According to their website, this will be the first batch of Criterion Blu-rays:

Yeah, definitely check for library rentals of "Ordet" and "Day of Wrath." More than anything, I'd recommend the box set just for those two movies alone (I haven't yet watched "Gertrud," and the other disc, the documentary about Dreyer, has its flaws) — it's worth a good price on eBay or using one of those Borders…

"A Matter of Life and Death" and "Gone to Earth" are numbers one and two at the top of my Criterion wish list (Dreyer's "Vampyr" was the other one in the top three, and that's coming out in July — hooray!). I haven't seen Powell & Pressburger's "The Small Back Room," due out in August from Criterion, but I look…

It wasn't pollock, that white fish that they use to make Filet-O-Fishes and surimi. It's one of the few thriving, non-overfished species of fish out there, and it's hilarious!

Shia LaBeouf
LaBeouf's presence is nearly enough to put me off seeing this movie entirely — his calculated It Boy adornment of the movie just doesn't mix well with the classic Saturday-matinee-serial timelessness of the series.

Oh, and I meant "starring," not "staring." I was thinking about tits and ass, though, so this was probably a Freudian slip.

I just wanted to let you guys know that I'm writing a film treatment based on parts of this comment thread. It'll be a horror movie, staring Scarlett Johansson as the heroine and Tom Waits as the villain. So far, I've only drafted action and shot descriptions, which feature Johansson's breasts, her ass and a pair of…

Waits, unfortunately, does seem to be an easy credibility crutch for wannabe-singer celebrities.

I love all kinds of music, including melodic, radio-friendly pop, and I admitted that I like Coldplay — I've got all their albums, and I'll probably get their upcoming one at Target or Best Buy or on iTunes or whatever (or steal it), like everyone else. I'm not trying to be some hipster snob. I was all excited to…

Chris Martin's lyrics
It's 1:15 am, I'm high and exhausted, and I have to get up in a few hours for work, but I'm pretty sure I could come up with some on-the-spot lyrics that are up to Chris Martin's standards (e.g., "Bones sinking like stones," etc.).

Letter to grandma
Scott, your first reason for not seeing this movie ("When you're so used to *not* doing something, even if you know it might enrich your life substantially, doesn't it become harder to do over time?") happens to be the most incisive description of a certain sort of self-tormenting…

For anyone interested …
BN.com currently has the "Twin Peaks" Gold Box set on sale for 40% off, and there's a coupon code for 25% off (U4U8U9D [expires 4/21]) which can be applied in addition to the sale discount. If you're a B&N member, you save yet another 10% in addition to that, so the price for the Gold Box…

My comments had nothing whatsoever to do with youth. Toward the end, Vonnegut seemed to have fallen out of love with humanity, which obviously does not befit a humanist. Instead of raging against the dying of the light, he dismissed the whole issue with a sullen shrug.

It's been mentioned before on this site, but Dave Foley sometimes bears a distinct resemblance to Isabella Rossellini. (Seriously. I quickly Googled "Isabella Rossellini" to make sure I was spelling her name with the right amount of s's and l's, and her Wikipedia page came up. I think that's a picture of Dave Foley…

My favorite Vonnegut book might still be "The Sirens of Titan." I don't remember if he thought much of it, himself, it being his second book and a 35-cent Dell paperback original, but his themes still have their balls in that novel, and it encapsulates pretty much everything he'd go on to write about throughout his…

The shrug of outrage
I've read Vonnegut and written about him as much as anybody, but there is a point when most any faithful reader of his grows weary of his grumpy shrugging (and I'm someone who defended "Timequake" as one of his great works — a book that now has an odd, pre-9/11 "post-9/11" quality). Years ago, I…

Dr. Death got a hell of a raw deal — I was certain the old man would succumb to his Hepatitis C in prison — and Fieger fumbled with his defense. I despised "The Jenny Jones Show" and think that family was right to sue.

Doug Fieger/Geoffrey Fieger
I don't know what's worse: having brain cancer or having notorious trial attorney/former Michigan gubernatorial candidate Geoffrey Fieger for a brother. I'm not familiar with much of The Knack's music beyond "My Sharona," which is admittedly a great song, but as a Michigan resident I can't…

Eh, I think the key word there was "some," if you couldn't guess my tone based on "delude herself." As in "some sort of goddamn 'sisterhood of "muses,"' for fuck's sake." Still, there is a difference between Steffans and the groupies Des Barres writes about, and the difference isn't race. And Des Barres is a fine…

I just read Des Barres' most recent book, "Let's Spend the Night Together: Backstage Secrets of Rock Muses and Supergroupies." As I think is evident in "I'm With the Band," she's actually a surprisingly good writer, and her 400 pages of sorority-house-mother empathy and journalistic profile pieces don't quite make…