Beltmann

I don't think I've ever seen Wilco live and not been given "Via Chicago" and "IATTBYH." "Heavy Metal Drummer," on the other hand, has been about half the time.

I'm pretty excited about the expanded catalog, too, but it does come with hard-to-ignore strings: The membership plans are being altered, and prices are going up. At the end of the month, my current plan--which I've had and loved for three years--will automatically convert to a significantly less awesome plan. My current plan is 75 downloads a month for $191.90 yearly, but it will become 35 downloads a month for $151.99 yearly. True, I'm paying 20% less, but I'm receiving less than half as many tracks. In other words, I'm going from 21 cents a track to 36 cents a track. I haven't yet dec

I don't even like the impersonality of drive-thrus, so you can imagine how I feel about IMing.

Watched Chris Smith's The Pool yesterday, and Matteo Garrone's Gomorrah today. Both are impressive accomplishments, but for totally different reasons: One has a warm feel for humanity, while the other has a coldly cynical view.

Eels

I WISH! It's actually something fairly close to this: I'd post a pic of my actual clock, but I only have Polaroids.

I have used the same alarm clock since 1985, and it has never, never failed me. True story.

I'm hoping for this as well...

For Christmas I asked for, and received, Colson Whitehead's Sag Harbor. I hope to begin reading very soon.

If it weren't for Transformers 2, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra would easily be the most boring movie of 2009. I don't really mind movies made for 12-year-old boys--I pretty much loved Avatar--but I do mind when the movie thinks I must be a retarded 12-year-old boy.

Park Chan-Wook's vampire story Thirst is no Let the Right One In, but it's light years away from Dracula or, er, Twilight. It's a lunatic experience--philosophical, maddening, voluptuous, sometimes overtly silly--but I enjoyed it.

Thought about it, but we made other plans. I'm still feeling some pangs of regret, though.

Didn't see too much in 2009, but April's back-to-back Wilco shows at Milwaukee's Pabst Theatre would be at the top. I also very much enjoyed Neko Case, and a Gaslight Anthem/Heartless Bastards show, among others. Biggest disappointment? The National in July. One of my all-time favorite shows was The National in 2007, but this time around they felt lackluster--the band was off their game, for whatever reason.

Totally. I'm still pissed about the government interfering with their damn child labor laws.

As a Packers fan, I can't remember the last time I cheered so wildly for a Bears victory.

Thing is, it's not really a new phenomenon. In the big studio days--especially the Thirties and Forties--quickie remakes were actually far more common than even today (and they didn't wait 20 years before tackling a property over and over again). Directors were under contract, and sometimes the same man was assigned to make the same movie twice just a few years apart. (Heck, even Cecil B. DeMille made The Ten Commandments twice--once as a silent movie, once as a color spectacle.) Few of these churned-out pictures are remembered today, which is why it feels like the remake craze is unique t

Remaking bad movies isn't a bad idea--why not take another whack to get it right? Now, remaking good movies is often questionable. After all, since we already have a very good Taking of Pelham 123, why on earth do we need another? Exactly. And I'm unconvinced there are any "sacred texts" in cinema that cannot survive an assault. Even Psycho endured that awful Van Sant remake; who even remembers that the remake exists? Hitchcock's version is safe and sound. Even if someone was lunatic enough to remake Citizen Kane, I can't imagine that it would take the shine off the original--all a re

I use Microsoft Access (although the database actually originated in LotusWorks, which tells you how long ago I started cataloging this stuff!). I have no idea whether Access is a quality choice--I use it because I always have, and after nearly 20 years of adding data I'm pretty much stuck with it. Each database entry lists various elements which can then be individually sorted, such as director, year, or country. For example, I can use the index feature to show only the entries by, say, Scorsese, and then sort that narrow list by year or any other element. It's very simple, actually. T

Lazy Saturday = Two movies on DVD: Sin Nombre and Medicine for Melancholy, both enjoyable.

Same here. Loved it. A witty, mature, serious story featuring resonant, original characters--it's a throwback to a time when Hollywood regularly made smart movies for grownups, instead of just spectacles for 12-year-old boys.

I do that, too. I started keeping track many years ago when I was still reviewing movies for a newspaper, and had practical reasons for not forgetting--things like year-end best lists, director comparisons, etc.--and just never stopped. I actually log in a database every movie I see, whether in the theater or on DVD. It's a useful resource for someone who writes about movies (and I do still produce occasional pieces). I keep it simple, though, so that the cataloging/indexing never becomes an albatross! One year, I saw 556 different movies (but that includes short and experimental works).

This really ought to be somebody's sig line...

I'm genuinely surprised by this (and I mean that as a compliment). Spong is definitely a guy who I think you would respond to.

Minor point: I don't really think the Academy Awards are any more artsy/indie than the Grammys. Like the Grammys, the Oscars only nominate the most popular or visible indie flicks. I'd say that the Oscars are oblivious to what true movie geeks (like me) are watching and appreciating. When the Academy starts nominating titles like Private Fears in Public Places or Syndromes and a Century instead of the likes of Juno, then I might start taking the Oscars more seriously. (Not that I'm complaining. The Oscars are what they are, and they are perfectly fun on that level. It's always a mistake

Awesome. All four of those are genuine classics. Speaking of Woody Allen, a few nights ago I revisited Crimes and Misdemeanors for the first time in at least a decade. Man, that's a great film--definitely one of Allen's very best. So, if you're on a movie date with Neko, do you try out Boogie's popcorn box trick from Diner?