(:)(:)(:)(:)--Four snouts up for "Japanese Story"
Saw and loved brilliantly-acted Australian film 'Japanese Story' directed by Sue Brooks and starring Toni Collette (Muriel's Wedding, About a Boy). Collette and Gutaru Tsunashima, the Japanese man she leads around the deserts of Australia have the same build and a marvelous subtle androgyny to their relationship. Gotta love the camera directed by a woman slowly caressing Tsunashima's lithe form on the beach while matter-of-factly announcing Collette's ass in her khakis. Oh but there's much more to this romantic, strange and unpredictable Australian woman/Japanese man outback road movie...

Reader Mail
"Kill Bills' 92 Personalities" and related entries provoked some strong responses--
Mark Worthington of L.A., himself a creator of Hollywood film environments, currently teaching in Hong Kong, felt that my response to "Kill Bill" might be akin to what an "an uninitiated viewer might think of the 'emoticon'." It all comes down to context...

Jane Macauley of Sacramento on the other hand seemed to agree with me wholeheartedly yet went further to suggest that Ted Koppel's recitation of the names of the dead U.S. soldiers in Iraq was equally emotionally numbing and unnecessary as "Kill Bill" or the story of the woman with 92 personalities.

Mateo Burtch of San Francisco likes the blog in general, but thinks there should be more porn and recipes.

Mark Stivers of Sacramento reacted to an earlier posting, "[w]hen you wrote in your blog, 'If this is the first you are hearing about this, you'll now notice it everywhere you go,' you indirectly referred to a phenomenon known scientifically as an acausal synchroneous event and informally as 'the shrimp thing.' This describes the situation where you see something for the first time in your life and then immediately see it three more times in the ensuing days. While I haven't seen the movie myself, 'the shrimp thing' is a reference to the movie 'Repo Man.'

Writers beware
Be careful, if you write to me, I might publish it. Also, if you're a subscriber--watch out, when you reply to the group, it goes to the group (some readers found out the hard way!).