daily open thread

Another new feature, and one you can expect every day Monday through Friday. News stories I missed? Stuff you’d like me to cover? Questions you have for me? Something movie-, TV-, DVD-, or pop culture-related you want to talk about? This is where to do it.

Towelhead (review)

That extreme rarity of American film: a movie that is about a teenage girl’s fumblings through the confusions of early adolescence…

watch it: “tess has a stain on her dress”

Watch more cool animation and creative cartoons at aniBoom It’s amazing how evocative extremely simple line drawings can be. Amazing, too, that you barely realize there isn’t any dialogue — and if there were, it probably wouldn’t be in English. Another from the aniBoom Awards 2008 — this one is ranked No. 99.

trailer break: ‘State of Play’

Take a break from work: watch a movie trailer… This is gonna be an interesting test for me. The American remake and truncation of the British miniseries of the same name looks rather intriguing from the trailer. Certainly, I’m a big fan of Russell Crowe, always love the intensity he brings to a role. I’m … more…

won’t you watch the merely very-good movies of 2008?

In this season of Oscar nominations and critics’ awards, gala ceremonies and acceptance speeches, won’t you give a thought to the merely very-good films of 2008, those that could not make it to the rarefied ranks of the best of the the best of the best simply because they lacked, perhaps, the benefit of the … more…

daily open thread

Another new feature, and one you can expect every day Monday through Friday. News stories I missed? Stuff you’d like me to cover? Questions you have for me? Something movie-, TV-, DVD-, or pop culture-related you want to talk about? This is where to do it.

added screening: ‘Coraline’

Oops, this popped up so quickly I didn’t even have time to get psyched for it. I just heard about a screening tomorrow of Coraline (opens in the U.S. on February 6, and in the U.K. on May 15), and of course I jumped on it. Neil Gaiman done up Nightmare Before Christmas style with … more…

trailer break: ‘Terminator: Salvation’

Take a break from work: watch a movie trailer… Moment-by-moment thoughts as I watched this trailer for the first time: 0:14: “What day is it? What year?” More time travel? Could Judgment Day stay still, temporally speaking, for five minutes so we can get our bearings? Sheesh. 0:37: “I knew it was coming. I thought … more…