News You Can Bruise for 2005 December 30

I was going through this big list of DVD nerds' favorite DVD releases of 2005 and I saw a really nice-looking Japanese film called University of Laughs. It's kind of similar to The Five Obstructions, except that the obstructions are imposed on a playwright by a WWII government censor. The playwright keeps rewriting his play to satisfy the censor, who ends up using his power as a collaborative tool.

That's a funnier premise than The Five Obstructions, so I have high hopes for this movie. Plus it's got a great "Japanese comedy troupe" name (which is, within the movie, actually the name of a Japanese comedy troupe). It looks like I'd have to go to one of those importer web sites to get it, though.

Also, Kevan may be interested in the French film Les revenants (English title "They Came Back", which doesn't seem to be any kind of translation), assuming he hasn't seen it already.

Every year John Allison has his cartoon character Shelley Winters review the albums of the year. Every year I'm reminded of how much Shelley reminds me of my sister Susanna.

I have an awesome Christmas present still to give Susanna. Also a juicer.

A bunch of these secondhand boxes I got for moving are from Alcoa, and all over them is written talk about closures. "Improper handling may result in damage to closures", "Closure temperature should be no less than 65 degrees F", et cetera. I couldn't figure this out, since closures are abstract concepts which don't need to be put into boxes.

Then I noticed that the company name on the boxes was Alcoa Closure Systems, and it dawned on me that the boxes themselves were the closures. "Closure" is just a fancy word for "box". All the warnings are regarding the operational tolerances of the boxes, and the contents be damned.