The Week in Entertainment

Film: Okuribito (Departures). It won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film this year, and despite the grumblings of AO Scott it deserved to. It's the best movie I've seen in years. I laughed and I cried - really. I can't remember the last time a movie made me cry several times when it wasn't a dog dying (yes, Marley: you cheated). A very Japanese movie, about a very Japanese thing - a ceremony for preparing the dead for cremation - that reaches across cultural boundaries to touch anyone who has ever lost a loved one. This movie is brilliant.

DVD: I got the complete Morse and have begun watching them. I've only seen a comparative handful, actually... episode 1 was weird. Morse was ... happy and even flirty. How odd. (Also odd: Patrick Troughton as a peeping tom!) And oh my, Lewis is young! This program holds up well - a bit of oddities (where are the cell phones??) but the plotting and acting is still good.

Read: Finished The Fortress of Solitude. I think the first half is better than the second, but the second is - taken as a second half - still excellent. The thing with this book is, it's not about what you think it's about, but when you finish it, you see that what it is about was the right thing for it to be about... I prefer Motherless Brooklyn and Gun With Occasional Music, but this one's definitely worth reading.