Just wondering: "Shattered Glass," the movie about Stephen Glass' journalistic fabrications at The New Republic, has been out for seven weeks now and still no sign of it in Billings. True, it's done lousy at the box office, but critics raved about it. Shouldn't us journalist types get at least one week to revel in Schadenfreude over a colleague gone wrong?

I don't usually think of Billings as a cultural backwater (how could a guy who has lived in College Station, Texas, ever think that?) but it is discouraging to look at the critical ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. At least nine other current movies that have gotten favorable ratings of 80 percent or better have never played in Billings, and most of them never will (although some have played elsewhere in Montana). It isn't that there aren't good movies out there, dear reader, it's just that we don't get to see them.

UPDATE: "Shattered Glass" has made it to Missoula, but the Independent hated it.