My two kid brothers are much (think 16 years) younger than me, but there were a few movies that we all enjoyed. I've also included a few that I've seen lately and thought were good:

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Harry and the Hendersons

Popeye the Musical (The Robert Altman film)

Ladyhawk

The Last Mimsy

The Princess Bride

Legend (and this in spite of Tom Cruise)

The Iron Giant

The Incredible Journey

The Dark Crystal

You're letter was really devestating. My thoughts are going out to you, hopefully sending some good vibes, right now.

I'll admit right up front that I think that Spike Lee is a better director than Clint Eastwood. Not in a technical sense - Eastwood's films are often beautifully shot and acted. But Lee's films have, at times, broken new ground, and addressed issues of race in an iconoclastic manner, adding a new voice and a new perspective. Plus there is The 25th Hour, easily one of the best films of the last 10 years IMO.

Eastwood's films over the years have not, in my opinion, evidenced any signs of greatness (with at least one exception). To Wit:

The Rookie - execreble pseudo-dirty harry schlock

The Unforgiven - excellent

A Perfect World - overwrought dreck with an added Costner factor.

The Bridges of Madison County - I'm getting heartburn just thinking about this wad of cotton candy and lard.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil - How can a film with John Cusack and Kevin Spacey be so damn boring? Really, how is it possible? This film manages to be both soporific and anoying.

Absolute Power - never seen it, probably never will. 38% on Rotten Tomatoes.

True Crime - see "Absolute Power."

Space Cowboys - prompted the following statement by Roger Ebert, which perfectly sums up much of Eastwood's Oeuvre: "too secure within its traditional story structure to make much seem at risk—but with the structure come the traditional pleasures as well"

Blood Work - get's murdered girl's heart, looks for murderer.

The rest you know; Mystic River features more overwrought performances from great actors, no surprises (see Gone Baby Gone for an indication of what might have been. Million Dollar Baby represents Eastwood's nadir. It's the sort of schmaltzy dreck that confoms perfectly with the sensibilities of the maudlin masses, and hoo-boy does it go over well with the Academy! Sentiment sells, and Eastwood is, at heart, a traditional, sentimental purveyor of cinematic pot-boilers.

A propos of nothing: Last year I found a half-dead baby squirrel on the sidewalk. It literally struggled up to my shoe, put his two paws on my sneaker, and gave me a look that said Help! When I got him home I found that he was underweight, starving, and most critically, seriously dehydrated. I phoned shelters (no dice, squirrels are apparently viewed as vermin in Toronto), I phoned my mom, I searched the web. Ultimately I bought a tetrapak of kitten's milk, a dropper, and a hotwater bottle. That squrirrel drank kitten's milk by putting his whole face in a saucer till he sneezed and wheezed and had to be cleaned with a warm facecloth.

He had a mad will to survive; at two months he escaped to the frigid December outdoors and came back three days later with an nasty gash on his hind quarters and a terrible crust all over his nose and mouth. He lay in a ball in a heated towel drinking gatorade out of a dropper for two days, before emerging, shaky but bratty as ever. El Duderino now lives in a shelter in British Columbia, but, if I'd owned a big yard (with less cats prowling in it) and had a bit more time (I was in second year law school at the time) I would have made him a shelter here. Without a doubt the cutest, cleverest, wildest creature ever. His favourite thing to do was ride around the house perched on my shoulder, holding my ear for balance.

It's been over a year since I left the little guy in B.C., but everytime I walk down a tree-lined street, I have to stop and watch the squirrels. I now find their industry and quirkiness endlessly facinating.

A great interview about a facinating man. I can't wait to see the doc.

The show is a masterpiece and Hamm's performance is the jewel in the crown. Donald Draper is subtle, compelling, both dangerous and vulnerable.

I say this in spite of the fact that I may not watch this season. Mad Men sucked me in each week, but spit me out feeling depressed, or maybe just dispirited, mildly disturbed. I find the show darker than some of my friends. Donald Draper just is so filled with despair and repressed angst. The manicured lawns, nicotine haze, boozy dads and pill-popping moms in poodle skirts - it all makes me inexplicably sad. The show leaves me feeling like I've just woken from a dream of walking through empty suburbs at night. Maybe that's the point.

...possibly my week. Love musicals, love NPH and love Joss Whedon. Plus the gorgeous Nathan Fillion (a fellow Canuck!). How could this show be any better?

...Heskimo, you put that better than I ever could've.

However, Daft Punk make me dance around my kitchen like a drunk teenager (not easy!).

...but someone who has an eating disorder ought not to be a role model. Ms. Knightly, while admitting that her mother, sister, and aunt suffer from anorexia, claims that she does not, but she remains the number one pin-up girl for "pro-ana" sites, that is, sites set up (usually by young teen girls) in order to extoll the benefits of anorexia (i.e. get to be like Keira Knightly). I don't criticize Ms. Knightly for being so thin, but nor do I think that she should be a roll model. To wit:

http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2006/07/05/keira_narrowweb__300x587,0.jpg