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David Edelstein’s hosting Slate’s Film Club, and it’s as entertaining as reading long emails could possibly be. While you could keep reading all week to see what new fabric these five critics can weave from the threads of last year’s films, I’m sticking around to see if the Voice‘s J. Hoberman gets picked to be on Martha Stewart’s jury. [I non-watched Runaway Jury on the plane back from LA. Dustin Hoffman, John Cusack, Gene Hackman, but I’d never heard a peep about it; when did it come out? A rhetorical question, because I so don’t care.]
Anyway, Vogue‘s Sarah Kerr coined a term for the huge crop of formulaic movies, including indies I’ve long since lost my sense of obligation to see, merely because they’re indies: Situation Tragedies. I like it. I mean, I hate it.

1. “A Past of Fear and Pain for First-Time Filmmaker”: Dear Vadim Perelman, if you really don’t want people to know about your pseudo-criminal past, don’t put it in your press kit and chat up The New York Times about it.
2. Ruth La Ferla’s favor-repaying article asks how hot the trend of men’s jewelry is. The answer? v.v.v. hot, if you ask the right people. Like, for example, men’s jewelry store owners, men’s jewelry designers, an industry newsletter, and the editors of two soon-to-launch men’s shopporn mags.
Still wonder if it’s just a phase? Well, how about the jewelry designer’s husband, “a dapper hedge fund manager who rarely leaves the house without his platinum wedding ring, wide as a cigar band.” [“Honey, I’m just going for a long walk, um, through the East Village without my wedding ring. Don’t wait up.”]
Subtext? “‘The word metrosexual is not going to appear in this article, is it?’ [the mercifully Google-proof] David Matthews asked, his voice rising warily. For good reason [since the Style Section outed you mets in the first place.]” See Gawker for Details recent metrosexual re-closeting.]

Indiewire has a slightly puffy, but factoid-filled article on 2929 Entertainment, Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner’s growing independent film empire, which the Broadcast.com billionaires are positioning for the impending all-digital future. In the semi-digital present, it’s still fairly compelling: Landmark Theaters; Rysher, Magnolia Pictures, and a stake in mega-indie Lion’s Gate; and HDNet, a digital production company and cable channel (look for it around ch.500). “We want to be known as THE place that directors and producers want to come to have their movies produced and distributed in the specialty/independent marketplace,” Wagner told indieWIRE.
From the message board comments, some independents are, inexplicably, touting open, competitive independence over Cuban’s vertically integrated independence-for-him. No fear, though: Steven Soderbergh/George Clooney’s Hard Eight produced a film with 2929. And everyone connected to Hogan’s Heroes is on board; the company holds syndication rights to the Nazi sitcom and is wrapping Godsend, the latest film from Greg “Bob Crane” Kinnear.

In 2004, no article on Asian cinema is complete without extensive and authoritative quotes from the dean of Japanese cinema, Gothamist.com. Oh, and Donald Richie gets a soundbite or two as well. Omedeto!
Related links:
Gothamist’s post of realization
Gothamist thread on stereotypes in Lost in Translation
“See all 59 results for Donald Richie on Amazon.com,” including The Films of Akira Kurosawa and The Image Factory: Fads and Fashion in Japan

What timing. I dust off my taximusic idea, and the NYT runs a primer on ripping analog-to-digital music, and provide a handy list of audio tools. Of course, they focus primarily on LPs and on cleaning up the noise that bothers some people.
Related: LP3, my attempt to add analog sound quality to a CD music file.

ahhh wrapped in the sweet sweet embrace of cell phone signals once again. The ONE surprise effect of a cruise: ur actually glad to come to LA.

there’s a moment when ur no longer on a cruise; ur sitting on a boat in san pedro harbor.
LAX: total amateur hr.
also, the must-stop trend of ’04: board shorts and wool caps. If it’s warm enough to take ur shirt off, it’s warm enough to take ur hat off.

Felix Ano Nuevo. If you find yourself docked in Puerto Vallarta on New Year’s Day, forget going into el Centro. All the internet cafes are closed, and the only attraction–besides the empty hulk that was Planet Hollywood, which still features the handprints of celebrity/shareholders like Gov. Schwarzenegger on its decaying facade–is the Queso Pie at McDonald’s. Who’da thought?
No, stay near the ship like you’re supposed to. Sharkey’s got wi-fi for free, although it only reaches halfway to Deck 4. And to maximize your in-port entertainment, cross the street to Wal-Mart (and, if you’ve got a VIP card, the exclusive, member’s only Sam’s Club). The parking lot’s full of traficante M-classes and Cayennes, and all the cabrons are sporting freshly shined alligator cowboy boots in an orgy of colors that’d do an NBA expansion team proud.
* Update: my sister informed me that Bingoboy–who I knew only by his embarassingly enthusiastic announcements which regularly interrupted the poolside reggae band–calls it Puerto Wal-Marta. I cannot in good conscience take credit for this coinage.

My new movie idea for 2004: Call it Lost at Sea, a poignant exploration of the strangely intense bond that forms with people trapped on a cruise ship for 7 days and 6 nights.
An Orange County surfer dragged along for his grandparent’s 50th anniversary meets a 50-ish divorcee from the Valley with a fondness for slushy drinks. There’d be way too much karaoke, insulated excursions at each port of call to inject some local color, and plenty of poolside scenes (cue the Baywatch bikini montage). The supporting cast could include a sympathetic bartender, a hapless purser, a coked up cruise director, and a comically lecherous ship’s doctor.
When the boat returns to LA, the sunburned lovers exchange AIM usernames. but the audience knows it’s over. Not because the divorcee’s custody agreement limits her AIM time to alternate weekends, but because it’s just too damn far to maintain a relationship between Orange County and the Valley.

Day 1 Cruise Index:
Length of ship, in feet: 915
Decks accessible to passengers: 9
Number of passengers, est.: 2,500
Number of teenagers: 250
Number of children: 250
Average poolside temperature at sea on, in degrees farenheit: 67
Number of books carried around: 2,000
Random airport titles: 500
Copies of the new translation of Don Quixote: 1
Copies of David Foster Wallace’s A Supposedly Funny Thing I’ll Never Do Again: 0
Copies of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest: 0
Copies of Thomas Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon: 2 [!!]
Copies of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code: 1,496
Copies of The Da Vinci Code reported stolen from an unattended deck chair: 1
Price of a Diet Coke, either in a can or a glass: $1.50
Glasses of Diet Coke in a can: 2
Price of a cruise-long Coke Pass, which allows consumption of unlimited fountain drinks, including 15% gratuity: $37.95
Glasses of Diet Coke I must consume daily to make my Coke Pass cost-effective: 8.42
Estimated percentage of cruise spent walking back and forth to the bar and/or bathroom: 20
Daily wage of a cruise ship pool attendant: $18
Equivalent daily wage in Diet Cokes: 12
Equivalent daily wage in Yummy Yummy Mango Tango’s, a rum concoction designated as the Drink of The Day: 3
Fee paid to employment agent to secure job: $1,000
Months of work required to pay back agent’s fee: 2
Length of contract, in months: 6
Days off during contract: 0
Ranking among pool attendants of Christmas Day for the loneliest days of the year: 1
Year The Nation magazine began sponsoring cruises for its readers: 1998