and he ALSO wasn't aware there were m/m romances (he's gay) and seemingly it sent him down a rabbithole on Amazon that took up quite some time.)

Well, I hope you guys don't need him for anything anytime soon.

He'd left for another job, but I was sending him info I thought would interest him ... and a book cover with a model who could almost have been him? I didn't even try to resist.

I wasn't a huge fan of Dune when I read it as a kid, and all I remember from the previous movie is Sting. But this movie, I'll probably break two of my own rules and go see it in IMAX.

I've been feeling down in the dumps about not being at TIFF for the first time in 5 years. The festival just started couple of days ago, with limited in-person component as well as virtual screening, but it's geo-locked in Canada :(

BUT. New York Film Festival, which opens in a week, also has a decent-sized virtual screening component, and the tickets for those are on sale right now! [link]

I went and bought several tickets -- a handful of narrative films including Chloe Zhao's Nomadland, which just won the top prize at Venice, plus a couple of documentaries. Some of the top titles are only available for screening during a 4-hour window on a specific day, while with others, you have 5 days to watch the movie.

If you've always wanted to try film festivals but couldn't due to various circumstances, here's your chance. Tickets go for $25 or $15, which is reasonable as festival ticket prices go.

I've been feeling down in the dumps about not being at TIFF for the first time in 5 years. The festival just started couple of days ago, with limited in-person component as well as virtual screening, but it's geo-locked in Canada :(

I will so miss your TIFF reports.

New York Film Festival, which opens in a week, also has a decent-sized virtual screening component, and the tickets for those are on sale right now!

However, thanks for posting this since I can't wait to see Nomadland. I also got tix for Christian Petzold's Undine and La Nuit des rois, which is more for work than anything else.

I wanted to get tickets for On the Rocks (the new Sofia Coppola) but it was already sold out. I thought about getting David Byrne's American Utopia but it will be on HBO soon enough.

I'm seeing Undine as well! The reviews on the film from Berlinale were mixed, but Petzold is such an interesting filmmaker that I think even his less successful films would be interesting to watch.

I wanted to get tickets for On the Rocks (the new Sofia Coppola) but it was already sold out.

Looks like I snatched the last few tickets for that one, sorry! I think it is set to stream on Apple+ just 2-3 weeks later. I also got tix for the opening and closing night films (the first of the Steve McQueen trilogy, and French Exit, for the Michelle Pfeiffer of it all). That said, the one I'm most psyched about after the Chloe Zhao is probably The Truffle Hunters, which is about a bunch of old men and their dogs hunting for expensive truffles in Italian countryside. The trailer looks charming: [link]

If anyone's interested, here's the trailer for The Craft: Legacy.

Ooh

Oh, ooh!

I may add that to my traditional H'ween movie marathon (this is my marathon and there are additions that may make no sense to you and movies missing that would be in your movie marathon). I've actually dropped The Craft, Mark I from the rotation for the last couple of years. I also added a movie that came with a quality warning, The Last Keepers: "When the teenage daughter of a reclusive family of artists falls in love with an unusual boy at school, she awakens mysterious powers and discovers ancient family secrets that will change her life forever." Starring Aidan Quinn, Virginia Madsen, Olympia Dukakis. Sounded okay, despite the reviews.

This movie, man. Filmed at peak leaf season in New England, it's absolutely gorgeous, visually. I don't know if it's the script or the ingenue lead, but anytime the movie moves indoors, even to the evocative, atmospheric seekrit attic spellwork room, you can hear brakes screech. Everybody works really hard, but it's literally a bad movie. If you inflict it on yourself, at least run it on mute with your finger on the FF button.

Chocolat (anything I learned about Depp after this movie was released does not affect my joy in this movie) and A Monster in Paris join Angelica Huston, Mai Zetterling and Rowan Atkinson in Roald Dahl's The Witches, and everlasting must-have, Hocus Pocus. Despite my Tim Curry love, The Worst Witch has been dropped from the H'ween festival list, though I'm thinking of adding Legend--if I can get past all the incipient Tom Cruise of it. It's like watching The Last Samurai with my thumb over his face throughout the movie and pretending it's all just fine without him.

Where was I? Oh, adding The Craft, mark II to the list. Or otherwise, adding Mark I back in.

My first reaction to the trailer is that they look SO YOUNG and my second thought was that that's kind of refreshing, having high school students on screen that actually look to me like kids