I've been really sick this past weekend. I also pretty much lost my voice. I'm hoping it'll be back by tomorrow morning, 'cause that's when I have to start teaching classes again.

In the meantime, I've seen two incredible movies:

Brick: This is an old-school film-noir "hardboiled gumshoe" movie -- set in a modern SoCal high school. Nobody dresses like the 40s, but they all use 40s slang. Some people find this ridiculous. Knowing how arbitrary teenage slang is, I find it a minor suspension of disbelief. Some people find high schoolers inherently ridiculous. Having been one, I can see no reason not to portray (some of) them as dignified and sober. I loved this film.

United 93: For the fifth anniversary, I finally got a chance to watch it. It was difficult to watch, as I knew it would be. It was very, very well done. It was more like The Passion of the Christ(in emotional trauma) than any other movie I've watched in the last ten years. Like Passion, I love it, but I won't be buying it.