RANDOM MUSINGS - Cross 'Catch Me If You Can' of my list of movies I have to see before making my best of the year list. I caught it last night and all I will say for now is that I think Ebert put the wrong Spielberg movie at the top of his list. As mentioned previously, I'll be seeing 'The Hours' tonight. That leaves 'Gangs of New York,' 'About Schmidt,' 'The Pianist,' '25th Hour' (opens Friday) and 'Talk To Her.' Movies I'd like to fit in but probably won't have time: 'The Two Towers,' 'Personal Velocity,' and 'Y Tu Mama Tambien (on DVD). My movie club mate Sam Hallgren and I will unveil our individual top ten lists next Monday to much fanfare and discussion. Eric Baker may make an appearance, but considering that 1) I have no idea where he is and 2) He has been out of the country for the past few weeks, thus missing the brunt of the year's most promising releases, he may be even more clueless than usual. Just kidding, Bakes.

In yesterday's Movie Club over at Slate, David Edelstein mentioned some email he received regarding the ending of 'Minority Report': "Let me close (finally) with Harvey Cormier of the Philosophy Department at Stony Brook. He makes that case (I first heard this over the summer) that Minority Report is not, as I've asserted, 7/8 of a great movie but 8/8 of one: that the final 20 minutes represents the dream of Tom Cruise's character while in stasis". I bring this up for no better reason than to point out that I espoused this same theory back on 7/31 and just like Edelstein, I don't buy it. Obviously, I agree that there is room for that interpretation, which is why I put it forward, but I don't believe that Spielberg intended the ending of 'Minority Report' to be read as a dream. I wish he had. It certainly would have made the movie better than it ultimately was.

My 'Chicago' review sparked a little discussion in the message boards, including Nate's bold claim that 'Chicago' is the best film of the year so far. If he loves musicals as much he says he does, I sure hope he has seen 'All That Jazz,' Bob Fosse's autobiographical tale of life as a selfish, womanizing artist with Roy Scheider as his alter-ego Joe Gideon. Charlie Kauffman may be all the post-modern rage these days, but Fosse was the king of all meta-ness before Kauffman had been to his bar mitzvah. The only difference between 'All That Jazz' and 'Adaptation' is that Fosse didn't play himself as Bob Fosse, or have Scheider play a character named "Bob Fosse." Oh, and the fact that Fosse had something interesting to say beyond self-flagellation. Frankly, this movie easily could have made my list of the Best Films of the Past 25 Years. Speaking of which... check back tomorrow!

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