easy. She has no idea of what goes into it, and Ted [the other owner] wouldn't know a good movie from an ashtray." A number of other local film festivals are now rethinking whether they will even plan events at the Castro now, though programmers say they can't imagine the lesbian and gay film fest being anywhere else.

Well, that's just great. The country's going to hell and we'll get to watch National Frickin' Velvet. It's going to be a wonderful day today.

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