Movie Night on Metcalfe St.

Its long overdue.

Too cold to do anything else but sequester myself in the domestic den and, finally, bask in the Blu-Ray of the 42 incher.

Still sporting a Cheshire Grin (as well as some mysterious scratches on my arm), I headed out into cryogenic Centretown to pick up the necessities of life, including a few groceries and some interesting cinema.

There weren't many Blu-Rays on hand, but after a while I made some decisions.

Christopher Nolan's Inception. Might as well get a movie that can take advantage of the Blu-Ray brilliance.

Machete. Though I generally dislike Robert Rodriguez movies, this was the best trailer for a movie that did not exist in an otherwise sub-stellar Grindhouse. And it features Danny Trejo in what has to be his first top-billing role. Danny Trejo, the actor who played a guy named Trejo in Michael Mann's generally unappreciated Heat. While doing time at San Quentin for armed robbery, Danny Trejo won lightweight and welterweight boxing titles, and has since made a career of playing Hispanic badasses. If Sam Peckinpah hadn't drank himself to death in the early 80s, and had continued to make movies into the 90s, Danny Trejo would have become his Robert De Niro.

And finally, A Serious Man, the only Coen Bros. film that I have yet to see (except for True Grit), either on video or on the big screen. Although it doesn't feature the old timey acting ensemble of classic Coeniana, it appears to be their version of a Philip Roth novel.

Coen films are events for me, which is why I need to get to the moviehouse real soon to see True Grit. I can still remember where and when I saw a Coen film on the big screen:

Raising Arizona (London, ON 1987)

Miller's Crossing (Ottawa 1990)

Barton Fink (Ottawa 1991)

Fargo (Ottawa 1996)

The Big Lebowski (Vancouver 1998)

O Brother Where Art Thou? (Washington DC 2001)

The Man Who Wasn't There (Vancouver 2001)

The Ladykillers (Vancouver 2004) (not a happy experience, though better than the Ealing original with Alec Guiness and Peter Sellers).

Blood Simple, The Hudsucker Proxy and No Country for Old Men, sadly, were not big screened.

I do not care to remember where and when I saw Intolerable Cruelty.

The very best Coen films are temporal and cartographic markers in my life. No matter how many times I watch them, they relocate me in a specific time and place, and with specific people and discussions.

I can only hope that John Turturro gets old enough for them to make Old Fink.