The DEAD BABIES one was once called MOOD SWINGERS. Didn't like it at all. I saw it before THE RACHEL PAPERS, which I liked a bit better. I wonder how people who watch these movies without having read the books first will react - possibly not favorably, but there's just so much missing from the films for those who…

I think Pinter is the closest the Swedish Academy and its partner committees have come to awarding the Nobel Prize to a screenwriter. Sure, they mostly recognized his stage plays, and people like Faulkner wrote scripts too, but not as many as Pinter. He wrote about 16 screenplays and 29 plays.

I share the excitement/terror mix, which results for me in great curiosity. I will watch it even if everyone says it's terrible.

The other part is going to be a luchador film, right? Like Santo vs Las Momias de Guanajuato?

I've always loved how Michael Frayn described the inspiration for this play. Apparently, he was watching the performance of another one of his plays (The Two of Us, another farce), and, in his words, he found that "it was funnier from behind than in front and I thought that one day I must write a farce from behind."

I didn't realize Robert Rodat co-wrote this film. He's had an interesting career, and I would say that when he goes for sentiment, I have found some of his scripts overwrought and manipulative. But this one is great.

PROOF is a cracking good movie. The love triangle at its center has one of the most compelling geometries in a film romance. Great early Russell Crowe performance, too.

It's funny how when I try to describe this movie to people, they seem surprised but not too shocked. And then I show them stills from it, like the one above, and they go like "holy shit!" And I say "yeah, there are lots more like that picture where that came from."

I'd watch that.

Well, Del Toro did say in his CABINET OF CURIOSITIES book that he feels he is making one big movie made of all his movies.

We could speculate that if Del Toro made a billion- or near-billion-dollar-at-the-box-office film (if PACIFIC RIM 2 became huge, for instance), there might be a chance he'll get to HB 3. But I get the feeling he's moved on from that world. He probably would use whatever renewed clout he acquires to get other projects…

Yes! Solid show on every department and a fantastic role for Beals that was all too short lived. I wonder if Shawn Ryan, creator and showrunner of THE CHICAGO CODE, first thought of her for the part while he was brought in to run LIE TO ME, where she played Tim Roth's character's lawyer ex-wife. She was great in the…

Heh. I have seen some articles call it "GHOTOCOL."

I buy that. I would say though that the movie destabilizes him a bit with the highly melodramatic romance with Thandie Newton's Nyah. The character is slightly more out of his element here than in the subsequent movies (although GHOST PROTOCOL does end with him desperately pushing a button that doesn't work the first…

I like that you called this film a "modest masterpiece," because it reminds me of an anecdote I'm fond of quoting about Truffaut once saying that Antonioni's L'AVVENTURA was "too immodest" in terms of its style's ambition. Both movies are rather sublime, but it does seem UMBERTO D. is a lot sneakier about how it gets…

I would agree. And it's not that McQuarrie can't make a good film - I don't totally like the three films he's directed (this is M:I - RN is my favorite yet, and I hated JACK REACHER), but I see in them flashes of great visual ideas and I do believe he has a fairly light touch with actors. But of the 5 directors of M:I…

I was rather underwhelmed by M:I 5 (and wish EDGE OF TOMORROW had made a lot more money last year - I liked it so, so much more than M:I 5), but with M:I 6 in the horizon, the only thing I'm curious about is if they will have a new director once again in keeping with a choice that has worked wonders for the franchise.…

Let's come up with ideas for projects Judy Greer should star in! Movie plots, adaptations from any source, TV pilots… I would love to see her in pretty much anything, but she could be great in a part like the parts Belén Rueda has played in Spanish horror films like THE ORPHANAGE and JULIA'S EYES. Not saying that they…

I would actually put KISS ME DEADLY at the top because it is the film that best captures the ethos of noir - that is, its sense of impending doom coming from an unknown and unknowable place. DOUBLE INDEMNITY has the elements, but KMD is about the philosophy of noir.

Very cool. My favorite part is the quote from Billy Wilder about the rushes being so dark. I'm still wondering if he was joking or if he was being serious.