Mark goes to the movies: House of Sand and Fog (dir. Vadim Perelman) One of the jokes growing whiskers in my household is my name for the Lifetime Movie Network, one of my guilty pleasures: "The Bad Judgement Movie Network." I think that's part of my problem with this movie. Jennifer Connelly's character is a passive-aggressive fuckup who undoes a bunch of people's lives and then feels bad about it, Ben Kingsley is a hard-assed military guy who buys into the Darwinian view of what it means to be an American, and between the two of them (and Ron Eldard as a well-meaning but equally deluded deputy sherriff who leaves his wife and kid to move in with Jennifer--yuck) they leave a bunch of characters dead and the rest of them perfectly miserable. I will say that the scenery (was that really the Redwood Coast or was it B. C. impersonating?) is gorgeous, the acting good, and damn, the story really, really sad. Mark's rating: **½