When there were two, I could have told you which one was better.

Now, I don't even bother to remember. I check until I find the eggs for the movie in question, or until I've hit four sites. Whichever comes first.

I prefer E-eggs. www.eeggs.com

Now, I don't even bother to remember. I check until I find the eggs for the movie in question, or until I've hit four sites. Whichever comes first.

Huh, I like that as an SOP.

Anyway, thanks for the recs, all.

Another Wire article for Erika. I had to use Bugmenot to bypass the registration.

Movies this past weekend:

• Serenity on Friday. I liked it more than any episode in the series. The stakes seemed higher, the characterizations more true, and the story seemed more taut and well-thought.

• Badlands on Saturday. I'd seen this years ago and all I remembered were long shots of flat lands. There's a bit more to it than that. Like the terrible Natural Born Killers, it's a movie about how boredom, pop culture, and general teenage sociopathy can add up to an outlandish self-image and indifference to others. Unlike Natural Born Killers, Badlands is quiet, reflective, beautiful, and subtle. Frankly, seeing as how Badlands is 20 years older than NBK, I don't know why Stone made his atrocity or how he sleeps with himself.

• Downfall on Sunday. Like Badlands, this is another deadpan look at people behaving monstrously, although unlike Badlands, where the killers most act reactively, the characters in Downfall (which is about the last days in Hitler's bunker during the Russian seige of Berlin) deserves their fate and worse. Based on the recollections of Traudl Junge, Hitler's personal secretary (and subject of the documentary Blind Spot, which demonstrated the banality of evil in its tediousness), it's a fairly interesting movie several steps above the HBO-Showtime dramatizations of important 20th century events. As the grandson of a White Citizen's Council member, I found the depiction of Hitler as a man who vacillated between personal kindness and sudden burst of hate-filled, vindictive insanity to be incredible to watch. I had a bit of a problem with the dignified depictions of Albert Speer and Professor Schenk, but perhaps part of the point is that many of the people responsible for the Third Reich were not stark-raving insanos, but people who have some admirable qualities but have tied their fate to political evil (*ahem* Colin Powell *ahem*). I remember my Holocaust Studies professor had some kind words for Speer (although I don't remember why), and I know that he escaped the death penalty at Nuremburg. Anyway, definitely an interesting (although somewhat south of great) movie.

Corwood...almost used your secret identity there., sorry, babe..seems determined to feed my snake. Can it be January now, please?(Since you're not on lj, Corwood, you might not know of my habit of calling our POTUS after Snot Boogie in the pilot. Because America knew he was gonna steal from us, but let him play anyway. And less nobly, because his effect on my language is like that first BunkNJimmy homicide.) Damn, I remain hugely impressed with Ed Burns. Man never met a tough job he didn't like...probably found TV less than exciting till they were on the bubble and shit.

My sense of Badlands is that is it less preposterous and gently dull than either Days of Heaven or The Thin Red Line, which makes it the best Terence Malick movie I have ever seen. Slooooooow as all get-out, but that's intentional. (I do think Days of Heaven is prettier, but pointless.)

It amazes me how Sissy Spacek was all desctructive characters in her youth, Carrie and all, and ended up playing gentle moms in middle-age. Kind of cute -- in the heart of every lunch-maker and mess-cleaner-upper lies the urge to KILL!!!

Ah ha ha hahahaha. Seriously, Nick. What are you doing? [link]

My sense of Badlands is that is it less preposterous and gently dull than either Days of Heaven or The Thin Red Line, which makes it the best Terence Malick movie I have ever seen. Slooooooow as all get-out, but that's intentional. (I do think Days of Heaven is prettier, but pointless.)

Tell you the truth, I saw both Badlands and Days of Heaven as part of the same film festival while I was an undergrad, and I could barely recall either the other day. I think Badlands will stick with me better these days (what with the clean-livin' and all), but I want to re-watch Days of Heaven before issuing any kind of opinion. I also liked The Thin Red Line quite a bit.

It amazes me how Sissy Spacek was all desctructive characters in her youth, Carrie and all, and ended up playing gentle moms in middle-age. Kind of cute -- in the heart of every lunch-maker and mess-cleaner-upper lies the urge to KILL!!!

So true! In fact, I suspect it was her gentleness that made her such an effective blithe accomplice/crazed dirty-bagged killer.

But why couldn't a killer look like that? Not that KT wasn't brilliant, but SS should have played "Serial Mom"

Kel-al Cage? WTF?