holiday movies

So of course the Times's center of gravity for me this week is the Holiday Movies section.

A. O. Scott presents "A Unified Theory of Nicole Kidman", in which he talks a bit about how we as moviegoers are always thinking about Nicole Kidman's real life when we watch her play a role. I guess I don't do this. I'd agree, though, about her "astonishing appetite for misery". (I just watched The Portrait of a Lady on DVD.)

Sarah Lyall on the ongoing collaboration of Richard Curtis and Hugh Grant.

"He is the most disrespectful actor in the world about his acting. I remember on `Four Weddings' [Curtis] said, `I can only do three things: normal; sexy, which is down an octave; and serious, which is up an octave.' "

"That's pushing it," Mr. Grant said.

Slate's David Edelstein makes the new Looney Tunes movie sound surprisingly promising, by focusing on director Joe Dante and his understanding of the old cartoons.

Revisit the Alamo. Interesting not because of the Alamo but because of the author's description of her maturing view of history.

A new spate of Amnesia Movies. They're remaking The Manchurian Candidate! Why! Also, it turns out that cinematic treatments of amnesia are not always scientifically accurate.

New York Times critics pick their favorite holiday movies. I have to go with Stephen Holden and pick The Ref.

Short pieces on five actors to watch this season. Charlize Theron, who fascinated me for a while because she was so visibly improving in each new movie, is now doing the dressed-down take-me-seriously role that actors who are fun to watch all end up doing. Maybe it'll be really good.

more times

Once a month my edition of the Times comes with San Francisco Arts Monthly, which you would think as a lover of the arts living in the San Francisco Bay area I would find useful, but most of the time the stuff in it is too hifalutin to be worth driving all the way to the city for. (I remember when I moved here I swore I would never use "the city" to mean San Francisco, because to me The City was always New York. Another pretension gone by the wayside.) But this month there's an an interview with Merle Kessler about his new Ian Shoales show. Hooray! Unfortunately their web site makes it hard to link to.

In Sunday Styles, an article about the author's experiences wearing a skirt in Brooklyn. My favorite part is the phone conversation with his wife.

The Travel section goes to Chicago, Atlanta, and San Francisco. Hey, I've been there!

In Money & Business, an interesting article questioning the practicality of employer-paid health insurance offers this historical note:

There is no good reason for any of this, aside from historical accident. During World War II, federal wage controls prevented employers from wooing workers with higher pay, so companies started offering health insurance as a way around the law. Of course, this form of nonmonetary compensation is still pay. When the war ended, the practice stuck.

And in the Book Review, Laura Miller writes about the sameness of most contemporary short stories.

moviegoer

To be honest, I'm a bit adrift since I got back. When the trip was looming, it gave me something to structure my efforts around--planning the route, contacting friends, finishing the EP, etc. Now I have a lot of things I should do ASAP, and several large-scale things I should begin work on, but somehow I can't focus on any of them, or on anything else. Here's one measure of ennui: I haven't set my clocks back yet.

But one thing I have done, and often do when I'm adrift, is go to the movies. I can't top artname, who wrote to tell me he'd seen seven movies in the first two days of the Hawaii International Film Festival, but ( here's the rundown. )