Be Kind Rewind

Rating: 8

Michel Gondry's imagination is magic. The sweded version of the sweded trailer with the sweded ghostbusters was killer. Though the reviews I've read have tended to be less than kind, Be Kind Rewind shows a surreal, heartfelt appreciation for all underground filmmaking and its fans.

(and If you can get online and find the sweded version of The Big Lebowski, I guarantee it's worth your while.)

Love Letter to Paul Thomas Anderson

Paul Thomas Anderson. You have created a masterpiece with There Will Be Blood, and the Academy, as they are so inclined to do, has totally dissed you. I love the Coen Bros with all my heart, I want oscars for them, millions of oscars in every category for them, but I've watched your movie twice and their movie twice and, this time, you were simply more deserving - and yet, the academy drank your milkshake.

Your time will come, PT. You're one of the only directors I can hear in an interview and not want to vomit. You're young and silly and fun and never pretentious, even though you have every right to be. Your movies are getting better and better every time. I've been completely on board with you even since Sydney (Hard Eight,) and every movie since then has been more ambitious, intelligent, subversive and funny than the one before. On the one hand I'm disappointed that Oscar snubbed you this evening. On the other hand, you can kinda take it as a compliment if you think about the company you'd be in.

Crash?
Chicago?
Million Dollar Baby?
Titanic?
Forrest Gump?

The Killers

Rating: 9

Since I've already seen everything good in theaters right now, there's only Netflix. The Killers is a movie I hadn't heard of until Netflix recommended it to me. It features Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner, both very young and foxy. The director, Robert Siodmak, is German, so the look of the film has the feel of German expressionism - huge shadows, and people wandering in and out of pools of very bright light. The mystery in the story is unraveled by an insurance investigator rather than a Private Eye , like the film Double Indemnity. This is a fantastic film noir.