Most of the population of the free world will be going to see "Spider-Man 3" this weekend. Conveniently, that frees the rest of you to do whatever niche programming or soul-searching you want. Not much else in movie theaters, unfortunately, unless you're a cycling fan (proceed forthwith to "The Flying Scotsman," in photo above, and I swear the movie's not as ridiculous as that outfit), a Euro-football junkie ("Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait" at the ICA), or a gambling addict ("Lucky You"). That said, if you have a yen for adorable, calorie-free French comedies, "The Valet," from reliable farceur Francis Veber, stands to make you very, very happy. At the very least, you won't hate yourself afterwards, and I'm not entirely sure you can say that about "Spider-Man 3".

Community art porn at the Coolidge at midnight, tonight and tomorrow. God, I love that place.

At the Harvard Film Archive, a retrospective of the films of Spain's Alex de la Iglesia, who's mostly unknown here while Pedro Almodovar hogs all the press. The filmmaker himself will be present at Saturday's 7 p.m. screening of "La Communidad". Highly recommended.

If you're interested in Tibet, Buddhism, exotic cinematic tours, and/or eye-popping cinematography, the MFA has some dharma unspooling with the ongoing screenings of John Bush's "Yatra Trilogy" and the debut today of "Dreaming Lhasa," which makes up in poignancy and visual impact what it lacks in drama.

Or you could go outdoors. It is May, after all.

The blogosphere's fuming over Mike White's op-ed piece in yesterday's Times, in which the writer/co-star of "Chuck and Buck" and "School of Rock" basically says: "Yeah, I got off on crappy horror movies when I was young, but that doesn't make me the Virginia Tech killer, but maybe if I'd been wired differently it would have, so we in Hollywood should feel guilty about that and maybe pause for a brief moment of moral introspection before squirting more fake blood on the actress's breast."

In other words, this is a very muddled op-ed that wants to scold the entertainment industry (White's word choice, not mine) but is too timid to. At least the filmmaker acknowledges what everyone knows but no one in Hollywood dare admit: that movies influence behavior and that violent movies influence violent behavior. Anyone with children knows this to be true. (I know it to be true: When I was seven years old, I watched a "Leave it to Beaver" episode where the Beav backs his parents' car into the street, turned off the TV, went outside, and did the exact same thing. Which wasn't really violent behavior, but, uh, it could have been.)

Feebly calling for filmmakers to think twice isn't going to change things. Nor is government censorship. A ratings system better than the gutless wonder the late Jack Valenti spent his lifetime noisily defending would probably help. So would parents who actually pay attention to what their children watch, and maybe even talk to them about it. (White admits his folks had no idea he was watching crud-classics like "Terror Train".)

The bottom line (which is all the film industry respects and understands anyway) is this: Take away the demand and you'll take away the supply. But that requires individual solutions -- meaning you and me -- not mass ones.

Oh, and there still isn't any real proof that Seung-Hui Cho saw "Oldboy." Which makes the whole discussion moot.

Oh my lord. I've just stumbled across a website, "The Mercury Theatre on the Air" that posts sound files for all of the extant radio plays done by Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre in the late 1930s. Yes, they've got "War of the Worlds,"the 1938 broadcast that panicked a nation too impatient to listen to the station breaks. The shows star Welles, Agnes Moorhead, Everett Sloane, and everyone else who followed the boy wonder to "Citizen Kane."

The broadcasts are available via streaming MP3, RealPlayer, or you can get the whole kit and caboodle through BitTorrent. (Guess which one I'm going for.) Trust me, on that next long car trip, forget about putting "Ice Age 2" on the minivan DVD player. Instead, pop in Welles' version of "Dracula" and blow your kids' minds.

I know, I know, half the world has already seen this, the latest viral-video hit. For the other half, here you go: Will Ferrell meets his landlady, from the reasonably amusing FunnyOrDie site.

Oh, don't feel bad for her, it's his daughter. This is just the beginning.

The man with the Moe haircut and a knack for epic documentaries will be at the Coolidge tonight, showing selections from "The War," his new 14-hour film on World War II as experienced by four U.S. towns. Tickets are first come, first served and go on sale at 5 p.m. Grizzled WGBH supporters have had their tents set up outside the box office all week.