2 + 2 = 5.

1 - 3) My Sunday Film Festival: Fanny and Alexander/Kill Bill Vol. 2/ The Talented Mr. Ripley.

• F&A: It's so refreshing to watch a film and, within the first five or so minutes, know that you are witnessing something great. At the time, it was intended as Bergman's swan song, his final filmic statement. While he kept making films, F&A would've been a perfect career capper: a warm-for-Bergman slab of Dickensian melodrama that tackles childhood, family, God, and theater. Just... masterful. On every level.
  
• KBV2: I've come around to liking this one. I still think it's a bit of a let down and Carradine doesn't work for me at all (that much-ballyhooed comic book monologue is a crock), but it's grown on me.
  
• TTMR: An old standby. I love Patricia Highsmith's sick little novel that's the basis for the film and I love Minghella's glossy, old-Hollywood interpretation of the material. (And that Murch touch! The man is a wizard.) True, I was forced to drunkenly impersonate Hillary Swank in Millon Dollar Baby every time Matt Damon showed up on the screen (as they are the same person), but that only added to the tension.

4) Popalloon.
AKA crack.

5) Rain in L.A.
I'm enjoying the anomaly while I can.