I have never suffered insomnia the way I have the last few weeks. I can usually fall asleep for two good hours and then I wake up. Then I usually can't go back to sleep and often read or go online. Then it's dawn. Then people start going to work. I say hello to some friends on Instant Messenger. Then I usually can go back to sleep for a few hours.

Anyway, so after that, I got up at like 2. Still tired, from lots of non-sleep moments in bed. So, I went online, checked email and then drove out to San Ramon. Through some serious moments of traffic. But, being on a motorcycle, I'm not as slowed down as much as "car people". I go between cars.

I went out to San Ramon and went to In N' Out Burger. I got a plain Double Double with just meat and cheese. I also got fries and a vanilla shake. Delicious.

And then I went to group therapy at 6. It was only my third week at it. So far, I like it. I think it might be helping me.

Then I called my friend Pete to see if he wanted to meet me at Pinky's Pizza in Walnut Creek for the best pizza in the world. Often Pete and I meet out there. Pete's my oldest friend. From 7th grade.

But, I got Pete's answering machine and so just drove back to SF.

Then I went to see a movie at the Lumiere down the street. The 9:50 show of a Shooting Gallery film called The Last Resort: When a young Russian woman and her son leave Moscow to meet her fiancé, who fails to show up, she declares political asylum.

The cast is Dina Korzun, Artyom Strelnikov, Paddy Considine. Korzun instantly appeals because she is beautiful. She's not like Hollywood beautiful. But her eyes and her eyebrows and her sweetness wins you over. It's quite good; touching.

Recently: I am watching an old movie right now. It is called Peyton Place. It is about this small American town, where everyone thinks only of sex. A lot of the parents are horribly frightened of sex and don't ever want their children to think of it or do it. There is a little town tramp who always struts around in bright, tight red dresses. The young people want to understand what the deal is with sex. Why can't they ever be allowed to talk about it? One old rumpot rapes his high school aged daughter.

The new school principal is "progressive" and wants to start teaching a sex ed class. The woman he likes is a widow, and extremely frigid When she caught her daughter kissing a boy she freaked. The principal is trying to lay her, but she won't have any of it. When she heard of his sex ed class idea, she was like, "isn't that something for the parents?" and he was like "it should be but only one in ten do anything about it." "Well, it doesn't belong in schools!" she says. And he says "where does it belong? in the backs of cars, in alleys?" and she's like: "A woman should find out about it on her wedding night!!!!!!!"

And there is the rich man who owns the town who's son is running around with the town tramp and he's like, "Look, I understand you want screw her, but do it in private, get yourself a cold fish to marry and then just cheat on your wife!" And the son, was like, "Awww, dad!" and the Dad was like, "I'll buy you a new car."

The best part was a girl's birthday party, where the rich boy wanted to pour booze into the punch and he went around and turned off all the lights. The mom came home and everybody in the place was making out.

It's Feb 20 as I write this. I saw a couple of films since I last checked in. To the outraged surprise of some I saw Chocolat for a third time. I saw it with my little pal Jenny. It was great. She didn't really care for it. When Juliette laughs, it's gold. It's golden cinema. I cry. I break down. Thank you Juliette for allowing me to open up. My parents, who are awful, no I won't go any farther. It's just that they, no, I won't go any farther. I mean, they made it like I was supposed, no, I won't go any farther. My therapist says I need to accept and love my parents for who they are.

So, The Bridge, Hannibal and In The Mood For Love. I hated Hannibal. Like I think it was an 'okay' movie, but I've been telling people NOT to see it, because it's too awful and sick. But the film isn't good enough to justify that gross mindbending horrible ending.

The Bridge. I'm neither here nor there on Depardieu, but I appreciate his, what I consider to be, grasp on modern French film making. The film took place in a French village in the 60s and really felt like it was in the 60s. It starred Carole Bouquet, who, thanks to her work in French cinema, is today the most respected of all the Bond Girls (she was raked across coral reefs in For Your Eyes Only).

In The Mood For Love was awesome. A Chinese (I think) film. Hong Kong, 1962. This man and this woman are neighbors, they stumble on to the realization that their spouses are having an affair. We don't really deal with them. Only these two, who begin to fall in love, but decide not to act on it, for fear they'll be no better than their mate. Classic unrequited love stuff (the onliest love I ever know'd), beautiful gowns worn by huge Chinese film star Maggie Cheung. Huge Chinese film star Tony Leung is the man and a very funny supporting performance is turned in by Ping Lam Siu as Ping.

The film is lovingly, lushly, photographed. Lots of moments linger on Maggie's hips. Quite a treat. Smooth. Sultry. All that. She'll stand, and lean back, and rest her arm across her belly and then put the elbow of her other arm to rest on that arm. A very delicious sequence.

Tonight, Friday, uh, February 1, I think, I saw Big Deal on Madonna Street at the Castro.

I rode over and the line was thick. I actually thought about turning around, riding home and stopping at the sauce store and picking up some booze.

But I didn't.

So, I went in and got in line. Erica wasn't working so I had to PAY! And I got a small popcorn and small coke. Sold to me by my crush girl, the girl who looks like Gwyneth Paltrow, but not anymore, since she dyed her hair black. She was much cuter before, but I still like her.

The place was packed. I took my usual place on the right section aisle, but was all the way up to the fourth or fifth row. It's Italian week or something, sponsored by the SF Film Society or something. And one of the stars of the film's' daughter was there, I guess she's a princess now. She spoke about her dad. She was well past 50, with that husky Italian cigaret smoking voice.

The movie was great! The flip side of Rififi (which I saw at the Castro a few months ago), a very funny spoof of the gangster film. Marcello Mastroianni, Vittorio Gassman, Claudia Cardinale, Toto.

Then on Saturday Jenny and I went to Hard Rock Cafe for eats. I had a cheeseburger and fries and a vanilla shake and a coke (pepsi). The burger went unfinished. Not so good. Too bad too, cause the HRock used to make really good burgers. The fries were good and the shake, but a bit lumpy. I like my shakes done. Otherwise, I'd just get ice cream.

Then we walked down to the Galaxy and bought tix for Valentine. I used my old Saint Mary's ID and got student prices! My St. Mary's ID has no years on it. But, I am a student at SFSU, so I wasn't really cheating. Then we went to the Wherehouse and American Rag and Starbucks. Then we saw the movie...

Which was terrible! But terribly fun too! The audience was an outrage, but it somehow fit the film. Half the audience straggled in during the opening credits. Two, separate young couples brought in their little children! Like under 5. This is an R rated horror movie.

Then some local juvenile delinquents came in. They just kept talking and talking. At one point during the film I said to Jenny, at full, normal speaking volume (not appropriate for movie theatres) "So, what are you doing this weekend?"

I saw George Washington at the Opera Plaza on Wednesday afternoon. If nothing else, it was one of the more original films I've seen in a long time.

As far as my email poll went in re listing ten actresses in the order they like them, the results are:

Juliette Binoche... 9.1666666667
Cameron Diaz... 8.4166666667
Kirsten Dunst... 7.125
Drew Barrymore... 6.3333333333
Ann B. Davis... 6.1363636364
Queen Latifah... 4.625
Rose McGowan... 4.125
Calista Flockhart... 3.5416666667
Denise Richards... 3.2083333333
Tori Spelling... 2

Then I saw Saving Silverman. Not great. I guess it was a There's Something About Mary wannabe. But it was better than you'd think; better than Me, Myself and Irene. The cast was really good: Jack Black and Stevie Zahn (Steve Zahn), of course, but as the straight man Jason Biggs was good and Amanda Peet and Amanda Detmer (new POTW) were good and the rest.

In particular, for some reason, I remember this scene where Stevie and Jack Black are trying to remind A. Detmer of who they were in high school. The great Black man goes off on this very ridiculous, rude, hilarious tale of who he was. Then he says that he was naked at the prom and wearing a tuxedo made completely of make up and then he spilt his drink and his 'balls' were in plain view. Then there is a cut to Amanda Detmer and Jason Biggs' reaction and they're just like "Oh, uh huh" and Black's back is sort of to the camera, and Steve Zahn is looking at Black. His look, his reaction is classic. Not possible to describe. It's not surprised, it's not offended, it's not comical, it's not serious. It's some weird combo that is brilliant.

Early Jan: This weekend I saw four films: The Pledge, Yi Yi (A One and a Two), Snatch, and The Gift.

Friday afternoon I walked down to the AMC Van Ness (a 12 block walk and one of my least favorite theatres in the city) for an afternoon -- or the specially priced "twilight" show. The line was ridiculous so I bought my ticket with my credit/atm card at one of the machines. By the way, my credit card # is 4545 2229 3731 8771 and the exp. date is 11/01.

In the theatre more than one person's cell phone went off during the show and actually answered the call. They would walk out into the hallway between the doors to the theatre and the actual screening room. That's better than answering the phone in your seat, but not much.

The Pledge had a good and interesting cast, and a lot of good performances, but doesn't quite come together as a film because each scene is filled with acting and Sean Penn (the director) let's each scene work strong on it's own, but this hurts the actual plot somewhat. Sean Penn usually lets this happen in the films he directs.

Nicholson is a retiring cop who makes a pledge to a woman to find the killer of her child. He retires but continues on his search and slowly comes apart at the hinges. Most of the rest of the cast have long cameos and are all pretty good: Benicio Del Toro, as usual, is wonderful, as a mentally deficient Native American, the great Aaron Eckhart and Sam Shepard are cops, Helen Mirren (stepmother of actor Rio Hackford, wife of director Taylor Hackford) is great in a small part as a psychologist, Mickey Rourke who has been great in character roles in the last several years plays a bereaved parent, Costas Mandylor is good as a heartless police officer (and Costas Mandylor rarely actually "acts"), with Tommy Noonan, Harry Dean Stanton, Vanessa Redgrave and Robin Wright Penn in a larger role.

I would like now, to take a moment to praise a great actress who I've been fond of for 13 years or so. Her first film was The Untouchables (1987) as Eliot Ness' wife. And I feel like it's one of those great losses where someone took too long to build up her record. And sadly, this only happens with women. Because she's 40 now -- and still no one knows her name -- but she's gorgeous and beautiful and sexy and absolutely great and all that.

In 1988 she had a major role in the fifth (and so far last) Dirty Harry film, The Dead Pool (1988), with Burt Lancaster in Rocket Gibraltar (1988), and in Taylor Hackford's Everybody's All-American (1988). In 1990 she was in Tune in Tomorrow. And then she started on the Jonathan Winters sitcom "Davis Rules" (1991). It was here when I remembered her from past films and really, really liked her. She was gone after the first season and the show was gone the next season. She did nothing of note until appearing on TV's "Murder One" in 1995, and then the unfortunate Jumanji with Robbo Williams. But then she pulled a most important actor's coup. She was in the art house lesbian love story with Ally Sheedy and Radha Mitchell, as a heroin addicted former German film star. She gives the best of these three great performances in this film. All but too late? In 1999 she made two pointless films The Green Mile (1999) and Simply Irresistible (1999). But, The Green Mile was a big hit. Then she did Joe Gould's Secret, and now this. Unfortunately, it's a small role and maybe even a bit over the top dramatically (not her fault -- the pivotal role sets up the "pledge"). She's appeared briefly on TV, most notably on an episode of "Law & Order" (1990) as a high class madam.

Later that evening, while my friends were out partying and didn't call me, I saw Yi Yi at the Lumiere. Less than a week before, my friend Pete and I were talking about the Best Foreign Film category in the Golden Globes and Oscars and he mentioned how Yi Yi was supposed to be great. Well, I hadn't even heard of it. And then my issue of Film Comment came with all the writers' Ten Best Lists and Yi Yi made a few. Then Yi Yi came out. And it was playing at the nearby Lumiere. Plus I like the Lumiere. I have a general respect for their choice of films and the popcorn is usually quite good.

Anyway, Yi Yi was really good. It was about a family and their relationships with each other and their own friends and lovers. It was funny, in a way that I hadn't really expected from a Taiwanese film. But to be fair, I really didn't know what to expect from a Taiwanese film. It was also sweet without being corny, and it was really good. Certainly as good as the Foreign Film frontrunner Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and hell of a lot better than Italy's Malena.

Tim and I saw Snatch Saturday afternoon at the UA Metro on Union. I had popcorn and a coke and Tim wanted Whoppers, but they didn't have any so I got him that box of Butterfinger pieces (instead of Milk Duds). He seemed happy. Snatch was highly enjoyable, with a great, but too brief performance by Benicio Del Toro and great performances by Brad Pitt, Rade Serbedzija, and Jason Statham.

Guy Ritchie, who directed Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and just married Madonna, directed Snatch with such a high energy, that certain flaws can be overlooked, because it's just so fun and entertaining watching it. It's all about several groups of petty criminals to real damn murderers dealing with an overlapping heist set in England.

This film came from a brand new genre, largely started by Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avery with Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Killing Zoe. The best of later films to include these genre-riffic styles include Soderbergh's Out of Sight and The Limey; Danny Boyle's Trainspotting and Shallow Grave; Tarantino's Jackie Brown; and Ritchie's Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels -- all strong directors in their own right.

Then on Sunday I again walked down to the AMC Van Ness, and this time saw Sam Raimi's The Gift. This film has so many plot holes and gaps in logic, that's it... only adds to the schlocky fun? I think so. I don't know if Raimi all along planned it to be this Cormanesque, but at some point during the filming he must have realized. Great performances by Cate Blanchett and Keanu Reeves "fuel" this melodrama.

Do not read this next paragraph if you haven't seen the movie yet.

Seriously, Mom, Joanna. Do NOT read this next paragraph. That's right, the paragraph that is in light gray -- do not read.

I knew when one character was smoking that he had to be the bad guy... la la la la la la...

Start reading again here:

Cate Blanchett. I love her. I don't know where or when it started. I was less into Elizabeth than others. I liked it, but... Anyway, she has a wonderful mouth. Her lips are not perfect. Because they transend perfect lips. Someone once said, that if someone has average features, and none flawed, they are beautiful. True. If you have all average but maybe something different, that is not necessarily better or worse -- it could be either. That can make a "striking" person. Striking can be good, can be... striking.

Back to Cate. And those cheekbones. And her body. It's not like Playboy tits, footballer watcher "babe". Nothing like that. But absolutely darling. That's the word. She is well costumed in the film and you can see how slim and healthy she looks; her back, her waist, her hips.

There has been so much media hype over Katie Holmes' brief topless scene I feel impelled to comment. Her role in the film is very... um, well I don't want to give too much away.

Due to heels or whatever, Katie seems to be taller than anyone else in the film. I feel like she's 5'8" in actuality. Anyway, it's hard for me to give away things about her breasts by saying too much.

Her breasts are big, within proportion to her body. Certainly not so big that anyone need concern themselves with the idea of falsity. Is falsity a word? Maybe you should concern yourself with that.

They looked great from the front, but good from the side. End. --30--.

And then on the night of the 16th of January...

I rode my bike out east. All the way out to Rheem. Rheem is a tiny town out near a tiny town that I went to college in, Moraga. But I had a miserable time at college. So screw that.

I got to the theatre (which was closed down during my college years) and it looked closed. It was cold. Freezing. It has been lately. And riding a motorcycle over the Bay Bridge on a freezing January evening and then through the Caldecott Tunnel to the even colder East Bay areas, is, well, it's some kind of cold. I kept thinking about my one pair of flannel lined jeans -- at home -- my parent's home yet -- in a drawer. I was damned cold. And stuffing my scarf into my helmet face helps, but it's still cold.

Anyway, the Rheem. I saw Braveheart there with my parents, back whenever that was... '95 or '96. And I saw something there with Pete and Bud. Something not good... but I can't remember what. Pete would. He's great at remembering what movies he saw at what theatres, with who and when -- and even in what screening rooms if it was a theatre with several screens.

So, I go in and by my ticket. As it turns out it was "Cut Rate Tuesday" where all movies all day are matinee price. From a cute, quiet, sad high school-aged girl. And a popcorn and a Coke.

So, anyway, I waited for a while and then Pete showed up and we went in to see... 13 Days with Kevo Costner. Costner's lame as anything, but the movie was pretty good. It was fun to see characters that I new from books played out on screen and to get a little more info on them, not J and R FK, so much, but Dean Acheson and Adlai Stevenson and others like that.

Then Pete and I went to Pinky's (the greatest pizza anywhere in the world, ever) in Walnut Creek. And Pinky (Tom Beisheim) gave me a few... mint flavored toothpicks (impossible to find)!

Then I followed Pete back to his new apartment, which I hadn't seen. It was deep in the woods of Lafayette. When we got to his place, I misjudged a slope on his driveway and dropped my bike. Stupid. Anyway, I lost a foot peg and had to ride back to SF a bit uncomfortably. (But I fixed that the next day... for $63. Ah, life, eh?)

On January 1, 2001 -- that's right, goddammit, New Year's Day! -- I went down to the Bridge on Geary to see Oh Brother Where Art Thou -- but it was sold out. The third time I went to see it -- sold out -- for the third time.

So, I was pretty upset, having already given up two perfectly good sell out times for this 4pm-ish date for the show on the next day where people had to get up early for work -- finally!

I mean after all that Xgiving, Xmas, Xyears holidaying, it's time for some goddamm WORK!

Anyway, it didn't work out, and depression was beginning to set in hardcore. And, I don't want to be too light or too serious, but depression can lead to suicide.

So, I called my old (for half my long, long life!) friend Pete and we set up a meeting at Pinky's Pizza in Walnut Creek to then go to Lafayette's Park Theatre's showing of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

We also finally exchanged our Xmas/Birthday (me Nov 6/Pete Nov 24) gifts. I had gotten Pete a poster for the old Jack Webb film --30--. Pete and I long have shared a love of old radio shows (1930s-1950s -- pre TV stuff), including Jack Webb's Dragnet (later to become a TVLand/Nick@Night staple), and Webb had become a symbol for us.

Pete got me a book by crime-writer Jim Thompson, The Nothing Man. I have recently been devouring the crime novel, and Pete's long-time fav has always been Thompson, and I had been like, "hey what's the best Thompson for a beginner?" And hopefully he has nailed it.

Plus, Anyways, and I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get back on this, but ... what? Where was I?

So, then I saw Oh Brother and it was not bad. And then I saw Trouble in Paradise (1932) at the Roxie. Today I ate pizza, ice cream, popcorn and candy. That's all I ate today. It is the 3rd now, of January.

Anyway, then I saw Traffic at the Coronet. They had one person working the ticket machine, and I got there 10 minutes before the movie started. The line like didn't move. They started the film on time, with dozens of people still outside, I must have missed all the previews and the first few minutes of the film. Absolutely stupid.

The movie was good, but not the miracle it's been praised as. Nothing really new as far as the war on drugs. Good performances, especially by the great Benicio Del Toro and the great Don Cheadle. And Benjamin Bratt who went from Law & Order to the undistinguished Miss Congeniality was good in a small role -- in fact, I didn't realize it was him until after a few minutes.

Something I forgot. Earlier. Somewhere, on this page, I think. But one of the very greatest, and just plain most beautiful supermodels of all time is Amber Valletta. She's recently started her acting career. She was in What Lies Beneath, and she was fine, but she didn't really have any lines. She looks a little like a young Michelle Pfeiffer -- but much more beautiful.

Hard to rate a performance with that one, she's a very small part where she was fine and beautiful/gorgeous in the Nic Cage Xmas release Man of the House (?). What is that movie called? I could look it up, but I won't. Tea Leoni. Snow. Lame. Man something. The Man Beneath. No, that doesn't make any sense. I KNOW that the word "man" is in the title. The Something Man. Like the Winter Man. But that's not it. What the hell is that movie called?! I am still not looking. I could look it up SO EASY. But I'm not. I recently turned 30 and my memory and my brain and my knees and my ankles are all giving out.

Hours later... The Family Man! I didn't look it up, I just stopped thinking about it for a while and then I went back to writing on this and it came to me.

Then today I walked down to the AMC Van Ness -- in the rain! -- and with a cold! -- to see Finding Forrester. Well, I found him alright! I wore a nice outfit all in browns. Brown shoes from Kenneth Cole, tan socks from Polo, tan pants with j or l pockets from clarksregister.com, my old old old classic leather brown belt from Polo, a thin brown wool turtleneck from Banana Republic. But I used my black umbrella. I don't have a brown one. My umbrella, I bought in Paris, in April of 2000 from Armani! But, it was pretty cheap for something from Armani. Like $40. I remember while there I went into a Louis Vuitton and they had LV motorcycle helmets -- DOT approved, mind you -- that were like $800. I did not buy one. I did not really want one though. They looked like the LV luggage. They were pretty wild. The movie was not bad. I do love Sean Connery, and Rob Brown was good. And I love Anna Paquin. I adore that little girl. Didn't care for her in The Piano (and she got an Oscar), but since then...

Oh, and I saw About a Souffle (Breathless, 1959) at the Roxie a few days ago. Have seen it a couple times. Classic, first film (I think) by Godard. It's about a chef in Paris who tries to choose between his love of a young American girl and his career as a chef (who, obviously, is an expert at souffles, hence the title). Jean Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg star.

On Wednesday, January 10, my friend Jamie (pronounced "high me") and I took the cable car down California, from Van Ness to the Embarcadero theatre to see All The Pretty Horses.

I bought All the Pretty Horses, the novel, and read the first 8 pages and couldn't get into it and I set it down and then all of a sudden the movie came out and then I knew I would never read the book, and only see the movie.

Jamie read the book over the holidays but her copy was missing about eight pages in the beginning. She realized this when she was taking off on a plane and that book was her only entertainment for the flight. So, she was excited to find out why the characters did what they did. (I actually read High Fidelity about a year ago, and halfway through, 40 pages were missing. So, I had to borrow my friend's copy.)

So, I told her that in the first 8 pages Matt Damon spits a lot and wears a cowboy hat and talks to someone and says stuff like "y'all" and "yee haw!"

And then on Thursday, Jan 11, or some time around then I saw Shadow of the Vampire which was good and The Beatles Yellow Submarine at the Castro which was pretty good and Welles' new re-edited version of Touch of Evil at the Castro; and Sean Penn appeared early on in an almost unrecognizable cameo as a Cuban wagon driver with a mouth of gold teeth -- in the film Beneath Us All and Johnny Depp had two brief parts, one very funny as a transvestite. It was about this Cuban dude.

Directed by Julian Schnabel, Before Night Falls (the actual name of the film) stars Javier Bardem as Reinaldo Arenas, Olivier Martinez plays his boyfriend Lazaro Gomez Carilles and bad boy Michael Wincott plays Herberto Zorilla Ochoa. The first three-quarters of the film are good. Arenas was a real life dude who barely survived Castro's evil Communist empire, Cuba. Then the movie pretty much ends when Arenas makes it to the US, but the film still has another half hour or so (of Arenas dying of AIDS).

Director Schnabel is an artist of some sort who also directed Basquiat from a few years ago.

Shadow of the Vampire was about F.W. Murnau and the making of Nosferatu in Germany during the silent era. Great fun, with Malkovich as Murnau, Willem Dafoe as Max Schreck and Udo Kier, Cary Elwes (coincidentally in Coppola's Dracula), Catherine McCormack and Eddie Izzard.

The Beatles Yellow Submarine, wacky cartoon, with Beatles songs. Touch of Evil classic!