“Aurora Borealis.”

A winter’s night in Minnesota. Snow everywhere.

Outside, the sparking escalates between an aimless handyman played by Joshua Jackson and his grandfather’s eccentric health-care worker, played by Juliette Lewis.

They embrace by his car.

She looks at him mischievously.

She says, “It’s not even December and my nipples are so hard they could cut glass.”

Sexual come-ons aside, “Aurora Borealis” focuses on a proud elderly man played by Donald Sutherland and the effects of his deterioration from Parkinson’s, kidney disease and Alzheimer’s on those closest to him.

It should appeal to anyone in the mood for an unsettling drama with wisps of blandness.

Sarah met a guy on the Web.

They talked and they e-mailed.

Sarah said he doesn’t make her laugh.

He called out of the blue on a Saturday afternoon and told her he was coming over in 20 minutes.

They met. They had dinner.

Sarah said he was short “but” strong, and gave her a good shoulder rub.

He still didn’t make her laugh.

He doesn’t laugh, either, she said.

They’ve talked since. She says he’s very smart, though not common-sense smart.

Sometime later, Sarah took her son to see “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.”The human villain, as opposed to the writhing corpse villains, is Lord Beckett.

Lord Beckett is somber, solid, short. He moves like he has a parking meter stuck up his personality.

When he first appeared on screen, Sarah said, “Omigod.”

He could be her Web date’s twin, she said. The walk, the talk, the expressions - all identical, she said.

Sounds like a potentially great relationship, I said.

I told her she should go for it.

When I asked, “Will you go out with him if he calls again?” she did not answer.

I took that as a yes.

Maybe it was the back rub.

“All the King’s Men,” a movie I keep calling “All the President’s Men,” flounders with questionable casting, bad writing, sloppy direction.

Sean Penn blows smoke as the man who would be Broderick Crawford in the Oscar-winning 1949 version of the Robert Penn Warren novel.

Penn is all bluster as a raw, passionate idealist who rants in the first part, a polished, corrupt Southern governor who rants in the second part. There’s little character development.

The first half of the movie is the politician’s story, with a cynical, self-loathing Southern journalist played by Brit Jude Law hovering in the background.

The second half shifts to Law’s character and his wealthy circle of friends and relatives.

Continuing the British invasion, Kate Winslet portrays the woman he’s loved since childhood and Anthony Hopkins play his father.

Law’s story is more intriguing than the governor’s, perhaps because Law’s accent slips in and out of molasses.

As soon as you become enveloped by the journalist’s saga, the film shifts back to the governor.

And then it’s over. And you’re left feeling unsatisfied.

“School for Scoundrels” is a poor man’s “Anger Management.”

Instead of anger problems, the comedy address geekiness and timidity.

Instead of Jack Nicholson helping cure Adam Sandler in a most unusual manner, Billy Bob Thornton tries to cure Jon Heder in a most unusual manner.

Thornton is a scoundrel who uses abuse to transform weasels into “lions.”

Like “Anger Management,” “School for Scoundrels” is a mean-spirited comedy laced with laughs, groans, stupidity, and characters about whom you don’t give a damn.

Why his competent, gorgeous neighbor sees Heder’s frightened, nowhere man as prime date material may make sense in “The Twilight Zone.” Here it’s nonsense.

Also, there’s no sex in the picture.

Neither “Anger” nor “School” is particularly watch-worthy.

“School for Scoundrels” gets the edge in vapidity.

This life is not yet rated.

It’s in process.

Unlike movies, which are complete.

The “ah-ha” kicked in after “This Film is Not Yet Rated,” an amusing and insightful documentary by Kirby Dick, who Michael Moores the MPAA.

Among the picture’s insights: A group of people - nine or 10, I forget which - determines whether a movie gets rated G, PG, PG-13, R, or the kiss of death, NC-17.

It’s the kiss of the death because some theater chains won’t carry NC-17s and some media won’t advertise them.

Whilch is one reason you often see the euphemistic “Unrated” instead.

My life is not yet rated, although my behaviors are judged.

Judgments are like ratings: G for good, B for bad, ST for stupid, SM for smart (or for kinky), H for hot, N for not, F for funny, D for dull, P for pudgy, R for rude, W for wishy-washy.

Movies are rated to protect children and warn people with delicate sensibilities.

And it’s the MPAA ratings committee, essentially of parents, that makes those judgments.

You and I are judged by others and by ourselves according to standards of perfection which differ from person to person (making the whole process insane, but that’s another rant.)

We do it out of habit more than anything else.

Generally, we reserve our harshest judgments for our own behaviors and those of spouses, mates, lovers, parents, siblings, and people who use their cell phones during movies.

None of it’s particularly healthy. Negative thoughts put lines in your face and screw up your digestive tract.

And yet we let them visit, like mean-spirited relatives with old agendas.

Instead, I propose we have a group of others take over.

It would remove the pressure and, if done correctly (another judgment), create more positive assessments and fewer of the other kind.

We should give the job to friends or compassionate others.

They would be kinder and more objective.

I suggest calling them the MPAU, the Main People Aware of Us.

Unlike the MPAA, which has no guidelines or training, the MPAU would be instructed in the arts of constructive criticism, forgiveness, support, understanding, perspective, approval, acceptance and humor.

The MPAU’s motto would be: “No big deal.”

Or, NBD, for short.

I’ll be in your group if you’ll be in mine.

If that doesn’t sound good to you, NBD.

Didn’t see it coming.

Been on vacation in Monterey.

After Labor Day’s the best time: Weather’s great, most tourists are gone, rates fall.

Sea lions lounge. Pelicans are plentiful. (Try to say that five times quickly.)

People are friendly. Or indifferent.

Which is fine when the goal is to decompress.

I asked for a quiet room.

The manager put me in the corner near the town library and its parking lot.

“Should be real quiet,” she said. “Two schoolteachers requested that room the other day for that reason.”

The biggest truck in the world backed up at 5:59 a.m.

It went “BEEEEP! SNAWKXXX. BEEEEP! SNAWKXXX. BEEEEP! SNAWKXXX. BEEEEP! SNAWKXXX.”

The earth moved.

I fell back to sleep until 9 a.m. when a chorale of beeping smaller trucks began to back up and never stopped.

Pretty day just the same. (Always keep the glass half full on vacation. It’s a law.)

Checked out the two theaters on the main drag - a mini rep house and a big old one-screen.

Last year at this time, a James Bond film played nightly at the one-screen.

Now it’s only open on weekends for silent series, classic double bills or concerts.

Don’t know how long that will last.

Like other classic single-screen movie palaces, it can’t compete with nearby multiplexes and their huge screens, fancy sound systems, comfy seats and plentiful parking.

Or with the quick turn-around onto DVD, the easy access and low cost of video rentals, and the improved home-theater systems.

What’s lost in the homogenization of the movie business are personality and pleasurable shared communal experiences.

I miss that. I used to love going to the Jewel Theater in Cleveland, Ohio, when I was a kid.

They turned it into a revival hall.

Then it became a parking lot.

I never parked there. It wouldn’t have been right.

No trucks backed up the second morning.

And ear plugs blocked the sound of the beeping alarm in the vacant room next door until the apologetic front-desk people opened up the next a.m. and killed it.

My only regret: I wasn’t allowed to smash it with a mallet.

Glass half full: I slept well the rest of the trip.

Someone once wrote, “Expecting heaven is what hell is all about.”

I didn’t expect heaven when I interviewed Kevin Costner, Ashton Kutcher and director Andrew Davis in Oakland when they were promoting “The Guardian” (which opens Sept. 29).

I expected an upbeat chat with Kutcher, filled with entertaining banter; a bland go-round with Costner, because that’s what I got the last time; and nothing at all from Davis, because that’s what I learned from his bio.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong.

Kutcher, whose two handlers sat at the opposite end of the conference table, was a nice guy but wouldn’t play. He seemed uncomfortable, possibly nervous.

He responded well to a few personal questions, offered little about his career, business decisions, tastes and TV work.

In his defense, I didn’t probe with follow-ups; I didn’t want to make him tighter.

And again, the personal insights (which will appear in a Sept. 29 feature on insidebayarea.com/movies) were rich.

Davis, who also directed “The Fugitive,” turned out to be fun, candid, someone who would be great to hang out with at a bar.

The big surprise was Costner.

For the first time in my career, when the interview ended, I handed over my card and said, “If you ever want to write a book, call me.”

I don’t know if he was different, I was different, or we were different.

But it was one of the most insightful and most interesting interviews I’ve had.

We started with a tip he gave Kutcher when Kutcher was having trouble with a pivotal scene.

The film is about Coast Guard Rescue Swimmers, an elite group that the public became aware of during the Katrina rescues.

Costner plays a legendary veteran. Kutcher is a cocky new trainee.

Kutcher told me what he learned. I told Costner. Costner was surprised because Kutcher never told him.

Costner was touched. As a veteran actor, he likes to teach, but only if asked.

The interview evolved into a mini-workshop on filmmaking, with topics ranging from writing to preparation, casting, chemistry, directing, being directed, and more.

“Dances With Wolves” was the primary textbook, “The Guardian” a secondary source.

Costner was eloquent, thoughtful and gracious.

So much for expectations.

We clicked. It was great. I was happy to be wrong.