Trance

I watched "Trance." It was deeply horrible. Do not recommend. Redeeming qualities: Vincent Cassel, lush colors, the soundtrack.

Zinc

Had a really lovely lunch at Bistrot Zinc. Dining companion: the awesome Lydia Netzer. I recommend the tuna.

All movies, all the time

"Les Miserables": Miserable, indeed. I think I lasted about 60 seconds. As soon as Wolverine rowing started belting out a song, I shut it off. I don't get movies where people burst into song. Who does that?

"Life of Pi": I read this years ago and have next to no recollection of it. Same thing happened with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Also with The Time Traveler's Wife.

I watched maybe the last third of "Life of Pi" on a first-class flight out of Boca Raton. Have I recommended first class? Because I cannot recommend it enough. Another time I flew first class, and they actually served warm nuts. I thought that was a punch line. In first class, it's real.

My point is I watched "Life of Pi" on a tiny screen and didn't even see all of it. I could tell, though, that it was a thing of spectacular genius, and that all those critics crowing about how it was some kind of miraculous reinvention of cinema were right. That said, I could also tell it needed to be watched the same way I saw "Avatar": in a giant theater with a giant screen and with 3D glasses.

The whole big reveal part at the end? Lame. Everything else? Enchanting.

"This Is 40": Not to be confused with "This is my rifle." It's the couple from "Knocked Up" but years later and with a cameo from the chubster from "Girls." I'd give this movie a "meh."

Some parts of it are funny, and there are a lot of toilet jokes, but it's like going out with a funny guy who is trying to be serious, and it just doesn't work.

The Apatow girls were funnier when they were younger.

"Rust and Bone": I FUCKING LOVED THIS MOVIE. Oh, my god, it's so great. And it's not even in English. I mean, I had to read subtitles the whole time, and I still loved it.

I hate to say that it has a really strongly awesome female lead because then I sound like something that fell off the feminist truck and hit its head, but the main female character, played by the always sexy Marion Cotillard (men: you get to see her boobs in it, if that inspires you to watch it), is a freakin' killer whale trainer. The main guy bare-knuckle punches people in the head for a living.

This movie is great because while beautiful things happen, terrible things happen, too. Which is like life, really. There are always these spectacular things happening -- like the monster moon rising through the streams of clouds in the darkness -- and there are always these godawful things happening -- like death, and disease, and terrors that lurk in sinkholes. That is existence in a nutshell: the beautiful ugly.

What to watch

Watch this: "Top of the Lake."

Really, really great. Premiered last night on the Sundance Channel. Best thing I've seen on TV since the last thing I saw on TV that was great. Made with the BBC, of course, because American TV, HBO excluded, is incapable of making anything good.

Elisabeth Moss is a detective who returns to her small New Zealand hometown. There, a pregnant girl, 12, appears -- then disappears. Holly Hunter is a completely insane/fascinating/compelling lady-cult leader without a plan who, when asked by the girl what happened to her (Hunter), replies: "A calamity." I'm pretty sure the chick who played the crazy sister in "Sweetie" is the one who plays a middle-aged woman who isn't afraid to pay whomever's willing to bang her. The cast is rounded out by the bad guy from Baz Luhrmann's "Australia," and a bunch of guys who looked like they escaped from "Animal Kingdom."

Where is the girl? Who got her? Is she alive? I have no idea. It's "Twin Peaks" meets "The Deep End" meets "The Cremaster Cycle."

I'm a fan of "Girls," but you realize how petty and small and brief that show is when you watch a program like this. Take, for example, JazzHate, the HBO show's weak attempt to make fun of whatever it is Jezebel and XOJane think they're doing. Then you see something like the cluster of women inhabiting storage containers in a place called Paradise on "Top of the Lake," and you understand that women may have something more to offer the world than self-hate and misandry. Something bigger and better than realness portrayed by a splinter in your ass. Something more profound than writing about how your crotch smells. Something wiser than believing the commenters who tell you that you're a good writer because you embarrassed yourself in public. Thank you, Jane Campion, for being a woman who is creating, yet again, something that doesn't suck.

In any case, check it out.

More movie blitz

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"Skyfall": Suffice to say, I wouldn't kick Daniel Craig out of bed for eating crackers. Is he my favorite Bond? No. Did Sam Mendes over-style this film to death, killing the playfulness and inventiveness that made yesterday's Bond movies so delightful? Yes. See this movie if for no reason other than to witness Javier Bardem as the world's greatest gay villain.

Pudong never looked so glamorous.

"Life of Pi": Ugh. Treacly is a good word here. I made it 15 minutes in before I had to stop. It's all so magical and delightful, and God dwells in every living creature. I read this book a long time ago. I can't stand anything too twee and colorful, regardless of the medium.

I should try to watch it again, but maybe I won't.

"Killing Them Softly": Why you make it so hard for me to love you? Brad Pitt is a sexy beast. For fuck's sake, I really wanted to like this movie. I guess you could say it's a bit like Tarantino -- when it's not ripping off Scorsese -- in that you enjoy the moments of breathtaking freakiness, yet the rest is a fucking mess.

This is cinema that relies mostly on words, true to its original novel form. Its noirscape rains always. "Chopper" it ain't. Richard Jenkins is a lovely driver, Louisiana is fittingly sad, and there's a scene between Gandolfini and a hooker that's the worth the cost of the ticket.

More movies

"Side Effects": Let's hope Soderbergh doesn't really retire on this note. Generally, not bad, but that kind of movie you enjoy in the theater, and it becomes a vague memory the next day.

The ladies will enjoy the too-brief appearance of Magic Mike, and the men will enjoy Catherine Zeta Jones and Rooney Mara making out.

"Argo": My god, is this movie boring. What's with the hype? The nominations? The awards? If this movie wins Best Picture, I'm moving to Zimbabwe. Also, most of the movie is made up, so there you go.

The most authentic thing about this film is the seventies hair.

"Zero Dark Thirty": Fantastic. Totally awesome. Completely terrific. Super great. Love the ballsy chick who just wants UBL dead. There is nothing not to love about a movie in which the leading lady refers to herself as a "motherfucker."

Shame on the Academy for not nominating Bigelow for the win.

Movies

"Silver Linings Playbook": Don't get me wrong, I'm a David O. Russell fan, but this movie is overrated. Cooper is eh and so is Miss Hunger Games. Everyone else is great -- Tucker, De Niro, Weaver, Stiles, and especially Ortiz -- and the movie's uncredited also-character is its frenetic, spastic pace.

In the end, it's a thinky chick flick, and the third act falls to the popcorn-sticky theater floor with a resounding thud.

"Flight": Man, was I excited to see this movie. How many times have I seen "Cast Away"? Many. The airline crash sequence is a visually awesome nail-biter. Everything else is a corny alcoholism story we've seen already.

The movie's fun find is Kelly Reilly. Bonus points for an opening scene featuring booze, blow, and boobs.

"Django Unchained": The D is silent. This film made me feel uncomfortable, and not just due to Tarantino's Hitchcock wannabe-esque cameo as a bloated old-timey hustler. There's just something about a movie made by a white man that says "nigger" over 100 times, that uses slavery as a slapstick backdrop for a plot that can't decide if it's a spaghetti western or social commentary that gives me the hives.

That Mr. Foxx was overlooked for an Academy Award nom was the real disgrace.

Arbitrage

I give it a meh.

She shining

My pal Lydia Netzer has a new novel coming out, and it just got a rave review from Janet Maslin in the New York Times.

“Shine Shine Shine” is able to draw readers into its tender, not-quite-human scheme of things because Ms. Netzer treats this as the only reasonable way to look at the world. “Sunny had come up bald from the cradle, and stayed bald throughout her life,” she writes unfussily. “She had been born at some point, and at some point in the future she would die. What happened in between was one long, hairless episode.” 

Buy it now before everyone else does.