Okay, that's it. You've done it, Robin. While I'm cooling my heels here waiting for UPS to arrive with Emmett's Christmas present, you have now left me no choice but to while away the afternoon watching M. Hulot's Holiday. Oh, how shall I ever bear it?

you have now left me no choice but to while away the afternoon watching M. Hulot's Holiday. Oh, how shall I ever bear it?

Don't eat all the molasses cookies before I get home.

I heard a piece on the radio yesterday about Cuaron's new movie Children of Men, and how it has a seven minute long action sequence, with tanks, bombs, bullets, and running around, shot in a single, unedited take. Apparently it took four or five attempts, and they almost didn't pull it off. In fact, on the last take, which is the one they ended up using, some blood got on the lens and Cuaron yelled "cut," but just at that moment one of the bigger explosives went off and nobody heard him, so he let it keep going. It was the last try they were going to get before they lost the location.

When they finished, star Clive Owen and the camera man (who by necessity spent the entire shot running alongside Owen, and sometimes running backwards in front of him over obstacles and up stairs) were giddy at having finished the shot. When Cuaron told them "yeah, but we got blood on the lens," implying that the shot was ruined, they both looked at him and said "yeah, but that was the best part," at which point Cuaron realized they were right.

Now I have to see Children of Men just for this legendary shot.

Cuaron is dangerously close to getting on my "they get to make whatever they want, forever, and I'll be there" list, along with Jackson and Miyazaki and Almodovar.

I saw the '62 "Manchurian Candidate" yesterday because KO compared the Bush Admin to power-mad Angela Lansbury(My fake boyfriends are *so* fricking smart.) Frank was really really good in it, in a way I wouldn't have credited, having seen footage from his "Fuck You, I'm An Icon," period.(kudos Mr. S. Sorry I underestimated you.) Angela Lansbury is Neo-Con Evil...smiley puppetmaster.

The best it to watch that Manchurian Candidate and then watch Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Makes for much surreal fun.

Isn't that a good movie, Erika? And I totally agree about Sinatra.

Don't eat all the molasses cookies before I get home.

Oops.

Though more are being made. They're easy and tasty and we have all the ingredients here already, so I predict several more batches will happen before New Year's.

Aaand... Matilda, it appears, is totally entranced by Jacques Tati. I never wanted to be a mom who parked her kid in front of the TV to get a break, but somehow Tati seems different, with the black and white, the almost no dialogue except a murmured word in French here and there, and the most high-energy events in the film being (a) finding out whether Hulot ever gets to dance with that pretty girl and (b) a toddler attempting to climb a steep stairway while carrying an ice cream cone.

I can't decide whether this makes it all okay, or whether it means I'm just an unbearably pretentious mom who parks her kid in front of the TV to get a break, but at least I get to make myself some lunch, which totally makes this a better day than yesterday. Plus, oh how I love this film.

Yeah, Robin, I thought it was gonna be...stunt casting, if they said that in the early sixties, throw the famous guy some attention, but he really did a great job. I didn't think about anything croonerish once. Lunch is good, JZ. And it's not pretentious until you act like it makes her a genius.

And it's not pretentious until you act like it makes her a genius.

::blushes, cancels Matilda's subscription to Cahiers du Cinema::