A reader recently e-mailed to complain about the F-word unexpectedly showing up on the new "Napoleon Dynamite" special-edition DVD.

This was after my review ran, and I had checked out the "extras." Second-guessing myself, I wondered how I had missed that.

Turns out it's in the "Tankman Begins" spoof, an elaborate parody of "Batman Begins" that opened the MTV Movie Awards last year. And it's on the "Napoleon Dynamite" DVD because Jon Heder as Napoleon is the skit's punch line.

The F-word is uttered by Andy Dick, as a cop in pursuit of the Batmobile. Because I had seen the skit before, I didn't look at it again. But here, unlike the TV broadcast, the F-word is no longer bleeped.

So parents beware. If your kids have picked up the new, still-PG-rated special edition — or, more correctly, the "Like, the Best Special Edition, Ever!" — there's a PG-13 moment that may surprise you. And not in a good way.

While we're on the subject, it continues to amaze me that moviemakers who keep their films relatively clean to get a PG-13 rating, also throw in one blurting of the F-word, as if that makes the film appear more sophisticated.

There are so many PG-13 movies that have that word spoken once they could start a club.

Do they think it makes the film better? If it's not there, will someone miss it and complain?

There are a lot of PG pictures out there that are quite successful. Trust me, fouling up the language won't make or break a movie.

It won't make it more realistic, either. It's a movie! It requires suspension of disbelief from the get-go. There is no integrity in cussing.

Years ago, I suggested in a column that movie directors should be required to have their mothers sit next to them as they shoot their films. If that happened, I suspect the amount of cuss words in movies would dramatically drop.

A recent issue of Entertainment Weekly surveyed the monstrous salaries that movie stars earn per film these days:

• Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Will Smith, $25 million

• Brad Pitt, Russell Crowe, Ben Stiller, $20 million

• Johnny Depp, $17 million

• Reese Witherspoon, Cameron Diaz, Jodie Foster, $15 million

• Angelina Jolie, $12 million.

The magazine also cites stars who still command millions, despite turning out flop after flop:

• Eddie Murphy, $20 million

• Harrison Ford, $15 million

• Sharon Stone, $12.5 million.

Even lower-tier movie stars earn millions of dollars per film:

• Jake Gyllenhaal, $5 million-$7 million

• Rachel McAdams, $3 million-$4 million.

The big winner is Tom Cruise, who, the magazine reports, earned $75 million for "Mission: Impossible III" and $100 million for "War of the Worlds." But he did that by working out profit deals instead of taking a salary.

The amounts may seem ridiculous, but Cruise does what all stars should do. By only taking money from the film's earnings, if it tanks, he gets zilch.

Clint Eastwood, who has his own production company, has been taking a percentage of the profits for what seems like forever. He only does well when the film does well.

Isn't that just Business 101?

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E-mail: hicks@desnews.com