Good work.
Thanks, Noel, for being one of the very few to write about Sundance with genuine enthusiasm and the sense that you didn't take anything for granted. And for dead-on lines like "Quippy comedy about superficially broken people."

Oh, yeah: Zodiac. Help me up onto the "What the fuck?" bandwagon. Not one nomination.

Michael Clayton
It was cool that it received so many nominations, since the film was overlooked in most year-end best-movie lists.

I liked "Cloverfield," but the things I liked about it were small and fleeting, and the whole was lesser than the sum of its parts — and those parts were admittedly few and far between, relatively speaking. Some of the little details were well-executed, like the shower of water falling on Rob's brother right before…

I was under the impression that the kids'-club-style drawings of each orphan on the basement wall were ones the kids had done of themselves, but maybe Burlap Face drew all of 'em. Regardless, it's a more sober movie whose narrative demands to be taken seriously, whereas "Cloverfield" is a monster movie shot on a…

If there's one thing the movie did not need more of, it was shaky shots of the ground passing beneath the characters' feet.

Gah.
How the hell does one make a compelling movie about a life fated by dumb luck? (All right, I suppose "Being There" and "Forrest Gump" come to mind, appropriately enough.)

(Warning: a thinking person's spoiler about "The Orphanage" in this comment)

Thank you, Yummsh!

Do people still read magazines?
I haven't subscribed to any magazine since Al Gore invented the internets. Until there's a magazine featuring something like an article about Rudolf Nureyev on one page and a bestiality photo spread on the next, there's really no comparison.

That may be true, but it doesn't detract from priceless gems like "I get pussy like you get comic books." Real Z0DIAC or not, troll or not, that was funny.

Hmm. I must have based my "glammed-up" description on PSA's or promo stuff she's done for "E.R.," then, since I don't watch the show. Or I just imagined it, then claimed it as a fact. Or I was drunk when I wrote that. Mostly I just hate it when cute girls lose too much weight and dye their hair blonde.

I don't watch "E.R.," because it's not, like, 1995 anymore, so I will admit to some ignorance. All I know is that when she started on that show, she became blonde, looked at least twenty pounds thinner and fifteen years older, and started borrowing mascara from Cleopatra. Just my impression.

Judging by the recent "Sleuth" remake, a slipshod C-grade film is, indeed, Pinteresque.

Yep. The Godfather movies are an American saga about the corruption of absolute power, and I think Kay is a simple means of contrasting the corruption of Michael, the erstwhile "good son," college boy, and war hero. I doubt her character was ever meant to do much more than serve that purpose, to be shut out of the…

Also, don't forget that film is sexy.

For Your Consideration
I'm no Academy member, but I easily came into possession of a "For Your Consideration" DVD of "I Am Legend" before the movie even opened in theaters. From ads I remember in trade papers, the film wasn't pushed merely for technical stuff (special effects, sound design) but for Best Picture, Best…

Questions
What's a screening cubicle? I can probably pretty accurately imagine, but, seriously, I'd like to know. Is it a real thing, like the ones in some libraries, or was "cubicle" used facetiously in reference to the smallness of screening rooms?

Lady L
Over the past couple of years, I've become a "Freaks and Geeks" fan to an almost embarrassing degree (I've bought and sold more of those limited-edition DVD yearbooks on eBay than I'd ever want to admit, until I got one that was in truly mint condition — it was like some sort of super-dorky, self-financing…

Watch it, though, fellas! Kitty's got claws! [jauntily clenches teeth on stem of pipe]