My Sick Mind

Since most of you are snowed-in or forced to deal with the Super Bowl, I'll offer up a few capsule movie reviews and recommendations. My taste in entertainment is a bit obscure, so maybe some of these films will be new to you: North Country - Charlize Theron plays Tomboy as Josey Aimes, one of the only women working the iron mines in Minnesota in the 1970s. She leads a group of similarly abused women in standing up against the oppression of their bosses. Frances McDormand and Woody Harrelson put in yeoman's work. Recommended. The Man Who Wasn't There - A Coen Brothers film noir starring Billy Bob Thornton as the almost comatose co-owner of a barbershop who gets caught up in a ponsey scheme to open up, of all things, a chain of dry cleaners. He tries to blackmail his wife's lover, but the scheme has unwanted consequences for all concerned. Frances McDormand again is stellar. Recommended, but don't watch it if you're sleepy. Burn After Reading - Another...

Run , don't walk to see "Cloverfield". Forget all that crap you've heard about the so-called shaky camera work and the vagaries of the monster and its unexplained purpose. What you need to do is put yourself in the point of history in which the film places us and allow it to flow over you. You can make the mistake of demanding to know what the thing is and where it comes from or you can play along. I suggest you play along. That's what movies are for. If a real monster showed up, I doubt that it would pause to tell us why it was here. If you must know who or what the monster is, do the research (called Viral-marketing ) and read-up on the Japanese company that Rob (Michael Stahl-David) is being transferred from New York to work for. Watch what happens early in the film when the monster appears and think about it. It's not the focal point of the film, so don't allow it to spoil the fun. It is fun, trust me. I'm usually the first one to scream at bad...