"The Darjeeling Limited"

The best part of this movie ends up ditched on a platform.

But, I suppose if I were as wealthy as the characters of Wes Anderson's latest homage to WASPs, I could bid on it.

First, We Blame All The Women

Hey Warner Brothers! You can suck it!

The World Needs Dreamers

I think I know what you've been going through, man, cos I've been through some heavy shit myself. If you feel alone, like nobody in the world cares and nobody in the fucking world gives a shit, then I'm here...

(Bob Mapplethorpe from "Bottle Rocket")

Danielle, This One's For You

from The Onion's A.V. Club

Joe Versus The Volcano (1990)
What it tries to do: Joe Versus The Volcano could be called the original Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan romantic comedy, except that romantic comedies are never brave enough to try something this strange and enchanting. Writer-director John Patrick Shanley attempts to top the whimsical magic of his Moonstruck script with wild flights of fancy, leading Hanks and Ryan (who plays three roles) to a tropical island where the Polynesian-Jewish natives (led by Abe Vigoda!) love orange soda.

Why it failed: Clearly not everyone was enchanted: The New York Times, for one, tagged it as the flattest comedy since Howard The Duck, and other reviews weren't much kinder. Sandwiched between Punchline, The 'Burbs, Turner & Hooch, and Bonfire Of The Vanities, Joe Versus The Volcano appeared during Hanks' biggest losing streak since early in his career, and for all the film's loveable eccentricities, it tends to get lumped in there for posterity.

Why it's worth seeing: If it works on you, the film conveys nothing less than the joy of being alive—it openly fantasizes about breaking the shackles of the workaday world and finding adventure, romance, and beauty that exist beyond the suck-suck-sucking of florescent lights. And only the stone-hearted can avoid being touched by Hanks adrift on the ocean, facing dehydration and certain death, merrily strumming a song on his ukulele without a care in the world.

Great. Now I have to like him.

Ben Affleck actually makes me wonder if maybe I've been wrong about him all along.

Plus, I watched "The Departed" this weekend and thought Leonardo DiCaprio did a great job in it, although the movie itself is pretty meh. And I also watched "Pride and Prejudice" and found myself really liking Keira Knightley. Not that I really didn't like either of those people, but never found reason to like them. Those performances, however, are making me think that maybe I should start embracing them too.

God. Let's hope Renee Zellweger doesn't pull any humanitarian/good acting stunts soon or I'm done for.

No One Belongs Here More Than The Ping Pong Stove

I'll admit it. I only kinda liked Miranda July's film "Me and You and Everyone We Know". But that's only because I only kinda liked some of the characters and in a totally character driven piece, I need to like all the characters or need to really hate at least some of them to make me fully satisfied. And also it moved a little slow for me. Not that I need things to move fast. I actually like things that move a little slow and let you think about what's happening like "Trois Couleurs: Bleu" which definitely moves slow, but in a fulfilling sort of way. Her film just moved slowly because, I don't know, Miranda July was savoring pudding that day or something. Her mind seems to be as random and fluffy as my own so I can see her slowing down to enjoy some butterscotch pudding and thinking that the movie needed to move at that pace. And since she was the director, well, she had that kinda power.

Now she's got a book which has a website which is just grand. I really like it a lot and now I wish I had an old style stove like hers so I could write notes on it. I've got one of those all-burners-no-spoon-rest type stoves which I like a lot but which Tina calls the Ping Pong Stove because it intermittently pops while it's cooking and makes a sound like a really far away ping pong ball being hit in a super slow match. But I like the sound. It's the sound of things warming up and getting ready to be eaten. And I like that it's a slow ping pong stove because, like I said, I'm okay with things moving slowly as long as it's in a fulfilling sort of way.

I Just Want To Remember This

Because I certainly can't watch it again.

Father and Daughter by Michael Dudok de Wit