Vacancy was much better than I thought it would be. It was genuinely creepy, and had me on the edge of my seat and scared for most of it. I appreciated the fact that it wasn't completely predictable; a few times I expected the standard, predictable "horror movie" thing to happen, but to my surprise, it didn't.

I'm working my way through Friday Night Lights, which is seriously one of the best TV shows I've seen in a long time. And I am not a fan of football, but the show is so well-written and complex, not to mention the awesome acting, that I simply cannot stop watching. And I have work to do, but I just. cannot. stop.

We watched Perfect Strangers with Halle Berry and Bruce Willis and it was fairly average. The storyline was a bit all over the place and I felt like they'd cut a lot out so it would fit in a 90 minuted time frame.

I also rented Sherry Baby with Maggie Gyllenhaal and thought she did a great job as a recovering addict just out of jail.

FNL in all its incarnations ranks as one of the best football books/movies/series of all time.

Images: One of Altman’s hot streak that premiered at Cannes and for some reason never got off the ground in the US. Like 5 people saw it; all of them film critics. Rumor had it the studio destroyed Of course it became considered “THE BEST MOVIE EVAH!!11!!”

Now if I were to set fire or burry an Altman movie and God knows I’ve thought about it, I doubt Images would top the list. It’s pretty much a psychological thriller that reveals a slight point. The rare double feat of being simplistic and unintelligible. True to form Altman conflates a minor insight as if it were the meaning of life.

Looking at Images you wonder how this could be the same man that would make A Wedding in 6 years. Cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond was probably Altman’s best collaborator and his split had a detritus effect on his subsequent work. If his sumptuous filming of Ireland wasn’t enough, he could keep Altman from cranking on the zoom like it was the wheel of an ocean liner that sighted an ice berg.

I also rented Pootie Tang!

They replaced Mark Linn-Baker with Halle Berry? Sacrilige!

One day I'll forgive you for rekindling the scarring memories of that dreadful sitcom. Until then ...

We just watched The Marriage of Maria Braun which I loved. However, I've been told it's an allegory of Germany's post-WWII economic recovery. Anyone able to give me a quick rundown on how that fits?

Oh, Mr. Insousciance, don't be ridiculous!

Personally, I thought the scene of Bruce Willis herding sheep on Mypos was just unnecessary.

I think the movie would have really benefited from a scene of Halle Berry and Bruce Willis doing the Dance of Joy.

I liked that movie, too. It definitely had it's moment of creepiness. The only thing I didn't like was the ending- how in the hell is <<the husband not dead?>> I almost feel like there was a different ending planned originally, but that was scrapped, and this ending was just slapped on. That said, it was still better than I thought it would be.

AtticaFinch, I had a problem with that, too, since it was so incredibly implausible. It's like >>they forced a happy ending of sorts with both of the main characters surviving<<.

I think I've ticked through all the Star Wars afterbirth (of the non-Turkish variety). Rented The Black Hole

The score works as a spooky accompanyment and for being synth based it's aged better than it's contemporaries, the titular hole holds up well and some of the design was inspired and Maximilian is bad ass.

The rest is very bad. Clunky dialogue, slumming semistars, aping better material and those fucking meteors still look like cheesy poofs!

This weekend, I took advantage of that "Watch Movies On You PC!" feature from Netflix. I rented Small Town Gay Bar, which made me simultaneously want to sob my eyes out and throw sharp objects at the television (well, more specifically, at Fred Phelps) in a blind rage; and Gypsy 83, which is very sweet, and which solidified my massive girlcrush on a pre-emaciated Sara LaRue.

Not to mention the surviving of explosive decompression!

But I got nothin' but love for it, even with all that. You're right - John Barry's score kicks ass. And VINCENT and Old BOB are as important to my robot-loving childhood as Threepio and Artoo. The robot Maximillian (not to be confused, as it often was, with Maximillian Schell the actor - what, I was five when I watched it every day on The Disney Channel) is still one of my favorite modern images of the devil, and sharing a first name with Anthony Perkins led to a little overidentification when he got roto-rooted.