An unfortunate and eminently avoidable headline makes me giggle. I'm such a child. And you are too.

I have the ability to fall in love with an album if I listen to it enough times, and though I haven't tested this out with any atrocious music, it happens with just about any album I listen to X times. Because of this, I've decided the X in this equation should become my new music rating system. Anyway, in the interest of not waiting to fall in love with any of the albums below, I'm going to provide an estimate to X for the most recent additions to my music collection. The lower the number, the more strongly I feel about it. In a good way.

Monochrome: Helmet (2006) 20

Friday Night Lights Soundtrack: Explosions in the Sky (2004) 10

A Poet's Life: Tim Armstrong (2007) 5

Eardrum: Talib Kweli (2007) 20

Icky Thump: The White Stripes (2007) 75

There Will Be Blood Soundtrack: Jonny Greenwood (2007) 20

Field Manual: Chris Walla (2008) 5

On the 1-10 scale of exceeding expectations, In Bruges was a 13. In Bruges had an edge to it and an ending that make clear it's not an American movie. And, oh yeah, Colin Farrell was great in this movie.

After being canceled at the end of last season, Jerichowas granted a rare reprieve by CBS in the hopes that a small number of passionate fans would be able to create a hit. Unfortunately, this was not to be and we were left with a 7 episode second season full of too rushed stories culminating in exceptional ending (that is, if exceptional meant, "We've got to end it some way while also leaving open the possibility of a third season"). Still Jericho, a Red Dawn knock-off came closer to showing a society rebuilding itself after a disaster than other works in the apocolypse genre (I am Legend, 28 Days and Weeks Later, etc), and for that, I am eternally grateful.

(As an asside, I'm not sure why Jericho isn't the perfect Saturday night TV show for one of the networks. It's like the A-Team for a new generation, and if Friday Night Lights can find life on Direct TV, why can't Jericho?)

Sean Penn, like Jon Krakauer, upon whose book the movie is based, set out to answer why Christopher McCandless, a middle class college graduate from the East Coast felt the need to travel around the country ultimately starving to death in the wilds of Alaska. The movie was unsuccessful, though, unless the answer was McCandless was selfish, or possibly mentally ill. Here's an obligatory mention of Eddie Vedder's soundtrack with an obligatory use of the adjective "haunting."

Monster slowly and subtlety built towards a clear agenda until the writer's point of view was slapping you across the head. If the trajectory continued for about 5 more minutes, there would be block letters on screen screaming "Blame the manipulative girlfriend." Charlize Theron was great, though.

Peeps and chocolate bunnies.

(WARNING: If you can't stand the thought of a chocolate bunny being melted in several different ways, don't watch the chocolate bunny video. Also, if you can't fathom the thought of Peeps as marshmallow overlords, don't click the peep link.)

****
Updated to add: Peeps for Passover.

The Hoax tells the story of a struggling author who convinces a publisher to pay him big bucks to write an authorized biography of Howard Hughes, only trouble being there was no authorization. It wasn't that good and it wasn't that bad and it was acted unremarkably though not poorly. If the producers of The Hoax set out to create an utterly and aggressively mediocre movie, they were astonishingly successful.

Once is refreshing in it's unabashed and remorseless sappiness. My lizard brain wasn't able to handle the ending, though, which they might have to remake for the US release of the DVD. Movies made outside the US are not like movies made in the US.

Just checked the little widget that shows incoming links, and I saw that someone named "Matt Brozovich" had linked to Aaron's cute flowchart post. I click through to find one of the most un-funny and grossly misogynistic takes on the Spitzer scandal I have yet seen, and, yes, I'm including the Joe Francis thing.

Blech. Gross.