I watched The Devil Wears Prada last night. Meryl Streep was fabulous, and I also loved Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci. Plus, there was all that fashion porn.

I've noticed there is a certain brand of biopic-- typically British-- that works with the presumption that you know about the author, their work and their life already. They're usually well-acted, but annoying to watch.

I watched The Illusionist which has a hugely telegraphed ending, pretentious cinematography (beautiful but wierdly blurry or uh soft focused), but I enjoyed it a hell of alot more than the irritating and fucking ridiculous The Prestige.

Invincible was totally my Rocky Balboa cup of tea, and my boyfriend Kirk Acevedo was great playing the only person in Philly who understands the concept of supporting a friend.

I also rented the first in the Danish trilogy Pusher for the sole motivation that Mads Mikkelsen is white hot, and he did not disappoint at all, he even kisses a boy. It was pretty good, half way between Lars Von Trier and Quentin Tarantino, the lead in this one was even a Tom Sizemor look-a-like. I'm looking forward to the sequel that focuses completely on Mad's Tonny character. So, so hot.

Gideon's Daughter: I've been wanting to see this ever since it won Golden Globes in January. It wasn't what I expected, and thought it was a bit slow at first, but by the end I was really enjoying it. I loved Bill Nighy, and Emily Blunt is just lovely.

My husband and I got The Karate Kid III to finish out the series, and it came with The Next Karate Kid on the same disk. Both were terrible and filled with cheesy dialogue and cartoony villains.

She does have her followers here, which include a wide variety of people from the co-creator of Spider-Man to the movie critic for Box-Office Mojo

Last night I watched Shut Up and Sing, the documentary about the Dixie Chicks, and thought it very good. I liked them and their music before anyway, but I came away being more impressed especially after watching the concert and backstage footage. It couldn't have been easy to face thousands of people and sing for them when you know that there's some out there who hate you enough to do you physical harm.

Finally got round to seeing Festen, and it was great, in a horrifying and totally dysfunctional way. From now on, whenever I start getting stressed about a family gathering, I'll just think of this film and realise it could all be so much worse...

Fame. Which wasn't quite what I was expecting. The only thing I really knew about the movie was that it's set at a performing arts high school and "FAME! I'm gonna live foreveeeer..." I thought it was going to be peppy and 80s-tastic. It's really an urban drama with songs thrown in. So a bit of a surprise.

Also, the opening never ended. A million hours of auditioning and all I really needed to see was who the major players were and what their skills are.

I'm not sure if you're intending it to be funny, The Dude, but your Altman festival updates are riotously funny. I picture you as Paul Bettany's character from The DaVinci Code, except you're standing in front of a television screen as you flog yourself repeatedly.

You shouldn't take this whole Lent thing quite so seriously.

I saw War of the Worlds [the Spielberg version] - the special effects kicked all sorts of ass, so I enjoyed it for the most part. However, the ending - what? I mean, I don't get it - how did >>the bratty son get to Boston all safe and sound when we last saw him in the general vicinity of a HUGE BALL OF FIRE? And why was everything so nice and clean in the grandparents's neighborhood - cities around the world are being destroyed, human beings are being killed all over the place, but this neighborhood is all nice and dandy, except for the cars looking like they were in the middle of being repaired.

And aliens deposited their junk here years and years ago and never bothered to check if the planet would, you know, not kill them within a couple of days? That's almost as bad as the idiot aliens from Signs.<<

Still, it kept my attention. I already know that the train scene is going to become part of my nightmares.

We were bored silly by War of the Worlds. I have no idea how that even made it to the big screen, it was so boring.

We rented Saw 3, which sucked even worse than the second one. The second one I thought was bad, but this was both bad and boring. And made no sense. No, I wasn't looking for sense when I rented it, but still.

We didn't like For Your Consideration, which surprised me, because we both normally love Christopher Guest films. It's another one that we found really boring. And it was like, I got all the jokes, but they didn't make me laugh. Or even smile a little.

But the weekend wasn't a total waste, because we also saw Stranger Than Fiction, which was really, really good. I normally cannot stand Will Ferrell, but he did a lovely job in this movie. The whole thing was well written, well cast, and just generally well put together.

Why thank you.

Especially since I'm jewish.

Quintet: another of Altman's late 70's collapse routinely makes his worst list. To be honest I don't think Q is near his worst, which is not to say it is good, but at least Quintet is interesting (like a shitty movie that has Christopher Walken.)

Taking place in a future ice age dystopia the set design of Q is truly impressive, everything is frozen over and derelict. Ok it's Canada. They moved into the rotting grounds of Expo 67. It's rare treat for a post-apocalyptic future to be presented as something other than matte paintings of burnt building husks and rubble.

The spare piano score was pitch perfect.

I'd seen Quintet a couple of times before (VHS and Cable) and this was the first time it was available on on DVD. This is the rare case, but Quintet is a better film pan-n-scan than widescreen. On the cropped version the stunning and stark visuals take up the whole screen whereas the widescreen version Altman's pretentiousness gets in the way of his best asset. As if the snow and ice weren't enough to tip you off that it's like Duluth, he fogged up the lens around the edges. After about a half hour you are yelling "wipe off the goddamn camera!" In effect Altman crops the picture for you.

Now judging by Quintet maybe Altman's overlapping dialogue isn't such a bad thing, because hearing what these characters have to say was far worse. "It is they who should be careful of a seal hunter in a place where there are no seals." Even Paul Neuman can't save this turgid dialogue "consider the goose"

Altman constructed the movie around the eponymnimous board game he invented. The plot is to counter the boredom and hopelessness of a life of permashrinkage the inhabitants have taken up to killing each other in a real life game of Quintet. Of course this might as well have a flashing caption "symbolism! symbolism!" at the bottom of the screen. Today it might be "A real life game of Madden '07!!!"

While you look at the movie and think Altman might have had it in him to be a science fiction auteur (anything to keep him away from comedy), the realization that Logan's Run did this before and did it better scuttles that thought.

Except for Queen Latifah, right? Or was that just my roommate and me?

It does sound like I'm going to have to rent Invincible now, even though I haaaaaate football and football movies. I do love Remember the Titans, so I guess I could handle it.

I can't wait to hear what you thought of Half Nelson, ka-*test*-('")i.

Yes, because the Dixie Chicks are the ONLY PEOPLE in the history of the world to get a threatening letter. Not that I begrudge you liking the documentary or the Chicks, caerbannog; I've been considering watching it myself, in hopes that it will curb my involuntary eye-rolling whenever I hear or see the Chicks. It's probably not going to work.

Oh, I liked Queen Latifah in Stranger Than Fiction. But then, I just generally like her.

I have to remember to add the Dixie Chicks movie to my Netflix queue. I have a feeling that if you like the Dixie Chicks, you'll like the movie, and if you don't like them, then you won't like the movie. I happen to love the Chicks, so I think I'll like it. My husband, who barely tolerates country music? We'll see.

I saw The Departed. It seemed like Jack Nicholson spoke with a Boston accent for a grand total of three minutes. At least the other actors made attempts to keep the accent consistent. That said, I enjoyed it.