Saw Matchstick Men last night at Cinema Paradiso. Nicolas Cage is good as a phobia-addled con artist . His life goes awry when Cage's teenage daughter (Alison Lohman) shows up. Alison Lohman is very good as a 14 year old. B+


Look, I want a movie that's free of anecdote and cheap sentiment. This wasn't it. Most films today just can't take me over the wall and into the world of real emotions or beauty or honesty.

I can't breathe anymore. The sterile atmosphere around me has become irrespirable. I need beauty, art, emotion. That's my oxygen. And no one around me understands. People around here equate going to restuarants with living. They fail to know that they are engaged in a desperate search for life. But restuarants and TV aren't life. And talking about restaurants and food coupons isn't conversation either.

Gad.