The Weekend In Movies: Don't let Mr. Brooks Knock You Up to Death.

Hey, look ma, another addition to my Blog Series! This one is a brief rundown of what's opening in my home town of Victoria, what I'll be seeing, and my thoughts on each. Bonus points if I've seen them already, and in this case I've already seen two!

Mr. Brooks (* 1/2) - Imagine A History of Violence but Viggo's bad guy has an imaginary friend following him around, and, how's this for irony, he's played by William Hurt! This lousy, clunking bore of a thriller picture casts Kevin Costner as businessman by day, killer by night, and also throws in Demi Moore as a rich cop who's out to get him. (Odeon, Silvercity)

Knocked Up (****) -- The year's funniest film -- brought to you by Judd Apatow (The 40 Year Old Virgin) -- and by far an event film for the summer. Watch the hilarious Seth Rogen accidentally impreginate Katherine Heigl (from Gray's Anatomy). Watch Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann own the film as a bickering married couple. Watch some of the best comedic timing and writing of any film you'll see this year. (Odeon, Silvercity, University 4)

Bug (N/A) -- For some odd reason, Lions Gate didn't get this film to Vic until this weekend, but I'll still be happy enough to check out William Friedkin's new film, which looks equal part spooky (it helps that Mr. Spook himself, Michael Shannon, is cast here) and a lot of fun. Here's hoping! (Odeon)

What else: The Roxy is double-billing Meet The Robinsons and Blades of Glory starting at 7:15. I'll be attending the former as I still haven't seen the latest Disney picture (which got good reviews), but forget the Will Ferrell is Gay Skate Comedy as I could hardly watch it the first time.

What else you could see that's playing this weekend: After The Wedding at the Vic, Hot Fuzz at the Capitol, Zodiac at UVIC Cinecenta, Away From Her and/or Waitress at the Odeon. Failing all of that, how about catching a series of food documentaries at the UVIC international Food Conference this weekend?

Jason
efilmcritic.com

Watanabe says you're picking up Letters From Iwo Jima on DVD this week.

In trying to resurrect my DVD of the Week series (and this whole blog in general), I'm hoping that at least once a week I can pick a movie for you. For those times that you're in a Ballbuster, a Rogersless or Flick Gallery, or wherever you rent the DVD's, and you have no idea what to look for. Well, now you do.

In the trilogy of the best films of 2006, Letters From Iwo Jima stands tall and strong. It is Clint Eastwood's followup to his very good, if not great, Flags of our Fathers which was about a group of Americans involved in the Iwo Jima battle. This film tells from the perspective of the Japanese side and Eastwood has made a war masterpiece that ranks along the works of Kurosawa. It's a bit difficult to compare to other war films, as we really haven't had many stories on Iwo Jima in the past. If anything, it earns comparisons to Das Boot in the way we are given a complex view of war from the "other side".

It also helps that Ken Watanabe gives one of the best performances of last year as the strong-headed general Kurbiyashi. He is also supported by a strong group of characters, all with their own perspective of the Iwo Jima battle, who add to the horrors and the brutal reality of this war of which they lost.

The film is beautiful in many ways. Along with the complex characters and performances, Tom Stern's bleak and dank cinematography adds to the horrors of the situation, and Clint Eastwood's haunting score stays with you days after you've seen it.

This is an unforgettable film that would make a great addition to your collection. Oh, and I don't want to hear any bull about you not reading subtitles. There is no english dubbing, there are instead simple and elegant words along the bottom of the frame to help guide you along this great film.

Jason
efilmcritic.com

Return Your Phone Calls.

Well, what do you know, I've been stood up again.

I had plans to have fun with some friends out of town. A friend called about a week ago about us getting together when they arrived in Victoria. I then asked if I should secure two days during the week off, friend said yes, and then I did. This friend promised that night to talk the other night about getting together yesterday (tuesday). I should mention again that I was able to secure two days off in the middle of the week.

Well guess what, they didn't call. Nada. Zilch. I just wasted an entire day sitting here on my ass writing, fixing my computer and watching Gilmore episodes on DVD. I even called once earlier tonight and left a message, and my calling late-at-night rules are pretty lax (I keep late hours). The phone didn't ring. No explanation.

This is something that has been bothering me for a long time and I've went over into the reign of I'm Mad As Hell and I'm Not Going To Take It Anymore. People who don't return phone calls suck, and I am now going to get on your case if you are one of these people. Now, I normally don't use the word "suck" to describe anything (except for when I'm drunk, perhaps), but when I take the time to call someone to connect and I don't hear back from them in less than 24 hours, I consider it being ignored. It's personal. And it sucks, it really really sucks.

Has this ever happened to you? I'm sure it has. You call, their voicemail works, you leave a message and you don't hear back. You then try again a couple of times, but still to no avail. You don't want to overdo it. You wonder why they haven't returned the call. Are they busy? Are they in surgery? You backtrack to wonder if any previous conversation made them not call you back. Is their cell phone dead?

If you have a cell phone, normally the "I'm busy" excuse is bullshit. You ALWAYS have time to return a phone call, when you're walking from one place to another. If you're working, take a moment of rest and pick up the phone. If you're going to be out of town or unavailable to return a call, here's a wacky idea: update your voicemail message to note this. Or even better; if you are the kind of person who doesn't return phone calls, say this in your message!

What makes matters even worse is that I rearranged my schedule for nothing. Since this day was supposed to be about spending time with friends out of town, then they suddenly pull a Claude Rains and I have no idea what's going on. My friends leave for home on Thursday and I don't think I'll be seeing them for another nine months because of this.

If anything, this makes me question who my friends really are. I may not be seeing them in nine months after all.

Oh, and since this blog is normally about movies, er...Go see Grindhouse. Or if you haven't seen it yet and are looking for a good DVD to rent, try the Howard Beale Show. You don't want to not return that guy's call.

Okay I'm done. At least in this opinion I'm not alone.

Jason
efilmcritic.com

The BATMAX Experience!

When I first heard that Christopher Nolan was taking on the Batman franchise a couple of years ago, I was blown away. Batman is my favorite comic book character and I enjoyed the movies -- but didn't adore them -- and it was about time that someone made a REAL film on the Dark Knight. Nolan succeeded in 2005 and Batman Begins was #5 on my list of that year's best films.

The wait for the upcoming The Dark Knight is already a long one, especially after seeing recent glimpses of Heath Ledger easily fitting into the shoes of The Joker. Nolan clearly knows what he's doing, so I have total faith in this film. And now it's getting even bigger.

Scott Bowles of USA Today fame has reported that Nolan will be shooting four segments of The Dark Night in the 15-perf, 65mm IMAX format, one of which includes the entrance of the Joker (which now means I should probably avoid all of the trailers for the film which are sure to reveal these).

Since Warner is a big gambler in the IMAX, DMR blow-ups, do we think that a great step has been taken towards, I dunno, shooting an ENTIRE FEATURE FILM THIS WAY? Or at the very least in the Super Panavision 70mm format, which would also allow cinemas to project this superior, stronger film format and allow easier transfers to IMAX/DMR prints?

Jason
efilmcritic.com

Lazy Sunday Short Ends: Computer a Troublin, New Photo and Pirates BOFFO BOX OFFICE! Because that's all that matters.

Well, Lazy Sunday wasn't much of one, as I was working. An anti-Lazy Sunday if you will.

At your left is a picture that I took from a moving bus on my way into Victoria last weekend. Pictured is a neighborhood gas station near the Dean Park area, where I grew up. The weekly quotes I enjoy to glance at on my ride into town every week.

Prior to that, I had a brief power outage last night and I couldn't get this lousy computer of mine to work properly. Which is partly my fault as this current PC is an absolute mess thanks to years of downloading, writing and burning archives and I look forward to getting it restored -- or possibly replaced -- soon.

Aww, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. You didn't break Spider-Man 3's monetary record, but you came close. Watch as Disney will tabulate the weekend numbers and say it's "The Biggest Pirates of the Caribbean Opening on Memorial Day Weekend Ever!"

And what a sluggish movie it is! Unbelievably overlong at 168 minutes, there were so many zigs-and-zags, far too many characters and pacing problems that had me checking my watch for nearly half the running time. It looks great, of course, and you can never take your eyes off of Keira Knightley, but this was dull and forgettable as Dead Man's Chest was, just in a different way.

Before the film, I was blown away to see that there's an upcoming sequel to one of the worst films of 2004, just in time for the holiday season! Not even the radiant Diane Kruger will get me into the moobyplex for this one.

Already this summer season is a dreary and boring one. Why can't people flock to some better movies in their area instead?

Jason
efilmcritic.com

Fuckin' A, Stuntman Mike!

As excited as I am about the prospect of getting to see Death Proof on its own in a director's cut, in another way I'm a bit saddened to think that the great version that exists as the better half of the Grindhouse experience may be ignored after this comes out. It won't by me, that's for damn sure.

Thankfully, Mr. Snake Plissken agrees. He's in Cannes promoting the director's cut and isn't too happy with the reaction to the film over here. Here's the news feed from IMDB Pro:

Source: WENN

Kurt Russell has warned U.S. cinemagoers [and Canadian s too!] they will regret not savoring the recent Grindhouse movie because there will never be a cinema experience like it again. The double bill helmed by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez aimed to replicate the grindhouse experience of the 1970s by showing fake trailers between the two movies - but the films will be released separately for its European theatrical release after a poor showing at the U.S. box office earlier this year. And Russell, who starred in Tarantino's installment Death Proof, is saddened by the audience's response. Speaking at Cannes Film Festival, he says, "There will be no movies made in the next five years like Planet Terror and Death Proof. These two movies are going to go off with a life of their own, but my prediction is that 20 years from now, you'll want the Grindhouse experience. You won't want them separately. For the full effect, the other experience is something bizarre that I've never experienced before and I like the short version."

I've seen Grindhouse five times. I'm one happy repeat customer, and will go check out the 192-minute, 12-reeler with all the missing reels, scratch marks and watch Zoe the Cat until I get sick and tired of it all (which is a long way's away). I'm more than positive that the director's cut of Death Proof will be great, but we can't ignore what is already there.

Jason
efilmcritic.com

Short Ends: Look at the new Look!

As we're about to embark on a weekend of trying to figure out which screening of Pirates of the Caribbean 3 is the least busy (hint: if you're living in Victoria, BC, might I suggest going here this weekend), I thought I'd update and mention the nice new look of the blog which so far I'm enjoying.

Utilizing the new Blogger software, the columns are widened just a bit, there are new tag and link sidebars on the right, and you might have noticed that new banner on the top! I'm still working on THAT as well, so you may see a new one later this week.

(For now, the left-to-right includes me pointing a camera at you, friends of the VIFF group, Fergus The Dog pictured at the beach, dad and me at VIFF together, a wacky shot of myself dancing at the VIFF gala and a shot of my friends at SxSW this spring.)

My new camera is wonderful and I'm still working out some of the kinks. Not every photo I'm taking is flawless but that's understandable given the nature of the beast. Hopefully when the sun comes out later this week I can grab some new outdoor shots for my next Lazy Sunday contribution.

The reopened National Westwood (formerly Mann National, now run by an independent) is playing one of my favorite films, Paris Je'Taime, so if you're anywhere in the area, go line up and enjoy Paris beauty on one of the biggest screens in the world. The place also looks like it's turning into showing art house, foreign and independent, so if it turns out to be successful, then that might take the bite out of it getting redeveloped.

Some funny new updates on Laura's Funny Celebrity blog, and I'm hoping that she puts up a future post on why a particularly famous, former Alcohol Anonymous members probably shouldn't have Svedka Vodka as a sponsor for your next birthday party.

Also, coming soon to efilmcritic is a discussion on why you should watch The Fountain on DVD. Goss, Brian, Rob and myself will all be ordering you to run out and rent it, because you were too silly to miss it in cinemas. You silly bean.

Jason
efilmcritic.com

Jay Has Camera.

Well, I finally decided to make the jump.

If you've been talking with me with the past while, you know what I'm talking about. For those that don't, I finally purchased my (hopefully) last digital camera which I have been obsessing over to buy.

It all started with my friend Curtis' Sony Digital Mavica, which got pictures as big as 640x480. Huge, 3.5" floppy drive and everyone looked pasty. I remember being down in LA for a Home Theater Forum convention and literally stealing that thing from him.

For years, I had been taking picutres with a tiny little Fuji Finepix A101 that my lovely and amazing parents got me for Christmas a few years back. Since that number is low, it can kind of give you an idea of its basic-ity. 1.3 megapixel, handled low light really badly and it was embarassing for some indoor shots I took.

(Still, that camera has had its success; for one, the front page of the official website for The New Pornographers contains a nicely drawn graphic of a picture I took at their Vancouver concert in 2005 from that very little contraption.)

Last September, I made a small jump and purchased a nice digital camera, Canon's Powershot A-700. Already obsolete, this 6.0 megapixel camera did beautiful daytime shots, some good night shots but was still a bit tricky on indoor photography, unless you were shooting really up close. Red and orange-eye were also huge problems.

And after months of research, I finally decided to purchase the Canon Rebel XTi, a 10.1 megapixel digital SLR behemoth. The camera usually comes with a 18-55mm lens, but on ordering I said "scrap it" due to negative reviews and ponied up for a 28-135mm IS USM lens, a 75-300mm USM lens and a Wide Angle lens. And also a bunch of accessories that also help keep the camera easy to use.

I think the obsession began at this year's SxSW, where I ran into a guy at the Bill Paxton panel who politely asked me to take a few pictures with Bill. He handed me a Nikon SLR and gave me a few quick pointers on how to use it, but I instantly fell in love with it and knew how to frame, focus and take shots in a matter of seconds. As he talked with Bill, I snapped a few shots of them talking and immediately thought to myself "Jay Man, get yourself one of these damn things!"

It's not like this was my first foray into SLR's, however. I have handled several over the years (Paul Duchart, a actor/photographer friend of mine in Vancouver, has asked me to take shots of him with actors and filmmakers MANY times over the years), and I knew the passion was there, but as I was standing in front of Paxton, I knew I finally had to get a camera like this. And this Canon is much easier to use than you think; it's a breeze to take the shots that you want on auto or manual focus and adapt to different lenses. It's a bit heavier, of course, but I look forward to studying photography and taking better pictures. It's been a hobby of mine for many years and now I finally have a tool that can definitely help down the road.

I'm going to try to have a new little addition to this blog, where I update every Sunday with a new photo I have taken with my Rebel. The series will be called Lazy Sunday in addition to still trying to redesign the blog for easier readability.

(This image at the top is a bit blurry, since it's a reflection of myself in a sliding glass door sitting in my driveway, which is to be installed later this week. I was out on friday morning grabbing tons of shots and thought this one was rather amusing, as well as this one here, a shot of me photographing into my bathroom mirror, which I then mirrored in Paint Shop Pro. Tee hee.)

Jason
efilmcritic.com

Shrek The Third: Most Useless Film of 2007?

Have you ever go to a party you're invited to and not have a good time? We've all had those parties that we go to and just something isn't right about it. Maybe no one is talking about anything interesting. The booze isn't that good. The only people you know are off entertaining others. So you sit there, bored out of your mind, as everyone else is laughing it up.

It's just like those movies you go to and everyone else around you is yukking it up (kind of like earlier this year where I sat in aghast over an audience full of giggling goofnuts at a pre-screening of Wild Hogs) while you sit there wondering exactly what everyone is laughing at.

I'm just not getting it anymore. I've had it with sequels and cash-grab summer movies. I've had it with audiences lining up to see the same shit over and over again while other good films get the chop. At my local 10-screen megaplex in Victoria, NINE of the screens are devoted to sequels while current "lesser" releases like Waitress, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, Paris Je'Taime and Inland Empire (among many others) refuse to even enter the city.

Shrek The Third may go down in my personal history books as the most useless film of 2007. The party where I sat and sulked in the corner. I see no reason for this motion picture to exist other than to rake in an insane amount of money and try to debunk Spider-Man 3's opening weekend. "Will it make more money?", "Will it enter the highest grossing films ever?", "Will that Antonio Banderas cat make the sad eyes again?" (I'll save you $10, he does) are the questions being asked to me by many at work and prior to last night's screening I attended. Who flippin' cares? We're just turning the gears...

Which is not to say that Shrek The Third is downright awful...well, okay, yeah it is. I will admit that I laughed on a few occasions, one in particular where a tricked-out Snow White sings a song directly used from the original classic film. And guess what...no one else laughed.

Why couldn't have a filmmaker used that joke in a completely new film, a new concept? A spinoff movie for the Snow White character, perhaps? Why is it that we have to sequel the crap out of something just to get people out to watch it? The demand for more comedies and less action films in the past few years has worked, but why not the sequels? Why aren't people voting against this by not spending their dollar?

Do people really think that all they want is to see the exact same film, over and over again? It reminds me of that classic Simpsons episode where a new Malibu Stacy doll is brought out onto the market with a new hat. Lisa is quick to point out that it's the exact same Malibu Stacy but just with a hat on it. To which Smithers retorts "But...she has a new hat!" as the exact same Stacy's fly off the shelf.

Jason
efilmcritic.com

When Teenagers Took Over: The IMDB Forums

I'm a subscriber to IMDB Pro, just because it's easier to get around and it has industry contacts. It helps out when I'm covering film festivals, and it's pretty reasonable for a one year subscription. And yet there's just one element of it that exists in both the Pro and regular versions that just irks me...those bloody message forums.

If you've never visited the forums at IMDB...don't. It's basically an endless amount of teenagers and young adults running around to various movie and actor pages giving ignorant, uninformed opinions about the movies that they saw. Many claim to think they are true film fans yet only go see about 5-10 films a year, all of them major blockbuster flicks and seem to be obsessed with box office numbers. It pretty much goes like this:

SuperDisturbiaFan6969: OMG! I saw, like, Disturbia and it was like SO scary i like screamed out soooo much it wasn't funny
AntiMovieLover: you suck it wasn't scary ripoff of rear window ur gay
SuperDisturbiaFan6969: omg beep you i like scared out of pants mmm cookie

I'm sorry, you're not a real fan of film if all you do is come on and whine about how much something "sucked" or all you care about is if Shrek The Third will beat Spider-Man 3 in the box office. I suppose because the place is so under-moderated that all of this garbage is permitted.

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon the movie page for Disturbia. I was adding the film to my 2007 Film List and needed a reminder on who the cinematographer was. I don't know why, but I then clicked on the message forum (probably to laugh at the teenagers who liked the film, I suppose) and not only found the same run-of-the-mill, but I also found a few threads on people who had seen the film out of frame and were seeing those "boom microphones" in the frame. "Simple framing error," I thought, "I'll explain it to them and provide a link!"

It's a basic thing, people: depending on how a film was shot, if the film showed a boom microphone or any other piece of camera equipment, the film was run out of frame in the film's projector. I wrote about this and posted a link to a British DVD/filmmaking page that proved everything I said was correct. Yet as much as I tried to explain this, absolutely no one listened and continued to blame the editors and the filmmakers for this "stupid goof", even though editing and filmmaking has nothing to do with it. The projectionist framed the film wrong. This is a FACT, and yet still no one listened.

What is going on here? Since when was someone coming along and TRYING to help understand a situation slammed down on a message forum? Then I realized that with so many people running amok here, threads get bogged down by other, more important threads, and since people have so much to track, they're spending less time about thinking before posting. Either that or they're so in love with their own opinions that they won't let anyone else's in. If that's the case, then why are they even there?

I used to run a message forum for actress Julia Stiles and 3/4 of the battle was closing all the redundant topic headers, booting stalkers and desperately trying to keep people on the topic of conversation. It was a horrible job at times, but nowhere near the scum and awfulness of this place.

If there was a way you set up the forum filter to delete anyone's post under the age of, let's say, 16 or 17, then I'm all for it. Either way, it's time for a change, to either moderate the lousy talk-back of this great website, or get rid of it altogether.

Jason
efilmcritic.com

Ladies and Gentemen...THE GIRLS!

And it's all over.

Some of you know that I'm a die-hard Gilmore Girls fan, some don't. I don't know; I really don't discuss the show with many folk, but I do know that fellow efilmcritic cronies Brian, Laura, Collin, Jay Seaver and others are huge fans.

There are other friends who don't share the love; I had a near fifteen minute argument with my friend and editor Chris Parry, live on his Simon Fraser University funded CJSF radio show and Scott Weinberg and I have also lobbed a few arguments back and forth regarding this show, but at least we agree on the Drafthouse.
Whatever the case, this has been a great seven years of quality writing and storytelling. I didn't watch every tuesday night (life gets in the way and setting VCR tapes, Bittorrent and Emule downloads have certainly helped over the years) but today, seasons 1 thru 6 sit on my shelf while I await the time to make a slot for season 7. I'm a completest, you see.

I can't exactly remember where I jumped in. I have this odd knack for discovering shows when they are already in progress (this also happened with my all-time favorite TV show, Freaks and Geeks). I remember seeing various episodes of the Gilmores on our Canadian affiliate, Global, in season 1 and season 2. I liked the show but for whatever reason, didn't make a point to start following.

That all changed in season 3, in my favorite episode where Rory (Alexis Bledel) throws a party for her mother Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and the present is one of the world's largest pizzas. Not only was I totally digging on the referential dialogue and the way one story element led to another, but I also finally began to admire the relationship between parent and child. And as I began to back-track episodes, I became more involved in all of creator Amy Sherman-Palladino's world, from not just Lor and Rory but equally the people that revolved around them, from Kirk to Jess, from Sookie to Lane, and all in-between.

When the show began, Lorelai was finally managing a local hotel and wanted to send her sixteen year old kid to a prestigious prep school. Estranged from her parents, she finally decides to come back and ask them for financial help to send Rory to Chilton Prep School. They accept, but on one condition: that they both attend dinner on friday night to keep tabs on both of their lives. The following seven seasons are all of the stories, up and down, that eventually wound back up right back at that table where they began.

This was more than just an average mother-daughter television show. Gilmore Girls is really about something, about the bonds that two people can make that can last a lifetime. It asks us to follow and understand a woman who had her daughter when she was 16, rejected the silver spoon upbringing of her parents, make a name for herself and for her family and hope that her daughter gets the life that she wants and one she so deserves.

Add to that, the two have connected so closely that they are also friends as well as mother and daughter. The success to the show -- and this is important -- is how Bledel and Graham take these characters, make them work off one another, and let them fly into our hearts. The show was also brilliant in how it favored intelligence, learning and kindness over, well, everything opposite of that.

It is also about the people that come in and out of their lives, some good and some bad. For Lorelai, she had Luke Danes (Scott Patterson), the owner/operator of his own diner. The best coffee cup in town was only a stone's throw away from the house, and it was fascinating to see the world from this perspective. Lorelai had several male suitors throughout the series, but it always came back to Luke, even in the end.

For Rory, she had nice guy Dean, tough as nails Jess, a brief stint with a hopeful Marty and then Logan, who we believed was finally a personality and smarts match until a rushed marriage proposal brought everything down. In the end, Rory is without companionship but she still has her whole life to figure out as it is. That it ends on this bitersweet note for Rory is more than anything the point of her character.

I'll be honest with you...I really don't watch that much TV. I grew up a fat kid on the boob tube and when I moved into my new house, it was mostly DVD's and my endless internet addiction/obsession. But I had my Gilmores and it was something that was in my life schedule, refusing to get out. (I also followed The OC for four years until it was canceled last year. To this day, I still don't know why.) These days it's SNL reruns and late night, and not much else.

I will miss this show, of course, but it was something that was inevitable like all good things. Sure, Season 7 may have had its' brutal start with David Rosenthal at the helm, but it came to a wonderful conclusion with Rory graduating and moving on to a successful job, while Lorelai moves ahead with her life, her Luke and a strong relationship with her parents that took all this time to rebuild.

And if anyone read wayyy back on this blog a few years ago when I couldn't decide on whether I crushed on Lauren or Alexis more...I'm still not sure.

Jason
efilmcritic.com

Short Ends: Broom! Ragweed! Pollen! Mann National re-opens!

I think I need to move. As some of my older posts have stated, I have allergy problems, especially in the spring/early summer when all the dust, broom, pollen and other outdoor terrorizers mess with my system. Oh, I've had my allergy attacks in the past few weeks. NOT fun.

Where would I move to? Well, I'd make a move to a city where it's cinema that just had its tenth anniversary and is moving to a new home in a few months.

Yeah, that would be a good place to move to, wouldn't it? Queso fries and Porky's Pepperoni Pizza while I go nuts watching Weird Wednesdays and Terror Thursdays. Maybe one day.

In other news, the Mann National has surprisingly re-opened (debunking my original article) to show a godawful Zach Braff comedy. But it may not be open for long, as there are rumors of redevelopment for retail, in an area of town that already has enough of it. To which I say...fuck that! Keep the damn cinema open!

Say it to yourself, people: The National Drafthouse. The National Drafthouse....

What else: Goss and myself also are over at efilmcritic.com talking about why you should run out and rent Todd Field's gem of a flick, Little Children. There's also a piece on the end of the Gilmore Girls, but since I still haven't watched the series finale yet (I should be watching my tape tonight after work) I'm being VERY careful on where I surf to avoid spoilerage.

Jason
efilmcritic.com