1. "Oliver Stone to begin shooting Bush film 'W.'": Stone! Bush! Brilliance!

["Like a bill being rapidly pushed through legislation, Oliver Stone's film about President George W. Bush is expected to begin shooting within a month with a goal toward being released before the president leaves office next January. A person close to the film, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because plans were still being formalized, said Stone's "W." will begin filming in late April in Shreveport, Louisiana. The Academy Award-winning director only began shopping his script for financing in January, but has quickly captured the interest of investors and Hollywood. Stone has said that the film, which will focus on the life and presidency of Bush, won't be an anti-Bush polemic, but, as he told Daily Variety, "a fair, true portrait of the man. How did Bush go from being an alcoholic bum to the most powerful figure in the world?""]

["The Indonesian "Opera Jawa" begins with the most quotable subtitle of any foreign film in many a moon: "In a pig's liver, one can see an entire life." The overweight troubadour who sings this line continues: "You can read anyone's fate in it." By his side, as if to demonstrate a liver's reliability as an indicator of futures, a smiling trio lovingly admires a quivering organ. The beaming expressions on the faces of a husband, wife, and village elder suggest that they have a defective liver on their hands; for here, as in most operas, things are going to turn out badly. And despite writer-director Garin Nugroho's surrealist bent, the opera he creates has more in common with the folk tragedy of Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess" than with the splashiness of a Bollywood musical."]

["According to Hitchcock, suspense comes from being unable to intervene in the storyworld, a position that all viewers share regardless of their spoiled status. But there is another level as well here, as Hitchcock's expertise was in how he revealed his story points, not the "facts" themselves - it seems that the elements that trigger suspense are found less in a narrative's story, the series of events within the fictional world, but more in its telling (or what narratologists often call discourse), the expressive cues that elicit emotional reactions (such as music, camera angles, facial expressions, etc.)."]

["What I can't imagine given the current state of things is the paid local critic rebounding according to the existing model, and that's disheartening. I used to tell people that being a paid movie critic was a tough gig to get because it's the kind of job you hold onto until you die. Now, sadly, the jobs are dying faster than the critics."]

["Cuba announced Friday that it would allow ordinary citizens to purchase cellphones, which up until now have been set aside for Communist Party elite or those with connections. The move was seen as a sign of liberalization by the newly installed president, Raúl Castro. But even with the announcement, most Cubans earn only about $20 monthly in state salaries and will find it difficult to afford the phones without help from relatives off the island."]

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