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With a mere eight days until the opening of Rush Hour 3, we have perhaps no more than three or four dozen more opportunities to discuss the life and work of visionary filmmaker Brett Ratner, a man whose legacy will live on long after the pyramids have crumbled to dust. This morning's bounty of Ratneria requires that we bullet-point up the highlights:

· Film critic Scott Foundas bravely takes on the suicide mission of defending Ratner's abilities as a filmmaker, along the way discussing the indefatigable director's secret formula of "actors + utter exhaustion = comedy gold": "'What Brett does is work his crew to the point where everyone has pretty much hit the wall — where the actors, the grips, everyone is ready to call it a day,' [screenwriter Jeff] Nathanson says. 'And that's when Brett is able to kick things into a whole other gear. Just when you think you're almost out the door, that's when he'll go for another two hours and, in almost every case, what he gets in those two hours is what ends up in the film." [LA Weekly]

· At the RH3 premiere, Ratner cracks, "I'd like to welcome everyone to the first production meeting of Rush Hour 4." Once the laughter fades, however, he spends the next twenty minutes seriously discussing with New Line executives the budget increase necessary to fulfill his vision of staging the next sequel on the moon. [Variety]
· Officials in China, where the movie now won't be shown, decry Rush Hour 3 as "fundamentally anti-Chinese." "Give me a fucking break!" complained one offended functionary within the cultural ministry. "After nine years and three movies, don't you think that Chris Tucker would be able to understand some of the words coming out of Jackie Chan's mouth?" [AP]
· Ratner has been selected as a creative adviser for Panasonic's "Living in HD" promotion, in which the company will give 30 American families $20,000 in video equipment they will use to undertake "challenge assignments." Once completed, Ratner will assist the lucky contestants with editing their projects into complete incomprehensibility. [Dealerscope]