Hey, so how about looming deathstorm 2008, everybody? Yesterday, a friend said to me, "They are predicting that people will die." My plan is to make chili.

Movies!

If you haven't read Christopher Frizzelle's fantastic review of Doubt, I demand that you do so now:

This movie is Streep porn. It presents her as a thing worthy of a fetish. It's an hour and a half of her just doing things: digging some food out of her teeth, looking intensely at a bunch of pages in the blurry foreground, not getting the seat she wants in a room, sitting at the head of a table while someone very slowly pours milk in everyone's glasses, responding to a request with a "yes" that is the opposite of a yes, kicking a fallen branch out of a pathway, winding a bunch of twine around her fingers, talking over a ringing telephone, standing in a harshly blowing wind, screwing in an overhead light bulb with a long stick, petting a cat. She does more than anyone while barely doing anything.

Charles Mudede's take on Seven Pounds contains one of my favorite passages ever written by the hand of man:

I will not offer a review of this film, as that would be a waste of the little time we have together in this review space. The film does not deserve a judgment outside of the plain word "bad." Will Smith must go to the desert for 40 days and 40 nights and come back to the human family with a clear head and an empty stomach. Why? Because right now he is so full of shit. He needs a cleansing, a spiritual purge, and a reawakening. But to those who do watch Seven Pounds and see its shocking "revelation," I want to offer this reading or decoding of its narrative: The movie is about the death of the black male.

The great Paul Constant takes down Yes Man:

Here is the premise, loosely based on a memoir with the same name: Carrey's character decides, with the nudging of a self-help guru played by a slumming Terence Stamp (who provides the only 15 seconds of the film actually worth watching), that he will say yes to everything. So he binge drinks, takes flying lessons, responds to spam about penile enhancement, and gets a blowjob from a toothless old lady. This dilemma completely lacks drama. Carrey could say no whenever he wants to and thereby resolve the situation, he just chooses not to.

And David Schmader assesses the disappointing New Queer Cinema of Save Me:

Overseeing operations at Genesis House—the residential treatment center where troubled tweaker Mark (Chad Allen, of Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman) finds himself after an especially bumpy bout of partying-and-playing—is Gayle (Ugly Betty's Judith Light), a Christian matron made dour by the death of her own gay son, of whom she's reminded a bit by her new charge Mark, who soon finds himself a fast-growing friendship with the would-be ex-gay dreamboat Scott (Queer as Folk's Robert Gant), who threatens to upset Mark's vulnerable recovery with penetrating gazes and soulful birdhouse-painting.

There's also the Dark Crystal at the Egyptian midnight movie tonight; and Bad Santa at the Grand Illusion at 11. Grand Illusion is also playing It's A Wonderful Life all weekend. And SIFF Cinema is showing The Godfather and Godfather II today and tomorrow and Monday and Tuesday (see Paul Constant's tirelessly entertaining liveblog, above, which will be going on until 2015). And if you still haven't seen Slumdog Millionaire and Let the Right One In, it's not too late! Don't fuck this one up!

Another option is to hide in your house and eat chili. They are predicting that people will die. Please don't die.