We just finished the trifecta of Howard Stringer articles this week, and have to agree with Nikki Finke: They don't break a lot of new ground.

But after a windy piece in this week's New Yorker, Stringer today appears in the Wall Street Journal, defending "The Da Vinci Code." More, he actually says a few provacative things, even stepping on some toes in an apologia for the turgid Ron Howard movie despised by critics nationwide.

Viz,

"There is a school of thought that it's a singularly European movie inasmuch as there are foreign actors and the locations are foreign and the teenage audiences that watch American movies don't like to work really hard at a movie."

In other words, American teenagers aren't going to see "Code" because they're essentially lazy xenophobes. Funny that they haven't responded to Sir Howard's blandishments, non?