One missing and one found.

I left one photo out of the group that I posted yesterday. This is Monk's, at 16th and Spruce. There are at least 3 regular readers who are intimately familiar with this fine establishment. And no, I didn't go in. It was too early. If I had gone in, you never would have seen that nice shot of Rohm and Haas, which attracted attention from at least one person from the home office. Hi Pat, how are ya? First - turn off the lights, you'll save energy. Second - if there's anyone in there working after dark, send them home. It's a one-way street. You're getting rich off them, they're not getting rich off you. They have families and people to care for.

Tonight, I watched a great performance that was largely overlooked by the greater movie-going public. It was probably overlooked because the greater movie-going public was not exposed to this film. Generally, we are exposed to junk like "Semi Pro" and "Be Kind Rewind" while great films like "Away From Her" go virtually unnoticed. Thanks to the good people at Netflix, I am not among the ignorant.

Julie Christie won the Screen Actors Guild award for Best Actress, and I would say that they made a fine choice. "Away From Her" is an extraordinary film that had me emotionally involved from the start. Besides Julie's great performance (reminiscent of Dustin Hoffman's "Rain Man") it features another great character by Olympia Dukakis. I remember seeing "Steel Magnolias" and writing a review of it for a class in college. I thought she stole the film, and every scene with her made the film better. Such is the case here.

Director Sandra Polley does a great job of weaving the past, near future and present together until they finally resolve themselves into the present as we watch Fiona's (Julie Christie) husband Grant (Gordon Pinset) adjust to life during and after Fiona deals with Alzheimer's disease.

It's a sad film, but sometimes sad is the way things are. There are some great lines, but mostly it's a realistic portrayal of how a man with some guilt in his life deals with the declining health of the only woman he has ever loved.

There's an interesting twist at the end, but I don't want to be the spoiler so I'll let you rent the film and decide for yourself. At the very least, you'll realize why Julie Christie is such a great actress and deserved the Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Watch the deleted scenes and tell me if you would have included at least one of them, even though the film is an hour and 50 minutes. Don't let that scare you. It's worth every minute of your time. I highly recommend it, but don't blame me if you cry through most of it.