Theater owners' president John Fithian has a mouse problem (Photo: NATO)

In the throes of a pissing contest that makes Tom Cruise vs. Brooke Shields look like some exotic duel from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the country's leading exhibition bigwig appears to have busted out the hard shit for incoming Disney chief Robert Iger:

"Here's what we know about 2005: The movies are not as good," said John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners. ... His remarks were part of a direct rebuke to Robert Iger, who is about to take over as CEO of the Walt Disney Co. Iger said last week during the firm's third-quarter conference call that the industry should move toward the simultaneous release of theatrical films and videos.

Fithian said that compressing windows "to placate this instant-everywhere appetite" would result in a world with "no viable movie theater industry ... at least not a theater industry devoted to the entertainment products of Hollywood.

"(Iger) should know that Hollywood studios would be merely one shriveled vendor among many in that new world of movies-as-commodities-only," he added.

Oh yeah, sure, Fithian. "Movies-as-commodities-only." You say that like it is a bad thing, like you are are not screening Stealth on nine fucking screens wherever it is you run a theater. This is me, rolling my eyes.

So anyway, how does all this smizzack affect you, gentle New Yorker? Well, the movies are so "not as good" that at least one chain here in town is literally giving them away. For the next three weeks, Loews Cineplex is running its summer-ending Take 2 promotion allowing viewers to take advantage of their benevolence by seeing two flicks for the price of one.

Of course, you cannot see just any two movies: This week's "Critic's Choice" package combines Cinderella Man and Crash; next week features "Action Packed" War of the Worlds and Fantastic Four; while the "Family Fun" tandem of Sky High and Herbie: Fully Loaded launches Sept. 2--just in time to be interrupted by the beginning of the school year.

Any "good" films, however--your 40-Year-Old Virgins, your Red Eyes, your March of the Penguins--still command top dollar. Or set up your own Take 2 event at home with a couple of $5 bootleg DVD's now available on a subway near you. See, Fithian? Who says anybody is waiting for you or Iger to placate our "instant-everywhere appetite"? It is a Dukes of Hazzard-The Island weekend over here! Action-packed!