Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - with Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet. Incredible, but twisted. This movie was viscerally painful for me for a few reasons to watch, but in the same token, I'll watch it again because of that. It left me feeling like everything around me was uncanny well into the next morning. Jim Carrey's character was very different from his usual, which was quite interesting; Kate Winslet was adorable, but her character (along with some of the others) was like a concentrated form of the people who give me mental baggage at work.

Zatôichi - with Takeshi Kitano and Tadanobu Asano. Everyone I know who's seen it thought it was amazing; but at the same time, everyone I know who's seen it likes that kind of movie. The choreography is done in a unique style (which is nicely explained on the DVD in an interview), and while sedate the movie does move itself along, with a range of emotions being drawn out from sad to hilarious. The ending, however, as Brian at the video store pointed out, "gets...a little hokey." Which isn't to say it's bad. More like, hallucinogenic.

Jersey Girl - with Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler. Kind of fluff, but really cute fluff. It's a family sort of movie, but directed by Kevin Smith, so it's a family sort of movie with a foul mouth on it. Incedentally, the first movie I thought the two main actors were attractive or good in.

Brazilian Jiu-jitsu Basics - by Gene Simco is a solid collection of simple, effective techniques, but I don't have much more to say for it than that. Disregarding my opinions of BJJ, I did learn some little tricks that have born out application, though for a wrestler or grappler this book is best used for review of pinning principles and using the guard. Throws are given a cursory treatment at best, and an almost misleading overview at worst. But hey, BJJ is all about the ground, right? Lastly, it's just not very well written; that is, the techniques are explained adequately enough, but some of the history and other discussion I found distastefully egocentric and written with poor style.

-missed it by a few, but the anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge happened (via Wyatt)