A tear-jerking little story about star-crossed lovers, with an unlikely scenario: rats in a science lab. Could have been nominated for a 2007 Academy Award as an animated short, but got bumped by the likes of No Time for Nuts and Lifted. Those are good shorts in their own right, but still… One Rat Short was robbed.

Call me crazy, but I really didn’t think this was that terrible. You want terrible? See Masterminds, another of Roger Christian’s movies. How that escaped the kind of bad publicity that Battlefield Earth got, I’ll never know.

A very intense scene in the middle of the movie (others have spoiled it already) forced me to leave the room overwhelmed with nausea-even though there was no explicit violence involved at all. Sometimes psychological horror is the most powerful kind. Fortunately I was watching it on video, so I was able to come back to it later and persevere to the end-and I’m glad I did! Overall it’s a chilling, enthralling twist on a story that could easily have been another clichéd tale of sexual predation.

This is not the same “Crash” as is on IMDb’s Top 250 list. I’m not sure why it’s showing up on here as such.

I have an unusual connection with this book, written by Linda Fink about raising her two sons. One of her sons was my boss for about seven years!

I ended up getting this for Christmas from my “secret Santa”! Woohoo!

My Man Godfrey is of course a classic in American cinema. The Criterion Collection edition is worth seeking out even if you’ve already seen this film. Listening to the excellent commentary by historian Bob Gilpin is like getting a miniature lesson in film literacy. Also included is an audio recording (with slide show) of the Lux Radio Theater adaptation of the story, which like the movie starred William Powell and Carole Lombard. Last but not least, there is a brief montage of outtakes full of flubs and salty language (the saltiest from Lombard!).

The fictional KQMO-TV is based on the real-life KOMO-TV. The logo is almost exactly the same as the real logo of its day, but with a tail applied to one of the O’s turning it into a Q. Several real-life KOMO 4 News personalities of the time (Dan Lewis, Margo Myers, Steve Pool, Michelle Esteban) also appear in the film under fictional character names.

Even if you’ve never tried Marmite and you think you might be predisposed to not liking it, I predict you will like these Marmite-flavored potato chips. A lot. Seek out your nearest British gift shop and find out if they have them (unless, of course, you’re already in Great Britain, in which case you should count yourself very lucky).

If there’s anything in this world I have mixed feelings about, it’s Trader Joe’s. They have a lot of good, healthy stuff there, and they often have amazingly good deals to boot (e.g. raw almonds, breakfast cereal, Charles Shaw a.k.a. “Two-Buck Chuck”). But I always find it rather cramped and crowded no matter which store I visit, and I get stung occasionally by an item that’s just terrible (such as the All Natural Chai). I won’t stop going anytime soon, but I fear I’ll always be wishing it was better.