@ serai: I learned about Criterion's EL NORTE at the Virginia Film Festival (in Charlottesville, VA) last October. Director Gregory Nava led a workshop in which he analyzed key sequences from the film, with input from the audience. Nava had a pre-release copy of the standard DVD, and the image held up well even when projected on a large theater screen. That evening I pre-ordered EL NORTE on Amazon. Otherwise I would have learned about its DVD release through the Criterion website.

@ candypants: I think you'll find EL NORTE even better than you remember. The story is direct and emotional, but the filmmaking is very subtle and intelligent.

Another Criterion release, possibly even more important than the Rossellini, if you can believe that. Came out on the same day as MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION, both releases long overdue. EL NORTE features a beautiful hi-def transfer, even on the standard DVD -- I doubt I've seen better.

1. James Buchanan -- promoted slavery at every possible opportunity, got into a military quagmire with the Mormons (and lost), enacted policies that brought the country to civil war.

2. Rutherford B. Hayes -- came into office by cutting a deal with Southern Democrats, the results of which led to nearly a century of racial oppression. Also authorized federal troops to fire on striking railroad workers.

3. Woodrow Wilson -- spent the last two and a half years of his second term physically and mentally incapacitated, with his wife effectively running the executive branch. Much worse even than Reagan's second term. Major crackdowns on First Amendment freedoms, lethal violence against organized labor and pacifists. Also involved US in WWI (an unpopular move of questionable necessity), and instituted segregation in Washington, D.C.

4. John F. Kennedy -- whose perceived weakness on foreign policy brought the world closer to all-out nuclear war than it had been before, or has been since. Authorized Bay of Pigs invasion, then refused to provide basic support. Escalated U.S. involvement in Vietnam, setting the stage for the largest military quagmire in American history.

5. Jimmy Carter -- stagflation, foreign-policy humiliations, and of course, the introduction of the evangelical Christian right as a force to be reckoned with in American politics.

Yes, Mark Benjamin is a hypocrite. In this case, that's a good thing. A hypocrite, by definition, must be doing something right -- though of course, the trick is figuring out what that something is.

In this case, what Benjamin is doing right ought to be fairly clear: He and his family are participating in a free-market economy by assessing their needs as individuals, and making choices. They determined that they needed a vehicle with more space. Several vehicles were available on the open market to meet their needs, and they weighed their needs, desires and beliefs in the final decision. What's more, they purchased their new vehicle at a substantial discount, which is also the sort of behavior one would expect from thoughtful, responsible consumers. (Like a good capitalist, Benjamin partially offsets the cost of his new SUV by writing -- and selling -- a humorous essay about his experience.)

Where Benjamin falls short is in his belief that SUVs are bad for other drivers and worse for the planet. Obviously they're not. They're ideal for carpooling (half a dozen co-workers can fit comfortably inside an average-sized SUV), and they make it possible for families to consolidate trips away from home. Lest we forget, for most families (that is to say, families with more than one child) the alternatives to a minivan or SUV would involve either driving more than one vehicle simultaneously, or making multiple trips with a smaller vehicle. Each of these scenarios (multiple vehicles, multiple trips) would incur a substantially greater cost in time, money and fossil fuel than simply driving an SUV would.

Although Benjamin's environmentalist doctrine may be misguided, his instincts as a consumer are fundamentally sound. Certainly by just about any standard, the triumph of personal liberty (not to mention old-fashioned "horse sense") over puritanical proscriptions ought to be seen as cause for celebration.

The California investigation pertains to non-monetary, "in-kind" contributions from the LDS Church to the Yes on 8 campaign.

Andrew, I'm afraid your contention that BOYS IN THE BAND is a masterpiece and CRUISING is ripe for reappraisal says a good deal more about you than it does about either of these two films. In BOYS, Friedkin failed to capture the tone of Mart Crowley's stage play: His self-consciously artsy visuals and insistence on flop-sweat method acting -- all borrowed from half a dozen gay-themed "problem pictures" of the period -- sucked the life out of the proceedings. The pretentious homage to Bergman's PERSONA at the film's climax strongly indicates that in 1970, Friedkin didn't have the first clue as to what Crowley's play was about.

As for CRUISING, it's the JUD SUSS of gay-themed cinema. It may seem over the top today (at least for those who have never set foot inside an evangelical megachurch), but it was part and parcel of the backlash against gay visibility during the late '70s and early '80s. See Anita Bryant, the Briggs Initiative in California, and the CBS documentary "Gay Power, Gay Politics" for more examples.

hell, a sci-fi cartoon, when's the last time anyone pulled that off well?

Linklater's A SCANNER DARKLY is the most recent one I can think of. It's not great, but it's good enough, and the last ten minutes pack quite a wallop.

You might like Aristomenis Tsirbas's upcoming CGI cartoon TERRA -- it's an alien-invasion movie, sort of like WAR OF THE WORLDS but with the roles reversed. If anything, it's even more aggressively dystopian than WALL-E. I loathed it, for reasons too numerous to list here, but I have to admit the production design is great.

Republicans are betting that the electorate will re-embrace their brand of conservatism, warts and all, after two years of near-total Democratic control. And if the first half of Obama's term is as disastrous as it appears it will be, they may be correct.