two films you should absolutely see if you get the chance:

pan’s labyrinth – 4 stars

the problem with american trailers to foreign films is they never have any dialogue, so all you get is a visual montage. based on that and the mumblings i’d heard, i thought this would be a wild, trippy alice-in-wonderland type film. it turned out to be only partly that, but much more a gripping and frightening human drama, with elements of fantasy as a young girl yearns to escape her reality. the mix of the two in the heartbreaking story of young ofelia made this a really amazing film, which i appreciate more the more i mull over the ending, which sealed off the tragic yet hopeful story in a perfect way.

the animation show 3 – 5 stars

every time one of these comes out i will guarantee you one ticket in los angeles will be purchased by yours truly. i can’t sing the praises highly enough, and this year didn’t let me down. don hertzfeldt’s latest, “everything will be okay” was particularly great, definitely his best work yet, and along with shane acker’s beautiful film “9”, probably worth the price of the ticket alone. throw in some other great bits ranging from bizarre to beautiful to hilarious (oh man, plympton’s “guard dog” was a crack-up too), and you can hardly beat it for range and quality.

also, i picked up the box set for the past two years’ shows, so if anyone wants to borrow that let me know… i can’t wait to dig into some of the bonus stuff myself. i had bought the first year’s separately already, but i had to have the pretty two-volume set like a typical nerd. anyone want to buy the stand-alone first volume for cheap?