One thing that this movie did, that I must point out: in an early scene, (altogether too young) sheriff Josh Hartnett pulls out an asthma inhaler and takes a hit, making pretty much everybody roll their eyes or groan, expecting a later tense moment when it’s going to be just out of reach when he needs it most.

Except that (spoiler warning!!!!) it never happens. Unless it did while I had fallen asleep, I guess.

So I initially wanted to half-dismiss it as a scattered good 45 minutes in search of the other hour or so of a really good movie.

And then it struck me, but (ironically enough) I can’t put it in words. I think that this is the movie that a certain contingent of Napoleon Dynamite fans really want that movie to be for their friends who just don’t get it.

And it doesn’t have any llamas or time machines.

Really, I enjoyed it, if for nothing else than a total subversion of the romance or underdog cliche plotlines.

Well, except that Mr. Blitz needs to work a bit on his training montage – it’s really a bit tough to see evidence of the continuous improvement, or really any at all.

Which you might argue is the whole point entirely.

This is found on disc 2 of the Special Edition of Double Indemnity, which is one of the great films, and definitely one of the best examples of noir.

This remake, however, retains much of the dialogue and the names, but lacks the feeling of the lines and the characters, and certainly lacks the look.

Skip it.

They offer it as a free download on their website. I can only vouch for the regular disc; I haven’t tracked down the retail version with the bonus disc.

For free, it’s worth a listen. Particularly since they’re something of a more major band than many of the others releasing albums free online, without any strings.

The Mustache is riveting, for a look at one man’s potential descent into madness… or is everyone else mad?

I’d grabbed it to read because a movie has been made of it, and frankly I can’t see how it would work nearly as well as the book. So much of what happens in the book is purely speculative, and wild flights of fancy don’t really translate well without suffocating voiceover narration.

That said, I’ll give it a shot if I can find it on DVD.

Class trip is neither good nor bad. It’s a quick read, though afterward I was left wondering why the anthologers who put these novels together chose that to lead with. I suppose to have the latter novel look even better by comparison.

Klosterman obviously has this vast knowledge of stuff I’d like to know, and imparts a little of it here and there, but it’s all interspersed among anecdotal tripe and personal stories (he conducts an imaginary dialogue with himself at one point, and comments upon doing so in it) and post-modern irony but to no good end. I’m not so much interested in your life, pal, just what you know.

You know one big reason why this fails? It’s not metal.

...even with Aerosmith in it. It’s just not metal.

It’s a work in progress online comic/graphic novel. Read it at NYC2123.com, or download it and read it on your PSP later—it’s formatted for that screen.

I read it in HTML.