Watched the remaining two hours and forty minutes of Akira Kurosawa's 1954 epic The Seven Samurai last night, and wow. Some of the magic was dulled by the fact that i've been raised on action fare and have seen this formula a thousand times, until i realized that this film was the source of the formula. As Roger Ebert put it, this is the birth of the modern action movie. So many amazing scenes, so many compelling characters. There's an astounding interaction between the young samurai Katsushiro and the master swordsman Kyuzo, in which Katsushiro's eyes shine with the wonder and enthusiasm of youth while Kyuzo's complection is dull, worn down by age. Kurosawa was a master of framing scenes and using light and shadow ... another scene in which the samurai watch an old, familyless woman accept a gift of a bowl of rice shows the samurai, faces partially drowned in shadow, realize the plight of the lowly farmers. The story of what happened to the farmer Rikichi's wife is told with suspense and surprise that put to shame the plot tricks of today's schlock. A truly landmark piece of cinema.

My new favorite tv show is The Venture Brothers, a new series on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. Fantastic sixties Johnny Quest-style animation and a plot openly spoofing the JQ family structure. While the neurotic, inferiority complex-ridden Dr. Venture, his superhuman bodyguard Brock Samson (voiced by Puddy of Seinfeld fame), and his nitwit sons Hank and Dean provide enough comedy on their own, i have to give the nod to the villains of the series. From the neurotic butterfly-enthusiast The Monarch ("we've been engaged in a deadly game of cat and also cat since college!"), the German dictator Baron Underbheit ("Where i come from, a lab partnership is a sacred trust."), the Walt Disney parody Roy Brisby and his Busy Bee kingdom, to the Orange County Liberation Front and their orange helmets ("Free OC! Kill the bee!"), they are a nonstop source of chuckles. If only Cartoon Network showed more than one episode a week.