Marc--I have read Pictures at a Revolution and liked it too. Godard comes off like a pretentious asshole and a total user.

5-ATH only has a measly 188 IMDb votes and most the comments didn't seem to catch the genius of the film. They mostly wanted more action and think it's too slow.

The original Ocean's Eleven is no masterpiece, but it is fun in a hokey rat pack, corny pseudo hipster way. It's also a brightly coloured, candy coated look at Las Vegas. I saw it the first time I was in Las Vegas, the day after I'd lost money late into the night before. My friend and I went to see it, not having any more money to lose. We had no idea it took place in Sin City. That made it even more fun and as the movie visited each casino, I would say, "I lost money in that one." Unfortunately true.

Fly-by post:

I watched Toki o kakeru shôjo (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time , 2006; Japanese anime) last night. It's a sort-of sequel to a 1983 live-action film (which is either The Girl Who Leapt Through Time or The Girl Who Ran Through Time; the difference is important but this is fly-by so I'm not going to look it up), redone in 1994, which in its turn is an adaptation of a novel and earlier serialization of that story. This is a story that's become integrated into Japanese popular culture.

Most of the anime I watch is really geared towards adults; this is more late teen / young adult fare. The story itself is about an older high school student - clumsy as anything, late for everything, and affectionately called baka (idiot) by her two best friends - who finds out one day that she suddenly can have "do overs": if something bad just happened, like the pop quiz she just got 9% on, she can take a leap, go back in time and change events.

Cute enough; but the interesting part comes up when she starts realizing the consequences of all those changes - and what's behind her new-found powers. It becomes a bit of a bildungsroman (okay, I like using that word), a cautionary tale about getting what you want, and something else that I can't tell you without spoiling things.

I was watching this last night. I thought it was rather paced, with a major change in tone about an hour in. I also thought it came to several false endings which made it seem longer than it was. (I'ts 98 minutes but seems more like a two-hour film. Is my guess right that Auntie Witch was a time leaper from one of the earlier films?

I liked the special effects that went with her time leaping.

The tradition of Estonian Song Festivals (Laulupidu) started at the height of the Estonian national awakening in 1869. Today, it is one of the largest amateur choral events in the world, as the joint choir usually comprises 18,000 people. In 2004, a total of 34,000 participated in the Song Festival, held before an audience of 200,000. Since 1928, the Tallinn Song Festival Grounds (Lauluväljak) host the event every five years in July. The next festival will take place in 2009. In addition, Youth Song Festivals are held in every five years, last of them in 2007.