The (very funny) teaser for Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle is now online. Props to Steve Erickson for tracking this down elsewhere.

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I was at Borders tonight and noticed the new boxed set of Martin Scorsese films is on sale for $49.99. (Buy it by following the Amazon link; Deep-Focus.com gets a kickback.) That's five feature films, all of them with director commentary, for 10 bucks each. Because I well remember the days when a Martin Scorsese director's commentary was only available on Criterion laserdiscs that fetched $100 or more, so that impoverished film geeks like me had to save our pennies for months just to afford them, I find this to be almost unbelievable. Kids, it's almost like stealing.

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If you're wondering why there are suddenly text ads on certain pages, it's because I'm experimenting with Google Ads on highly trafficked parts of the Web site. I've resisted any flirtation with advertisements or commercialism, but these seem fairly low-impact so I figured I'd give them a spin.

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I'm working on a review of The Brown Bunny, but I should say right now: I liked it. It does in fact go completely over the top in the infamous motel room scene, but parts of it are very pretty and parts of it are very sad and it has an ambition that's rare in commercial cinema. I'll try to have a full review up by Friday.

My interview with cinematographer Dion Beebe about shooting Collateral using mainly cutting-edge digital cameras is online at Film & Video magazine.

Dark Horizons reports that Terry Gilliam's The Brothers Grimm has been pushed back to November 2005. Can this guy get a break?

Genius songwriter Paul Westerberg, onetime leader of The Replacements, is now writing songs for and scoring an animated feature.

Does this make him the Elton John or Phil Collins of my generation? Boy do I feel old.

(Then again, the film in question, Open Season, is reportedly the feature debut of Jill Culton, a director from the Pixar stable, so maybe Paul is more like my generation's Randy Newman. I can handle that.)

First I hear that Alexander Hammid dies. Then Geraldine Peroni. And now Fay Wray.

Ouch, man.