Slumdog Millionaire

Orphan’s Lifeline Out of Hell Could Be a Game Show in Mumbai
By MANOHLA DARGIS
Published: November 12, 2008

A gaudy, gorgeous rush of color, sound and motion, “Slumdog Millionaire,” the latest from the British shape-shifter Danny Boyle, doesn’t travel through the lower depths, it giddily bounces from one horror to the next. A modern fairy tale about a pauper angling to become a prince, this sensory blowout largely takes place amid the squalor of Mumbai, India, where lost children and dogs sift through trash so fetid you swear you can smell the discarded mango as well as its peel, or could if the film weren’t already hurtling through another picturesque gutter. More

We Are Wizards (2008)

Even After the Books, Pottermania Rocks On
By MANOHLA DARGIS
Published: November 14, 2008

The filmmaker Josh Koury has latched onto a great subject for “We Are Wizards,” his amusing if unfocused documentary peek at some of the more engaged fans (and opportunists) circulating in the Harry Potter world. The problem is that he has actually latched onto so many subjects in this 79-minute movie — fandom as an act of creation, intellectual property rights in the Internet age, conglomerate bullying — that he can’t get a real grasp on any of them. Link

A Science Lover’s Kind of Town

OLD TO NEW The Harvard Museum of Natural History displays ancient bones and generates lightning bolts.
By ETHAN GILSDORF
Published: November 14, 2008

WHEN you run an ice cream parlor down the street from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, you expect your customers to chat about stem cell research or trade theories about neutrinos between licks of burnt caramel. But Gus Rancatore, whose Toscanini’s shop in Cambridge, Mass., is renowned as much for its deep-thinking clientele as for its sundaes, discovered long ago that catering to the technology-minded crowd could have unforeseen advantages. More

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How About You (2007)

Ready for a Spring Thaw: Bickering, Controlling Old Folks With Frozen Souls
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Published: November 14, 2008

A good scolding and a toke on a joint: that’s all it takes to turn the curmudgeonly old folks in “How About You” into goofy pussycats frolicking on the lawn of their comfy retirement home. Would that it were so easy to transform those angry, embittered elders into a happy family. More

Bleak Xmas?

An apple, an orange?

Breaking News from ABCNEWS.com:

Retail Sales Drop 2.8 Percent in October, Exceeding Previous Record Set in November, 2001 [9:04 a.m. ET]

For more, go to http://abcnews.go.com?CMP=EMC-1396

Weasel Norm & The Repugs

Seem pissed that there's roadblocks to their stealing the election in Mn. How odd that they didn't say anything when Bush stole Florida.

Oh, wait....

CHANGE WE NEED

WoW! At last! Free money for the rest of us!

CHANGE WE NEED! Congratulations, President-elect Barack Obama!<http://www.democrats.org/page/-/images/headlines/20081104_results.jpg>

Dear Compatriot,

This email is to show our appreciation to you, for your support in the success of our President-Elect (Sen. Barack Obama).


The DEMOCRATIC PARTY of the United States has declared a public donation of Two Million dollars ($2,000,000) to the underprivileged.

The donated sum should be dispatched to twenty recipients *ONLY*. This message is sent by a computer program, programed to be sent only to twenty email addresses.
If you receive this email, then you are a beneficiary of $100,000 (One Hundred Thousand dollars) all Twenty beneficiaries MUST receive a $100,000 each.

The "CHANGE WE NEED" program is not just asking you to believe our ability to bring about a real change in America, but asking you to believe in yours.

( Read more... )

Oh, wait...

Spam Turns Serious and Hormel Turns Out More

Austin, Minn., has 13 restaurants with Spam on the menu, including Johnny’s. Jerry’s Other Place sells a Spamburger for $6.29.
By ANDREW MARTIN
Published: November 14, 2008

AUSTIN, Minn. — The economy is in tatters and, for millions of people, the future is uncertain. But for some employees at the Hormel Foods Corporation plant here, times have never been better. They are working at a furious pace and piling up all the overtime they want.

The workers make Spam, perhaps the emblematic hard-times food in the American pantry. More