If I tried to tell you why I loved this film, I'd be giving too much away, suffice to say that even the crying baby sitting right next to me could not dampen the experience. I am equally eager to see The Prestige. Looks like I'm going to have to break my vow to avoid theaters before Transformers is released... and even that appears to be circling the drain as sketches and photos are leaked.

Snakes on a plane! You either want to see it or you don't. I did, and don't regret it. Now I can go back into hibernation until Transformers comes out next year.

On the recommendation of a friend, I ignored the recommendation of the original creator and sat down to watch the film adaptation of V For Vendetta. Hugo Weaving is a natural with the mask, but most everything else about it seemed contrived in one way or another. There's a good explanation for that, however:

It's a thwarted and frustrated and perhaps largely impotent American liberal fantasy of someone with American liberal values [standing up] against a state run by neo-conservatives which is not what "V for Vendetta" was about. It was about fascism, it was about anarchy, it was about [England]. The intent of the film is nothing like the intent of the book as I wrote it. And if the Wachowski brothers had felt moved to protest the way things were going in America, then wouldn't it have been more direct to do what I'd done and set a risky political narrative sometime in the near future that was obviously talking about the things going on today?

Instead, what we are offered amounts to nothing more than some kind of political Mary Sue fanfic.

I ran into The Aristocrats on television, skeptical of how funny a movie about the same joke told over and over could be. I was quickly hooked, though, and then completely won over by Eric Mead's version of the joke; Mr. Mead isn't a comedian, he's a magician. You can find clips of his appearance here and there, but the whole of the movie is more than the sum of its parts.

For those who might remain skeptical, consider an analogy to jazz (an analogy offered by the same comedians). The songs have a structure, but not so strict as to preclude improvisation, and so every musician can bring their own sound to the table... which is why a standard by Miles Davis or Thelonious Monk can be equally moving as their original works.