Sometimes a rainy Sunday is perfect for revisiting favorite movies, and Gus Van Sant's black comedic true crime satire, To Die For is definitely a favorite of mine. The cast is at their peak. Matt Dillon is radiantly slovenly and Nicole Kidman still looks like a blooming real human being and, in a career of very few bright spots performance-wise, she's brutally excellent as a psychopath. She is the blond, perfectly coiffed personification of a certain fame seeking, ambitious, and broken part of our culture. Ileana Douglas also shines and look out for cameos by David Cronenberg and the films screenwriter, Buck Henry.

While the film satirizes the searing ambition that can lead people to kill, and points out our insatiable lust for the torrid tabloid tales that follow, it's also one of the best examples of true crime entertainment. Any fan of Joaquin Phoenix would also agree that it's one of the steamiest as well. (Which is a little creepy considering the story's of a teenager seduced into murder by a grown woman.)

Here, as the seduced teenage burnout, Phoenix is pretty much the embodiment of my teenage desires: he's off-kilteredly handsome, blindly lustful, denim and leather dirty, very dumb and a little bit sad. One can't help but feel a pang of sympathy for the kid as he sits in a junk yard looking off in the distance, walleyed and slack jawed and calls his polka dot and manicured mistress “clean” with longing.

The film is based on the novel To Die For, which was itself inspired by the true, sordid, tabloid sensation crime of one Pam Smart. Also a call in show called Metal Madness), Pamela also seduced a boy (Billy Flynn) and convinced he and his friends to kill her husband. She is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole and Flynn, having served more of his life in prison that outside, recently asked for (and was denied) a reduced sentence.

Electronic music is not the most familiar genre to me (compared to say, obscure love ballads from the 50's), and it's the inclusion of a sample of the great, dreamy Bobby Vinton (of Blue Velvet fame) song that drew me to the Royksopp song, So Easy in the first place.

So you can actually count this as a double entry, because after raving, taking “e” and playing in a field, or any other activity that accompanies electronic music, you should listen to the original Vinton song, Blue on Blue.

And while we're on a roll, check out the equally great Vinton single, Mr. Lonely.

Recently I've watched a couple Stacy Keach films of old that ranged from the downright unwatchable (Butterfly, which features a train wreck Penthousey, Razzie winning performance by Pia Zadora) and the almost good (Roadgames featuring a charming young Jamie Lee Curtis as a hitchhiker – it really had some suspenseful scenes, but faded into muck by the end).

Both taught me one thing: Stacy Keach was a babe. A burly, bear-like babe with a mischievous twinkle in his eye and the kind of male superstar charisma of hunks from decades past that emanates masculinity with a gentle touch. This is a man that can take care of you.

I have to admit I've never seen the character portrayal that made him so famous as the title character in Mickey Spillanes's Mike Hammer. And I can't condone his whole smuggling cocaine into Britain thing, but the man just suffered a stroke (from which he is suspected to recover from completely) so I won't hold his sordid doings against him too much.

Every quote attributed to (“I take a teaspoon of brandy when I feel spacey. It makes me come alive.” and?”I'd sell myself for a hat,”) or about (“Facts are not my mother's strong point”) adds to the charm of the willowy actress and style icon, Mimi Weddell.

While her old lady stylish eccentricities might call to mind the antics of the Beales, she never seems to teeter into such decrepit derangement. Instead with a motto of “Rise above it!” she's an inspirational wonder with hundreds of hats (she and her millinery obsession are the subject of a 2008 documentary Hats Off that I am excited to see and wish would come to Netflix – check out the Algonquin release party photos here).

Here are some excellent photos of her and her adorably disorganized apartment taken by Brix Picks fave Tim Walker.

One of the joys of living in Greenpoint is that you can pass by a shop and see this pastel and flower surrounded little angel (who will, no doubt be blaring club music and revving his engine in a few years time) staring back at you enticing you to buy chocolates for… communion? (having no ability to read Polish nor much knowledge about Catholicism, that's just a guess).

It's really just a shell hiding a normal box of “La Stella” chocolates, but I have to say, in a world of increasingly more elaborate and expensive options, a six dollar box that holds a nicely bitter pistachio creme candy is a welcome treat.

WiiFit is fun and good for you with those cute little graphics that Nintendo is known for (though I wish our instructors were more wobbly head looking and less realistic) but I have to say, it's not the toughest workout ever – though some of the balance games are hard to master and I never do well when it comes to following dance steps.

Taking virtual jogs with miis and wiis and Nintendo doggies right beside me is quite a joy and the system will also be great for accurately measuring my progress as Jim and I have begin a new summer time get back to eating right and exercising phase.

There is a definite focus on balance, a focus that I think seems foreign to westerners but I hope that, as it promises, will improve my posture.

I haven't gotten any additional games to go with the system yet, but anything called Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party must be fun, right?

Hey guys, we didn't get around to a day trip this weekend like I planned, so Jim submitted this brief Atlantic City overview.

Not too, too long ago, my former boss and I headed down to AC to scope out the annual Imprinted Sportswear Show. The conference was pretty off the hook, but my companion was antsy for some real entertainment, so not long after arriving at the Convention Center (located at One Miss America Way, by the way), we hit the Borgata.

In most of the anecdotes I've heard, AC's always been derided as a low-rent dump: one friend got bit by a spider in a moderately priced hotel; another (guilty of nothing more than wearing a backpack — which is only a crime on the subway), was invited by a scruffy looking dude to check out the local soup kitchens. My friend (and this happened years before the concept of 'hipster or hobo?' became mainstream), didn't initially comprehend that the scruffy looking dude was homeless and that he (the scruffy looking dude) thought my fairly scruffy looking friend was homeless as well.

But the Borgata was magical! And not sleazy at all; kind of like Mohegan Sun. We played roulette, my gracious employer purchasing all the chips, dined at a Wolfgang Puck-branded restaurant, and we're back home before 8:30. Despite the fact that many of the guests were dressed in shorts, t-shirts and sandals, the place still maintained an upscale and just-built vibe.

I actually returned to the Sportswear Show last year with a former coworker and, I've got to say, the experience just wasn't quite the same. We left a little bit late and hit some heavy southbound traffic, which would have been fine if the iPod we were listening to hadn't kept playing really explicit R. Kelly songs — not that there's anything wring with Sex in the Kitchen or Puttin' My T-Shirt on or Ignition or Bump 'N Grind, but we just felt like the randomizing software was somehow having a joke at our expense as it continued to generate R-rated audio content we were both too comfortable to skip while we idled in stopped traffic.

By the time we reached One Miss America Way, all the adjacent parking lots were full and we had to fan out a little to find a spot. As we drove away from the Convention Center, the seamier side of this fairly seamy city (seemingly unchanged from the days of the Dernsy/Nicholson masterpiece, King of Marvin Gardens) began to reveal itself. My advice is that if you're planning on visiting Atlantic City plan, just like you would in every other metropolitan area, to stick to the inskirts of town.

Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman is a very bizarre little piece of television history. Not available to the public for decades, the new release to DVD serves as a joy to those who remember the strange show and a great introduction to an experiment both of and ahead of its time for those that don't.

As a satire on the unrealistic soap operas that fueled house wife's dreams, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman deals with realistically controversial issues like impotence and masturbation as well as outlandishly inappropriate (for the time) plot lines like cults and mass murder.

If you are unaware of the formula and have not watched old soap operas before (like Jim) you'll find the humor even more difficult to grasp than the rest of us. The tone of the show seems to shift from moment to moment; at times it's goofy, then surreal, then suddenly poignant and a bit depressing.

It's an acquired taste and I'm not sure if I've got it yet, but I was intrigued enough to watch the first nine episodes fairly uninterrupted. Even if it didn't have me in stitches laughing, it kept me strangely fascinated.

Turning a brussel sprout into a “chip”,?a snack that even my veggie fearing husband devoured in seconds is brilliant. I first got wind of this recipe on the great food blog Serious Eats who in turn found it on Real Food for Real People (which looks like it could be a great spot for more yummy recipes, honey buttered popcorn, anyone?). I loved these so much I made them twice in one week.