1) There’s a pretty good piece about Robert Altman last movie here: Robert Altman waved goodbye with a film about waving goodbye

I had a great advantage in coming to this movie in that I was only slightly familiar with the radio program. So, rather than whining about how Guy Noir is so different than he is on the radio, I could just sit back and enjoy all the schtick that Kevin Kline works into his performance.

There’s a lot of debate in the comments about whether this movie belongs in Altman’s all-time top ten. I just did a quick survey and it ended up as #12 or #13 for me, but that’s still pretty good.

Oh, and I think Lindsay Lohan is just fine in the picture. Some people see her performance in the light of what’s come since, but she’s actually quite good.

I’ve never reviewed A Prairie Home Companion (the movie), but I did write about it here.

 
2. Showing that technology often has effects that we didn’t anticipate, sometimes bad and sometimes good: “To Siri, With Love.”

 
3. At the other end of the technology spectrum, here’s a reminder that if you’re going to write about guns, you’d better do your research: “NaNoWriMo: Know Your Weapons!“

Which of course applies more generally, too. Other than Almost Famous, pretty much every movie I’ve ever seen about a rock band has got something wrong (and some of them get everything wrong 🙂 ).

And yes, once I read this I did a search to make sure I’d never written anout a “clip” in a gun.

Whew!

 
4. I seem to have crossed a threshhold with my phone. The other day I saw a typo on my blog and to fix it I reached for my phone.

I was at home, so I could have gone for a computer, or a tablet, but my instinct was to reach for my phone.

On the other hand, it still does give me the creeps that when I turn my phone on it says: “GPS needs to be on and set to high accuracy mode in order to detect your location and activity.”

Ah, no thanks.