Beltmann

It's (almost) always matinees for us.

My first encounter with Wong Kar-Wai's Ashes of Time was years ago, when it was only available as a cruddy, improperly framed transfer with incoherent and out-of-sync subtitles. Buried under there was a good, possibly great, movie, but you had to use your imagination to dig it out. This new cleaned-up and re-worked version takes all the guesswork out of the experience: It's pure pleasure, and some kind of martial arts classic.

I finally got around to watching Twilight, which wasn't awful; it's easy to see why so many young girls love it, and it was amusing to watch the movie tap into the vampire genre's usual preoccupation with sexuality by flipping it around and connecting the characters' repressed urges to abstinence. Still, it seemed laugh-out-loud silly far too often. Plus, it's a love story between a 17-year-old girl and a 108-year-old vampire. The age difference is way creepier than the he-might-suck-her-blood factor.

Another one of my students once wrote that she committed a "Mister Meaner" over the weekend.

"Pitcher" instead of picture "Wesconsin" instead of Wisconsin Last week one of my students argued forcefully that the phrase was "out of contest" and not "out of context."

Might have to clear out your cache.

I remember hearing the news while my soon-to-be wife and I were out and about searching for an apartment. Shook me up.

303, "extremely progressive"

When I was a kid, I demanded that my bike license plate be "19," in honor of my favorite shortstop.

Roger Ebert reminiscing about the newspaper life. Here's a taste:

James - Seven

Eels - Blinking Lights and Other Revelations

Lots of great stuff mentioned; I'll just reiterate the collected works of Guy Maddin, David Cronenberg, and Atom Egoyan, and say that Atanarjuat is a universal myth set in the everyday, an exhilarating tall tale of the ordinary. I'll also add The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Ginger Snaps, The Snow Walker, and a few short films: When the Day Breaks; The Man Who Planted Trees; Ryan.

Worth it? Dear Lord, yes. It's a privilege being in the same room as that voice. I'd start with Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, but Blacklisted or even the new one, Middle Cyclone, would be good choices.

I've seen Burn After Reading twice, and loved it twice. One thing I really like about it is that it doesn't ask you to identify with, or root for, any of the characters. Instead, we're asked to adopt the POV of an outsider helplessly watching a disaster unfold, a disaster that owes as much to happenstance and non sequitors and surreal puzzles as it does the stupidity of the characters. The script is all of a piece, and some kind of brilliant. There's no traditional hero, but I was rooting for the script the whole time, and there's something heroic about that.

I hadn't seen Darkman since 1990... the over-the-top comic book melodrama is still a lot of fun.

"Never turn your back on Mother Earth."

I heard Pitchfork gave Earth a 6.7.

In general I'm not much of a Bill Plympton fan, but I kinda dug Hair High.

Nah. Most of the archival footage is ramshackle so it never makes you anxious. Instead, the film grooves the most during the interviews, letting you enjoy the guy's sheer energy and personality.

Saw three great films this weekend: Let the Right One In might be the best vampire movie I've ever seen--mostly because it's about so much more than just bloodsucking. It's a strange and absorbing hybrid of fable, genre, and psychological realism. Synecdoche, New York had me in its surreal, suffocating choke-hold right from the start. It's not a conventionally enjoyable experience, but I found its portrait of loneliness and despair so compelling that right away I felt like watching it again. No film this ambitious, personal, and human is ever truly depressing--Kaufman's vision might be

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings.

Only the first half? And that's the good half... it only gets worse, much worse.