I think I'm going to do this the easy way and make this a home for mostly art (specifically, film and music-related) commentary. That way we don't get the journaling mixed up with the blogging, dig?

Mark goes to the movies: Collateral (dir. Michael Mann) For someone who came up in TV, Michael Mann sure has a knack for action movies. I don't know about the "deep" issues of manhood and honor and violence that he (like John Woo in the old days) loves to tackle in his action movies. I do know that I always like Tom Cruise best when he's playing bad guys (cf: Magnolia), that Jamie Foxx displays surprising sensitivity as an actor (can't wait to see him as Brother Ray!), that this is another movie that reminds me of being in LA (long, aimless freeway drives; cool underbelly scenes at a fleabag motel in Pico-Union and at a narcocorrido club in Pico Rivera), and that during the final sequence on the Metro Blue Line Barb's fingers were clamped so hard into my arm they left bruises. Mark's rating: ****

Mark goes to the movies: Garden State (dir. Zach Braff) Yes, it gets precious, and the happily-ever-after ending seems tacked-on. But this is another film for Mark's Slacker Hall of Fame, with Peter Sarsgaard and Denis O'Hare as the going-nowhere-fast best friends back home. And if, after her comatose performances in the last two Star Wars disasters, you wondered what all the hype about Natalie Portman was about, her turn as an airhead motormouth (with a secret) is a fine reminder that the woman can act. My vote for date movie of the summer, hands down. Mark's rating: ****