Yes, after last week's flurry of productivity (three whole posts! My cup runneth almost half-full!) I've clammed up a bit. Not a whole lot to say, I'm afraid.

We did go through a little flurry of film- and TV- watching two weekends past (along with, of course, party-going and fashion-show-attending); and we were hoping to have Arrested Development's third season in our claws by now, but alas, Fox has pushed the release date back to August 29th. It wasn't enough to just cancel it, you've got to spit on the grave, eh?

Oliver! is one of those few musicals that I'm not entirely embarrassed about liking (I should note, there are few enough that I know, let alone like, let alone am willing to admit a liking for, so this is some pretty select company indeed), probably because much of its music was burned into my memory at a very young age. I'm also not sure that I've ever seen the movie end-to-end before; it could even be that I've never seen any of it other than the opening sequence at the orphanage. Anyhoo, it's entertaining enough, although the little pisher who plays Oliver, like so many British children, just makes me want to bully the crap out him.

American Beauty was quite the big deal when it came out in 1999; I managed to avoid seeing it until now by amazing self-restraint, and a complete lack of interest. Unless I'm quite mistaken, it marked the turning point in Kevin Spacey's career, where he stopped being a very good character actor (in The Usual Suspects, Swimming with Sharks and Glengarry Glen Ross) and started being a Serious Bankable Star. It also meant that he would no longer be making any good films, and a quick run-down of his output since then (K-Pax, Pay it Forward, The Shipping News*) pretty much confirms this. Hence, I was somewhat prejudiced against the film, which is unfair of me (but so what?), and I was pleasantly surprised, for the most part. I didn't find it the revelation many people claim it to be; possibly, as James noted, because I've already seen Magnolia and Fight Club (which aren't that similar, but mine the same emotional malaise). The writing rarely moved above the banal and the characters weren't great; the lives of quiet desperation they all lead felt like they picked them out of a catalogue ("What have you got in a brooding, arty teenager?") I don't think it's insulting to Chris Cooper to say that his performance here was the worst one I've seen (playing a closeted, weapons-fetishizing caricature of a fascist dad); he did better work with his character in The Bourne Identity, to say nothing of Lone Star or Matewan. Mind you, in those cases, he wasn't playing such a cut-out. Most of the other roles were adequately played - the teenagers were largely boring, particularly Thora Birch, who if you want see play a disaffected teenager, does a much better job in Ghost World; I did like Mina Suvari's blustery show of sexual overconfidence, at least when the script let her. Annette Benning, whom I always like (even in schmaltz like The American President) but rarely convinces me she's anyone except Annette Benning, was on par; Peter Gallagher was kind of icky, which is also what he always is (the only thing noticeably different about him this time was that he had two eyebrows).

*yes, I've read the book, and it's just fine. If you want to defend the movie, knock yourself out, but don't ask me to respect you for it.

On Sunday, we saw Crimes and Misdemeanors, which as I mentioned last time, is my favourite Woody Allen film. Jess hadn't seen it before, and was suitably impressed; I was reminded how completely amazing just about everyone's performance was - particularly Anjelica Houston, whose character I never thought of as particularly central (except as a moral question, but not as a person.) It's also a shock to see how quickly Allen aged after this; here, he's late-middle-aged, but vibrant, and two years later, in Husbands and Wives, he already looks like an old, tired man.

And over the course of last week, we watched (separately) the first season of the incredible (and now-cancelled) HBO series Deadwood. First off: Ian McShane, as the dastardly Al Swearengen, is fucking great. I can think of few characters on dramatic TV shows who are so delightful to watch (the two that come immediately to mind are Jimmy McNulty from The Wire and Livia Soprano, which suggests HBO is really on to something). Second: the rest of the cast, particularly Brad Dourif's Doc Cochran and Robin Weigert's Calamity Jane, are also great - if there's anyone even uninteresting, it'd be either Sol Star (a largely uncomplicated nice guy sidekick played by John Hawkes; Robin to Seth Bullock [Tim Olyphant]'s darkly troubled Batman) or Jeffrey Jones' A.W. Merrick (publisher of the Deadwood newspaper, and, to me, a bit of a ham.) For those interested in such things, the depth of research into the history of Deadwood, South Dakota, is phenomenal (right down to the fact that when EB Farnum says "motherfucker", it's historically inaccurate, as the phrase was not in common use at the time - unlike "limber-dicked cocksucker", which is used more than a few times). But if, like me, you just enjoy the shit out of the dramatic conflict that comes with the development of civil society - or its potential impostion, in the form of annexation by the United States - the density of the plotting and complexity of the character relationships is more than enough to make this some of the most compelling television available.

On deck: Anchors Aweigh!, starring Gene Kelly & Frank Sinatra (you have fun with that, Jess); McCabe & Mrs Miller, Robert Altman's 1971 western (and apparently an interesting companion/comparison piece to Deadwood), and Time Bandits - which I shouldn't have to explain to anybody.