20@07!

This is a 1965 Oscar-nominated experimental short film called Time Piece. This was written, produced, directed, and starring a young man by the name of Jim Henson. Yes, you hear me right, THE Jim Henson. Who knew the guy can make such a cool thing like this without a Muppet in sight? Fellow Muppeteer Frank Oz (Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, and Yoda in the Star Wars films) also later went on to direct comedies such as Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Bowfinger, and more recently Death at a Funeral.

Just wanted to plug my aunt's website:

Lina Llaguno Ciani

I just had a chat with one of my friends in the Philippines named Siddharta Perez. She just told me her dad (artist Dante Perez) just came back from the recently concluded Venice Film Festival. It turns out he served as production designer and also played the role of Death in Lav Diaz' new film Kagadanan sa Banwaan ning mga Engkanto (Death in the Land of Encantos), which was shot in my home province of Albay in the Bicol Region a week after the devastation caused by Typhoon Reming (also known as Super Typhoon Durian) last December. The film won a special award in Venice and is currently playing at the Toronto International Film Festival, along with two other Filipino films: Auraeus Solito's Pisay (Philippine Science) and Brillante Mendoza's Tirador (Slingshot).

While in Venice, my friend's dad was lucky to mingle with the likes of Heath Ledger, Adrien Brody (one of the stars of Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited, which was also in the festival lineup), Woody Allen (premiering his new film Cassandra's Dream and whose early film Love and Death I just saw for the first time on TCM this weekend) and Sting. Too bad he didn't get a chance to meet Ang Lee (whose film Lust, Caution won the top prize), Brian De Palma (who won Best Director for Redacted) or Tim Burton (who received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Johnny Depp and showed a preview of his adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd).

A few weeks ago, she was also lucky enough to attend the recently concluded Cinemanila Film Festival where Quentin Tarantino was a guest of honor and a recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award. Along with a retrospective of his films, Tarantino also showed a bunch of '70s B-movies done by such Filipino filmmakers as Eddie Romero and Cirio H. Santiago that would influence his later career. She was also in the audience for the Philippine premiere of his new film Death Proof (one-half of the creatively ambitious flop Grindhouse). Here he is enthusiastically introducing the film to the Filipino audience. This clip was taken from someone's cellphone so the audio is a bit garbled.

Almost six years after it first aired, Jon Stewart's post-9/11 speech remains as hearfelt and honest as ever.



From what I hear, there are still some dust from the debris left near Jon's apartment.

John Gibson, you can take those tastless comments of yours and shove up it your ass!

R.I.P. LUCIANO PAVAROTTI 1935-2007