Rainbow over Francis Bay, originally uploaded by Vicki_H.

What we're watching:

It's been tough to watch movies at our house with Monkey Boy around but we've managed a few. We watched A Scanner Darkly the other night, and it is perhaps the finest adaptation of a Philip K. Dick story ever ( other adaptations: Blade Runner, Screamers, Minority Report, and Total Recall). Directed by Richard Linklater and starring Keanu Reeves (and the well-cast Robert Downey, Jr. and Woody Harrellson as 2 paranoid stoners - this movie only missed Mathew McConaughey and his bongo drums), it's a story about the drug war in the not-too-distant future. It was also shot live and then run through an animation process known as "interpolative rotoscoping" which IMHO gives the movie that perfect disconnected-from-reality feeling that you get if you have ever read any of Dick's work. Two thumbs up, but it would be a big mistake to watch it with your mind altered in any way.

Other than that it's been T.V: 24 is still the same old 24 - lots of running around and trying to find the bad guys. Lost is still the same old Lost - lots mysteries coming out of mysteries without any real resolution. Battlestar Galactica is still Battlestar Galactica: ripping my heart out of my chest and stomping on it every chance it gets.

I'm not just talking about Starbuck's suicide ("Hey, Starbuck: what do you hear?" "Nothing but the rain") - this show keeps echoing its past in ways that just make me cry. Lee and Bill mended their rift when Starbuck was lost and presumed dead way back in season 1. Now they are both so lost in their bergs of grief the rift is back, bigger than ever. And then Lee went and pressed Laura on the witness stand and Laura begged him to stop ("Captain Apollo... that has a nice ring to it") and managed to remind us of their once friendship just as Lee destroys whatever was left of it for good.

I thought this show was starting to slump some during the latter half of this season but it has managed to wake me up just in time to beat me senseless. Sunday is the last ep of season 3 and I'm not sure I'm looking forward to it or not.