1. "Belated Birthday Wishes P.C.!": How could we neglect Phil the Shill in yesterday's birthday wishes? Maxima mea culpa.

["This is the world we live in. Uh-ohhh-ohhh!"] Continue Reading »

1. "Happy Birthday, CB!": House fave Christian Bale turns 33 today. Roll dat boo-shit up! Continue Reading »

1. "2007 Screen Actors Guild Awards: Winners": The Last Little Miss King & Queen of Scotland. Continue Reading »

1. "Lord of the Rings by George Lucas": A frightening what-if, Dr. Katz-style. Thanks to Jeffrey Hill for the link.

["I think Frodo is kind of a gritty, suburban nine-year old."] Continue Reading »

1. " Mega-marsupials once roamed Australia": And all I can think to say is, "Crikey!"

["Marsupial lions, kangaroos as tall as trucks and wombats the size of a rhinoceros roamed Australia's outback before being killed off by fires lit by arriving humans, scientists said on Thursday. The giant animals lived in the arid Nullarbor desert around 400,000 years ago, but died out around 50,000 years ago, relatively shortly after the arrival of human settlers, according to new fossil skeletons found in caves. Fossilized remains were uncovered almost intact in a series of three deep caves in the center of the Nullarbor desert—east of the west coast city of Perth—in October 2002."] Continue Reading »

1. "Visionary Outlaw Mavericks on the Dark Edge; or, Indie Guignol": David Bordwell on the dark side of the "Indie."

["In an article originally called "Sundance Movies Are Bad for You!" but now more tamely titled "The Trouble with Sundance," Richard Corliss complains that indie movies have become so predictable that they form a genre in themselves. They focus on relationships, especially those of a dysfunctional family or a fumbling love affair, and treat their principals with a dutiful mix of pathos and humor. Where, he asks, are the more imaginative narrative and stylistic maneuvers fostered by the Coen brothers, Jarmusch, Tarantino, and the like? That's only half the story. True, indie films are often pallid comedies and melodramas. But just as often, and sometimes at the same time, they're desperately sensationalistic. In these the formal conservativism to which Corliss objects is wedded to hot-button content. We call a bland Indie film quirky, but there are others we call dark. They're Indie Guignol."] Continue Reading »

1. "The End Of The Affair": House contributor Sarah Bunting drop-kicks Mr. Butts.

["I have told myself the same kinds of stories a hundred thousand times in the last six days, how much I miss smoking, how well smoking treated me, how getting back together with smoking would fix everything, how if I don't get back together with smoking, I can't go on. The first day, I lay in bed, and on the couch, and on the other couch, and on the floor, and in bed again, and I cried and cried and cried. I cried the whole day. I cried myself to sleep; I cried in my sleep; I woke up, tried to open my eyes, could barely force them ajar because the lids had gotten so puffy from the crying, and started crying again. I ate Tic-Tacs and Altoids and chewed gum, I cut drinking straws in half and "smoked" them, I gnawed on toothpicks and carrots and pens and cuticles, and while I did all these things, I cried. I couldn't stop crying, and so I cried even harder, drenched with shame."] Continue Reading »

1. "Laugh, Cry, Believe: Spielbergization and Its Discontents": And J. Hoberman as Captain Hook.

["Something less than artist, Spielberg is also something more. He is the institution personified—the genius of the system, the whole Oscar Night shebang in one bearded, baseball-hat-wearing package. Spielberg is Hollywood's most successful director and most powerful producer, as well as a nouveau mogul, cofounder of the DreamWorks studio (recently sold to Paramount). He is a presidential friend and the Hollywood equivalent of a public intellectual, called upon, in the afterglow of Schindler's List, to furnish a Congressional investigating committee with expert testimony on the nature of hate crimes."] Continue Reading »