At the moment I'm sitting in my firm's midtown office, waiting for a phone call from my boss telling me it's OK to go home. Earlier this morning, my office, like the rest of the world, was hit with the latest Internet worm, disrupting most of our systems. At least it's not that early, I got a good night's sleep, I have Internet access here, and no one's dead because of this. (Maybe I should have put that bit first.) And in an amazing bit of luck, I had absolutely nothing planned for today. My Saturday was a tabula rasa, if you will. Liz is volunteering at the cat shelter this afternoon, so I have the rest of my day open, assuming I'm not here much longer. The weather's even warming up a little, to the point where it's not unbelievably uncomfortable to be outside.

More movie reviews:

This week, we watched Mulholland Drive on DVD. For most of the movie, we talked only about how neither of us had any clue what the hell was going on. The more we watched, the more confused we became. I spoiled the movie, but enhanced my comprehension, by looking at the cast list on imdb.com while the DVD spun. So when the story switched approximately two hours in, at least I was able to follow who the characters were supposed to be at that point. After the movie ended, we read more reviews online which helped to explain just what David Lynch was going for. The more we thought about it, the more we both loved the movie. I wish I'd hung onto it for a few more days, because I'd love to watch it again and see if I could catch more of the clues to the mysteries in the story. And for those with more prurient interests, Naomi Watts and Laura Harring are both easy on the eyes (as David Letterman used to say), and the lesbian subplot plays out in extremely steamy fashion. If you don't know it's coming, it's a little unexpected, but it fits into the story the more you think about it.

We also watched Orange County, which we rented as much for Jack Black as for anything else in the movie. It's got made-for-future-MTV-showings written all over it (it's short, it's easy to follow the plot, and it's not what I think of as "cinematic") but I think that helps more than it hinders. Surprisingly for a teen movie, there isn't much potty humor and no nudity, unless you count Jack Black in "skeevy" underpants in either category. He's easily the best thing in the movie, but Liz and I agree that he really can do no wrong. We've loved him in every movie we've seen with him in the cast, and still get laughs from the Tenacious D debut album (I can't believe I missed their HBO series -- must check iMesh when I get home). The rest of the cast is also fantastic: Colin Hanks is great, Schuyler Fisk (his girlfriend in the movie), Catherine O'Hara, John Lithgow, Lily Tomlin... it's a great cast.

Next up on my movie schedule is the extended version of Das Boot. After reading John Keegan's The Price of Admiralty, which included a lengthy description of life aboard a German U-boat, I thought it was time to watch the greatest film ever made about the subject. I just read the comment on the movie's imdb page, and I'm excited. I've enjoyed Wolfgang Petersen's other movies, and my friend Jon highly recommended the long version of Das Boot when it was in theaters a few years ago. Maybe that's how I'll spend my Saturday afternoon, if I ever get to leave.