A DAY LATE, YOUR MONDAY MORNING POINT GUARD

Showbiz Lesson #13,749: Do not open a girls-together flick in front of a holiday weekend during which all of America is either in backyard barbecue or getaway mode. The same holds true for videogame-based action epics set in what is now Iran. The final installment of an animated-feature franchise? Enough to win the weekend, but not enough to prevent this Memorial Day weekend from being the worst in 17 years for the movie biz… The medium of choice this weekend was music, and the perfect soundtrack for both backyard BBQs and cruising up the 101 to the Central Coast was Exile on Main St., the remastering of which parallels the remastering of the Beatles albums in terms of exponential improvement… A number of reviewers (including our own Roy Trakin) have speculated that the Exile Rarities disc is the Stones’ best chance to place an album in the year end critics’ Top 10 since, oh, 1981 or so… Tuning into what was billed as Radio LCD yesterday on Sirius XMU was another fine way to while away an hour or two… Band of Horses’ “Laredo,” which is getting a ton of spins on both Sirius XMU and Spectrum, may be the most masterful appropriation of the Byrds sound since “The Ugly Truth” from Matthew Sweet’s 1993 LP Altered Beast—although it has some competition from the overdriven jangle of “Electrocution,” Nada Surf’s cover of a super-obscure 1998 song from cult artist Bill Fox… The continuing debate over the iPad’s potential usefulness hasn’t stopped 2 million early adopters from peeling for the snazzy gizmo, according to Apple stats… The prayers of David Stern, the ABC/ESPN empire and millions of hoops fans were answered over the weekend as, first the Celtics and then the Lakers shook off their pesky opponents in six games to set up the teams’ 13th meeting in the NBA Finals… Just two weeks ago, LeBron James was universally hailed as the best basketball player on the planet. Then Kobe Bryant (A) got his knee drained and (B) Steve Nash’s Suns arrived at Staples Center for what turned out to be a showcase for Kobe. So much for all those miles on his odometer—and the odometers of Boston’s Big 3 as well… Funny how the “old, slow” Derek Fisher was written off at the start of each of the Lakers’ three playoff series, answering these dismissals with the bulldog tenacity of a great money player… Lotsa buzz about Lynn Hirschberg’s profile of M.I.A. in the May 25 edition of the N.Y. Times Sunday Magazine, which some are describing as a classic example of the hatchet job gussied up for the Celebrity Era. Roger Friedman’s take in Showbiz 411 is itself worth a click. “Maya Arulpragasam is depicted as a conniving, calculating, manipulative, aggressive, ambitious pathological liar who has crept into the American culture by presenting herself as a Madonna in waiting,” Roger writes. “Lady Gaga has nothing on her. It is interesting, though, that Madonna has spawned these two daughters. And they each come from Interscope Records, where Jimmy Iovine has made survival in a dying business in art form.”… After M.I.A. tweeted Hirschberg’s home phone number as a way of expressing her disapproval with the piece, Hirschberg told the New York Observer: "I find it kind of interesting that she would cast the spotlight on the story in any way, shape or form. I can't say what she thinks of it. But it seems you would want it to go away."