Major Dickens

Also, even though I know I've been posting a lot today (you'd almost think my job wasn't fulfilling!), I feel that I must recommend that every person alive go see Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale, which is the first movie in years that has made me wish I was a film critic. It was smart, funny, and gently profound while covering some very difficult and particular emotional terrain. Standard issue stuff like intellectual pomposity, the (ir)responsibility of selfish parents, the perils of being over-candid with kids, all gets packed into an avowedly un-heartstring tugging, though still poignant handheld family drama. And if it's true that only a few thousand people in the world will really relate to this movie (with its Jean Eustache and Ilie Nastase posters, its weathered bohemian liberal corduroy preppy sensibilities, its perfectly appointed bookshelves, its shitheel Peugeots, and its perfectly rendered pseudoaristocratic pretense; jeff daniels and jesse eisenberg couldn't possibly be any better), I feel I must know at least half of them, and would love to meet more.

Go see it as soon as possible.