Omar's death was spoiled for me by 58-Down in the September 7, 2o08 New York Sun crossword puzzle. I kid you not. It was a four-letter word for something like "Gay street criminal who is murdered on the penultimate episode of The Wire." My own eight-letter response at the time: "Aaaaaagh!"

I always tear up in the last half hour of "The Last Temptation of Christ," always at different moments. It's still the Scorsese picture that hits me the hardest emotionally. Although Tommy in "GoodFellas" is pretty depressing, too…

Slight spoiler warning:

"Up there, the top altar, is a vial brought back by a Flemish knight from the Crusades in the Holy Land. And that vial, do you know what it's said to contain? It's said to contain some drops of Jesus Christ's blood. That's how this church got its name. Basilica of the Holy Blood. And this blood, right, though it's…

"In Bruges" is all kinds of awesome.

A separate but related category is of directors who haven't earned a lifetime pass yet, but get a provisional one based on the awesomeness of their last movie. I'm pretty much seeing whatever Alfonso Cuaron makes next, but if he blows it, he's off the list.

By "just" I meant fairly recently, i.e. within the last few months. He's the latest addition, and presumably the last one for the foreseeable future . (Although now that I think about it, I should probably put Lynch up there, too…)

Chris Nolan
I recently realized that there's a select handful of living directors whose movies I'll always pay to see in the theater, no matter what they're about. For me, it's Scorsese, Wong Kar-Wai, Miyazaki, Tarantino, Errol Morris, Pixar (taken as a collective whole), and probably the Coen Brothers. (There are…

The Usual Suspects probably doesn't withstand close scrutiny on a plot level, but I'd say that it certainly holds up to multiple viewings. I've probably watched it twenty times since it came out, and I still love it—although I did get burned out for a while sometime around viewing fourteen. But on the level of sheer…

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who sat through most of "Panic Room" convinced that Kristen Stewart was a boy.

Speaking of The Simpsons, ahem:

@C. C.: Nicely argued. I've been trying to make the case for Cruise for years, and it's nice to find someone who doesn't think it's crazy.

In his book on Transcendental Meditation, Lynch also refers to him, inexplicably, as "Kyle McLaughlin."

@Cookie_Monster: True. But I'd also argue that Cruise is well aware that certain roles resonate more interestingly with his image, which is why at least half of his recent movies have utilized that persona in intriguing ways: Eyes Wide Shut, Magnolia, Vanilla Sky, Minority Report, Collateral. Of all our current movie…

The best way to approach the "Mission: Impossible" franchise is to see it as a massive sandbox for directors to play with the action genre, using an A-list star and unlimited resources. The three movies essentially have nothing in common but a lead actor and a theme song. Ethan Hunt is a completely different person…

I agree that Will Smith's choices have generally been dire (though lucrative). Although "Hancock" was an intriguingly risky project, even if it didn't quite live up to its potential.

@Nipples: Agreed, although I would also argue that Cruise's star power has made some of his roles more interesting than they had any right to be. I prefer "Vanilla Sky" to "Abre Los Ojos" because it doubles as a crazy, and not entirely intentional, deconstruction of the Tom Cruise persona. And "Eyes Wide Shut" (which…

Early buzz is that Knight and Day might actually be good, despite its fairly wretched trailer.

I hate to quash a good Pattinson rumor, but apparently it was a fellow named Kel O'Neill:

Cruise
Like it or not, Dano makes a good point about Cruise, who has worked with (deep breath) Francis Coppola, Ridley and Tony Scott, Martin Scorsese, Barry Levinson, Oliver Stone, Ron Howard, Sydney Pollack, Rob Reiner, Brian De Palma, Cameron Crowe, Stanley Kubrick, Paul Thomas Anderson, John Woo, Steven Spielberg,…