Charlotte, I will put this on my must-rent list. Anything that can be described as "enchanting" winds up on my list!

Sounds great. I'll check it out.

I saw Armageddon last night. Enjoyed the ride. I've been a longtime fan of Bruce Willis, but last night I fell in love with one of his costars. I have spent the entire morning searching the web for a photo of him, without success! So if anyone ever comes across an image of William Fichtner, could you please email it to me (cbridges@esri.com)? He also starred with Jodie Foster in Contact, and in Quiz Show, and Strange Days. You think with that kind of resume, I would be able to find at least one image of him on the internet! sheesh! :) If you saw Armageddon, he played Colonel Sharp, the nemesis of Bruce Willis's character.

From http://www.armageddon.com Commander of the overall mission is no-nonsense Colonel Willie Sharp, played by William Fichtner ("Contact"). "I don't want to use the term 'straight man,' but he's going to complete the mission no matter what it takes, no matter what it costs," says Fichtner. Fichtner declares that Touchstone Pictures' "Armageddon" has been his favorite film experience to date and credits the crew as well as the technical advisors for his having had such a good time. "Being around people like Joe Allen and Chuck Davis [from the Department of Defense] and the other astronauts was like having a virtual encyclopedia of space. I also spent some time up at the Niagara Falls Air Force Base where my sister is a major and with the pilots at Edwards when we were there. For most of them the dream is to qualify for NASA. I watched those guys and they're not kidding. They're the real deal." http://www.movies.com/armageddon/Main/TheMovie/prodnotes/index.html

I am defenitely going to see that movie if and when it comes to Switzerland. My sister says it's fantastic.

Believe me, it will come to Switzerland.

Yes. When you have all long forgotten about it. Then I rave about it in here, and you will all think me slow! So be warned!

Thanks, Terry. I had found that link, but was surprised and disappointed to see that the Russian astronaut got higher billing than my Colonel! :) No photo to be found at that site. I went to see it again last night. Hoping to rid myself of this juvenile obsession. Didn't work. :)

Good!

hahaha! Riette, are you saying "Good!" to me, or to Terry?

To you! For the juvenile obsession.

Charlotte, what role did he have in "Quiz Show"? Was he the blond cutie with a name like Van Dorn? Saw "Bean" (big snooze), "Good Will Hunting" (pretty good, but I can only hear the F word so many times) and "Conspiracy Theory" (interesting without being very good, if you know what I mean) this week. When it rains it pours!

Saw none of those!

Autumn, naw, that was Ralph Fiennes who had the starring role of van Doren in Quiz Show. Fichtner had a very minor role as the stage manager. Last night I rented Sphere (big snooze), and Switchback, which was a passable suspense thriller.

Wow, how could I not remember Ralph Fiennes?? Must've been early on in his film career... Saw "Reality Bites" last night (on TV), and really enjoyed it. I'm not usually big on Winona, but the ensemble cast worked well. My husband and daughters are going to see "Madeline" today.

OK, I have a big problem--my VCR cut out on the last 5 minutes of "The Usual Suspects" (Kevin spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Suzy Amis) and I missed the exciting conclusion. Spoiler, please!! Who is Kaiser Sozay and how does this film end???

Autumn, Sandrine Bonnaire is Keyser Soze. And your beauty eclipses hers. Your VCR is nasty....what was it thinking when it did that to you? Seriously, the following will spoil the surprise ending for anyone who hasn't seen the movie, so don't read this if you want to experience some day one of the greatest surprise endings in film history: Film Review: "The Usual Suspects" MA in Disability Studies Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies University of Sheffield Yaara Di Segni Garbasz December 1996 The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist' ("Verbal" Kint, The Usual Suspects, 1995). The greatest trick the mysterious criminal overlord, Keyser Soze, ever pulled, was to convince the world that he was just a pathetic, harmless cripple. A truckload of gun parts is hijacked in Queens, NY. Five suspects: Michael McManus, Todd Hockney, Dean Keaton, Fred Fenster and Roger "Verbal" Kint, are arrested for the night and questioned. A sequence of crimes involving the five follows, reaching its climax when a ship docked at the San Pedro Harbour, explodes leaving 27 charred bodies, a dying man in a hospital and no sign of the presumed cargo of $91 million in cocaine. "Verbal" Kint is arrested at the harbour and released the next day with total immunity due to pressure from high up. Special Agent Dave Kujan of the United States Customs Department is not willing to let the matter drop. He is convinced that Dean Keaton, a corrupted ex-cop who, according to Kint's testimony, was shot at the harbour before the explosion, is alive. For Kujan, who has been after Keaton for years, this is a quest. Kujan is convinced that Kint knows something, and is determined to find out. In a cluttered police station, "Verbal" Kint, the pathetic cerebral palsy victim, tells Agent Kujan his version of the events that started with the line-up in New York six weeks earlier and ended with the explosion at the harbour the night before. As Kint tells his story, new details emerge. He provides Kujan with an explanation to the name "Keyser Soze" screamed by the dying man at the hospital. The body of an Argentine criminal washed down to the beach provides an explanation for the missing cocaine. As the story unfolds, Agent Kujan becomes convinced that Keaton is no other but Keyser Soze, the mysterious overlord criminal, and that Kint is lying in his testimony on the death of Keaton/Soze. As Kint limps away from the police station to his freedom, Agent Kujan has a short moment of satisfaction. His questions are answered. But his satisfaction lasts only for minutes, as he suddenly realises his terrible mistake. Kujan rushes after Kint, but it is too late. Outside, a no longer limping and semi-paralysed Kint lights a cigarette, steps into a car driven by Soze's middleman, the lawyer Kubayashi, and drives away.

Wow!!!! What a mind-blowing ending! I may just have to rent that one now and fast-forward to the end to see it for myself after all! Where did you get this review, Jim? Have you been rummaging through filing cabinets at the sanitarium again??

Mia Farrow's sister called me to ask if I wanted to go see "The Purple Rose of Cairo" with her. A harsh light shone on the wall, I talked into the phone receiver forgetting it was packed with cocaine, and the white stuff blew all over the place, I coughed, "Stephanie, I'll be right over." We got to the theater and entered without my car. The movie started, Jeff Daniels looked at us and of course motioned for us to come in. We stepped into the film. I immediately took refuge in the projectionist's ear , by calling out to him, way up there in the projection room, "Hey Ziegmund, could you splice in 'Shock Corridor'?" I saw what I heard---his own voice negotiating an attractive YES! I barely had time to rewire my future or fuse with a rental rectal android---there we were, me and Stephanie, shuffling down the corridor looking for the heart of Saturday night. She helped a man zip back up, brushed his hair, spoke to him in wall-to-wall lumberjack talk. I lost her and scooted around the corner, into a ro m that had thousands of folders of information on open shelves above the lobotomist's wide and delicious sketches of a Thai Buddhist monastery. I went through all the usual suspects until I came to a folder labeled "Kubayashi". When I opened it, Stephanie walked into the room with a straightjacket that she said used to belong to Keyser Soze. I asked her how she knew. Kevin Spacey walked in and shook my hand, slapped me on the back, began apologizing and edging us out to the door and back into the corr dor. I looked back, but he was gone behind the closing door. Jeff grabbed the file out of my hands, perused its wrenching innards, and said, "Oh I knew it would end like that." He gave it back to me and pushed me outa the movie. No Stephanie to be seen. I went home alone, although my car kept me company. What was in the file folder was the review you read, Autumn. I couldn't piece together how all the new information got in the folder and how all the old information got out, but the Kinko's guy, wh scanned it onto a diskette for me, said, "Sir, if Marie-France Pisier, Isabelle Adjani, Jacqueline Bisset, Marie-Christine Barrault, Nathalie Baye, Juliette Binoche and Isabelle Huppert all like you, you'll do all right. If they don't, you'll starve and be known as a dope." So anyway, what I actually did was, I went to the 'Internet Movie Database', one of those 3 websites that I gave the url to, in another topic, and searched for 'The Ususal Suspects', then within that, I clicked on reviews, and I think it was about the last of some 20+ reviews, because it was the only one that gave away the ending.

You skimmed through 20 movie reviews for me?? What a prince! Had you seen this film before, Jim? Saw "Flirting with Disaster", which was marginally funny, and "Chasing Amy", which had its moments, but all in all pushed the envelope of good taste too much for me to endorse it. Watched "The Vanishing", a Dutch film, which was disturbing and dramatic, in a mildly interesting way. It's definitely been a lukewarm rental week.

I'd skim 120 and just ask, "What do you mean, is that all?" You're worth it. I did see "The Usual Suspects" when it first came out, but get this, Autumn, I couldn't, when you asked and everything, I couldn't even remember how the darn thing ended. And so many of those crazy reviews would tease the reader by saying, "Who was Keyser Soze? Was it 'Verbal' Kint? Was it Mephistopheles? Was it agent Kujan? Was it Keaton? Or Kubayashi? Was it that Hungarian survivor who died in the hospital? Was it Kenneth Starr? Was it Osama bin Laden? Perhaps Trigger or Lassie?" I saw those movies you mentioned, all of 'em, on their initial run in the theaters......"Chasing Amy" would've made my week, though, movie-wise. It, I wanted it to push my envelope some more---I wish it had gone on another 4 hours or so. Your comments are really interesting, no matter what they are. I love to listen in to your train........of thought.

Serial Jim. Going to see Lethal Weapon 4 today. I loved the other Lethal Weapon films, so I'm quite looking forward to it. But this is very old news for you, huh?

You enjoyed "Chasing Amy", Jim? I thought the roommate "Banky" was terrific--I'd love to see him in something else. He was responsible for some of the most clever and funny moments in that movie. But there was just zero chemistry between the girl and the guy (I've forgotten THEIR names already!), and he seemed so repulsed by her it was incredulous that a couple days later he decides he's in love with her. I saw this guy's first film, "Clerks," which I absolutely loathed as it was so insipid and un-fun y. I didn't realize this film was one of his until she makes that reference to the girl having sex with the dead guy in the convenience store bathroom, and then it clicked. What films have YOU been seeing lately, movie man??

"Blade" hatched an egg for me. The shell cracked when my eyes touched it, and there wasn't anything inside. Within its own genre (action/vampire) it was okay, cuz I didn't expect too much. The archnemesis was a good contrast to the usual action movie nemesis. Society looked like it acted the same, even though half of the power-structure was controlled by vampires. The opening nightclub scene got real intense with tension building and building and then all out action mayhem. The film was speeded up to show how fast vampires move. I don't know what it needed---lotsa stuff. Will see "Your Friends and Neighbors" sometime this week. I expect much from it, though....I won't walk in the theater for it anticipating little, like I did for "Blade." Seemed like most of what was going on in "Chasing Amy" was discord, to you, right? Same with me. He, Holden, took an immediate liking to her, Alyssa, but she had to overcome her own bias for lesbian exclusiveness. Even while she was doing that, she was having a great time with him. He definitely got to her, she admits to him while saying she wants to find the....well, here she is saying it herself: Alyssa: I've given that a lot of thought, you know? I mean, now that I'm being ostracized by my friends, I've had a lot of time to think about all of this. And what I've come up with is really simple: I came to this on my terms. I didn't just heed what I was taught, you know? Men and women should be together, it's the natural way---that kind of thing. I'm not with you because of what family, society, life tried to instill in me from day one. The way the world is---how seldom you meet that one person who gets you---it's so rare. My parents didn't really have it. There was no example set for me in the world of male/female relationships. And to cut oneself off from finding that person---to immediately half your options by eliminating the possibility of finding that one person within your own gender.....that just seemed stupid. So I didn't. But then you come along. You---the one least likely; I mean, you were a guy. Holden: Still am. Alyssa: And while I was falling for you, I put a ceiling on that, because you were a guy. Until I remembered why I opened the door to women in the first place---to not limit the likelihood of finding that one person who'd complement me so completely. And so here we are. I was thorough when I looked for you, and I feel justified lying in your arms---because I got here on my own terms, and have no question that there was someplace I didn't look. And that makes all the difference. [she snuggles into him and closes her eyes. Holden stares at the ceiling] Holden: Can I at least tell people that all you needed was some serious deep-dicking? [she hits him with her pillow. They kiss, deeply---the calm before the storm] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- That scene was all pretty convincing for me (chemistry was in flow and fluid---heat was going back and forth). But the movie did have alotta storms. I couldn't understand why his character would fall for such a bias against what she was doing in high school (her past, which was past). I liked Jason Lee (Banky) alot, too. Ben Affleck (Holden). Joey Lauren Adams (Alyssa). I think Kevin Smith (director) was trying for a movie about a stormy relationship with powerful conflicting forces pushing up into their faces. The dialogue and characters made me feel the atmosphere, and it felt like what I could walk into in alotta different places around town, here. They felt closer to my real life than characters in soooooooo many movies. I wondered why so many people didn't react to it like I did. I wondered why it didn't take off like "sex, lies and videotape" did, or "The Crying Game" or "Trainspotting"---they all started out small and gained momentum and got acclaim. I guess "Chasing Amy" had the effect of repulsing as much as pulling people into it. It's a real luxury, Autumn, to hear your take on these movies you see. Somehow your viewpoint is a living thing regardless of how it turns out. It's fun to travel back through a movie by way of your reactions and interpretations.....something has to happen.....whatever this might mean, it brings a peculiarly festive glow to my face which I can feel going on in, and that impresses me.

I can tell you really appreciate cinema verite! It is truly the "seventh art", as the French say (though exactly what the first 6 are is unclear). I appreciate and understand your defense of "Chasing Amy" (indeed, your opinion seems to prevail amongst my circle of friends), and I think you characterized it perfectly when you talked about the in-your-face conflicting forces driving them all together/apart. I have never heard of "Blade" or "Your Friends and Neighbors." I am not big on the horror/sci-fi genre, so I'll skip the first (especially since you panned it!) I'd be interested to know what the latter is all about and read your review.

What's your three favorite Vampire flicks, Jim?

'The night of the Hermit' 'The true confessions of a justified boat maker' 'Nightmare on Sorewilly Street'

Goin' around the city, easing on the gas, crossin' over a dry river under a drunk moon, then feeling that displacement of the black clock, no sense of time.....but still finding myself going down that long narrow Old Cemetery Road, I just wanted to say to ya, wer, it's a giddy good feeling hearin' from you, and now I wait for your car, just sitting here, motor purring, now it's off, WHAT A THIRST I feel comin' on.... in park in the dark. ___________________________________________________ Hear are sum 5 vampers that're ma faves, with "Vampire's Kiss" coming way out on top of the others: Vampire's Kiss (1988) [Nicolas Cage, Elizabeth Ashley, Jennifer Beals, Maria Conchita Alonso] Near Dark (1987) [Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, Bill Paxton] Andy Warhol's Dracula (1974) [Joe Dallesandro, Udo Kier] Nadja (1994) [Elina Lowensohn, Galaxy Craze, Suzy Amis, Martin Donovan, Peter Fonda] The Addiction (1995) [Lili Taylor, Christopher Walken] ____________________________________________________ Plot Summary for Vampire's Kiss (1989) A publishing executive is visited and bitten by a vampire and starts exhibiting erratic behavior. He pushes his secretary to extremes as he tries to come to terms with his affliction. The vampire continues to visit and drink his blood, and as his madness deepens, it begins to look as if some of the events he's experiencing may be hallucinations. `Vampire's Kiss' (R) --reviewed by Hal Hinson (Washington Post) "Vampire's Kiss" is a one-of-a-kind movie, proving -- for all time, perhaps -- that singularity can be as much of a curse as it is a blessing. What it also proves is that it is possible for a person to stay in New York too long. Take Peter, for example: young, well-to-do, handsome, a successful literary agent by day, womanizing bar crawler by night -- a dictionary-definition yuppie. As yuppies go, Peter is one of the stranger ones, particularly as Nicolas Cage plays him. One night, he picks up a sultry number in a red dress (Jennifer Beals) who proceeds, once they're in bed, to satisfy herself by feasting on his jugular. Almost immediately he begins to feel run down and anxious. Little tensions become gargantuan. When his secretary (Maria Conchita Alonso) is unable to locate a contract, he jumps up on top of her desk, shouting madly and wagging his forefinger in her face. Mirrors, too, become something of a sore point. Gradually, as his behavior grows more and more erratic, Peter becomes convinced that he has turned into a vampire. He hasn't, though -- not really. Of course, metaphorically, he's been a kind of parasite for years, preying on young women, using them and disposing of them. It's on this symbolic level that the picture sets up camp. But using words like metaphor and symbol is a stretch in this context. It makes the picture appear to be up to something, and it's not -- at least not something worthwhile. Directed by Robert Bierman, "Vampire's Kiss" is stone-dead bad, incoherently bad, but it goes all the way with its premise -- and when I say all the way I mean all the way. You've heard of actors making a strong choice and going with it? Well, see it in the flesh! Stomping, snorting, his hair hanging over his eyes like a curtain of foppish dementia, Cage acts as if he has been taking hits off of Dennis Hopper's gas mask. There's no way to overstate it: This is scorched-earth acting -- the most flagrant scenery chewing I've ever seen. Part Dwight Frye in "Dracula," part Tasmanian devil, Cage makes the previous champ -- Crispin Glover in "River's Edge" -- look like Perry Como. If Bierman had been able to create a compatible comic atmosphere the movie might have become an instant cult classic. And even with Cage, you have to fight your way through the uncertainties of tone, the funereal pace and the inept staging to find any enjoyment. Still, you're not exactly sure if the material is meant to be funny or is laughable merely by default. Cage makes sure that we're never bored, though. In one scene he gobbles down a live pigeon; in another, he converts his sofa into a makeshift coffin by turning it upside down and lowering it down on himself. No amount of description can prepare you for these mad excesses. They have to be seen to be believed. _______________________________________________________ Nadja (1994) This ultra-hip, post-modern vampire tale is set in contemporary New York City. Members of a dysfunctional family of vampires are trying to come to terms with each other, in the wake of their father's death. Meanwhile, they are being hunted by Dr. Van Helsing and his hapless nephew. As in all good vampire movies, forces of love are pitted against forces of destruction. `Nadja' (R) By Hal Hinson Washington Post Staff Writer September 22, 1995 Early on in "Nadja," Michael Almereyda's insanely brilliant fantasia on the Dracula legend, the protagonist confesses over drinks with a stranger that she has no job, no interests, no skills. "I'm not really good for much of anything," Nadja asserts, pausing to drag deeply on her cigarette. "I want to change my life." Typical singles-bar talk, but Nadja (played with feline elegance by Elina Lowensohn) is not like most girls you meet at happy hour. With her hair pulled back to accentuate her high, sculpted forehead and black, hypnotic eyes, Nadja isn't cruising the bars looking for love. Nadja is a vampire. The daughter of Count Dracula and a peasant woman he fell in love with by "the shores of the Black Sea," she prowls the nightspots of New York City looking like a Eurotrash Garbo. But Nadja is burned out on the club scene; she's ready to move beyond the night to more simple, normal things_sunlight, a lake, a dog. How, exactly, the undead diva intends to achieve this metamorphosis is not clear. Actually, a good portion of the film's story is confusing; plotting is obviously not Almereyda's strong point. Still, this idiosyncratically talented writer-director ("Twister," "Another Girl Another Planet") manages to keep a lot of elements in equilibrium. Almereyda uses New York clubs as the backdrop for this vampire saga_a stroke of genius_ much the way Jean Cocteau did when, in "Orphee," he set the myth of Orpheus among a group of squabbling Left Bank poets_as a means of giving a classic story a sharp, contemporary edge. Almereyda shares some of Cocteau's sense of film as a magic plaything. Shot in hallucinatory black-and-white by Jim Denault_who also works the Pixelvision camera used in some sequences_the film has an atmosphere that fluctuates between languid and hysterical. Visually, it's a thrilling movie, gorgeously, hypnotically textured. Images fly in from all over_a snippet of Bela Lugosi's Rorschach eyebrows, a few frames of a ravishing peasant girl, a grainy long shot of a skulking, caped figure_as if Almereyda had found a way of patching directly into the collective pop id. Somehow through all this, the picture's effects remain appealingly low-key. For all its stylishness, it never becomes a mere exercise in style. Almereyda has a great sense of postmodern comic inflection; he knows exactly the precise mixture of irony and conviction needed to maintain the film's droll sense of the absurd. And yet, even when he's riffing on vampire lore and wildly throwing together incongruous elements, he keeps us engaged by his muddled story. The cast of "Nadja" is a sort of A-list of independent filmmaking superstars. Executive producer David Lynch makes a brief but memorably pathological appearance as a morgue attendant. Peter Fonda, wired, with a long gray-streaked ponytail down his back, plays Dr. Van Helsing, the intrepid vampire killer. Galaxy Craze makes an appealing zombie as Lucy, the depressed girlfriend of Van Helsing's nephew, who is played by a baffled-looking Martin Donovan. Not everyone stands out. As Cassandra, Suzy Amis is mostly wasted, and Jared Harris, who plays Nadja's dying twin brother, Edgar, looks as if he's dosed on cough medicine. Still, in Lowensohn, Almereyda has found an actress in perfect sync with his haywire vision. Nadja is rated R. ________________________________________________________ plot summary for Near Dark (1987) A mid-western farm boy reluctantly becomes a member of the undead when a girl he meets turns out to be part of a band of southern vampires who roam the highways in stolen cars. Part of his initiation includes a bloody assault on a hick bar. NEAR DARK (reviewed by "Mike's Movie Reviews") Released the same year, NEAR DARK showcases the sharp unbridled style and originality lacking in 1987's "other" young vampire thriller, the more publically-embraced Hollywood product THE LOST BOYS. In my opinion, the latter was overrated and did not deserve the attention it recieved. NEAR DARK, on the other hand, is an amazing, stunning, and sometimes brilliant horror film that is so much better than you could expect. Caleb (Pasdar) falls in love with Mae (Wright) from the moment he sees her in his small Texas hometown. He picks her up, but this night will soon go to hell ... and fast. Mae is a vampire, a child of the night, forced to wander through eternity killing helpless mortals with her motley "family" of bloodsucking criminals. There's the cult's leader, Jesse (Henriksen), his love Diamondback (Goldstein), the psychopathic Severen (Paxton), and Homer (Miller), trapped forever as an ageless youth. And lucky Caleb makes six. They spend their nights killing and their days sleeping, or wrapped up in protective rags and sunglasses driving the countryside in a van with the windows spray-painted black. Splicing in a "cowboy-noir" element (not unlike the Coen Brothers' BLOOD SIMPLE, or John Dahl's RED ROCK WEST) to the common vampire film, Bigelow (who would soon direct actioners like POINT BREAK and STRANGE DAYS) creates a stand-out, watchable film influenced just as much by art as violence. During the production of this film she was married to James Cameron, who had just completed the sci-fi horror sequel ALIENS. Note the large number of ALIENS cast members (Paxton, Henriksen, and Goldstein), and how much Severen's final scenes resemble Cameron's THE TERMINATOR (and 1991's TERMINATOR 2). NEAR DARK has is failed moments (where exactly did Thomerson run off to in the last ten minutes?), but the effect and entertainment survives each and every deficit. One original action sequence involves a shoot-out at high noon (remember how vampires react to light ...), and an unnerving bloodbath in a bar is surreally calm. The final shot is stunning and brilliant, owing more to TAXI DRIVER and THE SEARCHERS than anything else. (Did she really want to be saved?) One of the greatest minor masterpieces of horror filmmaking. Brutal violence, horror, coarse language. MPAA: R ____________________________________________________ Andy Warhol's Dracula (Director: Paul Morrissey) --reviewed by "Find-A-Video" Spawned by the commercial success of Flesh for Frankenstein, this campy treatment of the well-worn Transylvanian tale features Udo Kier as Dracula, the creepy vampire in search of ripe, succulent throats and virginal blood. Leaving Hungary for the purer pastures offered in Catholic Italy, the Count's toothy appetite for a fix of virgins proves elusive as the strapping Joe Dallesandro makes sure that the Count's intended victims are no virgins -- even if it means deflowering a 14-year-old. (aka: Blood for Dracula) Rated PG ___________________________________________________ The Addiction --reviewed by Walter Addiego (San Francisco Examiner) FINALLY, A film that truly captures the graduate school experience. Abel Ferrara's "The Addiction" posits an NYU philosophy student who's bitten by a vampire and becomes less interested in metaphysics than in fresh blood. Sometimes you really need a break from the books. Actually, it's a funny conceit - Nietzsche and neck-biting - and enjoyable as long as you overlook Ferrara's speculation on ultimate evil and redemption. The film works better as straight horror - it's quite gory and the inky black-and-white photography adds intensely to the mood - than as a meditation on morality. In short, it's a typical Ferrara production, mixing high aspirations with the sleaze and shock of exploitation pictures (his first commercial feature was "The Driller Killer" ). The combination has made the director a brand name, at least on the art-house and festival circuits, where "The King of New York" and "Bad Lieutenant" created a loud buzz. The buzz focused on the more sensational aspects of those pictures - over-the-top violence, drug use, unsavory sex, Harvey Keitel's frontal nudity and, at least in "Lieutenant," a Catholic sensibility about moral choice and the possibility of salvation. It's not a mix calculated to appeal to a mass audience. In "The Addiction," New York is again the scene for one of Ferrara's walks on the murky side. Kathleen (Lili Taylor), working on her philosophy doctorate, delivers a sermon on collective guilt after watching a film on the My Lai massacre. Shortly thereafter, she is dragged into a dark alley by an extremely scary-looking woman (Annabella Sciorra), who, taking enormous pleasure in her victim's fear, bites her neck. As Kathleen slowly descends into vampirism, she verbally spars with fellow student Jean (Edie Falco), who doesn't share her increasing sense of futility and despair. In fact, with her oracular pronouncements ( "There is no history" ), she sounds not like a monster but your average humanities grad student on the road to burnout. Soon her studies fall by the wayside; she devotes all her time to finding victims (a homeless man, a cab driver, a professor) and observing her own reactions to her newfound "life" as one of the undead. ( "It's the violence of my will against their's." ) The director offers two payoff scenes. One is Kathleen's encounter with an experienced vampire (Christopher Walken) who advises her on how to cope with the changes in her life - try to blend in with the humans, and treat your condition like a controllable addiction. She listens to this wisdom, finishes her studies and throws a hellacious party to celebrate. (This sequence is a strong dose, even in black and white.) Ferrara and writer Nicholas St. John try to draw an analogy between vampirism and what they call mankind's ultimate addiction to evil (we're shown photographs of Dachau). The vampire's high is to dominate a victim completely. But these grim reflections don't mesh well with the narrative. Much better to remember the glum Kathleen - Taylor does quite a good job with the role - offering this insight as her friend munches a hamburger: "Medicine is just an extended metaphor for omnipotence." In a recent interview, Ferrara described his audience, in a crack he attributed to Keitel, as "six guys dressed in black living in Berlin." He's being modest. Between here and the East Village, he has at least a dozen more.

intriguing choices...

I feel so inadequate knowing that Salem's Lot is the only (pseudo) vampire movie I've seen...

But that's a LOT. See, that's the one, it's the one that drank the blood of all the other vampire movies ever made. Guess that jus' means ya ain't got no mo inadequacies, Stacies.

*smile* thanks

*wide-eyed* that's the only one, Stacey? if'n we lived closer, I'd suggest we start having Beer and Blood nights...

sounds like a winner! (nope. probably not the only one but I've been feeling pretty confident lately... so, nothing to bemoan!)

*thumbs up*

bottoms up!

it's my turn to buy the next round, isn't it?

oh! you're thinking THAT kind of bottoms up... oh well... sure... yea, your turn to buy!

naw, actually I was talking about the plane ticket and hotel room...

Groovy! when ya coming? (to Colorado, that is...)

OK, let's hear some fresh reviews...come on, Jim, I know you've been seeing 'em: Rounders, Simon Birch, Next Stop wonderland. Talk to me!

I do like to talk to you. No doubt about it. Rounders and Simon Birch hit town today. I'll be all over 'em. Next Stop Wonderland I fell asleep during, about 20 or so minutes from the end. These 2 main protagonists still hadn't met yet and it was over an hour into the movie, even though time and again, like about 10 times, it was being telegraphed that they would meet.....like they would pass each other and then the camera would be on his face with him wondering about what it was that he just saw. The stuff that was going on in the meantime was dorky AND wonky. I fell right to sleep out of impatience, plus I'd had this big deli sandwich and 2 beers out in the car right before I walked into the theater, plus I was already a little tired. I woke up during the last 10 seconds of credits, the movie went dark, I stood up, turned around, the place was empty. I was glad to see a pack of messages left for me. They were placed in my sleeping left hand. Written by the people who watched the movie and noticed me sound asleep. Their notes to me were full of hate. Like it was the best movie they'd seen in centuries. One said: "I hope Rounders comes round and smacks you a good one for me." Another said: "You probably had sex with Clinton and now I bet you want to apologize to us and everyone else for it." Another said: "I hope you like the way I emptied my soda can on your head."

Ha-ha!! I hate it when my fellow theatre-goers turn on me! I heard NSW was a lot like "Sliding Doors", but that didn't mean a whole hell of a lot to me because I didn't see that, either. So, it's wonky, eh? One of the local candidates running for office was described by the newspaper as "wonkish and nerdy." I had to laugh! Of course, I'm voting for him. He's not going to have to worry about making any apologies, I sense.

I bet he was in NSW. I do like that actress, Hope Davis; she was pretty good in "The Daytrippers." She's good in NSW.....and I wonder what did happen when she and Alan Gelfant finally do meet up....what if it was like Ellen and Newland....ack! wonk wonk wonk.... It was compared to "Sleepless in Seatle", here. I compare it to sleeping soundly in Austin.

(I actually, *gulp*, finally saw Titantic and Good Will Hunting this past week...)

alotta people in Titanic gulped.... and they kept gulping when they saw good Will hunting.... hunting underwater for them with an underwater harpoon gun.... then again, they mighta just been seein' things as they were losing consciousness.... maybe they were seeing a movie that was showing around that time in Waterworld

Wer, we had a deal!! No seeing Titanic, remember?? Oh well, at least it's still my claim to fame. What did you think of Good Will Hunting? Jim, heard high praise for "Daytrippers"--what did you think? Another sleeper? (double-entendre, there!!)

Zoe made me watch it, her mommy bought it for her...sorry, Autumn... Will Hunting is very much like you-know-who, but much smarter... didn't care for the ending much, but it was a decent flick...

Rounders left me and didn't come back. Left me wanting more. More than it could give. Lotsa things just didn't come off and could have. They were there waiting to happen. What it gave me was good, just not near enough. It's funny trying to talk about a movie without giving anything away. Don't wanna ruin anyone's movie-going experience. If a person wants to watch a film that's gonna be great, this isn't it. Unless you're not me, which is the case with many people I've run into in my life (they're not me.....and that worries me.....when I was a kid I used to think everyone was me, thought like me, felt like me....which never happened, but I could convince myself otherwise.....but it too astounded me when I found out for real that other people were actually not me.....that took alot outa me). Rounders would be a great flick for someone wanting to get feeling for what it's like to gamble at cards. I missed half of what the narrator said about playin' cards. And the narrator says alot in this movie. What I did catch was pretty interesting, though. Here's the most interesting thing: they, professional card players, get tons of information by observing minute details in what's going on in another player's face and other body language and nonverbal behavior. Alotta that gets explained. Movies like Rounders are great learning experiences. They take you way in, way into the story, a good story. But it's not enough if you want more'n some learnin'. Unless you're not me, and if ya liked Rounders for more'n I liked it for. If schools could teach stuff like Rounders taught cards, look out, kids.

'Simon Birch'. Yeah. I mean, okay. See, it was good, but it felt too Norman Rockwell directed, for me. But it was good, no doubt. Simon definitely falls into that 2% of the population who are unattractive people. But by the end of 'The Elephant Man', I felt John Merrick was attractive. There were some great scenes in 'Simon Birch'. It's just amazing to see someone feel things so different from what other people around them are feeling, and then to see that person be soooooo true to theirself. Simon has TREMENDOUS strength of character. There's this other thing that happens that I haven't really seen before: he will do something amazing (I'm really only thinking of one scene in particular), and after it happens he'll be alone with his friend and talking about himself in a self-congratulatory way like 12-year-old kid would do it, instead of being in awe of what he did or real quiet about what he did. That humanized him for me. It was funny. I really liked the little guy. But I bet tons of churches and their church members all over the place are telling each other to go see the darn thing or asking each other if they've seen it yet. Cuz it's got sorta heavy religious overtones. But that didn't ruin it for me. It's held in check and tempered well enough by story and characterizations that would work and hold up under any conditions. Still, too Norman Rockwelly, for me, for it to be a great movie.

I've heard alternately that "Simon Birch" is heartwarming and touching, and sappy and overly sentimental. Have you read John Irving's "Prayer for Owen Meany?" It was soooo good, I'm sure the movie doesn't come close. For one thing, Vietnam isn't even in the movie, is it? Damn Hollywood. "Rounders" sounds like something I'll skip. I don't need a primer on poker, I want to be entertained!! And there's a narrator?? (*shudder*) I hate the feeling that I'm being read to in place of just being shown. You know, I didn't realize there was such a resemblance between MD and LD till you mentioned it, wer...both "golden boys" (remember all the hype surrounding Brad Pitt a few years ago?) Saw "The Truman Show" tonight. It was a very interesting premise and Jim Carrey gave a terrific performance. However, it wasn't executed/developed as well as it could have been, I thought--I can't say I'd even recommend it, but it was thought-provoking (in a "Future Shock" sense). What else is playing?

I can recommend "Smoke Signals". But you may not want to listen to me..."The Truman Show" is one of the best films I've seen all year. I adored it. :)

Really! Tell me what impressed you so much, Charlotte. Maybe I just didn't "get it." What is "Smoke Signals" about?

I haven't seen a movie in a long time! Maybe this weekend. Maybe Smoke Signals?

Didn't know 'Simon Birch' was based on a book (then again, I don't know much). Prolly said so, somewhere in very beginning (which I missed) or in the credits. Barb, one a my sisters, really wanted me to read Irving's 'Prayer for Owen Meany'---and that was about 5 years ago or so. But it had like more'n 50 pages in it, and every page had a whole buncha words on it. That'd wear me plum out.....make me into plum pudding, betcha a plum. Some day I gonna have ta sit down by somebody who's readin' one a them thick books, take a good long look at 'em in action, and just try'n figger out how they maybe do it. Do you guys actually read every page, or do ya skip hunks of 'em at a time?

Ha-ha, Jim! Actually, my eyes glazed over at a lot of the Reagan-bashing in that novel. But if the reading gets you down, I bet they have it on tape at the library. My husband "reads" lots of good books this way in the car.

Maybe I could hitch a ride with him and while he's switching the tapes, I could ask him about you. Wonder how he'd describe you....

'One True Thing' [Meryl Streep, Renee Zellweger, William Hurt] Saw it at 30 minutes after midnight. Got out 2 hours later. Felt good at the very beginning to be in a movie where people were really relating to each other, like compared to the people in 'Rush Hour' and 'Slums of Beverly Hills' and 'The Governess'. Then right off I could see that they weren't relating at all. But they did a good job of being unable to apprehend each other. I think the problem for me with it was that each person stayed who they were too relentlessly, I guess like they were supposed to. I was starting to think just now that the emotions need to deflate, break down, give way, let go, so that incoming change can impart its fresh new turnaround, and affect that penetrated place inside where instincts wave in the badly needed and inconceivable conduit to other possibilities. Sure is fun to see Meryl Streep flesh out each latest persona, as she once again makes this one distinct and capable of being touched and felt. This family of father, mother, daughter, and son, was struggling with what each person felt the other's intentions were for them---the daughter was struggling more than anyone, and she made the others struggle, and the mother said how she learned to deal with the struggle she had had over the years with her husband, who has tremendous influence over everyone, and it turned into a movie-long process for the daughter to learn to look differently at the hold he's had on her and on the others.

Jim, (it is Jim, isn't it?) It's time to say that I enjoy your reviews immensely. Each one is a poem. So do you recommend "The One True Thing"?

I actually wouldn't recommend it. Yet I feel that lotsa people will like it enough to where it sure could've been recommended to them, and lotsa people could have the experience I had, which was that I was glad I saw it because I'm interested in the subject matter and I'm interested in what Meryl Streep and William Hurt and Renee Zellweger did in the acting department (even though all of them have done much better in other films, imho, but Meryl Streep did some pretty good work this time around....the others I was okay with except I wanted more from them than I guess they felt they could give for the scenes they were in). I'd recommend a film if it seems like a great movie, or if it just gets to me really really really well in some sorta special way. This movie wasn't like that for me. But I had my reasons for why it held my interest alright. That's the best I can do as far as being totally honest with you, Charlotte. Did it sound like I was just equivocating, or did it sound like I was making some kinda sense on some level?

The latter. Poets always make sense, even if it takes awhile. :)

Absolutely! I love the way Jim throws out a lucid, straight-forward response occasionally just to let us know he's not a whack-job. But if he posted like that all the time, it would frighten me! Sounds like a lot of people struggling in that film, Jim. That wears me out to watch it, like an Anne Tyler novel. I don't want to work that hard, even for Meryl Streep. (Did you ever see her in "House of Spirits"?) Are we to understand that you have seen "Rush Hour", "Slums", and "Governess"? I'd be interested in hearing your comments on those as well.

Yeah, that one (One True Thing) might be a bit wearing for ya, Autumn. Didn't see "The House of the Spirits". But do like to see Meryl up against people who are real different from her and who are powerful in their own way, like Clint Eastwood and Shirley MacLaine. Jeremy Irons does impress me. But then so does Winona Ryder. Glenn Close is hard for me to swallow, personality-wise, and at the same time I really like her and know that she can make a movie that much better than if she's not in it. Alotta this kinda stuff depends on the movie and also of course on my personality and just my likes and dislikes. I saw "Rush Hour" at 5:57 p.m. It wasn't as good as "The Negotiator" or "Snake Eyes". "Rush Hour" was going for comedy. I dunno, Chris Tucker just doesn't have what Eddie Murphy has. The story didn't carry very well. Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker were trying to do take-offs on each other as they got more into who-and-where they were with each other as partners. It was just an ok picture, I guess. "Slums of Beverly Hills"---I wish I knew something about directing & filmmaking, so I could say what this one could've used more of. Quirky and well-drawn characters made me care about whatever in the heck was gonna happen to them. Wanted Marisa Tomei to have been given the chance to explode more, like she did at moments during this certain odd dance she does with Natasha Lyonne (there's that special city again). I like it when she kinda loses control, Marisa, that is---it's a unique kind of humor that makes me feel just great inside. Natasha Lyonne was pretty interesting at times---that kind of person she was, was somebody I wondered about, somewhat put-off by her, but mostly really wanting to be that guy living next door to her so I could be around her alot. Just don't know what that movie needed, to be more what I wanted, doggone it. "The Governess" was just plain too stuffy for me. The lead male needed somebody much better in there. Minnie Driver just doesn't have enough to carry a film, or at least not that one. I really grooved on how she did what she did when she was getting new ideas, and would share them so generously. Her enthusiasm during a moment when a discovery was coming over her was really something to see, because for one thing she was actually making some world-breaking findings that could just come to her because she had a better scientific mind than the scientist. Plus Minnie was combining so much in her life, like photographic aesthetics and chemistry and sex and business enterprise and fun. She was pretty human, and she could look over the layout of a room and tell what's been going on, just by closing in on certain things as she surveyed the room---and her mind was extremely quick and knowing and very very nicely unpresuming. I dunno, maybe the way the repertory setups in the incidents weren't wide open enough, often enough. The drama in it needed more situational spark, if ya ask me.

Well, with those lackluster reviews I won't be seeing any of them, even on video. There are too many other good ones to rent out there! I have never seen Marisa Tomei in anything and never heard of Natasha Lyonne (!).

Both Marisa and Natasha were telling me, before breakfast, that they've heard of you, Autumn. Their faces flushed with excitement. Then that look of longing....so deep and true....hard to take that, just sitting there at the same table with them, observing their frank starker emotions. It was so weird---the next thing I knew, they both looked over at me and and asked (demanded, almost) impatiently: "So Jim, you know, don't you? When IS Autumn's first film coming out?!! Nothing will keep us from attending the world premiere!" I didn't want to let them down, their image of me, plus my image of their image of me, but I had to come out with it, even though English, at that moment, was so hard to come by, since I was thinking then in French, verrry French, then somehow the anglo words started coming back to me: "Please don't hurt me or anything.....really honestly I don't actually know Autumn that well. I'm finding out from YOU for the first time that she even IS coming out with a film. I mean, I didn't know she'd even done any stage work." Just like that, Marisa I think it was, reached down and pulled the cork outta my leg, and blood came gushing out....I came this close to bleeding to death. When I came to, I was in some tiny health clinic in northern Namibia, surrounded by a bunch of refugee Albanians who stared wild-eyed at me as a intrauterine device was sticking out of my mouth while an underage Eros and an even younger Psyche were at my side trying to blow air into my head through my ears.

I'm so jealous of you, Autumn. How did you earn such lovely tributes from JIm? :) Do you think if I am very good he might someday tell me about the breakfast he had with Kevin Costner?

Charlotte, I think that even if you behave deplorably you couldn't prevent Jim from telling you all about his breakfast encounter with Kevin Costner!! And I bet YOU came up in the conversation!!

Well, I blatantly ignored Jim's subtle warnings and I went to see Simon Birch on Friday. It insulted my intelligence, of which I have more than some, less than most. I will pay more attention to you in the future, Jim.

This is a weird thing to say, but it's really hard to tell when a movie just doesn't come through enough, cuz being able to tell feels so subjective---I can't really tell---like with "Simon Birch", I don't know if it was a good movie for me or not, and that's me I'm talking about (not even someone else). I know parts of it were real good for me. And I know that overall, for me, it wasn't a great movie. But I can easily see how people across the full spectrum of intelligence could or will say it was the best movie of the year. It's just so weird to get into. Recommending movies is scary. I recommended "Gross Pointe Blank" to some friends, saying it was as good as "Pulp Fiction". Then they saw it and said, "Well, I was expecting a little more. It was okay, I guess." And then I wondered right away how I could compare it to "Pulp Fiction", like maybe I emotionally needed some engaging approval that was very grateful of me for telling them about it. That was scary. So now I just try to see if I can sorta say what I liked and didn't like about a flick, and leave it at that. Yet, I do have this thing that I do with myself---I say to myself that the film was either great or good or okay or not so good. And I'll go like this---"it was closer to okay than good"---but I gotta start remembering to include the words, "for me....not for anyone else, now." How do you go about all this stuff, Charlotte, when you talk to someone about a movie you've seen, and they haven't seen it yet? I saw "What Dreams May Come" Friday night. And hopefully I can't remember any of it by now. It was like a little less than okay. There were certain scenes in it that broke new ground in special effects. I'd visualized or imagined afterlife, but this movie helped me see it like it read, when I'd read of afterlife. It was just a 10 minute part of the movie, though, that dealt with that one part of afterlife I was interested in. Like I wasn't interested in their version of certain other parts of afterlife. And even that one part of afterlife I was interested in, they were managing to make it become more and more too overdone or sappy. But there was a thing or two that they did really well with the parts I liked that motioned out of the moment and went through a revelation for me. As the movie went on and on, I cared less and less about what Robin Williams was doing with his character---he just started looking like a retread---and Annabella Sciorra started looking like she didn't know how to get out of the movie and was stuck there---and Cuba Gooding, Jr. looked like he'd rather be playing some football with Tom Cruise or Ricky Williams (top running back in college football). I mean it's just too bad movies fall apart like they do, when they do---cuz what if they'd been in the hands of a great director and a great screenplay writer.....? So the thing is, with all this, somebody else who saw "What Dreams May Come" may want to come over and kick my ass for what I said about it. It's so subjective. People may have well-devised critical criteria for saying what they say about a movie. But me.....I'm a complete ninny. I have no idea what I'm talkin' about. It's just stuff. Just some subjective reactions that this Jim guy had. Is all. I hope no goes by what I say. I just like to talk. Can you imagine how far off I could feel about something that someone else feels about? It's just so far.

I have difficulty reviewing movies for people because my scope of flicks is so narrow. I simply like it or not or sometimes really fall in love with the characters or the plot or the music or the projections I make based not solely on what I've seen but how I've internalized it. I saw The Avengers and Mafia! They were stupid but I laughed really hard at times. I cannot say that I'd recommend the films to anyone but I'd probably quote a few lines from one or the other... just to be silly.

I guess the real difficulty arises when I see a movie I love. I cannot express just how I feel. I mean it'd be so much easier just to hug someone and say, "the movie felt like this." Or to sob and cry and come to realization after realization and say, "See how I am now... the movie triggered that response."

... so much easier just to hug someone and say, "the movie felt like this." I think this is a superb idea, Stacey! Far more eloquent than words. I know it's a long shot, but do any of you get up early enough on Sunday mornings to watch Sunday Morning? There is a reviewer who makes regular appearances on that program (John something or other) who makes me crazy. His language is so pseudo-intellectual, ridden with references and allusions that are beyond my understanding, a vocabulary that sounds too cerebral to be real, and a philosophy that typically says "the more vague the better". I'm always yelling at the TV "but what does that MEAN!! is it a good book? did you enjoy the movie? what are you really SAYING!" grrrr. That said, I love the reviews that I read here in this lovely, warm, totally two-dimensional den. What I read here means something to me. The remarks are genuine and sincere, and there is no pontificating and intellectualizing. oops. somebody at the door...i'll continue this later.

Sorry 'bout that. Several hours and a bottle of wine later... The Sunday Morning reviewer's name is John Leonard, by the way. I'm afraid I can't offer much by way of an answer to Jim or Stacey who want to know how I describe movies to my friends. Like you both, I have unpredictable and eclectic tastes. I will simply adore a film that leaves my friends scratching their heads in puzzlement. No one understood why I saw Strictly Ballroom 27 times. Or what I saw in The Fifth Element that made it warrant 7 viewings. No one cries over Peter O'Toole's version of Goodbye, Mr. Chips the way that I do. The best I can come up with is this word: resonance. When a character or a scene touches me on some deep level, something inside me resonates, and I have to watch it again and again just to relive that feeling. Sometimes, it is something so banal as the fact that the leading man makes my knees weak. Like William Fichtner's role in Armageddon, or Alan Rickman in Truly Madly Deeply. But most of the time, it is merely inexplicable. Even if I understand the appeal that a film holds for me, I can't seem to manage to explain it. The best example of this is Nickel Mountain, starring Michael Cole, from "Mod Squad" so many years ago. I have yet to meet another person who has even seen this film, much less treasure it like I do. :) So...to summarize...our love of films, to my way of thinking, resides on that intangible plane where words are not always compatible. In that nebulous, inexplicable realm where we also find beauty and passion and love.

Yeah, movies really get to us and sometimes they don't. I wish people could listen closely to what I say about them, while at the same time kind of dismissing what I say as pap. I like that balance, if it were only possible, because it seems to me to be closer to what's actually going on, what with the extreme personal, private, and peculiar nature of our response to a film. Is it that we can't really do anything about how another person will tend to let our opinion guide them on whether they should or shouldn't go see a movie? Sometimes our impressions of a movie do affect people's choices and sometimes they don't affect them, right?---and that's just the way it is....it's out of our hands, yes? See, Charlotte, I would feel bad if, for example, I had disclosed here how I had felt about "The Truman Story" before you saw it, because it could have affected you to choose not to see it, and if you hadn't seen it, you would've missed a really good movie-watching experience for you. So, I mean, how do you feel about that? Plus, I just thought of something else. Oh this is embarrassing. Ah yes, this is quite embarrassing. My vanity. I'm looking right into it. Um, uh, Charlotte, what's happening is that I've built into my mind that what I say here about movies really affects you, even if you blatantly ignore it (like with "Simon Birch"). And my vanity, I think, doesn't want to lose that feeling about myself that that gives to me. Yet, another part of me, my conscience, which I fear may be actually fairly vain as well (have you ever felt that feeling?), I think my conscience feels this feeling of responsibility that says that I should not indulge the vanity of my vanity at your expense, by letting my notions or impressions of a movie sway you, when my notions are so noodle-headed in origin just by their very nature (since they're so subjective in origin). It's probably hard to make sense of what I'm saying right now, so maybe I should let you respond or not, without my adding any further words, for now, so as not to further complicate what may be difficult to communicate. Are you....I mean, is there....is there any wine that you have left, there....oh that would be nice to have a little glass....mmm yesss....ahh, more would be fine.... oh, a full glass....thank you, Charlotte.

Jamie, dear Jamie. Methinks you worrieth too much! Of course what you say here effects my judgment, but so does whatever SIskel and Ebert have to say. So do the reviews of James Berardinelli, my favorite internet reviewer. So do the opinions of my friends. They all go into the messy pot disguised as my brain, where they get stirred and sifted. Then, as we all do, I make my own, independent, decision about whether or not to see the film. I am also influenced by the trailers, to some degree. So, in retrospect, I wish I had NOT gone to see Simon Birch. I would wish this, even if you had loved it. And I am very glad that I went to see The Truman Show, twice, no matter what you feel about it. But (listen up, Jamie's ego), I would sorely miss your input here. Without it, my decision making process would be like a pizza without cheese, fudge without walnuts, peanut butter without jelly, popcorn without salt. In other words...possible, but not nearly as enjoyable.

or fudge popcorn without walnutty jellypeanut salted-butter even!

I understand alot of what you're saying, Charlotte---like the part about how you value my reactions to movies because they enter into your decision-making process along with all the other things (trailers, reviews), and then you make your own independent choice. It sticks in my mind that "Well, I blatantly ignored Jim's subtle warnings and I went to see Simon Birch on Friday" could imply that if you hadn't "blatantly ignored Jim's subtle warnings" then you would have not gone to see "Simon Birch". Maybe it doesn't imply that at all. But that's where my confusion stems from. Also, using that same possibly highly inaccurate implication, if I had said something similar or more negative about "The Truman Story" as what I'd said about "Simon Birch", and if I'd said it before you'd seen "The Truman Story", then you would have not gone to see "The Truman Story". Even if, after having seen it, you're very glad you've seen it, you might not have seen it if you'd seen something negative from me about it before you'd seen it. "I will pay more attention to you in the future, Jim"---that could mean that you might not have seen "The Truman Story" in the first place (and may be staying away from it to this day) if you paid more attention to something I said about it if I'd said something negative about it before you'd seen it. And that seems different from what you're saying about how you consider lots of things besides just my thing---also, taking the scenario in this paragraph, if you had considered lots of other things, and then each time you considered my thing, if my thing has the effect on you that it sounds like it does from those words in quotes, then it seems like my thing more determining than the other things, and not just more determining, but also overly determining. It feels like there's a difference going on between valuing my reaction to a movie and using it as a warning system to not see a movie, and sort of reprimanding yourself for not having paid more attention to warnings in my reaction. But you're saying I worrieth too much. And that could imply that it's too common or natural to read a negative reaction as a kind of guide to beware of the movie being reacted to, and to really consider staying away from it....and that to corroborate what you thought my negative reaction was, to 'Simon Birch', by way of saying that you wished, in so many words, that you hadn't done what you did (seen it), is nice way of giving me encouragement---something like that? I think what I'm saying is that I think I've said to other people something similar to what you said to me, and it felt to me like what you're saying it feels like to you. But for some reason, this time around, being on the receiving end of it, it felt different. It felt like my reaction was weighing in heavier than a valued input for you, that it was a 'don't see/warning/guidance system', and feels like something different from just valued input. I can sense how this sort of talk on my part can cause tension, if it feels like worrying too much or overanalyzing or being ridiculous. But what if it actually makes sense....in some valid sense....? What if it's looked at as something that we all go through and isn't exactly smooth sailing.....I don't mean to be a curmudgeon....I mean to inquire into 2 different meanings (that may not be different after all), and I wanted to be clear about how my confusion stemmed from those words of yours that I put into quotes. Here's another notion: we often say one thing and do another. I can tell my friend Gerard that I like to hear what he says about certain things and regard it very highly when considering stuff. But in actuality, I rely very heavily on what he says and just go by it fairly blindly because it makes things easier and also because I like how he thinks and stuff. But I of course tend to withhold from him this truth, and tell him stuff that implies that I'm not concealing the truth that I withhold. He may sense otherwise by certain things that I've told him that I may have forgotten that I've said, but that he still remembers. He may question me about it, and I may be caught red-handed, and then I may admit that I wanted to look to him like I was more level-headed and reflective of many points of input. And he may say back that while he was sensing something was amiss there, before he asked me directly about it, that it was getting to him and making him feel like not what he wanted to feel like---like too much of a beacon or something. The coolest things about a movie don't have to do with whether the movie should be seen or not, it seems to me. Like a movie that I couldn't stand, I wouldn't want to mention it if that was all I was gonna say. If I didn't like a movie, I'd like to say why, and that 'why' is where the value is in my reaction, not in whether it's best to stay away from seeing it. Consumer choice---should I see it or not---can consume us more than we might realize. We might even all agree that it's impossible to separate out the consumer choice part of reading movie reactions. Maybe it's too normal or natural or human, or maybe in our modern culture with so many choices to be made with so many things in life, it's unavoidable. I just wish the stuff I say could be read as only reactions to be considered for their ideas and their situational content---like looking at something that happened to you today and wondering about it, feeling it, but not necessarily using that experience as a warning to not do the experience again at a later time....because at a later time, the "same" experience can look quite similar but have many important things going on in it that are different from the earlier "same" experience. But I admit that I pan stuff, like all I'm really doing is nothing MORE than panning it, which really means that all I'm really doing is warning anyone to watch out about this movie.....in other words, I'm acting like some sort of beacon. So I think I'm contradicting myself, aren't I? It doesn't make me a complete ninny, though. But complete ninnies are real saturated in contradiction.....I think I'm drenched, but I may not be dripping.... well I take that back....there's a puddle here now. I just hope nobody read any of Response 177 (this response). You didn't, did you? Man, do I ever have no idea what I'm talking about. I need a dumpster to live out the rest of my days in. I guess I'll go look for one right now.

Jim, you're starting to sound like the way my brain thinks...

LePlep, can you expound more on the 5th Element? Anyone seen the new Robin Williams movie?

... since you've seen the 5th Element 7 times.

I've also seen it 7 times, or maybe 6 or 8. I've lost track. The Fifth Element is just plain fun (to me). No deep and profound thinking required. Just hop on and go for a ride through a visual smorgasboard. Fine comic performances all around, but especially from Ian Holm (is there anything this man cannot do?). This film contains what must surely be the funniest mugging scene in cinema history. Once you've seen it a couple of times, you begin to feel like you're at a party with well-known friends. You anticipate the scenes you love, and you know the dialogue by heart. I was never one of the Rocky Horror Picture Show junkies, but I imagine that what I feel when I watch The Fifth Element is similar to their rapture. ("Anybody else wanna negotiate?")

Is there another Leplep in your life, Terry? I saw "The Fifth Element" one time, back when it first came out. But it's fun to think that I'm 2 people, and one of me is going around saying I've 7 times seen Looloo do what she does in that movie. Response 169 had some junk on "What Dreams May Come" (Robin Williams new flick) Did you (Terry) see "The Fifth Element"? If so, was it for you kinda like what it was for Charlotte? I wonder what feelings you felt, what crazy notions came to you....mmmm.... and it's just fun to fancy you being IN the movie, some character that operated as a go-between between Looloo and the Bruce Willis character, and that now you're checking in with us to tell us what it was like to be in that movie and to be that character.....yeah, and you're singing for us this song that you sang in the movie....that song that you sang that lasted only 31 seconds, or was 21 sec.? Actually, I've never seen a movie 3 times. Only about 5, probably, I've seen twice. I really like the element of surprise---don't know what's gonna happen next.... not that the element of surprise is the 5th element or anything.....

I wanna watch Glory and Nightbreed again...hmmm...

Think I'll take the kiddos to the $2 Sunday matinee of the Parent Trap remake.

Don't do it, Autumn. It's a trap. You might not be able to get out of this one. Bet it will test all your mettle. Hope you're at the top of your game Sunday afternoon. If you want to wait, they'll probably release you by Tuesday. Don't carry too much money on you. Carry lotsa candy---that's one of the best bribes. Yeah, if ya bring lotsa candy, you could get out even before all the credits roll. But it's still takin' a chance. You might be pushed into having to become another frantic Indiana Jones. I could start preparing you for it by calling you Indiana. Or would Maryland be a little closer?

Uh oh... did she make it out safely?

Whew--they let me out a day early for good behavior! Actually, it was a pretty cute remake, if a little long by Disney standards (a solid 2 hours). Juliette liked it, Lydia didn't get it, and my sister cried throughout the whole movie.

I was sitting behind Lydia---that's the only reason she didn't get it. But she met a great new friend. We messed around alot. Glad you liked the movie enough to not notice what we were doing. Me and Lydia were so lucky---the stuff we got away with! Can't wait till next time. She's really alotta fun. Especially at movies.

"The Mighty" If you have kids who are like between 9 and 16 (I have several hundred--- thankfully, none of them know who their father is), this movie is for them, and maybe for you. I liked it alot. But almost all because of Kieran Culkin. It's his eyes. They're so much fun. The looks he gives Elden Henson are delicate and mischievous and challenging, and totally alive---they really wake Max up. Elden Henson plays Max (the Mighty), and Kieran Culkin plays Kevin (the Freak). It's based on a book, "Freak the Mighty". The movie is "Simon Birch, Part Two". So many similarities. But "The Mighty" is pretty watchable. There's alotta tough spots they have to get themselves out of, the biggest being their own lonelinesses, their isolated miserable lives. So they discover each other. Kevin has the same disease Simon Birch has. Max has the body and legs and Kevin has the brain, and when they become friends, Kevin is often perched on Max's shoulders, and Kevin gives them both a joined name: Freak the Mighty. The way their friendship begins is like it was conceived with its own birth---I mean they both got impregnated with something that reproduced life for both of them. How they became friends.....um, well, it started out slender and meager, and then it grew on them very naturally and prevailed. They have lots of real adventures. The Kevin character is as precocious as Simon Birch and Will Hunting, and I liked seeing how he, Kevin, would react when he was really provoked, under threateni g conditions, and also under intimate conditions. "The Mighty" jerked tears from me during those times when Kevin passed through people's defenses with his facial expressions, his rapier wit, his voice, and most of all his impish delight. Sometimes it happens to me that a character in a film I've just seen will come back to live inside me for maybe 20 minutes at most and vanish forever. Kieran Culkin did that to me as I was driving home. It was like his personality was going on inside me for about 10 inutes. And I wish the movie had more challenges for him, like that one in the bar in "Good Will Hunting" where Will and that other student were going at it for a while. Yeah, I woulda liked to have seen Freak (Kevin) and Blade do that in their own way. The kid who played Blade looked kinda interesting. "The Mighty" is still a whole other flick from "Simon Birch", those two movies have differences that are pretty different. The Max character was compelling good acting.

I had already added this one to my rental list based on a review I read in the newspaper--thanks for the affirmation, Jim. Have you met Joe Black yet?

Not yet. Have met him before in other movies, though.....heh-heh....

Do you ever watch Siskel and Ebert, LePlep?

Ebert's personality isn't so appetizing for me. They go over movies I haven't seen yet. And I like to go into a movie with no preconceptions. I'd like to know who's in a movie and whether it won some award and who the director is---I get all that from the Austin Chronicle. I'd like to know if they gave a movie 2 thumbs up. I'd probably like the show ok if I'd already seen the films. Sometimes that's the case and they're okay. Ebert's written reviews are pretty worthwhile reading, if I've already seen the movie. Never read anything by Siskel. Ebert gets into this emotionally stuffy/huffy crusty rigid crotchety and dyspeptic manner when they disagree with each other. I'd rather he just pull the stick out from up his butt. But he doesn't ever pull his pants down and do the deed. So I just switch the channel to the one that's always auctioning off these really different fake beards at ridiculously low prices.

I saw ANTZ this weekend. It was ok. Not nearly as miraculous as all the hype leads you to believe. Pretty mundane storyline. A few spectacular images. Excellent animation. But I still think Toy Story is the superior film.

Toy Story is a wonderful wonderful film - "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" :-)

That's right, an all-around fun movie.

Like Aliens?

or maybe like "Western"? "Western" It was in french, subtitles were in English though (not Afrikaans like last time), so the only person there in the audience who didn't have to read 'em was Autumn, but I dunno if she liked the movie at all (she kept kicking my butt the whole way back to the car, after the show). The center of the story was its own easy going movement. It had its focus on a quirky relationship between these 2 men. A relationship that came outa nowhere and could come apart as easily as it could fumble back together again. These 2 guys were real different from each other and they did stuff together that you just don't see people do. They made it work. It worked real well. I thought I would give people more of a chance after I saw this movie. This one guy would mess up a lot, like it was in him to do that because of how he saw himself and because he sorta didn't know any better. This other guy did well with people, but he was I think somehow truly affected by the guy who messed up, starting with the hospital scene (which was real near the beginning). The one guy was real steady and would give people a chance. The other guy was driven but in a sort of gypsy way, a lost way that was always hoping he would finally find a way to make things work. They really helped each other to realign themselves to each other after each of the many bad episodes they had with each other. It took some doing. But they worked it through each time. You can really feel the struggle they were going through with each other. But the pace and open air of their always changing circumstances could touch you where you were willing to let in their undeveloped but developing small but larger amounts of companionable friendship. You could see them getting to see what they meant to each other. This movie was really well put together. So human, and also so nicely non-big budget, non-Hollywood. A french sensibility with a cool spirit of adventure. With tough situations like jealousy and rejection and dislocation. And self-image taking a big hit sometimes. It's funny how their surroundings and the controlling factors would shift so frequently and with such a swift vigor that made me WANT to trust the road "Western" was taking.

Went to the $2 movies last night and saw "There's Something about Mary." Turns out there's really nothing about Mary. Laughed in spite of myself a few times--brought out the lowest common denominator in the audience. The humor was pretty base.

The discount theater in my neighborhood keeps the same movies for weeks and weeks, and usually it's nothing I want to see. Or there hasn't been anything I want to see in over a month. I can't even remember the last one I saw. I hate being carless. There's a theater up in Round Rock (a suburb north of Austin) that has a lot of competition from a new mega-complex, so they have $2 matinees and $4 admission every night -- and they're all first-run features. It's so far away city buses stop about three miles short of the theater :(