smacky and bucky

Memo to a fictional character on Lost:

Jack, I know you're the caretaker of the crash survivors. And I don't think I'd trust hillbilly "Zeke" when he tells you to stay on your side of the island and everything will be okay. But if you need to train an army... Is Anna Lucia the best person to ask? I know she's a pariah among the castaways, but that's because she killed Shannon! So she killed one of the "others." ONE. So far, she's killed as many of your friends as she has your enemies. Not great stats, Jack. Heck, Mr. Eko killed more of the "others" with his bare hands. Where was he last night? Wandering around with his Jesus stick? I want to see Locke and Eko cutting through the "others" like Jedi through droids. You want Rose or Hurley walking through the jungle with a loaded gun? Also, why did Anna Lucia apparently set up her camp at the grave of the person she killed? How are people ever going to forgive and forget if she sleeps beside the grave? Is this an act of atonement, or does she simply not give a shit what people think? In closing, sorry about your wife leaving you. She's right though. You do have a Florence Nightingale complex. And forget about Kate. She's with Sawyer. Best wishes, Smacky.

In more real-world news: Deep Discount DVD is having a sale. This one is tempting, with 40% off all Criterion DVDs. These are the fancy expensive ones with all the bells and whistles, like documentaries, director's commentaries, essay books, etc. I received the Criterion edition of Ran for Christmas from one of my sisters-in-law. The details on that movie:

For his 27th film, the "sensei" of Japanese cinema, Akira Kurosawa, transposes Shakespeare's KING LEAR to feudal Japan. RAN, which translates as "chaos" or "turmoil," is the tragic tale of Lord Hidetora, a warlord who decides to divide his empire among his three sons on the eve of his 70th birthday. However, Hidetora's youngest and most compassionate son, Saburo, defiantly objects to this hasty decision and is disowned by the proud, stubborn ruler. Once the two eldest sons take control of the empire, they quickly turn on their father and begin vying for total control over the land. As Hidetora is banished from his own kingdom in a bloody battle, he must confront the consequences of his violent, ruthless past. Ten years in the making, RAN represents the culmination of Kurosawa's career by revisiting his skill at adapting Shakespeare, as evidenced in THRONE OF BLOOD, and displaying the cinematic splendor of his other landmark films such as SEVEN SAMURAI and RASHOMON. With its magnificent costumes, breathtaking settings, and amazingly photographed battle sequences, the film is truly stunning. An epic on the grandest of scales, RAN is not only one of Kurosawa's finest films, it is a glorious masterpiece of Japanese cinema.

I also own the Criterion edition of Rushmore, which beats the pants off the bare-bones version. If I had unlimited funds, I'd make quite a few purchases. They have 17 pages of Criterion DVDs on sale!