I’m not generally prone to this kind of thing, but… Oh, this will have no meaning unless you’re playing the same MMORPGs as me. Also, it is one big giant image.

Speaking of District B13, here’s the trailer (original).

Let’s take a quick trip back to my criteria for Bush’s success, shall we? He already missed the 2004 Iraqi election goal by a slim margin. And now it looks like Iran may get nukes. Having enriched uranium doesn’t count, but that does put Iran closer to the Bomb than they were in 2004. Still no new draft!

Brick was really good. I have to admit I went in expecting a cute gimmick movie — well, not cute. A noir gimmick, but you know what I mean. A movie that existed for the sake of the gimmick: noir high school. This was not what I got. Yes, it’s a noir flick set at a high school. Strip away the high school and there’s nothing really new here. It’s pitch perfect; Rian Johnson gets the noir thing. The dialogue is tough, the characterizations are good, the fractured spinning loyalties are good. The subtle implications of perversity are good. If you grew the kids up and stuck the thing in Chicago or New York or LA, you’d have a competent but not surprising noir which would eventually show up in some classic noir boxed set or other, and people would say “Hey, it’s nice to see that one on DVD.” ...

The Trinity Players Guide is available for free (original) over at DriveThruRPG. It’ll only be free till April 20th, so pick it up now. Cause I wrote the section on the Orders, and it’s pretty decent.

My current schedule for the 2006 Independent Film Festival of Boston (original), which I will have the pleasure of sharing with my sweetie: Friday 4/21 Edmond, Somerville 1, 8 PM Mamet, William H. Macy. That does it for me. District B13, Somerville 5, 11 PM Cool as crap French sci-fi action flick with tons of martial arts. Saturday 4/22 Shadow Company, Somerville 3, 12:45 PM This is a maybe due to timing, but it’s an interesting-looking documentary. See also Kathryn Cramer’s writing on this subject (original). ...

This here is Spike Lee making the best caper flick he can make with a superb cast, which is pretty good on all fronts. And actually, the cast is a notch better than you’d think, for the following reasons: Denzel Washington does not play Denzel Washington, and Chiwetel Ejiofor is a great actor even if you don’t know who he is. I guess if you do know who he is already, the cast is only half a notch better than you’d think. ...

Brick is playing tonight down at the Kendall. 7:10 show. And I might just hang out after for the 10 PM showing of Thank You for Smoking. I’m fairly sure that there’s some inherent value in the concept of a high school noir flick. Plus it’s got the chick from Lost, no not the evil one, the other one. Plus Shaft as a high school principal. Possibly that last is stunt casting. ...

Last year, Caltech pranked MIT fairly hard. This year, MIT struck back. Admittedly, it’s not that hard to prank Fleming, but there’s still a fair amount of elegance in this one.

We have caught up on Lost, thanks to Chris, Tivo, Bittorrent, and iTunes. As a result, I have a new theory, which I think is completely original. Although it’s flawed insofar as it explains precisely none of the mysteries at all. Still, it’s a good theory. I noticed last night, while Sayid, Charlie, and Ana-Lucia were off investigating something dangerous without telling anyone where they were going — this, to make sure that anything that happened to them would be as bad as possible and cause as much impact on the rest of the group as was feasible — you can’t go telling people what you’re doing, especially if you’re violating the First Rule, which is “bring the irreplaceable doctor with you on any risky expedition” — crap, lost track. ...