I'll be posting my own "top of 2006" list here shortly, but I like Anthony Lane's picks.

My saddest moment in a movie theatre came a month ago, when I screened “All About Eve” to a bunch of acquaintances, one of whom came up to me at the end. “What happened?” she asked.

“Well,” I replied, “Anne Baxter got the award, and Bette Davis sat there all steamed up, and George—”

“No,” she said, tapping her foot, “what happened to movies like that? Movies with four great parts for women and lines you want to quote? Where did they go?”

No idea, but they sure as hell aren’t coming back.

I'm not so much in line with David Denby's companion write-up; while I agree on some of his picks ("Little Children" and "The Queen" among them), his commentary leaves something to be desired.

Lane has some interesting what-could-have-been questions:

How would “Mission: Impossible III” have ended up if Paul Greengrass ("United 93") had been in charge? Can you imagine “The Da Vinci Code” remade by Michael Haneke ("Caché / Hidden"), with Tom Hanks locked in a crypt?

Memorable Movies of 2006 | Anthony Lane in The New Yorker

FYI for Netflix subscribers.

Just in time for the holidays, Blockbuster is giving Netflix subscribers the opportunity to experience the best of BLOCKBUSTER Total Access. From Dec. 5 through Dec. 21 current Netflix members can exchange the tear-off address flaps of their Netflix rental envelopes and receive on-the-spot free movie rentals from Blockbuster for every flap they bring in to any of the more than 5,000 participating BLOCKBUSTER stores.

Netflix Subscribers Get Free DVDs at Blockbuster

As regular readers of my blog know, I lost my voice about 18 months ago. Permanently. It’s something exotic called Spasmodic Dysphonia. Essentially a part of the brain that controls speech just shuts down in some people, usually after you strain your voice during a bout with allergies (in my case) or some other sort of normal laryngitis. It happens to people in my age bracket.

An incredible story from Scott Adams...

The Dilbert Blog: Good News Day

A military watchdog group is asking the Pentagon whether senior uniformed officers, including Brig. Gen. Vince Brooks, the former public affairs director of the Army, had permission to appear in a video endorsing an evangelical Christian group.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation is preparing a possible class-action lawsuit against the Pentagon for "the creation of a theocracy, of a particular fundamentalist perspective within our own military branches."

The foundation says a core of evangelicals are gaining influence at the Pentagon, and violating military policies. It cites Wednesday-morning prayer sessions in the Pentagon's executive dining room.

Here's the same story, over at Salon:

Former Air Force officer Mikey Weinstein (MRFF) says evangelicals are trying to turn his beloved military into a "frickin' faith-based initiative."

Here's coverage from the "Associated Baptist Press":

The influence of evangelical Christians in the military's highest ranks is again under question, after complaints ...

NPR : Religious Group's Ties to Pentagon Questioned

Buy It Now in time for Christmas!

Customers who bought this item also bought:

One of a kind "Tim Burton on bad acid" Dolls

Be advised, this is NOT a spoof. I repeat: this is not a spoof.

In Left Behind, video game players must try to convert others to Christianity. If nonbelievers won't convert, players must kill them.

Set in perfectly apocalyptic New York City, the Antichrist is personified by fictional Romanian Nicolae Carpathia, secretary-general of the United Nations and a People magazine "Sexiest Man Alive."

The CEO speaks out:

Situations resulting from the stories' post-apocalyptic time-frame are used to encourage gamers to think about matters of eternal significance, a topic largely ignored by modern games.

In the initial missions, there is little emphasis on physical warfare and gamers are introduced to powers of influence which result in a battle for the hearts and minds of people. As missions progress, there are no ‘objectives' to cause war physically. However, physical warfare results when the player is required to defend against the physical forces of evil; led by the Global Community Peacekeepers.

From IGN:

The units just aren't smart enough to take any initiative here so you'll spend the majority of your time micromanaging the particulars rather than planning out your overall strategy.

And this:

There are a lot of Christian rock acts featured in the clue screens between missions. While it's not everyone's cup of tea, the selections here are enjoyable and typical of the genre. The style of music, however, serve as an unintentionally amusing commentary on the game's decision to cast electric guitarists as the minions of evil on the Antichrist's side.

And finally:

The company's ultimate goal in offering the game: to bring parents and kids together to talk about the Bible.

'Convert or die' game divides Christians

Rick Rashid dreams of the ubiquitous remembrance agent.

Rick Rashid: One of our research projects a few years ago asked, If you started to harvest all the information on usage, what could you do? Logically, your computer knows where every piece of text in a document comes from. Did you type it? Did you cut and paste it? Where from? Did it come from an e-mail? And so on. Extrapolate that idea: computers could use the knowledge of where information comes from to very powerful effect.

...

Technology Review: Life has been a process of forgetting.
Rashid: But it doesn't have to be anymore.

Moore's Law is relatively well known, and its effects are widespread. Analogous trends in mass storage are less well known, but their impact on the culture could be equally transformative.

Q&A with Rick Rashid

skullaria wrote:

These really are some strange, strange dolls.....very expressive art form. :)

If you are into strange dolls, it's worth checking out the film 4. On the whole, the film has both strong and weak points, but the scenes with the "masticating crones" are among the most surreal I've encountered. From the NYT review:

Sometimes a severed pig's head is just a severed pig's head, after all, though sometimes a weeping crone yodeling mournfully about the Volga River is also a symbol of a grotesque and nostalgic nationalism.

At cin-o-matic, you can get a broad set of views on the film. Slant Magazine nicely captures the crones:

[Director] Khrjanovsky eventually ends his epic on a somewhat hopeful note, but it's a small gesture incapable of overshadowing the preceding, stunningly foul third-act showpiece, in which a vodka-soaked bacchanalia culminates with two of the doll-making crones pulling, fondling, and pouring liquor on their naked bosoms. A depiction of a lost society's degeneration into unsalvageable debauchery? Or simply one last provocation perpetrated by a director intent on condemning his birthplace with full-throttled bad taste? Either way, it's a jaw-dropping moment that, like 4 itself, truly has to be seen to be believed.

Strange Dolls Indeed

All my life since has been a learning experience. Now I want to pass on five lessons I have learned during 10 years as secretary general of the United Nations that I believe the community of nations needs to learn as it confronts the challenges of the 21st century.

These seem true but obvious, although history has borne out the cost of learning these lessons one at a time (and time and time, again).

Kofi Annan - What I've Learned

Another paean to the dying disc.

By Christmas, even Tower's desiccated carcass will be dust.

For Tower Records, End of Disc

No one can return from visiting the front in Afghanistan without realizing there is a very real risk that the United States and NATO will lose their war with Al Qaeda, the Taliban and the other Islamist movements fighting the Afghan government.

In Iraq, the failure of the United States and the allies to honestly assess problems in the field, be realistic about needs, create effective long-term aid and force-development plans, and emphasize governance over services may well have brought defeat. The United States and its allies cannot afford to lose two wars. If they do not act now, they will.

Notwithstanding this stark conclusion, Anthony Cordesman seems to retain a glimmer of hope for Afghanistan.

One War We Can Still Win