No matter how terrible – and mind you, this could be the good type of terrible – I’ll have to watch this to break my brain with the obvious Austin shooting locations. The church (exterior at least) towards the end is about two blocks from my office.

Part of the wonderful Battlestar Galactica season 4 soundtrack.

I get to the courthouse around 9:00 AM and go through security, and sit down in the waiting area.  There are probably around 150 – 200 other potential jurists that have been called.  We hear instructions from a woman who likes her job a bit too much.

A judge comes in and reads from a card a rather patronizing speech about the greatness of the U.S. jury system.  Then he asks that anyone for whom jury duty would be “the worst thing in the world” and an “unbearable imposition on your life” to stand up.  Probably about a quarter of the room stands up and since there are still enough people not standing, they are immediately excused.  What nonsense; I would guess 90% of them, if asked, would say they simply did not want to serve rather than have an actual excuse as to why they could not serve.  As if the rest of us didn’t have other things we wanted or needed to be doing.

We then took a 15 minute break.  People are strange animals – from what I could tell, upon returning from break almost everyone sat down in about the same seat they had sat in previously, despite the room having cleared out a whole bunch since the proceedings began.

Three jury pools were selected for county-level cases.  The guy next to me was selected for the third pool.  The woman who was leading the selection process had earlier said there would be three county-level cases and one district-level case.  However, after the third county-level pool was selected, those of us who remained were released.  I collected my $6, stuffed it in one of the donation bins, and left.

So that was my experience: an hour and a half sitting in a cold room, followed by giving away my “pay” for the ordeal.  But I did get a sweet certificate of completion out of it.  Neat-0.

Mocking public figures and the cancer destroying music, while throwing in non-sequiturs like junkie Einstein? Awesome.

It was just a feeling.  Nothing more.

Right?

Mulholland Drive is a movie about hopes, dreams and desires.  Both the best and the worst aspects of these are on display.  Naomi Watts plays Betty, a bright eyed starlet-to-be who has come to Hollywood to act.  Betty takes in Rita, a sultry amnesiac who shows up after a car accident carrying nothing but a purse filled with money and a mysterious blue key.  Rita’s only memory is of where she was going when the accident occurred – Mulholland Drive.

Meanwhile, a director named Adam Kesher is having no end of problems; he finds his wife cheating on him, powerful players in the industry are interfering with his film, and he is being watched.  In short, his life is really starting to look bleak.  And Adam’s only hope is the advice of a man called simply The Cowboy.

Did I mention there are gratuitous lesbian sex scenes?  Mmm… Naomi Watts.

Okay, the sex scenes are not as gratuitous as they seem at first.  The first half of the movie is permeated by a dream-like quality.  Everything sparkles and shines.  Characters seem like they were plucked out of the 1950s.  Things happen that seem out of place, things that do not seem to fit the flow of the movie.  Even the acting seems quite poor.  However, the second half of the movie makes it clear why all of these things are in fact intentional.

The dividing line between the first half and second half is perhaps the most poignant scene of the movie.  As Rita’s memory returns, Betty and Rita visit the night club Silencio.  The club specializes in playing recordings of music while performers pretend to play along.  Towards the end of the scene, a singer mouths along to a particularly moving Spanish song.  Both Betty and Rita are moved to tears by its beauty.  Suddenly, the singer freezes, passes out, and is dragged off stage all while the recorded song continues.  The illusion is broken.

Very soon after, the illusion of the first half of the movie is broken.  Because the thing that hopes and dreams have in common is illusion.  They are the lies we tell ourselves, for good and for ill.  When the illusion is broken, all we are left with is cold reality.  In this way, Mulholland Drive feels simultaneously like a love letter to and indictment of Hollywood.  Praising the dream of Hollywood and what it provides movie patrons.  Damning the reality of it all.

The genius in this clean division is that characters we’ve grown to like in the first half are suddenly flipped on their heads.  Normally I would condemn this sort of storytelling but it works especially well here, and is perfectly suited to Lynch’s directorial style.  Once Pandora’s Box is opened, even hope escapes.  The idyllic world view is gone making way for a very cruel and spiteful replacement.  It makes for a very heartbreaking movie in the end.

Mulholland Drive isn’t for everyone.  Lynch’s weirdness can definitely be a turn off, as some of it seems simply to be there to set mood.  But love it or hate it, I highly recommend that you watch it.

I wasn’ t nearly as impressed with Glory as I thought I might be.  For most of the movie I felt like I had seen dozens like it, though I cannot pinpoint any particular examples.  Denzel Washington’s performance is alternately Oscar-worthy and insipid standard Denzel fare.  Worth watching, I guess.

Star Trek III – The Search for Spock (IMDB, Netflix)

I used to really hate this movie.  There are certainly plenty of things to hate about The Search for Spock.  Kirk’s parting shot to the Klingon commander is particularly stupid: “I have had enough of you!”  Dude, he just killed your son, and that is what you say as you kick him to his doom?  Whatever.

But there’s some great stuff in here.  Stealing the Enterprise, for instance.  The underlying story of dealing with death, with having another mind trapped inside of your own, and putting your dearest friend to rest could have been a truly great movie, Star Trek or otherwise.  It’s a pity then that the themes are so muddled and the story little more than an excuse to resurrect Spock.  Still, it was certainly a lot more watchable than my memory indicated.

Troll 2 (IMDB, Netflix)

You must watch this movie.  Troll 2 is simply deliciously awful.  This 10 minute clip of scenes from the movie doesn’t do it justice.  The entire movie is that terrible, or worse.  You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll scream “Oh my gaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwd,” you’ll be confused as to how this movie ever got released, or how anyone involved ever thought it might be a good idea.

Troll (IMDB, Netflix)

Not to be confused with the unrelated Troll 2, which merely took the name for marketing purposes.  Troll is about Harry Potter’s struggle against an evil wizard and his magical minions.  No, seriously, the character’s name is Harry Potter.  Which caused me to laugh hysterically every single time the character’s full name was mentioned.

Troll isn’t really a bad movie, though it contains plenty of unintentionally funny moments.  But I’m not sure what it wants to be.  A few parts of it are pretty horrific for a kids movie, while most of it is too kiddy to be a horror movie.  In that respect, it fails where the wonderful Gremlins succeeds.

Wallace and Grommit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit (IMDB, Netflix)

Best kids movie I’ve watched in a while.  I had a goofy grin on my face for most of the movie.  It does drag out in parts, especially since the answer to the mystery is so patently obvious.  Still, pretty fun.

Scanners (IMDB, Netflix)

Cronenberg, science gone amok, and killer telepaths.  What’s not to like?  Well, besides the acting and a ridiculous subplot where a telepath interfaces with the “nervous system” of a 1980s computer.  Not nearly a classic as Cronenberg’s The Fly, but good concept none-the-less.