Emeline would look fabulous in those Art Nouveau styled gowns and feathered headdresses.

There is one Buffista child, though, who has exactly the right parentage to grow up to be Yzma.

Ahahahahahahaha!!!!

New Moon casting

There is one Buffista child, though, who has exactly the right parentage to grow up to be Yzma.

::gazes towards Michigan...::

Muah-ha-ha!!!

Love Emperor's New Groove. Sadly, it is lacking a princess, and therefore holds no interest for Yon Punk these days. Maybe I'll force it on her this weekend.

Maybe I'll dress her up as Yzma for Halloween. And Joe can take her out as Kuzco.

Maybe I'll dress her up as Yzma for Halloween. And Joe can take her out as Kuzco.

Now I'm picturing Aimee and MM in a pantomime llama costume. Hee!

Who else has seen Synechdoche, New York ? I started hating it about 20 minutes in, having thoughts like "Did Charlie Kaufman write this after a dementor attack?" I started to feel that it was one of those films you have to see more than once to understand but once was already too much (see also: Mulholland Drive). But then Dianne Wiest showed up and reminded me of some stuff I just learned about Jung (from a Charles de Lint book) and I started getting into it on an analytical level. At the end I was confused but not angry at the movie. Then I watched the bloggers roundtable special feature.

I'm reminded of a time Mom & I went to see an art exhibit. Shoot I forget the artist's name but I think he's from Chicago and at the time (mid 90's) he was doing a lot of cartoonish paintings of people with hairy legs. We walked though kind of puzzled and not very much entertained. Then we watched the documentary presentation and it was like the whole show opened up for us. We walked through again and found great meaning and enjoyment in the paintings.

Crap I forget where I was going with this. My main question is: have you seen it and what was your experience with it?

I absolutely loved it. I agree that it's a frustrating and difficult film (and I know people who hate it with the white-hot burning passion of a thousand suns, and that's a totally valid response too), but I think if the viewer is able to stop overthinking it and just live with it and experience it as it's happening, it will reward you with something. And then once it's over you can go back to overthinking it and arguing over what the burning house was supposed to mean and how much of it really happened and WTF was [insert just about anything here] about??? And burbling about how marvelous Emily Watson was showing up at just that moment, and so forth.

I watched it twice back-to-back and bawled my damn eyes out both times. I spent the first 30 minutes or so wondering when the movie was going to get started, and then realized that like Cotard, I was focusing on things that were not right in front of my eyes. I love how time kept slipping away throughout the movie. I love how some characters aged while others didn't. I love how Death Of A Salesman looms so large over the rest of the movie. Hell, I think it may be the most important American movie of the last decade. I can only think of a couple of others with comparable amounts of ambition and beauty and skill.

But, like Jessica, I understand why some people do not like it, like I understand why some people don't care for Faulkner or Henry James or Pynchon or Chris Marker or some of the other thorny artists I love.

Holy shit. I kept putting off seeing that in the theater, until, well, I didn't. I guess I will need to catch it on DVD now. Charlie Kaufman's mind works in seriously mysterious ways, doesn't it?

Without going into details, are there any of those OMG hilarious moments, like when Malkovich goes inside his own head? Those help mitigate the sadness (which has been a true Kaufman hallmark in all his scripts).