Started the weekend Thursday night by getting drunk on red wine and watching Predator, which I had never seen before. Pretty awesome flick. The near-total lack of backstory or explanation makes it a surprisingly existential experience. You're just dumped into the action, it comes to its climax, and then it's over.…

Some people just can't handle an anti-hero.

I believe he took a dissenting opinion on Forrest Gump. But in general, yeah, his movie guides tend to go with the general consensus of critical acclaim and box-office returns. Which, in an age before Rotten Tomatoes and the like, was actually pretty useful. Plus the books fit on the back of a toilet very nicely.

Why limit this to standup? My vote goes to Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story — specifically, the closing song, "Beautiful Ride." It's hilarious because it's true. Dewey Cox is an idiot, but he has, in fact, written a song that encapsulates everything that's meaningful in life:

It's from Roger Ebert's glossary of movie terms: The Fallacy of Talking Killer. "The villain
wants to kill the hero. He has him cornered at gunpoint. All he has to do
is pull the trigger. But he always talks first. He explains the hero's mistakes
to him. Jeers. Laughs. And gives the hero time to think his…

I like Pulp.

I'm poor and live in the mid-south. New York's only a couple of days' drive. If I'm successful in getting tickets, I'll get there — even if it means hopping a freight.

The Batman soundtrack is a not-bad Prince album. It's no Sign O' The Times, but it's tightly focused (only 9 tracks, I think) and enjoyable from start to finish. It's better than any album he's made in the past couple of decades, and certainly much better than anything in this Inventory.

Apparently Alec Guinness thought Star Wars was idiotic, and continued to dismiss it as such for the rest of his life. This didn't stop him from giving a great performance, or from reprising the role for the "ghost" bits in the sequels. I imagine the guy must have been a real pro, but perhaps a bit of a curmudgeon.

I think the obvious explanation for this memory gap is that your 10-year-old self fell fast asleep in the first few minutes of the show, and therefore never saw the rest.

I think we'll still have access to 35mm film and processing for still photography for many, many years to come. Prices will go up, and selection will become smaller, but it will hang around. Black and White will probably hang around the longest, because it requires very little infrastructure. As long as someone makes…

I had the same experience. I wonder if it was the same screening. I would rather have seen the film presented properly, but it was kinda cool to see the tops of the set walls.

Counterpoint — I saw a print of The Shining a few years ago in a local theater, and it was gorgeous. I'd seen the film many times previously, but this particular presentation was spectacular. The same theater showed a similarly beautiful print of A Clockwork Orange the same weekend, and it looked better than I've ever…

Shot on 35mm, as was Inglorious Basterds.

"Lost Highway" got panned because of when it was released. Lynch was simply out of fashion in the mid-90s. Backlash from "Twin Peaks" may have played a factor as well. The TV series took Lynch into the mainstream spotlight in a huge way, but all that goodwill from critics and audiences began to curdle within a year.…

I had never really considered a connection between DePalma and Lynch, but you're right — they've explored similar themes in their work. They're contemporaries, too, both getting their start in the '60s with experimental films.

That bit of dialogue is undeniably hokey and obvious, but it makes sense coming from the character of Alvin Straight. After all, this is a guy who has been estranged from his own brother for decades, and the film is largely about his effort to repair that broken bond.

Good call on the music — it is the key factor in the wildly differing audience reactions to the film.

This is a city that has a Dunkin Donuts on EVERY CORNER of EVERY STREET. It is a paradise on earth.

It is a fascinating film. It's intended to be a lighthearted romp — the buoyant music makes that clear — but it enters dark thematic territory rather quickly.