Burl, I'm so glad to know you're still out there, doing what you do.

I love playing Snake Oil with writer friends. It's basically just an excuse to be creative and funny, and I've heard some tremendous pitches while playing it.

50/50 is a really warm, funny, moving film that has some notable flaws, one of the ugliest being the way it demonizes JGL's girlfriend for not nobly standing by him through cancer, and turns his therapist into the worst kind of movie therapist, the one who's eager to sleep with the protagonist and doesn't seem to care…

Co-signed on Dread. The Jenga tower is a fantastic focuser. Over the past seven years or so, my biggest problems with RPG have been scheduling (finding a night that works for people) and focus. Five seconds of downtime, or having to sit through someone else's one-on-one scene, and everyone pulls out their phones and…

No, you're right. I'm not so much confusing Clowes and Burns as conflating them, because they've both done stark, surreal, visually confrontational black-and-white stories. They're both apt touchstones for the short here, but I shouldn't have identified Clowes as involved with Fear(s). I'll look into getting it…

Ishtar is a flawed movie that's much, much better than its reputation, and really enjoyable in spots. This is also really enjoyable in spots, but they're fewer and further between, and balanced out by some really dire writing and plotting.

Ishtar is a surprise delight with a bad rep. This movie is not nearly as lively, heartfelt, or enjoyable.

It's a very small role, but fun, obviously. And he shows up in an unexpected place. I wouldn't want to spoil it.

Allow me to introduce you to Existimatum.

The Kapoor piece had to take predecence for me, but oh yeah, my first encounter with Greenaway was in college with Cook/Thief/Wife/Lover, and I walked out of it with that staggered, punch-drunk feeling of "What just happened?" Fortunately the campus cinema went on to show "Zed And Two Naughts" and "Draughtsman's…

Isn't it amazing, seeing it close up and really getting a sense for what an insanely huge project it was? I'm not nearly enough of a museum buff, but I never get tired of getting as close as possible to paintings and seeing the actual brushwork that produced those images that look so much more basic in reproduction.

Eventually. After behaving badly (e.g. like immature boys) for 97 percent of the film's runtime.

There are a handful of really nice vista shots, sure.

As always, you're terribly kind, thank you. No, it isn't my first film review back here (I also did Learning To Drive and Grandma recently, and wrote a FOC about Ant-Man's plot problems), and I never entirely stopped doing book reviews or contributing to AVQA and Inventories. And I've got some more film reviews coming…

I love just playing The Sentinels. So many synergies, but you really have to watch them because they're so individually weak and breakable. In the same way, I enjoy Unity a lot.

Really? Like what?

Really? Like what?

BooOOOOOOoOooooooooo!

As the intro says, there were nearly 60,000 people at Gen Con this year — the place breaks down into a thousand separate scenes for different people with different interests, and given how the con's footprint is spread out over the downtown area, many people who are there for X may not lay eyes on a person who's there…

Hm. I've played the LOTR board game a bunch, and it definitely tends toward one quarterback trying to run the whole game for everyone. This sounds like an interesting version that might have the fun and challenge without that frustration.