AVIATOR: THE SPRUCE GOOSE OF 2004 “So, I guess Jude Law got left on the cutting room floor?” My twenty-something friend wondered the question aloud as we staggered out of the theater last night with a few hundred other staggering wonderers. We were leaving the three hour experience of Scorcese’s highly-anticipated The Aviator plus trailers. “Huh?” I replied, pithily. He came back, “Wasn’t Jude Law supposed to do a cameo as Errol Flynn in the movie?” Wondering if this was... Read more

MAYBE IF I WATCHED IT SIDEWAYS? If the film everybody is raving about, Sideways wins Best Picture in the year of The Passion of the Christ, I am going to seriously consider moving to eastern CT, to avoid a probable coming cataclysm. Honestly, along with Closer, this is the second film in four days that has made me want to flee this business, peeling of its slime as I run. It isn’t so much the film – there have been... Read more

MEOW… YOU ARE CATNIP What herb are you? brought to you by Quizilla Read more

DYSFUNCTIONAL COMMENTS Well, after several months of pleading with John, my personal little vindictive troll, to get some therapy (and a life!), I have installed a new kind of comments that will allow me to ban his vile crassness. I apologise in advance for all the gross and hateful comments John will post up here while I ban him from computer to computer. I suppose I should be grateful for the opportunity to learn first hand that hatred is, indeed,... Read more

NOT EVEN CLOSE The only good thing about the screening was that I didn’t bring one of my young male friends with me. Then, I would have had to labor under guilt for subjecting another human being to the cinematic disease now in theaters called Closer. And here I was thinking I’m falling behind by having been out of theaters for a couple of months. If only I could have prolonged my absence a few more weeks. Closer should be... Read more

THE NEXT THING IS HERE The thing with evil is, it never relents. It never sleeps. It never retreats. It never pauses to catch its breath. That’s what I was thinking last Thursday while watching the last half of ER which featured an absolutely compelling and iron-clad dramatic defense for euthanasia. While, we all are catching our breath from having held the barricades against same-sex marriage on election day, the left marches on, advancing a new front. I don’t believe... Read more

PEOPLE NOT PROJECTS A friend told me recently that I will probably have that on my gravestone. Yeah, I guess. Here’s the latest National Catholic Register reprint on Catholic Exchange of this, my keynote schtick. Read more

EVEN MORE ME So, one of our Act One alumns, Clayton Emmer, has set me up a personal web-site. I feel like the occasion deserves some kind of auspicious introductory event – but I’m so tired and busy, I’m going to go for discreet and humble. (If I don’t tell people how humble I am, they’ll never know.) We’re still working on the site, so please feel free to send ideas about how it could be better. (“But this is... Read more

BARB’S BRAIN MAKIN’ A LIST, CHECKIN’ IT TWICE… 1. Am now officially eight days past my deadline to submit my National Catholic Register column. No hope of getting it done until Saturday. – NAUGHTY …Am ducking their request for a special article about the Pope on Cinema because I really want to do it, but can’t see how or when – NAUGHTY 2. Was supposed to turn in the first draft of the screenplay Nov. 25. Am now shooting for... Read more

CHURCHES AND ARTICHOKES I’m just back in Los Angeles after eight days in Italy. I was traveling with my sister Val, the opera singer, which was fun as we are both passionately dedicated to Jesus, art and, well, artichokes. Valerie is one of the only people on the planet who agrees with me that it is not over-doing it to order artichokes at restaurants twice a day for eight days. It’s our pathetic little brand of hedonism; make the most... Read more