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S. and W. are here, which means it’s time to kick off my film club down at the Coolidge. I’m gonna try and run about once a month; it needs to be a weekday night, because it’s hard to get the screening room on weekends. Optimal nights for me are Wednesday and Thursday; if you have a preference, express it now. So the question arises: what’s a good kickoff movie? Imma break it down into some categories, and y’all tell me where your yearnings lead you. Or suggest something else. ...

Holidays, New England style: MLK Day — nothing special President’s Day — nothing special Patriot’s Day — the Boston Marathon & Red Sox Easter — nothing special Memorial Day — spend five hours driving to the Cape July 4th — Boston Pops on the Esplanade Labor Day — spend five hours driving to the Cape Halloween — Salem Thanksgiving — Plimouth Plantation Christmas — Christmas Revels New Year’s Eve — First Night That’s all the cheese I can think of off the top of my head. What’s missing?

Lost Badass List: 5/11/2006 Mr. Eko Sayid Locke Sawyer Jun Commentary and spoilers after the jump.

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. ...