It was my first Sayles, and I turned out all right!

I second @avclub-cfe912f5cb3aa572bd1c9ae2a9b82207:disqus 's suggestions for Sayles. I think you could also start with The Return of the Secaucus 7. It's his first film as a director, so a natural place to start. And it's essentially a non-pandering version of The Big Chill. Also — and I have no idea why I remember…

@avclub-cfe912f5cb3aa572bd1c9ae2a9b82207:disqus No, I think they just transformed into a matte painting.

I believe that's how Shatner handled them in Kingdom of the Spiders; thus, I fully endorse this strategy.

I've read a couple interviews with Oppenheimer, and when he was asked how he was able to ingratiate himself with these mass murderers, he said that, because the Indonesian dictatorship had (and still has) the support of the Americans, they just assumed he, as an American, would be on their side and that they had…

Speaking of picking up Gram Parsons records, I bought a really nice copy of Burrito Deluxe at a very fair price from my local record shop last week.

I love that Strickland never showed us any scenes from the movie they're making in Berberian Sound Studio. But I would not be disappointed one bit if, for his next project, he actually made The Equestrian Vortex.

I had a silly grin on my face throughout most of it.

The Act of Killing - This is the greatest movie I've seen this year and one of the greatest I've seen in the past several years. It's a documentary about the Indonesian genocide of "Communists" in the 1960's. But instead of covering this in the standard fashion, Joshua Oppenheimer approached the perpetrators of the…

Let's do it!!!!!!

They were showing Red Line 7000 at a theater near me last week as part of a huge Howard Hawks retrospective that's been going on for months, but I missed it. I think it was just a digital projection, not a print, so it didn't seem so urgent. I think it's on Netflix, though. I should watch it!

Cool, I didn't know that. TCM seems to air it pretty frequently, too, especially around Halloween time.

I saw the original Maniac at a midnight showing on a cold December night in a run-down one-screen theater. There were several creepy loners in the audience, including an old man in a trench coat sitting just across the aisle from me. He dozed off frequently, and it was occasionally hard to tell whether the creepy…

I've wanted to see that movie for years, ever since I found out it was written by John Fante.

This is a cool movie. Another cool movie is the Val Lewton documentary Kent Jones made for TCM, Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows, narrated by Martin Scorsese. Definitely worth checking out if you're a Lewton fan.

Vampire in Brooklyn 2: Priced Out of Bed-Stuy

Show business kids makin' movies 'bout themselves. You know they don't give a fuck about anybody else.

While that sucks for your screening, some projectionist stealing the trailers out of the print for his own personal enjoyment is very much in keeping with the spirit of Grindhouse.

Grindhouse is one of the very few movies I've seen in the theater while high, and while I wouldn't say I'm "proud" of that fact, I most certainly stand by that decision.

The theatrical experience really was a lot of fun, much greater than the sum of its parts.