Yesterday, went in to Manhattan and had lunch with Kathleen Masterson. Last night, watched TCM's rock-and-roll line-up with Richard Lester's "It's Trad, Dad!" and "Don't Knock the Twist" with Chubby Checker. "Don't Knock the Twist" is really Grade-Z filmmaking, very flat, but "It's Trad, Dad!" is very inventive.

We're trying to figure out what to do in the next few weeks. There are a lot of press screenings coming up. Larry's trying to decide if he's going to San Diego for the opening of the new Museum of Contemporary Art there.

Watched "Bubble" last night; i saw it at the NY Film Festival in 2005, but Larry hadn't seen it. He liked it, i think it's a very intriguing film, one of the better Soderberg films.

When is the Netflix queue going to start? Only about ten films were available, there are about 30 waiting in the Saved section... there are a number of films i really want to see, such as "Days of Glory". I don't understand: "The Road to Guantanamo" is nominated as "Best Documentary" but it's a scripted and acted film, yes, it's based on actual events, but most of the film is... it's what used to be called a "docudrama". But it's not a documentary.

But the Independent Spirit Awards ballot finally arrived. Plus the screening schedule. So there are two ways to see the movies: going to the IFP screenings, or waiting for Netflix.

But i'm confused about a number of the movies. "The Lives of Others" (the German movie) is a quandary: some people have included it on their Ten Best list, and the LA Film Critics voted it as "Best Foreign Film", but it's not opening until February. Even in LA. (It was a very impressive movie, quite taut and engrossing even though it's more than two hours.) And it's nominated for an Independent Spirit Award.