My week began with a quiet night of Comic-Con recovery and The Insider. Based on the true story of big tobacco whistle-blower Jeffrey Wigand and 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman, this movie had me utterly riveted from start to finish. Russell Crowe was fine as Wigand, but it was Al Pacino as Bergman who really carried the story. It's hard to remember there was a time in America when suits against tobacco companies were a new phenomenon. Most fascinating to me was everything that went into producing Wigand's 60 Minutes interview, and watching Pacino storyboard his piece filled me with major professional envy. After I finished the film, still exclaiming to myself about how good it was, I went to my computer and found the following headline on Yahoo: "Vatican excommunicates 7 female 'priests'." The thing that pissed me off almost more than the excommunication itself, men pretending to know the mind of their maker, were those quotation marks around the word priests. Please, God, may I see women accepted as your ministers in the Catholic church in my lifetime.

Tuesday evening Dandeline were playing at the Hotel Utah, and Aimee and I got there early so we could get a beer and some food at the bar. Such decadance on a weeknight! Dan and Sheila were fabulous, and I always love hearing them play a full set instead of just the handful they get to play at Monday Night Hoots.

Minority Report was playing at the Parkway this week, and my friends hadn't seen it yet, so off I went for a second viewing. Unfortunately for the film, I had read the Dick short story in the weeks since I first saw Spielberg's adaptation. The plot holes were much harder to ignore this time, and the pat Hollywood ending was even more hateful. The screenwriters would have done well to stick much more closely to the short story, which has plenty of twists and turns without all the excess crap of the film. The only thing I liked better this time was Colin Farrell's portrayal of Witwer. I went from finding him utterly repulsive to thinking he was the cutest thing ever. Go figure. Still loved the eye doctor. And the spiders. And how it looks like someone took a piece of sandpaper to the color throughout the film.

Thursday night I was possessed by a strange demon indeed and found myself watching three straight hours of Revolutionary Girl Utena. I would not recommend this to anyone except the serious anime enthusiast, teenage girls looking to graduate from Sailor Moon, or individuals who get a lot of titillation from shojo gender inversions.

Lessons of the 60 Minutes Cave-In
Hotel Utah
The Utena Encyclopedia