Cormack McCarthy is one of my favorite writers, and I love a good apocalyptic disaster flick, so I'm very excited about the forthcoming film adaptation of McCarthy's "The Road."

Hopefully, it will be nothing like the trailer.

I've heard that the disaster footage at the beginning of the teaser won't appear in the actual film. And I understand that them's the rules—in Hollywood trailers, you gotta draw the popcorn munchers in with the forest fires, the tornadoes, and the volcanoes in order to get them to watch the good shit (the post-apocalypse).

What else do Hollywood trailers need to get folks in the door? A glowing Charlize Theron character! Way too much of her. I hope the actual film has way fewer tornadoes, and far less woman.

In the book, Theron's character was little more than a suggestion—a memory that haunted the father-and-son duo. She wouldn't have had a large enough role to pad out this two-minute trailer. And yet, there she is: glowing in a tanktop, glowing by the boy's side, glowing in a pink sweater, glowing with tears in her eyes, looking pretty rough in that beanie, looking pretty rough in the beanie again, again with the beanie, and, okay, one last time in the beanie. Meanwhile, Viggo Mortensen looks like he prepared for the role by hibernating on the ocean floor for several months.

I'm all for expanding good roles for women in film, but this is the apocalypse, dudes. If your end-of-the-world scenario includes Charlize Theron hangin' out looking good, the end of the world doesn't sound so bad after all. As one YouTube commenter wrote, "found the book quite hard work. this looks good though."

The Washington City Paper's second Best Of D.C. issue since 1987 hits newsstands today. Since this is our staff's second Best Of, we're honoring the District's second-bests in 2009. My picks—including "Second-Best Strip Club Excuse," "Second-Best Item of Clothing to Remove at a Gay Bar," and "Second-Best George Mason Personality" (pictured)—are after the jump.

Second-Best Dog

Second-Best Item of Clothing to Remove at a Gay Bar

Second-Best Place to Prepare for the Upcoming Apocalypse

Second-Best Use of the Postcard

Second-Best Strip Club Excuse

Second-Best Way to Pick Someone Up

Second-Best DURKL Brother

Second-Best Reason to Claim a Pew

Second-Best George Mason Personality

Second-Best Celebrity-Watching with Side of Half-Smoke

Second-Best Dude Blogger

Photo by Darrow Montgomery