For some reason, have not been able to get into "American Idol" this season. Of course, this would be the season when there would be more potential "scandals" (David Hernandez's stripper past), however, i have been following Michael Giltz's write-ups about "Idol" (it's actually on Huffington Post, but i usually go to Michael's blog and then click on the links: http://www.popsurfing.blogspot.com/), but the times i've watched, the comments of the judges (Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul, Simon Cowell) have seemed amorphous, especially the act of Paula's effusiveness and Simon's acidity.

In Jewish Week, George Robinson has some very interesting items, a profile on Jim Hoberman on the occasion of 30 years at The Village Voice, an interview with Ira Sachs because of the upcoming release of Ira's "Married Life" (which i saw at The New York Film Festival) and a review of the Ealing thriller "It Always Rains on Sunday". For Jewish Week, George must find some angle which connects what films he reviews with... well, there must be some Jewish "content", but the three pieces this week shows how this doesn't have to be limiting, but on his blog, there are links to his articles (http://www.cine-journal.blogspot.com/).

Dave Kehr reviewed Godard last week (the Criterion Collection edition of "Pierrot le Fou" and the Lionsgate boxset which includes "Passion", "Helas Pour Moi", "First Name: Carmen" and "Detective"); this week, he reviews the new Kino boxset of German Expressionist classics ("Secrets of a Soul" and "The Hands of Orlac" along with "Warning Shadows" and "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari", the latter two having been available for a while from Kino; Kino has a tendency to do this, to package previously released titles with some "new" titles for a boxset - they did that with the recent Paradjanov boxset, and with their film noir boxsets). It's interesting that there haven't been many comments on his blog about things like German Expressionist classics or Godard, but when Dave made a short comment on (say) the Coen Brothers, his blog was bombarded. (I noted this in a comment on Dave's blog, only to be reprimanded for being snotty.) But Dave was able to put some very lovely stills from "Passion" on his blog (http://www.davekehr.com/).

Right now, there was a press conference, because a bomb just went off in the Times Square area. Details are sketchy, and then the regular programming on the Today Show just went on as usual. So more details should follow, but it doesn't seem as if there were any real casualties.

Yesterday was Rex Harrison night on TCM, at the same time that MoMA started its Rex Harrison Centennial program (which Charles Silver curated). On TCM's program website, "The Rake's Progress" is listed as 110 minutes, but the print (which was rather muddy) turned out to have the British running time of 121 minutes! But "The Reluctant Debutante" remains a special movie, because of the wonderful presence of Kay Kendall, irrepressible and irresistible.