e-Cahiers, Hidden Iraq, and Movie Locations on Google Earth

Sweeeeeet. The "e" stands for "electronic" as well as for "English". Mais oui. Now I don't have to keep typing sentences into translate.google.com and hitting just to figure out what those crazy French critics at Cahiers du Cinéma are on about this month .... Google Video has Iraq: The Hidden Story, an utterly engrossing hour-long piece from Channel 4 on the difficulties television journalists are having getting the real story out of Iraq — as well as the general squeamishness of television producers in the U.K. and the U.S. when it comes to airing graphic war-zone footage (some of which is included here, so be warned) that could influence public opinion of the current military escapades in the Middle East .... If you're like me (and you have a decent computer and a fast Internet connection), you've already loaded up and become mesmerized by the globetrotting wonders of the Google Earth software. Well, Google Earth became a huge time sink for me over the Presidents Day weekend as I found this old post at WFMU's Beware of the Blog in which DJ Mark Allen discusses various film locations that can be viewed from a satellite's eye using the system. I was most fascinated by the overhead images of the park from Blow-Up, but he has instructions for finding locations from La Dolce Vita, Heathers and even Friday the 13th. A category search for film locations at Google Earth Hacks turned up more time-wasting goodies, including the houses from E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and Poltergeist. (I am a child of the 80s. I can't help it.) The dudes who wrote Deja Vu totally had a copy of Google Earth loaded up — I actually started getting frustrated that the system wouldn't let me move forward and backward in time.