in "Dissertations on His Dudeness", the @NYTImes' Dwight Garner reivews "The Year’s Work in (Big) Lebowski Studies”. http://bit.ly/8mwm59

Ron Howard's "Frost/Nixon" (2008) is a natural follow-up to Oliver Stone's "Nixon" (1995).

"Australia" (2008) condenses time, and portrays a land at war, with the fine brush of emotion and broad strokes of sentimentality.

after 2 days withOUT electricity or internet, charging our laptops in the car, so we can watch a movie tonight, and do some work tomorrow.

after 2 days with electricity or internet, charging our laptops in the car, so we can watch a movie tonight, and do some work tomorrow.

"The Princess and the Frog" is high on artful style, voodoo psychedelics & Randy Newman's soundtrack, short on compelling or original story.

"Nixon" (1995) is a fragmentary portrait of a haunted man, a broker of menace, the pawn of shadows, and his graceless path through the dark.

"JFK" (1991) is a violent sketch of the menace and shadows that bring down a wise leader, before he can remake our future.

Oliver Stone's "Nixon" is obviously the bookend to his "JFK", a jittery scrapbook of the clandestine American subconscious.

we're sitting down to dinner and launching into season 5 (2008) of "The Wire", with much anticipation.

without its spot-on casting, "Lost" would trip over the complex machinations of its writers, and drown in a puddle of pulp fiction.

as scripted, Benjamin Linus is the most implausibly fragmented character in "Lost"; yet, actor Michael Emerson convinces us he's genuine.

in "I Like Killing Flies" (2004) Matt Mahurin inserts his wide angle lens into the narrow personal space of a New York restaurant.

i've watched "The Fall" 3 or 4 times now, and 8 year old Catinca Untaru (playing 5 year old Alexandria) is more adorable every time.

agreeing with @Natterjack that @Netflix needs to give customers the ability to add Tags and Notes to individual films.

too many comedy writers are lazy, fishing for easy laughs in shallow waters, never delving toward our souls. "Being There" (1980)

"We are protected by the enormity of your stupidity." - Notorious (1946)

in slow building "Swimmers" (2005), a simple crisis for a Chesapeake fishing family dredges up a bed of overlapping imperfections.

"Little Children" (2006) is not without ambition, but is always just a little too self-conscious, like a child striving to impress.

if the lag we're experiencing with Netflix Instant Watch is any indication, many of you aren't really chatting with your family right now.

understated, feral and moving "Let the Right One In" (2008) may be our favorite vampire tale since Bram Stoker's epistolary novel.

"Planet 51" (2009) is 51 years of cliches mashed up and rendered in 3D animation. kids will laugh. extra bit mid-credits.

why do the college educated forensic scientists on forensic cop shows have the IQ of C students in the 3rd grade?

nice use of stop-motion photography by Robert Caplin, on @Vimeo. even though we could care less about baseball. http://ping.fm/o0uE4

"The Fall" (2006) is a fantasy for the eyes, with the soul of a wounded child. must be seen wide-screeen.

we so rarely watch actual television, i've actually forgotten how annoying commercial breaks are.

i can imagine how iMovie makes it easy-ish for regular folks to string together their video snapshots. but i just can't grok it, myself.

had to completely rewire my video editing synapses just to replace fade-in & fade-out with freeze frames. metaphors are powerful memes.

woo hoo! i found the "Playhead Info" option. oh, crap. it only shows seconds, no frames. [sigh]

quick'n'dirty video edit in a coffee shop, on laptop sans Final Cut. iMovie '09 is odd. my ol' school brain wants to see timecode!

i can't tell if the writers of "Californication" are crass lads trying to be clever, or clever fellows struggling to be crass.

watching the end credits is how we come up for air from good cinema. we like it when movies reward us for sitting all the way through.

"No Jews were harmed in the making of this motion picture." - A Serious Man (2009)

Rashomon has entered the English language, like 'Catch-22', says Roger Ebert. http://bit.ly/3SMCHk (via http://ping.fm/x5v4n)

"The Jesuits taught me how to think. I haven't felt safe since." - Homicide (1994, season 3, episode 2) http://bit.ly/3znI6R

planning to watch all of Oliver Stone's presidential films, starting with "JFK".

trying out @Boxee. anyone else using it on a Mac?

a rill of sun melted snow, "Northern Exposure's" affable pilot episode never hastens, yet introduces characters at every bend.

we're starting to watch "Northern Exposure" (1990), from the beginning and in order.

by episode six, "Californication" (2007) just might be budding some soul.

four or five episodes into "Californication" (2007), clever one-liners are budding amidst the hedgerows which corral the plot.

making the backbone of "The Wire" season 4 a fresh faced crew of adolescent kids was a bold move, brilliantly executed. greatTV

three episodes into "Californication" (2007), apparently it aspires to be "Sex and the City" (1998) for a guy.

Kenneth Branagh's "Dead Again" (1991) may be our favorite metaphysical murder mystery. what else is in this class?

Quentin Tarantino's World War Two spaghetti western "Inglourious Basterds" (2009) is the best film we've yet seen at The Robey Theater.

when the oldest continuously operating movie theater in America shows a half-way decent film, we have to show up. http://ping.fm/5t1DH

today's lunch break is a "Buffy" break, with fresh sourdough toast & cheese from yesterday sojourn into Charleston.

watching Kenneth Branagh's "Dead Again". we liked it very much, when it was released in 1991. does it hold up?

the first 5 episodes of "Weeds" feel like the same ol' TV snacks of yesteryear, even if they are laced with pot and spattered with sex.

(oops, make that 2005.)

looking for a little entertainment, we started watching the first season of "Weeds" (2006), hoping for something fresh.

we love how every season of "The Wire" mixes up familiar and new characters to create both new dynamics and continuing threads.

moving on to season 4 (2006) of "The Wire", settling in for a quiet night on the streets -- and in the halls of power -- of Baltimore.

we'll never know how David Lynch & company would have amplified the soap opera genre, had "Twin Peaks" been funded another year or three.

in 1990, "Twin Peaks" raised the bar for every dramatic or quirky serial produced since. TwinPeaks

thinking it's Twin Peaks' most modest motifs, those naked of explanation, that stand tall after all these years.

fueling up at the local Y Restaurant, before the home stretch through Twin Peaks

@DAfilms Twitter has a glitch with some user's avatars and backgrounds. evidently, that includes ours.

@Natterjack damn, we're gonna need more pie.

picking up a peach pie at the village bakery and brewing coffee. the last Twin Peaks DVD came in today's mail.

ordering a pie, before we conclude "Twin Peaks" tomorrow evening.

"Twin Peaks" (1990-1991) was a slightly surreal soap opera with a stylish sense of humor and a cinematic sensibility. and donuts.

for the first time in years, we're watching "Twin Peaks", a long time favorite, all the way through.

too many comedy feature films are puffed up jokes better suited to a 10 minute skit, or maybe a recurring shtick on late night TV.

a timeworn gimmick, mockumentaries easily lapse into cliche or veiled veneration. this is "A Mighty Wind" (2003).

hanging the speaker in the window and heading for the concession stand at the Mount Zion Drive-In.

buying movie tickets, for "Julie & Julia", at The Robey

on the History Channel, "John Adams" (2008) would be a lavish tapestry; on munificent HBO, it seems an elementary text. filmreview

follow MYKLwhere

looks like an interesting effort to profit from other people's micro-reviews: @FilmReviewFri http://ping.fm/aqwgQ filmreview

"the original Night of the Living Dead: raw but pure with great storytelling. deserves it cult-classic status." - @jasonmatzner filmreview

a collection of movie title stills, curated by @MovieTitles: http://ping.fm/4WOdE (via @TheCurator)

a successful pilot episode stands alone as a story -- a story which introduces characters and dynamics we want to see again. television

in just 50 min "Poirot" #1 makes familiar the core cast, paints the period, throws in a news reel, rivalry, quips--and solves a mystery.

having seen several sporadic and random episodes over the years, tonight watching the first episode of David Suchet as "Poirot" (1989).

"We have a better chance of seeing a 2.40 film from 1959 in its proper format than a movie from 2009. That’s weird and sad." - S. Soderbergh

"...in the same breath you are told viewers notice the difference enough to complain about it." - Steven Soderbergh http://bit.ly/16AiZ4

"you are told you shouldn’t care whether your 2.40 film is turned into a 1.78 film because there really isn’t that much of a difference..."

reading Steven Soderbergh's "Format Wars" in DGA Quarterly. http://bit.ly/16AiZ4

queuing classic cinema in Netflix Instant Watch.

well into a "Lost" season 3 marathon.

"Guns, Germs and Steel" (2005) concludes with a forced smile, after 3 hours documenting Jared Diamond's thesis of predestined happenstance.

Mark Romanek's "One Hour Photo" (2002) is a fair first feature; fun to see Robin Williams in a creepy dramatic role.

watched Harold Ramis' "Groundhog Day" (1993), for the first time. (my bookmarks http://bit.ly/fGr98)

my most repeated mistake: foregoing a film because of the hype surrounding it or the celebrity starring in it.

Jim Jarmusch's "Broken Flowers" (2005) is a laconic Odyssey, metered in deadpan pauses, departing solitude to arrive in the present.

Tommy Lee Jones is the understated soul of "No Country For Old Men" (2007), a down home tale of our times. hells bells, it's crazy good.

first impression: "Rome" (2005) is a soft-porn soap opera, garnished with political intrigue and combat, smothered in British accents.

starting to watch "Rome" (HBO 2005), from the beginning. have you seen it? will it sustain interest?

"The Changling" (1980) is your customary mystery-horror tale, unencumbered by natural dialog, novel narrative, artful effects, or a finale.

thinking how horror films demand poetic and metaphoric imagery, to lure the mind into fantasm.

"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" (2009) is 40% magic, 30% high school soap opera, 20% comedy, 8% mourning, 2% teaser for next film.

"Did Opening Night Twitter Reviews Sink Bruno’s Weekend Box Office?" (via Mashable http://bit.ly/hPuTe, Time http://bit.ly/YikLw)

"Media companies are in the service business, not the content business." - Andrew Savikas http://bit.ly/SJsvv (RT @ZuluKane)

watching "LA Confidential" with no dialog, only soundtrack, while working into the wee hours.

“All I am is what I’m going after.” - Michael Mann, via @Gruber quoting from "Heat" (1995), aka why i read http://ping.fm/w2QOW

did you hear @WHYY "Fresh Air" review of "Playing Shakespeare" DVD? interesting for actors, directors, theatre lovers. http://bit.ly/4iKRol

stumbled upon more real life colleagues now on Twitter. hello @DAfilms, @Silhouette1, @QuickLad and @PRafferty!

"to the sounds of waves / that come and go, migrating / birds find their hearts drawn." - Ganymede Elegy #haiku (http://bit.ly/1tqzdq)

the classiest "Cowboy Bebop" (1998) episodes have a melancholy sensibility worthy of great film noir from the '40s. (http://bit.ly/1tqzdq)

the BBC's "Alleyn Mysteries" (1990) are like charcoal caricatures of murder suspects rendered on a backdrop of painterly tracking shots.

"Just say it, it doesn't have to be true. This isn't a quiz show, it's only a court." - The Misfits (1961)

watching "Red Dwarf" (BBC 1988) reminds us how much we like the way music echoes in the vacuum of space.

only the first season of "The Inspector Lynley Mysteries" is available on @Netflix' Instant Watch. for the rest, you must queue up discs.

"The Inspector Lynley Mysteries" (BBC) exploit generous 90 minute episodes to convey the characters' feelings, involving us in their lives.

if you like my writing about media, perhaps you'll enjoy the words that inspire mine, as quoted @Renga (http://renga.mykl.org).

if you like my writing about media, perhaps you'll enjoy the words that inspires mine, as quoted @Renga (http://renga.mykl.org).

a tidy tale about the sloppiness of a simple crime, "Blood Simple" (1984) is a story told to your eyes, unblemished by exposition.

"The Big Lebowski" (1998) still makes us laugh aloud at its slack schtick, fabulous cast, flippant effects and hallucinatory stylings.

dark and charming like Bogart, "The Big Sleep" (1945-46) vibrates like a seismic shadow of (great) depression and (world) war.

dark and charming like Bogart, "The Big Sleep" (1945-46) vibrates like a seismic shadow of world war.

"Cataloging my virtues won't work, either. I hold them to a minimum, so they're easy to keep track of." - The Rockford Files (1.4)

the clinically depressed detective was born in Great Depression pulp, but his reflection did not flicker on TV until the USA lost a war.

watching "The Rockford Files", thinking about the evolution of private detectives in pop culture...

"Star Trek" (2009) is a muddling host pulling us around the plot to meet the same characters (but new actors) we've known since 1966.

classic intermission countdown animations, playing through a vintage drive-in speaker, are the best entertainment so far.

thinking Dreamworks Inc. was the inspiration for Patton Oswalt's "punch-up" comedy routine.

10 minutes into "Monsters vs Aliens", we wonder how Dreamworks produced a featured film without writing any script.

"I've always been good with parents. The key is simply to think of them as aliens from a distant universe." ("Dexter" season 2, episode 4)

lavished with talent, "Dexter" (season 1) deftly propelled its novelty protagonist into an appealing but predictable story line.

disappointed that "Dexter" (season 1, episode 7 "Shrink Wrap") continued down such a predictable path. still, let's watch another.

the premiere episode of "Nurse Jackie" (2009) shows promise. here's hoping Edie Falco has landed in a show worthy of her talents.

watching Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere" (1996), we didn't see anything remarkable until "Blackfriars" (episode 4).

leave GBglass

leave EvanCourtney

leave helsinkiwinner

dreamed of directing live television without benefit of rehearsal or script. scary but exhilarating. attitude was: this will be fun!

reading "Why NPR is the Future of Mainstream Media" by @Catone (posting on @Mashable http://bit.ly/hFgso).

(we've only seen "Before the Flying Circus" available via Netflix Instant Watch or a "Monty Python" box set.)

"Before the Flying Circus" (2000) is a biographical documentary about how the founders of "Monty Python" (1969) grew up and came together.

the pilot episode of "The Rockford Files" (1974) simply entertains us with a tale, introducing the key players without fanfare or bluster.

"Since I don't have any real close friends, I have to get along with myself." watching the first episode of "The Rockford Files".

a comical, shallow romp with Eros and Psyche, "Don Juan DeMarco" (1994) never catches its breath of life.

"Homicide: Life on the Street" (1993) seemed to really hit its stride in episode 7 of its 1st season. (Nonetheless start at the beginning!)

"Dead Ringers" (1988) is a paper boat stuck in an eddy; we keep waiting for it to break free and go somewhere, eventually losing interest.

"The Lost creators / can�t believe they figured out / where they are going." - @MecumHaiku

"Buffy" season 2 (1997-98) quickly introduces a host of new characters, like an unexpectedly successful show whose budget got a boost.