'The Road to Guantanamo'

The controversial film, along with Cars, A Prairie Home Companion, and Ghostface Killah's Fishscale, is reviewed in my latest Consumables column.

no comment

Attention, all bloggers: If you're sad that no one's responding to your heartfelt, eloquent postings, Pearls Before Swine feels your pain. Kinda.

the fast and the furious: tokyo drift

The new installment in the Fast and the Furious series isn't necessarily terrific, but its up-and-coming star, Lucas Black, may be someone worth keeping an eye on.

the lake house

The new romantic drama starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, which opens Friday, will be a hit among the female set. Men are another matter entirely.

bruce springsteen: protest folkie

While I respect Springsteen's post-9/11 work, it's been hard for me to love it as much as Tunnel of Love or Born in the U.S.A. His fans, of course, won't have the same difficulty.

the need for iraqi civil war

While the Bush administration strains with all its might to insist that Iraq is not tumbling into civil war, Edward N. Luttwak of the Center for Strategic and International Studies argues that, frankly, maybe that's just what Iraq needs:

Civil wars can be especially atrocious as neighbors kill each other at close range, but they also have a purpose. They can bring lasting peace by destroying the will to fight and by removing the motives and opportunities for further violence.

The logic is very sound. Of course, the White House will have a hard time accepting this rationale -- it will be a bitter pill for the Republicans to swallow if they acknowledge that they have to step aside and let the country implode so that the Iraqi people can eventually move forward.

camera obscura

This sextet from Glasgow write pretty songs about being sad. Let's Get Out of This Country is their latest. I quite like it.