I’m thinking about a long essay on Johnny Depp’s trilogy of food movies: Chocolat, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and of course Sweeney Todd. No? What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?

Stop hurting America! (original) Michael Bay’s production company is working on remakes of: Nightmare on Elm Street Friday the 13th Near Dark The Birds Near Dark was just fine the way it was. Grrr. Who the hell is Samuel Bayer? I suppose I’m upset about Hitchcock remakes too. I’m not really upset about Friday the 13th, though.

I’ve seen a few critics recommending minimal knowledge of Cloverfield going into the movie, and I think that’s right. It’s also a sign that it’s a gimmick movie. That’s not a pejorative, since there’s nothing wrong with gimmick movies, but you always have to ask: does the gimmick contribute to the story? In this case, since the story’s more about how people react to the giant monster eating New York City than it is about the monster, I think the answer’s yes. To the degree that Cloverfield doesn’t succeed, it’s not any fault of the found footage conceit. Rather, it’s that the characters aren’t all that interesting, excepting our primary cameraman Hud. They aren’t boring, per se. I cheered for them. I just wouldn’t have been cheering if it hadn’t been a monster movie. ...

Interesting geeky project of the nonce: Shadow Unit, from Elizabeth Bear, Emma Bull, Sarah Monette, and Will Shetterly. It’ll be updated weeklyish with more stuff; starting in February there’ll be fiction every two weeks, including a full novel. Right now it’s the front page plus two character dossiers, but if you go here you’ll find the rest of the dossiers. And a message board. Keen. Edit: And LiveJournals. Start maybe here. I haven’t figured who’s who yet, although that one is obviously Chaz, because I need to get to work. ...

I saw No Country for Old Men weeks ago, and it’s taken me this long to come to grips with it; or to at least find an entrance point for discussion that made sense to me. I spent a while musing on the nihilistic nature of the movie. My first draft of this noted “family counts for nothing except danger, and the monsters are not destined for jail time.” But that’s not true. I’ve seen nihilistic movies. A truly nihilistic movie ignores consequences; the crop of Tarantino/Besson-influenced movies come far closer to nihilism than No Country for Old Men. Consider Snatch, in which the protagonists are pretty completely immoral but walk free at the end. I liked Snatch but there’s about zero morality in the whole thing. ...

Show me a semi-hot newish show, and I’m likely to want to read the books it was based on. They’re more portable, after all. Accordingly, I picked up and read Darkly Dreaming Dexter and Dearly Devoted Dexter over the holidays. Serial murderer protagonists are very Solstice! I can’t say they made a lasting impression. Dexter is a rather defanged protagonist. The series hinges on his code of ethics, which forbids him to hurt anyone except other killers; there’s no way that code is going to be broken any time soon, because the series takes a markedly different direction if that ever happens. So no tension surrounds that particular dilemma. ...

The Trader’s League does not exist. There is not a tight network of mutually interdependent mercantile interests in the South which keeps its existence secret in order to further gather advantages to itself. It does not set the prevailing market rates for commodities and luxuries alike. It does not sanction independent merchants who act against its best interests. It does not represent the single largest economic force in the known world. It does not arrange for bi-annual trade fairs to spring up, seemingly out of nowhere, in cities it wishes to favor. It has never affected a succession debate. It does not kill. ...

For a lot of pretty good reasons, I missed a lot of movies in 2007. But this is why I have a big television in my living room, no? Yes. In no particular order: American GangsterEastern PromisesSon of RambowCharlie Wilson’s WarMichael ClaytonI’m Not ThereThe OrphanageGone Baby GoneDarjeeling LimitedThe King of KongCrows 0 I left off a couple of Phillip Seymour Hoffman flicks. I don’t know. He’s always brilliant, but can you hang a movie around that every time? Oh, hell. ...

Voting seems to have about come to a close, so let’s see what we have. First off, I totaled up our punches throughout the course of the season – five points to the person on top, four to the #2 slot, etc., etc. Mohinder and Matt each got 4.5 points the week they were tied. The sibs each got 2 points once. Our top eight looks like this: West (26) Mohinder (21.5) Bob (16) Maya (14) Elle (11) Matt (10.5) Adam (10) Angela (10) ...

This is the eleventh and most likely the last PITF Index for Season 2 of Heroes, the superhero TV show where punching people in the face didn’t actually happen this episode. Face-punch count: 0. Lotta powers, though. Not your usual PITF Index after the cut.