Brief comments on two movies I saw last weekend:

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull -- I had fun watching this, especially at the beginning, relieved that unlike the Star Wars prequels the fourth in the Indiana Jones series did not betray the spirit of its predecessors. Still, it was the weakest link in the series' history, saddled by an aimless script, a humdrum second act, and the presence of Spielbergian aliens -- a sad departure from the reliance on religious artifacts of the earlier films.

Redbelt -- I'm generally a Mamet fan, but I liked this film even more than I expected. Despite a few false notes and a dependence on an overly-serpentine twist even for Mamet, Chiwetel Ejiofor's excellent lead performance more than compensated for any flaws. It's a rare fighting movie (in this case, Brazilian jiu jitsu, though Redbelt isn't a fighting movie in the traditional sense) that actually earns its climactic ending.

It's been awhile.

Brown, Ford, and Hussein died. (They need one more for a bridge game.)

Many top ten lists have been released, reminding me that movies take a long time to come out when you live in a third tier city. (Still waiting for Volver, Pan's Labyrinth, and Children of Men.) And that the music world is way too big and fractured to make any casual sense of. And that I rarely read recently published books.

Indiana Jones 4 is finally going into production this year for a May 2008 release.

Nevada has a new governor who, in a fit of ego and self-aggrandization, was secretly sworn in at midnight on January 1st: "We didn't want any word out in advance because of the security concerns... This is a new world since 9-11 and the first major change in Nevada government since then."

I now have a Mii on my brother's Wii.

And I'm a little more than halfway through Against the Day. Turns out it's hard to find any reading time when you're home visiting family.