"Traffic was a bitch" is not an excuse for not doing your Altman blog on time. I will not say "It's OK with me" or "It don't worry me."

Just a note of caution: if you are going to write about Nashville and criticize it, that's fine -- several established critics have over the years, including Jonathan Rosenbaum, who's quoted in your reading packet. But ... use what you've learned this year to build a basis for your arguments. Remember, you can stay stuff like "That movie sucked" if you're talking about Meet the Epic Movies or whatever and no one will bat an eye, but if you say an established classic "sucked," your audience will expect a reasoned argument. Is that totally fair? Not really -- you should always try to come up with a reasoned argument for why you like or dislike something.

Toshiro Mifune is considering what to write for his Kurosawa blog post

As a reminder, here are the guidelines for blogging:

o Discuss/analyze an important scene
o Expand on a discussion question from class, whether from a film or a reading
o Make a connection to the real world/current events
o Discuss/analyze an aspect of cinematic style important to the film(s)
o Discuss/analyze a topic or theme important to the film(s)
o Relate it to another film, either from class or personal viewing
o Discuss ideas for future viewing inspired by the film(s)

Note that you can write about one film or all three if you want. The only real rules are:

1) Write about something related to Kurosawa

2) Be interesting

Don't forget -- comments on at least three different blogs are due Friday!

Why can't we be (Netflix) friends?

This is a cool feature of Netflix Dan A. pointed out to me. If you have Netflix, click here to get started. Choose the option on the right to paste the link on your blog. Put it on your blog, and other people can see what movies you're watching, your ratings of them, lists, etc.

Seth Rogen as Cary Grant?

Vanity Fair has recreated famous scenes and images from Hitchcock's movies.

My favorite is pictured here.

Don't forget to leave at least one comment on each of your group member's blogs about the first film you watched as part of your director study. Those are due Tuesday.

Director blog assignment

OK, here we go. Click here to get to the list(s) of directors you can choose from. Feel free to choose from the "More Great Directors" list if you'd like. Don't forget to have one person in your group comment on this post, and leave the following information: The names of everyone in your group, and your top three directors you'd like to study for this project, listed in order of preference.

As soon as I let you know which director you're studying, you'll need to get crackin', because your first post is due Feb. 14. Good luck!

Also: If your blog is not linked in the appropriate class list to the right, make sure to leave your URL (blog address) along with your name and class period in a comment on this post.