What new movies have you seen?

[Buckwheat]

In the vast, vacuous wasteland that is digital cable, occasionally one can find a good movie or two, in between the often played regulars they force upon us. Usually they are ones that are shown only once and don't appear on the schedule. The other night, I was lucky enough to find two of these, back to back no less.

The first was Romance and Cigarettes, a film written and directed by John Turturro, and exec produced by the Coen brothers. It features James Gandolfini, Susan Sarandon and Christopher Walken. It includes infidelity, cancer, circumcision and Chris Walken dancing with an umbrella. And it's a musical. What more could you ask for?

The second was Powder Blue, written and directed by TImothy Linh Bui, featuring Forest Whitaker, Ray Liotta, and Jessica Biel (as a stripper!). It shows the weaving together of four Los Angelinos lives on Christmas Eve through unique circumstances, such as the priest played by Whitaker running the streets with 50 grand and a death wish.

Movies like these make me not shut off the cable.