Rest assured my #1 film of the year would be the same as yours. Nothing that has come out in years holds a candle to “There Will Be Blood! and I suspect we won’t see a film of it’s caliber for many years to come.

In other news: ME WANTY PODCAST! ME WANTY PODCAST!

P. S. - All apologies for the awkwardness of this post. I was writing it out and couldn’t think of the word “formulaic” when I came to that point in the post, so I had to sit down and go quietly insane for ten minutes while trying to figure out the word I was looking for. Consequently, I started going through what I’d written and reworked how I elaborated on pretty much all of my points, with the final product almost certainly being inferior to what I had originally (perhaps I should write web postings in drafts from now on).

Also, my lamp is now broken.

As for There Will Be Blood, I will be seeing that at my next chance. I highly look forward to it. Or maybe Juno, seeing as how seeing that will help me impress a girl.

So should I go for the girl or the awesome violence?

As for “1408″, well, I loved it. I can’t make anyone else love it. I tried to make the best possible case for why I loved it and I don’t expect to win any converts (though it would be nice). I thought it was a meaty psychological piece (admittedly, I knew that the post office thing and the tape recorder thing were going to happen, it just didn’t bother me that they did) with a great main character that gave Cusack something to sink his talents into.

P.S. Sorry to hear about your lamp. I will observe a moment of silence in its honor.

It has grown upon me immensely since that time.

The way in which a sound, neither an effect representing part of the scenery nor a note that was part of the score, blared at times throughout the beginning of the movie for nothing more than mere punctuation, it reminded me of something. It was hard to finger, at first, but I knew that I liked it; that there was something almost moving about this mere sound, there for no reason, that made me feel as though threatened by the scene, as if I was involved; as if the events of it could hurt me. The blaring did not remain throughout the entirety of the film, but other sounds did. Again, sounds not part of the soundtrack or the scenery, but simply punctuation for the sentences and paragraphes that comprise a scene, if you were to hold in your hands a perfect translation of film to word. Exclamation points, ellipsises; they were all there, all hiding within, or perhaps just outright represented, by these sounds that pervased the film. I loved them. And why shouldn’t I? I know these sounds, these bits of punctuation. I’ve heard–read, if you will–all of them, and all in the same collection of works.

The works of Stanley Kubrick. 2001 is the greatest example of it; The Shining is a more subtle approach to this punctuation on film that I speak of. I’ll need to sleep on it in order to gather my thoughts on the film itself and the performance of Daniel Day-Lewis, but of this much I am certain: giving the Academy Award to Paul Thomas Anderson for his masterpiece (it may not be a masterpiece in its own right (again, I’ll have to sleep on it), but it is HIS masterpiece) is the closest the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will ever come to giving the coveted statuette to Stanley Kburick, and they would be best to do as much as they can to rectify that stunning four-time slight.

P. S. - Thank you for your condolences. My lamp is surely in a better place, free of my abuse; just as little Mary Sunday was free from Abel’s abuse once Daniel Plainview rolled into town.

I think they’re just afraid of giving an Oscar to a member of Radiohead.

There was some other movie that people thought would be a contender for best score that got shafted on the same technicality. I can’t remember what it was though. Hmmm…

Come to think of it the Academy has a lot of stupid rules like this. The other one that comes to mind is the foreign film category. They only let each country submit one film. So, say for instance that France has 3 great movies come out in a year (I know the possibility of this happening is slim, but hang with me). They can only submit one of them to the Academy for consideration for the Best Foreign Film Oscar. Even if those 3 films deserved to be among the 5 nominees it wouldn’t matter. Too bad so sad.

And as always, quite lame on the Academy’s part.

PS - There just may be in a podcast in your future.