I doubt that there will ever be a Monkey Island movie, but The Pirates of the Caribbean series is the next best thing. Jess and I went to see the sequel today and I was wiggling a little in my seat a little as the crew rowed into Tia Dalma's swamp.

Dr. Marvin: You think he's gone? He's not gone. That's the whole point! He's never gone!

Bob: Is this some radical new therapy?

also.... I preordered 24seven from Amazon and now it's saying that it ships in 2-5 weeks. godammit I can't wait that long. Some Boston area shop must have it in stock.

I'm loving the little Logitech surround sound system that I bought for our new place. I'm no home theater freak and I'm sure that pros would scoff at this setup, but for just over $250 I got everything I needed to get great sound out of my cable, DVD, Airport Express, and future Nintendo Wii ;) Well, almost everything - all the fancy wires are pretty expensive but I was able to find some good ones at Target...

The Good

• Bang for buck. Don't take my word for it, read the Amazon (and other) reviews
• The rear speakers are wireless! I didn't have to mess up my room or walls with speaker wire. No setup, no detectable interference or delay.
• Dolby Digital and DTS, THX certified, and all that. Star Wars sounds good.
• Lots of inputs - 3 stereo, 2 (digital) optical, 1 (digital) coaxial

The Bad

• The remote is small and crappy - not really a problem if you have a learning remote that you can train.
• The IR codes for some features were actually the same as my Polaroid TV (Sort of annoying because some controls on the remote make the TV go haywire. Luckily volume and power don't bother it.)

I just got back from seeing "Half Nelson" - the Boston Indie film fest opener. It was a great movie about yin and yang, friendship, and trying to make a difference in life.

Mostly, it was about people doing what they do. My head was clear for the whole 20 minute commute home. Sigh.

An (mostly) unrelated note : is anyone marching with the zombies next week?

Advance tickets for April's film fest went on sale today. Last year, many films sold out quickly and I expect this year to be the same. Most tickets are $8.

I'm a new NetFlix customer. I like the selection and I like dropping returns in the mailbox out front instead of making a trip to the video store. I hate the website. Good luck finding new things to watch by using their site - the recommendations and browse pages are crap and the ratings and reviews are less than helpful. I've been using IMDB to get more accurate ratings and Greencine's user lists (and staff lists) to find recommendations. A good way to find stuff with Greencine is to search for a movie that you loved and then take a look at the user lists which included the movie (shown on the right hand side). Amazon Listmania might also be a good way to get "recommended if you like..." information.

I've also found that you can avoid worthless recommendations (to some degree) but not giving good ratings to hugely popular movies. Don't bother rating Harry Potter or Crash unless you hated them. This kind of thing happens with Amazon as well... Don't tell them that you liked the Da Vinci Code or they will try to sell you the rest of the NYT Best Seller list.

I like NetFlix so far but I think that Jess has probably been having second thoughts about the service after being subjected my picks (specifically, Oldboy and A Tale of Two Sisters).

Oh - I forgot to mention that the NetFlix friends "two cents" reviews are pretty cool.

Quick update : The RottenTomatoes.com Tomato Picker is pretty useful as well.

The indie film fest is this weekend (Thursday - Sunday). Jess and saw some *really* great movies at last year's festival so we'll be there. Check out the schedule and go to something. The films will be showing at the Somerville Theatre in Davis Square (most of them are here), the Brattle in Harvard Square, the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, and the MFA. I had a hard time figuring out what I want to go to, but I think that I've definitely going to see these:

• Mysterious Skin : Nice. A new Gregg Araki film.
• Chain : sounds pretty interesting. Plus, I'm a sucker for descriptions which include the phrase "corporate dystopia".
• The Future of Food : Agrobusiness bad. Again, mention the "horrifying growth of corporate influence" in your synopsis and I'm sold ;)
• The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things : What's an independent film festival without a little depravity? This is part of the "after dark" group.
• Shakespeare Behind Bars : a documentary about a group of Kentucky inmates that put on Shakespeare plays.
• The Hole Story : A comedy about a hole that has inexplicably appeared in the center of a frozen Minnesota lake. Why not?
• White Skin : Another midnight showing. Quebecois. Sounds bizarre.
• Also, they've just added a Danish film called "Brothers" that sounds interesting.

I was disappointed to see that Steve Buscemi's opening night film "Lonesome Jim" was poorly rated by the community on IMDB. It's probably sold out anyway (Steve will be in attendance).

If you live in the Boston area, you should really get over to the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline and see one of the excellent films that they are showing.

Take a look at the Coolidge special features page. They've got quite a variety. Here are a few...

• Story Of The Weeping Camel - a Mongolian drama-mentary
• Super Size Me - (see it if you haven't yet!)
• Word Wars - a documentary about competitive Scrabble.
• Fahrenheit 9/11 - I haven't heard of it. Have you? ;)
• Zatoichi - a blind samurai and geisha assassins. Oh my!