I'm not anti-Carrey, but just watching the previews I found myself wondering why Carrey and not Ian McKellan, who could've really eaten up the role.

That's it then. t chambers round I'll see you folks in 15 to 20, maybe more if they can find a jury that's never seen a Jim Carrey movie.

My problem with vonTrier is that I saw a documentary on the Making of The Idiots, and he was such an odious egomaniac that seemed to enjoy the hardship he inflicted on his actors that I haven't been able to bring myself to see another one of his films.

I'm no fan of von Trier's, either, but I've heard that The Five Obstructions is flat-out fantastic. Apparently, LVT comes across as the sadistic prick I suspect he is, but he is constantly upstaged by the other director (whose name I can't remember offhand). The plot, to the extent that there is one, is that LVT is challenging this other director, who created a short groundbreaking piece of Scandanavian cinema back in the 70s, to remake his movie under certain circumstances as dictated by LVT. The reviews I read indicated that the other director succeeded admirably in all of the challenges, and that The Five Obstructions manages to be a rather touching film. It's in my Netflix queue.

I'm no fan of von Trier's, either, but I've heard that The Five Obstructions is flat-out fantastic.

I am a fan of von Trier's, and I found The Five Obstructions disappointing. The 5 varations of The Perfect Human were fascinating (except for varation 3, which was a complete waste of time), but the rest of it was just blah. You get the point that Lars von Trier is an unfeeling creature who views the other humans as his personal playthings within the first few minutes, and after that, there's not much point to watching him onscreen. I would have much rather just seen all 5 variations (plus the original short) in full, instead of wasting time watching Lars be an ass, and seeing only snippets of the films.

As far as Von Trier goes, it's ELEMENT OF CRIME, ZENTROPA and THE KINGDOM. I loved BREAKING THE WAVES when I saw it, but the more I think about it, the more enraged I get. Haven't been able to bring myself to see any of the ones since.

I guess I just like his "earlier, funnier" movies or something.

Just saw The Life Aquatic, and liked it a lot. I do hope that Wes Anderson has finally sorted out his father-son issues so he can move on to make a movie about something else next, but I thought Bill Murray and Owen Wilson gave two of their best performances here, and the whole thing was very quietly powerful.

Just saw Kinsey, which is a damn fine movie. DAMN fine. And -- Peter Saarsgard? He did nothing for me in Garden State, which was the first thing I saw him in, but in Kinsey -- he lit up the screen. My god. He's got that same incandescence that Ewan has in Moulin Rouge. And he's HOTT, which I totally didn't think in Garden State.

t /shallow

I'm not anti-Carrey, but just watching the previews I found myself wondering why Carrey and not Ian McKellan, who could've really eaten up the role.

I am now weeping bitter tears over the fact that the movie was not cast in this way.

Maybe there's hope for the animated TICK?

Frank, the animated Tick is readily available on eBay and fairly cheap.

I just watched Mean Girls. I want my two hours back.

I just saw Closer. I'm really surprised by the differences between the film and the original play, though I assume they were a result of performances since everything matches up to what I remember plot-wise. I was amazed that Jude Law could turn his personal charisma down almost to zero (whereas in the play the actor I saw playing Daniel was the most charming cast member), and found Natalie Portman far too together and self-assured for her character. But it was nice to see Julia Roberts not be all smiley constantly, and Clive Owen was almost identical in both approach and appearance to the actor I saw in the live performance.