*Also, challenged to a duel of villanelles, I put together a piece on pop music.  You can find it in the a/v section as well.

Content will be updated throughout the day.

DQN

• “The Hurt Locker” - Much has been said about Kathryn Bigelow’s examination of a bomb squad working in the Iraq war. We have been looking forward to this film since Mr. Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere posted an eight minute clip of the film earlier this week. A review will be forthcoming here on DQN.
  
  Side note: Bigelow directed New Order’s semi-hilarious video for “Touched By The Hand of God”. Crossover resets! What is it about film directors who’ve worked on music videos? Fincher, Glazer, Gondry, Demme.

• “Blood: The Last Vampire” - Simple rule. You see films with synopses like this (via IMDB) - “A vampire named Saya, who is part of covert government agency that hunts and destroys demons in a post-WWII Japan, is inserted in a military school to discover which one of her classmates is a demon is disguise.” The trailer itself looks good enough to eat with gilded chopsticks. I was a massive fan of “Crouching Tiger”, which shares the same producer. The film stars South Korean actress, and probably future crush, Jeon Ji-Hyun. I’m putting this one up against “Thirst” in the vampire/demon category, although I know they deal with perfectly opposite premises.

• “Espion(s)” - The Boston French Film Festival kicked off last night, which I semi-regretfully did not attend [you bring dates to those sorts of things]. Nicolas Saada’s “Espions” screens tomorrow night, and I’ll be in attendance if I can score a ticket. Foreign spy thrillers like “Espions” [French for “spies”] are in my alley of things I see without license.

• “Bruno” - Much like Mr. Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere, I was taken back [and secretly applauding] Anthony Lane’s review of Baron Cohen’s campy, homophobic romp.  I’ve been asked by both my straight and gay friends if I’m seeing this - the answer is no preceded by the emphatic H.E. double hockey sticks.  I never dug Ali G. nor did I have even the slightest taste for Borat.  I will let the LGBT community have at “Bruno” for all it’s worth.  You’ll find me this weekend at the aforementioned flicks. 

• The Auteurs’s Glenn Kenny publishes a piece on Bela Tarr’s new B&W “The Man From London”, starring our crush, Tilda Swinton.  If you haven’t seen Swinton in “Young Adam” you have done yourself wrong.