Denser than the person who spent 5 minutes trying to figure them out before realizing they weren't actual stills from movies? I think not!

Ah, but you're a professor of French cinema. If you didn't believe in the overriding truth of the image regardless of the pretense on which it was created, where would we all be? In a Tony Scott movie, I say.

Sean, I love that post because it feels like it should be some post-modern analysis of stationery politics.

Hee! Thanks, SA. I was having almost as much fun coming up with hints as I was playing the game.

I had spelled it wrong before, but then I looked it up and got the right spelling, but it won't acknowledge the change.

Completely delete your answer until you're sure it's empty and there's no extra spaces. Then carefully type it in again. Your spelling is correct.

Finally saw i The Departed. Liked it pretty well. Had a couple of things that grated. Barrigan also being a rat, and seemingly knowing about Sullivan--did Brown call him instead of Dignan? They had Costigan plant seeds of doubt in Costello's head about French, but we never saw them take root--did Costigan end up with the tapes because all the rest of the inner circle was dead, or because Costello wanted him specifically to have them. Dignam disappearing so thoroughly. Sure, he was an abrasive prick, but wouldn't he have wanted to keep an eye on Costigan, at least for the sake of the operation?

I also found myself laughing at the violence in the latter part of the movie, and I'm pretty sure that wasn't supposed to be my primary reaction.

Nearly everyone in my packed (we had to sit in the fourth row) theatre laughed when Costello bit it . The violence just seemed jarring and I guess the laughter is how people blow off the tension.

As for Dignan I felt like he was watching Costigan...from just out of frame, you know? That's how he ended up being gunny on the spot what with the surgical booties and all ...creepeee.

Posting from my mom's house on hideously slow dial-up, so this is a post-and-run. We watched Dear Frankie last night and I want to recommend it to anyone wanting a really good rainy day movie. It's wonderfully acted by Emily Mortimer and Gerard (yumalicous) Butler and is smart and warm and quirkily Scottish. It was written, produced and directed by women and has strong, unique female characters and a spare and big-hearted script. The young boy who plays the lead icharacter is just lovely. It's one of those films you will watch and instantly want to own, because you know you'll be rewatching it and making all your friends see it.

DF is one of my all time favorites. Another quirky Scots film I like to recommend is Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself. Seriously. It's as sweet as Dear Frankie and the two in a double bill will make you want to hug and squeeze your near and dear.

But why would Dignam watch from out of frame and let everyone get shot at the abandoned building? Everything could have been cleaned up more tidily from there. And I also remember that I wondered what Delahunt was about to tell Costigan before he shuffled the mortal coil.

Pretty sure Delahunt told him, right? Along the lines of, do you know why I didn't tell anyone that you were at the correct address?

(As for the other questions, I don't remember anyone's names anymore, but I assume that everyone we suspect of being a rat was one, that we were supposed to take from it that both sides were heavily infiltrated.)

Did anybody see The Prestige ? I liked it. And I think it doesn't fall into the same trap of "realistic" magic that The Illusionist did, but, maybe kinda sorta fell into a different trap, which may or may not actually be a trap. Worth talking about, anyway.

Delahunt did say that, which lent credance to the later news report and then seriously confused me when Costello said something to the effect that it wasn't true, just what the cops wanted them to think.

That was the moment that led me to bon bon's second point that everyone was crooked and had a double life.