With absolutely no evidence to back this up, I strongly suspect that an earlier draft of "Wall-E" had a much, much, darker ending, and that that ending got focus-tested and Disneyized out of the movie.

I can't blame them: the charming ending they have versus the Strangelovian ending I imagine it originally having probably makes a $200-million difference not including the merchandising and theme-park possibilities. But rewrite the last ten minutes to be more internally consistent with the satiric message of the movie, and it would be one of my all-time favorites. That said, even with the nod to commercialism, it's one of the best movies I've seen this year, was quite entertaining and even moving. I saw nods to bits of Star Wars, Titanic, Planet of the Apes, Silent Running, 2001, Matrix, Sleeping Beauty, City Lights, Terry Gilliam—and a lot of Idiocracy. Thumbs up. I'd be curious what my readers think of my theory of the ending.

Leaving New York Wednesday, it took me 40 minutes to get from Lexington to 9th Avenue going down 37th Street, which is supposed to be an express cross-town street. It was because movie trucks were blocking most of the street; they were filming on 38th Street.

But thumbs up on Chinese Mirch (28th & Lex), which is a wonderful, if New-York-priced Chinese-Indian fusion restaurant.

Press coverage has been interesting: the New York Times got a tiny detail wrong, and it's fascinating to see all of the other press coverage that is clearly getting its information from rewriting the Times story (and repeating the mistake, and often exacerbating it as in a game of telephone) rather than original reporting. Wired, in particular, botched the story, as has the Guardian.

I can't see the video (it was a phone interview anyway) , but here's a transcript. I discuss Exxon Shipping v. Baker, expected to come down today.

If you're here because you googled Theodore H. Frank after seeing press coverage of the Grand Theft Auto class action, you probably want to be at my other blog, Overlawyered, which has what you're looking for.

Slim, who makes a hobby out of talking people out of going to law school, and this guy, defending the plight of the third-tier law student, could have an interesting debate. But she would win, and it wouldn't be close.

I agree with Sulahry that once one gets down to #80 vs. #100, ranking amongst law schools matters little. But the gap between #22 and #2 is pretty large.

His big argument why it's alright to go to a lower-tier law school? He has a friend with phenomenal people skills who went to a lower-tier law school, got out, and started attracting business as a rainmaker because clients like him. And with all of that schmoozing, very little of which has to do with legal skills, he is making nearly $200,000 three years out of law school. Sulahry doesn't seem to realize that this refutes his own argument: if you have extraordinary people-skills before you go to law school, you can go to a mediocre law school and make almost as much as the bottom-of-the-class schmendrick from Harvard who's reviewing documents for Skadden.

It's probably accurate that someone who has extraordinary people-skills talent can succeed regardless of what law school he or she goes to. But someone with skills like that can succeed and make big money in sales or business without going to law school at all, so it's not an argument for saying that it's worthwhile to go to a #80 law school. Someone with entrepreneurial abilities like that shouldn't be spending three years of his or her life and $100,000 in loans to get the law-school credential. And someone without those entrepreneurial skills isn't going to be helped much by the credential.