Inspired by this feature, I'm watching Seven Samurai now. The thing that strikes me most this time around is that this is a long, epic, intricate movie of three and a half hours—and it neatly sums up the central conflict in the first MINUTE. That's great screenwriting.

What part of di di mau don't you understand?

Fucking studio hacks like you built the hydrogen bomb. Men like you thought it up. You think you're so creative. You don't know what it's like to really create something; to create a life; to feel it growing inside you. All you know how to create is death. And sequels.

Maybe I'll live so long that I'll forget this comment. Maybe I'll die trying.

My wife and I have an ongoing discussion over whether Ponyo and Sosuke get married when they grow up. We sorta hope they do, but it's also a little weird.

I love Pete and Trudy, but Matthew Weiner still has three seasons to figure out a way to destroy that marriage, too. He'll come up with something.

It's interesting to compare the scripted version of the last scene in "Away We Go" with the scene that ended up in the movie itself. In the script, there's a lot of inconclusive and annoying dialogue, while the movie just puts on "Wait" by Alexi Murdoch and calls it a day.

Well, yeah, you've gotta lock that down.

"By the way, you wouldn't perhaps be interested in killing twenty or thirty bandits?"

Although it would be great if her name was actually Leggy Headstrong.

The really impressive thing is that the full director's cut (at three and a half hours) feels much shorter and faster than the truncated version (which was cut by fifty minutes). The rhythm just builds and builds.

Donald Richie
His book, The Films of Akira Kurosawa, is probably the best full-length study of any single director I've seen, and one of my favorite books on film. Anyone who wants to delve deeper into Kurosawa ought to pick up a copy.

Seven Samurai will be available on Blu-ray on October 19, which is very exciting news. Easily in my top ten favorites of all time.

Good luck, Mr. Gorsky.

If it stars zombie Sterling Hayden, I'm there.

She asked for one humidifier too many.

Apparently Elyse Porterfield, the actress/model in question, was once featured in a People magazine piece about ordinary people who look like celebrities. (Guess who she allegedly resembles?)

"'Wild Wild West' is so bad, it violates not one but two rules from Ebert's Bigger Little Movie Glossary. By casting M. Emmet Walsh as the train engineer, it invalidates the Stanton-Walsh Rule, which states that no movie with Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh can be altogether bad. And by featuring Kevin Kline…

Actually, Ebert gave Pretty in Pink three stars, and he seems to have liked it fine. It was Dream a Little Dream that he called "a clear violation of the Stanton-Walsh Rule."

On again, off again, on again, off again.